Half a Savage - Part 3

"No..." The native leader was still shaking his head in dumb refusal, sweat streaking his torso under the gaudy robes, and the adjutant's patience was close to breaking. This man Movo clearly wasn't stupid — and yet only a fool could have failed to understand the implications of the iron fist under the velvet glove the Federation was holding out to him.

He ran a finger round the tight collar of his Service tunic, easing the fastening loose, making a conscious effort to relax clenched muscles. They had taught him all the theories on how to deal with savages, back at the Central Educational Complex. They had not taught him how to deal with savages who stubbornly refused to see sense... let alone when the coldly critical eyes of a senior officer were chilling the back of his neck.

"Sir"—he swung away from the native abruptly, turning on his heel—"whatever the surveys said, if you ask my advice we should just give up on this tribe and go on somewhere else. There are half a dozen other—"

"I don't recall asking for your advice." The Commissar's eyes were cold as ice, and the soft words had acquired a barely sheathed edge.

His junior swallowed, hard. "No sir."

"This is your first assignment, I believe?"

"No, sir, the third."

"Really..." It was not a question.

"Sir—" For a moment he had a vision of the truncated years of his career flashing before him, to be followed by an eternity of clerical demotion; and then the Commissar allowed himself a wintry smile.

"In that case, young man, I suggest that you now proceed to observe closely. There are more ways than one to steer a savage"—a ghost of true amusement touched the thin lips—"as the teachers used to put it in my day."

He gestured the younger man back, and moved quietly to rejoin the native leader. Movo watched him come, his face set in a dull resolution of despair.

"Lord of the Caves"—the absurd title came out smoothly, in true Colonial Service style—"the Federation asks very little of you, and offers you much. And yet you still refuse us your support. I wonder if you have fully considered the nature of the alliance we have to offer?"

"I think I understand that nature very well." Movo's voice was almost too low for the younger officer to overhear. "Under the name of alliance, you wish to rule our people — and in our name you wish to reopen ancient wars, until with your weapons behind us, we hold dominion over our neighbours. We shall be the mere shadows of your hand upon the wall — or if we do not follow your finger-play then we shall be crushed in favour of a people who will."

"You are a man of peace," the Commissar said softly, as if it were praise. Behind his back, one hand signalled the indignant adjutant to silence.

"I am no warlord!" A flicker of remaining pride. "You speak of glorious conquest where I see only raiding for slaves to sacrifice. We have not yet forgotten the truth of war, Commissar. We are not brawling children to be bribed with promises of lording it over those we hate."

"And I assure you we are not gods, to demand men's lives in sacrifice."

The cultural allusion was neatly done, but the native stiffened, High Priest once more. "The gods do not demand the death of men. Our fathers erred — and those who still take captives to kill in worship are no more than savages!"

"And that is why we came to you." Smoothly, like the closing of a trap. The Commissar laid a hand on the man's bare arm, where the rings of brassy metal twined.

"We studied your whole planet — your whole world, Lord of the Caves." He was holding out the pocket reader now, flicking through the display as if the other man could read the data there to verify the truth of his words. "And we came to your people to ask and to offer help... because we learned that you believe in progress, even as we do. Because your people have the potential to return to this planet what you have lost — to understand and bring back the skills of the ancients that were lost when your ancestors were cut off from the rest of their race. That is the 'rule' we wish to impose—" he gestured again with the device in his free hand — "not the bloody rule of a warlord, but the civilising guidance of a wise man, to bring the world back to what it should be.

"My colleague spoke of war because he took you for a savage. If he offended you then I — I apologise." Behind him, the colleague in question cringed in anticipation. The old brass-neck was going to be taking this little grovelling episode out on him in private for months...

But for now the Commissar was leaning forward, every line of his body assuring sincerity with a conviction that would not have disgraced a top vid-actor.

"The Federation has so much to offer." No pleading in his tone; only a grave regret, as if for a friend who had proposed to turn down a chance at the position of a lifetime. "Will you not have us, Lord of the Caves? Will you not give us your help?"

"Help?" For a moment, despite the situation, the High Priest almost laughed. He glanced round the ring of black-clad soldiers that still encircled them. "What could our world possibly have that the Federation might need?"

"Rocks." The Commissar's thin lips twitched upwards as Movo stared at him. "I do assure you I am not crazy — or trying to cheat you. The Federation needs nothing that could be of any value to your people at all. Not even the black glass you shape for your spears, or the coloured stones your women wear, though we can offer you far better weapons and brighter jewels in return."

He held out the grey device in his hand again, with an almost royal gesture, like a priest at an altar. But this time, it was not covered with crawling lines or flickering code signs too fast to see. There was a single image somehow reflected beneath the surface, as if in a pool of bright water. In the centre of the image, clear and yet distant... was a pile of splintered mud-grey stone. Movo glanced up swiftly, frowning; but there was no mockery in the other man's face.

"Monopasium-239," the Commissar said softly, the syllables rolling out in alien incantation. "Ugly, worthless rocks — on which the future of civilisation may depend." For a moment, behind the diplomatic mask, Movo caught sight of an unfeigned eager, almost greedy, desire.

Without thinking, he reached out to touch the image for himself, half-expecting it to splinter into a cloud of ripples. But his fingertips encountered instead a cool, faintly humming surface. Somewhere beneath and beyond, the dusty heap of ore guarded its secrets from them both. But he had not imagined that covetous look in the Federation leader's eye.

"This is something that you want very badly." Long training kept his voice steady. "Badly enough to take, I think, whether we will or no."

The Commissar bent his head gravely, assenting as if to an equal. "True. But the Federation can give as well as take, you know; and we find that alliance is much better for both parties in the long run."

The man's eyes swept over the gathered Kin, leaving a trail of silence in their wake, as if they carried fear in their very glance; settled at last on the tall woman, proud in her feathers, with Ro and the boy Porah huddled at her side. Elaya met his gaze bravely, head held high. But her lips parted as if in a plea to her Lord, and after a moment she could no longer hold back the cough that racked her breath.

"Your woman?" the Commissar said in a low voice, with a note of appreciation, and Movo stiffened. There had been tales, in the old stories...

"Daughter of the Hills, Priestess of the Serpent — and my wife."

"And a very sick woman, if I mistake not." The words slid in smoothly, draining all offence. "Jodren!"

An invocation— an oath—

But one of the black warriors had sprung forward from the ranks, his hand moving in a complex gesture of respect. "Auxiliary Med-tech Jodren, sir."

The Commissar's pointing finger singled out Elaya. "See to her."

The black rush, like the onset of winter's dark, swallowed Elaya without a word. Ro's cry echoed the pang that struck to his father's heart.

They had promised help given and received, he told the wayward panic within, trying to counsel himself as he would any other man. These people had the learning the old tales spoke of; and they spoke of healing beyond the skill of priests. He had already seen ill-concealed scorn in the younger Federation man's eyes at their people's lack of knowledge of the old ways. The High Priest could not be seen to voice the ignorant fears of a child. Movo's face was set in a mask.

A moment later, as the warriors' ranks parted, he caught sight again of his wife and son. Ro, in the grasp of two burly figures, was fighting and struggling, desperate to fling himself on those who had his mother in their power. Tears poured down his face, but he made no sound. Movo felt his own eyes fill despite himself at the boy's hopeless courage.

"Ro, they mean your mother no harm." He could see her now, rigid but unresisting beneath the man Jodren's hands. His own blood burned at the sight; but it was the impersonal touch, he admitted grudgingly, of a healer.

Ro quietened at his voice, standing as obediently in the statue-soldiers' grasp as a war-captive awaiting the knife — no, Movo told himself with a frown for the old superstition, as a warrior awaiting only his leader's command... Elaya's dry cough echoed in the silence.

Jodren was tapping his fingers on a box he wore at his belt. After a moment he opened a little door in its side and took something out. He pressed the patch against her arm where it clung and held, ugly and pale against the ebbing bronze of her skin. After a moment he broke open the top of the other thing he held, and passed it to Elaya with a low-voiced word. She swallowed, but raised it to her lips and drank.

She coughed again, uncertainly, once. Raised a hand to her throat, eyes widening. Movo could see from the movement of the feathers at her breast that she was taking deeper and deeper breaths, waiting for the first pain to catch her. But it seemed there was none.

Her head came up slowly, shyly, like a wild thing, with the same beauty that had called to him when first he saw her among the young maidens of the Serpent, and their eyes met as she turned, her lips parted a little in wonder. Then she was running towards him, heedless of dignity. His arms came out to take her; and for an instant, with her breath quick and light and steady against him, they were young again in the sweet shadows of the cave.

"Jodren would prefer to see her hospitalised. But it will take a while to get the proper facilities established here."

He had actually forgotten the existence of the Commissar. From the smile on the man's face, the lapse had been only too apparent. With Elaya still warm in his hold, Movo did not regret it.

The man smiled again at the High Priest's somewhat blank look. "You'll learn about hospitals in time — and economics, and stardrives, and everything an enlightened ruler on a savage world needs to know for his people. Or if you don't, your children will."

He gestured. It was Elaya who understood first. The tremor that ran through her should have been warning enough. "Movo — no — you cannot let them—"

"Even the Federation cannot work miracles, Lord of the Caves." The Commissar's voice was as urbane as ever, but there was a tight little smile on the face of his junior that had nothing of courtesy in it at all. "The next generation will need training in more than warrior rituals and the priestly arts if they are to hold their own in the time to come."

"Training... from your scribes, on your world." Movo, cold at heart, did not make it a question.

It was not only Ro, still held between two faceless warriors. They had the boy Porah, and half a dozen other young priests. Even the youngest of the maidens from the procession, clinging together and trying to hide. They were going to take the children.

"On one of our worlds," the Commissar corrected him indulgently. "My young colleague here will be stationed at the new base to help you with what you need to know — but he'll have his hands full dealing with all the infrastructure in the first few years. Setting up Federation-standard schooling down here would be out of the question. No, your planet will need a generation of fully-trained citizens — administrators, supervisors, security staff — with all the knowledge of the galaxy at their fingertips. Medics for the ongoing care your wife is going to need..."

He smiled benevolently at the two of them as the black-clad men moved in to surround the children, hiding them from view, and Elaya cried out. Movo caught a sudden flash of torchlight as she moved, in the same moment that he felt the weight leave the ceremonial knife-sheath at his belt. Warrior's instinct clamped his fingers around her slender wrist before the glass edge could strike. But she had turned the blade to her own breast.

"Do you think I am afraid?" Her voice was low and shaking, meant for his ears alone. "Do you think I fear so much to die that I will let them use my life as their hostage for my child — for my world? Do you think I want their healing — on those terms?"

"Do you think we would have any choice?" The words burned under his breath. Movo's arms tightened around her, levering the black blade from her grasp. His eyes met those of the pale young man who was to be his mentor — the power behind his throne — and read mutual resentment and ill-will. He swung Elaya round, shielding her privacy with his body from that gaze. Her hair was midnight-soft against his mouth. "Do you think I could bear it alone, love... without you?"

He watched them take the children, the hostages, to be taught to despise their fathers as savages and their home as a primitive world. Heard the first wailing begin from the women left behind, first Ithalpa's wife, then the rest. Held Elaya close against his heart, clinging to that frail thread of life.