Trident's Forge (9 page)

Benson turned his head as far as he could without breaking eye contact with the alien and yelled at the group. “Will you all kindly shut up? No sudden moves. There's more of them out here.”

The voice came through the link Atwood had set up for her security detail. Atwood shouldered her own weapon as a dozen more Atlantians emerged from the crops on the other side of the road.

“Well,” Benson looked over at Valmassoi. “They've
greeted
us. Now what?”

“
O
K
.” Benson forced calm into his voice. “Everyone just take it nice and easy.”

“Tell that to the people pointing spears at us,” Valmassoi said.

“I'd be delighted to if I had the first idea how.”

“You
would
know if you'd turn your damned translator on.”

If Benson's hands hadn't been busy being held at arm's length looking nonthreatening, he would have slapped himself on the forehead. In the heat of the moment, he'd forgotten to activate the translation matrix that had been uploaded to his plant as part of the expedition preparations. He dug through his plant's internal menu tabs and flipped it on, then paused.

“Wait. Why am I talking to them? You said you should be the one to talk.”

Valmassoi gave him an incredulous glare. “Are you serious?”

“I'm just the director of recreation and athletic preparedness, remember?”

“Is it really the time for this?” Atwood asked.

“I'm just trying to follow my orders,” Benson said.

“I've never had to talk with a weapon pointed at me before. You have.”

“Aw, you haven't lived,” Benson said. “Last time it happened to me, it was a nuke.”

“I
am
living,” Valmassoi squeaked, “And I'd like to keep on living. So if you wouldn't mind, Mr Benson?”

The Atlantian holding the spear to Benson's navel barked something at him with a deep, wet voice. The matrix in his plant lagged for a moment while it digested the sounds. Then, in a calm, monotone female voice utterly divorced from the reality of the two meter-tall, spear-wielding alien shouting in Benson's face, the matrix said “Submit to/Follow us.”

“Well that's not very helpful, is it?”

“Keep him talking,” Atwood said. “Give the matrix more to work with.”

Benson nodded and thought, Hello, my name is Bryan. A moment later, the matrix spoke the translation in his head as a best-approximation phonetic spelling of the words floated on the left side of his field of vision.

“Ah… Kulay. Bryan, see coe.”

The alien's smooth skin rippled with rapidly shifting contrasting bands of light and dark. Its face also changed, going darker, while the frilly layers of crests on the top of its head rose. Benson didn't need a translator to tell him it was a threat display. The Atlantian repeated its order, more loudly, and punctuated the order by poking Benson in the stomach hard enough to rip a small hole through his shirt and break the skin beneath.

“Hey!” Benson shouted back at him.

came Korolev's voice through the security detail's com. Benson glanced over to see Korolev tighten his grip on his rifle.

Benson thought.

Atwood's commanding voice burst in.

Bang!

The spear shaft in the alien warrior's hands exploded as the five point seven millimeter bullet from Korolev's rifle struck it at over a thousand meters per second. The wood was reduced to an expanding cloud of splinters as the outer layers of the bullet casing peeled off and dumped the majority of its kinetic energy. The Atlantian shouted something short and loud even before the obsidian spearhead had hit the road at Benson's feet.

“Excrement,” said the calm, feminine voice of the translator matrix, missing some important context. Benson didn't need to speak a language to recognize a curse word when he heard one.

The alien's strange, wavy pupils grew until they nearly filled their oval eyes, while its skin, so dark just a moment before, went white as a sheet.

Korolev yelled something off to Benson's left. His translator quickly added, “Drop it.” Much to Benson's surprise, the warrior in front of him glanced down at its decapitated spear and threw it at the ground.

“Now the rest of you,” Korolev shouted. The apparent leader of the warriors stood tall and defiant, but fluttered its head crests. All around him, Benson heard the immensely satisfying sound of spears clattering on the road.

“Excellent.” Benson probed the small tear in the front of his shirt with a finger, then put on his best smile. “Now then, let's try this again. Kulay. Bryan see coe.”

The alien's eyes darted around the scene, still struggling to understand what had just happened. “Kuul see coe,” it said in a more muted, cautious tone. “My name is Kuul.”

“Nice to meet you, Kuul. Take me to your leader.”

“
S
eriously
,” Valmassoi whispered to Benson as they waited outside the village's gates. “‘Take me to your leader?'”

“Isn't that what you're supposed to say?”

“No, that's what the aliens say in tacky scifi movies.”

“We
are
the aliens here. I've been waiting to say that my whole life.”

“Well I'm glad we could make a little boy's dream come true. Speaking of boys, what do you suppose I should do about Korolev?”

“Give him a medal?”

“That's not exactly what I had in mind. Sergeant Atwood is livid and wants to send him packing for the shuttle.”

“But?” Benson could hear the word coming.

“But, I asked her to hold off until I talked to you.”

“I thank you for that, but I don't see as Pavel did anything wrong.”

“He disobeyed her stand-down order and fired on the people we're supposed to be introducing ourselves to.”

“Well, technically, she hadn't finished giving the order yet when he fired.”

“That's an awfully fine hair to split.”

“I keep my razor sharp. Besides, he didn't strike first.” Benson pointed to the small rip in his shirt and the tiny stain of blood next to it.

Valmassoi scoffed. “Hardly a fatal wound.”

“No offense, but that's easy for you to say. That jerk Kuul wasn't backing down without a lot of convincing.”

“You have to admit, defending Korolev flirts with hypocrisy for a man who was lecturing me against shows of force earlier today.”

Benson shrugged. “Not really. If you'll remember, I said we only flexed our muscles when people needed a reminder. Kuul needed a reminder, or in this case to be taught the lesson in the first place. He didn't recognize our guns as weapons, so he thought he had us dead to rights. Korolev's solution was… novel, but it did drive the point home rather effectively. It was almost a lot worse. Another couple seconds, and one of Atwood's people would've had to shoot him, and they would have lost a lot more than just a spear.”

Valmassoi waved his hand, conceding the point. “Still, Mr Korolev has a history of ignoring the chain of command. He has to be reprimanded.”

“The last time Pavel ignored orders, he saved me from being cooked by plutonium dust from the inside out and wound up in sick bay for a week for his trouble. I've been his boss and now I'm his coach. Sometimes you have to trust your players to change the play on the field if they see something you missed. Otherwise opportunities slip away. What you call ‘ignoring orders,' I call taking initiative.”

Valmassoi shook his head. “Peas in a pod, you two. Anyway, there isn't much to do right now. Our security detail can't really afford to be down a man.”

“I wholeheartedly agree.”

“We'll sort it out when we get back to Shambhala. But for the rest of this expedition, I would strongly caution Mr Korolev against showing too much more
initiative
if he doesn't want Sergeant Atwood to shoot him.”

“I'll pass that along.”

“Be sure that you do.” Somewhere on the other side of the tree line, a horn bellowed. Valmassoi clapped his hands together. “Ah, it's almost show time. Please excuse me.”

“Be my guest.” Benson watched him go, an actor eager to climb onto his stage. Korolev inched over to where he stood and leaned in to talk privately.

“He looks happy.”

“As a pig in shit,” Benson agreed. “This is a politician's natural environment.”

“Chief,” Korolev pitched his voice lower. “Am I in trouble?”

The corner of Benson's lip curled up. “Oh, most definitely.”

“But I did the right thing.”

“That's the most reliable way to get into trouble, in my experience.” Benson put his arm around the younger man's shoulder. “Don't worry, we'll sort it out when we get back. And by the way, that was a nice fucking shot.”

“Thanks, but I can't take much credit for it.” Korolev patted the top of his P-120. “These things are gyroscopically stabilized and the scope automatically compensates the reticule for range. If you take even a second to aim, it's damned near impossible to miss out to five or six hundred meters.”

“A little more complicated than my old handgun, huh?”

“Yeah, just a little. Are you all right, chief? You look a little flush.”

“Hmm? Oh, a little lightheaded, probably just nerves.”

“Something bothering you?”

“Well I was almost run through with a spear a few minutes ago.”

Korolev shook his head. “That's not it.”

“It's not?”

“No. You've been in enough scrapes to manage the adrenaline crash. Something else is on your mind.”

Benson nodded. “The birds.”

“Birds?”

“Yeah, the ones that took out Atwood's drone. Didn't that seem just a little strange to you? Convenient, even?”

“Seemed pretty damned inconvenient to me. It would have spotted that Kuul prick and his minions in the field way before they could sneak up on…” Korolev's face lit up with understanding. “Oh.”

“Now you get it.”

“You think they were trained birds, and someone sent them to knock out our surveillance?”

“I'm just saying I don't put much stock in coincidence. Especially when I'm on the pointy end of it.”

“But how would they know about it. Unless…”

“Unless what, Pavel?”

“Unless Mei or one of the other Unbound told them what it was.”

Benson let out a long breath as he considered the possibility. “She risked her life once to save us. I can't believe she'd willingly help lead us into an ambush now.”

“What if it wasn't, you know, willingly?”

Benson's eyes hardened and glanced down at Korolev's rifle. “Then we'll have a real problem, won't we?”

“What should we do?”

“Nothing at the moment. I think you cured Kuul of his overconfidence, for now at least. Just keep your eyes open, yeah?”

Korolev nodded. “You know I will.”

The immense wooden gates guarding the only opening in the village's thick ring of trees swung to the outside, groaning and creaking like an elderly giant unwillingly roused from its bed. Benson found himself moving toward the front of the crowd through pure Brownian motion.

Light streamed between the doors as the crack widened. The crowd of humans pressed forward, propelled by anxious curiosity, straining to get a look at whatever was about to come out of the gates. The crack quickly grew until it was wide enough for the first members of the welcoming party to begin streaming out. Eight Atlantians walked out, tall and proud, dressed in elaborately woven skirts and forearm sleeves that shimmered in the sunlight like iridescent sequins. At first glance, Benson guessed they were made from the same scales he'd picked out of the drone wreckage.

The Atlantians were all bare chested, which was unsurprising considering half or more of their communication was done through their skin. It had to be awfully handy during a hunt. Each member of the retinue carried a spear nearly twice as long as the ones Kuul's warriors had tried to ambush them with. They didn't look terribly practical, and the ornate, fragile-looking spearheads all but confirmed their function was purely ceremonial.

On their heads, decorative plumes served to accentuate the crests and frills nature had already provided. But the strangest thing about their appearance wasn't the decorations, their noseless faces, or even their ever-shifting skin. It was in the way they moved, fluid and loose to the point that their bodies seemed as if they were on the verge of falling apart. On an intellectual level, Benson knew it was because the planet's version of vertebrates didn't have a calcified skeleton. Their internal support structure was cartilage suffused with a lattice of fibrous keratin to give needed rigidity in the long bones, while their joints were merely softer areas. The arrangement gave them immense flexibility, but without rigid bones or locking joints, their strange, wobbly gaits just screamed
wrong
to Benson's lizard brain.

He pushed the thought to the back of his mind. The procession of eight came to a stop, then split into two lines to bracket the road with parade-ground precision. Behind them, the largest broom-head Benson had ever seen stepped through the gate. The immense biped towered at least three meters at the shoulder.

Wild broom-heads roamed the prairies near Shambhala. The herbivores scraped together sustenance by running their baleen-like mouthparts through the endless fields of wild plants, ingesting seeds and pollen. But none of them were nearly so large as the bruiser standing proudly outside the gates. Apparently, domestication had suited him.

Standing on the broom-head's back, with all the subtlety of a peacock, a single Atlantian blew an enormous horn. The alien's skirt, forearm sleeves, and head crest enhancements were the brightest of the group. Benson had no doubt this was the village's king/chief/high priest, whatever term they used.

A last warbling blast from the horn and the village's chief jumped down from his mount. Benson worked his tongue, trying to get some moisture back into his suddenly dry mouth. Was it getting warmer out here? Valmassoi approached the chief, his arms held out and his palms open, showing they were empty of weapons. Something behind the broom-head caught Benson's eye, or more specifically, someone.