The Huntsman (29 page)

Janesh
shook with the savagery of the moment. It boiled upward from the Earth and
through his lungs. His roar shattered the stillness, carried across the forest.
When the last echoes died away nothing answered the challenge.

Running
feet rushed toward the site. Miranda reached him first, visible relief slumping
her shoulders. The seven stood around the alien remains, staring at the macabre
sight. The first extraterrestrial to reach Earth had not survived the
encounter. Duncan sniffed everything with Ronan eliciting a stern “no” when he
tried eating what everyone took for an organ.

 “Is
it dead?” Dimitrov asked. Miranda kicked it.

“I
think so.”

“Perhaps
we should bury it.” Ariel suggested. Clara shook her head.

“I’m
not touching it.” No one moved, each lost in their thoughts, unsure their
terror had ended. Narsimha broke the silence.

“Praise
Vishnu it did not have ray guns.”

*
* *

No one wanted to sleep. They sat around a fire grateful for the
ginger tea that warmed their insides and hinted at the coming exhaustion.
Dimitrov raised his cup. “I think I can speak for the group when I say thank
you, Janesh.” You are a brave and selfless man.” Janesh raised his cup.

“I salute the six of you. I cannot describe the pure joy your
bravery caused me when I saw that creature’s head steaming. Whose idea was it?”
Everyone pointed to the unlikeliest. Clara reddened.

“But it was Miranda who threw it and she did not miss.”

“Without Narsimha it would not have worked. He did something to
increase the heat output.” Narsimha turned to the physicists.

“Ariel and Dimitrov bravely kept watch while I worked under a torn
section. Janesh smiled, shook his head, and rose. “I feel honored and humbled
to be part of such a group.” Everyone else rose and spontaneously, quietly
began to hug one another. The needed act placed a coda on their shared and
horrific experience.

Reseated, movement came to a halt, as if they had become a living
photograph. Except for their eyes, the seven sat frozen in place and in
differing poses. Janesh felt no pain, no discomfort, no fear. The experience
more resembled the deliciousness of awakening to an alarm-free morning.

Into their midst a metallic sphere floated stopping over the fire.
Rising heat caused surface reflections to warp as they shimmered. Just outside
their circle the air bubbled. Four, two-foot tall, blue-feathered bipeds popped
out one after the other. Straps crisscrossed their torsos anchoring gossamer
sleeves and leggings shaded a lighter blue. Thin bands closed the leggings
around their ankles from which leather like flaps hung to cover the tops of
their taloned feet.

Like vertical eyebrows, long, thin feathers sprang up above round,
owlish eyes that shifted from slow, deliberate blinks to short, quick ones.
Stubby canary-yellow beaks completed the facial features as no obvious ears
protruded from the rounded heads. Black, leathery arms had a line of blue
vestigial feathers running the outer length ending in delicate, three-fingered
hands with opposable thumbs. Their strides more resembled those of hominids
than head-bobbing birds.

They dispersed among the group, slowly examining them in great
detail. The sphere glowed orange and began transmitting the clicks, clacks,
whistles, and trills the four emitted. After a moment Janesh could hear their interchange
in English although he remained unsure if through his ears or directly in his
mind.

“Remarkable. The same basic structure found throughout the galaxy
but a unique variation.”

“Seer, confirm internal imaging for each subject.”

“Individual imaging confirmed.”

“I cannot imagine how the internal biology will compare.”

“Seer, are their body and foot coverings interfering with
imaging?”

“No, Examiner.”

“This one has minimal coverings.” The other three gathered around
Janesh. They stared at his feet.

“Fascinating. It will be interesting to learn what advantage five
appendages might confer.
B
io-engineering will be most interested.”
Another peered under his loin cloth.

“Pending data analysis, my preliminary guess is common sexual
reproduction.”

“Any conjecture which ones are female?”

“Impossible to tell at this point.”

“Seer, are you sampling breath exhalations?”

“Yes, Examiner.” Two stood before Miranda. One patted her breast,
then squeezed. He moved it from side to side, up and down.

“I have seen these features before.”

“With the Mlaxuns, but much lower down.”

“Yes, that is correct. Did they too use protective coverings?”

“They are an obscure race. I cannot remember.”

They moved to Ariel. The same one patted his chest, squeezed and
tried to manipulate it. “Much less pronounced and no covering. Seer, annotate
differences for priority study.”

Two others pulled and prodded Dimitrov’s lips before moving on to
Narsimha. They bent, rotated, and twisted his limbs and torso, including neck
and head. “They are certainly within mechanical parameters common to the
galaxy. Fascinating how again and again the outer systems’ biology are just
variations of the inner core.”

“Imaging and collection processes completed.” the Seer announced.
The four gathered by the fire and took a last visual survey of the group.

“An incredible, incredible find. And to think in our own sector.”
They marched out the circle and one by one winked out.

A second sphere floated in from the clearing to hover alongside
the first. With no sense for time’s passage one minute might have elapsed or
one hour. The air bubbled and out popped a solitary figure. It also stood at
two feet but with green, narrower feathers. It dressed like the others with
differences in detail. The horizontal and vertical straps crisscrossing its
body had small, evenly spaced diamonds studding their lengths. Billowy, more
ethereal, the attached white gossamer sleeves and leggings wafted cloudlike
with every move. Gold-colored flaps covering its taloned feet shined and
sparkled with every step. Vestigial flight feathers also streaked its arms but
their iridescence twinkled and flashed in the firelight.

The same owlish eyes peered from its head but larger, more opaque
and a more sedate blink. No feathers ridged its brow but thin vertical ones
alongside its head gave the appearance of ears. Its black beak terminated with
a pronounced hook hinting at a meatier diet. All in all, a regal, resplendent
individual.

It stopped, looking up at the spheres. The first glowed orange.
Without warning, sight and sound filled Janesh’s mind. Scene after scene showed
beings of every stripe, size, and color exploding, melting, burning,
disintegrating. Thousands upon thousands fled before hordes that sprang on
their back tearing away flesh and bone. Entire family groups, eaten alive.
Horrific pictures showed endless lines of females and their young, frightened,
cowed, crying, marched into wormholes under guard, disappearing to places
unknown.

Fantastical, alien cities sprang into view, vibrant, bustling, living.
Black, green, yellow clouds descended, death and devastation their aftermath.
Scene after scene displayed cities in ruin, abandoned and windswept. Where
nothing moved
—
or lived.

Beams descended from skies to scorch and incinerate stupendous,
awe-inspiring vistas. Entire landscapes rumbled then exploded blasting away
huge chunks that heralded a planet’s disintegration. And all the while the
screams and cries of the dying filled his ears. The weeping and sobbing of
those soon to be echoed and re-echoed. Without warning it stopped.

A voice filled his mind, soft, gentle, refined, sexless. “I am
Heeklu, Lord Counselor to Ssah of the High Council, Grand Dominant of the
Unwinged, Ruler of Sorke. He sends blessings that you and your nestlings may
share his grace and know wisdom and prudence.” Janesh glanced at Miranda then
the others. They too heard the voice.

It walked around the group pausing at each to examine though it
touched nothing. After studying the other six it stood before Janesh. “You
are…” for some moments it remained still. The sphere glowed orange. “the
Mahān Śikārī, Slayer of Kreetor, Warrior Priestess to the
High Council,
Grand
Dominant of the Winged.
” Its arms rose, flapped once,
twice.

“The scenes you have witnessed are not the nightmares of this
galaxy, they are its reality. Nine thousand years ago we escaped that truth and
fled to this undeveloped, uninhabited, resource poor, hinterland. We do not
have much but we have peace.

Not long ago electro-magnetic beams signaled seventeen separate gate
openings from your world to others. We were unaware of your existence but the
beams unmasked your presence. Imagine our shock. But more shocks followed.

By the standards of galactic civilizations, you are primitive
beyond description. And yet you possess a technology that is the hallmark of
advanced societies. Further, as a biosphere, you evolved a characteristic never
recorded in the galaxy’s natural history. Of your entire planet’s indigenous
species, only one evolved intelligence
—yours
.

The dividing line in sentient emergence is three. The most
powerful, the most warlike, the most expansionist, the most territorial worlds
in the galaxy all evolved two or three intelligent life forms. We shudder to
imagine the bloodlust that dwells within one. Those that evolved four or more
are less so. Why?

On a planet with many intelligent species the possibility exists
three may ally to eliminate the fourth. In order to avoid this fate, all four
species learn to cooperate. When a planet evolves three intelligences, any one
species may see itself as capable of defeating the other two. Two allying
themselves against a third is seen as itself a provocation to war.
Consequently, all three fall into lethal arms races. Across the eons entire
civilizations, worlds, and systems have risen and fallen based on this formula.

The primary exceptions have been planets that evolved plant
intelligences. Their inherent immobility precludes technological development.
Where plants have achieved mobility, the three species rule applies.

Now the galaxy contains a one-intelligence world. Without other
species to drive your competition for resources and technology, you have
resorted to killing one another with devastating savagery and persistence. So
ingrained is this lust that for the past 3,500 years of your history, only 300
have been without war. You are a race of mighty warriors. One day you will lead
the galaxy’s poorest sector and cut a swath across the stars that will cause
worlds to tremble at your advance. But not yet.

If you allow the gate to be opened, others will see the signature
and come to investigate. You will have no chance against their power. Most of
your world will be eradicated and the rest enslaved. As your own history, a
microcosm of the galaxy, can attest. The danger of discovery is so great, that
you endanger sacred Sorke itself.

The Grand Dominant of the Unwinged will open gates to the bedrooms
of your leaders and decapitate your political and military structures.
Leaderless, your armies will be defeated piecemeal and the populations
extinguished. You will be offered no opportunity to yield, no opportunity to
surrender. But the Most High Dominant does not desire this outcome.”

The second sphere floated to stop before Janesh. “By Trial of
Combat you have earned the right to this Seer. Take it as a symbol of our
worlds’ friendship. Let it abide our peace while your world advances. Destroy your
premature device. When you can defend your planet, let us ignite our gates and
together sally forth as allies against the darkness that enslaves entire
worlds. What say you, Mahān Śikārī? You may speak, before
the Lord Counselor.”

“If we would be allies it should be based on trust. Releasing our
restraints would greatly enhance it.” The Lord Counselor stood in silence. A
slow blink closed then opened its eyes.

“I will overlook the rudeness of your insult as the ignorance of a
primitive. I would never base the survival of my planet or my people on trust.
I certainly will not use it for my own. I have crafted this proposal because it
is in your interest to accept as it is in mine to offer it. Trust plays no role
and is a dangerous diversion in a galaxy that has none. Confine yourself to the
matter at hand and not with distractions. If you wish your species to survive,
rid yourself of this foolishness.”

“Then as the Grand Dominant has availed himself of an astute and
perceptive Counselor permit me to consult my own.”

“It is done. Speak with confidence. The Seer will not provide me
translation.”

Everyone rushed into cacophony, stopped, then deferred to Gary.
“What if this Seer is a convenient spy reporting back all it learns?

“We should assume that it does. Better than if it leaves behind
Seers we don’t know about.” replied Janesh.

“What if it does not hold up its end of the bargain?” Dimitrov
asked.