Chapter Twenty
Kulsis
“An enemy force?” Makatayth snorted. “From where?”
Barogar stared him down. “Where else? Where we ourselves came from, fleeing the Death Fathers. What were we before our Exodate became the masters of this world? Another, smaller Exodate could have arrived at Shex since the last Searing.” He shrugged. “Or these enemies could have come from Kulsis itself.”
“You mean, the descendants of those who failed to return with a prior Searing?”
“It is impossible to speculate until we have more information. However, over the centuries, there have been numerous missing ships, convoys, freighters, and groups of scouts and gatherers. If some of those losses were in fact desertions, and if some of the ships or other vehicles were not damaged but spirited into concealed locations, a considerable population of such exiles could exist. And if they were able to maintain a reasonable body of knowledge and significant repository of technology, they would have the run of the Shex system in our absence.” He shrugged. “It could continue indefinitely, so long as they were careful where and when they interacted with the locals.”
Makatayth’s dubiousness was at least partly feigned. “Do you believe they could truly become so self-sufficient that they would never have to reveal themselves to satraps who would report them to us?”
“If they have aircraft or spacecraft, they could intercept single ships or distant caravans or even sweep up remote villages across the face of R’Bak a dozen times a year . . . and there would be no one left to report. And even if some eyewitnesses escaped to tell the tale, would such an account persist twenty, or even ten years to reach the ears of our next group of surveyors? So, if they began curtailing their activities even fifteen years ago, would our current Harvesters have any chance to hear of them now? And if they did, would they believe the reports or dismiss it as tales told by ingenuous barbarians?”
Imgeffa was frowning even as she nodded. “This presumes that such a community could persist even though none of its present members could still be alive from the prior Searing. Many complex skills—such as piloting—could be lost, or at least degraded. And would they dare to persist going to and from space, for fear of inspiring legends that might last among the barbarians?”
Barogar nodded. “My own wonderings precisely, Matriarch. But if the community keeps using its most crucial vehicles—and so, skills—in the interludes between Searings, they might very well retain a high level of aptitude. And there are details in the current surveyors’ reports which suggest just that.
“For instance, none of the coursers’ satellites were still in orbit when the surveyors arrived. Given the conjectures of a CME, it was—dubiously—theorized that they might have been disabled while they were all correcting their vectors to maintain stable orbits. But if we presume a hidden community of spacefarers, it is far more likely that they destroyed the satellites . . . because it would be foolish for them not to do so. After all, they would have to assume that any orbital platform might have recorded them ambushing and destroying the coursers. For the same reason, they would make every effort to ensure that any incriminating debris burned up in R’Bak’s atmosphere.”
Imgeffa rubbed her seamed and wrinkled chin. “If they retain the ability to come and go as they please, from R’Bak to space and back again, they could conceivably be hidden anywhere. But they would be wisest to choose places where they have air, water, and food, and yet are unlikely to encounter either barbarians or us.” Her hand stopped beside her jaw. “The second planet, V’dyr: could that be their refuge?”
“It is a possibility,” Barogar admitted, admiring the elder stateswoman’s nimble mind. “But the portion of the surface where humans may survive are relatively small regions at both poles. However, the surveyors always send work crews there to assess if there are enough valuable resources to justify the effort of gathering and boosting them to orbit. Those teams have never seen any sign of other visitors.”
She nodded. “What about R’Bak’s equator? It is acceptably temperate when the Searing passes, is it not?”
Clever old girl. “That is a most charitable characterization, but yes, there are places where it is more tolerable: islands and an isthmus that links the largest northern and southern continents. But that is a great deal of territory to assess.”
Imgeffa lifted her chin. “I am not sure that I would be convinced by your thesis, Ebis’qupoz Barogar, were it not for the timing of the uprisings in the Ashbands and the Greens. Tell me: what do you make of this unprecedented chaos among the satraps upon whom we most depend, other than those who watch over Downport in our absence?”
Barogar nodded. “It does speak to and support the idea that our adversaries have not only considerable familiarity with the planet but with the way we operate there. Their timing and targets—including the destruction of what may have been an almost-completed makeshift signaling device—suggest careful and purposeful planning.”
Makatayth finally sounded more involved than defensive. “Yet it also seems to indicate that concealing their existence is no longer as high a concern for our enemies. The uprising, the interdiction of the coursers, the seizure of the corvette: these are all bold, overt acts.”
One of the eqzarqu leaned forward. “Yes, but they may also be driven by the need to compensate for having overstepped the margins in which they may operate safely. Specifically, if enough coursers survived to actually begin constructing an inter-system radio, all the subsequent actions may be part of an attempt to erase any definitive intelligence regarding their existence.”
Makatayth nodded. “Well-reasoned. Creating the uncertainties we grapple with now may have been their object. We believe that what was left of our coursers might have been trying to put together a signaling platform, but we do not know. We believe the tribes of the Ashbands are better led than ever before, and may be better armed as well because it is possible they seized the caches we left behind—but again, we do not know.”
Barogar crossed his arms. “No, we know they are better armed. Much better.” He spun a photograph toward the center of the table. The faces tilted forward, assessing the image: a battle rifle of some kind.
“This looks quite dated,” Makatayth sneered. “Possibly weapons for reserve units garrisoned in the south.”
“Except that weapon is not one of ours,” Barogar insisted. “The weapon is unique. It is actually quite well designed. Wooden furniture with a twenty-round magazine. It is without factory marks and uses a round with admirably flat trajectory, accuracy, and lethality. They have been found in barbarian hands in every region where there has been an uprising. Reportedly, the units equipped with them are more disciplined and adhere to prudent move-and-fire tactics, although there is no way to assess the accuracy of that claim.”
Makatayth sniffed. “And how many of these unusual weapons have been reported? A few hundred?”
Barogar shook his head. “Many thousands.”
Imgeffa’s comment sounded strangled. “That implies a significant industrial capacity, if true.”
Makatayth nodded at her caveat. “As you say, Matriarch: ‘if true.’ Every Searing, the surveyors report the panicked yammerings of satraps that are less motivated by their promise to provide truthful information than to make themselves seem blameless for failing to meet their quotas.” He waved away Barogar’s photograph and his many other documents. “Regardless of their station, R’Baku are all lesser beings, and so, inveterate liars.”
Which Barogar found amusing; the First Lord was renowned as the most accomplished prevaricator among the seasoned deceivers of the Syfarthan Combine’s High Lords’ Council. “The High Lord’s reference to lesser beings may not simply refer to R’Baku, in this case.”
Imgeffa’s eyes cut quickly in his direction. “Do you refer to those on our own planet?” Barogar nodded. “You promised to speak bluntly, Ebis’qupoz: do so now.”
“I shall, but with this caveat: What I have presented thus far has all been deduced from proven data.”
“And what you present now is pure speculation?”
“Yes, Matriarch.”
“I am eager to hear it.”
Remember you said that. “I have given thought to how such a community as I have projected could continue to expand, particularly when it comes to recruiting new members from subsequent Searings. And only one thing makes ready sense.”
Imgeffa saw it before he had to utter the dread words. “They are dissenters. And so, disproportionately from the south, from Waadtheru.”
“But how would that be?” Makatayth almost shouted.
“How would it not, First Lord? The Harvester fleet disproportionately recruits from Kulsis’ own southern continent. Where else is life so miserable that skilled persons will risk their lives for as many as five or six years with the Harvester fleet or those groups that precede it?”
Makatayth sucked in his breath slowly. “They are the majority of our surveyors.”
“And almost the sole source of our ‘bush-beaters,’” Barogar added archly. “All lesser beings. Sent to a planet of lesser beings.”
Imgeffa articulated what no one else dared. “So, you are proposing that the origins and coherence of our enemies and R’Bak is rooted in our own planet’s separatists and dissenters? That their motivations are not so much piratical or mercantile as they are political?”
“It is a possibility, Matriarch.”
“It is a wild supposition! As you say, it is not based upon facts!” Makatayth’s voice had risen a pitch. As the most senior overseer of Harvesting operations, his name would figure prominently when the historical trends of casualties were analyzed. Because it would reveal what Barogar had discovered while preparing for the briefing: a massive preponderance of the “missing, presumed dead” casualties from the first Searing onward were natives of Waadtheru. The land where lesser beings were sent. The place that got its name from a shortening of the phrase “to live beneath the boot.”
Imgeffa’s glance at the First Lord was one she might have reserved for a turd in a soup bowl. Having silence him, she asked, “Why would they show themselves now, Ebis’qupoz Barogar?”
He shrugged. “They may be growing too numerous. They may have found the corvette to be too tempting. For all we know, it could be an attempt to cover a mistake, or a rogue operation that became too weary—or greedy—to live in hiding any longer.”
“So, they either planned the uprising or felt the need to raise it to cover their other actions.”
“Or, if they are indeed descendants of deserters from Waadtheru, it could be a means of striking at us the only way they can: taking away the Overlords’ assurance of dominance.”
The Matriarch’s neck tightened into a mass of desiccated cords; she suddenly seemed more mummy than living woman. “You mean, they intend to strangle our supply of Catalysites, to eliminate our capacity for Reifications, for breedsensing.” She seemed to be saying it to herself, as if that was the only way to make such a horror real.
“Yes, but that might not be their only, or even their key, objective anymore. If our Harvester fleet is a failure, it is their success. It signifies that the cornerstone of this chamber’s power—the wealth that comes from the harvests—has been undercut. What follows cannot be predicted. It certainly would encourage lesser families and dissidents. That in turn could lead to internal disputes over rival policies for managing the emerging crisis.
“And of course, there is the financial dimension. What we cannot adequately secure for trade, the deserters on R’Bak can. And if the savages perceive that, which among their satraps and chiefs will continue to fear us more than the local masters of technology? Masters who will be deadly to them for eighty years, whereas they would feel our wrath for only eight.” Barogar shrugged. “In time, there may come a Harvester fleet that arrives to find that the deserters have removed all the pharmaflora and gathered all the Catalysites.”
“Or destroyed them.” Every face turned toward Imgeffa, horrified as much by her words as her tomb-like voice. “There is logic behind such a strategy: If the Overlords can no longer gather Catalysites, it is likely they would cease to bear the expense and risk of sending a fleet. But there is also vengeance: since they are irremediably lesser beings and cannot use the Catalysites to groom their own genecode, they shall destroy them. Out of sheer spite.”
“And we have no target to strike?” Makatayth asked as if just awakening to that fact.
Barogar managed not to sneer. “We cannot determine that until we arrive. Which brings us to the most important part of our meeting.”
Imgeffa was struggling to remain composed. Speaking apparently helped. “We must settle the composition of the Harvester fleet.”
“Yes. It must be changed to address this situation. Oddly, our adversaries have made our decisions somewhat easier.”
“How so?” muttered the quiet eqzarq.
“In most of the regions from which we typically take resources, we now lack adequate security for gathering them. Consequently, we must focus on controlling the sites where we find our priority harvesting items. Areas that contain only secondary and tertiary resources shall be ignored.”
“That’s a seventy percent cargo reduction!” Makatayth almost moaned, no doubt anticipating the full scope of the impending fiscal disaster. “Just how does that help us?”
“It gives us the freedom to craft a flotilla structured for offensive operations, as well as planetside and spaceside searches. We shall be optimized to find the sources of these disruptions and exterminate them in such a way that no one will ever think of trying cases with us again.”
Imgeffa nodded stiffly. “And how do you mean to do that? They were hidden before. They are no doubt hidden now.”
“That is true. And to maximize the odds of finding them, we must address another weakness of our fleet: the time it requires.”
Imgeffa’s eyes sharpened. “It must leave sooner. The more time we spend debating small matters and picayune points of personal interest, the more it is likely that our enemies have hidden themselves.” The eyes that bore into Barogar’s were those of a raptor with one last kill in it. “So: you intend to arrive before they believe we could.”
He nodded. “We must launch this fleet with all possible speed.”
“How quickly can it be done?”
“Sixty days, maximum.”
“S-sixty days?” Makatayth stuttered. “I know something of logistics; we could barely get enough ships in place in that time. Many of them are still being outfitted for the mission.”
“Yes, First Lord, but that, too has become simpler. You were outfitting the landers and cargo haulers for a multipurposed mission with a far longer duration. Now that we are resolved to collecting a greatly reduced volume of goods, we can carry more weapons and fuel in their place.”
“And if there are hardships? If supplies are insufficient?”
“Then we shall exert dominion and seize what we must. Happily, I will have no shortage of forces with which to effect that.”
Barogar stood very tall, looked around the table. “Do not forget: our enemy had the cooperation of many thousands of barbarians. It was they who have rebelled and taken towns, even cities, in the Ashbands and Greens.
“A lesson once understood by the R’Baku is clearly in need of firm reteaching. I am not speaking of the cullings of the past. Or of the fiscally prudent restraint in conducting them. This time, it is the Harvester fleet’s blunt, brutal necessity to terrify every tribal savage into revealing whatever they know, or see, or simply suspect regarding our foes. They must know, by bloody example, that their lives depend on being as complete and unstinting in their cooperation as possible, and that any who show the faintest hesitation shall join the others in the festering midden heap of corpses we shall leave in our wake.”
Imgeffa’s eyes had brightened. “It sounds as though you have a plan, Ebis’qupoz Barogar.”
“I do, Matriarch, and I mean to execute it with great vigor.”
She raised a cadaverous, cautioning finger. “I heard the emphasis you put on the word ‘execute.’ Be careful not to be so bloody-minded that you do not raise the entire planet in revolt against us.”
“I assure you, the R’Baku shall not become rebels.”
Because if I have to kill every last one of the savages to prevent it, that is exactly what I will do.