“Good,” John said. “Once she’s back, take us towards the planet and transmit a full update to System Command.”
“Aye, sir,” Howard said. “Any other issues?”
“Inform Chief Richards that I wish to speak with him at his earliest convenience,” John said, flatly. It meant now. “And keep an eye on Makeweight. I want to know if he does anything stupid.”
“Yes, sir,” Howard said. He sounded puzzled, but didn't question the order. “We’ll keep a close eye on him.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Are you a religious man, my son?”
Percy took a moment to consider his answer. Father Brennan was a tall thin man, wearing a black outfit with a wooden cross hanging around his neck. He wasn't a bad man - and, unlike some of the others, he hadn't complained loudly at the thought of having to walk to an alien city - but Percy couldn’t help feeling suspicious. Religious disputes were likely to lead to far more clashes between humans and aliens.
“There are no atheists in foxholes, father,” he said, carefully. “Are you looking for converts here?”
“We believe in issuing the call to all,” Father Brennan said. “The call may not be heeded, the call may even be mocked, but all that matters is that the call is issued. Those who do not choose to heed the call will have to live with the consequences of not doing so.”
“I know very little about your sect,” Percy admitted. “But as long as you don’t try to compel worshippers, you shouldn't have any problems.”
“We believe that the rightness of our position will shine through the clouds of ignorance on Vesy,” Father Brennan said. “By definition, a polytheistic religion cannot be correct because it really consists of worshipping incredibly powerful beings. They may as well worship us. But God, the One True God, is literally everything, the be-all and end-all of our multiverse. He is truly worthy of worship.”
Percy considered it for a moment. “The Vesy may not take kindly to you telling them otherwise,” he said, warningly. “You need to be aware of the dangers.”
“If it is God’s will that I die issuing the call,” Father Brennan said, “I will accept it.”
He paused. “You would be welcome at one of our prayer meetings, my son,” he added. “All are welcome.”
“I'm not particularly religious,” Percy said. He’d seen too much of what religion could do to people, people who might otherwise have been good and decent. “And I have grave doubts about allowing anyone, no matter what he calls himself, to serve as an intermediary between myself and God.”
He glanced back at the rest of the column. The handful of reporters looked used to marching by now, although sweat was pouring down their faces and soaking their clothes. Behind them, a handful of NGO experts were grumbling along, clearly resentful that the ban on ground transport applied to them too. Percy wasn't feeling too sorry for them; in the week since they’d landed, they’d made themselves pains in the arse wandering around Fort Knight and demanding to be allowed to talk to the Vesy, or alternatively holding interviews with the media where they’d pledged to bring the Vesy into the modern age. But now they were finally going to meet an alien face to face.
The city came into view, looking smaller than Ivan’s city-state. Percy couldn't help noticing that the walls had been badly damaged at some point in the recent past, probably through cannonballs, and that hundreds of aliens were swarming over them, trying to repair the stone barriers as quickly as possible. It was hard to be sure, but most of the aliens looked to be free, rather than slaves. The city might have been liberated, in the wake of the God-King’s death, yet it had taken months for the population to return.
They probably took in a lot of stragglers too, Percy thought. Vesy who had nowhere to go.
He nodded to his men as they walked up to the gate and passed through, entering a giant clearing with a handful of alien dignitaries waiting for them. By now, he was starting to separate out the different castes of aliens; some were rulers, although how they gained power was a mystery, others were priests or scribes. The real problems came when a single alien shared two or more roles.
“I greet you,” he said, as the alien leader approached. “As promised, I bring wise men to speak with you.”
“I welcome them,” the alien answered. His beady eyes flicked from face to face, clearly wondering which of the ‘wise men’ would be most useful. “We understand that you do not wish to give offense, but you also do not wish to eat with us?”
It took Percy a moment to realise it was a question. The Vesy shared food with their visitors, a sign of peace and friendship ... or at least of a localised truce. Not taking the food they were offered was a sign of something other than peace, he knew all too well. But the aliens, at least, had realised that humans had problems eating their food.
“We have brought food of our own,” Percy said. “We will eat with you, if you will allow us?”
“Interesting,” Father Brennan muttered, as he took a ration bar. The Vesy ate something that looked like cold bread and meat, cooked in a foul-smelling oil. “They understand our problem?”
“They know we have problems with their food,” Percy muttered back. He had problems with the ration bar too, which might have been edible but simply wasn't very tasty. “I think they find it something of a relief. They rarely have a surplus of food, Father. The idea of hosting guests who don’t need to be fed is quite welcome to them.”
He shrugged. “They also understand that we don’t think of it as an insult,” he added. “There may be some problems, as we extend our visits well beyond the original landing zone, but we will overcome them.”
Thompson stamped over to them, looking irked. “Can we hire alien porters next week?”
“You could, I suppose,” Percy said. The issue hadn't come up yet, which was surprising, but it was a rational solution to the problem. “Can't you carry everything yourself?”
“No,” Thompson said. “The farming gear alone is far too heavy.”
Percy concealed his amusement. Captain Naiser had not only ordered the weapons confiscated, he’d also ordered the men on the ground to make a careful search of everything else the Brothers had sent down to the planet. Percy had led the crew and he’d uncovered a surprising amount of material that skimmed far too close to the banned list. In the end, the Brothers had been left with the farming gear, a handful of technological trinkets and a surprising amount of medical supplies.
They probably expected to be allowed to land their shuttle right next to the alien city, he thought. We forbade them to land anywhere but Fort Knight.
“Check when we get back to the Fort,” he said. Thompson was sweating like a pig, despite wearing shorts, a shirt and a pith helmet. “There should be no shortage of labourers willing to porter for you. Just make sure you pay them well.”
“Of course,” Thompson said.
He marched off, looking thoroughly pissed. Percy shook his head after him - he had the feeling that Thompson was in for a nasty surprise - then turned to watch as the alien leader gave a long speech of welcome, half in English and half in Vesy-One. It would be recorded for later translation, Percy knew, but he had a good idea what it said. The Vesy welcomed their honoured guests with odd table manners and poor tastes in food.
“Tell me,” Father Brennan said, elbowing Percy. “How do you tell the difference between the priests and everyone else?”
“The priests are the ones who wear the masks,” Percy said. The masks were truly beautiful, he had to admit, combinations of gold leaf and silver feathers that glimmered brightly in the sun. “When they have them around their necks, they’re in mortal form; when they actually have them on their faces, they speak for the god. Indeed, in some ways, they become the god.”
“Ah,” Father Brennan said. He gave the aliens a long considering look. “We have nothing like it, of course.”
The aliens came forward, the priests seeking out their human counterparts. Percy kept an eye on Father Brennan and his fellows,
including people from four different religions, but they seemed to be talking peacefully in broken English. Maybe it was harder to offend each other, he considered, if they couldn't really understand each other. Or maybe they were both being really polite.
Thompson seemed to have having worse luck. “Marine,” he bawled. “Some help, please!”
Percy signed inwardly, then walked towards the small group. Thompson and his assistant, a young woman no older than Penny, were surrounded by a handful of Vesy rulers, all wearing golden robes. The discussion seemed to have become heated, although no punches were being thrown. It wasn’t a consolation, Percy feared, when it looked like that would change at any moment.
“I’m here,” he said, quietly. When had he become a diplomat? He was trained to fight on behalf of the United Kingdom, not negotiate with aliens. “What seems to be the problem?”
One of the aliens spoke rapidly in his own language, so fast that Percy doubted he could have followed the words even if he had a basic understanding of the speech. Another answered in the same tongue, casting what looked like a reproving look towards Thompson. The overweight man started to splutter, then looked at Percy.
“They are insisting that we provide them with weapons,” he said. “And when I said we couldn't supply weapons, they wanted to leave.”
“Then you might want to respect their wishes,” Percy said.
“But we have so much else to offer them,” Thompson protested.
“Come with me,” Percy ordered. Thompson gave him a nasty look, but followed him to a place where they should be out of earshot. “You’re offering them something that isn't any practical use to them.”
Thompson stared at him in disbelief. “How can they not want to farm?”
Percy stared back at him, feeling much the same way. How could someone have organised such a large freighter-load of supplies and, at the same time, be completely blind to some of the implications? Percy had known ... although, to be fair, Percy had spent six months camped out on Vesy, chatting with the locals and gaining a feel for their society. And he’d put it all in his reports which, as far as he knew, were freely available to everyone at Fort Knight.
“The only thing they care about, right here, right now, is survival,” Percy said, flatly. It was why the first demand Ivan had made, and repeated every week for six months, was for weapons. There was no point in being wealthy if they couldn't defend themselves. “You ...”
“I’m giving them the tools they need to survive,” Thompson insisted.
“No, you’re not,” Percy said. He cleared his throat. “Suppose, for the sake of argument, you manage to teach them how to double the amount of food they produce in a year. Let’s suppose you manage to do that, adapting the farming tools you brought to local conditions without problems. What happens then?”
Thompson blinked at him. “They eat more?”
Percy sighed. “No,” he said. “The Vesy in the nearest city with access to human weapons, be they weapons we gave them or weapons they copied from the Russians, will attack and take the food, as well as the city. You will simply make them a better target, a more tempting target, to hostile city-states. They’re not stupid, Mr. Thompson. You’re offering to make them victims of their own success.”
“I can't believe it works that way,” Thompson said, stubbornly.
“You would make them both rich and weak,” Percy said. “How many human states were rich and weak - and how many of them lasted long enough to reform?”
“We can offer medicine as well as farming tools,” Thompson said.
“Which will, again, make them a bigger target,” Percy said. He shook his head. “You can't offer them weapons, sir, so they have no interest in talking to you.”
“I will lodge an official protest with the British Ambassador,” Thompson said. He sounded as though he expected the mere threat of a protest to sway Percy, although Percy had no idea quite what he could do. “We came to help our brothers ...”
“That is your right, sir,” Percy said. He kept his voice calm with an effort. “However, right now, you are offering them nothing they actually want. You need to bear that in mind when you approach the Vesy.”
Thompson sighed, then peered towards where his small audience had been. They'd left, leaving him looking embarrassed. Percy concealed his amusement at the sheepish look on the face of Thompson’s aide, who clearly hadn’t been able to keep the aliens from losing interest. But, to them, Thompson had to seem like a fool ... or an asshole. Neither one would encourage them to talk to him.
“Stay back,” Percy advised. “Take a moment to gather yourself before you return to the fray.”
Thompson glowered at him. “Is that what they told you in Boot Camp?”
“No,” Percy said. He couldn't help feeling a flicker of sympathy for Thompson’s aide. The poor man might be brimming with love for the Vesy, but he didn't have any for his own assistants. “It's just common sense.”
He shook his head, then turned his attention to the other NGO representatives. Most of them didn't seem to be doing well, although one woman did seem to have captured the interest of her listeners. Percy made a mental note to check on what she was offering them, then glanced over at Father Brennan. He was chatting to one of the priests, while the others seemed to have split up to talk one-on-one. The Marines looked relaxed, but their hands never went far from their weapons. They knew, all too well, just how quickly a situation could move from seeming calm to outright chaos in the blink of an eye.
“She has ideas about helping the alien women,” Thompson muttered, nodding to the woman and her audience. “I think she has the idea that blanking their ... scent at the right time would remove the mating instinct.”
Percy frowned. The Vesy females went into mating season, on average, every third month or thereabouts. He’d already spoken quite sharply to a couple of Marines who’d joked about the Vesy going into heat, as if they were dogs. When a female entered mating season, her scent proved irresistible to anyone who wasn't closely related to her; males would quite happily fight one another merely for the chance to mate with a female when they could be reasonably sure of siring a clutch of eggs. It made it harder for them to leave their homes during mating season, or even when they were on the verge of going into season. Their lives, consequently, tended to be alarmingly restrictive.
“It might,” he agreed, slowly.
Part of his mind, the part that was an emotional human, was appalled at the whole system. It just didn't seem right. God knew he’d been in parts of the world where women were treated worse than slaves and it had horrified him. But, at the same time, he feared what would happen if they meddled with the system. It might have terrifying unexpected consequences.
Something to raise with my superiors, he thought. He was no longer - thank god - in command of the sole detachment on the planet. He could kick it up the ladder to someone else. Let them worry about it for a change.
He glanced at his wristcom, then nodded to his men. The guests were rapidly rounded up and a final set of goodbyes were said to the aliens, then they hastened out the gate and back down towards the road leading to the former Russian base. It didn't look as though anyone had been working on the roads, since the God-King’s fall, but Percy wasn't too surprised. The Russian commander had clearly studied Rome and knew the importance of the famed Roman Roads in allowing the Romans to move their troops around their territory. And then he'd introduced the idea to the God-King.
Father Brennan slipped up beside him as they set a slow pace, purely for the benefit of Thompson and his ilk. “It was an interesting conversation,” he said. “But I’m not sure I fully understood what I was being told.”
Percy smiled. “Did they understand what they were being told?”
“They thought Jesus was a minor god,” Father Brennan said. He sounded oddly amused by the suggestion. “I don’t think they understood the importance of the crucifixion to us. They thought the story of Jesus and the Resurrection to be la
ughable. One of them even claimed to be descended from a god.”
“So did Julius Caesar,” Percy said. It had been a long time since he’d studied Caesar in school, but it had been one of his favourite classes. He’d even wanted to be Caesar before it had dawned on him that the Roman Empire was no more. “It wasn't an uncommon claim before the evolution of monotheistic religions.”
“They did invite me back,” Father Brennan said. “I will definitely go, if I can.”
Percy shrugged. The decision wasn't in his hands any longer. Besides, he had no idea just what the aliens would do with human religions. Add God, Yahweh and Allah to their pantheon or embrace them wholly, calculating that it would bring more help and weapons from the human settlers? Or would they agree with Father Brennan and decide that a single god made more sense than a hundred minor gods?
He made a mental note to raise the possibilities in his report, then turned his attention to the march. If they kept going at their current pace, they’d be back at Fort Knight within two hours, by which time Thompson would be too tired to do anything but sleep. Percy would have a chance to file his report first and then ...
A Savage War Of Peace (Ark Royal Book 5) Page 20