Chapter Twenty-Six of my current wip. As before, all and any comments very much appreciated
Please note: This is a weekly post
Jess escorted the Banmakka female, Li-Sae-ta, away from the farm and the hive, to beyond the perimeter. No other would venture close to her, as if their belated distance would protect them. Already her chemicals would be triggering their maturity. In the day’s light he could better observe her. Tall, sapling thin but not undernourished. Huge eyes, like the night-monkeys he’d seen in the trees that night he sat out by the swamp. Her hair he likened to those monkeys too, all tight curls, close to her head. But whatever her skein, she wasn’t an animal to be carelessly removed from her kin.
She hesitated before going further. “Clothes?”
Jess tugged on the red silken sleeve of the textile operative’s uniform. It hung wing-like on her. “Yours to keep.”
“God-gifted?”
He wondered who had told her they were gods. She’d also called them star-men. Had she triggered a holo, the same as Cela-Byi? Or was it shared knowledge amongst the dow-dwellers that atop these hills strange gods resided? But that could be pondered another day. For now, he needed to return to the farm and deal with Poalt.
Although he could assign other domestic operatives to Hive Seven he was reluctant. The Techs had instructed Poalt on the workings of that irrigation plant, an essential element in achieving decent yields. He could imagine the upset with Eulal and Niapse if in changing operatives he ruined their crops. Yet he needed to restrain Poalt’s roving eyes and thoughts, and he wasn’t a Tech to have constant psi-control.
Poalt had recovered consciousness. Someone – probably Eulal – had helped him to sit. He leant against his craft-hut, his hands and legs still bound. On seeing Jess, he held out his hands. In supplication or merely the hope of release?
“You know what the Techs would do with you?” Jess said. “You disregarded their one immutable rule. I know the Techs instructed you, and I repeated it on first landing. This is a watching operation only, there is to be no contact.”
“Are we to blame that their holos don’t protect us?” Poalt did have a point, one Jess himself had used.
“If they accidently stray onto our bases – because the holos fail to keep them away – that is one thing. In that case, no, we’re not to blame. But when it’s yourself who strays beyond the perimeter” – Jess dared not look at his team for they knew he’d done the same – “that is something else. That is your disobedience, and if they knew what you’d done, the Techs would remove you.”
“How remove?” Eulal asked. And by the reddening around his neck, Jess guessed he’d also strayed. As, of course, had Vezu, who still hadn’t returned from his foraging. How then could Jess reprimand Poalt when it seemed all the workers at Hive Seven had trespassed?
Jess found himself rubbing his hands down his thighs and had to exert force to stop it. How would the Techs remove transgressors? After seeing that young Itamakki, he had thought they’d kill an offender likewise by skinning. But now he wasn’t so sure. It had been said in the Monza schools that the Techs couldn’t kill – at least not outright as in wielding a rock or a knife. They couldn’t spill blood, so it was said. But that was nonsense, for what was skinning a body if not spilling blood? And none of that answered his problem: How to deal with Poalt?
“How remove?” Jess returned to the question. “For now, it’s not something we need to fret on. If you don’t mend your ways – Poalt, and Eulal, Niapse and Vezu wherever he is – if you continue to stray, then you’ll invite the spears of the Banmakka. And whether they believe us gods or star-men or anything else, they won’t hesitate to cut off your heads. Trophies to hang from their beams.” He had found that whispered in Toki-dow. “And then they will eat you. A special food, god-gifted.” Jess didn’t know if that was so, but neither did these operatives. “And if, now triggered into maturity by no will of your own, you seek out one of the Sanki females – Banmakka or Itamakku – and mate with her you will not live to see beyond that day.”
Jess didn’t know how that happened for no Monza male had survived to tell of it. As Joel had told it – which was much alike to the tales Jess had already heard – the Techs escorted the mature Monza to the female’s hive. And a while later, entered again to remove the male’s corpse. Enter and die, as the miner had said.
“Now, return to your tasks. And Eulal, relay what I’ve said to Vezu when he returns. Brib, cut that grub-wit loose. I think he’ll be no more trouble. Isn’t that so, Poalt?”
*
Jess preferred to remain silent on the return flight to base. His rebuke of the operatives at Hive Seven was as much a rebuke of himself. He had transgressed. He’d even encouraged his obs team to do the same. True, it had been to check on the holos. But if it was no excuse for one, then it was no excuse for others. He was guilty, guilty, and if Cela-Byi should contact him again, and he couldn’t resist, he’d be dead. And the wicked thing was, he wanted that death. But he had a duty and a responsibility to the clutch – though it was too late now to keep them safe. Yet he could not, and must not, succumb.
Joel grouched, “That’s us then, triggered.”
“We can look forward to exchanging our piddly-pipes for horns,” Zeke added with enforced humour.
“And growing beards,” Saker said.
“And disobeying every command and rule,” Brib said, no more pleased than the others.
“I think that’s not to do with the contact,” said Saker. “I think that’s due to our Tech-less base. Wouldn’t you agree, Jess?”
Jess lingered over his answer. They were Tech-less because of his own contact with Cela-Byi. But though he risked Joel betraying him, he’d not willingly admit it.
“Oh, and look who’s waiting for us at the fly-port.”
Jess didn’t need Zeke to draw his attention to the catering overseer. It sometimes seemed Canipse had taken residence at the Techs’ nearby hive. But this wasn’t just Canipse. At his back crowded a gathering of operatives, green and blue clad.
Now what trouble had Canipse stirred? And where were Armar and Kookka?
*
Canipse watched the flier descend. With two empty pads, he hadn’t known which one that truculent zem would choose for landing. But now, seeing, he was able to position himself accordingly, and as close as he dared. Maybe he’d gone too close, but he refused to step back. He swallowed a gulp; to show himself scared would give that full-of-himself zem an edge. Canipse couldn’t have that, not after all his efforts to talk up his operatives’ support.
“Here he is, the zem who thought himself as good as a Tech but now has lost it.” He accompanied his shouted words with a slow handclap remembered from his nursery days.
A shadow swept over the zem’s face. Canipse smirked; his taunt had struck a mark.
“Thought he could mend the holos himself, so he did. Thought he was as good as the Techs, he did. Yet now we have Sankis bang in the midst of our farms. Isn’t that so, O Mighty Zem Jess.” When the zem made to walk straight past him without even a nod of acknowledgement, Canipse snapped, “Are you not going to defend yourself?”
The zem stopped. Turned. And answered him. “I did not mend the holos, I reported them. The Techs mended them. The Techs installed holos that no longer deter the Sankis, neither those from our breed-pool, nor from any other. Thus, if blame there be, lay it upon the Techs.”
And having delivered a counter-accusation, as is commonly done by defiant rebels, the zem turned again and walked on. Probably to look for his sturdy crutch, Observer Kookka.
“Is that your defence for killing the Techs?” he called after the zem, pleased to hear his supporters repeat and growl around him.
The zem threw his head back before he turned again to Canipse. “The sea took the Techs. We – Techs and Monza – cannot swim. Though maybe you can?”
“I don’t dispute, I don’t dispute. But the sea wouldn’t have taken them if you hadn’t delivered them to the sea.”
The zem’s face opened, brows raised – but not with pleasure or surprise. He leant towards Canipse as he answered in barely contained anger, “And think what a worse situation we’d have had here if my team hadn’t accompanied the Techs. For then those fliers would have been stranded out of our reach.”
“But they’re not out of your reach, are they.” Canipse was quick to pick up that lead, so conveniently offered. “You’ve a few observers able to control them. And yet you refuse to use them to best effect. We want a replacement Tech. At least one. A zem’s not a Tech, lucking useless at it.”
Canipse glanced back at his supporters, his look to say, Come on, join in this chant. “We want a Tech, a replacement Tech.”
The call was taken and chanted, voices louder at each repeat. Most satisfying. Although now the zem had been joined by those observers who’d been in the flier with him. But why were they carrying sticks? No, they were sturdier than sticks. More like the bats used in the nursery to play ball. First one observer then another raised those bats across their bodies, angled, defensive, aggressive. Zeke slapped his against his palm, the threat obvious.
The chant died on the lips of his supporters, the shrivelling cowards.
The zem again spoke, though not directly to Canipse, moving his head so all were included. “The Techs are gone. We cannot bring them back. I have explained to Overseer Canipse the impossibility for taking a flier to the nearest base. It’s too far away. It can’t be done. I am hoping that somehow word will reach them – who knows how far their psi-powers reach? I’m hoping then they’ll send a replacement. I can do no more than that. Meanwhile, I am doing my utmost to maintain this base and the farms, and to continue our watch of the pool. For that I need your help, not your rebellion.”
Canipse eyed the zem. It was a pretty speech. No doubt he’d been rehearsing it since killing the Techs. He must have known this confrontation would happen sooner or later. He turned to his supporters to tell them to back off. But such words weren’t needed, the cowards were already dissolving away.
“I’ll help you,” he told Zem Jess. “If you help me. I want control of a flier, not be ever reliant on you and your team. Give me that skill and I’ll be no more trouble to you.”
He’d be no more trouble once he established himself out at Hive Eight with Tarad and the farm operatives. It would be fun to see how the observers managed when the entire catering section then moved to that farm too. Could the observers fend for themselves? He doubted it. And look, the zem was going to fall for it.
“That skill is not given,” the zem said. “It’s found, acquired and perfected. I can instruct you, but you must do the work. And not everyone’s able.”
Canipse nodded. He didn’t like that snide remark about not everyone able, but he let that pass. “Now? You’ll start now?”
“Catering Overseer Canipse,” the sorrowful slick of a zem said, “this day has not been easy, and we must be freshly rested before we begin. Tomorrow. At sunrise. At the fly-port. We’ll give it a try.”
Canipse smiled. He’d soon have what he wanted.
*
With Canipse now satisfied – though for how long – Jess headed off to his hive. He had never felt as wearied as he did now, although that was probably an exaggeration. But why hadn’t Armar dealt with the protestors? And where was the third flier, though the second had returned. He hoped Armar had some answers.
Armar had a casualty. The farmer Tarad from Hive Eight. Antel was attending him.
“What happened?” Jess looked from Antel to Tarad and Armar.
“Took a spear in his shoulder,” Armar said, a glance at Antel who was head-down, stitching the wound.
“The Itamakku?” They’d not been a threat to the outlying farms before. It was assumed the holos held them away. Those holos were working now, he and his obs team had tested them all.
“Not Itamakku,” Tarad squeezed the words out. Antel might make use of an anaesthetic rub, but it wasn’t very effective. “Curly tops.”
Would they be Banmakka? He didn’t like the term but supposed that did describe Li-Sae-ta’s hair, though he’d liken it more to black moss. He’d wanted to run his fingers through it, to get the feel of it.
“How close were they? Inside the perimeter?’
“Fields. Grubbing up tubers. Five fems, one with a spear.”
“But we’ve had your harvest,” Jess said.
“We grow five crops. Tubers are last to lift.”
“They scattered when I arrived with the flier,” Shelek filled in.
Jess looked at Armar, knowing his deputy would read the concern on his face.
“I’ve already said,” Armar answered. “No one’s to work the fields without their stun-gun to hand.”
“Nor anywhere outside the hive,” Jess added. “So they were after our food? Well, rather our tubers than our heads. But where’s Kookka, and how come you didn’t disperse Canipse’s protestors?”
“They gathered after Shelek brought Tarad in, while I was writing the report.”
“And I’ve still to write the report on the Poalt incident.”
“An incident successfully sorted?” Armar asked.
Jess gave a brief account.
“Maybe we were too previous in removing the Techs?”
Jess shot Armar a look with a side-glance at Tarad. Oh, Armar mouthed his apology. Well, too late now. He hoped the farmer was sufficiently distracted with his wound.
“But what would the Techs have done?” Armar asked. “If they hadn’t been defiant fools and fell in the water?”
“Removed the protestors. Probably killed Poalt though…I don’t know.”
“And the breed-pool?” Armar asked.
Jess wanted to say the Techs would probably skin and eat them. But would they?
“And Kookka, where’s he?” Jess repeated his question.
“He’s gone to check on Tarad’s farm. Make sure there’s been no more trouble,” Armar said.
To be continued next week
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crispina kemp 