Страница 93 из 120
"Ah, well, that's my job," Roger said with a grin. They laughed again, but then he allowed his grin to fade. "Easy? No. They'll probably hit Nopet Nujam hard. They might hit Nopet Vusof. But they won't have much time to do anything, unless someone goes tattling from this meeting. If we use cratering charges—and that sounds like the best plan—we can drop the mountainside the day after we reach the heights. Two hours after it goes down, the water will be up to their tents."
"We must be ready to face a heavy attack, though," the Gastan said. "We will need every warrior ready, either on the walls or resting for their time. With the aid of our human allies, we may yet win the day—win it fully, and for all time. But there is hard battle ahead of us still, and we must steel ourselves for it. The Shin! Death to the Krath!"
"DEATH TO THE KRATH!"
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Roger sank into the water and sighed as the chieftains filed out.
"That went well," he said, hooking an arm around Despreaux.
"Perhaps," the Gastan said. "Perhaps."
"What's wrong?" Roger asked. "I think the plan will work. Things will go wrong, but we should be able to implement the basics, no matter what."
"My father fears for our people," Pedi said. She and Cord had remained silent throughout the meeting, but they'd been a presence nonetheless—the adviser to the prince and the Light of Mudh Hemh, who was now his benan. There was something else going on there, as well, but Roger was unsure what it was.
"We'll take fierce casualties in the final attack, if it comes," the Gastan said finally. "The deaths of warriors. That is what concerns me, because it is only through warriors that the people can continue, that ... new life comes into the world.
He glanced over at his daughter, then away.
"I'm missing something here," Roger said.
"I think I've got it," Dr. Dobrescu said. "It's like the Kranolta, Your Highness. Gaston, pardon me if I'm blunt. What you're afraid of is that whereas females, like Pedi, can carry many children, it's only through the warriors—the males—that children can be made. Is that correct?"
The Gastan sighed and gestured.
"Yes. When a male lies with a female, only a few pups are produced. But if two males lie with the female, more are produced. A female can carry ... oh, maybe six or eight, with difficulty. But a male can never ... give more than three or four. So if the males fall in battle, from whence comes the next generation?"
"You have to remember, Your Highness," Dobrescu said, after carefully deactivating his toot's translator program, "that Mardukan 'males' are technically females."
"And they implant eggs rather than injecting sperm," Roger said, also in Imperial. "Got it. And since they only come into season twice a year ..."
"We have lost more warriors than females to the raids," the Gastan said, "and we already feel the effects of this long war. If we lose as many as half of our warriors—and in a great attack, that is possible—we may be doomed even if your plan succeeds. The Krath will just outbreed us."
"Co-opt them," Eleonora suggested. "Let them 'immigrate.' The Krath are overcrowded. Let them trickle up into the mountains. Have them rebuild Uthomof."
"Perhaps," the Gastan said with an edge of doubt. "It's been suggested before. There are outer villages that have been so stripped by the raiders that they're empty. We don't want the Krath Fire Priests, though."
"Priests can be ... adjusted," Fain said. "You may be faced in the near future with more prisoners than you have population. Before they leave, ask the best of them if they want to move up here. Make them Shin, not Krath. If they keep their religion, make sure it renounces sacrifice. You should make that a condition of the peace treaty, anyway."
"I'm still confused about that," Kosutic said. "According to Harvard, it's a recent i
"It started in the time of my father's father," the Gastan told her. "Initially, it was solely among the Krath, but in my father's time, they started raiding us for Servants of the Fire. Part of that may have been because the warriors of Uthomof had raided all the way to the outskirts of Kirsti. The first of the Shin Servants were taken in punitive raids, but it has grown steadily ever since."
"It was among the Krath, at first?" Kosutic asked. "They didn't start by raiding you?"
"No, not at first. Later ... it's more from us than from them, now."
"Eleonora?" The sergeant major looked at O'Casey. "Human sacrifice and ca
"In civilizations? As opposed to, say, tribal headhunters?"
"Yeah," the Armaghan said, slipping deeper into the water. "Aztecs. Kali ..."
"Baal, if you count ritual infanticide," the chief of staff said with a quizzical expression.
"Baal!" Kosutic sat upright and slapped her forehead. "How could I forget Baal? I bet that's it!"
"What's 'it'?" Roger demanded.
"Where to start?" sergeant major asked.
"Start at the begi
"Gee, thanks a lot, Sir!"
The priestess settled back in the water once more, frowning thoughtfully.
"Okay," she said finally. "The worship of Baal is old. Baal is an only slightly 'mixed' god; he's mostly a cattle god, and he only added a human form later. The Minotaur is probably related to his worship, and there are some very significant pre-Baal religious motifs in pre-Egyptian culture.
"One of the major aspects of the worship of Baal is ritual infanticide. Children, infants younger than eight weeks, are wrapped in swaddling clothes and put in fires that burn within a huge figure, usually that of a bull but sometimes of a minotaur-looking human. These are frequently children of high-caste couples.
"Prior to the development of civilization in the Turanian and Terrane regions, the area was a hunter-gatherer paradise. But a tectonic shift—a change in Terra's axial inclination, actually—in about 6000 b.c.e., caused a severe climate change. The Sahara was created, which was a desert where the Libyan Plains are now. Civilization developed rapidly in response, as the hunter-gatherers were forced to change their lifestyles to adjust to the climate changes.
"Now, the first evidence of the cult of Baal arose practically in tandem with civilization. Aspects of it were found in very early Egyptian society, although the sacrificial aspects are ambiguous. But it was definitely found in the proto-Phoenician cattle herders and fishermen in the Levant. The Phoenicians, of course, carried it far and wide, and it might have influenced the shift from Tolmec self-sacrifice to Aztec human sacrifice. Certainly they were in contact with the Tolmecs, as well as the proto-Incans and the Maya; the Phoenician logs that were, ahem, 'recovered' from Professor Van Dorn in 2805 proved that conclusively."
"One of the classics of ideological bias," O'Casey said with a laugh. " 'Analyzing them for authenticity' indeed! If his research assistant hadn't called the authorities, he would've destroyed all the tablets."
"Exactly," the sergeant major agreed. "But at least it finally ended the two hundred-year reign of the Land-Bridge Fanatics in anthropology. Now, the rationale for infanticide is still occasionally debated. Infanticide is practiced by every society, and it's often supported more by women than by men ..."
"Excuse me, Sergeant Major," Despreaux said with a frown. "Every society? I don't think so!"
"Ever heard of abortion, girl?" the Armaghan snapped back. "What in hell do you think that is? I'm not arguing for or against infanticide, but it's the same thing. The point being that there's a widespread human drive towards it. But that doesn't explain the ritualization, which is only found in certain cultures, and most notably in the cult of Baal. In 2384, Dr. Elmkhan, at the University of Teheran completed the definitive study of the rise of Baalism. He analyzed results from over four thousand digs throughout Terrane and Turania and came to the conclusion, which to this day is hotly debated, that it was a direct response to population problems in the immediate aftermath of the climatic change."