IronStar (11 page)

As a Survey Service officer, she
was qualified (barely - this was far from a job that would ever be assigned to
a ship’s Helm officer) to initiate official contact. Which should be starting
in earnest in about 205 Standard days, assuming she was right about the
turnaround time at NavInt’s base on Trailway…
let’s see, based on the local
27-hour 14-minute day, that would be… 183-and-a-bit days from her landing, or
180 local days from right now
.

« Are you having a problem with
your wristcomp? » asked her wristcomp’s small audio speaker. Kirrah jerked up
with a start from her calendar calculations, to see Irshe taking a half-step
back from her left shoulder.

“Ahh, ahh,
what?
” she
stammered. Her wristcomp’s Attention alarm vibrated briefly against her
forearm, and the words:

< Untranslatable, please clarify >

appeared on its screen.
Dammit!
She’d left it in Translate Mode… well, no time like the present to gauge their
reactions. What had he really said? Sounded like… right, there it is on the
screen:

< Ayah daythan’o anshae’bothta >

< Ayah· “trouble” [lit: “sticky danger”] (91)

· unknown (9)

< daythan· “having” [alt: eating; attacking] (93)

· unknown (7)

< ’o· interrogative suffix (99+)

< anshae· “forearm” (55)

· “arm” (34)

· “wrist” (11)

< bothta· “armor” (78)

· “clothing” (22)

< Best translation:

 
“Are you
having a problem with your wristcomp?” (62)

< Alt-1 translation:

 
“Is something
bad stuck on your forearm armor?” (33)

< Alt-2 translation:

 
“Is it
difficult, eating your sleeve?” (5)

< Assurance: (58), more data will increase
accuracy.

Hmmm, the wristcomp had been busier
than she’d thought - most words were known to above 90 percent assurance. Not
good enough for writing contracts, but still… let’s start with something simple
. She
raised her left forearm and held it horizontally ten centimeters in front of
her chin, made eye contact with Irshe, smiled, and said:

“Greetings, friend Irshe”.

« Tsala, Irshe
’jasa
» said
the wristcomp, using a good simulation of her voice.
Hmmm, sounded about
right… uh oh, how’s he taking this?
Irshe stood stock-still, staring from
her eyes to her wristcomp and back.
And how did I ever see those intelligent
gray eyes as cold?
she thought irrelevantly.

“Guta k’o Kirraugh,” he finally
said. The wristcomp conveyed this in a neutral male baritone as:

« Is it part of Kirrah? »

What a perfectly …
reasonable
question
, she marveled.
Not ‘Run from the Devil Woman!’. Not falling on
his face in worship at her ‘magic’. An immediate, pragmatic acceptance of what-is,
and a logical enquiry whether she had some kind of speech organ growing on her
arm, or was it some property of her suit.

You could always take off the suit,
I mean the wristcomp and show him,
someone thought.
Now cut that
out,
thought Kirrah right back at …whoever that was.
This is Lieutenant
Kirrah Roehl, Regnum Survey Service,
on duty!
And I will
be
on
duty, for the next one hundred eighty days unless sooner relieved, and no
matter what a good idea it may seem like at this or any other time until then,
we are not going
that
native
.

Aside from the significant issues
of her personal security, it seemed pointless to get emotionally involved with
a local. Given the awkward duration of her stay here - too long for a fling,
too short for a relationship - it would either be boring, or interesting and
over too painfully soon. Loser, either way.
Same thing you say in every
other port
, thought someone.
And besides, if you don’t want ‘emotionally
involved with a local’, what do you call what you are doing with Akaray, then?
The body-memory of the child snuggled against her last night, last
two
nights,
came unbidden to the skin of her inside arms and belly.
Ouch! Not fair!
We’ll have this out later!
she thought, firmly dragging her attention back
to Irshe, who was waiting patiently, his left eyebrow rising expressively to
half-mast.

“No,” she said, “Not part of
Kirrah. It is my voice servant. My machine…” A soft buzz from the wristcomp
over the word “machine” told Kirrah that word was not yet in its vocabulary. If
it even existed – the tech level she’d seen so far was not very high.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

« Going to zzzzzzz » said the
wristcomp.
Damn, I know,
‘more data will increase accuracy’.
Let’s
set this thing to just pass any words it doesn’t know… Now, what had he said?
‘Mara’ma Talameths’cha’.
Go-we-Talameths’cha. With a bit of luck, that would
be the name of a not-too-distant capital city and seat of local government.
Fine.

“My country will be grateful for
your assistance” she said. Might as well establish her diplomatic status early
on. Diplomatic
immunity
too, she hoped. Irshe gave her an odd look, and
with an apologetic bow, moved on to the duties of breakfast.

After a fairly leisurely meal,
followed by washing up, packing and saddling the horses, their party set out
again - at a slower pace, it seemed to Kirrah, than yesterday’s travel. After
an hour more riding southwest, with the stream on their right and the forest on
their left, it became apparent even to her eyes that they were following some
kind of path or trail. Or road, if you were a bit liberal with your definition.
She was beginning to wonder how or whether they would cross the ever-larger and
deeper-looking stream, when the trail suddenly ended in a small clearing. Not
really ended, she realized, as she noticed the wooden dock.

One of the men drew his belt knife
and with its hilt, struck a half-meter strip of iron dangling by a bit of twine
from an overhanging branch. In response to the resonant gong, a flat boat about
six meters long by three wide, cast off its moorings on the far shore, and to
Kirrah’s mild amazement, without any apparent means of propulsion it drew
across the intervening twenty-five meters of open river and tied up at their
dock. It kept its prow into the current, moving crabwise, straight across. No
oars, no sail, one pole, not used, obviously no motor…
hah!
there was
one end of a heavy rope, tied under the dock and stretching out across the
river. But, but the rope didn’t move at all, there was no winch on either shore
or on the boat, and the wizened ancient-looking boatman certainly wasn’t
putting out the effort… As Kirrah watched, the doubled archers and three others
of their party dismounted and stepped their four horses onto the flat bottom of
the barge.

« One
bhrak
each horse » the
boatsman said (according to her wristcomp), and spat over the far side of the
vessel. The “bh” plosive sounded like a soft cheek-puffing pop of his lips.

« King’s hand » said Irshe,
pointing to the orange-and green braid around his upper arm. The boatsman
squinted up at the men, scowled briefly but nodded and pushed off. And the boat
just kind of swept away from the dock, again without visible effort, but with
its bow still pointing upstream the way they had come, into a current that
looked to be about five or six kph.

So
, thought
Kirrah,
we have coins, toll ferries, and
official privilege. But how do they make that
boat
move
? In a
few minutes it came sweeping back across the river, obviously following the
heavy, unmoving rope slung under the water between the two docks, but moving
with no apparent effort by anyone.
So, oh lightning goddess, envoy of
advanced civilization and bearer of technological marvels to the grateful
barbarians, how do they make the
boat
move? Magic?
wondered Kirrah.

They loaded the remaining four
horses, hers still tethered to Prax’soua’s, and she, the Corporal, Irshe and
the boy and the remaining soldier stepped on board. The old man simply pushed
off at the bow, and the boat surged out into the current. He then pulled on a
rope lying on the gunwale, and hooked a loop of the rope over a well-worn peg
near the bow. The boat began to move silently toward the opposite shore.
Fascinated, Kirrah traced the rope back to the rudder, which was now pulled to
the left, the ‘
port’
, she automatically corrected. So… that made the
boat turn away from the near bank, and angled it to the current…
aha!
-
which then pushed it across the river like a kite, doubtless sliding on the
rope via a ring or roller in the bow… without anyone having to do any work!
How
very clever
, she thought.
A water-current-powered boat. Let’s be a bit
more careful about assuming tech levels here
.

It was only as they were offloading
the four horses from the second trip, beside the four from the first one, that
she noticed there were only eight horses, and eight soldiers. One horse and
rider were missing. Getting Irshe’s attention Kirrah, after several attempts,
managed to communicate her query.

«
Ana’the
goes ahead,
daethra’ta
house of Lord
Tsano
» attempted the wristcomp.
Hmm. A messenger,
warning the king that company is coming. I wonder when he took off, and why I
didn’t notice. Pay closer attention, Lieutenant, it would be nice not to screw
up a first contact by drinking out of the finger bowl. Or misplacing one of
your hosts. Or being ambushed by them. I hope I get a chance to wash up before
dinner…

Their party continued down the
northwest bank of the southwest-flowing river. Within an hour, they were met by
a second group of ten mounted soldiers plus a spare horse to relieve the
doubled riders. Curious fist-to-throat salutes were exchanged, and the combined
group continued, apparently still under Irshe’s command. Names, rank insignia
(orange and
white
ribbons), different helmets, even different saddles… so
much to absorb and learn.
A whole world
, thought Kirrah.
Give it
time.

Soon tilled fields began to appear
along both sides of the road, which continued to parallel the river’s southwest
course at a distance of two or three hundred meters. Occasional small wood and
stone dwellings and sheds, and small groups of men, women and children working
in the fields completed the picture of a peaceful agrarian society. Kirrah
noted the occasional casual wave or shouted greeting from those working near
the road, as the troop of soldiers passed. This, plus Akaray’s obviously
respectful but fearless attitude towards the soldiers generally and Irshe in
particular, seemed to rule out at least the most oppressive of the possible
forms of local government.
But we won’t make any assumptions, will we.
Several
times they were passed by travelers coming the other way: two smallish carts
piled with bags, and pulled by a horse-and-a-half sized smaller cousin of the
huge
mu’uthn
grazers; two other groups of ten mounted soldiers (orange
and green ribbons, again). But no single travelers, Kirrah noted. And no other
traffic moving their way, at all.

Before noon, the walls of a larger
town came into view. Kirrah began to more fully appreciate the courtesy Irshe
had shown her by stopping last night, well, more like mid-afternoon yesterday.
The fact that he had been willing to accommodate her crippling fatigue rather
than pressing on to the town before nightfall, made her relax a tiny bit more
about this culture and its civility. Perhaps ‘city’ would be a better term,
Kirrah thought, taking in the scope of the sight ahead.

Rising above the brown and pale
green fields, a stone wall about six meters high stretched a good kilometer
across their path, angling from the river on their left, well out into the
surrounding farmlands to the right. Taller stone towers punctuated the wall
every eighty or ninety meters. As they approached, they passed increasing
numbers of small dwellings, until soon they were moving through what amounted
to a small village strung out along the road, just outside the city walls. The
wall ran straight from the river’s edge, then dog-legged back for a few hundred
meters parallel with the river, then turned back to its original angle for
about a kilometer out into the open plain. Riding alongside the dogleg section
of the wall, Kirrah could see a few parties of workmen on its top, maneuvering
meter-square blocks of stone into positions about twenty centimeters apart on
the wall’s outer edge.
Those are called crenellations,
some obscure
corner of her mind supplied.
You stand behind them and shoot out. Looks like
someone’s expecting company.

For a simple agrarian society, this
wall was a truly impressive structure. It must represent a large fraction of
their available labor and resources to have built and to maintain, Kirrah
realized. Some of those stone blocks looked like they massed two or three
tonnes, and there were a
lot
of them. Quarrying, transportation,
fitting, raising, setting… an amazing bit of muscle-powered civil engineering.
Plus the towers – they had passed four or five already, and the longer section
of wall angling off to their right, ahead, looked like it had a dozen more.
Overlapping
fields of fire – hmmm, I wonder what the range of those bows is.
Each tower
was approximately twice the height of the wall, and six meters wide at the
base.