Flight Path
(Or Flight of the Gourds)
By Storm
This particular episode of
the Cross-Currents saga is more in the vein of Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar
series, in that magic, along with multiple gods and goddesses, exists in this
alternate universe, albeit more subtlety so. If this type of fiction is not to
your taste, turn back now.
Commander Lee Crane sat at a
small café table and sipped morosely at a tall glass of deep burgundy colored
liquid. It was some sort of icy fruit slurry with just a dash of a liquor
similar to rum; it was tempting enough, but unfamiliar in taste. Small stuffed
pastries, non-wheat bread and thin slices of mystery meat and cheese with names
he was unfamiliar with decorated a plate in front of him. They were similar in
appearance to things he might have ordered from a European street café - but
the sweet filling of the pastries was made from the same burgundy fruit, while
the crust was made from a grain he‘d never heard of. As for the rest … it might
just be a translation problem, but he wasn’t willing to bet on it.
It certainly wasn’t what he’d
normally be eating on Thanksgiving Day, which was what today was back in the
US. That wasn’t a holiday celebrated by the Dawimhlar or their human
compatriots. Not that the food in front of him wasn’t appetizing; it was just
different enough to be vaguely disturbing, especially in his current frame of
mind.
Just like the street and
buildings that surrounded him.
The place reminded him of the
ancient city of Petra, a place he’d once seen while on an ONI mission to
Jordan. Like Petra, Tholus was carved directly from the bedrock, but instead of
lining the walls of a narrow canyon, Tholus was completely underground, having
been carved out of the rhyolitic throat of an ancient volcano. A high vaulted
rock ceiling at least a hundred and fifty feet above the pavement arched
overhead; the light was entirely artificial. The spaces between the rows of six
story buildings consisted of a wide central canal with a spacious cobblestone
walkway on each side that was partly overhung by balconies on each of the
levels - the railings looked to be an odd combination of bronze or brass and
wrought iron. The style of the buildings themselves was more Medieval European
than they were ancient Middle Eastern, though. That was combined with a not so
subtle hint of a neo-Victorian flair for an effect that was unique, to say the
least.
The result was that while in
some respects the city reminded him vaguely of Venice, Italy - or perhaps San
Antonio, Texas along the riverfront, the overall effect was imperceptibly - and
at times obviously - alien. That was particularly true when it came to color.
The natural color of the cobblestones and some of the buildings was somewhere
between a dark burgundy and reddish purple; the rest were plastered in an
amazing array of bright hues, with plants vining up the walls and hanging from
planter boxes on the balconies. Some of the plants he recognized, but some of
the others….
He suppressed a shudder.
There was nothing native to Earth that had lacy six foot palm shaped leaves
streaked lavender and dark maroon, let alone brilliant yellow-green flowers the
size of car tires. He had been somewhat surprised to find that it didn’t have
teeth. There were a couple of plants resembling tiny purple buttercups that did.
Thankfully the only thing on their menu was small insects.
There were fountains
everywhere, with the attendant sounds of falling water. Given that the
Dawimhlar were marine mammals, that wasn’t unexpected, but the sheer amount of
stone statuary - mostly basalt, granite or rhyolite with only a scattering of
lighter marbles - would have made the Romans green with envy. Much of it
portrayed animals from earth, but some of the creatures depicted clearly
weren’t of any earthly origin - and he had been informed that they weren’t all
mythical either. Any of those would have been at home in a Roman square, but
the statue of the Dawimhlar in a spacesuit with her helmet under left her arm
struck him as incongruous in this particular setting. The lecture by his local
guide had included information on that particular statue as well; that was Cu
Belenus, the first Dawimhlar to set foot on Mars - an event that had taken
place over thirteen thousand years ago.
The sheer age of this place
was another thing that weighed on him. Tholus had been continuously occupied
since before the end of the last ice age - and by humans as well as Dawimhlar.
That was something he was having problems wrapping his mind around, for it
totally turned everything he thought he knew about human history on its ear.
He sighed and picked up one
of the pastries, looking at it distastefully - not because he found the taste
unpleasant, but because the color of the crust, like the odd color of the
stones of the street and building around him - was another not so subtle
reminder that the table - and the city around him - were not on Earth.
As if the gravity and
temperature weren’t enough to tell him that. He snorted to himself. Most of the
city had an artificial gravity field to compensate for the much lower planetary
gravity, but even that artificial field wasn’t at precisely one G. It was
slightly higher, just enough to throw off his balance and make him have to
exert himself just a little more to move. Not to mention it was cool. What
passed for a warm summer day here would have been fall-like even in New
England. If they stayed here long he’d be losing weight and having Jamie fuss
about it. It was a good thing he’d thought to bring his flight jacket to keep
warm.
He hitched his shoulders and
bit into the pastry, all the while mentally berating himself. Intellectually he
had known from the moment that Admiral Nelson had accepted the Dawimhlar’s
offer of sanctuary that they would be going to another planet, but the
emotional reality was proving to be more difficult than he’d expected. He also
had the sinking feeling that the fact that the Dawimhlar were originally from
Earth and related to humans - and therefore were not truly aliens - had
a lot to do with his emotional confusion. He was beginning to wish that Seaview
could just stay here on Mars until they could go home. One alien planet was
already one too many.
“Skipper.” The worried voice
of one of the crew penetrated his brooding. Crane looked up to find Kowalski
standing at the side of the table with Clark. He’d given many of the crew shore
leave, since it was supposed to have been a holiday for them.
“Is there a problem, Ski?” He
put aside his own gloomy thoughts for the moment, hoping there wasn’t some sort
of conflict between the crew and ‘natives’ he was going to be called on to deal
with.
“Nosir.” That it was Clark
who answered surprised him. Normally the electrician was shy and awkward around
the senior officers. He gave the rating a look that clearly demanded an
explanation.
The man gulped and hastened
to explain. “I’ve been talking to some of the locals. This week is one of their
annual celebrations. You know how laid back they usually seem - well, this is one
of the few times when they let their hair down, so to speak. They tell me
things can get pretty loud and boisterous.”
The Dawimhlar, loud and
boisterous? Crane let his eyebrows drift upward in disbelief and looked over at
Kowalski, who was looking equally dubious. He turned his eyes back to Clark.
“Just what is this
celebration about, Clark?”
“Er.” Clark seemed to squirm
under his gaze. “It seems to be a celebration of a victory in battle against
overwhelming odds.”
Crane felt his confusion
mount. “Wait, the Dawimhlar are celebrating a battle? How long ago did
this battle take place?”
“Er… about fourteen thousand
years ago, they tell me.” Crane felt his jaw drop. He could understand
Kowalski’s skepticism. If he understood correctly what little he knew about
Dawimhlar history, that would have been long before they achieved spaceflight.
So who had they been fighting? Humans?
“So who did they achieve this
victory against?”
“Aliens, sir.”
“Aliens? What kind of
aliens?” And how the hell had they gotten mixed up in a battle with aliens
before they’d ever gotten off Earth?
“Don’t know, sir. What I’ve
heard is that they used catapults against a starship - and brought it down.”
“Catapults?” He guessed big
enough rocks would bring down even a starship - if they were foolish enough to
get within range. He said as much, only to have Clark shake his head.
“That’s the kicker, sir, and
the reason it was such a big deal. They didn’t have any rocks to throw. They
were transporting the catapults and had gotten separated from their supply
wagons with the ammo. And according to the story, they were in farm country
with no rocks. All they had was not quite ripe pumpkins from the fields. So
they threw those - and it worked.”
“They threw pumpkins?
With catapults? At a starship?”
“Yessir. And because it was
so impossible, they still celebrate it to this day by throwing pumpkins.”
“And this takes place when?”
“Er,” Clark gulped and licked
his lips. “The finals start today.”
“Finals? Finals for what?”
This was like pulling teeth.
“To see who is the champion
pumpkin throwing team.”
“With catapults?”
“Well,” Clark scratched his
chin, “I understand they actually have three categories of machines now.” Crane
started to look thunderous, so Clark quickly added, “There’s the classic
catapult, of course. But there’s also trebuchet and torsion. For pure sport
they also have centrifuge and air cannons, but those aren‘t part of the
contest. We missed those, anyway.”
“All to throw pumpkins.”
“Yessir.”
Either he or the universe had
gone mad. If not both.
Another thought
occurred. “Why here?”
Clark was starting to show
beads of sweat on his forehead. “That I don’t know, sir. But maybe somebody at
the parade could tell you.”
“Parade?”
“Er… the Pumpkin Parade, sir.
They take the pumpkins and the machines to the local temple for a blessing and
then float it all in a parade down the main central canal out to the arena.
It’s a big event - there will be people from all the Dawimhlar worlds here to
watch and participate. And they tell me there are usually - well, real
aliens who come to watch.”
Lee Crane closed his eyes,
wishing briefly for a wall to beat his head against. Ever since Seaview
had encountered the damaged spacecraft that he’d been told by the officers on
the Soese belonged to the species they knew as Queeeal, events in his
life had kept becoming ever more bizarre. This however, had to beat everything
to date.
“Does Admiral Nelson know
about this?” The two sailors looked at each other and gave him helpless shrugs.
He took that as a sign they had no idea, but if he were a betting man, he’d bet
that Nelson not only knew, he had a front row seat for the entire festivities.
The Admiral was enjoying this trip far too much for his comfort; Nelson had
spent the entire day before flying around the planet with the captain of the
cruiser that had ferried them here playing tour guide. Turned out Captain Hauer
had been born here, in Tholus. He was … a Martian.
Crane sighed and got up from
his chair. “Let’s go find the Admiral and see for ourselves what this is all
about.” He signaled to the waiter who had been hovering in the doorway; the man
- for the individual was human - rushed over, looking anxious.
“Is all satisfactory, sir?”
Realizing that the man spoke
fairly understandable English, Crane paused and pondered for a moment before
asking, “I was wondering … are you are going to the parade?”
The man’s amber eyes lit up
and he bobbed his head eagerly. “Oh, yes. We don’t often get to hold the
celebration here on Mars.” He smiled shyly and added, “I was afraid you didn’t
know about it and that I’d have to stay here and miss the opening ceremony.”
“Ah. How long until it
starts?”
The man pulled out a gold
pocket watch and looked. “About an hour. Just enough time for me to change and
get there.” He slipped the watch back into his pocket and asked, “Would you
care to be my guests?”
“If it won’t inconvenience
you, we would be delighted.” This might well be better than trying to find the
Admiral in what he was beginning to suspect was going to be an enormous mass of
people, both human and Dawimhlar.
********
He had, it transpired, been
entirely correct about the crowd. It seemed that there were tens of thousands
of Dawimhlar and humans lining the sides of the central canal. The place was
packed from wall to wall and every balcony and rooftop looked like it should be
collapsing under the sheer weight of numbers. There was no way they could have
found Nelson in the crush; he was only able to spot the Admiral at a distance
because their host had a third floor balcony of his own. As he had suspected,
Nelson was still at Captain Hauer’s side - on one of the barges floating in the
main canal, representing the Dawimhlar Navy.
It figured.
Crane turned his attention to
the crowd itself. The Dawimhlar language was more lilting than Irish Gaelic,
but not so much as say, Hawaiian, at least in its upper frequencies. The
undertones took some getting used to, especially since he knew some of them
were below the range he could hear. At least it was pleasant to the ear even if
he couldn’t understand a word being said. The crowd, while somewhat noisy,
wasn’t what he’d call boisterous, at least not yet. There seemed to be more of
an excited anticipation, but no one seemed to be in any sort of fanatical
frenzy. Well, that was a relief. He’d been places on earth were being a
non-believer at a religious event could be hazardous to one’s health. Though he
still wasn’t clear why this was considered a religious celebration and wasn’t
sure if it would be okay to ask. If he understood what had happened correctly,
it should have been more like America’s Independence Day.
He glanced sideways at their
host and pondered the question.
It must have been obvious
from his expression, because one of the Dawimhlar sharing the balcony chuckled
at him and said, “You are wondering about why this is such a ‘big deal’ as you
would say?”
The baldness of the question
took Crane momentarily aback. “Er, if it’s not something that is offensive to
ask about, well, yes.”
The obviously elderly
Dawimhlar, one of the few males he’d encountered thus far, smiled a toothy
grin. “It is not. Not being one of us, you cannot be expected to know our ways,
and cannot learn them if you cannot or do not ask.”
“A sensible attitude,”
replied Crane. And it was. He’d known people on earth who got really bent out
of shape if you so much as dared to ask why about anything they believed
- and expected you to intuit those beliefs as well.
“We think so. I am Daig’ar,”
the grizzled Dawimhlar said, holding out a hand human fashion.
“Commander Lee Crane.”
Daig’ar nodded. “I thought
you might be. It’s not every day that someone of your Admiral Nelson’s stature
comes to roost on our doorstep and brings his submarine with him.”
Crane couldn’t help the
snorted bark of laughter. “I would imagine it’s not common for submarines to be
on Mars at all.”
“Actually, it’s more frequent
than you might think,” responded Daig’ar solemnly. “The observer ships we
normally keep on Earth are almost all submarines. The carrier-tenders usually
stop here both on the way in for the latest updates and supplies when heading
home. All of the subs but one are here now - and that is unusual enough
to be commented on by almost everyone.”
Crane couldn’t help but sigh,
for the one Dawimhlar sub left on Earth had to be the one that had taken on the
dangerous task of impersonating Seaview.
He was about to ask more when
the rumble of the crowd fell silent. Crane turned his attention back to the
street and canal below; everyone was looking towards the temple. He looked as
well, to see an ancient looking female Dawimhlar dressed in what he could only
describe as a flowing exotic robe that shimmered like an iridescent rainbow
exit from the massive bronze doorway. A priestess?
“The Empress,” said Daig’ar beside him in
hushed tones.
The Dawimhlar had an Empress?
No one had mentioned that detail to him. From what he’d seen so far he’d
assumed they were socialists of some sort. And hadn’t someone also mentioned
that elections were coming up the next year? Did they have a constitutional
monarchy like the British?
Three more figures stepped
out behind the Empress. Crane realized with shock that one of them was a human
male with bagpipes. He looked vaguely like a Scotsman in his garb, but not
quite, nor were the pipes exactly like the ones he was familiar with. The long
shaggy hair on the man’s head was red streaked with grey, with many small
braids at his temples. The plaid cloth in shades of blue and green was in a
strip over his shoulder, not in a kilt around his waist. The other two figures
were female Dawimhlar; one with a hand drum and one with what looked like a
small flute. Both were wearing a similar strip of blue and green plaid cloth in
sashes around their waists.
The piper began to play.
It was, Crane realized
immediately, a dirge of sorts, a slow haunting melody in a lower key than the
pipes of Earth, that seemed to echo forlornly off the rock walls all around,
with the flute a higher counterpoint and the drummer beating a soft tattoo that
anchored both. The melody wasn’t anything he recognized, but every Dawimhlar
and their human compatriots there clearly did. They all began to hum - or were
they singing? -along in a low drone.
It was a sound he’d never
forget. He knew the Dawimhlar had a wider vocal range than humans, but he
hadn’t realized that those lower frequencies on a massed scale could be felt,
even if they couldn’t be heard by merely human ears. The very stones under his
feet seemed to quiver.
The sheer emotional power of
it shook him to his core.
When the dirge ended there
was a moment of absolute silence. Only when the Empress lifted her hand was
there a sound like a great sigh. Two more figures garbed from head to toe in
shimmering robes now joined her; these he quickly realized, were
priestesses. The flowing syllables of the Dawimhlar tongue flowed across the
crowd.
As the benediction, blessing,
or whatever it was continued, the crowd began to part, allowing the
participants in the contest to parade by in front of the temple. Actually, he
realized as the columns formed and passed before their Empress and the
priestesses, marching in review might be a better description of what was
occurring. The military squads of twelve - for that was what they unmistakably
were - were in what he could only conclude was period uniform, human and
Dawimhlar together, accompanied by their war machines. Each machine was pulled
by a team of eight of the oddest looking grey horses - with black stripes on
their legs and flanks - that he‘d ever seen. At least he thought they were
horses, but they had so much long hair it was hard to tell with absolute
certainty just what species of equine they really were. They could have been
some weird variety of zebra, except they had really small ears and short legs.
There were three squads representing each of the nine worlds under Dawimhlar
authority - and three to represent the homeworld, Earth. It made for thirty
teams, with a total of three hundred sixty participants, both human and
Dawimhlar, and two hundred forty of the equines. These were the best of the
best, the ones who had survived the competitions to this point.
After each squad had been blessed,
they marched to the edge of the canal and loaded their machines onto the
waiting barges - but the draft teams and their drivers were left on the
pavement. As he watched in puzzlement, the teams were hitched by towlines to
the barges. Crane felt his eyebrows rise. The entire competition was apparently
restricted to solely the tech available to the Dawimhlar at the time of the
Great Battle. There was nothing mechanized. It left him wondering if the
fabrication of these ancient war machines was also restricted to period tech.
He also wondered about the composition of the squads. Had there really been
humans fighting alongside the Dawimhlar fourteen thousand years ago?
Finally all the teams were
ready. The priestesses stepped back, letting the musicians take position
directly behind the Empress.
The drummer began a faster
beat - and was greeted with a roar from human and Dawimhlar alike that made the
air tremble. More pipers, drummers and flutists marched out of the great bronze
doors, filling the steps of the temple. As the wail of pipes and flutes and the
beat of drums filled the air, the very walls of the entire city seemed to
shiver. The peculiar looking horses leaned into their harnesses and the barges
began a slow procession out of the city.
Crane felt very much the
alien at that moment.
“Commander,” said Daig’ar
beside him, “if we wish to get a place with a good view, we should go now to
the battlefield.”
Battlefield? He’d thought
this was just some kind of contest on who could throw pumpkins the farthest and
most accurately. No one had mentioned a battlefield. Surely Daig’ar didn’t mean
that literally.
He found himself going out
the back door of the building with Daig’ar and their host, Kowalski and Clark
in tow, to grab a seat on one of the public transport barges that served the
same function as a city transit bus. It seemed that everything in the city that
could move was headed in the same direction, towards the spaceport landing pad.
Was that were the contest would be held? It did make sense, Crane reflected - a
place big enough to hold starships would surely be big enough to throw
pumpkins.
But no. Once they’d arrived
it was obvious the field was still filled with ships - but a steady stream of
shuttles was leaving through the locks.
Crane’s Dawimhlar host
escorted him and his companions to a small ship on the edge of the field. Lee
found himself wishing he could read the words, which looked to be in a script
similar to cuneiform writing, for the vessel was clearly different from most of
the obviously civilian ships around it - and the markings on it looked more
like those he’d seen on the Dawimhlar warships. Not exactly the same, but
similar. A courier ship perhaps?
Daig’ar noted his interest
and commented as the group boarded, “Reserve. I am retired from the Navy.”
That peaked Crane’s interest,
for he’d seen but a handful of Dawimhlar males in uniform. There were lots of
human males and females - and even more Dawimhlar females serving, but very few
Dawimhlar males. So where were they? Did he dare ask?
“About that. I was noticing
how few males of your people there are here….” He trailed off uncertainly.
The toothy smile flashed.
“That is because we are few in the overall population.” As Crane blinked in
surprise, Daig’ar added, “The Dawimhlar have a skewed birthrate - there are
five times as many females born as males. And as you may have noted from the
few you’ve seen, we are smaller than the females. We also tend to be
homebodies.” He shrugged, noting with a smile, “I was one of the few with
wandering feet, so to speak, so I joined the Navy to see the galaxy.”
There were muffled snorts of
laughter from Kowalski and Clark; even Lee flashed a quick smile. Some things
were apparently universal.
But some weren’t. If there
were that many fewer males than females, how did they do marriage? Or did they
even have marriage as he knew it? He decided not to ask - that was getting into
issues he really wasn’t ready to confront yet.
Daig’ar settled in the
pilot’s seat and powered up the little ship. Crane watched in interest. It was
clear that most of the technology here was very advanced. He had to shake his
head at the curious juxtaposition of the tech level of the event they were
flying to see and the technology that had produced this ship. The Dawimhlar
were a very peculiar people in some ways - but disturbingly human in others. It
was disconcerting, to say the least.
The flight itself was
relatively short; a few miles due south from Tholus, to a perfectly circular
crater on the planetary bulge that all of the local volcanoes sat on.
The small ship landed on what
looked to be a vast temporary space port; the ships - both large and small -
had to number in the thousands, far more than at Tholus. He reflected briefly
that it was a good thing that the Mariner 9 orbiter had run out of fuel and
died several years previously, because he had to suspect this vast assemblage of
spacecraft would be visible even to those primitive cameras. Mission Control
would wonder if it was an invasion force. Tobin and company would be certain of
it.
This time to exit, everyone
had to don an environmental suit, for the landing field was open to the Martian
atmosphere. More surface transport awaited to take them to the crater.
As the ground shuttle
approached the edge, Crane became aware that what one saw from the air was not
what was really there. The bottom was, from this distance, clearly artificial -
and artfully constructed to give the illusion of greater depth than actually
existed. As they entered through a lock he saw for the first time that the vast
amphitheater that filled the crater underneath the false floor. The place could
easily hold over two hundred thousand spectators. No wonder there were so many
ships sitting outside.
The ground at the center had
been sculpted into a flat river valley about two miles wide, flanked on each
side by sheer bluffs that rose and merged with the terraces where the seating
for the spectators was arrayed. If his memory of geology served him correctly,
this might be a small graben - a dropped section of crust between two faults. A
small river hugged the base of the bluff across the valley from where he sat.
He scowled, thinking that a river beside a cliff must mean there were stones
suitable for use in a catapult, but he couldn’t see anything that looked
remotely big enough. Did that mean the farmers had cleared them all out, either
to make farming easier or for building? He supposed that was possible. As for
the flat floodplain, it was covered in a multitude of obviously cultivated
small fields, with an unpaved road running between them and the river. Some of
the plots of crops had been harvested, but many had not. At least some of those
had to be the famed pumpkin fields, though it was difficult to tell which they
were from where he was.
People were settling into
seats all around him, pulling off their helmets. He followed suit, only to
freeze for a brief second as the scent of the air washed over him.
It smelled like Earth.
Until that moment he hadn’t
been consciously aware of just how different Mars smelled.
He looked closer at the
landscape below and realized that all of the vegetation, not just the
crops, looked terrestrial in origin. Was it possible that the Dawimhlar had
recreated the actual site of the battle down to the last detail? Was this just
a pumpkin throwing contest or an actual reenactment - and just how meticulous
was this reenactment going to be if that was what was about to actually
transpire? There was even a fake sun in a partly cloudy blue sky that gave the
illusion of the valley having an east-west orientation - and it looked like the
time was around midafternoon, which was a bit later than actual local time. It
was, he suddenly realized as he glanced down at his watch, about the same as
Eastern Time on Earth. His expression grew thoughtful.
The shuttle hooked itself to
a rail and eased down to the bank of seats at the very bottom, perched right on
the edge, with a clear view of the valley below. Crane cast a sideways glance
at Daig’ar, wondering just how high in the Dawimhlar Navy he had been that he
had such influence. He also had to wonder if Daig’ar was about as ‘retired’ as
Admiral Nelson was.
The rumble of voices washed
across the amphitheater as more people were rapidly pouring in. It looked like
every seat in the place was going to be filled - and unless he was much
mistaken, those were cameras strategically positioned all around the rim, just
below the seats. He wondered if this was going to be broadcast live. Daig’ar
saw the direction of his gaze and answered the unspoken question.
“Going out live to everywhere
there are Dawimhlar.”
A stir across the valley on
the other rim heralded the arrival of the Empress and the priestesses, which
reminded Crane of the question he’d not gotten to ask earlier.
“Why exactly is this a
religious event and not a secular one?”
Daig’ar looked surprised. “I
suppose,” he said slowly after a few seconds, “that it is both.” He regarded
Crane pensively, with a touch of wariness in the look that surprised Seaview’s
captain. The Dawimhlar steepled his fingers and pursed his lips, as if
contemplating what exactly to say. Finally he sighed.
“You will probably realize,
if you have not already, that our people are what most on Earth would consider
pagans.” At Crane’s nod, he continued. “Our gods have been more, oh, I suppose
the word might be, proactive, in their relations with us, than yours have
been.”
Crane blinked. “Proactive?”
Daig’ar gave him a wry smile.
“The Eternal Mothers are far more approachable than most of the Powers and apt
to make their concerns directly known. Not, mind you, that they are busybodies,
or that they treat us like children. For the most part they let us make our own
mistakes - so that we might learn from them. But they will, on rare occasions,
step in to lend a hand - like they did in the Battle of the Pumpkins. After
all, you don’t think an ordinary pumpkin could bring down a starship,
do you?”
He hadn’t thought about it,
to be honest. Strange things did occasionally happen out of the blue - like his
XO Chip Morton turning out to be Admiral Nelson’s cousin. If asked, he’d have
assumed the Dawimhlar had simply gotten lucky and hit the ship somewhere
vulnerable. But when Daig’ar put it like that, he began to consider just how
unlikely it was that a mere vegetable would be able to fatally wound a
starship, particularly a warship, which he was beginning to realize the
vessel must have been.
“Well, I hadn’t really
thought about it,” he admitted, “But when you put it like that, it does seem a
bit bizarre. But the other thing that seems strange to me is why they attacked
you in the first place. Your people clearly hadn’t developed the technology to
leave the planet yet - not if you were using catapults pulled by horses.”
“Se’apall, not horses.”
Daig’ar made a small motion with one hand. “I know that seems unimportant, but
we had left Earth long before the humans who remained domesticated horses. This
species is much more cold hardy than horses and better suited to our
lifestyle.” He paused, as a distant look came into his eyes. “As for the
attack, the origins of that go back nearly a thousand years before, when we
were still just simple marine mammals on a path to evolving into a wholly
marine species.” Sighing, he continued in a soft voice, “I suppose you could
say our species was in the innocence of its childhood - and then,” his voice
turned hard, “the K’uk came.”
Crane kept his silence.
Whatever the K’uk were, whatever they had done, it had clearly scarred the
Dawimhlar soul deeply - but it hadn’t broken that soul.
“They were the interstellar
equivalent of Yankee whalers - and we came to be on their list of things
hunted for profit.” Crane’s eyes widened in horror as Daig’ar nodded grimly.
“Oh, yes. In that time we had fine thick pelts of sable or white against the
cold - and only stone tools. So even though it was against interstellar law,
against treaties that their own government had signed, they slaughtered
us for our fur.”
Of all the things Crane had
expected to hear, this was not one of them. He was appalled.
“How did your people
survive?” He knew how poorly the great whales had fared against humans in sail
powered ships with just iron tipped harpoons; he couldn’t begin to imagine how
the Dawimhlar could have prevailed against the technology of a starfaring race.
“The Mothers took a hand and
helped conceal us - but there was an anthropologist from yet another world here
that proved to be the deciding factor. Ironically, she had been studying your
folk, Commander, not ours, but when she realized what was happening, she sent a
message to her government. At that time there was a Confederation of planets
within whose sphere of influence Earth lay. They actually responded with a
small task force - and got here quickly enough to catch the K’uk at their
bloody work.” Daig’ar briefly closed his eyes and was silent for a moment.
“Hundreds of my people died at the hands of the K’uk in spite of all the
Mothers could do - and billions from both the K’uk Empire and the
Confederation died in the war between the two that followed.”
“Holy hell,” came softly from
behind. Crane turned his head and saw that Kowalski and Clark were leaning in
to hear what Daig’ar was saying. He couldn’t help but nod in agreement.
“So who attacked you a
thousand years later?” Kowalski was the one who asked, beating Crane to the
question.
“The last K’uk warship, as it
turned out. The war lasted for almost a century, and it broke both the K’uk
Empire and the Confederation. Especially the K’uk, for once it became widely
known that they had murdered class 8 sentients for their fur, there were
precious few who would trade with them. As a result their empire slowly
collapsed in on itself, before finally shattering in a protracted series bloody
civil wars. The last K’inich - the K’uk version of an emperor - decided that
since it was over us that the first war had started, that we were to blame.”
Daig’ar snorted to show how absurd he found the idea. “So K’inich Ix Sak sent
his last warship to obliterate us from the face of the universe. They destroyed
five of our cities with kinetic strikes from orbit - with casualties in the
hundreds of thousands - before encountering the Fourth Army‘s catapults.”
Crane felt his jaw dropping.
“A thousand years later?”
Daig’ar gave a very human
shrug. “Absurd, I know. But if the K’uk had been a reasonable race to start
with, they would have never been hunting us like animals in the first place.”
He added almost as an afterthought, “The Mothers had warned us that they might
be back sometime after the first attack. This is why we were pursuing
technological advancement - we knew that if we stayed as we were we would have no
chance to defeat them.”
There was that that. Although
Crane had to admit in a moment of uncomfortable honesty that humans had
done the same thing to their fellow humans as recently as the last century -
and were still doing it to whales and the Great Apes. And if the Dawimhlar had
not taken the path they did, they would have been hunted right along with them.
So why did the Dawimhlar not harbor similar feelings against humanity?
His thoughts must have shown
on his face for Daig’ar gave him a wry smile and said, “You wonder why we do
not abhor humanity for the same kinds of actions.” At Crane’s unhappy nod,
Daig’ar responded, “Because these things are becoming as abhorrent to a
majority of humans as they already are to us. Unlike the K’uk, your people as a
species are - mostly - beginning to mature past the point where you believe
that you have the right to treat other people or species however you
please. The K’uk, for all their advanced technology, never understood that or
progressed socially to the point of being a truly civilized race. So there is
hope for humans, in spite of all your flaws.”
Crane sighed. He could
certainly hope there was a future for humanity. Sometimes he wondered,
especially lately.
A hush from the crowd
diverted his attention. He looked around and saw that the seats were all filled
and the house lights beginning to dim, leaving the valley below illuminated in
what was clearly the golden light of an autumn afternoon. Once the seating was
in darkness, a sense of expectation seemed to fill the air.
A faint sound floated by on
the breeze. He cocked his head and listened closely. It was the beat of a
distant drum accompanied by a lone wind instrument; it sounded to his
admittedly untrained ear to be similar to a fife or penny-whistle.
It also sounded oddly
familiar. A gasp from behind told him that Kowalski had recognized the tune. He
turned his head and eyed the seaman questioningly.
“Pat A Pan,” Kowalski
whispered.
It did sound like that tune,
but… “Are you sure, Ski?”
Kowalski nodded vigorously.
Crane felt his eyebrows climb. What was a Christmas song doing here? Or… was
the tune far older than anybody back on Earth realized? He shivered and turned
back as the music grew louder.
There, coming out of the
shadows at the east end of the valley, were the ancient Dawimhlar war machines.
The Dawimhlar in the crews were mostly riding - their shorter legs clearly
weren’t built for marching - while the human troopers were slogging along in
step with the drum. It was so achingly realistic Crane felt his own legs twitch
in sympathy.
As they moved from shadow
into sun, the catapult squads began to sing. He couldn’t understand the words,
of course, but the haunting feeling of them came through clearly. With almost
four hundred voices behind it, the song rose from the small valley and seemed
to reach for the stars themselves. A shiver ran down his spine as a sense of
both foreboding and familiarity washed over him. It was like he could smell the
sweat of the se’apall, men, Dawimhlar, green pumpkins, freshly turned earth and
the river.
Something moved on the
western horizon, coming out of the sun.
It was the K’uk ship - and it
blazed a path towards the weary troops on the valley road, firing some kind of
energy weapons as it came.
The leading catapults vanished in a roar of
flame as the ship screamed over and arced back up out of sight to be lost in
the ‘clouds’.
Crane came out of his seat
with a gasp of horror. He would have scrambled down to join the fight out of
sheer reflex had Daig’ar not lain a restraining hand on his arm. “Commander,”
the Dawimhlar whispered, “no one has truly died. It is illusion.”
It was one damned realistic
illusion. He sank back down into his seat, quivering from the sudden rush of
adrenalin. The troops below had scattered into the small fields, seeking cover.
The remaining se’apall were still standing stoically in the road, whereas
horses would have already bolted - even he knew that much. The ship came back
for a second pass, obliterating catapults at the other end of the column; half
the Dawimhlar force was gone.
Now that he knew it wasn’t
real, he could view the scene more objectively. His eyes tracked the ship as it
once again spat fire; some sort of plasma cannon was his best guess. He
frowned. From some of his lessons with Admiral Nelson, he knew that plasma
wasn’t a good atmospheric weapon because it tended to dissipate over long
distances. Which begged the question - if the K’uk had used kinetic strikes on
Dawimhlar cities, why had they entered the atmosphere and used energy weapons
on the Dawimhlar Army column?
It was also clear that the
illusionary ship had seen better days. Well, that would make sense if it was
indeed an accurate representation of the last warship the K’uk had
possessed. On top of which, the ship wasn’t very large, being perhaps the size
of a WWII destroyer. Bringing it down with a large round vegetable suddenly
didn’t seem quite so impossible.
Crane leaned over to Daig’ar
and asked softly, “Do you know what the ship actually looked like? And if
they‘d used kinetic strikes before, why not here?”
Daig’ar nodded. “We found
records of it in the ruins of the old K’uk capital when we finally developed
starflight of our own and went looking for them. This is an accurate
reconstruction the Janaab Lak, the ship Ix Sak sent.” He gave Crane an
ironic look. “As to why they switched to close range weapons, we can only make
surmises. Either their rail gun malfunctioned or the captain decided he wanted
to get personal in his punishment of our people.”
He couldn’t help being
impressed. After being attacked like this, they went looking for the villains?
Most human cultures he’d ever seen or studied shattered under that kind of tech
disparity. That the Dawimhlar hadn’t, especially since this was the second
attack on them as a species meant they must be made of stern and unyielding
stuff.
And they were showing it down
on the battlefield. By the time the ship had come around for the third pass,
the remaining catapult crews had rallied and were searching frantically through
the fields for stones large enough to throw. He saw one of the squad leaders
throw down his bronze helmet in frustration, then snatch it up and load it into
the catapult sling as ammunition. It clanged off the ship’s hull, making it
jolt slightly off course, causing the next cannon shot to miss the Dawimhlar
column entirely.
Crane narrowed his eyes and
considered the implications.
The K’uk had never expected
the Dawimhlar to shoot back, even if it was with tech several thousand years
behind their own. And if they had been down to just one moth-eaten
warship, both their civilization and technology had been on the verge of total collapse.
The corollary to that was they probably hadn’t had a very experienced crew
either. He shook his head. The odds that had looked impossible on the face of
it were coming down.
Somebody had found the
pumpkin patch. As the ship wheeled around for its fourth run, a volley of
whitish green pumpkins rose to greet it. They hit with hollow thuds and
splattered, making the ship skitter sideways again.
He blinked. Whitish green?
These weren’t like any pumpkins he was familiar with, except in being large and
more or less round. But they also didn’t seem to be doing the ship any real
damage.
As the K’uk ship climbed once
more, Crane’s attention was caught by a glowing mist that swept across the
valley below - and settled into the pumpkins, turning them completely white.
The murmur that swept across the crowd told him that this was the thing
that the Dawimhlar saw as the hands of their Goddesses.
The ship dove again out of
the western sun on its fifth pass and a volley of the white pumpkins soared to
meet it. But this time, instead of hollow thuds, there came the solid clang of
metal on metal - and the starship staggered as holes appeared in the hull. One
large pumpkin slammed the nozzle of one of the plasma cannons just as it fired.
A searing explosion followed, throwing the ship completely off course. It tried
to claw back into the sky, but the stern clipped the jagged rocks at the top of
the high bluff above the river. The ship paused for a moment, hanging in the
air. Another volley of pumpkins, leaving more holes - and he could hear the
note of the engines change, becoming a high protesting whine.
Something inside the now
doomed ship gave way with a dull boom. The engines coughed once, flared
briefly, then died completely. The Janaab Lak dropped like a stone stern
first into the shallow river. A blood-curdling howl arose from the surviving
troops; it was answered by every Dawimhlar and most of the humans in the
watching crowd above. Crane found himself wanting to bay with them.
The Dawimhlar troops on the
ground below were hastily unhitching the se’apall from their traces and
mounting. In less than a minute they had sorted themselves into ragged
formations; Crane estimated that there were at least a hundred mounted
warriors, with almost that many more afoot. With another terrifying war cry of
defiance, they drew swords and charged.
The rolling thunder of hooves
reverberated through the small valley. A large hatch opened in the side of the
K’uk ship; he could see the plum colored, scaly skinned alien crew trying to
wrestle what looked like some kind of energy weapon into place to cover the
approach.
There was neither the time
nor the space for them to do so.
The road the Dawimhlar column
had been on ran just beside the river; the Janaab Lak had crashed less
than fifty yards from the surviving troopers. Short legged the se’apall might
be, built for power and not speed, but over that distance they could sprint
like quarter horses. Frantic K’uk ran out with hand weapons to try and defend
the ship, to give their shipmates time to get the energy cannon into place.
The impromptu cavalry charge
mowed them down like ripe grain before a scythe. Se’apall legs might be short,
but for their height they were massive animals, with iron shod hooves the size
of dinner plates - and Dawimhlar swords were sharp enough to cut the wind. Only
a few went down to the invaders weapons, allowing a veritable wave of se’apall,
Dawimhlar and humans to reach the ship. They poured through the hatch, grinding
the ship’s defenders to bloody purple pulp on the deck. The foot troops were
right on their heels to finish any K’uk who might have survived the initial
onslaught.
The crowd above was on their
feet, fists upraised, chanting in support. The sprinkling of aliens scattered
among them was looking distinctly uncomfortable. Crane was hard pressed to
maintain his silence, for a thin thread in his blood sang with fierce
exaltation. The Dawimhlar might not be human as he thought of it, but at this
moment he recognized their deep kinship to humanity - and they were originally
from Earth, when all was said and done. This battle had happened on
Earth, for Earth. He felt it in his blood and bones.
The last of the K’uk broke
from the ship through a small hatch at the bow. It was too small for the
mounted troops to get though, but the ones afoot were under no such handicap.
They didn’t get far. The last
stand of the warship’s crew came in the knee-deep waters of the shallow river,
in hand to hand combat with people who had been unjustly attacked - not once,
but twice - and who were enraged about it. When it was over, there were no
survivors left to carry the news back to K’inich Ix Sak that in what would be
the final battle of the Empire, he had been defeated by early iron age
barbarians on a primitive backwater world.
He’d have been apoplectic.
The chant rose to a climax,
reverberating through the amphitheater as the mounted troopers exited the K’uk
ship bearing their grisly trophies. The foot troops joined them; even from
across the valley, Crane could sense their exaltation at having won,
that this time the K’uk had not been able to slaughter them with impunity.
Daig’ar turned with a sad
smile to him. “They didn’t know that our major cities had been already been
destroyed when they defeated the K’uk ship. The loss of so many and so much,”
he shook his head, “came close to destroying us as a people. But in the end it
we realized we could either be broken by it - or forged into a stronger people.
So we decided to be angry - and to let our anger serve as a goad to our
advancement. We were determined that the next time we met, it would be in the
sea between the stars.” He paused. “It was a long time before we finally
realized that they weren’t coming back. That we had truly won.”
It was only when the light
began to dim that the crowd began to quiet. As both the darkness and silence
deepened, Crane could see the scene below begin to fade out. The ship and
aliens vanished and the ends of the Dawimhlar column that had been ‘destroyed’
reappeared. The last action he was able to make out was the se’apall being led
back to the road.
All was darkness. The crowd
was silent, still standing, but it was a surprisingly calm stillness, given the
emotion of only a few moments before. It was clear they were waiting for
something.
The distant beat of a drum
drifted in, followed by the thin melody of the flute. Not the same as before…
he recognized it as a variation of the dirge from the ceremony at the temple. A
pale blue sheet of light appeared, suspended in midair; on it were long columns
of… names? They were in the Dawimhlar script, but Crane was positive they were
names. He turned a questioning look to Daig’ar.
“The names of those who died
at the hands of the K’uk,” Daig’ar confirmed. “So that we do not forget the
lessons of the past - or the price paid to learn those lessons.”
There were a horrifying
number of names.
From somewhere the bagpipes joined in and the
crowd once again joined in with their throaty drone - and this time he was sure
they were actually singing, but part of the frequencies were too low for him to
quite make out. He’d thought the emotion of it was powerful before, but this …
this was like comparing a babbling mountain brook to the thunder of a mighty
waterfall. The sheer power of two hundred thousand voices united threatened to
sweep him away.
Crane wasn’t quite sure when
it ended; he found himself joggled back to the present only when Daig’ar
touched his arm.
“Now what?” He wasn’t quite
sure he was up to anything else this intense.
“Now we all go get drunk,”
said Daig’ar matter of factly.
Crane stared at him for a
brief moment, not sure he’d heard correctly. Daig’ar chuckled. “We tend to be
maudlin drunks, particularly on this occasion, Commander, more likely to cry in
our beer than start a fight.”
“If you say so.” He couldn’t
help being somewhat dubious.
“Come, Commander, you and
your men can be my guests for the night - if that meets your approval?” Daig’ar
cocked his head questioningly.
“I gotta get back to the
boat,” murmured Clark. “Duty watch.”
“I can drop you off,” offered
Daig’ar. “What about you?” He looked at Kowalski.
Ski looked at Crane with a
touch of defiance and firmly stated, “I’m in for whatever the Skipper does.”
********
Crane found himself bemused
as he sat at yet another table that wasn’t on Earth, nursing yet another
alcoholic concoction that wasn’t exactly like anything he’d ever seen before,
with another plate of mystery food accompanying his drink.
The place Daig’ar took them
to after dropping Clark off at the spaceport lake - Seaview was berthed
with the Dawimhlar subs - could have come straight out of an Irish seaside
village. Situated on the shore of the lake, catering to both spacers and the
sub crews, it was built of stone and timber with a low ceiling, and had a
patina of age that was almost mind numbing. In many ways it resembled the
archetypical Irish pub - if one overlooked the fact the place was on Mars and
had been a pub for nearly ten thousand years. And so long as one also
overlooked the fact that none of the patrons in the place looked the least bit
Irish - and some didn’t even look human. The name of it translated - loosely -
to The Sea Dragon’s Jug. He couldn’t begin to pronounce it in Dawimhlar, since
some of the syllables were in the range just below his hearing, let alone what
his vocal cords could produce.
The beer was made from one of
the Dawimhlar grains that had been lost in the mists of time and climate change
back on Earth; it had a unique color and incredible flavor that was more like
brandy than any beer he was familiar with. Daig’ar had told him that it was
also aged in wooden casks for fifteen years. The alcohol content
reflected that; it had caught him by surprise when he’d taken his first sip.
This stuff had to have double the amount of alcohol of any beer he’d
ever drunk on Earth. He’d wager it was pushing thirty percent. It wasn’t
something to be chugged in vast quantities, but rather sipped like a fine
sherry. It was certainly unlike anything he’d have called beer, except that he
understood that it started with fermented grain just like ordinary beer.
There were three other
Dawimhlar sitting at the table with him and Daig’ar - along with an alien he’d
met before. He’d been astonished to find the pilot of the Queeeal ship here -
and even more surprised that the alien had made himself known to him. Crane had
known the alien was a shape-shifter from their first meeting but would not have
recognized him in his current form - which was his own. The Dawimhlar seemed
quite unperturbed by either his appearance or his presence. The other three
Dawimhlar were, like himself, submarine captains. Until the day before they and
their boats had been posted to Earth.
They had been filling him in
on the hunt for Seaview back home.
He found himself torn between
being grimly amused and appalled at the lengths which Tobin and his cronies
were willing to go to in order to keep Admiral Nelson from telling his side of
the story. Had it not been for the efforts of the Dawimhlar to keep the crewmen
who’d stayed - and the families of those who’d come - out of Tobin’s hands, he
wasn’t sure what he and Nelson would have done. He was starting to worry about
his mother - and his girlfriend Dr. Lynn McVie. Not many people knew they were
dating, let alone that they’d been discussing marriage. She had been on a dig
in the Yucatan when this all started; he wasn’t sure if she was still safe, but
hesitated to ask.
Actually he wasn’t sure who
he could ask, although he was beginning think that Daig’ar might be his
best bet. He just didn’t want to ask in front of the others.
A hand clapped on his
shoulder, startling him. He looked up to find the NIMR Security Chief Philip
Haggen standing behind him.
“That was deep in thought,
Lee. No situational awareness. Need to be more alert.”
Crane sighed. “Have a seat,
Philip. And a beer. Though this isn’t beer like you’ve ever had before. Sip
carefully - it bites if you try to swig it.”
“Really? This I gotta try.”
Daig’ar motioned to the pub
staff for another beer and chair. Both were quickly produced.
Haggen took a sip. His eyes
flew open and he gave the mug a quizzical look. “This is beer?” he asked.
“It is what you might call a
specialty beer,” answered Daig’ar. “Most of our beers are not so dissimilar
from any you would find on Earth. After all, we invented it first.”
Like so many other things.
Crane couldn’t help the quick flash of resentment. So much his own country had
thought they invented was really just a rediscovery of things the Dawimhlar
already knew. But then he had to sigh as his logic chided him. That was
probably true of everything and every species - somebody else, somewhere else,
had already done it before. The Dawimhlar had gotten caught up in an interstellar
war when they were still deep in their stone age. Their enemies had starships
before they had figured out how to make anything more advanced than stone
tipped spears. He couldn’t honestly begrudge them their technology; they had
paid a heavy price for it.
“So, Haggen,” Crane said in
an effort to shake himself out of his funk, “did you come for the beer or
something else?”
“Both,” said the sandy haired
Security Chief in his Tennessee drawl. “Scathach told me to tell you that your
mother and a Miss McVie are both safe.”
Crane sat up and blinked in
surprise. “How…?”
“That I don’t know. But they
also said to tell you that the real story of what transpired - both aboard Seaview
with Tobin and at Leavenworth with Chip is circulating - and not just in DC.”
“They’ve revealed themselves
to the government?” He was incredulous.
“Not exactly. They’ve sent
messages only to a select few. But they’ve also made known some very juicy
details about some of Tobin’s other screw-ups and unsavory dealings with
equally unsavory people. Right now it’s a PR war that Tobin seems to be
losing.”
“Couldn’t happen to a more
deserving guy,” drawled Crane in a voice dry with irony.
“Yeah, well, if they really
do pull this off, most of us will be going home after the Inauguration in
January.”
Most of us. Crane’s mood fell again. Patterson would be staying - he was a Dawimhlar citizen, after all. But Chip… What was going to happen with Chip Morton, his XO and best friend? Could Chip ever go home again - and be safe?