“Do not say you do not know. This was the third time I have seen this kind of killing. Go, look at its mouth.”
Vrryngraar did. And now, the unusual nature of this particular corpse became evident, made it distinct from the hundreds—no, thousands—he had already seen or made this day.
The evident cause of the human’s death was a wound to the groin. But no, it was worse than that. The male generative member had been removed. If the nearby evidence could be trusted, the penectomy had been performed with a rusted strip of corrugated metal, torn from a nearby wall. Judging from the lack of other injuries, the amputation of the member had been the cause of death, which meant that it had been performed pre-mortem.
Imagining that deed made it impossible for Vrryngraar to think for a long moment. What savagery was this? Not even animals did this to each other, Then he saw that the crudely severed member had been jammed deep into the corpse’s mouth. He looked up at U’tuk.
Who said, “You must stop this.”
“Me? Stop this? How?” Then he understood the presumption implicit in the Arat Kur’s exhortation. “You must be mad, to think this the work of my troops, of the Hkh’Rkh. What do we care of the humans’ insane dominance rituals and symbolic disfigurements? We did not do this.” He saw U’tuk’s mandibles sag in shock, drove home his point. “Grubber, do you not understand? The humans did this—to their own kind.”
The Arat Kur was completely motionless for a moment and then shivered so sharply that his armor rattled. “But why—?”
“Look around you. Do you know what this place was?”
“N-no.”
“I patrolled this street sometimes. The owner was a merchant of bulk goods. But he also sold grain.”
“So he was one of the food distributors?”
Could the grubber truly be so naïve? “Not legally. He found ways to acquire food when the other humans could not and sold it to them for greatly increased prices. He profited from their hunger. And the more hungry they became, the more he profited.”
“So they—?”
“Yes. They did this.” Vrryngraar looked down again. The humans might not be warriors, might be duplicitous and conniving s’fet, but that did not diminish their capacity for savagery. If anything, it seemed to amplify it.
“We should not have come here.” U’tuk’s voice was quiet, withdrawn.
Although worried that the Arat Kur was perilously close to slipping into some kind of trauma-induced fugue state, Vrryngraar also could not suppress a quick, confirmatory neck-sway. No, they should not have come here. There was no honor in such a place, in such a conflict—for one could not call it a war. The only proper course of action regarding humanity was to leave it alone, and, if possible, isolate it. Just as one would handle any other sophont that was quite irremediably and dangerously insane. “I agree. Tell me the result of your scouting mission. Is it safe to withdraw back to the presidential compound through this area?”
The Arat Kur took a moment to respond. “Yes. Before entering this building, our scouting mission was uneventful. We encountered no sign of insurgents. If any humans remained in the area after we first cleared it, they have kept to their houses.”
“Promising. Are you still in contact with the compound?”
“I receive their signals, but they do not receive mine. And the rest of your troop?”
Vrryngraar swayed his neck in the direction of the rest of his battered, hiding unit. “All radios save one—our shielded set—were disabled. But we lost that set and its operator to enemy fire about ten minutes ago. Which is why I came to find you.” Vrryngraar rose up out of his crouch. “Stay hidden in this spot. I shall return to the troop and lead them here. Together we shall return to the compound. We are no longer combat effective. All we can do now is make a report and gather replacements.”
The Arat Kur bobbed and said nothing as Vrryngraar turned and exited the black marketeer’s warehouse. Trying to put the image of the butchered human from his mind, Vrryngraar swept back around the corner by which he had entered Mangga Besar Selatan and started across a smoke- and mist-shrouded moonscape that had once been a side-street. He recalled his explanation to the cowed and quiet U’tuk: his unit was “no longer combat effective.” He growled at the grim irony of the term. His troop was down to a dozen, most of whom were incapacitated in at least one limb, few of whom had more than thirty rounds of ammunition left. Half a hundred proud Hkh’Rkh reduced to that handful, hiding like a pack of furtive s’fet in a semi-intact basement—and having fought only one true battle to speak of.
They had spent most of the morning fighting the unpredictable and inexperienced insurgents. With the exception of a demolition trap, each encounter merely inflicted some wounds. But those wounds had caused fatal decreases in agility, speed, responsiveness. Then, half an hour ago, they had encountered a true military force. Mostly nonindigenous, these humans had been taller, of diverse phenotypes, and equipped with extremely high-power liquimix assault rifles, rocket-propelled munitions, and sophisticated sensors. Worst of all, they had been trained professionals. Vrryngraar had to admit that what the humans might have lacked in size and courage they more than made up for in technical skill and cunning. His troop lost a dozen dead, and a similar number wounded before ammunition depletion forced Vrryngraar to think, and then do, the unthinkable. He withdrew. From humans.
And since then, they had been fleeing. They called it a withdrawal, but call it what one might, they had been beaten and repulsed, and now sought the sanctuary of the main compound.
Perhaps it was because Vrryngraar was preoccupied by his sour reverie, but, as he angled toward an alley that led to his remaining troops, he moved incautiously into a solid wall of smoke billowing up from a clutter of burning vehicles. He did not wait for a gap in the dark, feathery drifts, and so emerged from the blinding blackness straight into the rear of a crowd of humans gathered at a street corner.
Most were females or young, clustered around two persons in intense discussion. One was a local male armed with an AK-47, trying to communicate in the planet’s main—and maddeningly untidy—language with a female who was lighter of skin and subtly heavier of build, particularly in the shoulders, head, and upper legs. The female was the first to see Vrryngraar. Her eyes snapped over, detecting his movement even as he emerged from the smoke. He admired her reflexes. She uttered a one-syllable word that sounded like a bark and dove toward the entry of the nearest building. The local with the gun turned, taking approximately one half-second to absorb the situational change before reacting.
That half-second’s delay was his death. Vrryngraar brought up his own AK-47, tried squeezing off a single round, but wound up two-tapping the human. The first of the 7.62 x 39mm rounds went into the human’s side, making a wide bloody wound and spinning him slightly so that the second bullet caught him square in the sternum. The human fell backward with the utterly nerveless flop of those who die instantly on their feet.
Vrryngraar pointed the gun at the dominant female and let instinct guide him. “Obey or she dies,” he shouted at the rest of the humans.
The first tentative cries of terror, shock, loss ended abruptly. The dominant female rose from her covered position—she had almost made it through the doorway on a fast low crawl—and turned to face him. As was common with some human subspecies, her eyes were green and very clear, like the Great Equatorial Sea of Rkh’yaa. That brief second, he missed Homeworld so very greatly that he could have lamented with a hero’s grief-hooting. But this was neither the time nor the place. “You. Who are you?”