the rallax operation page 4

I was instantly surrounded by more reptilians and dragged toward the mud hole. I thought there was a horde of reptiles but realised I was seeing triple. So there weren’t really eighteen reptiles encircling three princesses, but I went with it for novelty’s sake. The princesses, sunk to their perfectly tapered chins, were uncharacteristically silent. The reptiles were speaking in an unknown tongue, and I was wondering if my Babblechip was on the blink again, or if the knock to my head had damaged it, when I started to make out certain words and phrases. My vision returned to normalcy at the same time.

The reptile who’d slugged me entered the group. He was bigger than the others, so I assumed he was their leader.

'<?> friends <?> we <?> dinner <?> evening!' he said in rich, stentorian tones.

They cheered.

'<?> prepare the meat!' He pointed at the princess and said, 'Give <?> females!'

Say, I’d better tell you what they looked like, shouldn’t I? They were standard humanoids: two, one, one, two and two, and their faces were quite human. But their heads were conical, their ears were pointed and they had wispy chin beards. Knobby scales grew from the sides of their head and covered their bodies except for the rude parts which, to my fleeting amusement, suffered rather markedly from Kendaw Syndrome.

Bright war-paint covered their brownish bodies and they wore a variety of crude adornments. Armbands, helmets and the like. 

Despite their fearful appearance, they looked familiar and somewhat comforting. I was pondering their identity when the princess solved it for me. 

'Hear me, Draconians!' she said, in perfect textbook Draconian which my translator easily converted.'I am the Princess Shawneequa Jane Lime of the royal house of Verne-Burroughs! I invoke the Seven Civil Firmaments of Draconia and entreat thee for respectful assistance and fellowship!' She looked in my direction and frowned muddily. 'And for my servant, too, I suppose.'

Well, that got them jabbering and I took the opportunity to relax. Draconians kept to themselves except for the few rogue elements found in every species, but they were generally reckoned to be fair, serious and lawful, with an altogether less roughshod culture and civilisation than humanity. Which is why Garron and I kept out of their empire.

I’d relaxed about ten ‘nits toward the tree line when one of the savages noticed me. '<?> princess’s servant <?>!' he cried, and I was seized and dragged to the edge of the mud. The Draconian chief pointed at the princess and jabbered at me. I didn’t need a translation, and 'Slave <?> talking female <?> clean <?> eat for dinner' wasn’t at all helpful except in making me regret my agnosticism.

'I’m coming out to get you, princess,' I said, 'please don’t hurt me.'

'I’m fine where I am,' she said, 'as they don’t seem to speak Draconian.'

'Oh, I think they got the gist, but their Draconian is rusty. Turn on your translator.'

'I have no translator.'

'You’re not chipped?' I asked, surprised.

'Royalty is not chipped, thank you. One may be unduly influenced.'

'All you needs a brain, for that,' I said, gingerly stepping into the cool mud and waiting for a witheringly retort.

Instead, to my surprise, she asked, 'Are you alright? He hit you very hard.' My joy at her concern was somewhat mitigated by her addition of, 'Of course, I expect your skull is very thick.'

I stopped, waist deep. 'You know, my chip is functioning perfectly.' I called up Draconian. 'You are aware that they intend to eat us?'

I chuckled; that shut her up.

'I hear the wild Draconians prefer to ingest their prey while it’s still alive, in fact.'

'That is patently untrue! You besmirch our reputation!'

No, that wasn’t the princess. That was the chief. I looked, and a half dozen spears were pointed at me.

My chip had sorted out the dialect and had been instructing my vocal cords to simulate their speech. The good news was, we could beg for help now. The bad news was, I’d just insulted them. I cowered and entwined my writhing fingers like Garron taught me.

'Please forgive me, oh great chief and mighty warriors. My mastery of your sophisticated tongue is crude and ineffective and I regret any untoward misunderstandings. May I, your humble servant, inquire as to the exact nature of your intended course of action concerning the princess and myself?'

'You may inquire.'

There’s one in every jungle. The tribe chuckled. I sighed.

'Great one, what are your intentions concerning the princess and myself?'

'We shall treat you as we treat all the fallen sky gods, of course. First, however, we will mark the novelty of this particular situation and accord you due respect. You will be cleaned, groomed and treated to a fine meal in celebration of your advent among us.'

'Oh!' I translated for the princess Shawneequa, who said, 'That doesn’t sound so bad!'

At which the chief added, 'And then we’re going to eat you. You’ll be cooked first, of course. Raw, really!'

Someone gibbered at this. I realised it was me and willed myself to stop.

I translated for the princess, who said, 'Fiddlesticks!'

'Don’t worry,' I said, ignoring her appalling profanity and cuing the chip to speak English. 'I’ll get out of this. I mean, I’ll get us out of this.'

'Hurry up, human,' said the chief. 'It takes hours to marinate the meat properly.'

'So, what’s your plan?' said the princess.

'I’m working on it, I’m working on it’ I said, while thinking to myself. 'Let me work through this abject terror first, alright?'

Then I recalled something the chief said.'Wait! What did you mean by sky gods?'

'What do you mean by, “what do I mean by sky gods?” You have fallen from the sky like so many before you. Therefore, you are a sky god. It’s quite simple, really. Though I must admit your current state is unique, in our experience.'

'That’s right! You said “novelty’” What’s so different about us?'

'Why, you’re alive, of course. And,' he frowned slightly, with distaste or maybe doubt, 'talking. In times before, all sky gods were either old and withered or seem to have previously suffered grave injury. Also, thanks to Skink, there…'–one of the warriors nodded–'…you two are the only ones we have seen actually fall at the same time. It’s quite odd, now that I come to consider it.'

I thought furiously. This was an unexpected boon of some sort. I had to turn this situation to my advantage, but how? The Draconians seemed rather blasé about our advent. Was this simply due to their stoic nature? And what was the explanation for all the dead bodies they’d feasted on? Was this some sort of cemetery world? I looked closer at their ornaments. Gentlemen, among the obvious things foraged from the jungle -feathers, hides and such –they were wearing obvious technological relics. I saw a fusion battery strapped to a club head, a diode chain necklace, a plexi-port worn as a chest shield and other things. Under its crown of feathers the chief’s headband, I realised, was a comm unit.

These weren’t primitive Draconians at all! They were the degenerate descendants of some crash survivors or lost expedition! I looked at the chief again. He was conferring in whispers with a priest of some sort, a wiry fellow with half his face painted red and a single horn strapped on that side, who glanced sidelong at me and ran a finger across his throat. It wasn’t hard to ascertain his opinion but the chief appeared unconvinced.

That’s when it happened. I don’t know about you, but when I get a brainstorm a warm glow fills my body. Well, I was blazing when I climbed out of the mud.

'Play along, princess,' I said.'I have an idea.'

I drew a deep breath as the furious chief approached and cried, 'Stop! This charade has gone on long enough! Hear me, sons of Draconia! Harken back to the tales of your ancestors!'

They murmured. This was good. I jumped on a nearby boulder. Always go for altitude when you’re talking down to people, Garron says.

'Why are myself and the royal princess alive when all the other sky gods were but corpses? Do any of you know?'

They did not. The chief shushed them. He sensed he was losing control. I had to cow him, now.

'Why are you here? This is not your homeland! Chief! What hereditary secrets does your line hide from your tribe?'

His expression told me everything I needed to know.

'We are those ones foretold in your legends!' Bit of a gamble, that. 'The prophesied time has come!'

The warriors began to mutter, the priest wailed and the chief roared. He leaped upon a slightly larger boulder, damn his eyes, and furiously signalled for silence. The mutters subsided.

'My people!'he cried.'The sky god speaks the truth!'

One point for Unstoffe.

'From the beginning, your chiefs have hidden a terrible secret!'

Two points.

'We are not natives of this land! We came from far away, from beyond the sky!'

Game, set, match.

'For our ancestors were outcasts! We followed forbidden pursuits! Our people came to us with fire and steel! They meant to destroy us and we fled to this hidden refuge!'

Wait. What? 

'And now the cursed day has come! We have been found and this soft creature is a harbinger of our destruction! He must be destroyed, now, lest he expose us!'

Oh, fiddlesticks.
~~~ 

Have you ever heard the tale of Crewman Colepit? I always meant to tell Garron. I wish he could hear it. Absolutely true. This was a fellow, a few centuries back, who served as a welder on one of the old mining dreadnoughts during the early succession wars. He was caught outside during a surprise attack. The hull exploded under his feet but he was miraculously saved by a bit of intact shielding. The attacking fighter’s pilot had ejected prematurely and Colepit tumbled right into the empty cockpit. To his amazement it powered right up and gave him control. You have to understand, these things were keyed to the pilot’s biocode so that enemies couldn’t do what Colepit proceeded to do –he flew straight to the enemy carrier and dropped a torpedo into its engine core. When he returned to the dreadnought they discovered that the ejected pilot was none other than his long-lost twin sister, who in turn had been captured after unexpectedly being able to enter the similarly defended dreadnought. It was computed that the odds of this chain of events were several trillion to one, and the reunited siblings went on to win the Atomic Lottery and live happily ever after in a stylish four-up on Beggar’s Bounty.

The tale of Crewman Colepit was the first thing I thought of when, immediately after the princess wailed, 'You fool! What did you say to them? Who is going to save me now?' my communicator crackled to life and I heard Garron say:

'Unstoffe, you fool! What are you playing at with those Dragons?'

'Garron? Oh, Garron! Where are you?'

'Don’t look up! The Doctor says he has a plan.'

'The Doctor’s with you! That’s wonderful! What’s his plan?'

The communicator was silent for a moment. Then -

'Well, I didn’t expect that.'

'Garron? What’s the Doctor’s plan?'

'Plummeting to his certain death, apparently.'

I looked up. Hundreds of meters in the air I saw a rotund burden dangling from a parachute. In the air between, growing larger by the second, the man in the brown suit dropped to earth, his faint scream growing louder. I thought fast.

'Hear me, Draconians! I bring you a sacrifice to prove my good intentions!' I bellowed.

And that’s when the chief glanced up, tilted his head and was clobbered by the falling body. I heard the distinct Crack! of snapping bones and hoped they were the chief’s. The startled tribe scattered into the jungle. Flocks of birds erupted from the jungle to mark their flight.

I stood there for a moment, my mind a puzzled haze.

'Hey! Snap out of it!'

'Oh, sorry, princess!'

I rushed to the mud hole and, using a dropped spear made of a plasteel spar, pulled the princess to dry land. Garron gently trotted to a landing in the clearing.

'Hello, boy,' he called, 'nick of time, eh? Shame about this fellow, I suppose.'

I helped the princess stand and joined Garron to gaze on the bodies. The chief, amazingly, was slowly clenching his hands. He’d survived. The heroic agent stared at the sky, unblinking. I reached to close his eyes when they shifted in my direction and he grinned. We all jumped back.

He sat up, stretched and then stood. He did a little dance, as if drying his limbs, and we heard his joints pop. He ran a hand through his hair and grinned. 'Well, I won’t want to try that trick again anytime soon! Oh, look at the Draconian. You poor man, we’ll soon have you right as rain. Right! You two,' he meant Garron and myself, 'we need a stretcher! Garron, don’t bother stuffing your parachute back in your tesseract, we’ll use that, Unstoffe’s spear and that stick over there.' 

I knew it! I’d suspected Garron had a tesseract but he’d never admit it. If you don’t know, a tesseract is a highly illegal pocket of void space one can have tied to one’s person and made accessible only at your personal command. With the possibilities for mayhem inherent in such a device, not to mention the possibility of a gargantuan implosion should the portal fail, it’s understandable that the penalty for owning one is, thanks to modern medicine, three consecutive death sentences.

Still, it was preferable to the other way he could make useful items appear, I suppose.

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