Koban (22 page)

“Graka clan does not want great numbers of Krall we want great
numbers of wars, so we can speed along our Path. Our clans are all seeking a new
strength, as Koban life has shown us exists. We will make new warriors with bodies
that move as swift as animals do on Koban. My Graka clan may achieve this in twenty
or thirty breeding cycles.”

Mirikami, soaking this in, was amazed at what Telour was willing
to share with a proclaimed enemy they were planning to exterminate. He felt frightened
by what he was learning, since their confidence appeared justified. He assumed breeding
cycles was their equivalent of a generation, so they clearly took the long view,
using selective breeding to improve.

He didn’t want to stop the flow of information by asking what
he meant by becoming as swift as Koban animals. The Krall had distained the higher
intelligence of that first race they exterminated, so getting smarter wasn’t their
goal, it was stronger and faster they valued.

Despite Telour seeming to be brighter than Parkoda, Mirikami’s
admittedly limited experience of this race suggested that they were not quite as
smart as most humans. The scientists they had aboard could better evaluate that
premise than he could.

The Krall bragged on, warming to the subject of how they had
fought slow and steady wars many times. Mirikami mimicked a rapt level of attention,
while essentially tuning him out, thinking beyond his own ship’s fate.

He was hearing the same philosophy spouted by Parkoda, the same
description of what the Krall planned for the entire human race, using us to cull
their weakest links, saving the best genes for their long-term selective breeding
program. What we were seeing was their “Best in Breed.” Selected for specific traits,
but intelligence wasn’t a top priority.

 If deeper raids into human space were about to start in the
more populated parts of the Rim or even New Colonies, there was a big influx of
captives soon headed for Koban.

Mirikami knew with utter certainty that the Hub government, when
they learned of the new threat, would first try to negotiate, to offer treaties
and make concessions, though they certainly would increase defenses. Those defenses
would be mostly limited to the Navy at first, because the Ladies in power would
not like armies, necessarily composed mostly of males.

They would be slow to create a ground warfare capability until
it was forced on them, and even then, it would rarely take on an offensive role.
“Reason over rage,” was the saying that had prevailed after men had all but died
off.

He had the wry thought that there were new guns in town, and
the schoolmarms were toting rulers and erasers to hold them at bay. The boys were
still standing in the corner, placed there by the women three hundred years ago.

He wondered how the Krall would respond if we went all out against
them, as many individual governments would have supported three hundred years ago.
Nukes, chemical warfare, and certainly biological attacks back then. We probably
wouldn’t win that sort of war either. The technology Mirikami had already seen must
be just a glimpse of what the Krall had available.

They claimed to have destroyed seventeen other intelligent civilizations,
and Parkoda had said a few were much more advanced than humans were now. They had
perhaps twenty five thousand years of fighting and weaponry development, or weapon
borrowing to their credit. They might like their killing simple and personal, but
they wouldn’t have to keep it that way.

Jake was of course recording this rant by Telour. The Captain
was going to have to play this for the Board of Directors, to make them see how
important it was to find some way to get this information back to Human Space.

They also needed some sort of plan, or strategy for themselves,
to guide them when they reached Koban. A fighting chance was better than no chance.
He’d have to talk with the Chairfem alone, she had a sharp mind, and he’d seen her
maneuver the Board to get votes she wanted from them.

Telour had started to wind down. It must be grand to awe an intelligent
animal with your exploits, but in the end, it was still just a contemptible animal
listening to him brag.

“I am honored to hear you speak of the Krall’s history. If more
of my people would learn from the Krall, we may find ways to become a more worthy
opponent for you. We of course don’t want to lose this war, because that means death
for us. But perhaps we can delay the end and gain honor if we learn new ways to
fight you.”

Telour studied the smaller human a moment. “You may be the clan
leader of humans I seek after all.”

Gee,
Mirikami wondered.
Was that flattery for a new
pet?

“Facing honorable death in combat that you cannot win is a thing
we respect, even of animals. If humans as a pack do well in the testing, we will
have a measure of how to test ourselves when we fight you. Should one warrior face
sixteen humans, or sixty-four of you? What weapons will we allow for our novices?
What weapons will we give humans to use?

“We need such information to follow the Path more efficiently.
Any Krall that finds a way to do this more quickly will earn many breeding points.
I will become a warrior known for that.” He said that with assurance.

“When Parkoda departs on the next raid, soon after we arrive,
I will remain behind on Koban so I can give rights over the human clans to true
leaders. If the leaders will make humans fight better they will be rewarded. They
must also meet some of Koban’s natural dangers in our tests, but they will always
fail in that. It is expected, because even the Krall seeking the fastest Path have
so far failed many of Koban’s tests.”

That revelation certainly caught Mirikami’s interest. They knew
next to nothing about where they were going. It appeared the Krall themselves found
the world deadly.

Well wasn’t that just great!

Prison breaks might be pointless, and fatal even if they succeeded.
He remembered Parkoda had said we needed protection there by the Krall.

Telour renewed his earlier offer to Mirikami. “If I can make
humans fight better than they do now, and the advantage is found in Parkoda’s prize,
but discovered by me and not him, I will take a larger part of his reward points
from him. This can happen only after he has departed on a new raid, unable to claim
credit for my plan. A human leader that helps this happen will have advantages granted
that only I will control.

“Because I will stay behind on Koban this is a risk to my future
status. However, the tests go very bad now, because combat for a novice is too easy
against you, and almost none have lost. If you humans can change how you fight,
and prove you measure above slaves or meat animals, our Path will be shorter, and
I will gain high status.”

Mirikami’s first though was,
I may be about to step in it
right now!
Nevertheless, he didn’t think being classified as a slave race or
meat animal by the Krall would improve human survival chances more than fighting
them would. Moreover, going down fighting would be his choice.

“My people may not accept a single leader, and they might divide
into separate clans as do the Krall. There will be some that follow a leader that
will encourage cooperative fighting and some few individuals might chose personal
combat. Those individual human fighters will not last very long, as you have seen.

“The advantages you offered me must actually be given to the
fighters, more than to their leader, or they will not follow him very long. I tell
you truly, that humans will think this way. They will not respect a leader who sends
them to risk death, but keeps all of the advantages for himself. This must be a
decision of those humans that fight as to what they will consider an advantage.
Not even their leader can decide this for them.”

Telour wasn’t about to let an animal set terms for a negotiation.
“I can send many humans against our warriors if I want these tests. I can use sixty-four,
a hundred twenty eight, or even more humans per test if needed. This will be possible
soon, when we have enough humans to waste this way. They will either fight or die.
I seek a leader of them that tells them how to work together to fight better, to
win more often. That leader will deserve the reward of immunity from combat.”

“Telour, I know we will have to do as you force us to do. However,
let me explain how humans think and will act, because I understand my people as
the Krall do not. I know that what I suggest can lead to more efficient use of human
fighters.”

“I will listen.
I can measure your words with those I heard from humans on Koban.”

“Thank you.”

Mirikami, pulling at his lower lip, considered briefly how to
continue, hoping he could think fast enough while walking along this damned tight
rope. It was obvious the Krall didn’t know much about what motivated humans and
what didn’t. Perhaps he could improvise well enough to work out a deal Telour clearly
wanted, but couldn’t lower himself to ask an ‘animal’ to make with him.

“Telour, simply
telling
humans they need to fight as a
team will not achieve your goal in an efficient manner. Humans have not fought each
other for more than two of our generations, so we need to relearn how to fight as
an army. We do have a Space Navy, but it isn’t large and they do not fight on the
surface of planets. It is a fact that we once fought each other with armies of millions.
You must have heard this history from those on Koban. It is a part of our history
that we have tried to change, to not repeat.”

“This they
claimed,” Telour admitted, “But most of us believed they were lying. None could
fight well now, and they died easily when we made them try.”

“My people have not lost the inner spirit to fight, which nature
gave to us, and our last wars were not so long ago that we can’t relearn how to
fight other humans. However, we need different ways of fighting against you. Human
fighting against human was easier than it will be against the Krall. Human
soldiers need training, as you give to your novice warriors. New tactics are
needed to counter your physical advantages over us. Perhaps we find will ways to
trick or trap your novice warriors, ways to get them to make mistakes so that we
can defeat them.

“This is not something we can learn in a few days, but your Path
is many thousands of our years old. Is it inefficient for you to give us enough
time to make ourselves into the skilled enemy you want? Is it more efficient to
kill us, as we are, not moving along your Great Path at all?” At least the
alien was still listening.

“You know that you will ultimately win, but if most of humanity
believes they can win, they will fight long and hard.

“I think humanity will become a resourceful enemy, fighting you
for hundreds of years. Patience by the Krall would be rewarded, and my people will
live longer, something that I want. The journey on your Great Path may be shortened
if you allow us the time and knowledge to fight you the best way we can.”

Buying time was all he could think to suggest for humanity. Moreover,
it may come at the expense of the captives on this ship and those already on Koban.
They were probably as good as dead anyway.

Except,
he reflected,
who the hell am I
to try
to set this up for all of humanity?
He was a male from New Honshu, already carrying
the blame of his society for their
last
human disaster. Was he now setting
the terms for the next? It’s a good thing I won’t be around to take the blame for
this one, he thought.

The Krall considered his suggestion. “I can speak of this with
my clan, but only my leaders will decide if Graka clan will do this. The other clans
may accept this delay or not. If some of your fighters can defeat our novices soon,
and perhaps even some of the more experience warriors, the decision would be certain.

“If you can do this on Koban, it will help us decide if humans
are worthy of the honor of combat. But the humans and clan leaders on your other
worlds will never know what you learned there.” He stated with finality.

Mirikami offered an alternative. “If we are successful, there
is
a way for humans on our other worlds to learn what we discover about fighting
you.”

“Understand, none of you will ever leave Koban,” Telour told
him. “That world will become our new home world when we are great enough to take
it and make it so. We will never risk it by sending any captive back to tell your
people where it is located.”

This sounded like a showstopper to Mirikami. “If the captives
will all be killed on Koban they will never be motivated to do what you want. I
would not try to lead them if death is their only reward from the Krall.”

Telour actually seemed bemused for an instant. “If you complete
the task I ask, we have no need to kill those that are still alive at the end. Why
would we dishonor ourselves and the agreement the clans already offered to the captives?”

“What have the clans offered them?” Mirikami asked.

“You do not know of this of course. The captives on Koban now
select which humans face our warriors. The clans offered an agreement to leave
them alive when testing ends, if they would make the selections of human fighters
more efficient. Before, humans would try to hide in the compound, and we had to
find them and force them to go fight.

“As a reward to the humans that fought, if they kill a single
warrior on a Testing Day, all surviving humans for that test are given immediate
immunity from facing combat again. It was intended to make them work together to
kill at least one of the novice warriors. It has not worked as well as we want.”

“When will you leave Koban, and what happens to the surviving
captives then?” Mirikami wanted to know.

“When we depart Koban to start our war, the captives will remain
in the compound with what food your humans can grow there now. The dome is protected
by an outer wall and electric fence, and you will have the same weapons you were
given to fight us with in the tests. However, soon the animals of Koban will make
ways to enter the compound, and you will start to die when they find you.