Patriots

by David Drake

  "You have made a great mistake," the mesergen said to Tulo. "I am not enough, on my own, to butcher these properly. Nor is there time for me to do so."

  "We're not butchering any of them."

  "What? That's nonsense! I didn't curry these along merely to—"

  "Brasingala!"

  So fast was the guard's blade that the messergen's lips were still moving as his head hit the forest floor.

  "I am not in the mood to be argued with," Tulo'stenaloor whispered to the corpse, after it had finished settling to the ground.

  Mesergen forgotten as quickly as he had been killed, Tulo turned his attention back to the tunnel ahead. He could just see the twitching rumps of the last of the remainder, losing themselves in the dark.

  "Maybe you're right, Golo," Tulo'stenaloor said. "Let us enter this place and see."

  "What of your humans?"

  Aelool answered, "Some of my escorts will take charge of those you have freed and lead them to their own people. The rest of my escorts will disperse as soon as we are boarded. I think that, even with your former captives, no observer will see them."

  Tulo shrugged that off. Let himself and his people escape and what matter what the human's saw on their own world? He, his guard, Goloswin, and Aelool entered the tunnel and walked forward. Clawed Posleen feet, and sandalled Indowy ones, made an odd sound on the surface of the base of the tunnel. What should have been dirt was, instead, turned to some other substance, something that felt almost like gold.

  The tunnel continued on, deep into the earth. It twisted only once, near the end. Just past that hard right twist a large portal stood open, with a ramp in front of it, leading from ship to "soil." The ramp appeared to be of a much different shape from the portal, yet Goloswin sensed it was intended to fold into it. A bluish-greenish glow came from the opening, turning ramp and tunnel much the same color.

  Once inside, they saw that the disconcerting blue-green seemed to come from no place in particular, but simply to be everywhere at once. The cabin in which the refugees found themselves was small, perhaps twenty-five of the humans' meters by thirty. With nearly four hundred of the massive creatures stuffed into that space, there was hardly room, and an excellent chance of being inadvertently injured, for one tiny Indowy. Standing near to Goloswin, with the Indowy on his feet in between the two, Tulo'stenaloor suggested, "Maybe you should climb on my back, Aelool. Here, let me give you a hand up." The God-king reached down with claws that, under ordinary circumstances, would have sent a normal Indowy gibbering.

  Aelool was not a normal Indowy, however. With the god-king's help, he scrambled onto its broad, muscled back, sitting there side saddle as his legs were too short to take a comfortable riding position.

  "Something really bothers me, here, Tulo" Goloswin said, leaning over to whisper to Tulo.

  "I hate this fucking blue-green light, too."

  Golo twisted his head in negation. "The light? No, no, I hadn't even noticed the light. Though now that you mention it, it is a little unsettling. No, I was thinking about the size of this thing. Even if it recycles the waste at one hundred percent efficiency, it would have to do so instantaneously or we'll spend half the time hungry. And we cannot make a long journey crowded in like this, muzzle to asshole. I wonder if . . ."

  A voice came from everywhere and nowhere. "Attention. Attention Posleen lord and lordlings and servants. This is Argzal, captain of the scout smuggler, Surreptitious Stalker, Himmit Sixth Fleet—"

  "Sixth Fleet?" Golo questioned. "Himmits have fleets?"

  "Shhh! Listen. Besides, we don't know if they mean by 'fleet' what we or the humans would mean by 'fleets.'"

  "—going to be passing through the humans' interdiction forces now gathered around the planet. Unlike most of the humans' weapons and sensors, those ships can potentially sense us and could possibly harm us. Do not worry; I am very good at my job. I intend to bluff."

  "'Don't worry,' he says. 'I intend to bluff,' he says."

  "Shhh."

  "—placing an inertial dampening field around your compartment. This will retard your movements, slightly and temporarily. The inertial dampening field, while not dangerous, is also not what is normally used for livestock."

  "Livestock!"

  "Dammit, be quiet, Golo!"

  "—should not fear this; it is necessary. In the interim, to keep you entertained, look to the nearest bulkhead. You can see our progress there. I will also adjust your light to something more comfortable."

  The compartment, not exactly raucous to begin with, went deathly silent as most of the walls were seemingly replaced with totally black holographic rectangles. The ambient light likewise shifted to a red-orange more suitable to Posleen visual rods and temperament. Between the two changes, the pitiful remnants of the great host of Tulo'stenaloor calmed down completely.

  "I wish I had my AS," Tulo whispered. Sadly, every AS in the oolt had been wiped by the electro-magnetic pulse of the humans' ultimate anti-matter weapon. Off in the distance, Binastarion could still be heard weeping over his own.

  To Brasingala, the chief said, "Migrate through the oolt as best you can. Find our Chief Rememberer. Tell him it would please me if he would lead our people in a prayer of thanks to the ancestors for our deliverance."

  "We're not delivered yet, Tulo," Goloswin said.

  "Yes we are. We just don't know whether we're delivered from death or from shameful life. Either is cause for thanks."

  Beneath and around the Posleen and Aelool the Himmit ship began to hum as it prepared to break free of the Earth and the war which had nearly consumed it.

  THE END

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