IronStar (16 page)

She returned to the inner end of
the entryway where the entire group was waiting. Kirrah drew her sidearm,
checked the charge (full; eighty-five to eighty-seven shots at full power), dialed
it up to three quarters power, took aim and fired. The
SNAP!
of the
discharge blended with the searing flash of yellow, and the target exploded
with a thunderclap that was amplified by the enclosed entryway. At the far end,
bits of flaming straw and wood frame rained down, and the straw dummy burned
like a torch in the gloomy passageway. The shield was lying on the floor: when
Irshe picked it up, the wood frame was splintered and the hide covering peeled
back about ten centimeters from a two-centimeter hole burned through its
center. Also through the center of the leather body armor. Also through the
center of the straw dummy, and into a deep charred gouge on the inside of the
outer door. Irshe gave her an odd, speculative look.
Thinking about our
first encounter, I bet,
Kirrah thought, meeting his gaze levelly.

“What …does it throw?” he asked a
little shakily.

Oh-oh, how do you say ‘coherent
light’ and ‘a few micrograms of relativistic sodium atoms’?
“It throws
light and fire,” she said. Turning around she was able to take in the reactions
of the others: Akaray, proud and told-you-so; Lord Tsano and Opeth, speculative;
Issthe, no reaction, just watching; and the others, with varying mixes of
surprise and appalled shock.

“With one of these a warrior could
defeat an entire nation,” Irshe said.
Might as well scotch that one right
now
, she thought:

“No. This
not-sword
will
throw only twenty times, then it must spend a day in the sun to …feed. It uses
sunlight to throw.”
Not exactly a lie, it was only at 85 shots now because
I’ve been charging it for the last three days
, Kirrah thought. “It is not a
strong weapon, it is just to stop animals, also a useful tool. More like this,”
she said, pointing to Irshe’s dagger in its sheath on his right hip, “…than
this,” indicating the sword on his left.
Let them think about that, and the
benefits of a Regnum presence in their city. See, this cultural contact stuff
didn’t need to be so hard
…

As the group filed back in to the
private audience chamber, rather more soberly than they had come out, Kirrah
assured Armsmaster Opeth that the
not-sword
was not a risk if stolen,
since it would not fire without her personal touch. And yes, she appreciated
the personal guard and would like it to continue.

“You spoke of trade,” said Delima
shu’Maakael, the Guildmaster, once they were settled around the table again.
“What could a people as skilled as yours, want from us?”
Good question,
thought
Kirrah:

“I am a soldier, and do not know
how to answer this,” she said. “Where my government has met other worlds like
this, we have traded for art, such as these beautiful carvings, or perhaps you
have foods or medicines that would be valuable to us. I would like to prepare
for my people arriving, by learning and seeing more of your city. When two
strangers meet, it is good to have a friend they both know, to guide them into
friendship and avoid accidental trouble.” A covert glance at Irshe, who was
looking back at her with those clear gray eyes, one eyebrow arched wryly.

“I would be that friend for the
Talamae and the Regnum Draconis.” A brief squeeze for a small hand which had
somehow found its way into hers again, as she said that.

“If your
Regn’um
trades
weapons such as that
not-sword
with both Talamae and our enemies, there
will be even more killing,” said Taiwi the Scribemaster, with a gesture toward
her holstered beamer.

“This we know,” Kirrah replied. “We
defend our friends, but we trade in other things. Stronger weapons are very
disruptive. We have learned to move slowly and carefully, with much discussion,
before bringing new …ideas, new tools. We look for peace from good trade, not
for conquest.

“What new tools would you trade
with us?” asked Delima.

“Some of the other people on my
vessel were trained to speak of trade,” she replied. “I am sorry they were
killed. I will do my best for the Talamae.

“We have many choices. Perhaps more
objects-that-speak, which will carry your words great distances. If someone had
another of these,” Kirrah tapped her wristcomp, “they could stand in Akaray’s
village and speak, and I would hear them here.”
That
got a few eyebrows
raised…
and you’re just thinking of the military applications
, Kirrah
thought to herself with a smile:
with one of these, within a year I bet
you’ll be able to order the local equivalent of Pizza!

“We can offer a device that will
hold all the information in your shelves,” she said, gesturing to the scrolls
and books on the wall behind them, “in the space of one book. Devices that will
help farming, plowing and irrigating, faster travel, easier building.

“Or perhaps a device to let you see
through the body of an injured person, or medicines that would help care for
your sick…” come to think of it, Kirrah had not seen one sick person since
arriving in the city, except for Akaray’s leg wound, which was healing rather
faster than she had expected.

“I have not seen sick persons, do
you have a place to care for them?”

“Sickness is rare, unless someone
fails to eat
glatha
-fruit,” said Issthe. “This sometimes happens to
travelers, but is uncommon.”

“I have been concerned that you do
not eat it,” said Sleatra.
Hm, the pale green fruit with the brown freckles
and the ‘unknown alkaloids, probably safe’. Hmmm
. On impulse, Kirrah asked:

“How long do people of Talam live,
if they are not injured?” Several perplexed looks were exchanged, then Delima
said:

“I am one hundred five winters, I
think that makes me eldest here. I can expect forty or fifty more if I am
careful.” Several covert smiles around the table at that.
Ummm, lessee,
thought
Kirrah, bending over her wristcomp for a moment.
Twenty-seven and a bit hour
days, four hundred forty-nine days per year, that makes local years about 1.4
Standard years, and
that
makes this nice grandmotherly sixty-five-ish
looking woman, ahhh, just over
one hundred forty-six Standard years,
into
her
two hundred ten year
lifespan! Yikes! That was almost as good as the
Regnum’s rejuve treatments, with its two hundred fifty year life expectancy.
And that’s without analysis of the fruit’s biochemistry, isolation of
pharmacologically active ingredients, stereotactic enhancement, or adjunctive
medical treatments, Kirrah realized. That’s just from good clean living and
glatha
-fruit!
I think we’ve found our trade leverage!

“This
glatha
-fruit may be of
great value to the Talamae in trade,” said Kirrah, not missing the ‘we’ and
‘our’ in her previous thought. “What else might we find? For example, I am
surprised to see some animals which are found on other human worlds, like your
horses, and some that appear to be unique to this world.”

“For as far back as we remember, it
has been as you see it,” said Taiwi Scribemaster. “Horses, humans, a few birds,
some fish, some insects, certain of the grass and crop plants, all seem to be
of one family. All the rest of life is of another. Usually, not always, a
creature eats within its own family. The
glatha
plant seems to fit both
families well, many creatures can eat it. Do you think our ‘unique’ species
would be useful for trade?”

After more exploratory discussions,
it was agreed that Kirrah would spend some time touring the city with a letter
of introduction from Delima, visiting the various trades, guilds, shipping,
warehousing and manufacturing facilities. Lord Tsano excused himself just as
lunch was served in the meeting room, after which the various government
functionaries returned to their presumably interrupted schedules. As lunch was
finishing, Kirrah turned to her companions and said:

“Lord Tsano seems like a very
capable ruler. I was surprised that he was so informal. No one seemed to …fear
him.”

“Why would we appoint a King that
we feared?” asked Slaetra, as though it was the most absurd idea in the world.

“Appoint?” said Kirrah. “Wasn’t his
father also King? How long has he been King?”

“Lord Tsano’s father was a good
blacksmith, but no one would have chosen him as King,” said Slaetra. “The
previous King was Lord Aelitha, she was not as popular as Lord Tsano. He was
always a clever boy, worked as a blacksmith like his father, until his
appointment nine years ago. Been doing very well ever since, to
some
people’s
surprise.”
Whoops
, thought Kirrah,
need to update both vocabulary
and
assumptions
. Later she would learn that ‘
tchae
’, the word her
wristcomp translated as ‘King’, meant the office of head of state, and ‘
dosha
’,
used with a proper name, meant ‘lord’, but by itself meant ‘root’. The office
of King was filled by appointment, selection being made by a unanimous vote of
eight citizens chosen by lot, one from each sector of the community.

After lunch, they followed a guard
back out to the courtyard and around the south corner of the central building,
to a formal-looking door on the southwest side. Within was a room that was
architecturally the mirror image of the audience chamber where they had met
that morning, a room that by its formal furnishings Kirrah instantly recognized
as a courtroom. Lord Tsano was seated behind the heavy desk at the raised end
platform, in much more formal-looking light and dark blue robes of office.
Brai’klao, acting as their legal counsel, led Kirrah and Akaray through the
brief formal protocol of being called to the King’s Court in the matter of the
temporary guardianship of one Akaray shu’Malafoth’shuah, and the assignment of
custodianship over the landgrant to the ruined town of Malame’thsha.

Well
, thought Kirrah an hour
later as they returned to the carriage for the ride back to the school,
that
was a full day. I have adopted an eight-year-old orphan (make that six local
years), I am temporary custodian over a three-hundred-square kilometer
landgrant, I have introduced the locals to beamers, wristcomps, the ideas of
netphones, irrigation and farming equipment, and modern medical care. And by
the way, I may have stumbled across an agriproduct that will revolutionize the
entire multi-trillion Krona rejuv industry back in the Regnum. I wonder who
will protect the Talamae’s interests, once the big corporations and Mercantiles
get wind of this?

Who do you think?
replied a
voice from somewhere in the back of her mind.
A Survey Helm takes on herself
the authority of a First Contact -
Shee’thomm
- authority with
responsibility. The artist guides the wood, the wood guides the artist.

“That government is best which
governs least.” - “Civil Disobedience”, pub.1849 A.D., by Henry David Thoreau -
19
^th
century A.D. philosopher; United States of America, Terra.

Kirrah spent the next eighteen days
touring what felt like every nook and cranny of the metropolis of
Talameths’cha, capital of Talam. With Akaray happily gorging on lessons in a
class of students his own age, Kirrah and Irshe, sometimes accompanied by one
of the teachers or a Guild member, visited each of the city’s districts. She
learned the city extended approximately 2.6 kilometers along the river Geera,
tapering to a narrow point at its east end, and spread 1.6 kilometers north
from the river into the plains.

Much of the city consisted of those
ninety-meter square buildings called
vai’atho
, a city block with each
side made up of five or six separate residences, each with a private entrance
off a common inner courtyard. Each square housed approximately one hundred
people in its twenty to twenty-four living units. The corner units were usually
shops or businesses, most often retailing the goods or services that a single
block typically specialized in. In many ways each block operated as a
semi-independent financial institution, with income and effort partly shared.
Each block also supplied a set number of armsmen to the King’s service. In each
block’s common courtyard, a sort of vegetable garden somehow managed to absorb
the unit’s biodegradables and supplied fresh fruits, vegetables, sometimes
spices or decorative plants, according to the skills and needs of the unit’s
gardeners.

The inner defensive walls
crisscrossing the city were relics of earlier, smaller city boundaries, but
were still maintained. These now divided the city into five zones, plus the
palace. The southwest zone specialized in agriculture and food preparation,
with some forty-five hectares of inside-the-walls farming, plus bakeries and
slaughterhouses, tanning, and residences for the workers. Outside the walls,
another eight or nine square kilometers of farmland, divided into forty or
fifty family-operated plots, provided much of the produce and all of the
surplus for trade, barring outside hostilities.

Kirrah realized, however, that with
its walls, river access and hundreds of interior family gardens, this city was
well-prepared for any siege. Also outside the walls was a growing accretion of
shops, market stalls and dwellings. To Kirrah the city resembled some giant
organism getting ready to molt and grow a new, larger wall. Travelling with her
escort down the busy streets, visiting one of the bustling open-air markets, or
passing through a pleasant residential neighborhood, she was struck again and
again by the teeming, colorful order-within-chaos vibrancy of the place.