12

excerpt from The Legend of Kara - Chapter Three - ANSKAR - A STUDY OF THE PLANET, INDIGENOUS LIFE AND INHABITANTS by Jonathon Straker.

<You are pregnant, Lilianthi.>

<Nonsense, Cassia. I can’t be. I.... can’t be. Already?>

Cassia leant close to her queen’s side and sniffed, her nose wrinkling.

<You are. I can smell cubs. A boy and a girl. Two cubs, made by Durn. It... was Durn, wasn’t it?>

Lilianthi pushed Cassia away, fire in her eyes momentarily, fading like star flares as she saw the humour in her denmate’s own eyes. <Of course it is Durn. But.... are you sure, Cassia?>

Cassia ran playful circles around the tree at the edge of the forest, rubbing her long sleek back against the bark. Her own cubs, two females born a few weeks earlier, played stalking games among the hollows and warrens of burrowing creatures, a little way from them. Cassia regarded them fondly.

<Cassia knows. As does Cassia’s nose. Seven weeks time, my queen. Two heirs for the nation, two playmates for my rascals.>

Lilianthi let the wind blowing in from the veldt play across her own snout. The tang of man from Citadel - oil and plastic and metal and sweat. She didn’t want cubs now, not after she had just taken over the monarchy of the Felinian nation. And especially not after seeing the human Gideon, their new leader, at the funeral the other night. She could not get his image or his scent out of her mind. When she should have been thinking about bringing the good news to Durn and rejoicing at their procreation, her mind was far away, in a forbidden zone.

That night, Gideon was woken from strange dreams of soft fur and rough wet tongues by an insistent rapping on the door of his conapt. Who had bypassed the security and come this far into the building without him being alerted? He swung his legs on to the floor, pulled on his robe and unbuckled the sidearm from its holster in his trousers hung over the back of a chair. He was unnerved by the knocking. Could it be assassins of Omar Tannenbaum’s FreeSpace League? Did assassins knock? He stood to the side of the door with his weapons ready, well clear of any gunfire that might be directed at the doorway as soon as he made himself known.

"Who is it?"

"Angel Smith. You remember me?"

Gideon was taken aback. "Sergeant Smith? The lifter pilot? What do you want?"

There was amusement in her voice. "I have something for you, Commander. I guess you could call it a welcome present."

Gideon placed the weapon in the pocket of his robe and kept his hand on it, feeling slightly stupid and a little paranoid. He didn’t want Smith to see it, nor did he want to put it away in case there was a particularly resourceful assassin behind the door, imitating Smith’s voice. He thumbed the door and it hissed open.

Angel Smith was dressed in a little sparkly thing that may well have been a dress. She wore high spike heels and a new holotattoo on her cheek danced and shimmered in the air a few centimetres from her face. In her hands was a bottle of wine.

"I was at the ball," she said. "I saw you, but you didn’t see me."

He appraised her coolly. "I don’t think I would have recognised you."

"Aren’t you going to ask me in?"

Gideon stood back from the door and allowed her to walk in. As she did, he moved swiftly behind her back and put his gun away.

"I saw that," she said, sinking into one of the soft chairs and crossing her long bare legs. The ‘dress’ vanished. "No offence taken, don’t blame you, can’t be too careful. This is a frontier town, after all."

The door hissed shut. "It’s very late, Sergeant. What is it I can do for you?"

She laughed and put the bottle down on the mirror surface of the holoprojector table. "I had a little arrangement that suited both myself and Commander Carter. I figured you might like to ....... keep it up, so to speak." Saucy twinkle in her eye.

He was speechless. His mouth moved but nothing came out.

"I know you have a family, Commander. But they’re a long way away. I’m very discreet. And very, very professional."

"I wouldn’t call midnight visits dressed like that discreet," said Gideon, crossing the room and picking up the bottle. It was Skuza wine, very potent. "How much is this going to cost me?"

Smith rolled her eyes and laughed again. "Oh Commander, you’re such a romantic."

Their subsequent lovemaking was frenetic to the point of savagery. Gideon had been celibate for over four months and released himself with animal abandon. Angel Smith was a willing partner, her body smooth and lithe, if a little sinewy from her military duties. She dug her nails into his back and buttocks and drew blood. No woman had ever done that to him before. Gideon was surprised to find that he liked it. They fell asleep in each others arms, the taste of wine and sex on their tongues.

When Gideon woke after dawn, his first full day as Commander of the Terran Colony of Anskar, his fallen Angel was gone.

13

Joe Carter was scheduled to leave that day. CASPAR personnel cleared his apartment and swiftly moved Gideon’s spartan possessions in from the container brought down from the Outrider, which was still in orbit making its preparations for return. The previous night in Citadel had been rowdy, with the Outrider’s wild deep space crew letting off steam before leaping across the galaxy again. There had even been a few arrests, but all the crew members were now back in orbit, if a little worse for wear and lighter of pocket.

Gideon rode with Carter at his request on the maglev to the lifter field, now reopened after security checks. Carter was quiet and pensive.

"Curve Drive," Carter said suddenly, breaking an awkward silence that had lasted since they had left the maglev terminal in Citadel Central. "Should I be nervous? Or should I be looking forward to it?"

Gideon smiled. "Your first time?"

"Of course. I’ve not been off-planet in twenty years."

Gideon swivelled in his seat and scratched his chin. "How best to explain it.....? Let me think. Okay, grab your top lip between your thumb and forefinger, like this." Gideon demonstrated, Joe Carter copied him. A CASPAR legionnaire in the cabin glanced over and suppressed a laugh at the most powerful men on the planet pulling faces.

"Now pinch real hard," Gideon said.

Carter did as he was told. He winced. "Well, that hurt, but not too bad. Is that it?"

"No. Now pull your lip over the top of your head."

Carter let go of his lip, shook his head and laughed. "I’m out of touch, Gideon. Twenty years ago I wouldn’t have fallen for such barrack room rubbish. It really is time for me to go, isn’t it?"

Gideon didn’t reply. He hadn’t meant for his joke to sadden Joe Carter.

"Stop, stop here," Carter said suddenly into the maglev’s intercom panel. The train slid to a smooth frictionless halt at an elevated street station. Carter stood and opened the doors. The legionnaire stood to follow him but Carter waved him back.

"Stay here. I won’t be long. Gideon, come with me, I have something I’d like you to see."

They walked down the exit ramp from the station and into an empty lot bordering the street. Carter walked in front of Gideon across the ground where black plastic slabs had been set into the earth and grass sown around them. Colours shifted in the air around them, like gases. It took Gideon a few moments to realise that he was in a holographic graveyard. A chill crept up his spine as they walked through the animated necropolis.

Carter knelt in front of an obsidian slab. Above the slab danced a flickering representation of a Japanese woman in traditional dress. She moved in the air, bending to sniff flowers that drifted in and out of focus. It would have been, thought Gideon dryly, a great deal more impressive at night.

"Only two years without her. Seems like a lifetime already. Will you look after her grave for me?"

"Of course I will, Joe. You can trust me."

"Never thought I’d leave here without her, Gideon. She loved it here, it reminded her of Japan, she used to say, the mountains and the rivers. The old Japan, I guess, maybe a place even Kiko didn’t know. It wouldn’t be right to... uproot her, would it?"

"No, Joe. I guess not."

Carter passed his hand through the flickering image one last time.

"Take care of her, Gideon De Souza." Eyes suddenly steely. "And take care of my planet. I’ll be watching."

Later that day, after the Outrider and Joseph Carter had departed Anskar orbit, Gideon De Souza called a meeting of all his departmental chiefs, the CASPAR beaureacrats that he had numbly shaken hands with the night before then instantly forgotten their faces and names, the men and women responsible for finances, procedures, scientific facilities, welfare, security, liaison and the myriad of other functions and services he had inherited responsibility for. Only Philemon Jones, as Captain of the Fifth Legion, and Professor Timoto, as Chief Scientific Advisor, provided a splash of personality to an otherwise dull day. Luckily, the new Protocol Provost, Kane, had been admitted to the medical centre upon arrival with a severe case of Curve Lag. Gideon had imagined the diminutive bespectacled clerk tying up the rest of the day with his minutely detailed procedural checks. And when he found out that Gideon, Carter and Jones had visited the Felinian city without his prior knowledge..... Gideon made a mental note to contact CASPAR Administration Control and defuse that little time bomb before it exploded in his face.

By mid-afternoon Gideon had had enough. Philemon Jones had departed to investigate a disturbance in Citadel East. Gideon called a recess and was presented with a message by a CASPAR clerk. It was printed on a piece of card, embossed in gold. No smartpaint with dancing graphics, no tronics that he could see. The card read -

Gideon noticed his colleagues looking at the card in his hand with interest. Gideon palmed it and whispered to the clerk, who nodded and left to carry out his orders.

14

Sherekov’s estancia was situated twenty klicks north of Citadel, on the banks of one of the many rivers that flowed down from the northern mountain ranges into Citadel Bay. Gideon commandeered a lifter and flew north along the river, hugging the contours and flying at nap of the earth altitude. It felt good to be behind the controls of a military aircraft again, he thought, as strange animals scattered beneath the hot blast of the lifter’s thrusters. Gideon tried to make out what the animals were but at the speed he was flying it was impossible. He reminded himself that he had a lot to learn about Anskar. The fastlearn cartridges he had absorbed back on Terra and during the Curve flight had barely touched the tip of this planet’s information iceberg.

As he entered the valley where Sherekov’s estancia was situated, the sensor array in the lifter’s cockpit lit up like a Christmas tree. He was being irradiated by something below, probably AI sensors buried in the grassland. The open channel crackled into life as if in answer to his unasked question.

"Don’t worry, Mister De Souza," said a radio-distorted voice. "I have certain precautionary measures in place. Nothing to be alarmed about. Please vector around to the north of my humble abode, you will find a lifter pad there. I wouldn’t want you to damage my lawns by landing on them - they have taken a lifetime to cultivate."

The channel closed before Gideon could respond. The estancia came into view moments later, a sprawling low-rise homestead of wood and glass, surrounded by immaculate gardens and a small Japanese-style bridge that crossed the river at a narrow point. Gideon eased off the lifter’s throttle and swung around over the bridge. A concrete hardpan came into view, and he descended onto the illuminated cross. As he did so he saw what looked like a farm to the rear of the estancia.

Gideon shut down the lifter and climbed out. The lifter pad was in a small depression at the end of a wooded track that led back in the direction of the estancia. At the mouth of the track a young blonde girl dressed in gossamer robes that left little to the imagination was watering bushes and shrubs. She remained absorbed in her task until Gideon walked right up to her. She looked up at him, and he was shocked. Her eyes had no pupils, just deep blue orbits. All the same, she seemed able to see. She smiled sweetly and walked back up the track, beckoning that he should follow. He trailed behind her, glancing to each side into the dense woods. He had the distinct feeling he was being watched.

Sherekov was waiting for him at the top of the track, on the Sunset Pavilion as mentioned on the invite. He looked ruddily healthy and was dressed over-casually in a kimono. Gideon had decided at the party that he resembled a caricature Russian general, all slab features and dour facade. Dressed like this, hands thrust into pockets against the evening chill, he looked like someone’s friendly grandfather.

"Mister De Souza," he said, taking Gideon’s hand in a pumping two-fisted grip. "Thank you for coming at such short notice. Please excuse my mode of dress, you are a little early. Come into my house."

Sherekov padded across the marbled pavilion floor with the grace of a man half his body-weight. Gideon followed. The strange girl had vanished.

"I’m not as well read on current regulations as I should be," said Gideon as he followed Sherekov into an enormous vaulted hall of suspended glass and polished sparred wood. The effect was of stepping into the antechamber of an ultramodern cathedral. "But I do believe that there are procedures in place that prevent private individuals from owning land or living outside of CASPAR-administrated areas on colony planets."

Sherekov, walking ahead of Gideon, smiled and rolled his shoulders in amusement. He paused at the head of a flight of steps that led down into a sunken, glass domed room of incredible opulence. Marbled floor, furniture fabricated from granite blocks and upholstered in rich furs. Curved walls hung with thinplex screens. Sculptures on plinths, exotic plants in chrome and brass pots. The strange young woman had arrived here ahead of them and was moving silently among the plants, gently dusting them with a water atomiser. Above her head, the largest of the thinplex screens displayed the eight sided sigil of the Clan Octagon.

"You should know that Clan Brothers are afforded certain privileges," said Sherekov, a wry smile on his lips. "I had a good working relationship with your predecessor."

Didn’t everybody, Gideon thought, settling into one of the granite armchairs. It gave slightly to the pressure of his body. Indentations left by his fingers in the arm rippled and disappeared.

"Microtecture?"

Sherekov settled into a chair opposite Gideon and nodded. He seemed in no hurry to dress more formally. "One of my many interests here, Mister De Souza. Technically, I am an employee of Sukhov-Matshiba Transgalactic, although I operate with a high degree of autonomy. Along with my cobalt mining and exploration in Citadel Bay, the microtecture occupies much of my time. An old man must have hobbies, as rich as I am."

Gideon remembered Philemon Jones’ appraisal of this man. He had found it hard to believe.

"Just how old are you, Mister Sherekov?"

Sherekov steepled his hands and smiled. "Guess."

"I wouldn’t want to offend."

"Guess. I insist."

"Sixty-four."

Sherekov boomed a laugh. "You really don’t know who I am, do you, Mister De Souza? I was born to the sound of the Berlin Wall being hammered into the dirt. My screams were the death throes of communism in Mother Russia."

Sherekov paused while Gideon did the mental sum.

"You’re one hundred and eighty six years old."

Sherekov smiled again. "Correct. Another of my little hobbies. A very rewarding one."

"Immortality?"

"Not quite. At least, not yet. I prefer to term it longevity."

"Whatever. Still an incredible achievement. Biotechnology, microtecture and cobalt prospecting. You have some interesting and absorbing hobbies, Mister Sherekov. No wonder CASPAR leaves you alone."

Sherekov inclined his head as if to say ah, you understand. "And that is the way I would like it to stay, Mister De Souza. For mutual benefits."

Gideon was distracted by a soft whine. He glanced around the edge of the sofa and saw a tiny mammoth, about the size of a small dog, with a shaggy coat and curved tusks, dash across the gap between two thinplex screens. He blinked and waited for it to reappear. It poked its head cautiously around the corner of a screen then vanished again. Gideon looked at Sherekov quizzically.

"No, you aren’t seeing things. It’s a biotoy. They are mobile testbeds of microtecture designs. Sometimes my technicians make things simply to see if they can. We call this one a minimoth. Have you seen the mickies that the children in Citadel find so irresistible? A commercial offshoot. Commercial offshoots are always useful. They fund further research and ready people to accept radical technologies."

Gideon cleared his throat. "I am a military man, Mister Sherekov. I have been sent here to do a job and that’s what I intend to do. Part of that job is enforcing CASPAR edicts where I find they have been abused." He paused. "Even by Clan Brothers."

Sherekov blinked slowly. Gideon awaited a response. Would it be amusement that this man one hundred and forty years his junior was testing his authority, or would it be violent rage that he was being, as he would see it, betrayed by a Clan Brother?

"I had a mutually beneficial agreement with your predecessor," he repeated slowly, as if it were some sort of explanation all by itself. "As a Clan Octagon member I am entitled to certain privileges that I can choose to exercise - you have those privileges too. That you choose to be frugal in their use is admirable. I am a businessman, I cannot afford to be so public spirited. CASPAR inhibits commercial exploitation of colony worlds and quite rightly so. Elements of my research and the fruits thereof will be put at your disposal. I have advanced technical facilities - as you have seen - a staff of over one hundred personnel at various locations, a lifter fleet and a private security force. Normally these resources are fully employed in the pursuit of Sukhov-Matshiba business interests. I ask only that you help me, work with me, not against me. What do you say?"

Before Gideon could reply the strange girl put down her atomiser and came to stand at Sherekov’s side. He absently stroked her thigh through a slash in her billowy gossamer dress. Gideon noticed for the first time that her body lacked definition, she appeared to have no genitalia or breasts even though she was definitely naked beneath the diaphanous garment.

"Dinner is served," she said flatly, and left.

Sherekov rose from his seat. Gideon remained frozen.

"That girl - "

"Is artificial, is that what you’re thinking?"

"But that’s - "

"Illegal outside of CASPAR gene pools. Of course it is, Mister De Souza."

Gideon remained seated. The ‘girl’ was grotesque. The control of gene pools by CASPAR was introduced specifically to inhibit the creation of such mutations.

"Dinner will be getting cold," said Sherekov mundanely, and walked toward a canopied veranda that overlooked the river and the Japanese bridge. Gideon rose numbly and followed. Sherekov turned on the threshold of the veranda.

"Mind the minimoth shit," he said, pointing at the floor.

They sat and ate dinner under the canopy. The veranda was glassed in but the glass was so pure and clean it felt as if they were outdoors. The artificial girl drifted in and out, bringing courses. Below them, an early evening mist drifted along the river and the grassy valley, imbuing the landscape with the peaceful, timeless quality of a watercolour painting.

They ate roast beef and vegetables and Sherekov poured red wine into long stemmed glasses. The beef tasted so good to Gideon he suspected it might be real. He remembered the farm he saw in the meadow behind the estancia. Cattle? if it were true, Sherekov was guilty of yet another infringement. Gideon fought against the impulse to mentally note all of Sherekov’s crimes like a good policeman. It was beyond obvious that the man was chillingly well-connected even by the standards of a Clan Brother, and that Gideon had been invited here with the express purpose of re-affirming whatever clandestine agreement had been agreed with Joe Carter. Anton Sherekov was making no attempt to hide or justify his renegade activities. Rather, he was putting them on display and daring Gideon to object. That in itself was intimidating. The two men sized each other up over the meal. Tension was palpable.

Gideon gestured around the room with his fork. "Is all of this yours, Mister Sherekov, or is Sukhov-Matshiba the deed owner?"

Sherekov swallowed a mouthful of vegetables. "My property and finances are inextricably linked with the transgalactic corporation, Mister De Souza. I have been an employee, if that is the right word, for more than a hundred and thirty years. I have given them four lifetimes of loyal service. They see that I am amply rewarded for my continued loyalty."

Gideon nodded. "Of course. And do you plan to release some of the technological marvels to the citizenry of CASPAR? Or does Sukhov-Matshiba hold the patents and control the distribution? The longevity treatments alone must be worth - "

"Proliferation of such technology is neither my responsibility nor my concern," Sherekov half-snapped. "There are major social issues to be dealt with before we can routinely sanction the elongation of life-spans. We have not overcome the effects of over-population just yet. To introduce widespread rejuvenation treatments without careful study could be potentially disastrous for future colonisation plans. Edens like Anskar are few and far between, as you well know. For every one we find there a twenty, thirty, fifty dust balls or gas giants."

"And until then the treatment remains the privilege of the few?"

"Hasn’t that always been the way? Mister De Souza, if CASPAR were to expend more of its resources in reconnaissance and exploration and less to clamping down on independence movements, perhaps there would not be a land shortage. And it could start by freeing up unused land like the minicontinent of Nessus, right here on Anskar."

Gideon put down his fork. "Nessus is a World Park. It should not be violated. Besides, it is a sacred place to the Felinians. Respect of indigenous cultures is a central tenet of CASPAR ideology."

Sherekov had finished his meal and pushed his plate across the smooth glass table. It made a startling high-pitched shriek and left a deep mark in the surface. "The Felinians are no more indigenous to Anskar than we are. I presume you are reading Straker’s book. Don’t let yourself be swayed by his obsessions, the man was a deranged fool and a traitor to his race. How can an entire continent be sacred? We should stop pandering to a bunch of animals and utilise Nessus’ resources."

"So you plan to lobby CASPAR to allow you to build settlements there? Is this what my visit is all about?"

"I am not nearly so mercenary, Mister De Souza. I wished to meet with you cordially and cement a new working relationship. I see that that may not be as easy as I first imagined. And no, settlements on Nessus are of no interest to me, although they should be to CASPAR. My area of interest is mining."

"Mining? Mining what?"

"Hermitite. Iron ore. Titanium. Nessus is rich in all these elements. As expertly as we build smart granite out of waste plastics and wood from our own shit, we still need hard metals. Nothing else can survive the rigours of Curve Drive. We cannot bind molecules as tightly as Mother Nature does. We need metal now as much as a caveman did, Mister De Souza. And Nessus has metals."

"How do you know? Have you sent research teams?"

Sherekov smiled. "Of course not. That would be illegal." His smile was like that of a shark moving in for the kill. Gideon felt very small and vulnerable, like a bit player in some vast intergalactic drama. He felt powerless, an unfamiliar feeling that he didn’t like at all. Had Sherekov really expected his support, or was he invited here to be humiliated?

Gideon pushed back his chair and stood up, wiping the corners of his mouth with a napkin.

"Thank you for dinner, Mister Sherekov, but I’ve heard quite enough for one evening."

"I’m sorry to hear that." Sherekov seemed genuinely wounded. "I’m sure we will meet again sometime soon."

"You can be sure of that," Gideon said, and walked from the room.

Sherekov remained seated until he heard the sound of the lifter turbines cycling up and the aircraft roar across the roof of the estancia. He rose and walked across the veranda and down into the sunken hall, where he settled into one of the soft granite sofas. The strange girl came back into the room and sat at his feet. He entwined his hand absently in her thick blonde hair and with his other hand manipulated the control panel sunk into the sofa’s arm. The Clan Octagon sigil on the largest thinscreen dissolved in a swirl of fractals and displayed the words CALL WAITING. Sherekov stroked his chin until a huge face, weary with lack of sleep, filled the screen as the called station switched on their link and settled back in front of the camera. The man looked to be a similar age as Sherekov appeared but was bald and wiry in the manner of career marathon runners. He knuckled sleep from his eyes.

"Anton."

"James. I have met with Gideon De Souza."

"And?"

"He will not be as pliable as we expected. I predict problems."

"Then have him eliminated." The statement was cold and hard, made with no more emotion than an order to swat an insect.

Sherekov shook his head. "And have him replaced with another, an unknown? No. He may yet be useful. If he does not support us, then perhaps I can use him against them."

"If he is not with us, he is against us, Anton. Remember that. However, I trust your judgement. You are the man on the ground. Do as you see fit."

"And the plans there on Earth? How are they progressing?"

The man’s face turned to thunder. "Many agents died to bring you this device, Anton - as peaceful as they will have us believe they are, the Skuza do not take kindly to industrial espionage. Do not abuse it with small talk."

"But the plan - "

"Goodnight, Anton. The speed tribes are rioting and keeping me awake. New York City is not the place you remember."

The screen blanked. The Clan Octagon sigil morphed from the static and reformed.

Sherekov sighed loudly. He looked down into his lap. The artificial girl had opened his robe and was gently fellating him, her pupilless eyes locked onto his. He closed his eyes and lay back his head on the cool granite. When they had finished he led her outside into the cool night air and killed her with his bare hands. She died silent and uncomplaining, and he felt much better for doing it.

15

Gideon thundered south across the dark Anskari sky, blood pounding angrily in his temples, unfamiliar constellations wheeling overhead. Anskar’s egg-shaped moon was high and full. Sherekov’s slights and insults were fresh in his mind. He took out his frustration on the throttle of the lifter, applying maximum power as he took her down over the low veldt to the north of the city.

"Please be advised you are out of Citadel North airspace," warned the dulcet tones of the controller. Gideon responded curtly with his private code and the controller apologised and fell silent. The colony commander could fly anywhere he damn well pleased, at whatever speed and altitude he damn well pleased. Jesus, was there nothing on this planet he had jurisdiction over?

The landscape below could have been Africa. But Africa hadn’t looked like this for a very long time. The similarity had led Straker here, denied his beloved veldt wildlife, his big cats, by ecological attrition. Gideon had reached that far in the book. But the Felinians were still a mystery to him.

And then he saw her, moving with incredible speed through the long, scything grass whipped by the wind. She ran with muscular grace, making minute turns and changes in trajectory in response to the flight of the huge creature she was pursuing. The bafalla could turn on the speed too, and her quarry was heading away from her on all fours, a furred mammal the size of an Indian elephant. She appeared oblivious to the presence of the lifter overhead.

Lilianthi. Gideon felt a thrill run through him. Even through the image-intensifying panels on the cockpit HUD he could see the Felinian queen’s vivid markings. This time her lines were unspoiled by clothing and she was down on all fours, as feral a creature as he had ever seen. He was excited and frightened by this new sight of her.

She was driving the bafalla into a network of natural grassy revetments that looked from the air like grassed over trenches. Gideon watched her from his lofty viewpoint and marvelled at her excellent tactics. He wanted very much to land and watch her take the bafalla down. As terrifying as she looked, he did not contemplate for a moment that she would be a danger to him. He vectored the lifter into a dive and landed several hundred metres to the north of the grassy earthworks. Hastily shutting down the lifter’s noisy turbines, he unvelcroed himself from the cockpit. There was a sidearm in a metal clip on the cockpit wall. He looked at it, then removed it, checked its charge and slipped it into his jacket pocket, justifying it with the notion that the bafalla could become enraged if injured, and Lilianthi might just need his help.

He did not know if she had heard him or seen him land. The truth was, he didn’t really care. He ran toward the low trench system, the grass whipping and chopping at his legs, the gun bouncing in his jacket and jarring his ribs. He could hear the mournful cries of the bafalla echoing down the grassy canyons. She must have driven it in already. Crouching low, he ran along the upper lip of the bank, following the sound of the distressed creature.

It had tried to jump the gap, landed awkwardly on the opposite slope, and fallen in. One if its massive forelegs was twisted at a sickening angle. It lifted its big head and let out a bellowing, sorrowful moan.

Lilianthi paced around her prey, her flanks beaded with moisture from the grass dew, her chest rising and falling from the exertion of the hunt. Gideon’s breath caught in his throat. He scrambled down the side of the bank and crouched at the base by an outcrop of rock, watching the drama acted out by the fallen bafalla and the Felinian queen.

There was something indescribably erotic about the way in which Lilianthi was about to despatch the creature. They would enter a union or congress of sorts, which like a sex act would be marked by an explosion of body fluids and howls of ecstasy, but one which would end in the death of this huge unfortunate creature. Lilianthi appeared to steel herself, as if this did not come naturally to her. The bafalla’s eyes were growing glassy and distant with pain. Lilianthi settled back on her haunches as if she were about to sit and watch it die, then sprang with all the sudden violence of an explosion, landing on the bafalla’s neck. She ripped at the thick furry hide and through the pale fatty layer into the sweet red meat beneath, burying her face up to her muzzle in the pulsing innards. The bafalla stiffened and the muscular shock wave almost dislodged Lilianthi. She dug in with her four sets of claws. The bafalla emitted a final, pathetic whimper like a dog and lay still. Crimson arterial blood splashed in a torrent to the grassy floor, then stopped. Lilianthi continued to worry at the bafalla’s neck.

Gideon moved and the gun dropped from the hem of his jacket, clattering noisily to the ground. He shrank back against the rock but Lilianthi’s head snapped sideways and looked directly to the spot where the gun had fell. It lay on the ground in plain sight. With a single bound she was off the carcass, and moving toward him.

Gideon broke cover and ran in the opposite direction along the revetment. He didn’t dare look back but he could hear - no, feel - a double beat through the soles of his boots, gaining on him with terrifying speed. He felt something catch his ankle and he went down awkwardly. Lilianthi’s heavy muscular body passed over him and her fur brushed his face. He caught her strong animal odour just as a back claw, kicked out in her leap, caught him full in the face, slashing his cheek. He sprawled in the grass, unarmed and vulnerable. She assumed an aggressive stance a few metres from him, then a look of recognition crossed her features. Her head settled back onto her shoulders. Imperceptibly, the threat had passed. Rather than leap on him and disembowel him, she padded slowly over to where he lay and pushed her muzzle into his face, licking his cheek with a long rough tongue. Her muzzle fur was bloody and matted. Her breath was a fetid death stink.

<You are the leader of the humankind colony. What are you doing here? I could have killed you!>

Gideon flinched. Lilianthi had growled and moaned directly into his face.

"What?"

Lilianthi settled back on to her haunches. She licked blood from her muzzle.

"I said, what are you doing here? This is a forbidden place for you."

Her voice was sweet and well-modulated. Gideon recalled Straker’s chapter on how he had laboured long and hard to teach Lilianthi’s parents to speak.

"I saw you from my aircraft," he said, rubbing at his torn cheek. His hand came back bloody. "I wanted to watch you. I wanted to see what you would do to the bafalla."

"You should not have seen!" she snapped. "Humankind believes settled Felinians do not hunt. In truth, we do not. This is a tradition, to mark the passing of loved ones with an ancient kill. I have not killed anything bigger than forest vermin since I was a cub."

She examined his face.

"I am sorry that you were hurt. But you should not have come here. If humankind knows that we can still be feral, then we are in danger. Straker taught us this."

"I won’t tell anyone," Gideon blurted. Had he really said that? What about the thousands of colonists whose personal safety and welfare he was responsible for? Surely they had a right to know?

Lilianthi scratched at her ear with a hindleg, unwittingly exposing her labia and the lines of teats along her belly. Confused thoughts bubbled in Gideon’s mind and slowly made their way to his groin.

"I must trust you, Gideon De Souza," she said after a little thought. Her voice made his name into a sing-song. "Or I must kill you. So trust it will be. Help us, Gideon. I fear for my nation." She bobbed her head forward and licked his wounded cheek once more. Her visceral breath assaulted his jangled senses. "I am sorry for hurting you."

She turned and bounded up the side of the grassy bank. Silhouetted momentarily against the night sky, she turned and was gone.

16

<You did what?>

Goran paced the floor of the chamber in angry, frustrated circles. Lilianthi lay on a mossy boulder nearby, head down, submissive.

<He saw you? He saw you kill the bafalla and drink its blood?>

<What was I to do? He followed me in an aircraft.>

<Did you not see it land?>

<Yes. But my blood was high, Goran. I could not stop. After it was finished, I almost killed him.>

Goran growled lustily. <Maybe you should have.>

Lilianthi was shocked. <Goran! You admonish me for revealing our hunt to humankind, then suggest I kill a witness, their leader?>

<They are not to be trusted. He will betray us. He will betray his word to you. Their word means nothing.>

Lilianthi considered this. <No. I looked into his eyes. I tasted his blood. He will keep his word.>

Goran rose and walked into the forest. <I sense the beginning of the end, Respected One. Humankind will not continue to sleep cheek by jowl with us. Remember my words.>

"You did what?"

The Protocol Provost, Kane, leant across his desk and regarded Gideon over the top of his spectacles. Gideon idly wondered why the ferrety little man had not had optic surgery while his beady eyes traced the fine line of the scar on Gideon’s cheek that was knitting nicely after the application of a healing agent by CASPAR medics. Kane, meanwhile, looked pale and drawn with Curve sickness. He appeared permanently nauseated.

"A Felinian did this to you?" Kane settled back into his swivel chair and tapped away at a keypad laminated into the desk top. The thinscreen was angled so that Gideon could not see it. Here in the office of the Protocol Provost, where Gideon had been politely ‘summoned’ after a nervous report from CASPAR Administration Control, even the colony commander could undergo a rigorous questioning. Kane clearly took his job very seriously.

"It was accidental," Gideon said. "I saw him from my lifter. He was injured. I stopped to help him and in his distress he lashed out at me. Then he ran away."

Kane’s eyes darted from Gideon’s face to the thinscreen and back again as the colony commander spoke, fingers flying over the keypad. He continued to type for a few seconds after Gideon had finished speaking, then he pushed himself back into his chair in a deliberate attempt to look school-masterly. He had a cold sweat on his forehead. Gideon estimated he must have been on-planet for less than twenty four hours.

"It pains me to have to remind our own colony commander of CASPAR legislation," Kane began, "but it seems as if you consider yourself above such laws. Your violation of Felinian airspace notwithstanding."

Airspace? thought Gideon. They don’t even fly aircraft.

" - fully aware that all contact with Felinians, other than those who choose to work within Citadel, must be authorised and usually accompanied by, a member of this office over the Administrative Rank of M4. You are in severe breach of protocol, Commander De Souza. Our procedures insist that I must report this matter to your immediate superiors."

Gideon stood and smoothed down his uniform. "Are we done here, Mister Kane? I take on board your admonishment. I apologise for my actions and can only give you my assurances that such an incident will never happen again. If you wish to escalate the matter, then I respect your adherence to your procedures. But I hardly feel it is a matter that warrants an extraordinary transspace transmission, do you?"

Kane regarded Gideon through the thin - and completely superfluous - glass of his wire-rimmed spectacles. His eyes had been optically engineered and he had perfect vision - CASPAR would not send out colonists with anything less, let alone members of its staff - but his face looked undistinguished and lacked character without some kind of focal point. A moustache or beard would have accented his rodent appearance. Spectacles merely made him look bookish and clerical.

"I served with the Policy Unit on Mars during the creation of much of this present legislation," he said, and seemed very proud of this achievement. "I think this gives me a particularly personal view of the situation. Very well, Commander. I accept your apology on behalf of my department. Protocols do all me a certain leeway on disciplinary matters, and I will be pleased to file this infringement for the time being, pending any further instances. You can consider yourself on probation." He let out a nervous chuckle that sounded like a bird call. Gideon smiled poisonously and left. As he headed back to his office along the gently curving corridors, he felt pain in the palms of his hands. His nails had dug tiny crescents in his skin as he had clenched his fists on top of his thighs in an effort to stop himself from pounding the Provost Protocol’s face into a bloody pulp. He had forgotten just how much he hated shiny-arsed desk jockeys.

17

The Cult of Panthera had seven members and met on alternate Monday nights in a leased room at the rear of the Church of the Tachyon on Mercy Street, beneath the holographic Jesus Christ the Colonist. Michael was its leader and founder, a tall loner who managed the rostering of lifter crews at Citadel Field. His tiny flock of naive and Felinian-obsessed citizens held him in awe as he carried out flimsily scripted ceremonies in front of them dressed in artificial animal skins and a home made mask. He liberated them of CASPAR credit for his services.

Michael had decided that the Copycats he occasionally invited in for his cult members to stroke and adore - much to the Copycats’ bemusement - were not close enough to the feral splendour of the real Felinians who hunted on the plains and lived on the forest. His sessions were in danger of becoming routine, so he set about organising a ‘field trip’ of sorts to the Veldt of Shame to the east of Citadel, where Felinian Igri herded bafalla for the forest tribes. There, he reasoned, his Cult of the Panthera could commune with feral Felinians and reach a state of enlightenment and understanding. His cult members agreed enthusiastically.

Michael organised ground transport and he and six of his followers (Deirdra had to cancel at the last minute due to a sudden illness) headed out to the Veldt of Shame in a gaudily-painted ex-CASPAR four-wheel drive bus on a crisp morning. Their spirits were high and they sang songs of inter-species love and drank beer, and Michael’s hired hackers plundered their credit accounts as they went to meet their Felinian brothers and sisters. It was to be, thought Michael, a profitable day for all involved.

Jayson saw the bafalla herd first, a mass of thick dark fur on the forward slope of a gentle hill three or four klicks away. They took the bus on a direct heading, broadcasting Felinian greeting calls that Michael had sampled from a friendly Copycat. The bafalla herd in the distance began to move away over the hill, directed by its Igri minders, but Michael saw a number of Felinians moving toward them at speed from their left, coming up out of dead ground no more than half a klick away. Coming to greet the Cult of Panthera, in response to the broadcasts? Michael halted the bus and stepped down in to the long grass.

"Stay on the bus," he told his followers. "I will make our intentions known to our Felinian brothers."

He shielded his eyes from the sun as he squinted at the approaching Felinians. They did not appear to be slowing down. He swallowed hard. They were not striped and heavy like the Igri, they were mottled and lithe. Impahl. Impahl, this far south and west? It could not be. Perhaps they were friendly, reasoned Michael. His knowledge of the Felinian race was broad. He knew that there were some Impahl living in the forest city. But so few, the coincidence would be alarming......

The lead Felinian bounded a few metres from Michael and landed squarely on his chest, incisors ripping out his throat. Man and alien thudded against the side of the bus, arterial blood fountaining. A woman screamed on the bus No! No! No! as two, three Impahl raced inside, trapping the passengers in the maze of seats. The slaughter was swift and furious. No one had a gun or a knife. No one fought back. The Impahl butchered, and feasted.

The bus was found later in the day by a CASPAR air patrol. News spread rapidly across Citadel, finding its way swiftly on to the desk of Gideon De Souza, and then to Earth, where in certain quarters it was met with a nod of appreciation and a smile.

Author's Note

I hope you have enjoyed what you have read so far! If you have enjoyed Act One of KINGDOMS OF CLAY, please email me and let me know and I will be pleased to email you (on the same day, wherever possible) a .zip file containing the whole novel. Thank you for reading KINGDOMS OF CLAY.

All contents (c) NOEL K HANNAN MAY 2000. Please feel free to copy KINGDOMS OF CLAY for the reading pleasure of others, but do not do so for profit. If you are a print publisher interested in KINGDOMS OF CLAY, please get in touch with Noel K Hannan.