The Remnant Page 4

  The trail the team had been following joined with a wide dirt road gullied with wagon tracks and erosion. The sun was beginning to slowly burn off the fog and frost, and shapes grew much more distinct. Tebrey could begin to see details about the village now that they were getting closer.

  "I'm surprised at how well you seem to be dealing with the environment, Commander. I wouldn't have expected a Fleet officer to adjust to being on a planet so quickly," Mason said after a few minutes.

  Tebrey was suddenly as glad for the distraction as he had been for the silence. "Well, Doctor, you need to remember that I'm a marine, not navy. I've spent most of the last six years on missions beyond the Frontier. I've been in many different planetary environments. Granted, I was often in armor."

  "Anything noteworthy, Commander?" Mason asked.

  "Many things," he said. "I saw many beautiful things; many horrific, as well. I spent those years at war, Doctor. Not as a tourist. Ask me sometime when I have time to explain, and I'll give you the highlights. If you want, I'll even download pictures of the nicer places from my neural computer."

  "I suppose you would have one of those. What is it like? Having a computer in your head?"

  "You don't have implants?"

  "Oh, I have a standard datalink, but nothing like a military neural computer."

  Tebrey shrugged. "To be honest, I've had it so long it feels like a part of me. I'm not sure I remember what life was like without it. I like having access to memories as hard data, if I need it that way."

  "Have your eyes been altered?"

  "No, it works like a datalink. The information is sent directly to the ophthalmic region of my brain. Why?"

  "I was wondering if your eye color was natural."

  "As far as I know, yes." Everyone always commented on his eyes. He didn't mind; his bright green eyes had made more than one woman swoon. "My mother had blue eyes, but my father's, as much as I remember them, were like mine. I guess I got it from him."

  "I've just never met anyone whose eyes were as bright as yours. They almost seem to glow on their own."

  "They're just good at catching the light."

  The fog fell away behind their group as they reached the village, which was surrounded by a two-meter wooden palisade; the tops of the individual logs had been whittled sharp. Low walls separated regular fields with small trenches for irrigation, forming long rows. The stubble of the last harvest stabbed up stark against the dark, rich earth. An open log gate stood ahead of them. The villagers had little to fear during the day, since most of the local predators were nocturnal.

  Mason told Tebrey that she had scheduled her team's visit for this particular day because it was a market day. People from the outlying farms and smaller villages would be traveling in to try to sell their wares. It was an opportunity to study the economy and see what some of these people considered valuable. The village proper had a population of around five hundred and was located at the far western edge of the much larger Lyonan Empire. The local magistrate ruled in the name of the emperor and had full judicial powers. His word literally was law.

  A startled cry drew Tebrey's attention to the wall, where armed men shouted and pointed at their party as they came up the road. He instinctively dropped his hand to the caseless pistol on his hip.

  "Easy, Commander," Mason said softly to him. "They're just surprised to see us. We haven't been here in a while. Remember what I told you."

  All of his instincts were crying out for him to find cover.

  "Easy, Commander," Mason said again.

  Tebrey moved his hand slowly away from his holstered pistol. The guards were shouting louder now, and he felt that he could almost understand what they were saying. The language was vaguely familiar; at least, some of the words seemed to be.

  Mason stepped forward and shouted something back, and they began to calm down.

  "You'll have to teach me the language sometime, Doc," Tebrey said.

  "It took us a few months to work out the particulars. It is an odd blend of languages." She gave him a quizzical look. "I didn't know you were interested."

  He smiled back. "You may be surprised at the things I'm interested in, Doctor. As for languages, I'm fluent in eight. Although I have to admit that the Rhyrhans say my accent when speaking Rhyr is atrocious."

  Mason laughed. "You never cease to amaze, Commander. I wonder if Fleet Command sent you here to observe us, or for us to observe you."

  "Hmm, finding your cherished beliefs challenged by the presence of a thinking military officer?"

  She ran a hand through her silver-streaked black hair. "Actually, yes, a little," she said, laughing again.

  "So tell me what's going on here."

  "I told the guards that we were here for the market and that we were known in town. One of them has gone to get a representative of the magistrate. It should be Lord Jeroen. He is the magistrate's eldest son. We worked with him when we were here before."

  A young man came out of the gate, followed by two guards. He was much taller than the two men with him, maybe one hundred seventy centimeters. He was dressed in dark red trousers and tunic of fine, close-woven wool, a tooled leather jerkin, and tall, darkly-oiled brown leather boots. His full grey cloak was swept back off his shoulders and just barely touched the ground. He was armed only with a dagger. His two guards were dressed in chainmail hauberks over loose trousers and boots. They carried cocked and loaded crossbows. They each wore a dagger, and a sword as well.

  The young man stood and stared at Tebrey for a moment, then said something to Mason that sounded like a greeting.

  Mason replied. To Tebrey, she whispered, "Greetings, Lord Jeroen."

  Jeroen said something that sounded demeaning, gesturing at Tebrey.

  Mason chuckled. "He said 'what's with the barbarian?'" Mason replied to Jeroen and then said to Tebrey, "I told him you were our lord protector."

  "Lord protector?" Tebrey asked, amused.

  "Well, how would you explain your job? Now shut up and let me talk to him before he decides to have us executed."

  Tebrey stood back and listened to them talk, trying to understand what was being said. The two of them talked for a few minutes, and Mason apparently had to make a number of concessions, including promising that the barbarian wouldn't kill, loot, or rape while he was in the village. It disconcerted and disturbed him that those things would be considered a special condition.

  He wasn't made for peacetime endeavors.

  Tebrey stepped aside to talk to Sergeant McGee.

  "Sir," McGee said as Tebrey moved next to him.

  "Is it always like this?" Tebrey asked.

  "Aye, sir. Makes them feel better to negotiate each time, I think."

  "Do you understand what they're saying?"

  "That gobbledygook? No, sir. I just speak Normarish and Neo-Gaelic."

  Tebrey laughed and then covered his mouth when Dr. Mason and Lord Jeroen looked over at him. He nodded to them and tried to look unconcerned. He would have felt much better if he'd been in armor.

  Chapter Four

  Tebrey grinned at the look Dr. Mason gave him as Lord Jeroen walked away.

  "Well, Commander, that could have gone much worse. In some ways, I think that having you lurking in the background may have actually helped our position. We're free to wander around. Just don't do anything to get us in trouble, okay?"

  "I'll try to be on my best behavior, Doctor. Shall we?" He gestured toward the open gate. "I even promised not to rape anyone, no matter how much my male urges overcome my common sense."

  "You understood that, huh? Sorry. It's just because you look a barbarian to them."

  "Yeah. I guess so. I'm not sure our own people look at me much differently."

  Mason studied him for a moment before replying. "Special Operations is one of those military factions shrouded in secrecy. Rumors are rampant. Surely you knew that."

  "I do. I just don't like it."

  "I understand. Please don't think we all
think of you as a murdering monster."

  "Thank you, Doctor. I'll try to remember that."

  She turned away and directed some of her team to take the medical supplies to the magistrate. Then she gestured for the others to follow her.

  As Mason led the team through the gate, Tebrey watched the guards lowering their weapons and moving back around the wall. He thought they looked reluctant. He couldn't really blame them. Tebrey and the others must look pretty outlandish to the locals.

  The village was laid out in a loose grid pattern, with dirt streets that were rutted and muddy. The houses were made of mud spread over woven sticks; the sticks showed through in some places. It all looked dreary and run-down. Tebrey remembered a village similar to this one that he had fought his way through a few years before. The people there had been used by the Nurgg as human shields. Not that he'd allowed that to stop his attack. The buildings there had burned for days.

  Many of the people they passed on the street looked malnourished. Some looked diseased. Tebrey was glad that his bloodstream was swarming with nanotechnology. He suspected that the immunity implant he had received in induction camp was going to be put to hard use. At least he understood what the medical supplies had been for. These people needed immediate medical aid. He'd seen war refugees in better condition.

  Tebrey smelled Dr. Bauval's cattle before he turned a street corner and saw them. They were shaggy-coated animals as massive as neo-panthers, although taller at the shoulder, with huge horns sweeping forward and out. He had to admit that they were intimidating. They made odd noises and stamped their feet a lot. The stink of them was overwhelming. He'd never imagined that animals could smell so badly.

  Although most of the people didn't smell much better.

  Mason led the group through the streets to the center of town. There, farmers and crafters had set up small booths, sometimes just rickety tables, and were selling their wares. A rhythmic pinging drew Tebrey's attention to the left of the square, where a blacksmith was at work fitting a horse with iron shoes. He could see the rank black smoke from the man's forge. Several small boys worked the bellows. Tebrey was fascinated. He'd never seen a real horse before, although he'd seen them in vids and read about them in the military history books. It was easy, looking at the huge muscular beasts, to see how mounted troops could have won the great battles of the past.

  Tebrey moved on when the blacksmith gave him a scowl.

  The anthropologists had spread out, looking at the goods for sale, talking to people. Tebrey felt lost. He didn't know what he was supposed to be doing or why he'd thought it was a good idea to come to this depressing town.

  Mason saved him by tapping his shoulder. "Overwhelmed, Commander? I was, the first few times, and this is by far the busiest I've seen it here. Just stay close to me."

  He followed her out across the square.

  "We think that the poverty level of this village is not typical for the Lyonan Empire. They apparently had a bad harvest last autumn. The lack of regular overland trade routes this far from the seat of government means that they don't get a lot of non-local traffic. Nevertheless, they are still responsible for their taxes."

  "The two unavoidable things in life are death and taxes, eh, Doc?"

  She gave him an odd look.

  "Those northern barbarians I mentioned have been raiding along the road to the east. It keeps the trader caravans away."

  "I can see that it would. Why don't the villagers mount a punitive force and destroy their encampments? That would make it too costly to continue raiding, and allow the trade to resume."

  Mason gave him another odd look. "I don't think they have the manpower for that, or your thirst for battle."

  Tebrey sighed. He hadn't meant it like that. He didn't long for battle, did he?

  They stopped briefly by a vender of sweets that Tebrey thought smelled wholesome – at least until Mason explained to him that they were made from the organ meat of animals.

  "That's disgusting," Tebrey exclaimed, drawing glances. "I'm not opposed to eating meat, but to just carve up an animal and eat it like that is revolting."

  "Hmm. Stay away from the butcher, then. You wouldn't like to watch it happening. You didn't think they'd have meat-vats, did you?"

  Tebrey shook his head. "I hadn't thought about it."

  The next merchant seemed intrigued by Tebrey's combat knife. He kept gesturing at the knife and then at a small woman chained to the pole of the stall.

  "What's he saying?"

  "He wants to trade you the slave girl for your knife. I wouldn't do it. He's trying to take advantage of you."

  Tebrey tried to keep his anger under control. "How do you stay so calm?" he asked Mason. "These people are almost like animals."

  "Now, now, Commander. They're products of their environment and culture. You have to keep your feelings in check and observe dispassionately."

  "I'm not sure I can," he replied with seriousness.

  "Then you shouldn't have come."

  "Maybe not."

  The merchant was speaking again, more animatedly.

  "What now?'

  "He says he'll add in his horse to the deal," said Mason. "He wants to look at the knife."

  "Tell him to go to hell."

  "Commander! Keep your cool," Mason exclaimed. "I know you're tough, but a crossbow bolt in the eye will kill you just as dead as a laser."

  Tebrey growled softly. The merchant seemed to get the point and backed away. Tebrey wanted to leap on the man and beat his head into pulp, but instead he took a deep breath and turned away. Mason was right. There was too much to lose for him to act on his emotions.

  He caught sight of pale skin in the crowd, and was surprised to see a small line of slaves with milky white complexions. He could see two people arguing, presumably about the cost. It set his teeth on edge again.

  "Dr. Mason? Where did they come from?" Tebrey asked, pointing the slaves out in the crowd.

  "Ah, those are some of the more extreme genetic anomalies that seem to have surfaced."

  "Dr. Bauval mentioned something about genetic aberrations in the human population. Is that what he meant? They don't look that odd to me."

  "We think that the milk-white skin is some form of melanin mutation due to the altered radiation from the system's star. They have a few other peculiar physical traits, and it all seems to breed true." She shrugged. "We haven't really gotten to do a thorough physical exam."

  "It seems like an extreme difference from the rest of the colonists."

  "Dr. Bauval thinks there must have been social factors that led to small groups of people with paler skin being ostracized. Maybe some of the original Canadian colonists were from Nova Scotia or some other Celtic-derived genetic stock. We may never know."

  Tebrey wasn't sure where those places she was mentioning were, but assumed it was old Earth. Now that he could get a better look at the slaves, he could see that they were about the same height as the villagers. The gauntness could be malnutrition.

  "Oh, you may not want to smile much, Commander," Mason said.

  "Well, I haven't seen much that would make me want to," he said. "Why?"

  "I couldn't help but notice that you have a few minor genetic traits in common those poor unfortunates."

  "Oh? What would that be?" he asked acidly.

  "Your canine teeth are overpronounced," she said. "You're also very pale. Bauval would probably love to get a gene-scan on you."

  "I'm sure he would. As I understand it, I inherited my pronounced pointy teeth from my father, but I don't know where he was from."

  "He wasn't from the same planet you were from?"

  "No. My mother was a xenologist from Valhalla. She traveled around quite a bit. Met my father somewhere out on the Frontier."

  "So you never knew him?"

  "Oh, no. I knew him. They were married. It's just that he wasn't a citizen. He was a soldier for some fringe government, I think. He went MIA about a year before my mother was kil
led. I was five."

  "I'm sorry."

  "It was a long time ago, Doctor." Tebrey sighed. "Anyway, I guess my point, if you'll excuse the pun, was that I didn't think it was much of an aberration, genetically speaking."

  "No," she said. "It's not, really. All of the traits found in these people are found in isolated cases throughout known human populations. It is just unusual to find them all together in one place. Bauval suggested that they might actually have diverged into a separate race."

  "Kind of a short time span for that isn't it, Doctor?"

  "Possibly," she said. "I'd love to have more time to study them, but my main area of study is the social organization of the primary population. If I get more time, I'll look into their social structure. Maybe I can come back for another field season."

  Tebrey nodded, and was about to suggest that they get a closer look at the slaves now. He really wanted to learn more about them. There was something about them that drew his sympathy.

  It was then that his datalink with the ship notified him that the Loridell was breaking orbit.

  Dr. Mason called everyone together to one side of the square to talk about the space battle in progress. Tebrey was the only one with a secure datalink to the Loridell, but the shuttle at dig site alpha had discreetly radioed in to let everyone know only moments after he received the signal.

  Tebrey found that he was suddenly the center of a bickering group of scientists. No one seemed to know what to do, and since he was the senior military officer, they wanted him to tell them what to do. It didn't matter that he was outside the chain of command, or that he didn't have any better idea of what to do than anyone else.

  "When can we expect a rescue?" they all wanted to know.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, please. Please calm down. The message I received was relayed through the Loridell from the Descubierta. It said the enemy ship was six light-minutes out and probably a Nurgg scout. That's all I know."

  "Then why did the Loridell leave?"

  Tebrey stared at the man for a moment before answering. "They left because that is their orders. The ship is too important to risk losing."