Here we stand, p.39
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Here We Stand, page 39

 

Here We Stand
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  Nir-Tenbiku Dals had watched the recording at least five times, trying to wring more information out of it. The human garrison stood between a river and the coast on one of the planet’s northern continents, and a high aerial view from the probe showed hundreds of buildings and a large area of fields under cultivation. The inset screens to the right hand side displayed specific areas of interest that the probe had identified as worth watching. The whole site looked well established, but that didn’t necessarily mean it had been there for long.

  As the probe descended, it zoomed in on the specific features that had alerted it: large structures that could have been hangars or silos, entire zones of transparent tunnels that were full of plants, and enclosed grass where large quadrupeds stood around in groups. The probe circled the perimeter, which didn’t appear fenced or walled, but was surrounded by a wide strip of cleared land that could have indicated concealed automated defences instead. Humans showed sensible caution.

  There was quite a population, too; vehicles, objects that were probably mechanicals, and creatures that had to be the humans passing across the open area in the centre of the base. From this altitude, it was hard to appreciate the scale, but the humans were as Gan-Pamas had described them, bipedal and as tall as Kugin, but more slimly built.

  “I still can’t see anything that looks like a military installation,” Cudik said. “Gan-Pamas must have seen much more than this.”

  Nir-Tenbiku ruled out the possibility that humans were native to this world and had never left it. They had to be recent arrivals. The garrison was the only sign of habitation, and a species with that level of technology would have spread across the planet a long time ago. But Cudik was right: there was no visible sign of military equipment or ships, least of all the prenu.

  When the probe attempted to scan inside the buildings large enough to house a Nar-class vessel, the structures blocked the signals. Gan-Pamas had suspected they kept their larger assets in bunkers, which would have required an extensive underground complex, and that meant they were well dug in if an attacking force attempted to dislodge them.

  Even if Nir-Tenbiku knew nothing about humans, he could deduce some important facts from that alone. They didn’t want to advertise their presence, they were here to stay, and somewhere on another world there’d be many more of them with technology that had enabled this garrison to appear out of nowhere.

  Eventually the probe descended further to check vertical surfaces it couldn’t see from that altitude and angle. Nir-Tenbiku had been surprised the first time he’d seen the humans allow it to get so close, because he couldn’t believe a spacefaring military didn’t have the means to detect a probe at such close quarters. Were they naive, incompetent, or just unaware of what it was? But it had become apparent on repeated viewing that they knew it was there and had decided not to destroy it. They were simply observing, letting the probe get closer.

  It was now just above them, high enough for them to look up and watch it at an angle of forty-five degrees. Nir-Tenbiku was intrigued by their faces — generally flat, some pale, some dark, large eyes, small mouths — and the varied fur on their heads, some short, some long. They all held long tube-like weapons similar to Jattan shock-launchers but with devices attached to them, and then raised them to aim at the probe. They still didn’t open fire, though.

  The probe was trying to track all of them at once as well as a swarm of tiny probes that they’d launched at it. That was probably their strategy, because whatever hit the probe next hadn’t been a threat it was tracking. It hadn’t shown up on the inset displays at all.

  It was hard to work out what it was even after rewatching the recording, but the probe was suddenly thrown a long way towards the perimeter, spinning but still transmitting blurred images and muffled sound, and then it hit the ground.

  For a moment, all Nir-Tenbiku could see was grass, a couple of buildings, and a patch of sky, tilted at ninety degrees because the probe didn’t seem able to level its cameras. Then it was looking into the face of a brilliant red feathered creature much like a teerik, except it was small and seemed to behave more like a curious animal. The probe rose into the air again, partly obscured by more red plumage, but focused on the ground beneath it. From the gestures of the humans below, Nir-Tenbiku pieced together what was happening. The avian had seized the stricken probe, and now the humans were asking it to bring it back.

  Was that its job, then? They’d intercepted the probe and it looked like a planned capture. Eventually, all Nir-Tenbiku could see was light filtering through a mesh of fabric as if they’d covered the lens, and he heard an alien language with a lot of lower frequencies. Then the probe went offline.

  Each time he viewed that footage, he was more convinced that Gan-Pamas had assessed humans accurately. Nir-Tenbiku was cautious about interpreting a culture he’d never seen before and whose body language might not have corresponded with his own, but he’d formed the impression that human troops were confident and had a reason for being that way. They’d allowed a probe to enter and spy on them so that they could capture it and analyse it and its origins, just as he would have done.

  “Let’s go through this again, Bas,” Nir-Tenbiku said. “Slowly.”

  Bas ran the footage again, pausing or slowing it so they could look beyond the immediate focus and work out what was happening over a wider area.

  “There are the quadrupeds Gan-Pamas mentioned,” Olis said. “Look. In the background.”

  They studied the image. The four-legged creatures stood at the height of a human’s main leg joint or a little taller, shouting and showing pointed teeth. A human spoke to them and they fell silent. So there was an avian, two kinds of quadrupeds, mechanicals — including one shaped like the quadrupeds with teeth — and bipeds. This looked like a team of species working together. And there were teeriks somewhere as well according to Gan-Pamas, although they weren’t visible in the recording.

  “If the humans have teeriks with them, regardless of whether that’s coincidence or design, they’ll know all about us by now,” Mer said. “Perhaps we can rely on the teeriks to do our reputational work for us. They’ll have told them how awful the Kugin are and how the Protectorate’s their puppet, so if you’re serious about winning some kind of support from them, they might already have formed an opinion.”

  “Mer, with respect, their opinion’s likely to be based on Lirrel killing one of their females,” Olis said. “I don’t think we’d take that well if we were them.”

  “Are we still concerned about recovering the prenu?” Fas asked. “This has shifted from seizing a ship to befriending humans. Let’s get our priorities in order.”

  “We can’t do one without the other,” Nir-Tenbiku said. “And we have to deal with the issue of the dead human. It was poor judgement. We would lose nothing by making an apology.”

  “And who would do that?”

  “I would. Preferably in person.”

  “That’s too dangerous, Primary. Send them a message instead.”

  “We’d be offended by such casual contact. Diplomacy is about being in the same room and showing mutual trust, not sending disrespectful memos like some Kugin clerk. And how would we seem to them if we sent some minor functionary to deal with something so serious? The apology needs to carry the full weight of the state.”

  “You’re talking yourself into this,” Fas said. “We haven’t even made contact with them, and if their treatment of that probe is anything to go by, they won’t welcome us.”

  “We can try,” Nir-Tenbiku said. “And I plan to. Because they’ll still be around when we take back Jatt. At some point, we’ll have to deal with humans, and they might have very long memories.”

  The meeting went quiet. They’d started out thinking that the prenu was critical to their mission and now they were having doubts. Nir-Tenbiku could see it. Then Olis actually said it.

  “Do we really need the prenu? It’s symbolic rather than functional, and we have to engage with a new civilisation to get it. The humans might just politely say no, or they might declare war, depending on their mood. We could forego the ship, avoid the humans, and still achieve our aims.”

  “But we’ve already alerted them,” Cudik said. “We’ve killed one of them and followed up with a probe. At very best, they’ll remember to punish us if they ever meet us in passing. At worst, they’ll track us down and attack us.”

  “And they’re likely to be here for a long time,” Nir-Tenbiku said. “It’s possible we won’t be able to avoid them.”

  Olis wasn’t backing down. “I’d vote to call a halt to this while we still can.”

  “I haven’t called a vote,” Nir-Tenbiku said. “We’re already in a conversation with the humans, albeit an unfortunate one, and I’m obliged to continue it.”

  It was the Primary’s prerogative. He’d rarely used it, but they’d only been playing at governing for all these years, going through the motions while knowing there were no real consequences of their decisions. It was a training exercise. The real work had been to amass arms and make allies, and there was rarely disagreement over that because the rightful government had very few friends who weren’t Jattan or Jattan colonists. The Esmos Convocation let them stay here, but they wouldn’t give them military support. Very few actually meant zero.

  “And what does continue mean?” Olis asked.

  “I’m still working that out.”

  “Do we have any other items on the agenda?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I request the Primary’s permission to leave the assembly, then.”

  “Granted. Let’s close this session and I’ll consider our next step. If they’ve disabled the probe, then our biggest challenge will be how to communicate with them. Cudik, could you stay a while? I have technical questions.”

  Cudik hung back while the other cabinet members left. Nir-Tenbiku poured him a cup of floral tisane and one for himself. It was an Esmosi habit, but he’d developed a taste for their favourite fragrant infusion.

  “Might the probe still be operational?” Nir-Tenbiku asked, handing Cudik the cup. “I hesitate to send another.”

  “The teeriks are sure to tell them how our probes work,” Cudik said. “So if the humans’ aim is to analyse it, they’ll disable the power source first to stop it spacefolding, although its navigation already seems to have been compromised by whatever hit it. They’ll see if they can extract data from it. That’s what I’d do, anyway.”

  “They might not think like us. We could always try re-establishing the link and find out, of course.”

  “If they’re waiting for us to do that to locate us, it would be unwise. That’s why I disabled our connection to the relay.”

  “I imagine few people think we’d be based anywhere else but Esmos.”

  “True,” Cudik said. “And the teeriks will warn the humans to steer clear of it, if only to avoid being targeted alongside them.”

  “You have a very jaundiced view of aliens, my friend.”

  “I’m surprised you don’t, Primary.”

  “So can we check the probe’s status now?”

  “I know when I can’t dissuade you. May I use your desk?”

  “Please do.”

  Cudik hesitated for a moment at Nir-Tenbiku’s terminal before reactivating the connection. “Oh dear,” he said. “They’ve got the hang of this already, I think.”

  Nir-Tenbiku got up and stood behind Cudik to see what he’d found. “What happened?”

  “It’s working again,” Cudik said. Nir-Tenbiku could see a view across a field of bare soil, looking through a square mesh in the direction of the garrison buildings, as if the probe had been dumped in a basket. Nothing moved. The image was frozen. “This is a transmission stored in the buffer.”

  “Download it, please.”

  Nir-Tenbiku leaned over to watch. Nothing happened for a moment, but then the image showed a little movement and he heard a voice speaking Jattan — formal, with the stresses in odd places, but easily understood. The message was blunt.

  “This is Captain Bridget Ingram, commanding officer of Forward Operating Base Nomad. You have now made two incursions into our territory. Your agents have killed one of our comrades in an unprovoked attack, for which there will be consequences. I demand an explanation. What do you want here? Do not attempt to approach this planet again or we will respond with force.”

  “Well, no room for misunderstanding there,” Cudik said. “They can speak Jattan. A female, too, from the grammar.”

  “The teeriks can,” Nir-Tenbiku said. But his heart said Gan-Pamas might be translating somehow, still alive, still there to be rescued, or perhaps the woman had made a mistake with the plural form of agents, and only Lirrel had been captured. However unlikely these scenarios were, he hung on to hope. “But if that voice really is the commander’s, I’m impressed.”

  “What now?”

  “Captain Bridget Ingram asked us a question,” Nir-Tenbiku said, straightening up to finish his tisane. He tried to remain optimistic, but this wasn’t encouraging. “We must answer.”

  “Let’s not be hasty.”

  “I wasn’t planning to be.”

  Cudik played the message a few more times. They hadn’t overlooked anything. They went out onto the balcony and sat in the shade of an ornamental tree with long deep green leaves so fine that they looked like hair flowing along the full length of each arched branch. They rustled in the breeze. Nir-Tenbiku wondered if they’d grow well in Jatt. He’d want to take one back with him when the day came.

  “Gan-Pamas must have had a reason for sending the message as he did,” Nir-Tenbiku said. “If he thought it was worth cultivating these new aliens, he must have seen something that made him believe it.”

  “Do you think he’s still alive?”

  “Do you?”

  “The captain said there’d be consequences — future tense. She might be indicating that Gan-Pamas is being held prisoner.”

  Nir-Tenbiku had to make himself say it. He’d been in denial for days because it was too painful to think of his friend meeting a lonely death a long way from home at the hands of strangers who probably didn’t even know why he was willing to sacrifice his life. But he had to face it now and grieve later.

  “I think you were right last time, Cudik,” he said. He felt his voice catch in his throat but he swallowed and kept it under control. “When you said he was dead.”

  “Have we grown weak, Primary?”

  “In what way?”

  “There was a time we’d have sworn vengeance and gone after Gan-Pamas’s executioners,” Cudik said. “Now we’re worried about offending them.”

  “Gan-Pamas himself said Lirrel had killed a human. I think that might have given us pause and made us ask if the humans believed he was responsible.”

  “But we wouldn’t have taken their side,” Cudik said.

  “The difference between us and the Protectorate is that we think.” Nir-Tenbiku wagged his hand to emphasise the point. “We’re educated. We learned self-discipline and deferred gratification. We come from families who preserved the values of our ancestors. We’re mature by outlook and understand that the world usually lacks polar clarity. The Protectorate, though, hasn’t just put personal gain above the interests of the nation. It’s also the third generation of inferior politicians. They’ve never been tested by real challenges because Kugad does all the thinking for them, and that makes them weak and degenerate. They’re like spoiled children — over-emotional, always looking for easy answers, unable to apply themselves to complex problems, and unable to think beyond the day and what pleasures they can demand from it. That’s weakness. I think we can see the other side’s perspective better because we’re still strong.”

  Cudik sat with his hands clasped, silent for a while. “Let me know how you plan to respond to the humans’ commander, and I’ll send the message,” he said at last. “You’ve still got it, by the way.”

  “Got what?”

  “Your conviction. Your gift for making us all feel we haven’t wasted our lives working towards this.”

  It was kind of him. Nir-Tenbiku simply said what he believed. He’d never seen himself as inspirational, but when a man meant what he said, the truth of it radiated from him. That was what his father had taught him. Of course, lunatics also believed things sincerely, so it was no guarantee of reality, and perhaps he was mad too. He didn’t know how he’d realise that he was, though.

  “Dedicating yourself to an honourable cause can never be a waste of time, even if the cause fails,” Nir-Tenbiku said. “If nothing else, it cleanses the air around it. It sets an example.”

  When Cudik left, Nir-Tenbiku began composing a reply to the humans, but other thoughts crept in and distracted him. How would he feel when he returned to Jatt? Return was more a spiritual term in his case. He’d never been there. He’d been born on Cer Clen, because it was too dangerous for anyone from the Tenbiku family to step on Jattan soil while the Protectorate was in power. His grandfather had sent his son and retainers to a safe haven in the colonies when he realised all was lost. Nir-Tenbiku’s father had never returned to Dal Mantir.

  What if he didn’t like the country? What if he missed Esmos too much? If he tried to recreate an Esmosi garden there, was he really Jattan at all?

  It didn’t matter what he wanted or liked. His duty was to restore Jatt’s independence and hold the Protectorate to account for their betrayal of the nation. He’d take whatever unhappiness or hardship was necessary to achieve his goal, and humans might be a key to it. If they couldn’t be allies, he could try to dissuade them from getting involved on the wrong side, if they were the side-taking type at all.

  Gan-Pamas believed contact was worth pursuing. It was hard to ignore the advice of a friend who’d given his life to pass on intelligence. The difficulty lay in working out how to approach the humans’ captain, because Nir-Tenbiku knew he had only one chance to get it right.

 
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