by John Love
“I think so. The refit has to be completed.”
“If you could stay until the afternoon, I had in mind a hunting trip.”
Foord smiled. “Cyr would have liked that.”
“He’s your Weapons Officer, isn’t he?”
“She.”
“Ah. Tell me about the people on your ship.”
Foord told him.
“But if they’ve done those things, why aren’t they dead? Or in prison?”
“Because they’re too valuable. And I’ve Done Those Things, too.”
“You see, Commander,” Sulhu went on, “There’s something wrong about this mission of yours.” His hands raised themselves from his lap, just enough to silence Foord, and returned to rest. “Let me think about how best to put it to you.”
Not for the first time that evening there was a loud roar as some military transports dipped low over the Irsirrha on their way down to Blentport. Suddenly aware that he was shivering, Foord walked back to stand by the fire.
“Yes,” Sulhu said as the noise from the ships died away, “that’s a good cue. It’s common knowledge—I didn’t get this from my son, it’s in all the broadcasts—that Horus Fleet has been ordered to maintain a defensive cordon around Sakhra, and that if She appears in the system, you’re to go out and engage Her singly, and they’re to stay put.”
“Yes, the Department made a terrible mistake at Isis. They insisted the Sirhan should join the regular forces, and not fight Her alone. They don’t want to repeat that mistake here. If anything, they’ve gone to the other extreme.”
“But Horus Fleet is the biggest in the Commonwealth, outside of Earth. Do the people who give you your orders really think the whole Fleet isn’t equal to Her?”
“Maybe they think She isn’t equal to me.”
“I was in Blentport a few days ago and I watched your ship land.” A carnivore’s lightning-bright smile. “I can’t imagine much that would equal it. But here’s my point: what will happen after you destroy Her?”
Foord had some difficulty hiding his surprise. “I can’t say. My orders aren’t specific.”
“No, not what you will do afterwards; what will happen. This is a matter which has interested me for a long time.” Thahl, who had been almost silent all evening, shifted uneasily, but Sulhu went on. “Why is the Commonwealth expanding?”
Again, Foord had some difficulty hiding his surprise. “Is that all you were thinking how to say?”
“All?”
“Well. There are obvious reasons: economic, political, military, probably in that order.”
“I hardly think so. Economically the Commonwealth already has an abundance of unused resources, politically its systems are if anything more divided than they were before it acquired them, and militarily it has never encountered an enemy strong enough to justify making itself bigger; though that may change now.”
Foord was beginning to feel tired, and remembered the journey which would be waiting for him the following day.
“Then maybe none of those. Maybe cultural: just sheer curiosity.”
“Better, but it still only explains the process in terms of itself. New systems are acquired because they’re there.” Sulhu’s tone was almost bantering.
“Then,” Foord’s was almost irritated, “since you’ve obviously thought about it, what’s your answer?”
“It’s very strange, Commander. I’ve studied cultures like the Commonwealth. They seem to expand for no good reason, at least none they’re conscious of. Almost as if something external was making them.”
“What made the Sakhran Empire stop expanding three hundred years ago?”
“Two things, Commander: Faith, and Srahr’s Book. And it didn’t just stop expanding, it declined. When you see this,” he gestured around him, “you must find it difficult to imagine that we once built ships….though nothing like yours, of course, or like Her….”
Sulhu turned and gazed deliberately past Foord towards the windows. His hands tightened slightly round the obsidian goblet he was holding.
Foord read the gesture accurately. The subject was important, but they’d only touched on it; it needed a whole new conversation, and it was too late. He stood.
“It’s been a pleasure. Thank you for your hospitality.”
Sulhu smiled and inclined his head. His eyes were dark, simultaneously deep and depthless. “For me, too. I expect to invite you back one day, Commander.”
Outside, the wind from the Irsirrha howled through the empty wings of Hrissihr. The last fires in the wall-braziers crackled in the courtyard, and their distant cousin in the hearth hissed and stirred in response.
2
The interior of the Sakhran landchariot was dark and dirty, cramped even for Sakhrans. The seat barely extended halfway up Foord’s back, and was inadequate for even one of his buttocks. Because he was reluctant to put his feet on the opposite seat (though he could not have made it much dirtier) he spent most of the journey back from Hrissihr peering between his knees at Thahl, who peered back impassively.
Thahl’s face was thin and ophidian, flesh stretched taut over muscle. In fact his whole body was flesh stretched taut over muscle. His skin was purplish grey and made up of tiny diamond-shaped scales, which undulated from the movement of the strange musculature beneath them. The undulation pushed the scales into minutely different angles so they reflected light at different moments and intensities, like the play of light on water. There was nothing much, either in appearance or demeanour, to distinguish a younger Sakhran like Thahl from an older one like Sulhu.
Foord was already uncomfortable and cold, and the journey had barely started; and yet, when he recalled Swann’s annoyance, not just at Foord’s going to Hrissihr but going there in a landchariot, he thought it was worth it.
“How long will the journey back take, Thahl?”
“About as long as your journey here, Commander, since that was also by landchariot and covered exactly the same route.”
“Ah.”
“Of course, most of the return journey will be downhill, so it’s likely to be quicker. While on the other hand,” Thahl continued, relentlessly deadpan, “traffic towards Blentport will be much heavier than traffic towards Hrissihr….”
Foord sighed. They could be irritating, sometimes.
There was nothing much to see, yet. The road from Hrissihr was cut into rock, so one side showed only a sheer face hurtling past, and what might have been an impressive view on the other side was obscured by grey, clinging mist (they had made a very early start) and grimy windows.
Foord turned his attention to a web in the bottom corner of one of the windows. In it hung the dry hollow carcase of something like a fly, jerking with the movement of the landchariot. Foord scraped the window-pane so particles of paint and wood fell on to the web, to tempt its maker to emerge, and watched bemused as the web itself folded over at the points where the particles landed, a silver glistening of digestive juices dribbling down its strands.
The road wound backwards and forwards across the face of the Irsirrha. The landchariot clattered on, leather creaking and wood and metal rattling, the driver occasionally swearing at the chimaera, they occasionally swearing back. Foord yawned; he had not had a good night. They’d given him an apartment in one of the empty wings of Hrissihr, but their beds, like all their furniture, did not accommodate his bulk easily. He started to doze.
A spider perched on his shoulder. He jerked awake and tried to brush it off. It was Thahl’s hand, gently tugging.
“My apologies, Commander, but it’s time for you to check in.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you.” He snapped open his wristcom.
“Yes, what do you want?” Smithson’s voice answered.
“This is Foord.”
“This is me, on the Bridge. What do you want?”
“Checking in. We’re on our way back from Hrissihr.”
“Yes, we know that. Your wristcom tracker says where you are.”
Foord sighed. “We should be with you in,” he glanced at Thahl, thought better of it, sighed again and went on, “in about three hours.”
“No. There are delays. All the roads into Blentport and the cities are clogged. It seems everyone’s coming to the lowlands. Is it some local thing we don’t know?”
Foord shot an inquiring glance at Thahl, who shrugged; not the Sakhran gesture but the human one, with his shoulders. “What about the refit, Smithson? Is it proceeding well?”
“It is now. Swann agreed that we come before everything, and he’s told his people they have to work round the clock.”
“How did that happen? When I saw Swann, he said he’d never let our refit take priority over the defensive cordon. Outsiders can take their turn, he said. He practically prodded me in the chest.”
“Yes, well, he did all that with me too. But I encouraged him to see it differently.” Smithson deliberately paused; he was leaving a space for Foord to congratulate him, so he could receive the congratulation ungraciously and imply it was patronising, and that listening to it kept him from valuable sharp-end work. It was part of his ritual. Foord saw it coming and simply went on.
“What’s been completed?”
“All drives and weapons have been overhauled and tested. Scanners and minor systems have been overhauled and are due for testing presently. And right now I’m watching them load on board those two missiles you told them to build.”
“Did you make sure they were built exactly to my specification?”
“Yes.”
“Exactly?”
“Yes….Commander, what were you thinking of? Why take on a couple of primitive things like that?”
“Just a hunch. I have an idea they might be important.”
“I have an idea they might be a waste of space.”
Foord let that pass. “How are relations at Blentport?”
“How are relations at any port we put into?”
“I asked you about Blentport.”
“They started out badly, and got worse because of the refit. Swann’s people have been told to give me priority, and they are, but they really don’t like me.” Occasionally, as now, Smithson would lapse into theatrical self-pity. Foord had never known anyone for whom self-pity was less appropriate. “What about my feelings? What happened to common courtesy? I mean…..”
•
Like a piece of gently mocking Sakhran conversation, the road wound backwards and forwards across the face of the Irsirrha. It was a track of loose stones and mud, devoid of signs or distance markers.
One side of the landchariot still showed only a rock face rushing past, but on the other side, now the mist had cleared, there was a sheer drop filled with heavy forest: huge trees with green-grey foliage as dense as fur, casting green-black shadows. Because Foord was looking down on them, and because they grew so close together, it was difficult to see properly just how tall they were, or how far into the distance they reached, but both figures were big: about six hundred feet and hundreds of miles respectively.
Occasionally there would be a break in the forest and Foord would catch glimpses of dark torrential rivers and granite palisades; and other hillcastles, all smaller than Hrissihr and showing only one or two sullen plumes of smoke. Hrissihr was the only large hillcastle so close to Blentport and the lowlands; the others were much further away, high in the distant mountain ranges which dwarfed even the Irsirrha. Humans hardly ever went up there. There was a rumour in the lowland cities that somewhere, high in the heavily-forested mountains, was a thousand-foot tree.
There was no other traffic yet; there wouldn’t be until they got closer to the lowlands and started hitting Commonwealth towns. The driver—Foord knew him only as a surly expanse of diamond-scaled back and shoulders visible through the grimy front window—hissed and swore and whipped the team.
“Thahl,” Foord said, “you omitted to calculate that this landchariot has six chimaera pulling it, not four like the one which brought me.”
“You mean, Commander, that that will affect any estimate of our travel time? But this is not a fresh team, unlike the one which brought you. The driver will have to rest and water them in an hour or two.”
“Oh.” Foord subsided.
Rituals. At least Thahl only did it privately, this gentle pisstaking; never in front of others, or when it genuinely mattered. Smithson did it publicly, privately, whenever and wherever he liked.
Foord commanded one of the nine deadliest warships in the Commonwealth, crewed by uniquely talented and dangerous individuals, yet they all had these rituals they enacted with him. Often they would change the rules at random, on the possibly anarchic basis that random rule changes were part of the rules. And Foord usually went along with it; anything to get the most from them. In any case, as well as being their Commander he was also one of them. He had done things as terrible as any of them. Except, of course, for Thahl. As far as Foord knew, Thahl had done nothing more terrible than any other Sakhran; he was not, by Sakhran standards, psychotic or maladjusted. He had simply completed all the necessary officer courses, usually with grades well into the top five percent, and had specifically asked to serve on an Outsider. He’d never wanted anything else.
The Department appreciates that you have a Sakhran First Officer; you know a lot about him, but maybe less about them. Your ship’s Codex, as usual, has more detail, but you may prefer this modest summary.
Sakhrans contain elements of mammal and reptile; and other elements, still unclassifiable. They reproduce asexually, but our cultural preconceptions still lead us to refer to them as males.
They have a slight build, but extraordinary physical abilities; the deadliest intelligent humanoids known to us. They evolved to compete with their planet’s other spectacular carnivores: Angels, Coils, Diamondfaces, and even the dreadful Walking Air. Sakhrans can outkill them all.
Their neural synapses and metabolism, their musculature and reflexes, are quite unique. Their bones and claws and teeth are like titanium. Thahl is smaller than you, but much faster and stronger. You have often been heard to say that you wouldn’t last ten seconds against him. Ten seconds is optimistic.
But they work best as individuals, not in teams. This could be connected with the next point.
You have had a long working relationship with one Sakhran, which may have obscured an important fact about Sakhrans generally. They were not always like they are now. Their society, their institutions, their Empire, even their everyday technology, declined rapidly—it was not a collapse, but a rapid decline—three hundred years ago, after the first visit of the unidentified ship and the writing of the Book of Srahr. We know no other culture which has declined in quite the same way. This may not impinge on your professional relationship with Thahl, which appears to have worked well; but with other Sakhrans, it may be significant.
The landchariot lurched on.
“Thahl,” Foord began, “I was sorry not to see your father before we set off this morning. Was he unwell?”
“Not unusually so, Commander. He’s old and diseased and will soon die, of course, but that wasn’t why he didn’t appear. I think he was concerned that if he saw you again he might delay you by restarting last night’s conversation.”
“I enjoyed last night’s conversation. He asks very good questions.”
“He’s very ignorant.”
A few miles later, as if there had not been a gap of distance and silence in their conversation, Thahl added: “My father asked me to give you a message, Commander. First, to thank you for coming up to visit him. Second, that whatever happens, he expects to invite you a second time.”
They were still in the Irsirrha, but they had left the higher slopes and the road didn’t double back on itself so much; it was straighter, plunging down between walls of dripping forest on either side. The view was smaller-scale, but didn’t seem so. Higher up, what would have been a much more impressive view had been obscured, by the mist and the sheer density of the trees. Here, the fore
st had thinned out enough to see how massive the trees really were; although the trees of the higher Irsirrha were even taller, these ones still towered four hundred feet over the road, often standing in groups of three or four as if talking privately together. Somehow, they made the air around them seem like the air in a cathedral.
They were set far enough apart to see the green-black shadows they cast on the ground, and the armoured secondary foliage bursting in frozen waves around their lower trunks, and the dark mouths of openings in the coils of their massive roots. Sakhra had many species of trees, but Sakhrans had a particular name for tall trees generally; they called them Shadanth, or Vertical Rivers.
The gradient softened. The road widened but was still mainly loose stones and mud, and still showed no signs or markers. The trees on either side were no less tall than before, but were set back further from the road, leaving a verge of mud and grass, dotted with tall clumps of silver-green bladeweed. As they turned a bend they encountered the first traffic they had seen all morning, another landchariot coming directly towards them at a speed almost matching theirs. They swerved to a halt and the two drivers had a brief and spiteful conversation—at least, to Foord it sounded spiteful—before the other driver lashed his team and clattered away towards the highlands.
They remained stationary.
The driver, without turning round, said something. Thahl leaned out of the window and a long, sibilant conversation ensued. When it finished they both sat silently, long enough for Foord to start hearing the noises of the forest; then the driver’s whip exploded over the six huge backs of his team, and they shot forward.
“What was that about?”
“It may be nothing, Commander. The driver has heard something…Can I suggest you check in again?”
“Thahl, what is this? Does it have any bearing on the ship?”
“Nothing like that, Commander. A rumour of a local evacuation. But it may affect our journey time and it would be prudent to check in more frequently from now on.”