Asimov's Science Fiction: April/May 2013 (23 page)

It was a nice story. A valuable model. Never look excited. Always look like you know what you're doing. But what had Drake actually felt underneath that surface bravado?

The voices of the itiji followed the sleds down the river. Harold received a steady flow of information for the first forty kilometers of their progress.

The flow turned into a sporadic, unpredictable series of scattered reports as soon as the sleds entered the area controlled by Lidris of Drovil. The itiji who hunted and scouted below that invisible line had to brave Lidris' patrols and the bands of slave hunters who listened for careless voices.

"They can't go too far," Harold advised the High Warrior and the Five Harmonizers. "The sleds have devices called batteries that contain the stuff that makes them move. They can get more stuff—more
energy
—from the sun but it's a slow process. They have to return to the plateau to get more energy from machines that create it."

The itiji had developed a school of theoretical physics that included the concept of energy. They didn't know anything about electricity or nuclear power plants but they could understand that energy could be drawn from a powerful source on the plateau and transferred to the sleds. They could even grasp that the sleds could somehow collect the energy that flowed from the sun. Harold used terms like "the stuff that makes them move" mostly for the benefit of the High Warrior. Sometimes he compared the sleds to living things that had to be fed. Jemil-Min seemed to feel that was a satisfactory explication.

Itiji scouts could slip through the Drovil patrols. But they couldn't raise their voices and send back reports. They had to work their way through long reaches of enemy territory and repeat the process when they brought back the news.

Six of the itiji's best scouts volunteered. The First Harmonizer asked Harold for an assurance the risk was necessary and Harold shoved aside his doubts.

"We have to know what's happening there," Harold said. "The humans in that group are dangerous individuals.
Unpredictably
dangerous."

"The Drovils know we may try to watch the sleds, Harold. They can concentrate patrols along the riverbank. The scouts will be working alone. They'll be defenseless if they're spotted."

"I'll have the High Warrior put two Double Eights in position half a day's march inside Drovil territory. Ready to come to the rescue. We'll launch raids further from the river and see if we can divert some of the Drovil forces."

The first pair of itiji scouts entered Drovil territory the next night, shortly after sundown. Harold woke up twice during the night and shut off his mind, as he usually did, by wrapping himself around Joanne and silently reciting the Gettysburg Address. He had discovered that Lincoln's homily required the optimum level of concentration for the optimum length of time. He usually dropped back to sleep halfway through the second repetition.

An itiji woke him—as requested—when the scouts reported back shortly before dawn on the second night. A scout had managed to creep within earshot of the parked sleds and pick up the message they were booming at the riverbank.

We are humans, like Harold of Imeten. We wish to speak to the people who rule this section of the river.

The second pair of scouts made it back alive but one of them spent so much time running from pursuers he nearly died of dehydration. One member of the third pair died under a hail of darts. The fourth pair disappeared. The fifth pair completed the round trip in good health but Harold decided they had reached the point of diminishing returns and cancelled the infiltrations. Itiji slaves located in Drovil had started passing information to other slaves who eventually passed it to the itiji huntbands that still roamed the Drovil territory.

Lidris had dispatched emissaries, with itiji interpreters. Emile had come ashore, with two armed guards beside him, and couriers had scurried through the trees between Drovil and the landing point.

Lidris of Drovil had been expanding his empire for fifteen planetary years—a third of the average lifespan of the tree people, according to the itiji's best estimates. He had conquered four of the cities downstream from Drovil and added their armies to his forces.

Harold was convinced Lidris would have conquered Imeten if the Warriors hadn't added the itiji to their forces. Lidris had grown fat and physically sluggish but he was still ambitious, even if he couldn't travel through the trees with his armies. With two iron mines under his control, he could dream of an empire that could expand until every city he had ever heard of surrendered to his rule.

"How well do you know him?" Leza said. "Would he accept help from a bunch of aliens with super weapons? Would he realize he might be placing himself in their hands?"

"We know he's fat, we know he's ambitious, we know he's named Lidris. And we know he treats itiji about the way we'd treat most bugs. I've already advised the High Warrior and the Harmonizers we should be prepared for an attack that includes the humans. We've got extra patrols out and we're staying alert."

They received the news of King Lidris' death two days after it happened. His successor claimed he had died of a sudden spasm. Other reports indicated he fell through the trees after a sudden push.

The itiji had translated Lidris' title as king because the English word seemed to fit his position, but you couldn't assume the Drovil political system worked like a standard human monarchy. Lidris had settled into the top position after a brief skirmish with two of his older brothers. His successor was the second son of his third wife.

The new king bore a name that had been mentioned in most of the reports Harold had been receiving. Vildor had been the leader of the emissaries who had been meeting with Emile's group.

***

The sleds sped up the river to the cliffs that guarded the human settlement. They halted at the foot of the cliffs and the itiji posted on the banks retreated into the forest and transmitted their reports.

A sled descends from the plateau... The sled parks beside another sled... Lines have been run between the two sleds...

"The sleds are essentially ground skimmers," Harold told the Five Harmonizers. "They can rise up the cliffs. But vertical movements like that eat up tremendous amounts of energy. They use a lot of energy going up and down between the plateau and the river and that limits their range. It looks like Emile is planning another trip down the river. He's transporting energy from the plateau and storing up all the energy he can load into the sleds."

The High Warrior understood the implications. "He's fattening his machines," Jemil-Min said. "He wants to stay active as long as he can."

King Vildor was massing an army on the outskirts of Drovil. He seemed to be assembling most of the forces he could pull from the cities he ruled.

"They aren't being very secretive," Leza said.

"It wouldn't do him much good if he tried," Harold said. "We'll know the moment his army starts to advance. We've got one of the best early warning systems any army ever worked with."

He and Joanne had begun sleeping back to back. Normally they fell asleep with his arms wrapped around her. They still touched each other during the day, but they only did it for brief moments. They had learned there were times when you had to install a barrier around your feelings. And be very careful nothing seeped through.

He had been acting like a rear echelon general ever since he had fought in the grid. He had sent warbands on raids. He had presided over discussions of strategy and tactics. He had offered recommendations based on the lessons humans had learned during millennia of organized violence.

The days when he could skulk in the background were coming to an end and they both knew it. There were no command bunkers in all out wars fought at this level of technology. Leaders had to wield a weapon and place themselves where the darts were flying. There were times when they even had to step in front and
lead.

Vildor knew what he was doing. He didn't advance on Imeten itself. His army angled away from the river and advanced toward the road that connected the city with its iron mine—a move that threatened the city and the mine simultaneously.

There had been a time when it would have been a decisive thrust. The Warriors of Imeten might be formidable fighters but they couldn't defend both objectives against the massive force Vildor had assembled. If they split their forces and tried to defend both sites, Vildor would concentrate on one site and overwhelm it. If they massed their forces on one site and tried to defend it, he would attack the other. Either way, the Drovils won. If they took the city, they owned the mine. If they took the mine, the city died.

The alliance with the itiji had changed the equation. The itiji couldn't travel through the trees like the Warriors, but they could maneuver on the walkways of the city. The Warriors had erected extra stairs and ramps so the itiji could reach the lower branches and travel between the different levels of the city. The itiji and a small force of Warriors would defend Imeten. The rest of the Warriors would defend the mine.

Jemil-Min had screamed in outrage when Harold had presented the plan.
"You want us to abandon our city!"
He had changed his mind when joint bands of itiji and Warriors had conducted raids against the Drovils. The itiji casualties had convinced him the itiji would defend his city.

King Lidris had understood there had been a shift in the balance of power. He had contented himself with the war of raids and counter-raids he had been waging against Imeten since he had first decided he deserved to rule every city his armies could conquer.

But now the balance had changed again. The Warriors weren't the only people who had acquired an ally.

The main Warrior force slipped out of Imeten at night and arrived at the mine just as the sun was rising. Itiji scouts tracked the progress of the Drovil army. Isolated itiji cringed inside hiding places and risked their lives to sing the news as the Drovils passed overhead.

Harold recorded the advance on a map he had prepared from the best data the itiji could give him. The itiji didn't have measuring devices and time pieces, but he had found their counts of body lengths and heartbeats could be translated into a reasonably accurate stab at cartography. The maps they carried in their heads were probably more precise, in fact, than the symbols he scrawled on leather squares.

The Drovils were still advancing toward the road. They were obviously concealing their intentions for as long as they could.

"We still don't know what they're planning," the Imeten Eight Leader crouching beside Harold said. "We don't know how they're planning to use the humans."

They were meeting in a coordination center Harold had established near the statue of the Goddess. He had placed the map on the floor so the Harmonizers and the leaders of the Warrior contingent could study it in comfort. The Eight Leader was a young Warrior named Jila-Jen. He was the personal representative of the High Warrior.

He will stay beside you at all times,
Jemil-Min had ordered.
You must consider his presence my presence.

"They could be planning to block the road," a Warrior said.

"We can keep the mine and the city supplied indefinitely," the First Harmonizer said.

"If they surround the city? And the humans block the river? What would you and your people live on then?"

"The Drovils would be spread around the city in a big arc. Jemil-Min and the Warriors in the mine could send out raiding parties and overwhelm any area they attacked. And destroy them segment by segment."

"Everything they do depends on the humans," Jila-Jen said. "We won't know what they're doing until the humans do something."

The sleds started down the river the day after the Drovils reached the road. This time the three sleds only carried twelve people. They moved at half their maximum pace and they stopped about an hour before they would have reached Imeten. They were floating in the middle of the river, the itiji scouts reported, with the full blast of the sun beating on their solar panels.

Golva's tail waved like a flag when Harold pinned the marker that represented the sleds on the map. "They're right in the center of the prediction zone. We could be harassing them right now if we'd put a crossbow in position."

The Harmonizers had helped Harold select four itiji who could serve on an analysis committee. He had added Golva on his own initiative and the group had settled to their task with the single minded enthusiasm of obsessive game players and puzzle fans. Their detailed move-and-countermove analysis had yielded the same conclusion as the High Warrior's snap judgment. A few humans with guns could be overwhelmed by numbers. The real danger was the hypermobility of the sleds.

But they had also concluded that the sled's biggest weakness was its limited energy supply. They had worked out the energy capacity of the sleds, based on Harold's information, and decided the humans would stop and soak up solar energy exactly where they had stopped. They had recommended Harold place an itiji crossbow team in the area.

The crossbow was a powerful weapon Harold and Joanne had designed for the itiji. One itiji carried the bow mounted on his back and his partner loaded and released with his teeth. A crossbow attack could have damaged the solar panels or forced the humans to move on and use up energy. It was a tempting idea, but Harold had rejected it and the Harmonizers had agreed. They needed every weapon they possessed in the city.

"We've lost an opportunity," Jila-Jen said.

Harold threw back his head and tightened his vocal cords. "We knew that could happen, Jila-Jen. We would have a crossbow team isolated a full day's march from the city if they'd done something else."

"What do Golva's friends say they're going to do next?"

"We've looked at several possibilities," Golva said.

"They could pick any of them." "They could also pick courses you haven't thought of. That is possible, isn't it?"

"We've tried to take that into account, too, Jila-Jen."