5
Our ancestors here used biotechnology far in advance of what we Sudorians currently possess (though perhaps not in advance of that employed by the Brumallians). They used adaptogenic drugs and DNA-editing nanomachines, esoteric surgical techniques and viral-recombination therapies, but these weren't really enough. They knew with absolute scientific certainty that this world would kill them before they could enjoy grey hair. It was already killing them. Changed but not completely adapted, they took all that they and their machines could carry, and headed south out of the Komarl and into cooler climes. During the journey a quarter of them died, and a further quarter of them died while they set up their domed encampment where the city of Transit now stands. The survivors managed to endure simply because they limited the time they spent outside their specially cooled domes, where they worked quickly to raise the next generation. That next generation was created by drastic alteration of the embryos they had imported. The children inherited, and were free to walk outside but, as their parents and educators died around them, they did not inherit everything. Machines fell into disuse and technologies were lost, as these children tried to build a society. They did not yet understand that the nuts and bolts of civilisation are more important than political infighting.
— Uskaron
McCrooger
Face down I could not see what had me trapped. It must have leapt on me from the top of the tunnel exit. Just to the right side of my head I could see one long jointed finger the size of a banana, looking like it was made of brass gone verdigrised on its upper surface, and terminating in a vicious though translucent talon. Chummy growled with gurgling wetness beside my ear, which gave me the benefit of its pickled-herring halitosis. I brought my elbow back—not too hard since I did not really know my assailant's intentions. It made a glottal urf and a long red tongue slurped down the side of my face. I heaved myself up, lifting it with me, reached back and grabbed a thick wrist, rose onto one knee, then threw the creature over my shoulder, slamming it down hard into the mud before me. I then paused, somewhat at a loss on observing the form of my assailant.
About three hundred pounds of something looking like a cross between a monitor lizard and a Rottweiler struggled there on its back, panting for breath. Its chest was a ribbed shield of yellow and green, its dog's head and the rest of its body was that same verdigris-and-brass colour, without fur, reptilian. Its thick lizard tail whipped back and forth, and it gazed up at me with mismatched eyes—one blue and one brown. I stood up, not recognising this creature from the Brumallian planetary almanac.
It was also not alone.
I pretended indifference for a moment. Most of my upper garment now hung bunched over my right shoulder and down that same arm. I slowly retrieved the ammunition clips from the waist pockets and tucked them into my belt caches, along with the gun and the palm screen—the belt being the only part of my attire that did not seem to be deteriorating the same way as my boots and top—then I tore away the soggy decaying cloth and dropped it to the ground. Finally I turned my attention to the four Brumallians who were now stalking towards me.
They wore uniform clothing: bulky camouflage fatigues to match our surroundings, and strangely shaped helmets to fit the odd structural angle of their heads. They were armed with long double-barrelled guns holstered across their stomachs. One of them carried four rings attached by lengths of wire: presumably manacles to be placed upon me once their pet had subdued me. The pet which now, finally regaining its feet, sped away to slink around about behind them. Now two of them drew their weapons.
I held up one hand and signed, "No need for that. I am not here to cause harm." I wished I'd spotted these four earlier, because then I could have remained 'subdued' and let them manacle me. Now they had witnessed my strength and might be scared of me—which was never a great thing when the one fearing you held a gun.
They halted, and one of those pointing a weapon at me buzzed and clicked, "Should we kill it?" accompanying this question with one-handed signing almost too fast to follow: interrogative, myself plus two names, consensus request in rhetorical mode.
The one with the manacles replied, "Not yet."
"It must be a splicing, but it talks," added the gunman.
"Not yet," said another gunman.
"It talks," added the last.
It took me a moment to realise 'splicing' meant 'gene-splicing'—something which, judging by their decidedly odd pet and the pump and the lights in the tunnel behind me, they obviously knew how to do quite well. I also noticed how their speech seemed to be blending together, and realised this was a sign of underlying pheromonal communication which had to be slower than sound.
"Do—you—understand—us?" asked all four of them together, speaking that language of stones in a food processor nice and slow for this retarded creature. The sentence seemed to slide from each to each of them, all of them speaking the words but emphasis on each separate word coming from different individuals.
"I understand," I signed, "but for obvious reasons can only use hand signals."
They needed to discuss this:
"Could it be a splicing—"
"— from the Sudorians?"
"We doubt it. They couldn't splice a grug—"
"— with a froud—"
"— without making shollops."
No equivalent translation in any language I knew. The first two items mentioned I vaguely recollected as being some kind of mollusc, though I did not know what a shollop might be. This equally shared comment was obviously amusing, for they near split their cheekbones with their clattering and buzzing laughter that followed.
"Or gloms," one added, obviously slow on the pheromonal uptake. The laughter became tentative—there's always one who tries to stretch a joke too far, even when shared so closely.
"Do you think he'll put on the manacles voluntarily?" asked one gun-waver, surprising me by speaking this entire sentence alone.
"Will they work?" asked two others. The one holding the manacles wound up the connecting wires and hung them from a belt hook. They turned and eyed their pet, which seemed to have now taken a special interest in a nearby tree and commenced some kind of strange backwards and forwards dance beside it, before finally raising its leg and urinating copiously, raising dense clouds of steam. Its eyes crossed as it missed its target entirely. The two turned back to me, the one with the manacles now drawing his gun.
"You will first remove your belt. You will walk between us, then ahead of us," said he.
The others added, "If you try to run we will shoot you."
"If you try to attack us, we will shoot you."
"And if you disobey an order we will shoot you."
That seemed to cover all bets, so I removed my belt and let it drop, then, while holding up my ragged trousers with one hand, I signed with the other, "I am a Consul from the Polity."
"Polity?" all four again. "And when did you come up with that idea?"
My problem here was that the word 'Polity' in their language came across as 'political unit not of Sudoria or Brumal', hence my difficulty in signing it. And now that they were parting ranks and waving me ahead of them, I could not explain, since even doing the hand signs with both hands before my chest was difficult enough.
As I strode ahead of them, the dog thing moved through the trees off to my left and occasionally bark-growled ferociously as if to cover its embarrassment at its earlier pitiful performance. My captors meanwhile chatted amongst themselves.