Koban: Rise of the Kobani (55 page)

“Still, seventy thousand orbits of any star is a long time. Even with a
six-month orbit measured in human terms, they have to be very old. How large a volume had they colonized? There are more red dwarf stars with small worlds than there are larger Suns and Earth-like worlds.”

“The Prada did not, and still do not, crave territory, or desire large populations, and defer to the senior members of their society. Their natural predilections play right into Krall hands. We know that the Krall have only been in space for perhaps twenty-five thousand years, and were probably still on their home world when the Olt’kitapi discovered them as barbarians. I have no doubt the race that turned these pricks loose on the galaxy were far older and ‘wiser,’ and yet were taken down.”

“OK, how are the Torki for maturity, in Prada eyes?”

“Brilliant adolescents. If they are speaking without bias for these crabs, the Torki were star traveling for four thousand years when the Krall ran them over, six or seven thousand years ago, making them perhaps eleven thousand years old as space travelers. They chose mostly watery worlds with ample seashores. They traveled in giant ships, built to accommodate their larger bodies with simulated internal seaside environments. This means a lot of weight and fewer ships, and less flexibility for exploration. They apparently had a six hundred light-year sphere of colonization, with only twenty water worlds. The Prada consider them galactic whiz kids.”

“What the hell do they think of us then?”

“You see the pattern, I think. We have done more, and considerably faster than these other species. Humans don’t pass up very many worlds, and we are driven to explore and settle. At least until an aberration three hundred years ago, when we almost eradicated ourselves, we have always been highly combative.

“Wister doesn’t seem able to accept our own history time line. It simply doesn’t fit the Prada view that intelligent species develop very slowly and spread gradually, becoming gentler and wiser as they mature over a long period of gradual expansion.”

“He thinks the Krall have become more
mature and gentle
?” Marlyn’s voice held a sour note.

“In Prada eyes they ‘must’ be older because they have been able to rule all others, and their motives are apparently too ‘advanced’ for younger species to understand. It’s rather as if their power makes them ‘right’ sort of thinking. They think only a senior race could accomplish what the Krall have done. It’s an odd blind spot in their philosophy of following the oldest and wisest leaders, which I think they unconsciously accept for the Krall, because there is no other option anyway.”

Marlyn expressed bewilderment. “Damn, I never anticipated a hard sell being needed to convince the slave races to get free of the Krall.”

“I hope it won’t be as difficult to gain cooperation from the Torki. Wister has agreed to help us look for their settlement tomorrow, if you can get away to fly the shuttle.”

“Sure, I can leave Francis in charge here. I’ll bring Bradley and Hakeem. Do you expect to make contact right away if we find them?”

“I’d like to, but I’ll let Wister guide me in that respect, since he has met them before. Apparently, the Torki don’t exactly have a leader as such, and rule themselves by consensus of the population. That’s what I gathered from Wister’s description. I don’t know how they can reach any kind of an agreement quickly, unless their population is held down to the same level as the Prada are. We may have to wait awhile for their decisions if they are spread out.”

****

Wister was curious about the human made shuttle. He had seen non-Krall craft previously, but had never been inside one. He immediately appreciated the passenger windows, because Krall shuttles didn’t have them, and the warriors themselves apparently lacked curiosity in the view, unless they could kill something they saw.

Maggi sat with him as they circled over his home forest once, then flew west at a suborbital altitude to quickly reach the coastline, a distance of over two thousand miles. Shuttle fuel was no longer an issue, with production in full gear on Koban, so they boosted high and fast.

Wister directed them to a large bay where he said the Torki had previously lived. There were numerous openings in the sides of cliffs facing the bay, but no signs of habitation or large crab tracks. Based on current flow along the coast, Wister suggested they fly farther north, where late arriving younglings instinctively returning here would not have drifted. He pointed out crab tracks in the sand from about a hundred feet up, but said these were too small to be adult Torki.

Wister commented, “The Torkada here will be pre-adolescent younglings, with brains too enlarged to become intelligent adult Torki.” He didn’t explain how a brain “too large” could be a handicap to intelligence.

“The younglings at this stage of development are called Torkada. They look similar to the adults, yet are half their size. They never properly mature, and live shortened lives, subject to being eaten by anything that can catch and kill a crab that large. They are less intelligent that a marsh dog,” he told them.

Maggi asked him, “They don’t seem to be very nurturing to their young. Prada and humans take care of their young from birth, and start to teach them at an early age. The Torki act…, uncaring.” She almost said
like the Krall
, because they too didn’t care for their hatchlings, until after they survived on their own to age five or six-years-old, and were ready to begin novice training.

Wister explained what he had observed. “Their early forms are so different in shape that the adults readily eat them if encountered on the beach or in the sea. It isn’t as if they are
unaware
of what they are, but they also consume their own dead if the corpse is discovered fresh. They have a compulsion to not waste protein and sustenance in their makeup. However, they are rigid in the belief that to kill one of their own mature members for food is a crime, and they would starve before doing so. It is the similarity of the Torkada to the adult Torki, which places them off limits.

“They will allow them to exist, and die by natural predation, but they will not kill them themselves. Simply moving away is easier when too many of them have arrived. The Torkada are tolerated for a time living near the adults, but at some point, the adults move and leave the mindless ones behind to fend for themselves. The immature ones can even reproduce, but the offspring never develop into Torki, and they keep returning to the beach of their spawning.

“Even a couple of molts earlier, before the young take on the general body shape of adults, they are acceptable as food. It is apparently the
first
molt to their adult form, before the purple body and amber legs appear after the next two molts, that is the only time they are welcomed home from the years spent at sea, growing. Too early or too late, either is ultimately fatal.”

Bradley called out, just as they were rounding the point of the bay to fly north. “I see several of them, at the water’s edge. They look to be feeding on a carcass of a large fish or dolphin-like creature.”

Hakeem asked Wister for advice. “Is it OK to look at them up close, perhaps get a tissue sample? They would surely have the same DNA as the adults, and we wouldn’t risk offending the Torki by asking later.” The Prada had willingly offered blood samples, after the subject was raised delicately.

Once its purpose was explained, Wister went first, having no objection to their learning more about his people. He requested the same in return, saying they had labs in the underground facilities to analyze the biological samples. He told them that they had not done genetics for thousands of years, but the pure scientific knowledge was of interest to them.

Wister answered Hakeem, with a sideways head motion. “The adult Torki will probably not object to your sample request, and I think they will ask for you to trade samples, as we did. However, approaching the Torkada is risky, and you will have to be prepared to kill some of them if you try. They are aggressive and not very smart, and the claws, although much smaller than an adults, can easily sever an arm. Some of you are extremely fast and strong, and perhaps are not in danger, however I don’t think there is anything to gain from the risk. If there are Torkada roaming the new location where the Torki have moved, you will still need to be very careful to avoid them.”

Maggi looked eagerly at the three to four-foot wide crabs, larger than any she had ever seen on any world. The bodies were a beautiful purple, and the legs on the smaller ones were amber, and on the foot wider version were a pale orange. They waved their larger claw in the air at the shuttle, as it passed over, apparently not frightened by the noise or presence of a large unknown flying object that was a potential predator. Perhaps walking up to them wasn’t such a good idea.

Marlyn, as they flew up the coast was engaged in a radio conversation with an earpiece, interfaced with her transducer. They were far out of range of Kap’s transducer system, but not the Beagle’s radio.

“I just heard. On
Koban, they found entrances to the old underground factory below Hub City. The place is a dark, wet, moldy and rusty wreck. It obviously has had no maintenance for a very long time. That close to the ocean, there may have been pumps at some point to help keep it dry. There is flooding in the lower levels. It seems like a complete loss for ever using it again.”

Wister, hearing the exchange asked what they were talking about from Koban, the one word in the conversation he was sure he understood. Maggi told him of the find in low Krall, with mental images.

His head darted forward, “That factory was built, but little used, even when new. I suggested to the Rulers that the dome was placed too close to the sea to stay dry. My sister was told to build the factory anyway. It required several orbits to make, and much work to keep it dry. We had many accidents with the workers.”

That sounded typical of the Krall, indifferent to an animal’s recommendation, and wasteful of their work, lives, and resources. He had a more optimistic view of at least one other factory complex.

“The smaller factory, under the dome that belonged to Maldo clan, which you say you call Prime City, should be dry and cleaner if the fusion powered air system still works. It was last used to make the walls and electric fences for all of the compounds of the Rulers on Koban, and it made more ground transports and shuttles to move that material to the other domes. It will need much maintenance, but probably could be returned to service if you know how.”

Maggi told Marlyn to have Prime City look for the entrance in the same place Hub City found their own covered over factory elevators and down ramps.

Perhaps a hundred miles north along the coast, an even larger and deeper inset bay, with high ridges on one side came into view. Wister suggested this looked to be an excellent location for the Torki to have moved.

As the shuttle passed over the two hundred-foot ridgeline, where the wide beach could be seen below its shelter, they were amazed and delighted to see thousands of Torki on the sand.

Maggi was the first to comment. “They were all facing and looking up at us as we came over the top of the ridge. They knew we were coming. Look at the size of them. They must be half the length of a truck. Seven or eight feet wide, and five feet across. They are waving the smaller of their claws at us. Wister, is that a threat gesture, like the Torkada made?”

“No. They used that gesture to greet the Rulers when they arrived in shuttles, and to greet Prada when we would arrive to work with them. However, I have never seen so many outside in the sun at one time. Usually most are inside the tunnels and workrooms underground, out of the sun. They like the cooler nights, as my people do, on this hotter planet.”

“Do they have the same population restriction from the Krall as the Prada have? There must be thousands of them on this beach. Look, on the other side of the bay, there are more over there. Not as many, but I think over a thousand.”

“The Torki have a population limit set by the Rulers, but it is difficult for them to regulate it as closely as we Prada do. They never know how many larvae will reach Torkedia stage and survive to return home. They have often violated the spirit of the Rulers orders when left alone for many orbits. This looks to be far above their population allowance.”

“You said something different than Torkada. Is Torkedia the acceptable returning size for their young? Because I can see many small pale versions of them on the beach here.”

“I see them as well,” Wister said. He had a disapproving tone to his words, which Maggi had learned to recognize.

“Where should we land?” Marlyn asked. The beach was evenly covered by them, the watching eyestalks pivoting to follow them as the shuttle passed over and hovered above the water’s edge.

“They are making an opening straight inland of our position,” Maggi observed. They were skittering away from a cleared section of beach (that word seemed to fit their fast sideways motion). She saw them gently lift some of the smaller translucent shelled youngsters and carry them with them.

Marlyn looked back at Wister. She turned the shuttle so he could see the clearing from the side windows. “Is that an invitation to land in the middle of them?” she asked in low Krall.

“It must be. I have never seen this many outside before, there was never a need for them to make room.”