Stardogs, page 14
By the time the factotum surfaced again, his ‘snorkel’ was out in the sulfur-tainted air of Denaar. His head was pillowed on the Princess’s bare thighs and he wondered, briefly, whether this was one of those disturbing dreams he occasionally had now that his supply of the sexuality-suppressing drugs the Arunchal assassins used had run out. He stirred. She leaned over him. “We have to move you, Deo. They’re going to try opening the outer airlock now.”
He started to sit up. “Stay down. We’ll move you. Martin. Lila. Give me a hand, please.”
From further down the accessway Deo heard the grating of the airlock being forced further open. More sand spilled into the accessway. “Bring it in. Make more space for it to fall,” someone shouted. And then there was light. A shaft of dusty sunlight.
Somebody was scrambling out. Briefly cutting off the sunlight. Slithering, scrabbling and swearing. “Like being in a bloody antlion hole.” The Yak. He slithered back down bringing more sand with him. His tough face was grim. He picked up a handful of sand and let it trickle between his thick, stubby fingers. “There’s a bugger of a lot of this stuff out there, and sod all else.”
“Nice of you to come back to tell us,” said Shari sardonically.
A grin split the tough face. “I thought of doing a runner. But there isn’t much to run to out there. Just blooming sand. I’m a city boy, see. Don’t know much about sand.”
“You’ll speak with respect to your betters, scum,” said Viscount Martin Brettan, aiming a kick at him.
The Yak dodged easily. The Viscount stepped after him.
“Stop it.” Shari barely had to raise her voice. “Martin. You. Whatsit. Sam. We’re stuck here. Probably forever. What happened in the past is past. We’re going to have to live together, and rely on each other to stay alive. That is if we can stay alive where there is nothing but sand. And among the useless things we have our titles are going to be the most meaningless and useless. I for one, intend to drop mine. Call me Shari.”
The entire group was silenced. Shocked beyond speech. Hereditary power was the core of the Gotha Empire’s being. The idea was as alien as the world they now stood on. The princess had already extrapolated a castaway future. She’d also realized the potential of shock in maintaining her fragile control over the group. The statement provoked the response she’d required… and more. Viscount Brettan and Prince Jarian looked at her as if they’d abruptly awoken to find a snake on their chests.
Deo sat up. His deep voice was oddly calm. “To me, you will remain Princess Shari. But you are right, Princess. To survive we will have to set aside our differences and work together. Is there nothing outside but sand?”
“Big rock ridge over that way. And lots of sand.”
Tanzo sighed. “No buildings?”
“Just black rock and sand, Lady lock-tickler.”
The little scholar looked aggrieved. “I would have thought we’d land at some historical civilization site.”
“It was a rather forced landing, Tanzo. I don’t imagine sand and more sand was the Denaari’s idea of a holiday resort.”
The dumpy woman shook her head. “You’re wrong, you know, Prin… Shari. The most heavily settled Denaari worlds are virtually bare of vegetation. Too dry. This place is probably like that.”
Shari thought of New Sahara. Of Gobi V. Shuddered. “Water discipline is going to have to be our priority then. Fortunately, we have the ship and all the materials on it.”
On the other side of the ridge Juan didn’t have the advantage of a ship from which to garner the wherewithal of survival. He had a serious thirst problem and all he had was an alien escape pod. It also looked like he wasn’t going to have that for very long.
He’d finally gotten over his hysteria, and started a brief exploration of his environment, trying to work out the easiest way up the razor-backed ridge. He had to get over it… there would surely be other survivors? He could join them in finding the way to the nearest settlement. Also surely the stationers would have tracked the descent of the ship. Rescue craft must surely be on the way already. He must think of some way of signaling to them or he could be left alone out here. The idea terrified him. Perhaps something from the escape pod could be used as a mirror. He looked back at the pod. It was dissolving.
He turned and ran back.
The pod wasn’t dissolving under its own steam. It was being assisted by a myriad of little spitbug-starfish-like creatures. Frantically he tried to brush some aside. The spittle burned his hand and he hastily rubbed it off on the sand. It still burned. He spat on it. That seemed to help. He worked his mouth trying to make more spittle in its dryness.
The creatures’ digestive enzymes were actually totally ineffectual at breaking down carbon-based lifeforms, but they functioned best in a low pH environment. Anyway the creatures had been designed to clear up dead scrap and to recycle the nutrients and minerals therein. The Denaari would have been horrified at the idea of their garbage cleaning system attacking something living, but Juan didn’t know this. He backed off a good ten yards, still spitting on this hand. It wasn’t that bad really. It had just burned the cuts and scratches he’d acquired. He stood and watched as the escape pod was digested, ready to turn and run. As the chair crumbled, the starfish-spitbugs began blowing larger bubbles which fused into little gasbags. The creatures began drifting away down-valley as the last remnants of the escape pod fell into de-mineralized dust.
Juan stared. It couldn’t have taken more than fifteen minutes. And it was all gone. Every bit of it, except that sort of circlet left in the dust. Cautiously he went for a closer look. The thing shone, even dusty like that. It was… a sort of crown. Using a splinter of glassy rock he drew it closer to him, and then knocked the dust off it. It gleamed silver-gold in the afternoon sun. It would do for a mirror. Pulling his sleeve down to cover his hand Juan picked it up. It was surprisingly heavy. Well, he would just have to carry it, and be careful he didn’t drop it.
He didn’t know it then, but it wouldn’t really have mattered if he’d pounded it with a rock. A Denaari mnemonic crown was designed to withstand whatever fate overtook its wearer, and carry back the precious life memories and emotions to its nest-mates and roost. With the mission that the owner of this crown had been on, it was designed to survive a point-impact of up to eighty tons per square inch. Diamond was soft and brittle by comparison. But Juan didn’t know this and handled it with care. It was a damned nuisance as he tried to find a way up the virtually impassable ridge. He often found he needed two hands. If he slid it up his arm, it wouldn’t stay slid. His shirt kept coming untucked when he put it inside it. Besides, Rat didn’t seem to like it.
The awkward crown was one of the reasons Juan gave up trying to climb the ridge. The other was that the sun was distinctly lower now and as little as he might like the idea of spending the night out here, he liked the idea of a night stuck on a little ledge up there even less. From the height he had gained he could see up-valley. There was a little saddle a few miles further up. Surely that must be easier to cross. So he climbed down from the ridge, managing not to drop the crown.
It was as well that he didn’t drop it. It wouldn’t have broken, but he might have lost it. And it was probably worth at least twenty times what the Gotha Emperor’s grandiose seventeen pounds of platinum and rare gemstones was. There were, after all, only forty-one other mnemonic crowns as yet missing from the Denaari memory vaults. When the Denaari wings had spread over 433 planets there had been nearly two billion crowns scattered across the outworlds. All but the last forty two had been gathered in, sent back to Denaar, the crowns full of memories and the love of the dead and dying crowding desperately needed minerals and materials, and even the living off the ships. The remaining crowns, the crowns of those heroes who had stayed to the last, had been recovered by their keening and grieving small servants. The loyal echinate-creatures had loaded the last crowns onto the messenger ships, before following their beloved masters, even into death. The idea that inanimate things could carry this mysterious constantly mutating non-living plague never occurred to them, as it never occurred to their masters. The many-armed Sil, who had destroyed all life but themselves on their mudball-heavy-metal world, had had a similar problem with the Denaari-introduced viruses.
Walking up the valley Juan would have cheerfully traded the crown, even if he had known its worth, for a drink. He’d have given two of them for some human company, but all he had was that distant skein of birds, now high up again. He wished they’d piss off. Juan was a teenager, so he wasn’t a great believer in older and wiser heads. But, right now, he secretly admitted to himself, what he really wanted was his Dad or Mum, or even his step-mother-to-be. This had to be all their fault!
“Birds!”
“Probably not. Probably some local creature,” said Tanzo
Lila squinted into the late afternoon sun. “Birds. Condor-harpies. You can even see the markings on their wings.”
“But they’re native to Oz!” said Tanzo, whose knowledge was expansive, even if xenoarchaelogy did color it.
“The Denaari might have brought them here,” said Brettan.
“What for? They’re disgusting horrible things!” Lila was surprised at the depth of her feelings. But seeing them had brought it all to the surface again. She could remember those terrible toothed beaks tearing into the cows, and the way the cattle’s eyes had rolled as the Condor-harpies talon-poison paralysed their muscles. It been the flock of Condor-harpies that had been the last straw for the farm, after the drought.
“They’re carbon-based lifeforms. They eat meat. Therefore there must be meat for them to eat. Therefore we too can find food. Or we can eat them,” said Deo gravely. He had refused to stay back in the ship, and appeared to be keeping up well. Shari still watched him anxiously.
Lila felt herself retching at the thought of eating Condor-harpy. She turned away, unable to speak.
“Well, I’m blowed if I’ll eat something like that. I’d sooner dine on one of you lot,” Sam Teovan surprised her by bursting out. Lila found herself looking at the wiry scar-faced man with approval for the first time. Sam had surprised himself too. The hit on Oz had been a failure in that their target had already fled into the outback. By the time Sam and the local contact had tracked the man down the runner had already fallen victim to Condor-harpies. They’d killed the paralysed man who had had his eyes and part of his liver ripped out by the birds. But if the man had been able to speak he would have begged them to do it. The memory frightened Sam in other ways too. In the city he was as at home as a rat. Out there, well, nature had nearly killed him a couple of times.
“Be sure you’ll be first on the menu, Yak, if we get to that,” Martin Brettan said grimly.
Shari sighed. They were still bickering, instead of exploring as they’d set out to do. Couldn’t they see they had to unite to survive? She’d try for a change of subject. “Isn’t that a cave over there?”
“Could be, Princess. Could be. You got sharp eyes. Let’s go and have look.” Sam gave her his lop-sided grin, and set off.
“I still think we should kill that bloody Yak scum,” Martin Brettan muttered. He was surprised when the angular Leaguesman next to him agreed vehemently.
The cave was about a quarter of a mile from where the ship lay half imbedded in the slip-face of a huge sand-dune. As caves go this one would have rated a Neolithic minus 10. It was stony and shallow, and the roof had, in the past, parted with huge shards. Several hanging pieces still looked unstable, as if a shout might bring them down. The wind off the sand blew straight into it. “It’ll do for a start. I think we should carry as much stuff up here as we can tonight,” said Shari.
“Tonight!” Johannes Wienan looked at the unappealing overhang.
“Tonight. It might as well be as soon as possible. We are going to have to live here. That dune is eventually going to swallow the ship. We might as well get as much out as we can while we can still get in through the lock. Of course the injured come out first. Then water. Then food. Tools. Warm things.”
“But we can’t live out here!” Kadar stared at the cave.
“Where else?” said Deo.
Tanzo nudged the frightened looking ridergirl. Then, with a particularly nasty smile she bowed to the leaguesmen, and in handspeech said, “Welcome to your new Dacha, lords.”
Kadar snarled at her, seeing another spy.
Johannes didn’t. Instead his eyes narrowed, noticing those who laughed. The Princess. The Viscount. His rebellious debt-slave. Even the Princess’s factotum permitted himself a flicker of a smile. The rider had just looked, as usual, scared. But that was five people who knew the League’s supposedly secret way of communicating with the riders. Warily, he filed the information for future reference.
“We can construct sleds, if …Sam, can cut some of the cabin walls for us,” Deo, ever practical, said, turning toward the ship and beginning to walk back.
“Remember, once that gas is finished we’ve nothing more to cut metal with,” Martin Brettan said grimly.
“True. And no fuel for a forge either.”
Johannes ached. He had literally never worked so hard in his life before. His eyes had nearly popped out of his head when he had been pulled to his feet from where he’d been sitting on the sand, and told to stop slacking and carry. “But the servants…” The man who had pulled him to his feet looked into his eyes. Suddenly Johannes Wienan was very, very frightened of the Princess’s factotum. “The Princess has already explained that those who do not work, do not eat… or drink.”
“But my arm…”
“We have made up some packs while you sat idle. I will load you. And see that you do not dawdle.”
Johannes soon had reason to wish he’d kept his mouth shut and just chosen to carry things he could manage with one hand. The packs were heavier than anything he’d ever lifted. Then they’d made him join in pulling the loaded sheet-metal sleigh across the sand.
His arm was swollen. He was stiff in every muscle he knew he had, and a few more. The only person who seemed to have taken it worse than himself was that young Prince. Jarian. Turabi’s third son. Why had he been on board the ship? Whatever the reason had been, the Princess had been taking it out on the boy. She’d slapped him when he’d refused to carry a pack. He’d cried. She’d slapped him again. And he’d picked up the pack. Funny, she’d been the one that was all for giving up ranks and titles, but she still gave the orders. And nearly everybody still called her ‘Princess’.
The moons were up and shining silver on the wreck of the spaceship. Johannes shivered. It was going to be cold out here tonight. The Princess stood up, and began handing out mugs. Johannes saw his debt-slave attempt to stand up and take over from her, and be told firmly to sit. Deo followed with slices of bread. Not very large slices from one of the five loaves they’d found in the kitchen. There’d been less food than they’d hoped. The ship carried very little more than it required for each hop, taking on fresh supplies at each space-station.
Johannes didn’t approve of the mugs. Robust china, intended for the kitchen-staff, they’d survived. The fine porcelain hadn’t. He tasted. Water. Plain water. There’d been ample wine. They’d poured it out to make water bottles! They’d said that water would be more important than wine. Despite the lecture the dumpy woman had given him about alcohol’s diuretic effects, Johannes could never agree with that statement.
It was just plain bread too. He was damned if he’d eat this! Without meaning to, he took a bite, and discovered that hunger is indeed the finest sauce.
He’d drunk the water. Eaten every last crumb of that inadequate piece of bread. He was still both thirsty and hungry. Prince Jarian had asked, no, demanded, more. He’d got a flea in his ear from the Princess, with support from her sycophantic cabal. Carefully Johannes noted them. That dumpy little Duchess. The Countess with the large breasts. The factotum. Well, he would, he was her servant. The surviving bodyguard. And Johannes’s own rebellious debt-slave. If he ever got back to where the rule of Imperial law held, that girl was going to suffer.
Johannes shook his head. He wasn’t going to tolerate this. He wasn’t a pack-mule and he needed better food. And he wasn’t going to put up with any more abuse either. Well, on that one his fellow Leaguesman and he were in agreement. But what other allies did he have? And what weapons could they muster?
The Prince, certainly. But the boy didn’t look very tough, and probably didn’t have a gun. Mind you, you never could tell with someone like that. And perhaps, as he was nearer to the throne than his Aunt, Imperial loyalties could be called on. The bodyguard? It was worth considering. Then there was the Viscount. The thought of Martin Brettan’s face on seeing a bottle of the magnificent 2437 vintage Chateau Lafitte poured out almost brought a smile to the plump, tired Leaguesman’s face. Yes. The Viscount was supposed to be Shari’s consort, but he was definitely unhappy and ripe for a rearrangement of the hierarchy. He was armed and he knew how to use the weapon.
Then there was the Yak. Yes. At the moment the Yak seemed to be basking in the light of the Princess’s favor. She’d definitely warmed to him after he dragged her factotum in, half-concussed. Huh. The Yak had probably hit him. The man would work for whoever offered him the best deal, Johannes was sure.
He fell asleep at this point, leaving the ridergirl right out of his equation.
Martin Brettan was not making that mistake. It was nice to know he had a hole-card. But the Viscount had thought further into the equation than the young Leaguesman. This was not just about food and drink. This was about survival. And offspring. He, Martin Brettan, was going to come out top of the power hierarchy and the reproductive hierarchy. And if he couldn’t get there by charm he’d make sure he’d get there by force. None of these others were in his league. He waited until Shari got up and walked outside, and then followed her.
