Asimov's Science Fiction: April/May 2013 (22 page)

Harold backed toward the ramp that connected the blind to the forest floor—a convenience that had been added for the benefit of humans and itiji. "It looks like it's time you and I joined the reception party, Golva. And I stopped putting off the moment when I actually have to talk to that sociopath."

Emile came ashore alone. The sleds retreated to the other side of the river, but they could cross the water in seconds.

The High Warrior and the Great Priest occupied the center position in the front rank of the greeting party. They had descended from the trees on ropes to which they were both clinging while holding themselves upright. The Five Master Harmonizers sat on their haunches on the Great Priest's right. Harold stood on the left with the other two humans in the local urban population, Joanne and Leza Sanvil.

Two Double Eights in full leather battle armor crouched behind the Great Priest and the High Warrior. Two itiji warbands in armored blankets sat behind the Harmonizers, in the best simulation of military discipline the itiji could muster.

Harold had worked out the arrangements with the Harmonizers and his two human companions. They had all agreed the leaders of the tree people should take the center position. Imeten was, after all, the High Warrior's city. He had been forced to accept the itiji as citizens, but no one claimed the Goddess had removed him from his primary position.

Leza's advice had been especially helpful. She had joined them after she had helped Golva escape from the plateau and decided she would stay in Imeten for the time being and see if she could tolerate life outside the human colony. She was six years older than her human hosts and she seemed to have a natural ability to grasp the essence of a situation.

Emile stopped about six steps in front of the group. He had left his rifle on the sleds, but he carried a pistol and a shock stick on his belt.

"The High Warrior of Imeten extends his greetings," the Second Harmonizer said. "He welcomes you and your band as his guests. He offers you all the courtesies the Goddess requires."

The High Warrior raised his free hand in greeting. The Second Harmonizer introduced the Great Priest and the Harmonizers, one by one, and the Harmonizers responded with head nods and brief, carefully nuanced tail flicks.

"You already know the human members of our community, of course. We all join with the High Warrior in welcoming you as our guest."

Harold resisted the impulse to rest his hand on his sword hilt as he met Emile's glance. He was wearing his bow slung on his shoulder and he had decided to carry a knife on his belt along with the sword. He was wearing his last set of light weight human fabrics instead of the clumsy native leathers he normally wore.

They had decided they would let the Second Harmonizer do most of the talking.
We should put off a direct confrontation between you and Emile as long as we can,
Leza had said.

Emile studied the three humans before he turned back to the Second Harmonizer. "I take it I'm supposed to talk to you?"

"I have given you a translation of the words the High Warrior would have spoken if you could understand his language. I will translate for him and his people."

"I came here primarily because I want to speak to the human members of your community. Is that allowed?"

The Second Harmonizer turned to the High Warrior and shrieked at him in his own language. "He says he wants to talk to the three humans. He says that's the chief reason he's here. He wants to know if he has your permission."

The High Warrior stared at the alien creature standing in front of him. Harold had known Emile Ditterman wasn't the most diplomatic individual in the human settlement, but they had all been assuming they would engage in some kind of group discussion, with members of all three groups present at all times. Could the High Warrior let two aliens with unknown powers huddle together in private?

"Ask him what he wants to discuss," the High Warrior shrieked.

"The High Warrior wishes to know what you would like to discuss."

Emile gestured at the three humans. He was eyeing Harold with the irritating half-smile Harold had hated as long as he had known him. "I have messages and other matters from their friends and relatives."

Harold threw back his head and screamed at the High Warrior in Imeten. "We will keep two itiji where they can hear everything. He won't know they can hear us. Put a Warrior listener as close as you can. I'll pick a spot beneath a tree."

"So what are you?" Emile Ditterman said. "The warlord of Imeten?"

The last time Harold had seen that jocular little smile he had been looking at the world through a fog of rage. He had been sitting in front of a screen, studying for his advanced exams in Euro-American political history, when Emile and his gang had fired the shots that left his father and his best friend lying on the floor of the main barn. There had been no warning, no threats, no attempt to take prisoners. Dr. Lizert had been the acknowledged leader of the community ever since he had led his little band of exiles away from Earth. Remove him, cow everybody else, and the settlement would have a new set of masters.

"The Imetens have their own government," Harold said. "So do the itiji."

"The cat that tried to spy on us said you and Joanne had joined a peaceful little society in which everybody works together and gets along just like we humans always have. That's the first story he gave us anyway. I don't know what he told Leza before she decided to load him on a sled and join your utopia. He didn't mention that the tree people—that's the ones that walk around like chimpanzees, right?—carry blades and head bashers. Are you wearing that bow and that chunky little sword because you like to feel fashionable?"

"He's an itiji named Golva Arn Letro. He's young and brash but he would probably check out close to the genius level if you gave him a math aptitude test."

"And what about the monkeys? You told them you and Joanne were peace loving visitors from another world and they waved their swords and hammers and added you to their utopia?"

"We're building a society in which the itiji and the tree people live together as equals," Harold said. "The tree people have been hunting the itiji and turning them into slaves for generations. Dragging sledges. Serving as pack animals. Pulling rafts across the river. The tree people can't use their hands as well as we can. They don't have the advantage of a full upright stance. But they can make tools and weapons. The itiji are just as intelligent—maybe more intelligent—but they're still basically carnivores who hunt in packs. Imeten is the first city in which the two species work together. As equals."

"And you persuaded them to make this great advance in their relationship?"

Harold stared at him—the same stare he had learned to use when he found himself facing over-aggressive Warriors.

"We fought a war. A revolt by the itiji. The itiji can't build weapons themselves but Jo and I can build them weapons they can use. We were captured by a band from Imeten a few days after we left the plateau and some captive itiji helped us escape—in return for me promising to help them free their relatives and their friends."

"That's very impressive. You beat the Imetens in a war and they decided you were right and they shouldn't run around the woods enslaving helpless itiji. That's quite an accomplishment, Harold."

Emile had stuck his hands in his pockets. He was listening with the total ease of someone who spent his days surrounded by people who knew they had to treat him with caution.

I am so powerful I can relax in your presence and regard you as the tense, weaker creature we both know you are.

"The Imetens have a religion," Harold said. "They believe their city is ruled by a goddess—the big wooden statue that rises above the trees. They believe the goddess communicates through combat. They have this big grid at the base of her statue. About thirty meters on a side. Crossbars every couple of meters. Every year all the young men of the right age fight it out in the grid. The winners get to be Warriors. The losers—that survive—become slaves."

He paused. He had to get this right. He couldn't let Emile see the emotional turmoil Joanne saw when they were alone.

"They settle individual disputes that way, too. We invaded the city and the situation turned into a stalemate. I challenged the Warriors to a one-on-one duel in the grid—to prove that the Goddess wanted them to treat the itiji as equals. And they accepted the decision."

"I think you're trying to tell me something, Harold."

"I went into that grid—into an environment where the Imeten Warrior had every advantage. I won because I took some terrible risks. Because I couldn't let them destroy the thing we were trying to create."

"I've been hoping you and I could work something out. There are possibilities here. I can see some of them already."

"I think you should go back to the plateau. I'm going to show you around. I think the people on the plateau should understand what we're doing. Sooner or later we're going to have to build a society that integrates our species with the itiji and the tree people. But for now you should stay on the plateau. And let us lay the foundations."

"Just like that?"

"Yes."

"I should have felt him out," Harold said. "I planned to."

"You'd have given him the word sooner or later," Leza said.

They were sitting around the table eating dinner—a rabbit stew mixed with a batch of cheese fungus that had tasted like it would add a satisfactory tang to the mildness of the rabbit meat.

The three species currently inhabiting the city of Imeten could engage in cooperative activities like war and work parties. They could even participate in endless meetings in which their leaders fretted over trivial details and pontificated about large issues. Their attempts at a joint communal life ended when it came time to eat. The itiji gathered around fresh killed prey. The tree people munched on cooked meats and vegetables. The three individuals who made up the entire human population had to produce a tolerable level of culinary satisfaction from the terrestrial foods they could grow themselves and the unpredictable delights the cheese fungus produced when it broke the native flora into its individual atoms and recreated the molecular structures that had evolved on Earth.

"I would have said the same thing sooner or later," Harold said. "But I might have found out what he's thinking if I'd waited."

"We know what he's thinking," Joanne said. "He's looking for some way he can make himself stronger and nastier."

Leza shrugged. "You gave him too much information about the situation here. That's probably the biggest negative. Emile didn't know the basics of the situation here. Golva told him a different story and we got out of there right after Golva told me the truth."

"It was the smile," Harold said. "You can't look at that smile without feeling like you'd like to pick up a rock and smash it into his teeth."

Joanne rested her hand on his wrist. "You hate him, Harold. You have every right to hate him."

Golva had joked that the number of human females living in Imeten had doubled when Leza Sanvil had arrived. Harold was still trying to figure out how Leza fit in. Joanne had been his emotional support. She was usually right when she talked him into being patient and less aggressive but he would have depended on her even if she'd never given him a word of advice. She was
there.
She was always
there.

Leza was something else. She wandered through the city like she was making inspection trips. She had built up her own network of personal contacts with the itiji and some of the younger Warriors.

Leza never argued with him. She threw out ideas as if she was just making suggestions he might find helpful. But everything he did had been shaped by her influence. Itiji and tree people approached him with ideas she had suggested and he bestowed his approval as if he had been pondering them for days.

But what was she trying to do? Was she really committed to the long term vision he and Joanne had adapted as their guiding light? Could she live with the violence and brutality you had to accept if you wanted to have any influence on the Warriors of Imeten?

"You can go back with him," Harold said. "You've got skills they need, Leza."

"And I'm a woman. They'd take Jo back, too. You can't have too many wombs."

"I'll consider
visiting
the plateau," Joanne said, "when they can prove that slimy hoodlum is lying in his grave."

Leza nodded. "I'm staying, Harold. I may change my mind if I get one of the standard diseases. But for now I'm staying. I didn't know how much I hated Emile and his thugs until I found myself in a place where I could get through a whole day without giving them a single thought."

Harold tipped back his head. His brain had picked out a thread of itiji song that was winging its way through the background din of the city—a thin line of order in a cloud of chaos.

An itiji called to him from the guard post beside the ladder that connected the house with the ground.

"Harold. We have a message from the riverfront."

Harold stood up and poked his head out the door. Both the itiji guards were looking up at him. The two Warriors who guarded the top of the ladder were crouching at full alert.

"The sleds have left, Harold. We're tracking them down the river."

Joanne frowned.
"Down
the river?"

"They're going the other way," Leza said. "Away from the plateau."

"They're going
down
stream?" Harold said. "Is that correct?"

"Yes, Harold. They're going downstream."

"Keep tracking them. Keep me informed. Advise the High Warrior and the Harmonizers. Tell them I'm finishing my dinner but I may want to talk to them later."

He threw the itiji a quick wave—the barest hint of a human military salute—and turned away from the door.

It was the kind of moment that always made him think of Francis Drake's response when he had been playing a game of bowls and received word the Spanish Armada had been sighted. We have time to finish our game, Drake had said, and beat the Spaniards later.