Terra's World (12 page)

2.16

-
B
ut I can’t stay here! I’ve got to go back! I’ve got to get him out of there!

Terra was pacing frantically round and round the Polynasium committee room. The ArchRector had allocated it to Preceptor Shm and his friends for meetings and general conspiracy purposes.

- Get him out of where?
asked Shm wearily.
No one knows where Lbbp, is, or even if he’s still alive.

Fthfth looked at Terra with great sadness. Sadness at her friend’s distress and sadness at what she felt obliged to say.

- Terra. The Gfjk has executed
HUNDREDS
of dissidents since he took over. Lbbp was the very first one he had arrested. It seems
INCREDIBLY
unlikely he’s kept him alive all this time.

- But we’d know!
cried Terra.
We’d know if he’d killed him! That’s how he does things! He doesn’t just quietly do away with people, he makes a show of them!
Terra stopped pacing, turned and screamed at Fthfth right in the face.
He’s got people
HACKING EACH OTHER TO DEATH IN THE GSHKTH PIT
!

There was a moment’s silence, and then Terra collapsed, weeping piteously, into the nearest chair. Billy rushed over and threw his arms around her. He tried to imagine her anguish, but failed. To have travelled across so much space, braved so much danger to find the person dearest to her in the whole galaxy – only to find that, at best, he was being tormented by a crazed tyrant. Billy could only guess how distressed she must be. So he did the only thing he could, and held her tight.

After a few moments, Terra’s sobs stopped. Billy felt her tensing up, as if she were hardening herself both mentally and physically. Terra looked up at her friends, and spoke in a level tone.

- This has to stop. We have to stop this and we can’t do it alone. What are we? A bunch of dusty old professors and scared schoolchildren, hiding out across the sea. We need help. We need an army.

She stared at Preceptor Shm. Her jaw clenched and unclenched, as if reluctant to open, to allow her mouth to say the words she knew she had to say.

- We need the G’grk,
said Terra.

2.17

W
hen James Hardison had joined the Air Force as a young man, he’d imagined many of the places his career might end up taking him to. This, he thought as he looked around him, had not been one of them.

-Ymn! Ymn! Drink! You play hard! You play well! Like G’grk!

The slap on the back felt more like a punch in the ribs. If James Hardison –
COLONEL
James Hardison, as he now was – hadn’t spent enough time among the G’grk to acquire an appreciation of just how boisterous they could be in their expressions of comradeship, he might have felt threatened, or at least challenged. As it was, he winced, grunted, took the d’kff and drank long and deep.

His companions set up a roaring hiss of approval. It resounded through the stone hall of the H’dksh Tribe’s Winter Fortress, and their celebrations continued.

The game had been hard fought. Literally; since the ceasefire between the G’grk and their neighbouring peoples had been in effect, their reserves of aggression had been channelled in other directions, and one of these directions had been sport. Kkh-St’grrss, a sort of full-contact cross between polo, lacrosse and medieval jousting, was particularly popular at the moment among fit young G’grk males, combining as it did skill, vigour, bravery, and the very real possibility of serious injury.

It was still only a little over two years since Colonel Hardison – or Major Hardison, as he had been back then – had received the phone call that had changed his life. He’d been asleep when the phone rang and still half asleep as he answered, but upon hearing General Wyndham say the words ‘. . . the real thing this time, James,’ he’d woken up sharply.

The scientists at the Hat Creek
SET
I (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) lab had greeted him with bleary terseness – none of them had slept enough either, and the lab guys always got nervous and defensive around uniforms, however hard you tried to convince them you were all on the same side – but as he studied their readings, and they all got some hot coffee inside them, the atmosphere eased and a mutual excitement took over. This was, after all, what they had been waiting for their whole professional lives, and as Air Force/
SETI
liaison officer he’d met most of them before. In particular he recognised Dave Steinberg, a highly distinguished but extremely talkative and excitable Canadian scientist with whom he’d had a number of ‘conversations’ over the years. Thus far he’d managed to get about six words in.

That morning. The morning of the signals, the numbers, the coffee, the map-reading, more coffee, and finally the helicopter ride with the giggling Professor Steinberg, to what was being referred to, in that specific-but-vague way the military have of naming things, as the Location.

It was only when the ship materialised above the heads of the expectant onlookers that Major Hardison realised he had indeed been expecting it to be lemon-shaped, but he couldn’t, for the moment, remember why.

When the beam of light burst from the underside of the vessel and revealed a human child standing beneath it, Major Hardison felt a faint twinge of memory in a neglected corner of his, by and large, unusually well-organised mind. Something on the news, years ago now, about a couple whose baby had disappeared, a story no one had believed, a story about a deserted road and a lemon-shaped
UFO
(had there maybe even been a court case?). When the child enquired (in English!) about the whereabouts of her parents, everything suddenly made a glorious sense. Major Hardison found himself blinking back extremely uncharacteristic tears of joy as he realised that for him, this adventure had only just begun.

Major Hardison spent the next few days in a state of riveted fascination as he sat in on – and occasionally conducted – interviews with the returned child (Terra, she was called; even the name was perfect) and her alien . . . well, stepfather, it appeared. Their planet sounded both surprisingly similar to and unimaginably different from Earth. He was disappointed to hear that the planet had been at war until recently. He’d hoped that armed professions such as his own might be obsolete on other worlds – but was astonished and delighted at the story of how the war had been ended by the bravery of these two remarkable individuals, who – for want of a better word – were a family from two worlds. This had led to her nation’s leaders (the planet – Fnrr, it was called – was divided into nation states, much like Earth) granting her request to be returned to her own people, breaking a century-old moratorium on contact with the human race. The aliens had always believed humans to be too primitive and brutal to be exposed to advanced technology. Major Hardison couldn’t honestly say he blamed them, although it sounded like Fnrr wasn’t exactly free from brutality itself (Terra’s descriptions of the G’grk invasion had been vivid and compelling; he hoped that the peace accord they’d managed to bring about would endure).

Then the time came for Terra to be reunited with her original family, her human family. Major Hardison reflected that there had been nothing in any Air Force training manual on how to deal with the deluge of conflicting emotions he’d felt standing in that little house. As the girl’s decision to stay was greeted with tearful jubilation by her parents (and Professor Steinberg – Hardison was still unsure as to how he’d managed to get himself invited), the Major caught a glimpse of the alien – Lbbp, he was called – sitting alone and in silence. The alien’s smooth grey face had hardly any features to read, but Major Hardison knew a broken heart when he saw one.

As soon as it became apparent that some sort of envoy was to be appointed and sent to Fnrr to formalise relations with Earth, James Hardison volunteered immediately. The chance to spend a year on this alien planet was just irresistible. He’d accompanied Lbbp (and, inevitably, Dave Steinberg) in the little spaceship and was pleased to see that the alien had rallied a little morale-wise. He saw Terra and her parents waving them off and felt a fleeting twinge of regret that he couldn’t stay to see how she turned out. But he already had a feeling their paths would cross again one day.

As the ship containing himself, Lbbp and Professor Steinberg had ascended silently into deep space, the newly promoted Colonel Hardison finally got over his disappointment at having joined the Air Force just too late to sign up for the space shuttle programme.

Colonel Hardison took his role as the first Senior Earth Attaché to Fnrr seriously – Colonel Hardison took
EVERYTHING
seriously – and so when, a few months after his arrival, his assignment working with the Mlml government ended and the time came for him to take up temporary residence in T’krr, the G’grk capital city in the heart of the Central Plains, he had immersed himself in study of G’grk culture, suspecting it to be more complex and less brutal than his Mlmln hosts had described it.

He’d been right about the more complex part.

Colonel Hardison had been invited to his first Kkh-St’grrss match (battle?) as a spectator shortly after arriving in T’krr, and later, during conversation with the conscious members of the winning team, he got the distinct impression that he was being goaded into saddling up and having a try himself. He’d learned to ride at his uncle’s farm as a boy; looking at the way the G’grk riders handled their saddled gnth-sh’gsts, he felt confident that he could at least give it a shot.

After meeting with varying degrees of success on his first couple of attempts (he was very glad that the G’grk’s post-ceasefire softening of their attitude towards modern Fnrrn technology had at last allowed the use of bone-regenerators) Colonel Hardison had now progressed as a Kkh-St’grrss player (combatant?) to the point at which he was, if he did say so himself, pretty darn good at it.

A contributing factor was that his stay in T’krr had become rather less temporary than had been intended. The Gfjk-Hhh’s sudden takeover on Mlml had caught him out along with everyone else; his return to Hrrng had been delayed indefinitely, and moreover, he discovered that his attempts to contact his superiors back on Earth were being thwarted. Some sort of jamming signal set up by the Gfjk-Hhh’s people, that was the theory. Apparently the dictator was convinced that his opponents had been trying to contact a powerful race of aliens (called the FerZing, or something) in an attempt to enlist their aid in overthrowing him, and so he’d sabotaged all extra-planetary communications.

Without new orders, and without any way of requesting new orders, Colonel Hardison acted like the good officer he was, and stayed put. And got better at playing Kkh-St’grrss and drinking d’kff from hollowed-out gnth-sh’gst horns.

As it happened, subtle differences in body chemistry between humans and Fnrrns meant that while the d’kff had a highly intoxicating effect on the G’grk, Colonel Hardison found that he could knock it back and feel none the worse for wear until the fourth or fifth hornful. He hadn’t shared this with his hosts; he suspected that a reputation as someone who could hold his d’kff was probably worth having.

One end of the long hall was dominated by a huge stone hearth, in which blazed a great open fire. Above this was set a blackened metal grate, onto which a large animal carcass was now tossed by a party of happily hissing G’grk. As the smell and sizzle filled the hall, Colonel Hardison recalled an earlier conversation with a G’grk chieftain in which he explained that while there was an Rrth game called ‘polo’ which bore a superficial similarity to Kkh-St’grrss, it differed in a couple of major respects. Firstly, polo was an altogether less egalitarian affair than Kkh-St’grrss, being very much the preserve of wealthy Ymn elites. Secondly, after a polo match, the victorious team did not, as a rule, get to eat the losers’ horses.

A clanging chime was heard throughout the stone hall. With varying degrees of grogginess, the G’grk registered that their party was being interrupted and peered around for the source of the noise.

Two drones, bearing the blue standard of the Grand Marshal, strode through the double doors at the other end of the hall. Behind them came a Drone Major in gleaming armour. The assembled Kkh-St’grrss players and their assorted friends and supporters struggled unsteadily to their feet and saluted.

- The Grand Marshal commands the presence of the Rrth warrior!
barked the Drone Major.

- That’s me, boys,
said Colonel Hardison in heavily accented but grammatically perfect G’grk. He rose from his seat, grunting as he felt that day’s fresh bruises blooming, and marched stiffly out of the hall, behind the Drone Major and flanked by the two standard bearers.

As he went, he heard one of his erstwhile drinking companions call out,
- Ymn! Ymn! Careful you don’t leave bootprints on your own back!
followed by hisses of raucous laughter.

Colonel Hardison walked on. He was learning the G’grk language and mastering G’grk sports. G’grk humour, he suspected, would always be a mystery.

2.18

G
rand Marshal Zst’kh felt his blue blood pumping. At last. At last, something to do.

From birth, he’d been trained by his grandfather, the wise and mighty K’zsht, in the arts of leadership, of strategy, of battle. Preparing him for the day he would grasp the sacred lance of office and take his grandfather’s place.

There had always been a tension between ambition and loyalty within G’grk culture, between the ruthlessness necessary to achieve victory, and the fealty necessary to maintain order. But not for Zst’kh, not as far as his grandfather was concerned. His devotion to the old warrior had been absolute.

When Zst’kh had learned that his father, the Grand Marshal’s eldest son, had grown impatient waiting for his own turn as leader, and had been plotting against K’zsht, he’d had no hesitation in exposing the subterfuge. And when sentence had been passed, Zst’kh had volunteered to carry it out himself.

He remembered that cold morning, on the plains outside T’krr – his father’s pleading voice, the weight of the ks’trg in his hand, the dawning sun glinting off the blade, the hissing cheer of the assembled Drone Lords as the blade fell . . . He had never lost a moment’s sleep over it. His father had been weak, devious, duplicitous. An unworthy successor to the Grand Marshal. He would be better.

Zst’kh had been in Dskt that morning, establishing his prefecture over the city of Bssq-Fmm, when the order had arrived to withdraw back to the Central Plains. His grandfather’s order. He had been confused, surprised, he might even have experienced a moment’s doubt, but he had not hesitated. He marshalled his drones and the retreat began. Doubtless he would hear his grandfather’s explanation in due course.

The explanation had not pleased him.

The war had been neither won nor lost, but abandoned. His grandfather had ordered the withdrawal and then, also, announced his intention to retire. Alive.

He’d even decreed clemency for his deputy, Sk’shk, even though he’d tried to kill the Grand Marshal with his own sacred lance. G’grk justice demanded Sk’shk’s head, but this was not to be. Another punishment would have to be found for him. Meanwhile, the lance itself, the eras-old emblem of office, broken. Unthinkable.

Zst’kh was inaugurated Grand Marshal in a subdued ceremony in the First Temple of the Occluded Ones in T’krr. He had been the first Grand Marshal NOT to be handed the sacred lance at the end of the ceremony. Once broken, its symbolic power was destroyed for ever, and to forge a replacement would have been a pointless sham. Even now, Zst’kh would sometimes catch himself flexing the fingers of his right hand; it felt curiously empty, sorely lacking a thing it had never held. It was not how he’d anticipated coming to power, nor, he now pondered, was this the sort of power he’d hoped to come to.

That’s not to say that he wasn’t in a position of considerable authority. In many respects, as commander-in-chief of extra-planetary defences for the whole planet Fnrr (as per the terms of the peace treaty) he found himself with a more onerous responsibility than any previous Grand Marshal. But it wasn’t the same – he’d been trained to lead armies, command divisions, draw up invasion strategies, not read reports of diplomatic conferences or peruse star-charts. It did not get his blue blood pumping.

Until today.

- Again, St’nn-brkh, and slower this time.

Professor Steinberg did not attempt to correct Zst’kh’s pronunciation of his name. He’d got used to it, and besides, his own command of the G’grk tongue left a great deal to be desired.

This command centre, the station from which the G’grk monitored extra-planetary activity, had been built under his direction and largely to his design (albeit with the inclusion of some exciting Fnrrn technology); it had almost begun to feel like home, but every now and again Professor Steinberg remembered just how far away from home he was. He took a deep breath, racked his brain for G’grk words and grammar, and spoke.

- Is big maybe badness but is not tell now. Too long away. Not see goodness still.

- The cube, St’nn-brkh, the cube! Or we’ll be here all cycle.

Professor Steinberg muttered an apology, reached into his pocket and switched on the translation cube. Now was not the time to practise his G’grk.

- It’s a possible threat, but it’s too far away to tell. It doesn’t respond to any signals, and it hardly even shows up on the long-range scans at all. But it’s—

- Yes, yes, St’nn-brkh, but it is definitely . . . what is the word, inbound?

Professor Steinberg nodded.
- It’s on an inbound trajectory, yes. It will pass through Fnrr’s orbital path in just over three days – um, I mean rotations.

Zst’kh smiled. A threat from space. Definitely his jurisdiction. And since all communication with the other nations of Fnrr was being blocked (apparently the work of that clownish amateur tyrant who had overthrown the weakling government of Mlml), his
SOLE
jurisdiction. Excellent.

The door of the command centre opened and the Rrth warrior entered. He saluted the Grand Marshal in the Rrth manner, touching his fingers to his brow (a curious custom, thought Zst’kh) and went to speak with his fellow Ymn.

‘What do we have, Prof ?’

‘Man, am I glad to see you, James – look at this.’ Professor Steinberg touched a panel and a holographic star-chart appeared in front of him.

‘Here,’ said Professor Steinberg, pointing at what, to Colonel Hardison, seemed to be blank space.

‘What?’

‘Exactly. It hardly shows up on the scan at all. If it hadn’t created a gravity ripple as it passed through that asteroid field I probably wouldn’t have spotted it.’

Colonel Hardison peered at the chart. ‘Comet?’ he asked. Professor Steinberg shook his head.

‘Would be much more visible. And if it’s an asteroid I haven’t seen anything like it. And there’s something else.’ Steinberg touched another couple of controls and a thin line appeared, tracing through the chart.

‘Look at this, James – it’s not drifting. It looks like it is, but it isn’t. This kind of course correction doesn’t come about just from moving between gravitational fields, it’s being steered towards us.’

Colonel Hardison, brows knitted, stood deep in thought for a moment. ‘So what do we do?’

Professor Steinberg shrugged. ‘Keep watching it. If it changed course once, it could do it again.’

Hardison gave a sideways nod towards Zst’kh. ‘And what will
HE
do?’

Steinberg gave a heavy sigh. ‘That, my friend, is a whole ’nother question. I yield to your superior experience of the workings of the military mind.’

Hardison smiled grimly. ‘The
HUMAN
military mind,’ he said quietly. ‘I wouldn’t even begin to guess what’s going on inside that big grey skull.’ He stretched, shook his head and flexed his limbs. Good thing he’d only had the one d’kff, he thought. ‘Looks like it’s gonna be a long night, anyway. I need to get cleaned up. I’ll be back in an hour.’

Professor Steinberg watched Hardison walk stiffly towards the door. ‘You’ve been playing that stupid game again, haven’t you?’ he said in an admonishing tone.

Hardison turned and smiled. ‘Cultural immersion, Prof. It’s all part of the mission.’ He strode out.

Professor Steinberg shook his head. Some guys, you could take them out of high school, but you could never quite take high school out of them . . .

* * *

Colonel Hardison’s quarters in the command centre barracks were a great deal more comfortable than when he’d moved in, and they were still pretty sparse and spartan.

Thankfully he’d been tipped off as to the G’grk’s preference for sleeping on hard metal surfaces; the Bradbury girl had mentioned it when she recounted the story of how she’d discovered – and ultimately averted – the G’grk invasion of her homeland. Remarkable young lady, thought Colonel Hardison; he wondered how she was doing back on Earth. So he’d known to bring his own bedding from his previous lodgings on Mlml. (Although that hadn’t exactly been easy to come by in the first place, on an island where everyone slept in zero-gravity wells. He’d tried that just once. Never again.)

Apart from that, he had few personal effects (years in the Air Force had taught him the art of travelling light); spare uniform, dress uniform (even the G’grk had to acknowledge that he looked pretty damn sharp in that), and a few photos of his parents, and of Sarah, probably the most patient and understanding fiancée in the
ENTIRE
galaxy.

The one item of Earth gadgetry to be seen in his room was an old field radio, and even that had been augmented with Fnrrn technology. The young student whose name he really
COULDN’T
pronounce (Pgtf ? Pkkt?) had been a frequent visitor – a
VERY
frequent visitor – during his stay on Mlml, bombarding him with questions about his own career and the history of the Air Force, and Earth military history in general. He’d spotted the radio in Hardison’s quarters and been so fascinated by its simplicity and elegance that Hardison had offered to let him borrow it, saying that he should feel free to take it apart and have a good poke around inside. Hardison had figured that, if nothing else, this should keep the kid out of his hair for a while.

After about two weeks (or phases, as the Fnrrns called them) the kid had returned the radio, announcing happily that he’d stripped it down, figured out the circuitry and built one of his own. He added that since he couldn’t help but notice that the radio’s battery had long since gone flat, and since alkaline nine-volts were in short supply on Fnrr, he’d taken the liberty of installing a mini-fusion cell, so that now the radio would work, well, for ever. Impressed, and charmed, Hardison had taken the kid’s bet, and left the radio permanently switched on.

So far the fusion cell had lasted nearly two Earth years, and showed no signs of failing. Hardison noticed the radio’s little red light glowing away as he examined his new bruises in the mirror (another thing he’d had to import; the G’grk military regarded mirrors as effete and vain, which occasionally led to the bizarre – and, Hardison thought, oddly touching – sight of armoured G’grk warriors applying each other’s war paint).

Hardison was just frowning at a livid purple blemish running the whole length of his upper arm, and reflecting that
that
was going to hurt in the morning, when he heard a sound he hadn’t ever expected to hear again. Not on this planet, anyway.

A human voice. A female human voice.

In the same moment he worked out where it was coming from, he also figured out where he’d heard it before.

He picked up the radio, and the words came again.

‘Major Hardison? Are you there, Major Hardison?’

He smiled and pressed the talk button.

‘It’s
COLONEL
Hardison now, and it’s good to hear from you again, Miss Bradbury.’

* * *

Terra had not been particularly surprised to discover that Pktk had built his own Rrth-style radio. He and Fthfth had, after all, managed to create a telepathic transmitter using an old interface, a signal booster and a gene-scanner; he’d tuned it in on Terra’s genetic profile using skin cells they’d found stuck to the end of Fthfth’s gshkth gfrg – Fthfth had been desperately sorry about accidentally thwacking Terra with it all those orbits ago, but now she was very glad she had, and even
MORE
glad that she’d insisted, over the protests of her companions, on bringing her gfrg with her into exile. (
- They play gshkth in Dskt,
she’d pointed out,
and
I might not have anything to do over there.
)

Pktk had brought the radio with him from Mlml when it became apparent that the Gfjk-Hhh was jamming all extra-planetary transmissions; he’d figured (correctly) that no one would think of blocking an old Rrth-type analogue radio signal.

But for all the ingenuity that had made this conversation possible, the conversation itself was not going as Terra had hoped.

‘The young Grand Marshal isn’t going to start a war with Mlml, not after the promise he made to his grandpa,’ said Colonel Hardison. ‘The old guy made him swear not to pre-emptively attack any nation.’

‘But he wouldn’t be attacking Mlml, he’d be attacking the Gfjk!’ protested Terra.

‘Hey, I get the difference, Miss Bradbury, but it’s not a distinction the Grand Marshal is going to make. He’s not about to take it upon himself to invade Mlml just because it would make
SOME
of the population happy.’

‘So what do we do?’ Terra said quietly. She was aware of all the expectant eyes upon her in the committee room. Pktk was fiddling with his radio to keep the signal strong, Fthfth was making herself useful (and keeping herself busy) handing out bowls of zff to Preceptor Shm and ArchRector Qss-Jff. But everyone was listening keenly.

‘Listen, Zst’kh isn’t particularly thrilled about the Gfjk – he’d prefer to have a happy democratic Mlml than a potential rival warlord rising just off the coast. And the whole reincarnation thing is making him kind of twitchy as well – his belief in the Occluded Ones is pretty strong. The idea that the Gfjk has come to power on the back of an ancient prophecy is basically blasphemous as far as he’s concerned . . .’

- Nothing worse than having your own ancient prophecy upstaged by somebody else’s,
muttered Pktk.

‘. . . but I’m afraid you won’t get Zst’kh to attack your Gfjk- . . . whatever he calls himself, unless the Gfjk attacks
HIM
,’ said Colonel Hardison, before asking, ‘Just how crazy is this guy?’

Terra looked around the room. ‘Probably not crazy enough,’ she concluded.

Billy, meanwhile, was quite glad to be listening to a conversation in English. He still had his doubts about the translation cube. Pondering how it did what it did made the inside of his skull itchy. The cube itself now sat on the long meeting table, next to the radio, translating Terra and Hardison’s words for the Fnrrn listeners.