Theogony 1: Janissaries (20 page)

The shuttle came in and touched down gently. As the boarding
ramp came down, Top and six soldiers jumped out into the cool night air and
quickly set up a defensive perimeter around the shuttle. Although the shuttle’s
sensors hadn’t shown any signs of human-sized life within a mile of the field,
it never hurt to be too careful. Seeing no one, Top gave the “all clear.” The
ambassador strode purposefully down the ramp, with Calvin at his side. As they
moved away from the shuttle, Calvin noticed the rotten egg scent of sulfur in
the air. Although the air was breathable, it wouldn’t be pleasant until they
got used to it.

Once the ambassador was clear of the shuttle, its ramp came
up, and it launched back into the sky, cloaking as it cleared the tree line.

Looking around, Calvin couldn’t see much of the field, even
with his enhanced night vision. He wished that they had been able to wear their
space/combat suits, but the ambassador had not wanted to unnecessarily scare
the locals, so the soldiers were dressed in their black battle dress uniforms.
Like most of the United States’ militaries, it was a digital camouflage
pattern, although it was in various shades of black and gray, rather than predominantly
green or blue. Although the society had obviously developed the capability to
process metal, the Terrans had surveyed the planet for several days and hadn’t
seen any type of weapon more advanced than swords or crossbows, so the
ambassador had requested that they not wear the suits or bring their lasers.
All of the soldiers wore swords instead, having hastily downloaded and
practiced basic sword fighting techniques.

Calvin continued to survey his surroundings and saw that he
was in a large field of the local version of grass. Although it was a light
green in color (in the daylight anyway), that is where the resemblance to grass
ended. It didn’t have blades; instead, its leaves were tubular and woody,
making a soft crackling noise as they marched across it to the road. “It’ll be
hard to sneak up on anyone if you’re walking across this stuff,” commented Top,
“Even if they can’t see you, they’re going to hear you coming a long way off.”

The field was roughly square-shaped with each side about a
quarter of a mile in length. Some sort of tree analog ringed the field,
although Calvin couldn’t see what it looked like very well in the dark. A road
ran through the middle of the field, and the eight men and one woman began to
follow it in the direction of a small town about ten miles away to the east.
The ambassador had decided to start there, so that he could gather information
on the civilization’s language and culture before meeting the rulers that he
expected to find at the continent’s major city about 55 miles to the north.

After about an hour on the road, the planet’s orange star
rose above the horizon. It wasn’t as bright as the Earth’s sun, and the color
was a little bit off. The strange shadows played tricks on the soldiers’ eyes
and kept them from seeing the local who was walking toward them until he was within
about 100 yards of them. The man was obviously some kind of farmer or merchant,
as he was leading an animal pulling a wagon loaded with some kind of red fruit
or vegetable.

The man appeared very much like a human in form and function,
although one that was very robustly built and powerful looking; he was almost
as well-muscled as the surgically-enhanced soldiers. His forehead was fairly
straight with only slight brow ridges, and he had a prominent chin jutting from
a head that was a little larger than normal for the Terrans. The man was about five
and a half feet tall
with a wide face and prominent nose. He had both dark brown skin and hair,
which fell most of the way down his back in a long braid.

The animal that was pulling the wagon was taller than the
man and nearly five feet wide. As the wagon drew near, Calvin decided that the
beast looked like a cross between a hippo and an elephant. The creature was
hippo-like in appearance, but stood at least seven feet high at the shoulders. The
biggest difference was its color; the hippophant was a brilliant cobalt blue.

The man leading the animal walked along looking at the
ground mumbling something. He happened to look up as he approached the group
and, seeing the large group of men clad in black, he gave a shout and took off
running in the direction from which he had come.

“Did anyone catch what he said?” asked Ambassador Flowers.

“I didn’t,” replied Top. “The translation software didn’t
have enough to evaluate it...although it did give an 85% chance that what he
said was a swear word.” Looking at the hippophant, he asked, “Do you suppose we
should bring this along?”

Calvin looked at the large animal. When the man dropped its
reins, the beast had taken a couple of steps off the road to munch on some of
the woody grass that was growing there. The hippophant made a loud crunching
noise as it chewed with its mouth open.

“It appears tame,” said Calvin. “Yeah, let’s bring it. Maybe
we can get some brownie points for returning it.”

Top looked around to find the junior man. “Petty Officer
Conboy, you’re on animal detail.” Taking a couple of steps closer to where the
animal was eating, Top scrunched up his face. “I didn’t think this planet could
smell any worse, but that damn thing does. Make sure you stay downwind of us!”

After another couple of hours, the walls of the town came
into view. They hadn’t seen another person along the way, which Calvin found a
little troubling. A couple of the houses they passed had smoke coming from
their chimneys, but all of them appeared to be boarded up tightly. The man they
saw must have alerted the locals to their presence, Calvin decided. The
soldiers refrained from approaching the houses, as the ambassador didn’t want
to scare the locals into doing something they would all regret later.

As the group approached the town, they could see that the
town’s gates were shut and the walls were manned. Calvin looked closer and saw
that almost all of the men on the walls were armed with crossbows. These
weapons were different from terrestrial crossbows, in that the Eridanian
version had two bows on the end of them, rather than just one. While the
soldiers that looked down on them from the walls were not
quite
pointing
their weapons at the Terran delegation, they also weren’t pointing them very
far away from them, either.

“
Everyone stay calm and don’t make any sudden movements,
”
commed Calvin. “
We don’t want anyone getting hasty here. Anyone know the max
range of a crossbow?
”

“I’ve hunted with one,
” replied Top, “
and I
wouldn’t shoot at anything much beyond about 40 yards. You can hit something with
it further than that, but most of the kinetic energy is gone, and you can’t
ensure accurate penetration.
”

“
Got it,
” said Calvin. “
Let’s stop about 50 yards
out then.
”

Top called a halt when the first rank got to about 50 yards.

“
Let them make the first move,
” commed the
ambassador. The group waited for the people on the wall to do something.

And they waited.

And waited some more. Ten minutes went by without anything
happening.

“
Umm...how long would you like to wait?
” asked
Calvin.

“
I’m surprised that no one has come out to meet with us,
”
replied the ambassador. “
Obviously they don’t have a cultural imperative to
welcome foreigners.
”

“Hello in the town!” called Calvin

“Grteap sgrti whir mungr!” replied the only man not holding
a crossbow, pointing to the north.

“How about you open the gates, and we discuss this over a
beer?” asked Calvin in a hopeful tone.

“Grteap sgrti whir mungr!” replied the same man again,
gesturing even more pointedly to the north.

“So a beer is out of the question?” asked Calvin. The man
that had replied moved out of sight.

“Hey sir,” said Top, “maybe he’s going to get that beer for
you after all.”

A small door at the base of the gate opened, and a man was
forcibly pushed through it. He turned around and tried to go back through the
door, but it slammed in his face. He turned to face them, looking scared, but
moved no further. “
That looks like the guy we saw earlier, sir,
” commed
Cabo Segundo Cristobal Contreras. The Chilean sergeant had been the closest to
the man earlier. “
Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s the same guy.
” The man, if
indeed it was the same one, did not appear to want to get any closer to the
Terrans now than he had earlier in the day.

After a few seconds, the other man appeared back on the
wall. Seeing that the man at the door hadn’t moved, the man on the wall yelled
something down to him. The door behind him opened and, before he could make a
move toward it, the point of some sort of bladed weapon poked at him. Seeing he
had no choice, he shuffled resignedly over to Petty Officer Conboy, who was
still holding the reins of the hippophant. Taking the reins from him, the man
started leading the animal to the north.

He walked about ten yards and then turned to look at the
Terrans. Seeing they hadn’t moved, he gave a very familiar ‘come along’ motion
with his hand and began walking again. To emphasize what he wanted, the man on
the wall said “Go!” and pointed in their direction of travel.

“My translation software caught that as ‘go,’” said Calvin
to the ambassador.

“Mine did, as well,” the ambassador replied. “Apparently,
all diplomats must check in with the capital first.” He looked at the troops
all waiting for his decision. “In that case,” he said, “I guess we’ll just have
to follow our guide.”

The Terrans turned and began following the local. Calvin
looked back once to see that all of the people on the wall were still staring
at them. The crossbowmen did not seem to have relaxed their postures any. Calvin
turned back to follow the group. He resisted the urge to give their leader, who
was now smiling broadly, the finger.

The group walked for about a mile with the man looking back
at the town from time to time. Finally, they went around a curve, and the town
was lost from sight. Sighing, the man turned to Calvin and said, “Go fheri
akdje mene eoosj.”

Calvin shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry, but I don’t have any
idea what you’re saying,” he said.

The man sighed again and pointed at Calvin. “You.” He
pantomimed eating. “Eat.” He pointed at himself. “Me.” He added one more word,
but it didn’t get translated.

Calvin repeated in the man’s language, “Me eat you.”

He shook his head, “Yes.”

“Apparently the translation program picked up something we
missed,” said Top, “because I know he shook his head ‘no.’”

“Or shaking his head means ‘yes’ in this culture,” said the
ambassador, who had been trained not to apply his own mannerisms to other
cultures. He turned to the local. “We are not going to eat you.”

The man looked confused. “Eat treeji?” he asked, pointing at
the hippophant.

“No, we are not going to eat the treeji either,” answered
the ambassador. He turned to Calvin. “Why don’t we break here for lunch, and
let me talk with this man for a while. That will give the translation software
a chance to catch up, and then maybe we can make some sense of what is going on
here.”

Two hours later, the ambassador and the local man rejoined
the group. During that time, they had seen five groups of travelers. Four of
the groups had gone off the road to avoid the Terrans; the other group had a
heavily laden wagon that they turned around instead.

The man walked up to the wagon where the treeji was happily
munching the ‘grass’ on the side of the road. He pulled several of the red
items from it. “Would you like a yurg fruit?” he asked.

“No, thank you,” replied Calvin. Looking at the ambassador
he said, “It looks like the translation program has figured out the language.”

“For most things, yes,” agreed the ambassador. “This is Gurp,
a farmer from southwest of here. He is convinced that we are here to eat him
and destroy his society.”

“Well, I got the fact that he thought we were going to eat
him,” said Calvin, “although the destroying society part is new. Why does he
think we’re going to do those things?”

“They have a belief that things that look like men, but who
are not men, will come from the skies dressed in black clothing and destroy
their society. Apparently this happened once before, and the only thing that
saved this civilization was the arrival of angels, who came from the skies to
drive them off.” He looked at Gurp and then back to Calvin. “We are, quite
simply, the bogeymen.”

* * * * *

The Terrans had spent two nights on the road to the capital
city of Remurn. They did not have to fight traffic, even as they approached the
capital city. All of the locals avoided the Terrans like they were diseased. As
they came around a bend, the city was finally visible about a mile away. It sat
on a plateau that rose over 100 feet above the rest of the terrain with a
natural ramp 50 feet wide that led up to it.

The platoon saw that there were statues along the rise in
the road. Gurp turned around, looking worried.

“What’s wrong?” asked the ambassador.

“I do not know,” said the local man. “Those weren’t there
before. If they are what I think they are, something bad must have happened.”

As the group got closer, they found out the truth. What they
had thought were statues were, in fact, members of the planet’s lizard race
impaled on eight foot tall pikes. The last 150 feet of the ramp had one on each
side about ten feet apart. At least 30 of the 6’ tyrannosaurus rex-like
creatures had been viciously impaled; from the size of the blood stains, they
had either been impaled while they were living or
very
shortly
thereafter.

Their reception at the capital was very different than it
had been at the smaller town they had approached earlier. Nearly 20 men waited
for them in front of gates that stood wide open. As the Terrans reached them,
one man dressed in fine robes and covered in jewelry stepped forward, and all
of the local men bowed. He was taller than the rest and mustached; he carried
himself with an obvious air of authority.  “Welcome to our land, strangers,” he
proclaimed in a deep voice. “We received word that you were coming. I am the
chief advisor to the king, who sent me to welcome you to our city. All
audiences with the king are held in the morning hours, and he has requested
your presence at court tomorrow morning. Until that time, we have arranged for
rooms for you at the Purple Treeji Inn.” He waved one of the other men forward.

“Blin will show you the way and will bring you to court in the
morning,” he continued, motioning toward the man. “Please make yourselves at
home and feel free to ask Blin any questions you might have. If you would like
to visit our shops, our merchants have been told to give you whatever you need,
within reason, and the king will reimburse them out of his own funds.”

The robed man bowed. “Until tomorrow then,” he said. Before
the ambassador could say a word, the man turned, and all of the men except Blin
began to walk back into the city. Blin stepped forward and said, “I would like
to welcome you to Remurn. If you would follow me?” He stepped off quickly in a
different direction then the other men went, but the ambassador didn’t move.
Seeing the ambassador immobile, Top called the men to a halt.

Calvin looked at him curiously. “
Something is very odd
here,
” commed the ambassador. “
No one will talk to us at the town we
landed near, and here we’re welcomed with open arms? What are we missing?
”

Calvin looked around. Although the locals had gone to great
lengths to avoid them previously, it seemed like everything was normal within
the city. People bustled past, hurrying about their errands. Some of the
lizards could also be seen, although they were much fewer in number. If anyone in
the city, or any of the lizards, seemed disturbed by the men in strange
uniforms, it was not readily apparent. “
You’re right,
” said Calvin. “
No
one is paying us any attention at all, and everyone previously thought we were
going to eat them. Hmm...no one said anything about the lizards along the road
either. I’m not sure what kind of message they thought they were sending us by
leaving them there for us to walk through.
”

“
I’m guessing that it was to say they’re not afraid of
us,
” noted Top. “
Everything’s normal, and we don’t care that you’re
here. Piss us off, and you’ll get what the lizards got.
”

“
We had terrorists come across the border from Peru a few
times,
” said Cabo Segundo Cristobal Contreras. “
They often did things
like this to terrorize the peasants and show them who really held the power. I
for one refuse to bow to them. This only pisses me off. They did this to them
while they were
alive!”

“
I don’t know what the lizards did to deserve this,
”
replied Calvin, “
but the whole show pisses me off too. They better have some
really
good reasons for it, or they really are
going to meet the
bogeymen of their dreams.
”

Blin had returned during their brief conversation and looked
at the ambassador. “Is there a problem?”

“Well, Blin,” replied Ambassador Flowers, “we are new here,
and we do not understand what is going on in the city. Before now, everyone
avoided us. Here, no one seems to care. This seems odd to us, and we are
wondering why it is. We are also wondering what the lizards did to get
impaled.”

Blin looked confused. “What is a ‘leezard?’” he asked. The
ambassador turned and looked pointedly at the rows of pikes and their gruesome
burdens.

The local frowned. “Oh, the kuji,” he said dismissively,
making a shooing motion with one hand. “Until recently, we were at war with
them. We won the war and brought their princess here to ensure their good
behavior. A large group tried to infiltrate the city to kidnap her. They failed
and were placed here to warn the rest of the cold-bloods not to try it again.”

“So she is a hostage here?” asked Contreras.

Blin rounded on the Chilean soldier and glared at him. “You
would be wise to remember whose city you are in,” said Blin. “Kuji-lovers are
not welcome here. Except as pole sitters, that is.” He looked at the impaled
lizards. “Perhaps you would like to join them?”

Contreras opened his mouth to reply, but Calvin cut him off
before his temper could get them in trouble. “I’m sure it is just a matter of
being ignorant of your customs,” he said. “We will try to learn and abide by
them.”  He then commed, “
And woe be it to the person that tries to enforce
anything on us.
”

The local nodded once and turned back to the ambassador. “As
far as why people are unafraid of you here, it is because we are not ignorant
peasants here in Remurn. Everyone knows that old wives’ tales are just that,
old wives tales. There are no such things as either devils or angels.” He
paused to let that sink in and then asked, “Are you ready to go?”

“Yes, I am,” said the ambassador, and Blin started off into
the city. When he saw that Gurp was following with his treeji, he stopped.
“That beast is not allowed in the merchant quarter of the city,” he said with a
sour expression. “You must take it to the stables.” Blin pointed further to the
left.

Gurp didn’t say anything; he just nodded and headed off in
that direction. “
Sergeant Hanzo,
” Calvin commed,
“
why don’t
you and Deadeye follow Gurp and make sure nothing bad happens to him? Bring him
to the hotel once he gets the beast stabled.
”

“
Yes sir,
” the two soldiers commed, dropping back.
Within moments, they were lost to sight in the bustle of the city, although the
hole that the treeji made in the crowd as it moved through the press was
visible for several minutes longer.

The rest of the group followed Blin as he led them through
the city. After 15 minutes, they came to a building with a sign bearing the
image of a purple treeji out front. Blin walked in through the swinging door
and up to the counter, shouldering aside two disgruntled looking men who were
on their way out. As the Terrans approached the counter, they heard him say,
“These are the nine foreigners that the king has said will be staying with you.
Ensure that they are given suitable accommodations.”

The man at the counter nodded, an unhappy look on his face.
“Space has just been cleared,” he said, nodding in the direction of the door
that the two men had just left through. “I have a large room for them. It has
two beds; the rest can sleep on the floor.” He looked at the group standing
before him. “Unless my math skills have gone bad, though, I only see seven of
them.”

Blin turned and counted the Terrans. “Where did the others
go?” he asked after he had confirmed the count.

“The man that greeted us invited us to sample your local
wares,” replied Calvin. “I believe that they stopped to do some shopping. I’m
sure that they will be along shortly.”

Blin nodded not looking happy. “I will be back in the
morning to get you for court,” he said after a few seconds. “The innkeeper will
awaken you in time to get ready for your presentation. Please feel free to look
around the city.” He bowed and left, going quickly through the door.

“Well, that was odd,” said the ambassador, looking at the
door through which Blin had left as if he expected the man to come right back
through.

“I am not one to question the actions of the security
police,” said the innkeeper, also looking at the door. He turned to the
ambassador and advised, “It would be better for you if you did the same.”

“Security police?” asked Calvin. “What are the security
police?”

“The security police are the eyes and ears of Stref, who is
the king’s advisor,” replied the innkeeper. “It is said that they are
everywhere and are only loyal to Stref. People that have issues with the
security police often turn up dead...when they turn up at all. You would be
wise not to irritate Stref. Unless you have a death wish, that is.”

He came around from behind the counter and gave the soldiers
a small smile. “Come,” he said, as he started up the stairs. “No more talk of
this. I will show you to your room.”

They had just made it to the top of the stairs when the message
from Deadeye came in.

* * * * *