Swords and Saddles Read online

  “And you had no indications that wasn’t working?” Singh questioned. “Let me tell you what we heard on the way in. The civilians in Amity were sending out messages, both general emergency signals and specific calls for help. They showed video of large numbers of Izkop carrying spears surrounding that valley where your main settlement was located.”

  “Amity isn’t a settlement,” Juni corrected. “It’s a research installation.”

  “Fine. According to these messages, lots of Izkop were threatening the humans there. The same few messages kept auto-repeating. Now we know that must have been because the humans who sent them were already dead. Then the messages cut off after the first transmissions from our ship reached the planet. We figured the Izkop must have trashed the transmitters somehow to keep the humans here from replying to us, but actually the Izkop apparently just killed the signals once they knew we were being lured in.”

  “You’re assuming a rather high level of sophistication in their planning of an act of violence,” Juni said. “How could the Izkop have learned how to take those actions and plan such an entrapment?”

  Ariana turned an angry look on him. “Their legends are full of accounts of battles and ambushes.”

  “Literary and historical-cultural inheritances can’t realistically be employed to put into practice major changes in group inter-relational dynamics.”

  “The Izkop knew what they were doing,” Johansen said. “Not only did they lay a near-perfect ambush for us, but someone showed them how to handle a lot of the equipment there, and they figured out how to modify functions to use non-weapons as weapons.”

  “Everything we have is user friendly,” Ariana said in a low voice. “It’s not that hard for anyone to grasp. All you need to do is navigate through simple touch menus to change settings. But at this outpost we never showed the Izkop much. Just the simplest things.”

  “And in Amity?” Singh asked.

  “They…might have been forced to show more. A great deal more. If the Izkop threatened them. What you’re describing seeing sounds like a dominance display.”

  Singh sat back, glancing at Johansen. “What’s your opinion?”

  “We’re still missing a reason.”

  “Yeah.”

  His eyes glowing with rage, Scorse shouted at them. “They wanted our equipment and they were willing to kill for it! I know soldiers like you don’t come from the best and brightest, but how hard is that to figure out?”

  Singh kept his own voice dispassionate. “If the Izkop wanted your equipment, sir, why did they blow it all to hell?”

  Scorse got up without replying and stormed into another part of the building.

  Ariana spoke in a choked voice. “You’re certain everyone else is dead?” Singh nodded, somber again. “Juni, could you look after the children alone for a few minutes?” She excused herself and also went off by herself, while Juni scowled and headed to a back room where the children must be.

  “Lost her husband,” Adowa said in the silence after the civilians left. “Too bad we had to tell her.”

  “We didn’t have a chance to save him,” Johansen said, knowing he sounded defensive.

  “No. I’m just saying. Hard to hear, you know?”

  “Yeah.” Scorse had lost his spouse as well, but cruel as it might be Johansen couldn’t muster up the same sympathy. Johansen looked around again as Juni led out from the back room a small column of children.

  “See,” the young man told the children, “these soldiers are here now.”

  The soldiers nodded to the kids, who nodded solemnly back, their eyes big. “Are you taking us back to Amity?” one who looked about ten years old asked.

  “No,” Singh said. “We’ll be leaving on a ship with…everyone on the planet.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Why are we leaving?”

  “Why can’t we call home?”

  “Where’s my mom and dad?”

  Singh hesitated, uncharacteristically uncertain, so Johansen forced a smile, standing up to convey genial authority. “Hey, guys, we’re just soldiers here to do our jobs. You got your people here like Juni. They’ll tell you anything they can, but right now a lot of it is secret. You understand?” The children nodded reluctantly, while Juni kept his eyes averted from them. “So you guys stay in the back. That’s part of the secret. You have to keep hidden back there until the ship gets here. Okay?”

  The children still looked doubtful. “But we’ve been in there for a loooong time,” one complained. “Days. And we hardly ever get to come out.”

  Archer smiled, too, as she winked conspiratorially at them. “We need your help guys. This is a special game, like my buddy there says. Stay secret, stay hidden, stay cool.” The extra maternal boost must have been enough, because the kids smiled back and nodded.

  Juni hesitated, then herded the kids into the back again, leaving the soldiers looking at each other.

  “Thanks, Johansen. Thanks, Archer,” Singh said.

  “Nyet problema, Sarge.” Archer gave the inner door a puzzled look. “Why’d he bring them out here? Like he was trying to dump them on us.”

  “He hasn’t got kids of his own,” Adowa said. “You can tell. And he’s really shook up by this. He didn’t say it like the old son of a bitch did, but he’s another one of those guys who think because they spent ten years in college they understand everything.”

  Johansen nodded. “Only he’s realizing that he can’t understand this. The real world is always a shock, but this is a lot worse than those guys usually deal with, and all he can do is take care of the kids..”

  “Well, I’d love to help,” Archer said, “but I got other things to do right now, and he doesn’t.”

  “You can bet he realizes that, too, and isn’t too thrilled to know it.”

  A few minutes later Burgos and Stein came back, Burgos shaking her head. “Just empty sheds out there. There’s hay in a small barn for the cow. Nothing we can use. That shed where they had their emergency gear was completely trashed. Nothing usable in it. Why the hell didn’t they have that stuff in here with them?”

  Singh waved around. “Living quarters. You should know some of that survival gear isn’t allowed to be stowed in living areas. Flares and stuff, because of the hazard. How’s the back of this place look?”

  “Solid wall. Maybe bad storms always come from that way. The sides of the building back from here have a couple of doors we need to seal off, but the only windows in those areas are slits high up. If we guard the front and sides of this room we’ll be okay, though the Izkop could dig through at other places in time.” She sat down, holding her rifle across her chest, her expression gloomy.

  “The civs have been milking that cow,” Stein offered. “Feeding it hay, too.”

  “The Izkop would have spotted that if there’s any around,” Singh said, then looked over as Goldera and Nassar returned. “What’d you see?”

  Goldera swung his arm in a wide arc through the east, north and west. “They’re out there, Sarge. I knew it. Lots of them. I could see groups of Izkop scattered all around in those directions. None of them seemed to be focused on here, but they were out there all over the place. Not real easy to see, either. I could only spot them when they moved. But it looked clear to the south.”

  “Clear?” Singh questioned.

  “Yeah, Sarge. Not an Izkop in sight that way. There’s decent cover and the terrain’s easy. We could move fast.”

  Singh leaned back, frowning, then glanced at Johansen.

  Johansen didn’t hesitate. “Too easy.” Like the landing zone had looked.

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Singh said. “That good cover to the south could be hiding Izkop who aren’t moving. Still, they might be expecting us to be keeping to the rougher territory, and there was another research outpost northwest of here they might think we were aiming for.”

  This time Johansen gestured toward the back of the house. “Those kids couldn’t move fast. If it w
as just us, maybe. But not with them.”

  “Yeah, that pretty much settles it, doesn’t it?” Singh looked out of the closest window. “Even if it’s clear to the south, we can’t go without leaving the civs here to the Izkop.”

  “It’s a chance,” Goldera insisted. “Maybe our only chance to live.”

  Adowa gave him a hard look. “We’ve seen those kids. You should take a look, too. How you going to live knowing you left them to the Izkop?”

  “That’s the thing,” Singh agreed. “We came here to protect the civs. It looks like these are the only civs left, so I figure we have to stay here and protect them.”

  “But staying here won’t make any difference,” Goldera protested. “I wasn’t talking about leaving anybody, just us all making a run for it. I won’t leave any kids.”

  “They couldn’t keep up.” Singh looked around. “So we hold here as long as we can, soldiers. Let’s get things set up for a siege. None of us were high enough in the food chain to know how close other ships are, or what time the Sara was supposed to send in her status pulse each day. Another ship might already be on the way, might get here in time to lift us all out, if we hold out long enough. Make sure those back doors are sealed and that there’s no other ways in.”

  When Ariana returned, her eyes reddened but her expression determined, they tallied up the food resources at the outpost. “With you here as well as the children,” she said, “we probably have about six days worth of food left. We’ve already been cut off for a while and we’re not set up for this population.”

  “What about the cow?” Stein asked. “She’s pretty well-fed. Lot of meat on her. I can do the butchering.”

  Ariana gave him a wan look. “The cow is…was…an experiment, to see how the Izkop would react to her. We were hoping…her milk has helped stretch our supplies.”

  “I understand, ma’am,” Stein assured her. “A milk-cow isn’t like a beef animal. People get attached to them. But it looks like we’ll need that meat.”

  “We wait six days,” Singh decided. “On the seventh day, if no relief ship has shown up, we kill the cow.” The sergeant stood up, stretching, much harder to see as darkness fell rapidly with the disappearance of the sun. “We’re all exhausted, too tired to keep talking tonight, but the Izkop are out there. We stand watches, two hours each, until sunrise. You handle the schedule, Johansen. Make sure the sentries know not to show themselves and not to show any lights, and to wake the rest of us if they hear anything even if it doesn’t sound dangerous.”

  “Yes, sergeant.”

  #

  Johansen saw and heard nothing unusual during his portion of the watch that night. None of the others reported detecting activity, either. But at dawn Johansen was awakened by a string of curses recited in a monotonous tone by Singh. “What happened?”

  “Take a look,” Singh offered, beckoning out the window he was kneeling beside with Burgos, who had the last watch. “Everybody else, get up now!”

  Raising himself cautiously, Johansen felt a pit open inside him as he looked at what the dawn’s light had revealed. The area around the compound and for about five hundred meters beyond was empty, but outside that what seemed to be a solid mass of Izkop stood in apparently endless ranks, spears in their hands, gazing silently at the human building. Like the Izkop they had fought in the valley, these wore no armor, just odd pants which came only partway down the upper legs and partway up the abdomen.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Burgos said, her hands twisting on her rifle as she stared at the Izkop.

  “Nobody heard anything,” Singh replied. “Or saw anything. These guys are very good at concealment, but we’re also too used to depending on the sensors in the armor to hear and see trouble.”

  Ariana gazed out with a hopeless expression, Juni seemed puzzled as well as frightened, while Scorse glared hatred.

  The other soldiers took positions at the windows, weapons ready. Most of them simply muttered despairing curses, but after Stein had gazed out for a while he looked troubled. “Sarge?” he questioned. “There’s a lot of them. I don’t think we got enough ammo.”

  Adowa started laughing, then Johansen joined in, then Archer, Goldera and Nasser. Even Singh laughed, and finally Stein added his hoots to the mix. Only Burgos sat silent, as well as all of the civilians, who were now watching the soldiers in amazement.

  “Why are you laughing?” Juni finally asked.

  That just made them laugh again, loud and long, even Burgos gasping a few bitter snorts, Johansen himself feeling the darkness inside, the certainty of doom which only dark, irrational humor could keep at bay. He noticed that Singh had stopped laughing, though, and was gazing thoughtfully out the window. “What’s up?”

  “They’re listening,” Singh commented as the last chuckles died away. “You could tell they were listening to us laugh, and watching us. Do the Izkop understand human laughter?” he asked Ariana.

  “Yes,” she said, hurrying to look out the window beside the sergeant. “They have a capacity for mirth that seems similar to our own though I don’t understand any of their jokes. I can’t tell from here how they’re reacting to your laughter. Their facial muscles don’t show emotions in the same ways ours do, so it wouldn’t be easy even if we were closer.” Ariana sat back, her eyes now on the soldiers. “That display. It’s meant to impress. To frighten enemies. But you all laughed.”

  “Is that going to make them mad?” Adowa asked sarcastically.

  “There’s an Izkop phrase that I think translates as ‘greeting death with smiles.’ They use it in their legends, to describe heroes.” Ariana took another cautious look outside. “See those Izkop gathered together, the ones with the tattoos and decorations? Those are leaders. They’re talking, and I’m sure it’s about you laughing when they expected you to be overawed.”

  “Let’s give them something else to talk about,” Nassar suggested, hefting the buzz-saw. “Hey!” he called. “Whenever you’re ready! Come and get it!”

  “Quiet,” Singh ordered. “Ma’am, do you know them well enough to see if they’ll talk to you? Maybe arrange a truce or something?”

  Ariana hesitated. “I don’t know if they’ll – What did they do at Amity? To…everyone else? Did they just kill them or…?”

  Singh pressed his lips together before answering. “The dead we saw were lying face up, cut open from chest to groin, their guts spread out around them. We saw the Izkop doing the same thing to dead soldiers on other parts of the field while we were shooting our way out.”

  Ariana looked ill, her body shaking. “Why…? Sergeant, I…I…”

  “That’s okay. If you can’t stand dealing with them now –“

  She held up one hand, palm out, her voice steadying even though she seemed to fighting off nausea. “I have to. For everyone’s sake. If they’ll listen. But I don’t know why they - I’ll call to them from here.” Ariana visibly braced herself, then stood up, looking out the window, and called out some words in another language, her voice straining over glottal stops and other sounds.

  The Izkop leaders ignored her, continuing their conference, then abruptly gesturing and calling out commands. With eerie synchronization the entire force of Izkop began stepping back, slowly retreating with their faces to the humans. They kept going until at least a kilometer distant, then the formations broke and the Izkop seemed to melt into the landscape.

  “What the hell happened?” Goldera asked. “Not that I’m complaining, but why didn’t they kill us just then?”

  Singh rubbed his chin, then looked at Ariana. “Because we laughed at them?”

  “Yes, but they stayed in threat posture,” she responded. “And they ignored my attempts to talk to them. I’m not…oh…’the peace of the warrior before death.’ That’s what it means.”

  “So they’ll hit us later?”

  “Yes.” Ariana sagged, her face in her hands. “It’s a mark of respect, not a reprieve. There’s no set period for the peace that I could d
etermine.”

  The sergeant nodded calmly. “At least it’s obvious they know we’re here. Two on watch at all times,” he ordered the soldiers, “the rest get to work fortifying and blockading all the windows and doors as best we can. Don’t worry any more about keeping the barricading concealed from the outside. If the Izkop haven’t hit us by the time we’re done with that, those off-watch will rest so we’ll be ready to keep two sentries on at a time all night.”

  “What about us?” Ariana asked.

  “Look after those kids and keep them quiet, ma’am. It’d be a big help if you all also took care of meals for everyone.”

  #

  The peace before death had lasted all day. Now, long after sunset, Johansen sat near one window, searching the outside for any signs of Izkop. On the other side of the room, Stein stood sentry at another window. No lights showed inside or out, and the stars and three small moons of this world provided very little illumination.

  Johansen had learned that you found out a lot when sitting silently on sentry duty at night. No human noises around, just you and the quiet broken only by the night sounds of whatever place you were in. Listening and watching, you could hear and feel the rhythm of the creatures and the land. And once you knew that rhythm, you could tell when something was disturbing it.

  Of course, without the colors and noises and activity of the day to act as distractions, ghosts came at night, too. Johansen tried to ignore the phantoms brought to life by his memories, but still the ghosts sometimes appeared in the stillness of the night.

  Ariana came out of the back, hesitated, then came to sit on the floor near Johansen, her back to the wall, hugging herself.

  Johansen watched her for a moment before speaking. “You okay?”

  She took a deep, shuddering breath. “You mean for someone expecting to die very soon?”

  “Yeah.” Their voices were barely murmurs, just loud enough for the other to hear.