March Upcountry

"Despreaux." Pahner placed a targeting dot on the boulder. "Plasma rifle."

"Roger," the squad leader responded, spotting the dot in her own visor HUD, then waved her arms to get the attention of the arguing group.

"Excuse me," she said in a pleasant soprano. "We think this conversation has gone far enough."

She'd already relayed the targeting dot to Lance Corporal Kane, and now the slight blonde hefted her plasma rifle and triggered a single round.

The plasma bloom left a scorched track through the green corn of the field, but that was nothing compared to what it did to the boulder. It struck with an explosive whipcrack of sound, and the transmitted heat caused diffusive expansion through the meter and a half boulder that shattered it like an egg. Pieces flew in every direction, from head-sized lumps down to relatively fine gravel, some of which reached clear back to the roadway before it pattered to the ground.

As the last echo faded, the last bit of gravel plunked into silence, and Sergeant Nimashet Despreaux, Third Platoon, Bravo Company, turned back to a suddenly frozen and speechless group of guards and smiled.

"We don't care if you treat us as The People or as traders, but they won't find enough to bury of the next one who suggests eating us."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The front hall of the king's castle was a vaulted arch in a gate bastion of the outer curtain wall. Unlike most of the city, the king's citadel was built of a combination of the local granite and limestone. The lower portions of the walls were the dark gray of the granite, but they were surmounted by the limestone in a pleasing duotone pattern. Although it was obviously intended for greeting and ceremony as much as for defense, the hall was unornamented aside from the pattern, and it was floored with simple paving stones. The far wall sported large, open windows, which revealed gardens in the bailey and an i

The local ruler, along with a sizeable bodyguard of his own, greeted Roger's party in this public arena. Their passage uphill through the town had been much more muted than their reception, and Pahner had become increasingly suspicious that the mob scene had been staged.

"Welcome to Q'Nkok." The king, accompanied by a much younger son, greeted them with grave courtesy and glanced at the humans curiously and a bit warily. Pahner smiled behind his flickering visor; clearly, the king had already been apprised of their demonstration at his gates.

"I am Xyia Kan, ruler of this place," the king continued, and gestured to the youth at his side. "This is Xyia Tam, my son and heir."

Roger nodded calmly in response. He had taken off his armor's helmet, both so that his face would be clear and as a gesture of respect. The ruler appeared old. He had the slightly flabby skin and patchy mucus that Roger had noted on Cord, although it was worse in Xyia Kan's case.

"I am Prince Roger Ramius Sergei Alexander Chiang MacClintock, of the House MacClintock, and Heir Tertiary to the Throne of Man," he said formally. "I greet you in the name of the Empire of Man and as the representative of my mother, Empress Alexandra."

He really hoped that the toot was getting these terms right. He was becoming increasingly convinced that the translation software was screwing up something major. Little glitches were appearing in translation left and right and this was too important a meeting to get things wrong.

The "repeat" of his translation which the software played back to him had his mother momentarily as a male, which was a hoot. It had actually formed an image of her as a guy, and she really wasn't all that bad looking. His lips twitched, fighting to smile as he visualized her response to the image, but then, in response to another repeat query, he got an image of himself dressed as a fairy-tale princess, which quashed all humor. This software was definitely buggy as hell.

"We are travelers from a far land who have been stranded in this one," he continued with the story which had been decided upon as easier than trying to explain the truth. "We are passing through your kingdom on our way to a place where we can obtain passage to our home.

"We bring you these gifts," he continued, and turned to O'Casey, who deftly handed him one of the Marine multitools.

"This device can change its form into any of several useful objects," Roger said. It wasn't the sort of thing one commonly gave to a ruler, but they didn't have anything else that was better, and Roger quickly demonstrated the settings to Xyia Kan. The king watched closely, then nodded gravely, accepted the gift, and handed it to his son. The younger Mardukan was no more than a child, judging from what Roger had seen in Cord's village, and looked much more interested in the multitool, but restrained his curiosity admirably.

"Estimable gifts," the king said diplomatically. "I offer you the hospitality of the visitors' quarters of my home." He looked at the line of Marines and clasped his hands together. "You should be able to fit your force in there."

Roger nodded his head again in thanks.

"We appreciate that kindness," he said, and the king nodded in return and gestured to a hovering guard.

"D'Nok Tay will lead you to the quarters, and we shall meet more formally in the morning. For now, take your rest. I will have food and servants sent to your quarters."

"Thank you again," Roger said.

"Until then," the king responded, and walked out of the bastion, trailed by his son. The younger Mardukan, unlike his father, kept looking over his shoulder at the Marines until they were out of sight.

Roger waited until the king was decently gone, and then turned to the guard.

"Lead on."

D'Nok Tay turned without a word and walked out of the far door, but whereas the king had turned to the left on exiting, the guard turned to the right.

They proceeded across an open bailey and up a steep ramp. The ramp ran between the outer curtain wall and the base of the citadel proper, and the fairly narrow way was dark and dank. As they started to ascend it, the skies opened up in another monsoon-quality rainstorm and filled the narrow track with vertical water. The sound of pouring water and flying spray in the slotlike space was like the underside of a waterfall, but D'Nok Tay paid it no more attention than Cord or his nephews, and the humans did their best to emulate the natives. Fortunately, the ramp turned out to be well designed for the storms, and a slight outward slope carried the water to regular openings in the outer wall and thus out of the castle.

The whole town had obviously been designed to take advantage of the regular rains. The main road up which they'd traveled from the city gate had switched back and forth with very little rhyme or reason, but it, too, had been well designed to handle the water. Both sides had been lined with gutters which linked with others to carry the water around to the river side of the hill, where, presumably, it was dumped into the river.

The efficient storm water system also reduced, but did not eliminate, the problem of hygiene in the city. Clearly, the Mardukans had never heard of the concept, for the road had been strewn with feces from the Mardukans and their pack beasts. According to O'Casey, this was normal in lower technology cultures, but at least with the rains the majority would get washed away.

And it certainly explained The People's epithet for the townspeople.

The narrow ramp finally opened out to the level of the curtain wall's battlements, and the company was afforded a spectacular view of the surrounding countryside. The clouds had broken momentarily, the rain had stopped as abruptly as it had begun, and the larger moon, Hanish, was rising over the mountains to the east. They were about a hundred meters above the floodplain, and the valley of Q'Nkok spread out below them in the moonlight. The city was surprisingly dark to humans who were used to the streetlighting found in even small towns on the meanest worlds of the Empire, but the valley was a fairy-tale place under the primary moon.