March to the Stars

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The large meeting room was near the highest point of the entire High Temple complex, with a single broad balcony at one end that looked down and out over the city. A marginal amount of illumination came from there, but not much. The city was still shrouded in the darkness and ash from the ongoing, low-level eruption. The room was long and low (by Mardukan standards), stretching back in a series of low arches into absolute blackness, punctuated by dim lamps that barely penetrated the gloom.

The prince had forgone his helmet in the interests of diplomacy, and his hair—unbound due to the formal nature of the meeting—spilled down his back in a golden wave. In deference to his image, and the fact that the meeting, however formal, had been arranged suddenly and with no specific agenda, he wore his bead pistol and had his sword slung over his back. Formal was all well and good, but on Marduk, paranoia was a survival trait.

Roger's eyes had benefitted from as much genetic tinkering as the rest of him and managed to compensate for the dimness of the illumination as he entered the meeting chamber. He could pick out the guards, arrayed in two groups along the walls, almost as well as his Marine bodyguards with their helmet low-light systems. And he could also see the High Priest, standing and waiting to greet him at the far end, shrouded in shadow and flanked by Sor Teb. It seemed a fitting situation: dark places, inhabited by dark souls.

Roger stopped a measured ten paces from the priest and bowed. It had been determined that a certain amount of kowtowing was permissible, but the dose had to be properly balanced. Yes, he was a prince of a star-spanning empire. But the High Priest—they hoped—knew him only as "Baron Chang." And there was also the minor fact that he was fundamentally lacking in heavy backup.

The prelate, an extremely elderly Mardukan, certainly looked frail enough to justify the rumors of his impending demise. He beckoned his visitors forward, and Roger took a few more steps, followed by his own guards.

Ever since Marshad, whose ruler had taken advantage of a relatively small guard force to take the prince "captive," the rule of thumb had been that Roger never went anywhere "threatening" with less than a dozen guards.

As the humans had become fewer and fewer in number, with more and more missions to perform, the native Mardukans had assumed a steadily growing degree of responsibility for guarding his safety. Thus, more than half the guard force detailed for this meeting consisted of Mardukan cavalry and infantry. The block of guards following the prince was a mixture of bead rifle-toting humans, breechloader-toting Diasprans, revolver-toting Vashin, the sumei-swathed Pedi, and the still mostly naked Cord and his immense spear. It made for a motley but dangerous crew.

Roger stopped and bowed again, making a two-armed gesture that corresponded more or less to the local one for respectful greeting.

"I am pleased to meet you, Your Voice. I am Seran Chang, Baron of Washinghome, of the Empire of Man, at your service."

"I greet you, Baron Chang," the priest responded in an age-quavery voice. "May the God favor you. I speak as His Voice. It is time to speak of many things that have been long avoided." The Mardukan stepped backward, with Sor Teb supporting him, and settled onto a low stool. "Many things."

"Such matters are generally discussed at a lower level, first," Roger observed with a frown. "Unless you refer to our petition to travel upriver?"

"Travel is for others to discuss," the High Priest said with a cough. "I speak of the needs of the God. The God is angry. He sends His Darkness upon us. He has spoken, and must be answered. Too long have the humans avoided Service to the Fire Lord. It is of this we must speak. I speak as His Voice."

Roger tilted his head to the side and frowned again.

"Am I to understand that you are requiring a 'Servant of God' from among the humans of our party before we will be permitted to leave?"

"That is not our requirement," Sor Teb answered for the High Priest with what, in a human, would have been an oily smile. "It is the God's."

"Pardon me," Roger said, then turned to the side. "Huddle time, people."

His senior advisers closed in, and he looked at the cloth-swathed Pedi Karuse, who was practically jumping up and down.

"In a minute, Pedi. I know you don't think this is a good idea. Eleanora?"

"We don't know the parameters of being a Servant of God," she said simply. "I've tried to get some idea of the duties, but the locals are very reticent about it, and talking to Pedi has been circular. The duties are 'to Serve the God.' I don't know if that means as a glorified altar boy, as a drudge scrubbing stone floors, or what. You don't see any of the Servants in public at all, so I have no idea where they all go, much less what they all do."

"So you're saying that we might actually go for this?" Kosutic hissed. "I don't think that's a good idea. Not at all."

"Look," O'Casey said sharply, "if being a servant means participating in some harmless rituals, and the alternative is trying to fight our way out of the city, which would you rather do?"

Kosutic glanced over at Pedi and shook her head.

"People don't fight like wildcats to avoid some 'harmless rituals.' So far, she hasn't said anything about cleaning. And I don't like any religion that doesn't perform its rituals out in the open. Call me old-fashioned, but the only decent place for a ritual is the open air. Anything else smacks of—"

"—Christianity?" O'Casey asked with an arched eyebrow. "We can probably get some concessions on the nature of their duties. Then, after we retake the spaceport, we'll come back and negotiate some more. With some real firepower behind us."

Despite the tension of the moment, Roger almost smiled. His chief of staff might not have become quite as bloodthirsty as Despreaux thought he was becoming, but she certainly had become a convert to the notion of peace through superior firepower.

"You're saying that whether or not we should agree depends on the duties, then?" he asked her after a moment, and cocked an eyebrow of his own at Kosutic.

"Okay, okay," the sergeant major said. "If they're treated well, we could leave a volunteer behind. Somebody will be willing."

"I will," Despreaux said. "If it's ringing some bells and pouring some water versus fighting our way out of the city, well, just hand me the goddamned bells!"

"You're not under consideration," Roger said crisply.

"Why not?" Despreaux asked angrily. "Because I'm a guuuurl?"

"No." Roger's tone was curt. "Because you're my fiancée. And because everybody knows you are, and that puts you in a special category. Get over it."

"He's right," Kosutic said before Despreaux could swell with outrage. "And you do need to get over it, Sergeant Despreaux. Technically, we should be guarding you. If we were back on Earth, you'd have a ring around you twenty-four/seven. Since we don't have the manpower, you don't. But you are not 'just another troop' anymore." The sergeant major shook her head. "Probably me or Gunny Lai would be the best choice—both 'guuuurls,' you might note."

Roger chuckled at Despreaux's expression, then again, harder, as he looked at the group around him. Of the humans, better than half of his guards and advisers were females.

"I hadn't noticed until just now, but this does seem to be an episode of Warrior Amazons of Marduk."

"Smile when you say that, Your Highness," Despreaux said. But at least she smiled when she said it.

"I am smiling," Roger replied, making a face. "Okay, if the duties aren't too onerous—and we'll determine what 'onerous' means—we'll agree on the condition that the rest of us are given free passage to the spaceport."

"Agreed," Eleanora said, and Roger looked over at Pedi, who was still making surreptitious negative gestures under her sumei.

"Okay, why not?"

"Not Servant," she whispered in broken Imperial. "Bad, bad. Not Servants."

"And what if duties okay?" Roger asked in Krath.

"Duty of Servant is to Serve," the Shin whispered back. "Is no other duty."

"And what's so bad about that?" Roger asked quietly.

"What?!" The Shin's voice came out in a squeak as she tried not to scream the question. "Duty is to be of Service! How much worse could it be? To be of Service and to Serve! What you want, to Serve twice?"

Roger glanced over at O'Casey and Kosutic, both of whom looked suddenly very thoughtful.

"We're missing something," he said.

"Agreed," Kosutic said. "I mean, she's sliming, and this is a 'guuuurl' who killed two armed guards with her bare hands. While chained to the deck." She shook her head. "Could the translation be bad?"

"This is the only language group for which we actually had a comprehensive kernel when we landed," O'Casey said thoughtfully. "It's possible that the kernel has a bias built in. I'm not sure what to do about that, though."

Roger considered the translation program for a moment. Throughout the trip, the burden of translation of new dialects had fallen upon him and Eleanora due to their superior implants. To aid in that, he'd read most of the manual for the software, but that had been a long time ago. There was a section on poor translations related to initial impressions and inaccurate kernels, but at the moment he couldn't find it on the help menu.

"The only thing I can think of to do is to dump the kernel," Roger said. "Dump the whole translation scheme, and start fresh."

"We need time to do that," O'Casey objected.

"Agreed," the prince replied, and turned back to the local leaders. They were showing signs of impatience, and he smiled much more calmly than he felt.

"We need to discuss this with the other members of our party, and we seem to be having a problem with our translation system. Could we perhaps call a recess, and resume the discussion tomorrow?"

"It is with regret that I must decline that suggestion," Sor Teb replied. "The God speaks to us now. He sends His darkness upon His people now. Now is when we must gather our Servant, and you are the leader, the decision maker, of your people. If you would prefer that the Servant come from one of your lesser minions at your headquarters rather than from those here with you, we can send a runner. But the decision must be made now."

"Pardon me for a moment longer, then," Roger said slowly, and turned back to the others.

"Oh, shit," Despreaux said quietly.

"Did he just say what I think he said?" Cord asked.

"So much for 'minor functionaries,' " Kosutic said with a snort. "Marshad time."

"Stop talking," Roger said, pointing a finger directly at Pedi. As soon as she froze, he sent a command to his toot, "dumping" the entire Krath language and everything they had determined of Shin. Then he locked out the "kernel" that had come with the system, as well. It was now as if he had never heard of Shin or Krath, and any biases would be erased, as long as he concentrated on ignoring them. He also locked out the low-level interplay between the systems, so that his own would not be corrupted by the Marines' and O'Casey's. Taking a guess, based upon O'Casey's idea of a migratory connection between the Shin and Cord's people, he loaded the language of "the People" as a potential kernel.

"Okay," he said, crooking the petrifiying finger. "Now talk."

At first, what the benan was saying was only a low, unintelligible gabble. But after a moment, bits and pieces began to join together.

"... temple... priests... death... serve... sacrifice... serve the worshipers... feast."

"Oh, shit."

Roger pulled up the two translations, and the difference was immediately apparent. In the kernel, the word "sadak," when used in the context of the priests, was translated as "Servant." When the kernel was dumped, though, it translated as "sacrifice." In fact, there was an entire series of synonym and thematic biases built into the system, but changing a few words around and removing a syntactic bias made everything clear.

Including why the Lemmar refused to be captured.

He punched the changes into his toot with the flashing speed of direct neural interfacing, then reloaded the corrected kernel and turned slowly back to the Scourge and the High Priest.

"We have determined the problem with our translator. What you want is a human sacrifice. Which will then be shared as a feast among your worshipers. The body and blood, so to speak."

"Oh, shit," Kosutic whispered, and grimaced as she took another look at the guards. "I knew I didn't like these guys. They're Papists! Man, I hate fanatics!"

"We recognize that certain lesser peoples refuse to accept this rite," Sor Teb replied, with a gesture of contempt at Cord and the swathed Pedi. "But humans are, after all, civilized."

"Civilized," Despreaux whispered. She was too well-trained to actually check a weapon, and she could feel the stillness that had descended over the troopers behind her. Each of them was very carefully not reaching for a weapon. They were carefully not counting their rounds, or ensuring that their bayonets were loose in the sheaths. Not, at least, on the outside.

Roger reached slowly into a pouch and extracted a thin leather band. Then he tossed his hair behind him and bound it slowly into a ponytail.

"And if we politely decline this invitation?" he asked, pulling his locks into place one by one as he smoothed the hair on the top of his head. Behind him, O'Casey drew a surreptitious breath and made sure her weight was balanced on her toes.

Sor Teb glanced at the High Priest, now apparently asleep on his stool, then back at the humans.

"My guards in this room outnumber you, and I have over a hundred in the corridors. At a word, you are all Servants. And then I will take all of the rest of you at the docks, and the people will know that it was the Scourge which brought humans to the God at last."

His false-hands moved in a complicated shrug which signified total confidence.

"Or," he continued, "you may surrender a single sacrifice of your choice. That will suffice for my purposes... and the God's, of course. But either way, I will have the Servant I require, and the people will know it. Those are your only alternatives."

"Really?" Roger said quietly, calmly, as he tugged one last time on his ponytail to tighten it down. "Hmmm. A binary solution set. Just one problem with your plans."

"What?" Teb's eyes narrowed, and Roger smiled gently.

"You've never seen me move."

The prince and his bodyguards had blasted their way through half a dozen city-states on their bloody march across Marduk. Roger knew he could depend upon them to do their job and back him up. So as his hands descended to the pistols holstered at his side, he concentrated solely on what was in his own field of view.

The local arquebuses weren't particularly accurate, and the Marines' uniforms were designed to protect against high-velocity projectiles by hardening to spread the impact over a wide area. Neither Roger nor O'Casey, however, were wearing helmets, so an unlucky hit from one of the arquebuses would be fatal. And Cord and Pedi were completely unarmored.

The first target, therefore, was the arquebusier to the left of the throne. The High Priest was no threat, and hitting the target to the left would permit Roger to track right and take Sor Teb with the next shot.

But by the time Roger had shifted targets, before the headless body had even had time to start to fall, Sor Teb had just moved. Roger had heard the Marines comment on his own speed, often in hushed tones. Now he understood why. When you see someone who is preternaturally fast—Rastar was one such—it is awe-inspiring. and Sor Teb, it turned out, was preternaturally fast at surviving. The councilor was behind the throne and out a side door before anyone besides the prince could target him.

But that didn't mean people were sitting on their hands.

Kosutic dropped the muzzle of her bead rifle and took down the arquebusier to the right of the throne even as the Scourge guards along the walls flung themselves forward. Their primary weapon seemed to be double sticks. The long rods were nearly as thick as a human's forearm, and the guards wielded them with precision. One of them descended towards the sergeant major's forearm, obviously intending to disarm her, but it was abruptly blocked by a short sword.

"Mudh Hemh!" Pedi screamed like a damnbeast and spun in place, flinging off her sumei as both swords appeared. She chopped down, to take all of the fingers off one of the guard's hands, then swept upward to gut him like a fish.

"The vales!!"

The astonished guards recoiled at the sight of the blades and frosted horns. Humans were unknown bogeymen from beyond even the farthest reaches of the valley, but the Shin were always there. And never underestimated. Even the females.

"Shin!!!"

The Mardukan female spun again, blocking another blow directed at her from behind and back-kicking the guard in the groin. She turned towards the throne, where the majority of the surviving guards had clustered in defense of the High Priest, and spat.

"TIME TO MEET THE FIRE, BOYS!"

"Boots and saddles!"

Pahner shot to his feet, rubbing an ear as the shout over his helmet commo systems rocketed him upright.

"Your Highness?" he called, heading for the door of his office while the sudden icy calm of a man who's seen too many emergencies—and has just heard the unmistakable sound of rifle volleys in the background of a truncated radio call—flooded through him.

"To all units, Bravo Company relay! Terminate all Krath guards in view with extreme prejudice. Do this NOW!"

Pahner heard screams from the warehouse, and firing broke out as he hit the door. Two Krath guards were attacking one of the Diaspran infantry by the main doors, but two shots took them down before the captain could even draw his sidearm. All the others in sight had already been dealt with.

"Prince Roger, this is Captain Pahner," he said calmly as he strode towards the piles of gear that were half ready for loading. "What's happening?"

"Servants are human sacrifices," Kosutic cut in on the command circuit, panting. In the background, Pahner heard a knife-hitting-a-melon sound with which the entire company had become all too familiar. "We're trying to fight our way out of the Temple. For some reason, they're just a bit ticked with us."

"That might be because Pedi Karuse cut her way through to the High Priest on our way out of the room," Roger said with a grunt against the background of a fading scream. "Fortunately, all the guards have been unarmored so far. We're conserving ammo by quite literally cutting our way out. But Sor Teb got away, dammit! He set us up."

"We're on our way," Pahner said, gesturing for the teams to drop what they were doing. The most vital equipment had already been packed for a run, most of it loaded into large, hard-sided leather trunks with multiple carrying rings, so that they could be easily on-loaded and off-loaded from pack animals. The remainder was food and other similar nonvital items that could be seized on the way. It was cold, but if you had bullets, you could always get beans.

"Negative!" Roger snapped. "We're heading for the city's main gate. You know the drill—Vashin to take the gate, flying columns to secure the intersections and block response, tell the ships to head for K'Vaern's Cove, and the rest all run like hell for the gates. We're going to join up in that vicinity. If you try to cut your way into the Temple, we'll never make it. Follow the plan, Captain. That's an order."

"Tell me you can fight your way out, Your Highness," the captain grated. "Tell me that."

"Hold one," Roger responded. Behind his voice, someone else bellowed in rage. The bellow grew louder, as if the throat from whence it sprang was charging towards Roger, but then the sound was cut abruptly short, and Pahner heard a thump, and a spraying sound.

"Pthah! Just make sure you bring a pocking towel."