Obligations Read online

  “Do not bow to me, child,” Tadesde said with a smile. “We are equals, you and I.”

  Morgan had a difficult time covering her surprise at the undeserved compliment. “You jest at my expense,” Morgan said in a soft whisper meant for the other woman and finished her bow. “You have obtained the Twelfth rank of Sansadee, and I am new to the Ninth; surely the only equality between us would be found in a bedroom?”

  “A proposal, Arbitrator?” Tadesde asked with a smile and took her place opposite Morgan on the large platform, moving the Arbitration papers aside without reading them.

  “Only truth,” Morgan replied and sat.

  “A compliment, then,” Tadesde said, her smile fading. “I had heard that you boiled your meat and served it in broth as a toothless old woman would prefer. I did not believe this rumor, but, as my dear wife Meshari of the Twelfth rank of Gulardee reminded me, you are alien,” Tadesde said, and shared a smile with the young soldier who had represented her. “I ordered my chef to fix such a dish especially for you. You do put vegetables in this dish, do you not?” Tadesde - leader of the conquering forces, Twelfth rank Sansadee, and ruler of two planets - asked as she offered a feral grin to Morgan. The Arbitration papers sat ignored as native servants placed deep plates of liquid before each diner.

  “I eat your food as an invited guest,” Morgan said. “Why do you bare your teeth?”

  Neavillii placed her hand on Morgan’s leg, sharp claws penetrating silk pants by way of warning, and Morgan remembered Neadesto’s advice before leaving on the mission: “Do not allow her to anger you. You can only lose from such emotion. She will try to establish a case for bias.”

  Morgan sampled the soup before her. “This is the best hot and sour broth I have tasted since leaving my first planet.” Morgan smiled without showing her teeth as the soup’s spices burned their way down her throat. “I must ask your chef for the recipe.”

  Neavillii leaned away and picked up her own spoon. The small ladle was awkward in her grasp.

  “No,” Morgan whispered. “It’s too hot”. She could see the other leader smiling, watching their exchange, and not sampling her own broth.

  “I prefer more traditional fare, myself,” Neavillii said as she looked at the spoon and set it back down with a sneer.

  “And I as well,” Tadesde said as the tall, native servants stooped to place platters of meat and breads before each diner. The planet’s natives stood more than seven feet tall, and the dining platforms were less than two feet high, forcing the natives to bend both sets of knees and their back as they worked.

  Morgan watched as Tadesde picked up a large bone-in piece of meat and began to laugh while eating. The meat’s cooking juices ran down her bare chin, soiling her banners of House and order, and matting the thick orange fur that covered her midriff.

  Morgan eyed the conquered natives with a bitter sympathy as she ate the soup. Their feathers were frayed and faded, their metal garments pitted with rust and worse. Morgan dropped her gaze to her plate to keep from making eye contact with one. She didn’t want to bring anyone to Tadesde’s personal attention, and while enslaving the natives was allowed, the custom had lapsed into disrepute long ago. And the reports of brutality were still sharp in Morgan’s mind.

  The meal passed in silent agony, and by its end Morgan was glad she had eaten the soup. The meats were tough and chewy, the rancid smelling breads were gummy, and Tadesde’s manners were not the worst at the dinner. The only pleasant part of the meal was seeing Tadesde’s irritation when Morgan accepted Neavillii's bowl of soup to eat.

  “I would appreciate the recipe for the delicious broth you honored me with,” Morgan said, and hoped her smile didn’t show.

  Tadesde leaned back from her food as the servants began to remove the dishes, and met Morgan’s eye with a fierce scowl that betrayed a growing rage. “Yes, I would take this moment to speak with the cook myself,” Tadesde said and nodded to one of her aides. Then, grinning, she used a claw-tip to pick pieces of dinner from between her sharpened teeth. Probing at a spot of decay that was visible to all, Tadesde grinned toward Morgan once more.

  “The broth was delicious,” Morgan said when the aide returned trailed by the reluctant cook. “It was just as my grandmother used to make. Tell me, was there red root or just spice berries?” Morgan asked of the ancient woman who stood at the end of the platform wearing a soiled apron over her new banner of House and faded banner of order.

  “Oh! Both, definitely both,” the old Sansheren muttered. “I was uncomfortable that you would not enjoy it. I am glad that my most benevolent Lady was right about people of your unusual species receiving pleasure from consuming painful foods. Should I have my aide bring you the recipe?”

  “Yes, do have your aide bring out the recipe,” Tadesde said in a voice as soft as the cook’s. “Tell me, is this the same aide who requisitioned the ingredients for this feast?”

  “Oh, yes, your Ladyship, yes,” the cook stuttered, bowing and backing up.

  “Then I would definitely speak with her,” Tadesde said, the grin now etched upon her face as she paced to the window and back without sitting.

  Morgan and Neavillii exchanged a look as they watched Tadesde’s people and the natives avoided eye contact.

  “You sent for me, most kind and beautiful Lady?” The cook’s aide was young enough to be mistaken for an apprentice, her fur showing more than a few traces of green throughout her orange and red stripes of maturity.

  “What foul plot have you hatched against me?” Tadesde interrupted, and moved to stand beside the platform. “Did you deliberately set to cause me shame? Surely there was acceptable fare upon this worthless planet? Am I to be convinced that nothing of quality could be found? What of the animals we saw grazing in the fields as we approached this forgettable city?” Tadesde demanded, her voice harsh as she swept her gaze across the room to meet Morgan’s eyes.

  “But my most wonderful and intelligent Lady, surely your own personal aides have informed you of the radioactive granules that the vile Mercenaries spread upon this city not one year ago?” The younger cook’s voice was calm, but her large eyes were wide with fear. “I dared not expose your most sensuous body to the minutest risk of radiation, so I was forced to resort to foods packaged before the onset of hostilities.”

  “Could this be the truth?” Tadesde demanded of those seated on her side of a large platform. “Were the Mercenaries so utterly without honor to use such a vile and unforgiving poison? And why are we meeting here then, if this city is so very dangerous? I have no desire to be so vulnerable before such a ruthless and unemotional a tyrant as radium.” Tadesde’s flamboyance was not missed by those present as she jumped back onto the platform.

  “Did your aides not tell you?” Morgan asked from where she still sat. “We meet here because the radioactive granules present the least of the poisonings this planet has endured. The Western Continent is destroyed, and the prevailing winds have forced the depopulation of entire latitudes. The desert regions of the Southeastern Continent were subject to a scorched retreat policy, I am told by the Mercenaries before they could secure a route to safety,” she said. Her own voice mirrored the sarcastic tone Tadesde had affected. “I do not understand how Mercenaries with such a reckless and dishonorable Captain could succeed in holding your family forces at bay for seven years. Luck must have followed their every escape.” Morgan made no move to sit but offered her comments as if it were a joke between friends.

  “Luck?” Tadesde shouted. “I have long suspected other Houses of supplying this vile planet. My intelligence informed me of the financial weakness of this miserable rock when I decided to make it mine. There is no way that the pathetic creatures born here could have afforded to pay for their defense beyond the first year!” She punctuated her sentence by picking up the writing pen from atop the Arbitration papers, and throwing it at a native servant across the room. The pen skidded to a stop as Tadesde slammed her fist against the top of the platform, and
spun to face Morgan once more.

  “I know a House must have plotted against me, using this puny planet as cover. They did not succeed! I am triumphant! My enemies will feel true terror when they realize that I will build my armies anew to challenge them in their beds. I pledge my honor: those who plot to destroy me will feed my children!” The room was silent as Tadesde, teeth bared, finished speaking with a pant.

  Morgan thought of the intelligence information concerning several of the older Houses and hired mercenaries she alone had been given before leaving on her mission. “Indeed, then, I am glad my chosen father, Neadesto of the ancient House Sheresuan, took a vow of neutrality so long ago.” Morgan turned her face away from Tadesde and met Neavillii’s gaze before asking her aide: “Do you have any evidence that would implicate an individual House or species?”

  “I do not need evidence!” Tadesde said in a near-shout before appearing to calm herself. “The circumstances bear me witness. A battle that should have taken months has only been ended after years of pain. The planet is no longer habitable by any civilized person, and now you, my lovely alien Arbitrator, have ruled that I shall see no profit from this venture. I begin to suspect that even you are against me, for why else would you rule so harshly when it was the mercenaries who caused this destruction?” Tadesde asked as she forced her lips to cover her teeth.

  Morgan tensed until Tadesde looked away to drink from a glass. The retainers from each party shifted about, and Morgan felt Neavillii’s hand once more upon her leg.

  “I will not bankrupt my House trying to make this world profitable, and I will not sign your ruling,” Tadesde said, and her anger faded. “I would instead honor you with a gift. I would hope you do not take offense at the presumptuousness of my present. Some, less honorable than we, will consider it a gift to the order of Ouosin. You shall be recorded as the only Sansadee of the Ninth rank to obtain your own planet,” Tadesde said with a soft laugh, before swallowing the last of her wine. “I give to you, the Arbitrator Morganea, the ruins of the planet Bystocc and all who dwell upon it. And I will include all of the captured mercenaries and natives; for you will need all the help you can find in restoring this cinder. I do not know what possessed me to think it was a prize worth taking,” and with that said, Tadesde threw her empty glass at an unsuspecting servant, and swept toward the exit.

  Tadesde’s entourage were slow to follow, leaving a stunned Morgan with her own people. Sansheren history gave few examples of refused arbitrations, ancient history from the First Houses’ Wars. And when arbitration was refused, history spoke most often of the renewal of war and rarely of defaulting to the arbitrator. Morgan knew that she was now expected to honor all of the terms in her own harsh arbitration; she just didn’t know how she would do it.

  Chapter Three - Bystocc – 2012

  “Who’s that?” an old man, human, asked from the doorway of a large tent. “Isaac Meyers, Combat Medic – Tansea Isaac, Doctor” was painted above the door in several languages, including Sansheren. The blood of several species stained the front of his apron.

  The person he stared at was also human. Oriental, he thought despite thick orange make-up, but he could not decide on a gender. She, he decided on a hunch, but knew he could be wrong, was taller than anyone else walking on the crowded street, five foot, five inches, and wearing rich quilted banners that he thought marked her as a high ranking member of the Sansheren family government House Sheresuan. The other human’s black hair was very long, straight, and pulled back to be tied in a severe knot at the base of the neck. Her skin was a deep cream, almost almond that betrayed no wrinkles beneath the garish make-up, and Isaac wondered at her age.

  Isaac watched as she straightened the banners that crossed her chest, again.

  “Our new owner, I’m told. Name’s Morganea,” a red-haired alien exited the tent and answered Isaac’s forgotten question. The alien was small and thin, the size of a small chimpanzee, and her voice sounded very old and tired as she leaned her head against Isaac’s hip and slid her arm around his thigh. Isaac looked down to the alien woman he loved. She looked up at him, and her reptilian tongue tasted the air before she smiled at him.

  Isaac looked back to the street and watched Morganea raise an edge of her rich, black scarf to shield her face from the dust and wind that blew through the city’s ruins. The scarf dropped away from her right shoulder as she walked, and Isaac wondered at the clean, straight scar that could be seen on her stomach, low, drifting below the waist of her pants. She wore no shirt, Sansheren style, and he watched her hunch her shoulders down. Sucking in her chest like a teenage girl, Isaac thought and puzzled over her lack of development. She could not be thirty, Isaac decided, with a sigh for her youth.

  “Tadesde’s House is bugging out. That illegitimate spawn of a dead animal was forced to realize how badly he screwed this rock and gave the problem to the Arbitrator. I told you Sansheren Arbitrators were honorable.” The small alien’s anger did not disguise the intimate familiarity between her and Isaac as he massaged the top of her head.

  A deep hum slowed the people walking on the street, and Isaac watched as Morganea moved to put her back to the wall of a nearly-destroyed mural directly across from his tent. The art had depicted a group of dancing Bystocc natives throwing crumbs of copper to small gilded birdlike creatures while rays of sunlight made halos around them in silver, all of the valuable metals were picked out soon after Isaac and Tansea set their tent up two years ago, and he still remembered the night when the drunken Gulardee shot the heads off each of the dancers while screaming obscenities in the rain the day the cease fire was announced. All that remained was faded paint on a pitted wall.

  They made eye-contact as Morganea’s people stopped in the street and assumed defensive positions around her. Isaac watched Morganea stare at him as the blast of a landing shuttle craft almost deafened them both. The street traffic came to a complete halt until the echoes of the craft died away. Isaac nodded to Morganea as she turned to speak with a companion and then continued down the street.

  “Tansea, I know you’ve worked with Sansheren before, and they were basically good and honest with you. But I can only go by what I’ve seen, and if Tadesde’s just one bad fruit, he sure has a hell of a lot of seeds sprouting up around him,” Isaac said as he knelt to lean his forehead against hers.

  He tried not to tense as two Sansheren wearing Tadesde’s livid purple banner paused to read the sign above his head before moving forward.

  “You are Isaacke? A medical technician? The father of our children has been injured. You will come see him now,” The speaker’s voice was blunt, and Isaac knew it could be considered an insult.

  Tansea squeezed his hand as he stood before she moved to retrieve his carry bag from inside their tent.

  “I charge a Faldebbian Croat, in gold, for visiting; it would be cheaper if you brought him to me.” Isaac’s voice was just as cold and distant as he set his price high enough to discourage them.

  “Our beloved mate ranks Sixth in the order of the Gulardee. She asks for a human medic, we must pay your ransom.” The second Sansheren made a shallow bow to Isaac and opened a small pouch to dig for an appropriate coin.

  Isaac held it in his hand, trying to decide if it was more than a quarter of an ounce. Shrugging, he handed it to Tansea and gestured toward the street. “I will do my honorable best to attend to your beloved husband,” Isaac said in less than perfect Sansheren, but he was confident that they understood him.

  “I have no doubt,” one of the Sansheren said as they started walking.

  “I’m the only human medic around,” Isaac said with a sigh; an inability to distinguish one from the other forced him to address them as a single unit. “Have you met many of my species?” It was a polite question often asked at any mixed-species gathering. Isaac, like most humans he knew, used it with a desperate sincerity.

  “I must admit that our experience with humans is limited to the mercenary captain Timone, and to the Arbitrato
r Morganea of the House Sheresuan. I find myself grudgingly impressed by the personal strength of these two; I believe this is why my love suggested we contract your person for her care.” The speaker wore bright blue cloth pants with a red banner crossing Tadesde’s purple House banner.

  The other wore a cold, angry expression that told Isaac she did not agree.

  “I met Captain Tim when he brought some of his men to me during the war. But I have never met the Arbitrator Morganea. How did she come to be a member of the House Sheresuan?” Isaac asked. Every human he had met since leaving Earth was a slave or former slave; to see a human interacting with such a powerful species on an equal footing intrigued him.

  “I am told she was taken in as an apprentice by the most benevolent Neadesto herself, she who is loved for her neutrality. Come, we approach the dwelling of the father of my children,” the Sansheren said.

  Isaac paused as he puzzled over his difficulty in understanding gender in the Sansheren language. He shrugged; even Tansea became confused on occasion, and she had been speaking the language longer than he had been alive.

  #

  “I am saddened,” Isaac said, choosing his words with care. “The pellet that struck you is highly radioactive. The damage is done.” Isaac knelt on the edge of the patient’s sleeping platform and indulged in a few silent curses to the Sansheren medic who decided to leave the shot pellet in place. “I am sorry.”

  The Sansheren lying on the bed was young, and might once have been healthy, but now there were bare patches of skin randomly exposed where the pale, orange fur had sloughed off, and a red and black ulcerated sore on the upper right arm. Ugly, green lines traveled away from the wound, and Isaac suspected that removing the pellet lodged deep in the bone would allow the poison’s instant access to the patient’s blood-stream.

  “So I am to die a wasting death, you think?” the patient asked, and held his good hand out to the wife that Isaac knew did not like him.