Posleen War: Sidestories The Tuloriad (44 page)

“If not him, then how about those others who are going to be burned along with him?”

“They're adults and as free as one of the People ever is.”

“Still . . .”

“Oh, stop nagging, fuzzy face. I'll help before things go too far.” The sound of the incoming pinnace grew louder, then positively screeching as it set its thrusters downward to land. “Besides, that tiny human lander may take care of things on its own.”

With a most unIndowy-like scowl, Aelool turned his back and began to wind his way around the crowd, in the direction of the landing area, now being approached by Salem's pinnace.

“Dan,” the pinnace's speaker said with Sally's voice. “I've been thinking. Maybe you should try to talk Guano out of this.”

“What? Has Binastarion's AS come up with something new?” the priest asked.

There was hesitation and fear in the speaker-borne voice. “No . . . no, it still insists that this is the best way available. But . . . I just don't want you or the boys or the Posleen hurt.”

Dwyer sighed. And I wish I could tell you that no one will be hurt. But that would be a lie.

Instead he said, “Don't worry, hon. Before we do anything serious I'll make an announcement of intent.”

“Oh, that's gonna help.”

“Here, you two,” Tulo pointed at two of his erstwhile guards. “Get over here and lie down so I can stand on you. I need to see more.”

With Posleen shrugs, the two ambled over and got to their bellies. They didn't even complain when the clan lord's claws dug into their backs. They were, after all, on pretty thin ice and knew it.

“All right,” Tulo said, once he had a good, if flesh rending, grip on their backs. “Now stand. Gently, you addled-egg, ovipositor lickers.”

Slowly, and now without some shifting and fumbling, the two kessentai beneath him raised Tulo above the crowd. For the first time he got a good look as the pyre, which caused him to shudder, at Finba'anaga, which raised a sneer, and at the human pinnace, which brought a toothy smile to his face.

The pinnace still rocked on its landing struts, even as the ramp began to descend with a whine. From outside, through the widening portal, came the sound of the thrusters downcycling.

With his left hand upon his processional cross, Dwyer lifted himself from the troop seats that ran down either side.

The Jesuit faced the portal, even as von Altishofen began a series of commands, entirely in Swiss-German, to raise his troops and form them. The commands had nothing to do with Frederico and Querida, who walked up to flank the priest of their own accord.

Dwyer reached out his right hand and stroked Querida's scaly back. She turned to look at him through gold-flecked yellow eyes. Trilling something that sounded to the priest suspiciously like, “Gracias,” Querida set her claw upon her ancient boma blade.

Transferring the processional cross to his right hand, where it properly belonged, Dwyer laid his left upon Frederico's oddly jointed shoulder. The grown kessentai didn't look at the priest, indeed his eyes were fixed on the panorama outside being slowly revealed by the descending ramp. Even so, he said, “Thank you for this, Father Dwyer, for considering my Dad to be a being worthy enough to fight for.”

The Jesuit's brogue came out, slightly, as it rarely did anymore. “S'all right. He is. Are you ready?”

“Yesss.” The boy's voice actually sounded more eager than merely ready.

“Von Altishofen?”

“Ready, Father.”

“Then, when I give the word, come at the double. I'll go first. Maybe we can do this without bloodshed.”

Posleen may heal quickly; they don't heal that quickly. Physically, Guano was incapable of much. Mentally, though, the pain had already ceased to dull his mind. He was aware then, of the other kessentai who had joined him being chained, one by one, to the stake that arose from the pyre and to each other.

“Why?” he croaked to the nearest kessentai, Dilantra. “Why did you join me?”

Dilantra shook his head. “It's hard to explain,” he said. “Let's just say that your fortitude made all your words seem true.”

“This is going to be really bad,” Guano said. “The worst death, maybe, except for one.”

“No matter,” answered Dilantra. “If the words are true then Paradise awaits on the other side.”

“And even if they're not,” added Xinocorph, “the ancestors always did like a show of bravery.”

“Paradise, then,” Guano said. “For you and all these others. Paradise . . .”

Bridge, USS Salem

With the pinnace on the ground now, Sally was able to tap in, via Binastarion's AS, to the AS hanging around Dwyer's neck, below his cross and rosary. Thus, while al Rashid could not see the priest in the view screen, nor even the pinnace which was presumably somewhere behind the priest, he could see the mass of Posleen and what looked to be a large pile of wood with a mass of kessentai atop it.

“'Brothers, the winds of Paradise are calling,'” the imam recited. 'Where is he who hungers after Paradise?"

Sally blinked once and did a double take. “You weren't—?”

“Muslim Brotherhood? In my younger days, before Allah opened up the gates of Hell and let loose the Posleen upon us . . . yes, I dabbled. I was young then, and foolish. Hopefully not so foolish as to be beyond Allah's mercy, however.”

“You may yet find some souls among the Posleen, Imam,” Sally said. “What will you do with them if you do?”

“Teach them as best I am able. We are not such a bad religion, as long as we can keep the lunatics at bay.”

Dwyer cleared his throat and said, softly, “Artificial Sentience, we've never had a chance to get to know each other. Are you ready to do your stuff?”

“Yes, Lord. You speak normally, I will do a simultaneous broadcast and translation into High Posleen.”

“Begin . . . now.”

“People of the Ships . . .”

To Dwyer's surprise, the sound was loud enough to shake, and to echo off the walls of the city and the platform of the Roga'a. He saw, too, that all movement stopped around the Roga'a and the pyre, as every crested head turned his way.

“In accordance with your custom and your law,” Dwyer continued, “in full battle honor, I call upon those who hold my friend and his followers to release them, or to face myself and mine, one for one, with blade against blade. We are sixteen. Are there sixteen kessentai who follow the false prophet, Finba'anaga, who will do battle with us?”

“Clever priest,” whispered Tulo'stenaloor, still atop the backs of his former guards. He turned his head and called, “Goloswin?”

“Here, Tulo,” the tinkerer answered.

“The human, Dwyer, has called out sixteen of Finba'anaga's followers to personal combat. I think Finba only has a couple of dozen in total. Assuming they follow the law and set sixteen against sixteen, do you think we can handle the remainder?”

We could probably handle them better if it had not been necessary to lop off several heads, but, “Yes, probably, Tulo. Actually, when you show up they might not even resist. I've a strong feeling Finba lied to the brighter ones he kept with him.”

“All right. Caltu?”

“Yes, Lord?”

“Here's your chance to get fully back into my good graces.”

“I and my kessentai stand ready, Lord.”

“Good. Send one of your ever-so-ready kessentai back for my tenar.”

Finba had watched the human shaman turn the corner with amusement bordering on contempt. “I'll not kill you priest; since you're under the clan lord's protection,” he whispered. “But what good you think to do . . .”

Finba'anaga's words were interrupted by the booming of the AS the priest, remarkably for a human, wore on his chest.

“You think sixteen of you scrawny abat will be enough to overcome my followers? That's absurd.”

“If he's coming with sixteen and calling us out under the law,” Borasmena observed, “we have no choice but to meet them.” And if they can interrupt this vile set of murders, good luck to them. “I am your follower, Finba,” Boras continued, “and have been since we met on the ship. But I and my people will have no choice but to meet the humans in honor, blade against blade.”

Dwyer saw out of the corner of one eye a small, bat-faced, fuzzy creature, hurrying to his side.

“AS, stop translating my words.”

“Yes, Lord,” the disc on the priest's chest answered.

“I see you, Indowy Aelool.”

“I see you, as well, human Dwyer,” Aelool answered, breathlessly. “What madness are you people engaged in?”

The priest didn't answer immediately, but after a few moments' reflection said, “I think the old fashioned term was, 'human sacrifice'.”

“Whatever term you use,” Aelool said, “this is still madness. Don't you understand how much bigger, heavier, and stronger than you humans the Posleen are? They'll bowl you over and chop you to ribbons.”

“I don't agree,” Dwyer said.

“What, you have a dozen of O'Neal's Armored Combat Suits locked away hidden?”

“No . . . and the forge couldn't have made them. And even if it could, there are too many kessentai to take on with a mere dozen suits. Rather, we're striking the Posleen where they're weakest.”

“Bah!” The Indowy turned away, stalking toward the presumed location of the pinnace. “You may be a religious lunatic, priest,” Aelool said over his shoulder. “I can hope that the rest of you are made of saner stuff.”

The best troops—those in whom you can have the most confidence—are the Swiss.

—Napoleon

Anno Domini 2024

Posleen Prime

Aelool watched the thirteen Switzers and the two Posleen flankers file out of the pinnace with a sickness in his heart. This is folly, he thought. No; it's worse than that. It's madness.

The fifteen being team wore their monomolecular armor and carried, except in the case of Querida, their variable center-of-mass halberds. She carried the ancient boma blade Guanamarioch had picked up for her in the half excavated Pyramid on Hemaleen V.

Aelool hurried over to stand in front of them as they changed formation from single file to two ranks of six, with one man—von Altishofen—behind, for the humans, and with the Posleen on the flanks. He pointed directly at the young Posleen, Frederico.

“You're all adults,” he said. “I suppose you can throw your lives away on an empty, pointless, doomed-to-fail gesture if you want to. But he's little more than a child. Send him, at least, back to the ship.”

Seeing the Switzers ignored him completely, Aelool walked to his left to stand in front of Querida. “He's your child, your only child,” the Indowy said. “Order him back.” Querida simply looked levelly at the Indowy. She knew well enough what he was saying; she just couldn't respond even if she would have.

“She can't order me,” Frederico said, from his post over on the left flank. “I'm a kessentai; she's cosslain. It would no more occur to her that she can order me, now that I'm grown, than it would to flap her arms to fly. Now . . . please . . . get out of the way. We have work to do.”

Aelool went to the Posleen boy. “You have a life ahead of you,” he pleaded. “Don't throw it away.”

“I'm not throwing it away,” Frederico answered. “If anything, I'm giving it. For my father, yes . . . but also because I would be ashamed—” his great crested head inclined toward the Switzers—“terribly, terribly ashamed to have these good men fight alone, without my help.”

“You're not even bringing your rifles,” the Indowy objected.

“With rifles, the kessentai would just order their normals and cosslain to smash us with rail guns,” the boy patiently explained. “With blades—blade against blade—they'll come out and fight us being to being, hand to hand. It's an honor thing.”

The Indowy's head sank onto his chest. Honor? Absurd. Nonsense. This is hopeless . . . hopeless. They're all mad.

“And now, Indowy Aelool,” Frederico asked, “if you would please step out of the way.”

As the Indowy shuffled out of the way, slowly, as if in great pain, Frederico turned his head over his right shoulder to look at von Altishofen. As his field of view passed over the two ranks of Switzers, he saw the sharp, deadly gleam of their halberds, already reconfigured from dull, practice mode to razor keen and needle sharp killing mode.

“We're ready now, Herr Wachtmeister,” the boy said.

“Father Dwyer,” the Wachtmeister called out, “if we might have your benediction? Vexillation . . . KNEEL.”

Solemnly, the priest stepped out around and in front on the small formation. There wasn't a lot of time for formal ceremony. The priest carried the processional cross, a crucifix on a pole, in his left hand. He held it there as he made the sign of the cross over them with his right.

“In hoc signo vinces,” the priest said, simply, echoing the vision of Constantine.

Von Altishofen stood and nodded, then gave the order, “Vexillation . . . achtung. Vorwaerts . . . MARSCH. Links, rechts, links rechts . . .” Boot feet crunched on the gravelly path beneath them. “Sound off, you bastards!”

"Unser Leben gleicht die Reisse

Eines Wandrers in der Nacht.

Jeder hat in seinem Gleise . . ."

Finba'anaga heard the odd human sounds long before he saw the humans turn the corner into the square by the Statue of Courageous Defiance. He had no idea what the words meant and asked his AS to explain and translate.

“It's a song, Lord,” the AS, “like the People's song of Flight and Resettlement. The words are . . . 'Our lives are like the journeys of wanderers in the night. Each has—'”

“Never mind the translation,” Finba cut the machine off. “What do they intend?”

“See for yourself, Lord,” the machine answered.

At that moment the first rank of the human warriors and their Posleen escorts appeared, wheeling around the corner of the Temple of War. Their steps, most unlike the People when they marched, crunched as one along the gravel way. The second rank quickly followed, itself being followed by the one human Finba knew as the chief, Dwyer. The weapons the warriors bore looked odd to Finba, yet he had no doubt that those heavy chopping blades on the ends of poles were weapons.

The priest carried only the odd symbol of his bizarre faith on the end of a pole much like those of the warriors' arms. All were armored, barring only the priest.