*
Someone tugged at the scruff of his neck. And again, harder, pulling him up to a sitting position. Hesperus groaned. His head ached; his mouth tasted of stone and iron and roasted hydrocarbons. Something was crusted in his fur behind his ear. What, what, for love and death, what had he been drinking? He cracked open his eyes. A filthy face swam into view. A man, a human. There had been a lot of humans lately, thought Hesperus.
Memory slid down through him like a spear of ice. His eyelids shot up and he let out a wild yell, which was muffled by some disgusting rag that jammed his mouth.
The grip on his neck tightened, and the human spoke. “It’s awake, chief.” Hesperus was sitting on the cold damp floor of a rock-lined tunnel, his tail trapped painfully underneath his buttocks. His ankles were bound together and his arms were tied tight behind his back. The air was ripe with the odour of old vegetables and unwashed bodies. Clangs and curses sounded a little way off down the passage.
Blinking through a film of tears, Hesperus saw another human loom into view. “Oh good. I thought you’d killed it.” The same commanding voice that had ordered him kept alive.
The newcomer crouched in front of him. A female, dressed in something dark and militaristic: tall, with short iron-grey hair cropped close to her skull. A flat, broken nose, the face a map of wrinkled skin. She slid a long, thin knife from a forearm sheath and drew little circles with its tip in front of Hesperus’s eye.
She glanced up at the figure who was clutching Hesperus’s neck. “Think it knows anything useful?” she asked, conversationally.
“Doubt it, chief,” came the reply. “Let’s just stick it now, and see how long it bleeds for.”
The tip of the knife continued to circle round and round. Hesperus moaned through the gag.
“I dunno,” said the woman. “Sounded there like it was trying to say something.”
“Well, then,” the other one said, “take an eye out. It can talk with one eye.”
Circle, circle.
Hesperus moaned again, louder, desperately trying to sound communicative and helpful through a mouthful of stinking material.
The woman frowned, chewing her lower lip. “Tell you what,” she said, as the knifepoint slowly cruised around, “we’ll see what it has to say now. Then, if we don’t like it, we’ll―” the knife jerked, then circled again, “―cut one out and start again. Hmm?”
The human holding Hesperus grunted, sounding disappointed. The woman reached up and tugged the cloth from Hesperus’s mouth.
“Watch them teeth, chief. Nasty. Maybe I should break ’em for you first?” There was a scraping noise of heavy metal on stone.
Hesperus coughed, retching, then began to babble. “Oh, I’ll tell you anything you want give you anything you want money? I’m rich, very rich I can pay you might like some service I can provide a mine of information bill of lading right here with all present …” The knife-tip touched his nose, gently, sliding under its own slight weight perhaps a millimetre into the tender flesh. Hesperus yipped and snapped into silence.
The woman touched a finger to her lips, and the knife withdrew, just. “Speak when you’re spoken to,” she said, staring into his eyes. “First things first: you are an agent of the Dictatorat, a collaborator and a war criminal. I am Griva Geird, cadre commander of the Farmers’ Army in the Vennel Highlands. I can have you strangled, right here, right now. The only reason you are still breathing is because I think you know what is in that shipment. If you don’t tell me, I’m going to cut off your rancid hide and use it as a rug. Do you understand?”
Hesperus gave a minuscule nod, cringing back from the razor-edged blade.
“Good. Now. What is in that shipment?”
“Farm equipment. Ploughs, harrows, seed drills and threshers. I would be delighted if you took them, with my compliments.” His voice got higher and higher, ending in a squeak.
Geird punched him in the gut, forcing the air from his lungs. Only the hard grip at his nape prevented him from doubling over and impaling his head on the knife. “Try again.”
“It’s farm equipment!” gasped Hesperus. “Farm equipment! We were making a delivery for Mr Tulka!”
The knife came closer to Hesperus’s eye. Very, very close. He tried to draw away but was held fast.
“Now we’re getting something, at least,” Geird said. “Tulka. You were making a delivery for Colonel Tulka of the Silent Service. Colonel Tulka is not known for his interest in farm machinery. What were you delivering?”
Hesperus clamped his eyes shut, horribly aware of that evil point tickling at his eyelashes. “I don’t know any Colonel Tulka! I was delivering farm machinery to Mr Tulka, Hedred Tulka. He’s a businessman, a merchant, like me! Please, you have to believe me! Open the bloody cans and see for yourself! I’m just making a delivery!”
“He’s making fun of you, chief,” growled the man, squeezing even tighter. “Slit him and see what falls out.”
“Farm equipment! Open the cans!” Hesperus shrieked. “You can check the bill of lading! It’s right here! Top pocket, there, there, just look, can’t you?”
Geird teased open Hesperus’s pocket, extracting the flimsy and scanning its contents. Her lips drew back in what could not possibly be called a smile. “Right enough, farm machinery,” she said. “How could we have doubted you? This here is all the proof I need that you were delivering – let’s see – ploughs, harrows, seed drills and threshers. To Colonel Hedred Tulka, at a secret rendezvous in the Vennel Highlands, escorted in by half the Dictatorat’s Star Fleet.”
“No, no!” Hesperus whimpered. “What ‘Star Fleet’? Those three ships were just some bounty hunters we fell in with … a business deal … mutually beneficial …” He trailed away into silence under the woman’s cold stare.
“C’mon, chief,” said the man. “This is a waste of time. I’ll just throttle it now, eh?” He hauled at Hesperus’s neck, dragging him upright and ramming him face-first against the wall of the cave. The shallow cut on his nose stung furiously.
“Wait.”
“Yes, yes, wait, wait!” Hesperus yelled out the corner of his mouth, as his nose grated on the unyielding rock.
“Aw, chief …”
“Shut it, Fez,” Geird said. “I’m thinking.”
Hesperus panted for breath, each one more precious than the last. Finally, the woman spoke again.
“Either this offworlder is a dedicated agent of the Dictatorat, or it’s the greatest fool since Filmer. Now, I’m not ruling out the former, but right now I’m not ruling out the latter, either.”
“Either way, chief, it’s no use to us.” The man – Fez – leaned his weight towards the wall. Hesperus felt as if his spine was about to snap.
“We still haven’t been able to open the canisters,” Geird replied. “May-be the alien can tell us how.” She stood up, and walked off. “Bring it.”
Fez, tutting, gave one last shove on Hesperus’s neck before hauling him away from the wall and dragging him down the passage.
One of the hulking cargo containers occupied the middle of the chamber. Four others stood against the far wall. Next to them Hesperus could see the mouth of the cave, a few stars still gleaming in the paling sky. He stared out at them, hungrily. Another man, dressed in ragged fatigues and holding a crude-looking kinetic rifle, crouched at one side. Beyond him lay a narrow ledge: the cave must sit at the very lip of a precipice.
Strange assemblies of thin struts, harnesses and fabric hung from metal hooks driven into the wall near the entrance. Another human, some sort of technician, clutching an array of tools, was peering at the access panel of the nearest container.
Geird pointed at the single canister. “How do we open this?” she snapped.
Hesperus struggled to get his bound feet under him, to take the weight off the scruff of his neck. “The codes … access codes are on the bill of lading.”
Geird passed the flimsy to the tech. Peering at the crumpled sheet
, he dabbed at the panel. Nothing happened. “No good, chief.”
“No good,” Geird said, evenly. “How do we open it?”
Oh, gods, thought Hesperus. Either the tech monkey couldn’t work a keypad or … or this hideous woman was right, and his shipment was something very far from farm machinery, and Tulka was most definitely not a simple merchant.
“Well, ah, well, that’s most unorthodox, ah … Oh! There’s the Co-op override.” He glanced around. “If you return me to my ship I can open it there.” Geird narrowed her eyes, glancing towards Fez. “Or I can open it here!” said Hesperus quickly. “I can open it. Just untie my hands and give me a, a Fourier analyser and a crystal pick.”
Geird turned to the tech. “You got those?”
“Uh … no, chief,” he replied.
She turned back to Hesperus. “Try again.”
Hesperus felt tears welling up behind his eyes. This wasn’t fair! It just wasn’t fair. “Well, what have you got then?” he yelled. “I’m doing my best here! It’s not my fault you’re a bunch of backwards bloody dirtscrapers, living in a hole! Maybe you could hit the canister, shout at it, torture and threaten it, maybe, have you tried that yet?”
There was a rising rumble from Fez and Hesperus was lifted into the air.
“Put it down, Fez,” Geird said, absently, and Hesperus’s feet were set back on the earthen floor. She turned to the technician. “Show the alien what you’ve got.”
Scowling, the tech scooped up his meagre equipment and thrust it under Hesperus’s nose. An assorted collection of odds and ends: bits of bent metal, mostly. A penlight. Some sort of insulated gripper. A little box with wires and a meter on the front.
“Well?” Geird sounded bored.
Hesperus shut his eyes, and took a deep breath. “I – it might serve.”
“It better,” she replied. “I’ll give you one hour. Untie it,” this to Fez, “and watch it closely. Anything funny happens …” She drew her forefinger across her throat.
Geird strode away, deeper into the cave. Fez tugged an ugly serrated blade from his belt and sawed through Hesperus’s bonds. Hesperus clenched his hands, trying to squeeze some feeling back into his numbed fingers. He peered at the access panel, and quickly tapped in the code from the bill of lading, just to be sure. Nothing. In his heart he laid a thousand curses on Tulka’s head. There was no way that Tulka could have bypassed Ininish dockyard protocols, so how …?
The agent in Qudira. The agent who had unloaded all the cargo for inspection. And who had then reloaded the Dubious Profit with eighty tons of something else, under a Qudiran docket. You fool, Hesperus, you fool! Tulka couldn’t have loaded a false cargo at Inines, but suborning the Qudiran officials – persuading them to look the other way while one consignment was switched for another – that would have been easy. A gift of eighty tons of Ininish farm machinery would have been more than enough. And the three bounty hunters, who just happened by, and who then gave the Dubious Profit a free escort to Teen? Ha! The Shuttlers’ strike? Ha! The smugglers’ landing site that Ander so conveniently knew about? Ha, again! He had been played, all down the line. He had been dazzled by the deal, by the money on offer. It had seemed too good to be true, and it was. Fool, fool, fool.
Would Tulka have even paid? Or would he have just taken the cargo and put a bolt between Hesperus’s eyes? Hesperus fancied that, probably, Tulka would have paid. Why not? The contract was paying a little over the odds for a delivery of farm machinery, true, but it was decidedly cheap for a long-range smuggling run. Hesperus swore, horribly.
“What’s up? You can’t open it?” said Fez. He was grinning.
Hesperus snapped back to the here and now. He snarled up at Fez, baring his long teeth. “Shut your mouth. Shut your mouth and stand over there. You’re in my light.”
Fez curled his upper lip, but took one small step to the side.
Hesperus peered at the panel, chewing on his thumb. Canister technology was pretty basic, wherever it came from; even the Dubious Profit’s onboard systems would tumble the lock in nanoseconds. But to open one manually, with rudimentary tools? Frowning, he probed at the edge of the access panel with a short metal rod, its tip splayed out into a small thin blade. With a little prying and poking he managed to slide the edge of the tool between the panel and the canister. Carefully, he levered up the panel’s frame, working along all four sides until he could pop it out entirely.
He flicked on the penlight and squinted into the narrow gap between the panel and the canister body, counting the active circuits. Pressure control: check; temperature control: check. So whatever was inside, it was environmentally sensitive. Hesperus scowled: that would make it harder to open. He leaned against the canister, drumming his fingers on the scratched alloy surface. Think, think! Whatever it contained, it had to be illegal – otherwise why would Tulka perpetrate this ridiculous charade?
Illegal, and environmentally sensitive. That usually meant narcotics. Was Tulka shipping drugs to Teen? Possibly, but if he was Colonel Tulka, a military man … firearms. Gun-running. But it would be unusual to pack any sort of munitions in pressurised containers, unless they were appallingly delicate and dangerous. Hesperus shivered, imagining nerve-gas shells and multi-spectrum virus bombs. He snatched his hands away as if the canister had burned them.
He swallowed hard, forcing back the rush of panic. Tulka and his crew had taken no special precautions, and Tulka seemed to be a cautious man. Slaves, then? It hardly seemed likely. A backwards agricultural planet like Teen usually produced plenty of slaves on its own account. He leaned forward and shone the penlight into the crevice again. Life support: check.
Slaves! Finally, a stroke of luck! All he needed to do was break the life support circuit and the canister would open automatically. He was just about to jab the blade into the gap when a bubble of doubt floated up in the back of his mind. Maybe, just maybe he should think, first.
He had met Tulka on Inines. Then he went to Qudira, where Tulka’s agent had secretly exchanged the cargo. This was an elaborate scheme, well-planned and ably executed. Now, Tulka might have many reasons to import slaves – Hesperus could think of several – but this operation had been backed by the resources of the Teen state. There was something particularly important about these slaves. Inines had been chosen as a perfect place to pick up a consignment that no-one could question. Qudira had been chosen because it was a low-technology, lawless system, away from the prying eyes of the Co-operative, where the switch could take place. But why those two systems, specifically? Dozens of similar planets could be found throughout the sector; there were several suitable candidates closer to Teen than Inines and Qudira. How deep did this plan run?
The sharp little instrument hovered above the life support circuit, as Hesperus rolled the facts around in his mind. An illicit cargo; Qudira; Inines; the war on Teen. A cold finger of dread slithered down his spine. Oh. Oh, no. Not that, surely … but it fitted; it all added up.
Slowly, Hesperus stood and backed away from the pod.
“That it? You got it open?” said Fez.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” said Hesperus quietly. “I really don’t think you want me to open this.”
“The chief told you to get it open. Are you telling me you can’t? Or you won’t? Either way, I’ll stick you and fling you off the cliff.” He pointed his knife towards the mouth of the cave.
“I … look, I think I know what’s in here. It’s – it’s dangerous.”
“‘Dangerous’, huh? More dangerous than me?” Fez stepped forwards, the knife weaving back and forth, level with Hesperus’s midriff.
If I’m right, thought Hesperus, then yes: what’s in this pod would eat you alive, would run through this sorry little warren like wildfire. But he couldn’t risk provoking the human.
“Your chief wanted to know what’s inside the canisters,” he said, struggling to sound calm and reasonable. “Well, I think I can tell her n
ow. I’ll tell her, and then she can decide whether or not she wants them opened. How about that?” And I just hope and pray she keeps them shut, he thought. Roll them into a pit and bury them under a rockslide, or seal them in steel and drop them in the ocean.
Fez narrowed his eyes. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Because I think you’re perilously stupid, thought Hesperus. Because you’re exactly the kind of idiot who would insist on opening the pod when I tell you what’s inside. Because you’re a big, tough alpha-male who’s been struggling for some time taking orders from a female, and your little pack-animal primate brain keeps trying to kick you into a dominance display. He was trying to formulate some expression to communicate all this in a diplomatic manner when the sentry at the cave mouth called softly back into the tunnel.
“Lookout’s coming in.”
Fez turned away from Hesperus, towards the entrance. The sentry pressed himself against the wall. A shadow swept across the cave mouth, and Hesperus could hear a heavy flapping. Dust kicked up in spiral eddies, sparkling in the dawn light. A tall, thin avian thudded onto the ledge outside the cave and loped inside, raising its wings clumsily above its head as it skidded to a halt.
“Movement in the canyons,” it gasped. “Looks like ten, twelve scouting parties.” The avian gave a shrug and its wings slid off in a heap on the floor. Blinking, Hesperus realised that this was no bird. It was a human: the wings were webs of plastic sheeting, stretched between long, thin rods. Each wing was twice the length of the human’s arm, and the whole assemblage could be strapped on like a backpack. A kite-like structure hung down behind, probably some sort of stabilising tail. Those were other bird-suits hanging on hooks along the wall. Teen was a small planet: its combination of low gravity and a thick atmosphere meant that human beings – even the tall, gracile natives – were capable of flying under their own power.
A desperate notion began to form in Hesperus’s mind. A lunatic idea; one so hideously risky it made his stomach lurch. But maybe … he took a deep breath and turned to Fez.
“Guns,” he said.
Fez’s head snapped back round towards him. “What?”
“Guns. Weapons. Dangerous,” said Hesperus, pointing at the canister. “Almost certainly high-tech. Horribly dangerous. And illegal. You should turn them in to the Co-operative embassy. Plasma carbines, I shouldn’t wonder. Frightful things, they are. You could take out a target on the horizon with one of those. If you were a good shot. Terribly, terribly dangerous. It would be irresponsible of me to open these pods. Five whole tons of plasma carbines, oh my, no.”
Fez grinned, savagely. “So that’s Tulka’s game, is it? We’ve been holding off his entire army for years here in the mountains. Now he gives his boys some shiny alien playthings and thinks he can force us out with superior firepower. Oh, will we have a surprise in store for him!” He pointed his knife at Hesperus’s throat. “Open them. Open all of them. Open them or I’ll open you.”
Hesperus clasped his hands together in front of his chest. “Is there nothing I can say to dissuade you? No? Well, then, I must comply. I wish to make it known though that I do this under protest.”
“Noted,” said Fez. “Now open them. You,” he said, turning to the panting lookout, “you know the drill. Get back down the tunnel and alert the cadres. Holben,” this to the sentry, “get your eyes out there.” The lookout jogged off down the passageway. The sentry got down on his belly and wormed his way to the lip of the ledge, scanning down the cliff-face with his rifle.
Hesperus moved around the five canisters, exposing the access panel circuitry on each one. It would be best, he thought, if they all opened more or less at once. At least that way, if his plan failed, death would come more quickly. No! No. Boldness and confidence! Do or die …
With a sharp jab he cracked the life support circuit on the first canister, then worked his way along the other four. His task complete, he stood with his back against the wall, in front of one of the dangling bird-suits.
The canisters were emitting tinny cheeping noises as their failsafes kicked in. There was a series of low, powerful thuds as internal locks disengaged. Fez tucked his knife back into his belt and stood beside the central canister, staring at it greedily.
Hesperus reached up behind him and nudged a pair of wings from their fastening. They settled down onto his shoulders. Fez seemed to have forgotten him. With shaking hands he buckled the straps across his chest. The hand-loops of the wings, though, were beyond his grasp: they were designed for the long arms of Teen humans. Fighting down a whimper, Hesperus extended his claws and poked his fingers through the plastic sheeting to grip the main struts. Just … about … now!
There was a final, definitive clang from the first canister, and it unfolded with a crash. Fez yelled, jumping back as a tide of liquefied shock-gel rolled out. The other canisters shook and burst open, and Hesperus, eyes bulging in terror, took two springing steps and leapt high over the turning sentry’s head, out into the clear cold nothingness beyond.
The bottom of the cliff was still in shadow, far below. There was a shout behind him and a bang, appallingly near, then hideous whooping snarls and a burbling shriek. Teen’s feeble gravity began to tug on him, softly but insistently. Sobbing, he dragged his arms down in one desperate flap and rose, just in time to see the human sentry sprint from the cave, flinging himself from the ledge and curving slowly downwards. The human screamed until his lungs were empty; then dragged in another breath and screamed again, and again, and again, the fading sound echoing back from the grey stone walls as his world pulled him down, faster and faster into the darkness.
Hesperus flapped frantically, almost wrenching his shoulders from their sockets. He pushed himself up through the chill air by main force, the flimsy wings bowing with each stroke. From the cave below him he could hear the chatter of rifles and the hissing pulse of energy weapons, laced through with anguished cries and high, weird chanting.
He lurched higher and higher, but try as he might he couldn’t seem to generate any forward momentum. He thrust at the air again, straining for breath. The wind, snaking around the cliffs, plucked at him, shoving him sideways, until one spiteful gust flipped him over and sent him tumbling. Swearing and thrashing, he managed to roll himself upright again just in time to see a slanted face of loose, shattered stones looming up in front. Rowing desperately with his wings, Hesperus thudded against the scree, cracking his knees on the jagged rocks. One wingtip snagged and he was flung face-first onto the slope. He bounced, once, then fell again, slithering dozens of metres in a river of dust and gravel to lodge at last in the bottom of a dry, grit-choked gully.
Rocks and pebbles rolled after him, pinging off the plastic wings, clattering down the gully and plunging out into the void beyond. Battered, bruised, his chest heaving, his nose and mouth clogged with dust, Hesperus clung for dear life to the framework of his wings, now splayed out above his head against the mountainside.
Some time passed. The rattling stream of stones slowed to a dribble and finally expired. Hesperus’s heart stopped leaping and kicking inside his chest, gradually easing back down to a regular, if panicky, rhythm. He scraped his boots around, making sure they were firmly planted, terrified of following the chips of rock out the mouth of the gully and off the edge of the cliff. He dug his knees into the ground and eased himself upright, shaking debris from the wings. They looked undamaged. He propped the wings back over his shoulders, unhooked his hands and ran them tentatively over his face and torso.
His fur was caked with dirt. His nose was crusted with blood and filth, and his jacket was torn down the front, but apart from that he seemed to be intact. He dusted his face, flicking grit from his ears and spitting flakes of stone from his mouth. He could hear a few distant, muffled cries; then silence.
He scanned all around him. He was kneeling at the bottom of a short V-shaped crevice, rock and gravel in front, blank stone walls behind and to the left, and to the right the gully slopi
ng down off into empty space. He couldn’t see very far in any direction. Still, at least that meant nothing could see him, either.
Now what? He was lost in some mountain range he’d never heard of, on a world at the back end of nowhere, in the middle of a civil war. Somewhere out there lay the Dubious Profit, stuck like a bug to the planet’s rotten hide. Unless Rus somehow managed to override the Profit’s command protocols, which were locked to Hesperus’s own wetprints. Maybe he would, although doing so would be a tricky operation. Maybe he had, and was already sweeping through the skies on a search-and-rescue mission! Unless he’d been killed in the attack.
A tiny particle of concern flicked through Hesperus’s mind. Rus was at best difficult, at worst violent, and most of the time simply surly and insubordinate. Right at this moment though Hesperus felt he would give anything just to see his angry blue face, and hear his shouted insults. He sniffled a bit, then his mood grew bleaker. Even if Rus was still alive, thought Hesperus sourly, and had managed to override the protocols, he wouldn’t take the Dubious Profit out to look for his missing captain. He’d just hightail it off out into space and never look back.
A shattering boom jerked him out of his melancholy reverie. The ground pulsed, sending grit and gravel flying and threatening to pitch him off the edge into the canyon below. He clawed at the ground, fighting for grip. A slow rain of rocks thudded into the scree, crashing and smashing in terrifying sequence. Above him, over the lip of the slope, a mushrooming column of smoke and dust ballooned upwards.
The biggest boulders crunched down into craters of their own making, slipping and sliding. Smaller rocks curved overhead. Hesperus tugged the wings into a tent around him and crouched instinctively. The fragile membranes wouldn’t save him, but at least he didn’t have to see death coming.
The cataract of rubble tailed off; he was still alive. Something heavy had slid into the gully, just above him, but seemed to have lodged there. The dust cleared, and Hesperus peeked out from beneath the wings. Half-buried in the rockfall was a body. It choked, and groaned, and levered itself up into a sitting position. It was Geird.
She coughed, pawing at her face, moaning. A ghastly smell of burnt meat washed off her. Through the grime Hesperus could see that one side of her head was hideously scarred, cooked into a livid scarlet. Her hair was seared off down to raw flesh, one eye melted shut. The other swivelled crazily, and locked on to him.
“You!” she spat. “You. Killyou. I’ll. Kill you.” Her hand dredged a blunt pistol from the gravel. It wobbled in her grip but she was very close. She steadied the weapon. Hesperus could see down its cold black snout.
“Those things – things you brought. What? What are they?”
Hesperus stared, open-mouthed.
“Answer me, filth!” she said. “Tell me what they are, and how I stop them! Tell me and I’ll kill you clean.” The gun jerked down, aiming at his body. “Or I’ll shoot you in the gut and you’ll be hours in dying.”
You don’t look like you’ve many hours left yourself, thought Hesperus. If I keep talking maybe she’ll die before she shoots me. So he told her.
“They’re Poets,” he replied.
“Poets?” Geird hacked, and the gun wavered, then steadied. “What? What do you mean?”
“Celabiler Poets. Mercenaries.”
“Tell me.”
“Celabile is a planet in the north-east quadrant of the sector,” he said. “It’s a corporate world, quite high-tech. Quite civilised, really. Only … well, they have this problem. It’s a social problem. You know poetry? Human poetry? Verses, metaphors, imagery, all that?”
“Stop … stop wasting my time. Tell me what they are.”
“I told you. They’re Celabiler Poets. The inhabitants of Celabile, they’re smart, cultured. Pretty much self-sufficient. Massive planetary investment in hydroponics, vat-grown meat products. They’re, ah, Rodentia, you know? Very good with their hands, very technical. Very literal-minded. The problem is, they can’t handle poetry. Human poetry, in particular. It’s very rich, so I understand, in layered meanings. The, the rhythm, the metre and rhyme, all the symbolism, the oblique implications. Anyway, Celabilers can’t handle it. It sends them … well, not insane, but into a very different mental state. Altered, I suppose you could call it.”
Geird slipped sideways, the gun drooping. Her remaining eye looked glassy, unfocused. With a groan she waved the pistol back in Hesperus’s direction.
“It turns out it’s an excellent frame of mind for a mercenary,” he continued. “There’s unblinking ferocity, a kind of, of berserk battle-joy … a single-minded lust for victory. So the Celabile government – did I mention the planet’s a corporate state? The Celabile government does the sensible thing. It exports them. Any Celabiler citizen who falls victim to this affliction, they suit them up in combat armour, kit them out with superior weapons, and trade them away to whoever needs a remorseless, utterly obedient warrior with no pity and no fear of death. It’s perfectly legal on Celabile, and of course if they’re bought by a planetary government, it’s legal to deploy them. It’s just not legal to transport them, is all.”
Geird was lying now, her ruined face resting on a boulder. Her eye closed, then flicked open again. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Control?”
“Ah, yes, well, that’s the tricky part. See, they only really respond to instructions in verse. And doggerel won’t do: it has to be real poetry. Emotion, vivid mental pictures, the lot. Usually they’re pre-programmed; there’s a rather profitable black market in tactical poetry to order.”
“Huh,” grunted Geird. “I controlled ’em. Brought the mountain down on top of ’em, I did.”
Good, thought Hesperus. That might actually do the trick. The fewer Celabiler Poets there were roaming around on this rock, the happier he would be. Of course, there was the other seventy-five tons he’d brought in … he decided not to mention that.
Geird propped one arm underneath her, and raised her head again. Thin trickles of blood seeped from her mouth and nose. “Why?” she said. “Why’d you do it? What did we ever do to you?”
“Ah,” said Hesperus, “well, I did try to tell you. I didn’t know I was transporting Celabiler Poets. I really did think I was shipping farm machinery.” He wondered if that was true. Hadn’t he known the deal was screwy, right from the start? Maybe he’d just ignored the warning signs, because he wanted the money. But then again, he thought, we’ve all got to eat. I have to keep the Profit flying.
“Not just these monsters,” said Geird, quietly. “Not just these Poets. All you aliens. All the damned Co-operative, why do you hate us?”
“Um … I’m not sure what you mean.”
“You side with the Dictatorat. You all float up there,” she waved the pistol towards the sky, “up there in your palaces and temples and shining stars. You see our suffering and you do nothing. You bring in guns, and supplies, and, and beasts for scum like Tulka. Why d’you hate us?”
“We – I – we don’t hate you. I don’t even think there’s a ‘we’. The galaxy, it’s vast: thousands of planets, of species. Millions of ships and trillions of people, all on their own tracks. The Co-operative is really just a convention, just a way of keeping everybody going along.”
Geird was weeping, now, tears leaking from her single eye, the barrel of the pistol dipping down to point at the dirt. “Don’t you care?” she pleaded. “Don’t you care?”
“Care? I … I don’t – there’s nothing out there to care.”
The gun jerked up again, pointing directly into Hesperus’s eyes. “I’ll make you care!” she hissed, tears and blood streaming down her face.
“No! No! Of course I care!” yelled Hesperus.
The hammer came down with a dry click. Nothing. Geird pulled the trigger again, and again. Click, click, click.
“Damn you!” she wailed, trying to drag herself forwards. “Damn you!” She hurled the pistol at Hesperus. It struck the rock above his h
ead, bouncing and rattling down the gully before disappearing over the edge.
Geird clutched at the loose rock, coughing. Her body arched and heaved, then slumped down and lay still.
An icy breeze blew up the gully, bringing fat, slow drops of cold rain. Shivering, Hesperus drew his wings around him, pulling them into a crude shelter. The rain thumped and thudded against the plastic, as he huddled there next to Geird’s stiffening corpse. The chill wind that whined and snapped about them was no more cruel than the rest of the universe.