Spears of the Sun (Star Sojourner Book 3) (4 page)

General Ki Rowdinth pulled his dire-wool blanket tighter around his narrow shoulders and bulging hips as he studied the two aliens who stood before him in the great room of his sunken citadel. He leaned back into the artificial intelligence chair. It detected the slight temperature drop in his skin and instantly raised the heat in leather-covered filaments.

Four members of the general's own Elite Guards, in black and silver uniforms, with silver slashes of lightning bolts across the shoulders, and high military hats, flanked the general, their black marble eyes fixed on the aliens.

General Ki Rowdinth studied the Altairian and Vegan lackeys who stood before him. He flicked a glance at Drackin the Shayl. “I have chosen you three for a mission of vital importance to Fartherland.” Rowdinth's voice was tight and strident. “Do not fail me. I do not take kindly to failure.” He glanced at the Shayl and his lip curled. Drackin lay sprawled before the fireplace like a grotesque pet, digging talons restlessly into the thick rug. His leathery wings, folded across his back, gleamed in firelight. His hooded white eyes glowed from deep within his skeletal head. The tawny fur that covered his muscled body seemed to shimmer as the great fireplace snapped and roared, as though reflecting the winged creature's own temperament. Drackin never flinched, never showed fear at General Ki Rowdinth's commands, or his temper tantrums, and this greatly annoyed the leader of the Vermakt race of Fatherland.

The chair gently probed and located the general's tight muscles in his back and neck, and began a shiatsu massage. It scanned his brain, detected the beta waves of an agitated mind state, and lowered its patron's brain rhythm to an alpha state of attentive relaxation.

The Vermakt National Anthem emanated from both sides of the backrest. The four Guards stood at attention with their clawed hands pressed together before their snouts.

A small compartment in the armrest of Rowdinth's chair slid open and a crystal goblet of 1986 Earth's Penfold's Grange wine emerged in a golden goblet. With its patron in a relaxed state, the chair turned on its subliminal audio and recorded the conversation.

The towering, green-scaled Altairian, his broad head buried within the bubble helmet of ammonia and methane, still wore his Interstel military uniform. He shifted uneasily under the general's stony stare. His scaly tail lay curled and trembling around his flat feet. Beside him, the shorter, white-furred Vegan stood unsteadily on hind legs. Massive front paws, with hooked claws, dangled at his sides. Only the Shayl seemed unimpressed by the general's disdainful demeanor and his ominous silence, and that continued to annoy Ki Rowdinth.

The chair responded with whispered messages.
You have been chosen by Providence to lead your people. You are their savior. Their Messiah. The Great Time has come, my lord!

“Yes,” the general hissed softly and swirled his drink. He breathed deeply as smoke from the real wood fire scented the air, and watched imported tropical birds chirp and flit from branch to branch in paper-layered cellulose trees.

“Tell me what I hired you to do,” he ordered Huff, the thickset Vegan.

“Well…” Huff looked up anxiously at Zorga, the Altairian. “Well – “

Zorga shifted his triangular feet and glanced down at his companion.

“Well, sir,” Huff began in stelspeak, “you – “

“That's sire!” Zorga nudged Huff.

Rowdinth allowed himself the pleasure of a grin at their discomfort.

“Oh, that's right,” Huff said. “Sire. To bring the Jules Terran telepath to you without his prior knowing of where your citadel is buried.”

“That's subterranean!” Zorba corrected, “ye oxygen-poisoned pritcull.”

“Oh, yes!” Huff shook his furry white snout. “Without the Terran's prior knowledge of what he is…uh, where he is in the sub-Terran.”

Bubbles streamed around Zorga's enclosed head.

“And in what condition?” Rowdinth said too softly. A quick rage began within the general. He hated to deal with inferior races, but in this case, it was necessary. The chair tried unsuccessfully to compensate for his darkening mood.

Huff glanced up at Zorga and nervously rubbed his forepaws together.

“What
condition,”
Zorga whispered, “hole in the rear!”

“Oh.” Huff nodded and drew back long lips to display pointed teeth in a smile. “Undamaged.”

The general smiled back, a cold leer that stretched back lips and showed a predator's set of fangs. He studied the two Earth White Sharks that swam in circles within a round tank and wondered if they would enjoy a meal of Altairian fillets and Vegan steaks.

The chair sensed its patron's sexual arousal at the prospect of watching the lackeys being flayed and fed to the sharks, and flicked on the holo-stage. It chose bare-breasted Tahitian Earth girls in grass skirts and lays of crimson flowers as they performed an erotic dance to a fast drumbeat, with palm trees and the South Pacific Sea for backdrop. A heavy scent of flowers wafted from wall ducts. The general breathed in the perfume. Terrans had treated him badly, when, as a child, he had accompanied his mother to Gorestail. A mob of drunken Terran miners had pointed and laughed at Rowdinth and his mother's resemblance to some lesser species of Earth's rodents. They had called his mother a fat rat, and had kicked her and knocked her to the ground. When he'd tried to help her up, they had laughed and kicked him too. The shock and humiliation still cut like a sharpened stone.

As though those insults weren't enough, the Worlds Government had insulted the entire Vermakt race when they turned down Fartherland's bid to join the interstellar community. Rage had become a continuous fire that burned as though consuming him. He could not…he
would
not tolerate their insults.

He touched his closed eyes with trembling, clawed fingers, remembering. He had gone blind after that great insult. His eyes had burned and he could not see. The A.I. chair, bought with the large deposit of credits endowed by the owners of the mining camp after the humiliation by their Terran workers, had healed him. It had brought back his sight with its full attention to his needs.

Years later, as an adult, he'd had The Vision. A divine angel with a halo as golden as the gold from Fartherland's mines had descended in a dream and unveiled his great mission to save his downtrodden people. He alone could raise them from their dirt-poor living conditions and lead an army to invade and conquer Earth and each colonized planet in succession, until the Terrans were wiped off the face of the known worlds, and all the other alien ethnic groups were subjugated to the superior race of Vermakts. The credits had allowed him to build his hidden citadel within the sacred ground, and now the laboratory too, where Geek and Nerd continued their work on dark energy.

His time had come! He pictured a lifeless Earth spinning through space. The Vermakt people's time had come!

He would gladly embrace suffering, he yearned for it, and even death, for revenge on the imperious race of Earth. He would destroy the rat-eaters, even if they met his demands. The die was cast, as they themselves would say. They did not have long to enjoy their haughty intrusions on Fartherland and the stolen gold of his people's mines. With the help of the two Terran scientists, who foolishly thought they were his colleagues, the vicious Terran race would perish. He gripped the wine goblet tightly. He would have the last joke on planet Earth!

“Now go!” he told Zorga and Huff, and take that devil's spawn with you.” He gestured toward the Shayl with his glass. Wine spilled. “Though I don't know why Nerd and Geek hired the demon in the first place!”

“Who?” Huff whispered to Zorga.

“The two NASA scientists, ye dummy pritcull.”

“Oh.”

The Shayl hissed, unfolded his wings and flapped them for answer, throwing spectral shadows on the stone floor from the raging fire behind him.

“He can fly, General Rowdinth,” Zorga ventured.

“So can a hovair,” Rowdinth responded.

The four Guards at his side chuckled at their leader's sly joke.

Rowdinth gestured toward the portal. “On your way out, stop at my museum. I have five new additions you might find interesting.”

“Oh?” Huff smiled. “The stuffed prizes of a hunting trip, sir?” He lifted shaggy brows in expectation. “I mean sire.”

“Of a failed hunting trip.” General Rowdinth smiled back. “Five stuffed human animals.” He sipped wine and found a momentary satisfaction in Huff and Zorga's shock. He slid a look at Drackin, who showed no response except to lick his bony-plated lips and stare back.
Fucking gargoyle!
the general thought.

The chair quickly responded to its patron's sudden frustration with a squirt of a designer drug into the air around him. The general leaned forward, forgetting his drink. “What choice did I have?” he shouted. “They failed me, the miserable Earth-spawn miscreants. They allowed the Terran Jules Rammis to escape!” He pounded his fist on the armrest. “I am the victim. Because of their ineptitude, I am forced to suffer a defeat!” He leaned back in the chair as the drug took effect. “There are three more empty pedestals that stand waiting next to theirs. Pray you do not force me to fill them.” A semblance of satisfaction touched his uneasy mind as Huff's eyes widened and his long pink tongue lolled out from his snout as he panted.

Zorga's gas-filled back tank sounded an alarm that warned he was breathing too fast. The Altairian's bumpy skin darkened to olive green and his thick, exposed tail lost scales as it shuddered against the hard floor.

The general sipped the last of his wine. He ran his gaze along Huff's fine, white fur and watched it lift in the draft from the fire. These three would make elegant additions to his growing collection of stuffed aliens. He pictured the Shayl, frozen in a leap, wings spread. Yes, elegant. Perhaps he would add them even if they brought him the telepath.

He raised his empty glass to Zorga and Huff, and smiled reassuringly. “You may go now,” he said softly and nodded at Drackin, “and take the ogre with you.” Yes, he decided as he watched the three lumber, waddle, and prowl out of the great room, he would definitely claim them for his museum. A sanctuary where his people could enjoy seeing the degradation of those who humiliated them, standing frozen in death upon their pedestals, with plaques that told of their home planets, now under the domination of the super race of Vermakts. And when he was through with the Terran Jules, the telepath would also stand frozen among the other displays, his pink, hairless body naked for all the vermakts to see how weak these devil creatures really were.

The chair advanced the holo vid to show naked male dancers who leaped onstage in colorful loincloths and embraced the reluctant females with deep-throated grunts. Rowdinth's pupils dilated as the males roughly dragged the females to the grassy ground, stripped off their skirts, and mounted them.

The crystal glass slid from his fingers and shattered on stone as the males held down the females and forced themselves into the screaming girls.

His hand crept to his groin and his breathing quickened. The chair remained quiet. It knew that General Ki Rowdinth loved to watch animals being raped. He had raped many captive animals himself, male and female, in this very chair.

My fur itched all over my body from the rashes brought on by the heat. I wondered, as I scratched, if I had picked up parasites on this hot planet Fartherland that nourished all sorts of weeds and the bugs that inhabited them.

Huff!” Zorba called me by my stelspeak name, “Stop scratching. Ye make more noise than a glutstik sucking its own quills!”

“Sorry, Zorga. I itch!”

I yearned for the sharp aroma and soft feel of snow, the taste of salty freshkill, the frosty ice floes that rock beneath your paws on enchanting white Kresthaven, stelspeak for my own home world, which is difficult even for me to pronounce.

I didn't like this roof over my head. How could I know for certain that it was built strong enough? It lacked ice for strength, and after all, only Vermakts built it. They should have asked Terrans to build it. Terrans know how to build things that last even through ice blizzards and thunderous tornadoes that rip apart the strongest ice dens.

I sighed as I stood flattened against a column in the underground parking lot which was under the ground of the Gorestail spaceport. Zorga leaned behind another column, hissing out breaths in his methane and ammonia-filled helmet. Drackin's eyes glowed as he crouched silently on his haunches, wings folded, in a dark corner.
He must be a good hunter of fish,
I thought.

Hovairs and hovars and ground cars and zip jumpers, and even a hybrid water sprite were lined up in dark rows. What would it be like to ride the sea in a water sprite? It must be like riding the back of a great leviathan that plunged and leaped in the icy waters of Kresthaven.

I sighed as I waited. I was not embraced by the Lords in this work I was about to do. But what choice did I have when most of the cubs had left the traditional ways of the Vegan tribes to work on city worlds with all their dreary comforts and gadgets. They would never know the joy of the hunt, or lapping freshkill blood mixed with hard-packed balls of snow. A tear wet my cheek fur. They had abandoned the oldsters, who starved without their helping paws. Some had already perished from failed hunts. I took this work, though it damned my soul to the depths of Lord Vorlof's Fiery Pit for eternity, to keep my small clan healthy with as much blubber as credits could buy.

“Huff!” Zorba whispered, “he's coming!”

Oh. There he is!

The Terran Jules hummed as he strolled to his hovair. He was tall and narrow, with only a patch of yellow fur on the top of his head. I wondered if there were more patches beneath the black pants, the black sweater, and the blue jacket. Was he really comfortable in all those coverings? And leather shoes that reached to his ankles! He was appealing, though, the way exotic pets are appealing, and I had to smile as I watched him saunter to his hovair. Terrans are so well balanced on their hind legs, as though walking is a dance.
Born to walk upright
, I thought and sighed. I could only pray that the godless General Ki Rowdinth would not add this Terran to his museum when he had gotten whatever it was he wanted to get from him.

The Terran called out “Open” to his hovair and the vehicle's door swung wide.

“Good hovair,” he said and chuckled.

His voice was soft and melodious. I chuckled too.

“Now!” Zorga whispered.

“Oh!” I went to all fours and leaped forward, with Zorga lumbering by my side on his hind legs, his broad tail slapping the ground.

The Terran heard us and turned. He inhaled a sharp breath and slammed the open door against Zorga and me as we leaped at him. I was shaken, but my thick neck fur took up most of the shock. Zorga, with his bumpy, scaly skin, his bulky helmet, staggered sideways and crashed to the ground.

“Ye damn Terran pritcull!” Zorga shouted as he got up.

If the Jules made it into his vehicle and locked the door, we were lost! General Rowdinth would not be happy with our empty paws. I whined as I pictured my dead stuffed body hanging on a hook in his museum.

The Terran Jules threw himself into the pilot's seat and reached out to close the door. I saw Drackin prowl from behind the vehicle and leap at him with a growl.

The Terran cried out as Drackin dragged him from the hovair and onto the ground, and wrapped his strong arms around the frail human body.

“Don't damage him, Drackin!” I cried.

The Jules Terran fought as though his life depended on breaking free, with kicks to Drackin's hind legs and his soft underbelly. Considering General Rowdinth's bone-sharp temper and his uncaring for any life but his own, the Terran Jules might truly be fighting for his life. I hoped not. I wanted no part in the death of any intelligent being, including aliens.

Drackin growled and tightened his grip.

I felt a fuzziness in my mind. A thought rose up inside my head that was not my own.
Let the Terran go!
it came. I looked around.
Let him go or you'll die!
“Zorga?” I asked, “did you say something?”

“It's the Terran,” Zorga said. “He's a telepath, numbtail. Remember?”

Drackin must have felt the fuzziness too. He loosened his grip and the Jules Terran squeezed out of it. But I think Drackin's hunting instincts were aroused when the Terran broke free because Drackin growled and gripped him tighter. He spread a wing as though covering a prey he alone had brought down.

A strong desire to let the Jules Terran go came upon me as an ache in my chest.

“Zorga,” I said, “do you think we should let him go? Because I think we should let him go.”

“When do you think?” Zorba said. “This will close down his mind probes.” He extracted a small bottle and a rag from his suit pouch and poured liquid onto the rag. “Take this.” He held out the dripping piece of material to me, “and hold it over its nose and mouth. We are not allowed to use a stingler stun setting on it.”

I took the smelly rag and tried to hold it over the Terran's face. He fought me and managed to gasp in fresh breaths.

I pressed the rag harder.

“Not on its eyes,” Zorga said and reached into his suit pouch. “It doesn't breathe through its eyes!”

The Terran bit my paw. I yelped and grabbed his head fur and held him down with the rag over his nose and mouth. I almost laughed at the two strips of fur above his eyes.

After a few breaths, he moaned and his body relaxed. His eyes fluttered and closed, his muscles went soft, and when Drackin let go, he slumped to his front side.

Drackin folded his pale wings and limped back to the dark corner with blood dripping from a cut on his hind leg.

Zorga took out a syringe of blue liquid with a tiny round object floating within it. I watched, intrigued, as he slipped the sharp needle into the Terran's fur behind his right ear and pushed down the plunger until the syringe was empty. The Terran's body jerked, but his eyes remained closed.

“What in the Sacred Lords of the Ten Oceans is that?” I asked Zorga.

“An implant. The liquid will prevent pain or infection. It won't know it's wearing it.” He peered at me. “Of course, ye won't mention it to the Terran.”

“Of course. What does it do?”

“It is nuclear. It explodes and blows apart the skull and anything else for miles around.

“It…when?”

“When General Rowdinth pushes the blinking red button on his detonator. It also tracks the Terran's movements. The general wants to know where it is located at all times. He shoved the Terran onto his back.

I felt as though tiny ice chips were storm-tossed within both my stomachs. What had I helped to do? I stood up and stared down at the still form. “Time is a river,” my people say, “and the ice floes are our decisions and our acts. One can no more make the ice float back against the current than a freshkill can get up and walk again.”

Zorga roughly picked up one end of the Terran. I picked up the other end and we carried him to the open storage compartment of our hovair. He was light but slippery. I almost dropped my end.

“Be careful!” Zorga warned. “It has a thin, flexible nose that breaks easily. Would ye care to explain to General Rowdinth that ye damaged his prize?”

I held the Terran tighter as we lifted him into the compartment. He lay curled and quiet as a sleeping cub. I sighed and closed the door, then locked it. After this night's work, how could I return to Kresthaven and look my clans-peers in their snouts again?

I had lost my soul.