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Command Decision

This story was originally written for (and appeared in) a themed anthology edited by Michael A. Ventrella called Release the Virgins, and it is authored by Steve since Sharon had a different story she wished to tell in the same book. In it the author plays with a smattering of science oddities as well as a character inspired by a Liaden fan.




“Daltrey’s still waiting in holding orbit. Wants to know why we haven’t solved this yet! If the CMEs clear up he figures they can be down in thirty hours or so.”

The intel officer, Lizardi, spoke low, just in case someone had a mic working nearby. She and her companion leaned against a rail fence at the top of a steep slope, observing.

Bjarni, the ad hoc planetary specialist—by dint of being the only member of the unit to have been on-world before—nodded.

“I had a note, too. Says Righteous Bispham’s making noises re contract specs. Daltrey still wants to be there to turn the Nameless over to the Bispham, and the Bispham wants to Name them before they act. Silly damn . . . ”

“Local custom,” she said, with more than a little asperity.

After a pause: “You know, I think Daltrey’s hoping to get out. If he gave me terms I’d buy him out. I think we could keep it together just fine.”

The specialist nodded. Everyone always says they want a chance to be the boss.

“Any luck?” she asked after a moment of silence.

Bjarni took a deep breath, recalled his mission. His sensitive nose tried, but disappointed.

The planet smelled green when it didn’t stink of sulfur from the open wounds of the tectonics. The seacoasts and islands smelled green with the giant seasonal rafts of seaweed spicing the tricky winds; the brief plains had smelled green with the waves of grasses . . . and now the mountains smelled green of the great bristling tar-spotted pine analogues and the moss-walled rocks of the upswept basalt.

Years since he’d first smelled it as a traveling student. This time—he’d had a sunny tour so far instead of a war, landing ships aground and mired in swamp after taking damage from the stellar storms that had grounded both sides as far as the mercenary units went. They’d managed to get their hovercraft out of the landing ship, but were on the wrong side of the mountain when those comms went haywire and some of them crisped, grounding them the second time.

Elsewhere around the planet the green scent might be overridden with the scent of blood, of burning fields, of weapons cobbled out of machines meant for peace, the ozone of overworked electronics and overlay. This mountain had none of those, being as comfortably rural as a rustic guided tour.

The scent he really sought, the one that had intoxicated him on his private visit to InAJam as a youthful wandering philosophy student, was the cusp of green fungi. He’d been entranced by InAJam; he had some of the language and loved it, and more, he loved the food and admired the people. He even dreamed about the place. The most frequent dream was about the ripple he’d seen, when the fragrance of the carpet growths intensified and the colors changed as the spores of one generation fell on the neighboring growths from another, changing them.

“I smell something,” Major Lizardi said, but her nose still had a hard time separating the wood flavoring from the aroma of overcooked meat, as he’d seen at dinner the night before. She blamed that on growing up on Surebleak, and if she survived long enough she’d eventually get a taste for finer things, but she’d likely not be able to smell a ripple in action.

He pointed then to the small sand pile and said, “Cat!”

She wrinkled her nose then, and said, “Not that!”

Bjarni’s nose tried again, and he turned to his companion, shaking his head Terran-style, adding the laconic, “No,” emphasized with a sigh, “not that either. Not from this direction, anyway.”

“They’re out there somewhere! They can’t let this ripple go unnamed!”

She, of course, had never seen a ripple and while his experience was slight, hers was from training vid and poorly prepared sleep learning. On the other hand she was right—the New Decade was to be declared within the next three days, and the local beliefs required any ripple coinciding with a new year to be celebrated and named and feted.

The politics of that new decade had brought the mercs into play; but who expected the centerpiece of the event to be stolen away so that the planet might be without their most important export for years? He grimaced thinking of the loss to the gastronomes of the galaxy if the untouched initiates didn’t come together somewhere by the appointed time.

One of the things Daltrey did right was letting the officers chance the food—their local cooks fed him very well and the others enough. While Lizardi tried the fungi, she wasn’t a fan, like he was. He’d tried to introduce some of the others, explaining that they were not in fact eating cat, as numerous as they were around, but a variation of shroom with touches of this and that protein and . . . and it wasn’t proper meat from hoof or vat, and they grumped about it, going with bar rations and instant soups. Bjarni reveled in all of InAJam, especially the food.

Which was why Bjarni was out beyond the lines on an alien mountainside with the intel officer, sniffing the winds of morning, hoping to sense a sign of the missing religionists or their rogue captors. That was what she was searching for. Something to tell Daltrey, some hint of how they’d win this thing, after all.

They stared down the green sides a while longer on this, the sacred side of the hill, looking toward the most distant and all but invisible sea, before turning toward the awkward pod camp in the lee of their downed hovercraft beside the idyllic lake.

***

The other side of the mountain felt crowded. Soldiers guarded busily, as if they were able to do something real while waiting to be rescued, a rescue depending on one side or the other winning so that they might be either ransomed or lifted from this place by a working ship. Too, there were pilgrims, wandering through, offering food and oddities on their way up the mountain.

Bjarni smiled at a couple trying to sell him a carved bird, touching hand to forehead and speaking the local language and telling them, “I have too many already. How would I feed more?”

They laughed, touched hands to forehead in response, a real smile coming back.

“The locals act like they know you,” Lizardi said before they parted. “Are these regulars?”

Shake of the head. “They may be—there are a few I’ve seen before—but I think there’s a special smile, almost a family expression, you get after you’ve sat at meals here, when you speak the language.”

She shrugged. “Might be it. It feel like they all recognize you.”

He shrugged back. “I feel at home here, Major. I guess it shows.”

The continent they were on was basically flat, with three folds of hills that rose to these mountains, the central high point of the continent where most of the people loved the flat lands.

Here, the lake, on a high plateau with one last taller hill swathed in vines and berry brambles behind it, overlooking their camp site. That last hill also held a religious refuge, a temple occupied by a few fanatics who could sometimes be seen standing, watching the plants grow, else soothing them with water and fish meal. Pilgrims came and went, bringing food for the most pious and taking away whatever they might learn on the hillside.

The pilgrims were also anticipating the High Ripple—something that came once every fifty Standards or so, and which coincided this time with the Decade. The signs had been good that this was the year the six variants would all prove good to spore and mix.

Below their plateau, which was occupied by the few ground-side forces of Daltrey’s Daggers, was another reached by a barely tended road, home of a small town. From that town was a spiderweb of paths and rough roads leading in all directions, and below that were a series of hills and lakes leading to a plain. The daily pilgrims came that way, past the soldiers, and up into the sacred.

What exactly the sacred was for the locals Bjarni wasn’t sure. To him it was the whole of the planet—a single month roaming about as a student on memtrek between course years had convinced him that he wanted to retire here. The war so far hadn’t unconvinced him.

He’d written papers about his student experience. He’d mentioned the ripple, standing on a deck and watching the ground cover slowly go from one shade of green to another over a few hours as seasons changed, as the dominant fungi’s spores spread themselves into the mat of greenery underlying all. When his home ship’s fortunes waned and it was auctioned away from the family—they really should have listened to him!—he’d ended up destitute rather than a student, stuck on the other side of the galaxy, saved by a merc recruiter’s happy offer of employment.

To this day, a dozen years plus on active duty and another three between calls, he thought of himself as exactly what he was—an administrator par excellence, a logistical technician making the force able to fight when it wanted to, with records impeccable and practical to keep everything in order, who happened to work as a merc. Intel Major Lizardi had ferreted out his InAJam connections and brought him on board for this tour.

In his pod Bjarni went over the latest news, of which there wasn’t much—the mercs on either side hadn’t got permission to put the action on hold while the fighting infrastructure got put back together. Instead Daltrey’s orbital office sent multiple instances of the same command with the hopes that someone would pay attention, and the Bandoliers did the same for their side. Neither side knew the whereabouts of a certain important group of people and neither side wanted to give too much information the other side could use. No one even knew what they looked like!

“The young people” was the phrase that kept being used, the Nameless!

Bjarni’d watched the wording of communiqués, watched what weather reports they could get, and handled the ongoing inventorying and replenishment lists—not much else to do!—and waited for dinner. He wasn’t sorry when he left his databases for the day, trudging down to dinner in the makeshift mess hall with the late-dusk skies already colored with the twisty bands of reds and yellows, purples and greens, as the auroras flared anew—or judging by the comm techs, continued to flare. He’d picked up a small parade of cats along the way, as he so often did here, and they walked him delicately to the mess hall, and were still there in the full dark to walk him back to his pod under the intricate flowing colors of the night.

***

He hadn’t let any cats in, but something woke him from his vague dream of shrouded faces, piercing eyes, and the sounds of local rhythms. A sound? An aroma?

Bjarni sniffed, catching nothing but ordinary scents, but he knew he’d sensed something! The dream? Could he have been smelling this in his sleep? Could something have leaked in from outdoors?

He walked to the door, glanced into the night to see the aurora, muted to slight shimmers.

He sniffed once, hard.

No joy. No joy. He’d know; that he was sure. He’d smell when the ripple came through, know that the initiates had done the deed and melded the newest food, or failed. He’d also recall those eyes!

***

In the late afternoon next day Bjarni broke from his logistical and admin duties, and walked away from the busyness of camp, unsurprised to find the sharp-faced Lizardi out as well, standing by her pod as if waiting for him. The planet felt good to be on, even if there was war and destruction elsewhere, and being out in it a necessity turned pleasure.

Bjarni nodded at the major, and she back, and they proceeded wordlessly.

They passed by the guards on the well-trodden path leading toward the temple. The rules were clear—they were not to approach the temple without invite—and none from that structure had bothered even to survey the medical camp or its denizens. Other locals had come from the town below, seen that the strangers were settled well, and gone, some to the temple and some back down, in what was a constant stream of locals.

It had taken the guards awhile to get used to the prohibition on detaining all the pilgrims who wandered through camp: it was a given that someone dressed for pilgrimage was indeed a pilgrim. It was written: pilgrims do not engage in warfare.

The compromise Daltrey had reached with his counterparts in the local forces and the other side was that people—the pilgrims themselves—need not be searched. Could not be searched.

The baskets and packs they had might be searched, but not individuals; and for that matter standing orders said no shooting of wildlife, and especially no shooting, eating, or killing of cats. The cat thing didn’t bother him, and the good behavior of the unarmed pilgrims made them as much curiosity as problem.

It was a confused war, far from Daltrey’s Daggers’ finest hour. They’d signed on to help defend one side’s Decadal Ritual from interruption only to discover that this wasn’t a simple binary argument but a long-brewing fight among a dozen different groups, most showing changeable allegiance. And that Decadal Ritual? If it was a failure, there’d be crop shortages or worse, and the rulers got to find new jobs—or new heads.

This time, instead of looking down, they looked up. There were birdish creatures hovering and swooping, among which a dozen drones might have hidden had not rules demanded that no such be flown. The temple was a stark white structure with red lines painted seemingly at random across walls; in the lowering afternoon light it was quite beautiful.

A bustle behind them then, steps nearby. Bjarni felt a twinge in one nostril. Fine spice, fine shroom somewhere close.

Alert now, Bjarni twisted where he stood. He recognized the sounds and the style of a walking caravan, people from the flatlands. This particular caravan was swathed each in voluminous robes quilted from the robes of ancestors which had been quilted from robes of ancestors which had been quilted before them.

They carried baskets, all sixteen of them, and they were roped together as proper pilgrims were, basket to basket as one line and person to person as another, walking—here at least—with a low chant. Cats walked with them purposefully, staying close, it appeared, to particular pilgrims, and careful not to impede the march.

Along with the chant there came another twinge. His nostrils flared, and then he realized the it was probably the aromas of the pilgrims’ breakfasts or lunch. The song got louder as he moved in their direction—not because he was closer but as if they were gaining in volume as they closed in on their temple above.

Bjarni finally heard some of the words, which were a hymn to the sky with its star that brought the rain. Of course it did—such things were as basic as the aggregation of mass into hydrogen and into star, thence gravity leading to spheres collecting hydrogen and thus to atmosphere, atmosphere and solar energies to weather, weather, gravity, and energy leading to life.

As the pilgrims closed on the pair the steady up-slope breeze broke, so now a dozen scents mingled, all of food worthy of the gods. The locals, poor by galactic standards, ate as well as fat cats and potentates elsewhere. It was an easy world to live on, epicurean food literally underfoot much of the year. This caravan carried a fortune in fragile food.

The leader was a woman of middle years, as tall as he or the intel officer, carrying a basket. Bjarni had seen her the day before, and, he thought, days before that as they skirted the enclave, she often the last of them, stopping from time to time to sweep the trail this way or that, or attend to a branch needing repair from their passing. In a real war zone you’d have thought she was looking for sensors!

Today the woman was in front and she eyed Bjarni with care. He had the visible weapon, after all, even if he didn’t offer the same demeanor as the camp guards. The middle of the line of travel drew his attention. They moved at a different gait and rhythm—their own and not the leader’s, despite the pilgrim ties. Their baskets were smaller than the other travelers.

Also, the air was full now of the scent of shroom, from somewhere, the breeze muddling the source.

Bjarni stood as if rooted, watching, caught a glance from that group—

“Inspect!”

Surprised, he looked to Lizardi, who had a palm up indicating the group should stop.

“Spotted something?”

“Not me,” she said, “but you’re all aquiver!”

“Inspect, now!” This time she raised her voice, placing herself in front of them with both hands raised for emphasis.

Her peremptory demand acknowledged, came a ritual lining up of the group; one by one men and women alike opened their hand-woven baskets and stood back six paces from the potential contagion of the foreigners. The cats, however, stayed each and every one behind the baskets they’d walked with, and the chant went on—not by all of the walkers but by a group in the center of the pack—the most devout, perhaps.

The major raised a hand and from the camp came several sentries on a dead run.

Inspection of the locals wasn’t usually his job; his job was compliance with an astounding number of rules and regulations. He was in charge of the proper on-time filing of notices, invoices, analyses, and reports as generated by a mercenary unit working on a fringe planet, barely a hundred years this side of being interdicted for Problematic Practices.

In the center of the line, the singers were six youngsters, not farmhands by his guess. They tried to hide in the cowls of their robes as they stood away from their baskets, but they did no good job of it. Still, they kept up their chant, with at least two dozen cats arrayed about them.

Lizardi gestured in their direction and looked at him pointedly as the fluent expert among them. The caravan leader stirred a little, as did several of the others. In an antagonistic population he might have been concerned.

The chant continued. His nose caught nuance of fungi, cooked and uncooked, and he felt a rising awareness, almost an arousal as might happen with the very finest of the fungi-concentrates.

He closed with that section of line, and the volume went up again, though they turned somewhat away from him—at least five of them did. The sixth sang something different in the song, something he couldn’t quite make out as the hoods muffled words as well as faces.

Walking between the people and their burdens, he saw these baskets each had what he’d now expected, fungi being carried to the mountain. These were not piled high like the other baskets, but were mere handfuls, redolent of the highest quality.

Bjarni mimed throwing hoods back, saying in the dialect, “You may show your faces to the sun, may you not?”

Around him a rush of the cats, flawlessly groomed, crowding him as he was nearly an arm’s length from the shortest singer. He waded through carefully and—they’d not listened yet.

While the other five singers sang the chant louder, this one sang softer. He looked into the face and saw the eyes of blue green, his breath catching. He thought, too, that the robed visage was as startled as he. Now he mimed with more force the throwing back of hoods.

As one, they did, revealing beauty. Strong faces, unlined, alert, singing—he was within touching distance now, the song loud, this one with intense eyes singing off-key a little—no, singing special words to him!

“We knew you would be here, we knew it was you, we knew you would find us, we knew that you could. We are we . . . we grasp the ĉampinjono!”

There was a commotion at the end of the line. A sentry stood in front of the leader, not holding her but standing between her and these six. The cats still milled about . . . 

The six sang on, loosening further the travel robes, showing exquisite garments beneath.

The singing stopped.

Looking in his face, the beauty in front of him said, “We have the husks, we have a duty. This day should be the day, friend, this day should start the ripple!”

“You will do this for us all. You have the touch! I saw your face in a vision, I knew it!”

Bjarni whirled, raised his voice.

“Major, this group. This—force—they walked through our lines in the guise of mere pilgrims. These six must be freed! They must get to the temple now!”

It took her a moment to comprehend the bright-colored outfits beneath the robes—and the sentries bore down upon the others with professional interest.

“Mud and blood,” she said without heat, seeing those arrayed before her. “Mud and blood times fifty!”

The beautiful one looked into his face and tugged at the ceremonial ropes attaching all together. “These have a magic about them. We cannot fight—if they ran we would have to run with them! We need these bindings taken off!”

Bjarni looked to the major, waved at the initiates. “We must get them to their temple—they tell us it is today. They must have their ritual today!”

He dared to hold the hand of the initiate with the amazing eyes and showed the rope with an extra metallic thread within to Lizardi.

“We have to get this off of them!”

“I don’t know the language, Bjarni. You tell them.”

Bjarni turned toward the woman who had been leader, now disarmed.

Liberigi La Virgulojn!” he said, repeating it in Trade for all to hear. “Release the virgins!”

***

“Are you coming?”

Lizardi shook her head, waving at the barely controlled confusion about them.

“I can’t. I’m going to organize this”—here she laughed—“and then, I have to tell Daltrey he and his friend will have to miss the party. I’m on the spot—command decision and all that.”

That quickly he’d been led by the freed virgins and two keepers up the mountainside to the blindingly white buildings where several dozen acolytes cheered their appearance and rushed to preparation. The chant resumed, and grew steadily in volume as passing pilgrims collected to add their voices.

Bjarni was given over-robes to wear, and brought to a thin stone seat, where a pair of attendants appeared, bringing him a bowl of water from a stone pool shimmering in the afternoon light, that he might wash his hands in preparation to witness . . . what?

He sat running over his reading in his head—obviously parts of the rituals were not usually shared with commoners and strangers.

He’d not been expecting the disrobing of initiates, nor the use of the pool as a kind of game of ritual cleansing while their bags and cats sat nearby.

The clean and naked virgins leapt from the waters of the sacred pool with no hesitation, charging among the cats to grab handfuls of the colorful fungus from their baskets and then full of excitement rushed to their bower, holding hands and chattering as they flung themselves within.

The coreligionists outside began to sing louder, and two found drums.

Laughter rose from the bower and became passionate, and more such laughter rang out over the mountainside, nearly smothered by the chants.

The drumming and singing went on until there was yet another burst of passion. The shadows on the long lawn lengthened and now the inside of the bower lit up as column after column collected the setting sun’s rays and directed them within.

There was singing from within, a shout of cheer. Shortly after the six initiates emerged, one robed in red, one in yellow, one in green, one in blue, one in orange, and the last in purple, each collecting their baskets and the escort of cats.

They came as a group to him, Bjarni, and he stood.

“We, we get to stay here tonight,” the one in purple said. “We are not done yet!”

The others laughed in agreement, quick glances stolen among themselves.

“The other part is not done yet, either. We need to collate these ĉampinjono, and we wish you, Bjarni, to help. Walk with us.”

Walking was not easy—the cats were back, weaving between feet, prancing with tails held high, as if they too were part of the secrets here, they too—here!

They walked to the small apron of green beside the temple—from here they looked down the mountainsides that led to the hills that led to the flat lands, the camp and town behind the temple, unseen.

“Hold your hands together, thus!”

The one in purple made a wide bowl of his hands.

Bjarni followed suit, watching as the youths suppressed smiles, the solemnity growing on every face.

“Hold as that. We shall each place ĉampinjono upon your hands. These are not poison!”

Bjarni smiled—yes, many of the mercs had been warned not to eat random plants from this place—but these, these he could smell already!

The virgins—or perhaps the not-virgins—crowded around, discussing in quiet voices, each taking two of the stringy fungi from their baskets and holding them above Bjarni’s hands. It was hard for him not snatch one, to bury his face in one, to eat it raw. Overpowering—

“When we drop these in your hands you must squeeze your hands together, squeeze tightly, and hold them. It may be a moment, it may be ten; warm them but do not look. When they sing you may open your hands and free them. Do you understand?”

He looked from face to face, all beautiful in their own way, all serious, all eager.

He nodded.

That was the moment they rushed to him. Treasure fell into his hands, the ĉampinjono; that was the moment he closed his eyes and squeezed. The fungi moved within his hands, as if they lived—but of course they lived! His hands did feel warm and warmer. Sing?

He opened his eyes, seeking direction. The initiates crowded each other, repeating for each other what they’d done for him.

Now his hands felt more movement, and a vibration, heat. From within his grasped hands came a weird sighing and then a clear birdlike singsong, heard through the chanting still going on. He closed his eyes, sure he could smell the most wonderful scent in the universe—the chirping increased!

Startled, he opened his hands to find not birds but flat rust-golden flakes, vibrating, expanding until they filled his hands to overflowing.

“You may blow them away now, Bjarni. Release the virgins!”

He did that and saw that each of the initiates was doing the same—opening hands and releasing these . . . 

As the flakes hit the carpet of green a great sighing went up. The green turned gold here and there, the spot at his feet and in front of him sighed louder. The rusty gold spread, and hand width, two, three, five, the length of his body . . . the green appearing to flee before it now, the sigh getting louder until the lawn was singing and the colors rushed out into the world, rushing down mountainside at breakneck speed, the world full of the undercurrent of sound, the familiar aroma fascinating, exactly that from his dream.

The six approached then, each rubbing their hands across his, smiling together at the slight gold shimmer of spore-stuff that all seven now shared fingertip to wrist.

There was an awkward moment then, as the initiates looked one from another.

The one with the eyes looked at him, perhaps sternly.

“This ripple is Bjarni’s Ripple, now and forever. By morning it will be so around the world. You have freed us to revivify the ĉampinjono—and we will remember always the lesson you brought! It will be said for every ripple!”

Release the virgins!


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