Peering through the curtaining lianas at the edge of the hummock, the team was greeted with a view of determined activity. In most places the fragile towers described in their briefing were scattered on the ground, being demolished to mine the base materials. In a few places, ziggurats or pyramids of metal and stone were rising. They were well spaced and in between were low barracks of stone and mud. In the distance a causeway through the swamp was being constructed and what looked like defensive works were under construction near them. By the nearest ziggurat was a series of pens but what the pens held could not be seen from the team’s angle.
“Ellsworthy,” murmured Mosovich, “what’s in the pens?”
“Little posies in most,” she whispered from her accustomed over-watch. “A few Crabs in one.”
As she was talking, a Posleen walked over and dumped a double handful of squirming Posleen nestlings into one of the pens then trotted away.
“Mega gross,” whispered Ellsworthy.
“What?” asked Mueller.
“The other ones are eating new ones, mostly. I think some of ’em survived.”
“Yuck,” muttered Richards.
“Get it on tape,” ordered Ersin. The video would in fact load onto a Flash BIOS memory chip.
“I’ve got a feed going off my scope, don’t worry.”
“Okay, we’re gonna pull back a little and get up and dry,” whispered Mosovich. “We’ll trade off observers until it seems like we’ve got it all and then pull back to the pickup.” He began moving back into the swamp. “Ellsworthy, you’ve got first watch.”
“Yessa, massa. I keep a good watch.”
Two days later they were mostly dried out and badly confused.
“You’re sure of what you saw?” asked Mosovich for the fifth time.
“Y-y-y-es, dangit!” Martine was by turns angry, disgusted and horrified.
“No species could survive that way!” exclaimed Mueller, the subvocalization going vocal for a moment.
“Pipe the fuck down,” snarled Mosovich, “If he says he saw it, he saw it. I just wish you’d gotten it on the microcam.”
“B-b-b-by the t-t-t-time I-I-I-I…”
“Yeah, I know, it was already over. Okay, we have data on their building rate and materials use. We’ve gotten a look at their fixed defenses. We have an idea what they forage for and some idea of what they eat. We have one unconfirmed report, sorry Sergeant Martine, on some specialized feeding habits. Anything else.”
“Why the pyramids?” asked Mueller. When completed they would resemble Central American pyramids to an uncomfortable degree. At the base of each was a large hut and the beginnings of a parade or playing field. The God Kings had been observed to spend most of their time in and around the huts. The one nearing completion had a small house or palace at the apex.
“Worship?” wondered Richards.
“Of who? The God Kings?” asked Ersin.
“I wonder if that’s why they call them that?” asked Trapp, stroking his Bushmaster quietly on a diamond stone.
“Seven pyramids, seven God Kings?” mused Mosovich.
“We’ve counted at least ten, maybe more. They’re hard to tell apart,” noted Mueller.
“So, not one pyramid per God King. Over thirteen hundred normals, right?”
“Right,” agreed Mueller, pulling out a palmtop computer. “Thirteen hundred normals, 10 or so God Kings and 123 Crabs, down from a high of 220. Total of 500… shuttled through.”
As the pyramids neared completion, the pens of nestlings had been moved nearer. And the reason for the penned Tchpth became clear. The team had watched helplessly as Tchpth after Tchpth was taken from the pens and slaughtered. They were well aware that they were watching intelligent, in many cases extraordinarily intelligent, beings being killed and eaten but there was no way to affect the outcome without compromising their mission. It was one of those unfortunate cases where the importance of the mission outweighed the death of any single individual or even group of individuals. It didn’t mean they had to like it. Nor did they like it when the occasional group of new Tchpth would be herded out of the jungle and into the pens.
“But what about this report of Martine’s?” asked Richards. “Why would any species do that?”
“I-I s-s-saw what I-I-I-I s-saw,” said the commo NCO, firmly.
“Might be a response to limited resources,” suggested Trapp.
“What limited resources?” scoffed Mueller. “They just conquered a food-rich planet.”
“Might be they like the taste,” said Tung.
They all turned to look at him; he was notoriously chary of words, so when Tung spoke people listened.
“Sure, they’ve probably been designed to be able to eat anything, but that’s the only home food they got. Maybe they like the taste.” Everyone just stared at him in amazement. It was the most anyone had ever heard him say in one sitting. It also made perfect sense; it would explain why the God Kings ate their clan’s nestlings, as Sergeant Martine had witnessed only an hour before.
“Okay,” stated Mosovich, “we’ll take that as a possibility until a better one presents itself. I think we’ve covered about all there is to cover here. Time to go look at another site. We’ll start our extraction tomorrow morning. Get dry tonight people, it’s the last chance you’ll get for a few weeks.”
17
Planetary Transport Class Maruk,
N-Space Transit Terra-Diess
0927 January 28th, 2002 ad
“Lieutenant Michael O’Neal, reporting as ordered, sir!” Mike held a rigid salute, eyes fixed six inches over the battalion commander’s head.
“At ease, Lieutenant.” The tall, spare officer went back to studying the hardcopy report in front of him, making annotations at irregular intervals.
Mike took the opportunity to study the room and its occupant, as “at ease” permitted, his feet shoulder width apart, hands clasped behind his back. Lieutenant Colonel Youngman was slightly balding and very lean. His wiry frame bespoke a high degree of physical fitness but he looked almost fragile compared to O’Neal. He was definitely a runner; from the starved greyhound look, probably a weekend marathoner.
The room was a barren almost Spartan ellipsoid, less, Mike suspected, as an extension of the occupant than due to cultural conflict. The blank gray plasteel walls were impervious to all normal attachment systems — glues would not stick and nails would bend — while the organic-looking tubes overhead, indicative of Indowy construction, were impossible to hang anything from. There were no mirrors, lockers or shelves, only a desk, two chairs and the floor. The light was the odd greenish blue favored by the Indowy. It gave the rooms a cold dark look, reminiscent of a horror movie.
On the floor were several boxes, undoubtedly filled with all the items this battalion commander considered de rigeur for office decorations. Mike began to list the probable contents starting with “national colors, one each.” When he reached “wife and children, picture of, five by seven, photo of mistress artfully concealed beneath” he realized that his good intentions of remaining calm were slipping. After ten minutes the colonel put down his second report and looked up.
“You look upset, Lieutenant.”
“I do, sir?” Mike asked. Despite this jerk showing his importance by having Mike cool his heels for ten minutes, Mike was sure his expression had not changed.
“You have looked pissed off since you came in the door. Actually, you look like you could bite the ass out of a lion.” The colonel’s face had assumed a disapproving pucker.