“Oh no you bloody don’t!” He leapt up and grabbed it, wrapping his left arm around it.
“Jesus, Only what the hell are you doing? That streak of snot just tried to kill you,” said Gutsy.
Atkins’ right hand fumbled around in the pouch on his chest as he drew out a Mills bomb. Pulling the pin out with his teeth he thrust his arm shoulder-deep up into the ball of mucus.
“Oh god, you’re not!”
“He bloody is. Run.”
“You’re a bloody lunatic, Only!”
With a satisfied smile he opened his fist, releasing the trigger, pulled his arm out with a schlorp and rolled behind a tree trunk. A snort from somewhere in the canopy above drew the mucus back up into whatever orifice it had oozed from. There was a brief pause followed by an explosion as the hand grenade detonated. A huge shapeless, invertebrate carcass fell down through the branches. It crashed to the floor of the grove with a large, sodden thump, followed by an accompanying rain of wet spatters.
Sergeant Hobson and Lieutenant Everson came running down the line as the platoon took up defensive positions.
“Just what the bloody hell is going on!” demanded Hobson as he found 1 Section crawling from out of their places of shelter, laughing with exhilaration.
“There was something up in the trees, Sarn’t,” said Porgy. “Some kind of snot monster. It had Only, I mean Atkins, sir.”
Everson gently poked the steaming remains of the huge, many tentacled slug-like creature with his foot.
“From above, you said?”
“That’s right sir. Seems to drop a huge string of snot on something then suck it back up, sir,” said Gutsy. “Looks like it got 4 Section an’ all.”
“Hobson, better take a roll call. See who’s missing,” said Everson. He turned to Atkins, seated on the ground as the slime began to dry out and crust his uniform. “You all right, Atkins?”
Atkins cleared his throat and looked up. “Sir.”
“Right, get cleaned up. Hobson, I guess you’d better tell the men to keep their eyes peeled for… what was it?”
“Snot, sir. Great thick sticky strings of snot,” said Gutsy.
“Yes. Well,” he said, as he walked back up the line. “Handkerchiefs at the ready then.”
JEFFRIES WAITED. THE three Chatts jabbered amongst themselves, their antenna waving and their arms gesticulating. Jeffries found it incredibly frustrating being unable to read their faces. It made them so hard to play.
“What do you mean you can deliver them, man?” asked the Padre.
“Exactly what I said,” replied Jeffries, not taking his eyes from the trio.
“You don’t mean sell them into slavery?”
“You’re not going to get all Moses on me, are you, Padre?”
Chandar came over to them. “Do you mean what you say?”
“I always do,” said Jeffries.
“We do not know the meaning of ‘price’.”
Backward savages. No concept of a monetary economy. Jeffries thought for a moment. “I want something in exchange.”
“What?”
“Knowledge. I want Chandar to teach me the Khungarrii ways.”
Chandar relayed the request to the others. There was a brief agitated discussion before Chandar returned. “Those Ones do not trust you. Those Ones want a portent, a sign.”
This was becoming too much. He didn’t have the time to play games here, but he could see no way forward other than to acquiesce.
“What kind of sign?”
“An ordeal.”
“Ordeal?”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” muttered the Padre.
“Those Ones require a ritual of purification,” said Chandar. “It is a spiritual cleansing expected of Urmen when they reach adulthood. A symbolic pupation, a casting off of the old ways, the old life. We need this from you to show that you accept the Khungarrii and the will of GarSuleth.”
“Is that all?”
The Padre, on the other hand, seemed to be having some problems with the idea.
“No!” he said, rousing himself from his induced ennui. “I will not renounce my faith. I will not renounce my humanity and bow down before false idols!”
“Excuse me,” said Jeffries, smiling briefly and nodding politely to Chandar before wheeling round on the Padre, grabbing his elbow and steering him away from the Khungarrii. “Padre, I won’t tell you again. Negotiations are at a very delicate stage here. This Chatt has… intelligence I need and I’m willing to play along and do whatever they want if it means I get what I want, do you understand?”
“I don’t know what your game is, Lieutenant.”
“And I can’t tell you, Padre. Need to know. Hush-hush and all that.” Jeffries tapped the side of his nose.
“Ah,” said the Padre. “I had heard rumours. Military Intelligence, eh?”
“So let’s go along with it, hmm? Think of it as a — a test of faith.”
“Well—”
“Look at me, Padre,” said Jeffries. The Padre cast his eyes down. “Rand, look at me. Do you mean to tell me that anything these heathen, soulless creatures could do would shake your faith?”
“Well—”
“Good man,” said Jeffries, before turning back to Chandar. “Very well. We shall undertake your ritual. Lay on, McDuff.”
“Chandar will explain to you the ritual,” said Sirigar, before sweeping from the chamber. Turning to chatter something at Chandar, Rhengar left too.
Chandar and the ever-present scentirrii guards escorted them to another part of the temple area. The chamber in which they now found themselves was smaller than any they had so far seen and could have accommodated perhaps only six or seven people. It was bare apart from some sort of small brazier in the centre, like a large clay oil burner, fashioned from the same cinnamon-coloured earth as the rest of the edifice, almost as if it had been moulded from the floor. From above hung a shallow dish that contained the same luminous lichen that provided the light to the rest of the interior. It reminded Jeffries of a Native American sweat lodge.
“Sit,” said Chandar.
Jeffries eased himself to the floor, his back against the wall, and made himself as comfortable as he could. The Padre sat down across from him, looking apprehensive.
“So what happens now?” Jeffries asked.
“You will begin the Kirijjandat, the cleansing,” explained Chandar. “The ordeal will divest you of the past, help you relinquish old ways and atone for them so you may embrace the will of GarSuleth.”
An acolyte, wearing a thin calico-coloured, tassel-less garment draped over its shoulder and wrapped around its segmented abdomen, entered carrying an earthen jar. Chandar scuttled backward as the acolyte proceeded to pour a thick, oily liquid from the jar into the bowl. Jeffries caught a whiff of a heady musk mixed with a light, almost fruity, scent. The acolyte then introduced a lit taper to the oil and it began to burn. It pulled on a cord and the shallow dish, holding the lichen light, was drawn up against the curve of the roof above until it clamped tight to the top of the chamber, extinguishing all light, apart from the burning oil.
“GarSuleth guide you,” Chandar said, before withdrawing from the chamber with the acolyte, the door dilating shut behind them.
Fumes began to fill the chamber. Jeffries just smiled, relaxed and began to breathe slowly and deeply. If this thing was going to happen, there seemed no point in fighting it and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t done anything like this before. He was quite familiar with hallucinogenic rituals. Prior to the War he had participated in a good many. This was merely a drug he hadn’t tried yet and he positively welcomed the experience. That old bastard, Crowley, always claimed he could take more than anyone else could and, while Jeffries had never actually called him on it before they fell out, he always suspected it was quality more than quantity that affected the experience. He’d read of rituals like this among primitive tribes and he would be lying to himself he if didn’t feel a little apprehensive, but also excited as well. An otherworldly drug. He couldn’t wait.