The Ninth Orb (8 page)

“Who have a standing army at least twice the size of ours! If they were a completely peaceful people, they wouldn’t have an army! For all we know the group they banished here is a prison full of miscreants!

“In any case, I’m head of the army and security. The decision should be a military one, based on logic and threat assessment, not emotions!”

“I am the designated head of this colony!” Eden shot back at her. “You answer to me and the council. And I can tell you right now the council would never agree with what you’re planning, certainly not before we’ve had time to fully evaluate the situation.”

Ivy stalked toward the door. “Then call a meeting. We can discuss this in council and see where the others stand,” she said grimly.

* * * *

Eden would have far preferred more time to compose herself and wrap her mind around the things that she’d seen and heard before she spoke before the council, but it was obvious this was not something that could be delayed.

To a degree, she could understand and agree with Ivy’s stance. They still didn’t really know what they were dealing with. The aliens could prove to be a threat, if not immediately, then at some point in the future, but they could not consider such a measure as Ivy was suggesting just on the chance that they might pose a threat.

Fury went through her, however, directed completely at Ivy when she arrived at the meeting and discovered that Ivy had been ‘campaigning’ outside chambers while the members were gathering. Before the meeting was even called, the other council members were arguing among themselves.

It took Eden almost twenty minutes to establish even a semblance of order. When the sector leaders had quieted sufficiently for a discussion, Eden related her experience and the observations she’d made prior to that. The message stunned the council members as much as it had her.

“It must have been a malfunction of the translator!” Stacy Sessions exclaimed. “Or the computer just hadn’t assimilated sufficient data to properly translate.”

Eden shrugged. “I thought so, too. I am completely certain that the computer hasn’t had nearly enough input yet to clarify everything that is said, but I’m also reasonably certain that Sademeen meant what I thought she did. She was clearly anxious to make amends for encroaching and just as obviously petitioning for the sake of the kzatha.”

“You didn’t find that suspicious, at all?” Ivy demanded.

Eden gave her a look. “I know there is a lot we don’t understand about these aliens, and I also know that I pointed out that we couldn’t judge them by ourselves, but I was speaking to her face to face. I could see her eyes and her expressions. She seemed completely sincere.” She turned to Liz. “What do you make of all this?”

Liz looked almost as stunned as the others. She collected herself with an effort. “Frankly, I don’t even like the idea of taking a wild guess at this point, not when Major Sterling is advocating war with the natives.”

“They aren’t natives,” Ivy pointed out tightly.

“They’re a hell of a lot closer than we are,” Deborah Pugh snapped. “I can’t believe you would even consider such a …. An unconscionable act of aggression!”

“Remind me of that when they’re trying to blow your ass away!”

“Order!” Eden growled, slamming her gavel into the table until everyone finally fell silent. “We’re going to have to find a middle ground! Ivy’s at least partially right. For our own safety, we can’t afford to just welcome them with open arms. We have to keep our guard up and we need to learn as much about them as possible, as quickly as we can so that we can make an informed decision one way or the other.” She turned to Liz again. “I’d still like for you to take a stab at assessing the situation, Liz. Is it too dangerous, to your mind, to even consider fostering relations with them?”

“I don’t like this,” Liz said crossly. “I need the chance to gather data and observe them myself to make any sort of recommendation.”

“We’re liable to have mutiny on our hands if … when the other colonists learn about this if we refuse to even consider Sademeen’s offer,” Brenda Coleman, chief of agriculture put in.

“Oh! Well forgive me all to hell and gone for pointing out the possibility of waking up with your throats cut!” Ivy growled, surging to her feet abruptly. “Let’s just all stroll over there and pick ourselves a harem and live happily ever after! Christ almighty! Do you just have to get a whiff of something swinging a dick to lose all sense?”

“There’s no need to be insulting! We’re not dismissing your concerns, Major Sterling,” Brenda said heatedly. “As it happens, I’d rather err on the side of caution myself--although I completely disagree with the suggestion that we just ‘kill them all and let god sort them out’ mentality! Surely to god we can come up with something somewhere in the middle?”

“Liz,” Eden said commandingly. “Just tell us if you feel--intuitively, in your gut, based on the little you’ve seen--whatever--that it would be safe enough to at least proceed with studies?”

Liz’s jaw dropped. She blinked rapidly several times. “Well--I assumed we would. This is an opportunity of a lifetime, studying a culture and species entirely different from our own! We have to do that much!” Assuming a pose of ‘the thinker’, she propped an elbow on the table top, stroking her full lower lip thoughtfully. “This is just a wild stab at this situation, and who knows how accurate it could be considering I have to draw from knowledge of the past of the human race, not theirs, but, assuming we can safely make a correlation here, this actually sounds like a number of Earth societies in their early development.”

“This is your field, not mine,” Colleen Dryer put in. “But I’m kind of a history buff anyway--and I don’t recall ever running across anything even close.”

“Because it’s reversed,” Liz said, sounding more certain of herself now. “Early in man’s history, when they were predominantly an agrigarian society and before they had developed machines to help them, there were cultures where men took many wives to insure their wealth. Having many wives meant many children, who were mainly produced to do the labor needed to survive, and, hopefully, become wealthy. The more wives and children they had, the wealthier they were because they had the labor they needed to produce more and not only have what they needed to feed themselves, but more than they needed so that they could trade for valuable commodities--their offspring were assets in trade, as well. They could sell off their daughters to other men, who paid in herd animals or whatever else they wanted or needed. If they were predisposed to produce way more males than females, then the females would, by their rarity, be far more important since they couldn’t have children without them. It sounds very plausible to me, given what we have learned, that the females became the central focus here, taking many males probably partly because the males would have no mate otherwise, producing more males than females and compounding their tendency with each generation. But their ability to have multiple births ensured that they would have all the labor they needed to make the pazaan strong and wealthy. They may even bear the offspring of more than one male at the time, becoming impregnated by four or five different males within their pazaan each time they mate.

“I couldn’t begin to guess why they held on to these old customs even when they became advanced enough to make it unnecessary, but then again I could sight other cultures on Earth that clung determinedly to old customs long past their practical use.

“And as cold as her attitude seemed, the males, apparently, are in greater supply than needed, and thus less valuable--but still a trade item. If you look at it that way, this Sademeen was simply trying to pay for peace with ‘goods’ she didn’t mind trading off--they’re nothing to her because she has way more than she knows what to do with, but she figured they’d be valuable to us because we don’t have any.”

Eden thanked her and stood and began pacing. “I haven’t had a great deal of time to think this through myself, but I have a suggestion.”

She saw when she turned to look at the council members that she had their full attention.

“We had already agreed that we would have a thanksgiving celebration and invite a representative group to join us. I think we should proceed with that plan. We bring over a small group, observe them at close range, see how they interact with the colonists and then go from there.

“They can’t pose too much of a threat if it’s only a small group. Granted, there could be some danger in it, but it would be minimized and it would appease the curiosity of the colonists--for now, anyway.”

Ivy didn’t look the least bit pleased with the suggestion but the other council members immediately agreed that it would be a good place to start. When the others had filed out to make the announcement to their sects, Eden waited to hear Ivy’s objections.

“On the surface, I agree that that sounds fairly safe, but you do realize that you’d be giving the enemy the opportunity to study us, not just the other way around? Plus, they would have the chance to study our defenses.”

“I may not have a military background like you do, Ivy, but I’m not a complete idiot. It occurred to me. Your job will be to place guards at all key positions to make certain they don’t get the chance to study, or sabotage, and also to have ‘off duty’ militia in the group to keep an eye on things. I’m counting on discretion, though. We’re not going to get what we’re looking for here if they know they’re being watched.”

Chapter Seven

Both Liz and Ivy accompanied Eden when she returned to the alien compound. Their shuttle had barely settled to the ground when the gate opened. Even as Eden walked down the gangplank, she saw Baen striding purposefully through the gates.

A mixture of emotions pelted her at once. Foremost among them was appreciation, for she felt like she could allow herself that much and, alien or not, she couldn’t help but think he was very attractive--strong, well-built, his facial features very pleasing to the eye. She found his quiet manner and the intelligence in his eyes appealing, as well. And, truth be told, she couldn’t help but find his bashfulness rather endearing.

An unaccustomed uncertainty fell over her as Ivy and Liz joined her. She’d been wrestling with her own private fears all the way out and hadn’t formulated a speech. Now she felt that that had been an error on her part. She had no wish to insult them, or wound them.

She didn’t care what Ivy thought. She had felt that Sademeen’s comments had wounded Baen. She didn’t believe that she was wrong and she certainly had no wish to injure his sensibilities further.

Smiling a little nervously, she decided to feel her way carefully. “Mother queen, Sademeen was most gracious,” she said a little hesitantly.

Something flickered in Baen’s eyes. He averted them. His demeanor was as stiffly correct as ever, but she had the sense that he felt the comment was a prelude to a dismissal. “Our customs differ greatly from those of the Xtanians,” she added quickly. “And we are not certain that we, or you, would be comfortable with what she proposed.”

Baen sent her a confused glance. “The choice is yours,” he said finally.

Eden reddened, exchanging a glance with Liz.

“What she means to say is that we feel we can not make a judgment without coming to know one another better,” Liz added helpfully.

Baen frowned and returned his attention to Eden.

“In order for our two peoples to begin to know and understand one another better, we wished to invite a small group from the kzatha to join us in celebration of--uh--our new friendship,” she added and then stopped again when she realized that a problem of understanding ‘when’ might arise. They were still using Earth time. New Georgia’s calendar would of necessity be different, though, and Xtania’s different from that. “When the darkness has passed ten times more.”

“How many will you choose?”

Eden blinked, exchanged glances with Ivy and Liz and finally looked at him a little helplessly. “One moment,” she said, turning to Liz and Ivy.

“Fifty,” Liz said promptly when Eden looked at her questioningly.

“A dozen,” Ivy said at almost the same moment.

Eden held up her hands and turned to face Baen again. “Thirty.”

Nodding, Baen turned on his heel and strode back into the fortress. A few moments passed and Eden was beginning to think that that had ended the interview when she heard the tramping of feet, many feet.

When the fortress began to disgorge a virtual stampede of Xtanians, Eden, Liz and Ivy exchanged a look of pure horror. Fortunately, even Ivy was too stunned to manage much more than a gape. For, despite the overwhelming tide of seven foot males, they were very orderly as they formed up with military precision outside the walls.

Eden’s color returned with a vengeance as she looked up and down the rows of Xtanian males.

“We’re supposed to choose?” Liz gasped, obviously as horrified at the prospect as Eden was.

“Apparently,” Eden muttered, wishing she hadn’t thought up the ‘plan’ at all, wishing she’d sent someone in her place, wishing she was anywhere except where she was.

“I feel a little faint.”

Eden sent Liz a narrow eyed glare. “Don’t you dare!”

“I’ll pick,” Ivy said decisively.

Before Eden could say ‘yeah or nay’ Ivy strode boldly toward the first male in the front row and looked him over as if she was considering buying. Liz and Eden exchanged a glance.

“I’m not letting her do all the picking,” Liz growled. “She’ll pick all the runtiest ones that are the least appealing, mark my word!”

Eden and Liz joined Ivy. “You’ll choose ten,” Eden said militantly.

Ivy studied her a long moment and finally shrugged. “No soldiers.”

Eden’s jaw dropped, her gaze darting from Ivy to Baen, whom she discovered had followed them and could not have failed to have overheard the remark. It was on the tip of her tongue to contradict the order, but she realized almost at once that her desire to do so was far more than an impulse to establish her position. Maybe she was more interested in Baen than she ought to be? Perhaps her interest was clouding her judgment? Finally, she merely nodded.