IronStar Page 6

  “Malame’thsha.”

  Chapter 7 (Landing plus one): Malame’thsha

  “From suffering I have learned this: that whoever is sore wounded by love will never be made whole, unless she embraces the very same love which wounded her.” - Mechtild of Magdeburg - op.cit.

  After just a bit of hand-waving negotiation, Akaray allowed her to feed him a tiny white tablet containing a broad-spectrum anti-infective, more out of haste to get moving, Kirrah suspected, than any implicit trust in her medical skills. Whatever works, she thought – I know you’re tough, I just don’t feel good about you walking ten or twenty klicks with that obvious blood poisoning taking hold unchecked. And while we’re walking, you can tell me just what makes an eight millimeter hole in a young boy’s leg, and why he isn’t resting in whatever passes for medical care, wherever you came from. Oh well… With the sun looking like early-mid-afternoon, they set out, the sky clear with a high haze to the west, a fresh breeze at their backs, and the boy obviously relieved at the prospect of being somewhere else.

  Not Fair, Kirrah thought for the fourth time that hour. Your weight doesn’t sink into the not-grass like mine does. I must be expending triple normal walking energy. When we negotiate a Regnum presence on this planet, I’m going to recommend your folks open a physical conditioning resort. I am going to ache all over tonight. A couple of klicks behind them, dark spots wheeled in the air, suggesting the arrival of the ‘snaths’. (‘Assurance ten: more data will increase accuracy’, I know!) thought Kirrah peevishly. By her last reading (was that really only twenty minutes ago?) they were making about four kph. Still no sign of any human dwelling. The dark line of the forest’s edge had paralleled their course at first, but was now veering eastward as they diverged southeast into the monotonous savanna.

  They passed several more of the loose herds of mastodon-analogs, which according to Akaray were called “mu’uthn”. He walked unconcernedly right through their herd, passing several times within four or five meters of one of the immense beasts. Kirrah followed a little more circumspectly, her sidearm drawn, for all the good it would do against a twenty-ton charging grazer.

  At one point, they detoured slightly to inspect the bare skeletal remains of one of the huge creatures. Even in death, the pile of yellowish bones was impressive. The massive horn ring measured two hundred eighty-six centimeters across. Interesting, Kirrah thought. The rib cage extends all the way from shoulder to hip, no soft underbelly or flank on these things for a predator to attack. Just then Akaray pointed to missing sections in two adjacent ribs and said “tso’ckhai” …Oh.

  Several times they came across another “herd” of the spiky gray stick-creatures which had first looked to Kirrah like weeds. Akaray pointed and called them “honak”, and when Kirrah showed interest, he pulled up a small tuft of not-grass, and tossed it between the six spindly legs of the nearest creature. It reacted instantly, one of the legs stabbing in a blur and impaling the small decoy neatly. Kirrah was left to wonder what sort of creature as long as her thumb might serve as natural prey for the stick-things.

  The occasional clumps of trees seemed to become more frequent as they progressed, and Kirrah noticed that her diminutive guide avoided some of the clumps by a scrupulously consistent twenty meter minimum, yet walked unconcerned directly past the boundaries of others. At one such copse, he even stopped briefly to pick a few fruit: lemon-sized ovoids, pale green with tiny brown freckles, double lobed and very good, judging from the way the juice dribbled down Akaray’s chin. On the advice of her wristcomp, Kirrah reluctantly declined. “Digestible, contains unknown alkaloids, probably safe” was not exactly the bioanalytic reassurance she had hoped for. Life was already interesting enough without adding gratuitous digestive challenges, she sighed.

  The next time Akaray detoured a clump of a dozen trees with slender gray-barked trunks and wide layers of small round leaves, Kirrah stopped and gestured toward the trees, and made as though to approach the fruit growing from a waist-high bush.

  “Eeyu, honak”, he repeated, and pointed. Kirrah stared, saw nothing but trees and bushes in a loose 6-meter group. She gestured widely, raised her eyebrows. The lad pointed again, finally seeing that she wasn’t getting it, pulled up a head-sized clump of not-grass and tossed it among the trees, from as far back as he could. Kirrah started violently as one of the slender five-meter tall trunks seemed to divide lengthwise, and one section snapped up and down, skewering the bundle before it bounced once. When the “prey” turned out to be nothing but not-grass, the leg of the honak slowly withdrew to its camouflage beside the real tree trunk. Taking notes, Lieutenant? There will be questions, later…

  Twice her young escort also made wide detours around half a hectare of not-grass that to her eyes looked exactly like all the rest of the not-grass. Or like a dozen perfectly camouflaged tso’ckhai, Kirrah reflected ruefully. When I build up a little more vocabulary, I want to know how he does that. Meanwhile, stay with the tour!

  The sun sank slowly lower in the sky behind them, and the sky itself became increasingly overcast, a thin, high veil of cloud spreading eastward. After four hours of increasingly weary trudging during which Akaray became more and more subdued, they came upon the town of Malame’thsha. What had been the town of Malame’thsha. It took Kirrah several moments to realize that she was in fact coming upon a town: no building stood higher than low stone foundations; blackened, charred pieces of wood and ashes and bits of debris were scattered everywhere. It had obviously rained since the burning, no trace of smoke lingered in the still evening air. But the sickly-sour smell of decay did linger. Clenching her teeth against bile, Kirrah knelt beside one of the bodies (so many to choose from), gently turned it over… him, turned him over, there was a beard above the massive wound that had opened the man’s throat from ear to opposite shoulder. And another, an older woman, a short, thin arrow penetrating her upper chest, back to front. And another, and another… clearly this town had been attacked, its occupants indiscriminately and brutally killed. Not yesterday, nor as long as a week ago; Kirrah estimated perhaps three days. The attack seemed to have been carried out with near-total surprise. The closest thing to a weapon she saw among the corpses was a half-meter blunt-ended blade on a two-meter wood handle, more like an agricultural instrument than a killing tool. And they did this on my planet, Kirrah thought angrily… (where did that come from?)

  A larger building in the center of the village looked to have been the final, futile refuge of the desperate defenders. Kirrah counted fifteen bodies outside its charred foundation, clustered around what had been the door, all adult; armed with staves, stones, a heavy cooking utensil, a kitchen knife… all laced with short, slender arrows, or laid open by those enormous slashes. With a shock, Kirrah imagined one of the arrows placed across Akaray’s leg wound - a perfect match.

  Please no more bodies, someone thought; floating bodies, bloating bodies, surely I’ve had my quota of bodies… She counted twenty-six more inside the foundation’s perimeter, burned beyond hope of determining even gender, half of them as small as Akaray, some smaller.

  Akaray, where was Akaray… there, in the jumbled center of that ruin across the… what had been the road. He stood, stock-still, tears streaming down his face, a singed garment hanging forlornly from one hand, a small black-stained bag in the other. Gods, it hurt just to look at his small frame and imagine what he must be bearing. Not fair, not fair at all. Slowly, deliberately, he knelt in the ashes. His arms extended out from his sides, palms upwards. A low moan escaped his lips, no, not a moan, the first note of a haunting chant:

  “Ayyyy… yyya… luuuuaaaa… tha!” his light, clear soprano voice sang. His small hands began to swing slowly upward.

  “Ayyyy… yyyah… luuuuaaaa… Maaa… lafoth… shuah” The small hairs were rising on Kirrah’s arms and nape, as she recognized his father’s name in the eerie, powerful song pouring from this child into the gray, desolate evening. Angela would know …would have known… exactly what to
do now. She ached to comfort him with a hug, to wipe his tears, anything. But it would be wrong, she sensed, to intervene in what was clearly his intention.

  “Ayyyy… yyya… luuuuaaaa… Meeeh…schahhh naaa… shuah.” Somehow Kirrah knew she had just heard his mother’s name. (Enough! I will break if I hear any more grief! Look at his arms, they’re raising as he sings, they’re only halfway up…)

  “Ayyyy… yahhh… luuaaaahhh… Muuu… taaaa… raeee… shuah” …was that his brother’s name? …his arms were nearly vertical now…

  “Ayyyy… yyya… luuuuaaaa… Malaa… me’thsha… shuahsha” and with the town’s name, his palms came together, directly over Akaray’s head, and dropped before his knees onto the ashy floor. Two fingers brought a pinch of ash to his lips, and he was silent.

  Somehow Kirrah found herself kneeling in the blackened debris beside the grieving child, feeling like a dam was bursting inside her, hot tears flooding down her face. I can’t do this! I Can’t! someone wailed in her mind. Stop me, then, someone else dared: a darker, stronger someone who was holding Kirrah’s arms out at her sides, palms upward, and drawing in a deep, deep breath…

  “Ahhhh… yahhhh… luaaahhh… tha” she sang. Akaray stared up at her in sudden wonder, as her alien, alto voice somehow picked up the thread of the Realm’s ancient Deathnaming chant:

  “Captain William Karin Leitch, Commander, Regnum Survey Service… Shuah…

  “Lieutenant Commander Howell Docking Junior, first officer… shuah!” Akaray sank back onto his heels beside her, solemnly attentive, somehow telling her this was right, and somehow understanding and sharing her terrible pent-up grief in a bond that transcended all language:

  “Master Chief Samuel Chuwan Lee, Fleet Engineer Second Class… shuah!

  “Lieutenant Junior Grade Gerald Archibald Parvane Sykes, Helm Second… shuah!

  “Lieutenant Doris Amelia Finch, Sensor Specialist First Class… aieeeeya… shuahhhh…” A whisper of wind lifted a few puffs of ash from the earth around them.

  “Ensign Sara Margellen Roe, Sensor Specialist Third Class… shuah!

  “Lieutenant Angela McKay Foley, Contact Specialist First Class… shuah!

  “Lieutenant Doctor Harrah Lynn Burnham, Life Science Specialist First Class … shuah!”

  “Regnum Survey Ship Arvida-Yee, registration Romeo Sierra eight eight niner three eight… shuah…sha.” Kirrah’s palms met, finally, over her head. The pinch of ash tasted bitter on her lips.

  By unspoken agreement, the pair left the desecrated, silent village walking hand in hand, and in the last gray light of that long, long day, they found shelter among a cluster of trees a short distance off, snuggled down in one another’s arms, and fell asleep immediately.

  Chapter 8 (Landing plus two): Options

  “The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer: when he meeteth him, he shall slay him.” - The Book of Numbers, 35:19; King James Translation, original circa 1400 B.C. Terra.

  Towards the end of her last dream, Kirrah was sitting on the porch by the small creek, at the back of her Aunt Risa’s old house. It was evening, her aunt was sitting on that big overstuffed couch across from her, reading by the glow of the sunset. Insects were chirring as the day cooled. Her aunt put her book down and sighed a deep, contented sigh.

  “What is your question, Kirrah dear?” she asked.

  “Uh, I was thinking, Aunt Risa,” (how did she know I had a question? Kirrah wondered)… “In the memory I have of falling, you know, out of my, out of the ship…” Aunt Risa smiled softly at her. “…there was that very bright light on everything, just at the end… what was that?”

  “Oh, yes.” Her aunt’s head cocked slightly sideways, like it did when the young Kirrah had asked a particularly insightful question. “Sammy really did get that second Kruss ship, the little one, that fired its railgun at you. Even after he’d been… well, after.” Her aunt’s lips pursed in that way they did when someone had done something very rude.

  “He’d done a very good job with his missile spread, even better than that other nice young man, Howie something-or-other. And that, dear, is why…”

  “That’s why I haven’t been worried sick about a Kruss landing on my planet, isn’t it? Isn’t it?” Kirrah always loved getting it right for Aunt Risa, and Aunt Risa never made her feel bad when one of her logical leaps missed.

  “Quite so, dear,” answered Aunt Risa. “Although you must remember, it’s not quite your planet…”

  Kirrah woke slowly, surfacing out of a deep, dream-filled sleep, lying awkwardly on her left side. Stiff muscles protested at the night’s irregular surface as well as the previous day’s hard use. Take a number, she thought muzzily. I’m too busy hurting inside… yet to her surprise, the intense wound-up-tight feeling around her heart had unwound a little… quite a bit, actually… the grief was still there, the brutal reality of the loss of her shipmates, yet somehow it did not seem as immediate as it had before …before whatever that was, that she and Akaray had done last night. No wonder he started bawling when I made that ‘universal peace gesture’, back at the pond, Kirrah thought. I happened on the starting posture for that …ceremony he knew was waiting for him, back at the village.

  Now something new was there where her grief had been so strong; something even stronger, oh my, and darker, something very much like anger - no, more solid than anger. Something with a voice of its own: So they had desecrated this village on her planet, so they had shot an arrow into her eight-year-old friend, so they had butchered her friend’s family and village…

  At the touch of Akaray’s hand shaking her right wrist, Kirrah’s eyes opened fully, to the sight of multiple dark brown furry legs standing and shuffling in her field of view. I have got to stop waking up like this, was the first thought that popped into her head.

  Oh, this is different, chirped some cheerfully insane corner of her mind. See, this isn’t ‘Matey’ your twenty tonne mastodon-analog, not even close! These are ordinary Terran horses, and they have saddles! And riders!

  Well, you wanted a crack at the raiders, went through her mind as Kirrah surged up to her knees, battle mode engaging, sidearm coming up in a smooth deadly arc to face the threat… NOT coming up… why not? Because your new eight-year-old friend is clinging to your right wrist with both hands and all his strength, that’s why not…

  “Keerrah! Jasa! Jasa, jasa, Kirrah! sho’Teescha! Eesa Teescha!”

  “What? Akaray! Not now!” Kirrah’s semi-coherent struggles to free her gun hand from his frantic grip ceased abruptly as her battle mode analysis poured in:

  Four - six - seven unknowns, mounted, four with weapons drawn or drawing. Those three are wielding bows; the arrows cannot penetrate your suit, but a headshot will kill you. Based on their central upper-body aimpoint, the archers do not believe the suit will protect you. Generating Tactical Options:

  Option One: break the boy’s grip; fire on the three archers, fourth opponent with half-drawn sword no immediate threat; other three unknowns appear armed, not currently in threat posture. Opponents unfamiliar with beamer weapon, the surprise will confuse them. Projected tactical outcome: probable victory. Contra-indications: Minor risk of taking lethal headshot; significant risk to unprotected boy; unknown (probably minor) risk from possible unseen participants.

  One of the men was looking at her quizzically, as though she were some puzzle to be worked out. You have no idea! thought a small, remote observer in her mind. He was very young, barely twice Akaray’s age and blond, with that same disconcerting open gaze.

  Option Two: stand down, make no threatening moves, retain Option One at hot standby. Projected tactical outcome: parley. Contra-indications: Any of three archers can retarget your unprotected head faster than helmet or beamer can respond, consequences severe, probability low; Possibility of betrayal by boy due to unknown factors, consequences unknown but undesirable, probability very low.

  In the slow-motion stretched time of battle mode, Kirrah could see
the swordsman’s eyebrows rising as he seemed almost to track her thoughts.

  Significant non-tactical concerns: insufficient data to classify unknowns as neutrals, allies or enemy. Relevant additional data: presumed ally Akaray obviously wishes no-combat; noting arrows used by these unknowns are clearly longer and different style than used against villagers.

  Recommendation: Scenario Two, conditionally: monitor bowmen’s aimpoints, re-evaluate if standown not promptly reciprocated.

  As soon as Kirrah stopped pulling against his desperate grip, Akaray released her wrist and stepped around in front of her, directly between her and the drawn bows. To her relief, all three bowmen immediately diverted their aim away from the boy and her, one man relaxing his draw… two… three. Whoosh! (How long was I holding that breath?) The fourth “threat posture”, a thin pale man with dark curly hair and cold, steady gray eyes, sat frozen with his sword still half-drawn. I can live with that for now, she thought.

  Akaray held up a finger, waving it to get her attention, which he cannot totally have: simultaneously watching seven armed, mounted men for threats is a bit… distracting, Kirrah realized. His finger pointed to her:

  “Kirrah.” Two of the riders exchanged quick, puzzled glances. Two others looked briefly skyward. Finger now pointing backward at himself, the child continued:

  “Akaray”. Yeah, yeah, I got that part, she thought distractedly… what’re the words for ‘friend’ and ‘enemy’, that’s what I want, and in the right order! His slender finger was now wagging back and forth between them:

  “Jasa! Jaaa…sah!” Oh… Ok, let’s hope that’s ‘friend’… was that half-drawn sword sliding slowly back into its sheath? Dammit, how can I watch all seven men when everyone keeps moving a little bit, can’t those horses stand still? Now Akaray turned, making exaggerated hand motions between his chest and the arc of riders, his clear eyes still carefully on her face: