Urmen were not the only creatures tending the fungus beds, there were Chatts, too, although they were outnumbered by the Urmen about them. They seemed to be smaller than the Chatt soldiers above and there were fewer segments to their antennae. Their chitinous armour was smoother, lighter. These, Atkins assumed must be the worker Chatts.
The fungus from the beds was loaded onto large sled-like litters before being transported elsewhere, presumably for storage or distribution.
From the shadows of the tunnel, Atkins watched the Urmen, fascinated. They seemed like ordinary humans. They were dressed in roughly woven tunics and each wore some sort of blue mark upon their foreheads. Looking into the hall he was reminded of his first job in Houlton Mill, the men and women intent on their task as the foremen looked on. Fourteen he’d been when he left school. Those foremen hadn’t been armed, though. Atkins counted twenty soldier Chatts, five in the gallery, the rest patrolling the floor.
“Bloody slave labour, that’s what it is,” muttered Pot Shot, appalled.
“Up there” whispered Everson. Atkins and Hobson followed his finger to the gallery. They watched Urmen enter it with their laden sleds.
After an urging shove from Hobson, Atkins stepped warily out into the hubbub of the fungus farming chamber, his bayoneted Enfield at the ready. The noise about him didn’t suddenly subside and deteriorate into an ugly, tense silence as he half expected. In fact, the world carried on around him, the Urmen continuing with their tasks and pulling harvested litters of fungus along using shoulder harnesses woven from what looked like plant fibre.
Cautiously the rest of the section stepped out to join him. They kept to the edge of the chamber and headed in an anticlockwise direction for the gallery ramp. Poilus broke away from the group to acquire an apparently abandoned sled-like litter. He loaded the sacks and sandbags of extra weapons onto it, then heaped it with fungus to the cover the weapons. An Urman woman approached him to protest and Atkins felt himself tense for a fight, but Poilus, gesticulating, seemed to be making some sort of argument. Angrily, she gesticulated back. Poilus trumped her by pointing to the soldier Chatts on the gallery above and she threw her arms in the air, shook her head and wandered off sullenly.
They were making headway toward the spiral ramp when several soldier Chatts appeared out of a passage and advanced purposefully towards them. Urmen scuttled out of the way as, behind the squat, heavy-set soldiers, a taller, more regal-looking Chatt followed them; its head and antennae covered with a rich carmine hood that masked its features. It wore a length of silk thrown over its shoulder and tied around its abdomen from which hung a great number of tassels. The soldiers knew a member of the ruling classes when they saw one. Atkins and Hobson froze, unsure how to react.
A flat-faced soldier Chatt stopped in front of them, its lance sparking faintly. Its black, featureless eyes scrutinized them. Its antennae waved petulantly as it sought confirmation of the expected chemical mark of Khungarrii scent. Atkins became very aware of the sweat on his hands and his forehead as it continued its inspection and hoped his human smell wouldn’t wash away his scent mask. Finally satisfied, its antennae stopped waving and it began scissoring its mandibles belligerently. “Move, dhuyumirrii comes.”
Poilus, helped by Pot Shot, dragged the litter to the side of the chamber before dropping his harness and making a curious gesture, touching his hands to his forehead and then to his chest, while bowing to the imperious Chatt approaching them.
“Move.” he hissed urgently at Atkins and Hobson, who moved clumsily back against the wall under the watchful gaze of the soldier Chatt. With a nod from Everson, the others followed suit. Atkins caught a waft of cloying perfume from the head covering of the stately Chatt. It was so strong that he had to suppress a cough as it swept passed without acknowledging their presence.
Pot Shot glared after the haughty arthropod. “Same the bloody world over,” he muttered. “There’s always them on top. Now I find out it’s the same on different worlds an’ all. I can’t say I’m particularly encouraged. Still, all will be different when we get the Urmen to stand up for their rights and take these folk down a peg or two.”
“Yeah, well don’t forget our first priority is our own,” hissed Gutsy. “Save your Labour rhetoric for later, eh?”
“Move on,” ordered Everson, once the regal Chatt party had passed.
Pot Shot ducked into the shoulder harness, braced himself and stepped forward, taking the weight of his sled. Ketch, obviously unhappy with his own sacks of ammunition, sought to do what Poilus had done and requisition a litter the better to carry his load. However, a restraining hand on his wrist stopped him. A tall Urman glared down at him.
“Where is your mark?” he asked. “I see no mark.”
“Mark? But I have the scent, you saw,” he said, indicating the receding Chatt with its guards.
“Urmen Khungarrii don’t smell it. You are required to wear the Mark. You know that. Where is it?” he hissed, staring hard at the Corporal’s forehead and pointing to his own blue glyph.
Ketch raised a questing fingertip and wiped it across his own greasy brow. “It must have come off? I sweat. A lot.”
“Then reapply it before someone else notices and takes you for Casteless and godless and calls the scentirrii. GarSuleth wills it,” he snapped, before shoving Ketch away and returning about his business. The Corporal snarled and brought up his bayoneted rifle ready to thrust the point home, but Atkins grabbed him by shoulder.
“No, Corp,” he said. “Not here. Not now.”
Ketch glared after the Urman, growling under his breath before relaxing his stance. He turned and shrugged Atkins’ hand off his shoulder. “Fuck off, Atkins.” He grabbed the vacant sled-like litter, loaded it up and began dragging it along sullenly.
The social injustice of his surroundings continued to gnaw at Pot Shot, like a dog with a bone. He grabbed the arm of a passing Urman woman. “Why do you submit to their rule?”
“We are all Khungarrii. GarSuleth provides. GarSuleth wills it,” said the woman.
Everson stepped up and gripped Pot Shot’s arm. “Jellicoe, that’s enough. Now isn’t the time to organize a general bloody strike.”
“But, sir—”
“I don’t want to hear it, Jellicoe. We’re here to do a job.”
Reluctantly, Pot Shot returned his attention to pulling the sled, shaking his head and muttering while the Urman woman stared wonderingly after them for a moment, before turning back to her task.
The Tommies approached the ramp and began to make their way up its incline.
“What’s the matter with ’em? Don’t they want to be freed?” asked Pot Shot, taking a last look down over the labouring Urmen.
“They’ve been under the yoke too long,” said Gutsy. “They just need someone to show ’em how, that’s all. Guess we’ll be doing that before the day’s out.”
JEFFRIES STOOD IN Chandar’s small chamber while he allowed his eyes to adjust to the gloom. He peered at the objects all around him, piles of Urman junk; pots, jars, jewellery, woven mats, crude shoes and animal skin clothing, wooden implements of every description. Some, given pride of place on earthen plinths or in niches around the wall, commanded the eye. Others, considered less important perhaps, sat in unsorted piles around the floor. He found himself reminded of the piles of their own trench equipment in the other chamber.
“Sirigar thinks this one is wasting its time, but this One’s accident allowed it to see Urmen in a new way,” said Chandar, standing proudly amid its collection.