“The rot begins!” he chimed. “I think the day is ours, brother Becmath.”
Bec and I glanced at one another. Despite our affiliation into the tribe, Imnitrin had refrained until now from using the term “brother”. Now, we knew, we were really in.
Down below the sloop fell silent, its magazines empty.
They took three thousand prisoners, thousands more fleeing.
The Rotrox herded them into a vast compound. The command vessel, from which Imnitrin had directed the battle, settled on a knoll overlooking the crowd. Around it was a dense ring of Rotrox soldiers.
“Are you really going to let these men go home with Blue Space?” I asked.
Imnitrin looked at me, his eyebrows lifted. “These are the more rebellious spirits of Rheatt. They will be a source of trouble while they live. A promise made to an enemy is not a promise.”
He gave a signal to an officer through the open side of the cylinder. The ring of soldiers opened fire into the dense mass with their flame-lances. The disarmed prisoners surged to and fro, screaming and groaning.
The mass murder went on apace, bringing an increasing stench of burned flesh.
I looked questioningly at Bec. He shrugged. So I didn’t think any more about it.
At the back of my mind I knew we were destroying a beautiful, delicate culture for a vicious, unbeautiful one. But my upbringing and experience had taught me full well that beauty and delicacy are not what count. Force and effectiveness were what counted.
Ten
“Don’t be fooled by the Rotrox, Klein. They’re technically proficient savages, that’s all. They’re tribal, like the Killibol nomads, not city-dwellers like us.”
I had been expressing my concern at the speed with which Bec had been pushing himself in his position in the new Administration of Rheatt. The Rotrox, I thought, would resent the way he was taking matters into his own hands and running things the way they should be run.
“They look city-style to me,” I replied.
“Nah. That’s because they’re disciplined and like pushing people around. These covered mazes they build look impressive but in essence they’re only like the earthen warrens those little animals out on the plain dig. They wouldn’t have a clue how to organise a complex city like Klittmann; they don’t even understand factory organisation. Take it from me, Klein, in the Basement they’d be punks, third-raters.”
A Rheattite secretary placed another scroll in front of him. It was covered with the flowing native writing, which Bec wasn’t proficient in yet. The secretary read it out to him while he followed the text as best he could. Finally he nodded and stamped his seal on it with a thump.
“Oh, they’ve got the ideas,” he continued, “they just haven’t got the experience. You see, up on Merame they have a natural tribal obedience. Every young Rotrox is trained to accept the tribal order and to put his nation before everything else. They make war with other tribes, but apart from that there’s little conflict. No internal tension. Consequently they haven’t sharpened their wits on one another the way we have.” He chuckled. “Imnitrin wouldn’t last five minutes on Mud Street. Even here in Rheatt they were floundering. Believe me, we’re the best thing that could have happened to them, and they know it.”
Maybe Bec’s right, I thought. The Rotrox idea of empire was a submissive population and massive tribute in raw materials, goods and slaves. But having once destroyed Rheatt’s will, they hadn’t known how to ensure that their orders were carried out. Bec had leaped instantly into this vacuum.
The Rheattite secretary left the room. He hadn’t been able to read the document too easily, either, because the light in Bec’s office was kept low enough to be comfortable for us Klittmannites without the use of dark goggles.
I had just returned from setting up a small factory about fifty miles away. It was the first of many such projects Bec had in mind. This one was only meant to turn out ammunition for our Hackers, Jains and smaller repeaters. In a few weeks the sloop would be fully operational again.
The Rheattites were new to the idea of factory production. They did everything on a one-off, artisan basis. But I was satisfied I had done a good enough job with the resources available. Things would really get rolling once we set up the production of machine tools. Bec had promised the Rotrox Jains and Hackers of their own.
Harmen was still down there, supervising quality control. His services had been invaluable: his technical knowledge was greater than anybody else’s. I wasn’t even sure what the HE formula was for the cartridges and shells, for instance. The old alk wasn’t really interested in our schemes, of course, but Bec always managed to persuade him to co-operate somehow.
Apart from Harmen’s technical expertise, Bec and I were on our own. Grale, Reeth and Hassmann had taken the sloop back to Blue Space Valley. Their presence there, Bec pointed out, would still be our trump card for some time to come.
“I don’t know why,” I said, “but it just gives me a funny feeling to be giving orders to these big Meramites. I wouldn’t like it if I was them.”
Bec shrugged. “They don’t see it that way. Ostensibly I’m not the boss around here yet. Imnitrin’s the governor and we’re only part of his staff, I’ve told you, the Rotrox are trained to take orders; and we’re acting in Imnitrin’s name, not our own. Later, when we come into our own, then we might have trouble. But we’ll handle it.”
He bent over some of his private notes. “Right now our main problem is to give the Rheattites some feeling of stability. Now they’re getting Blue Space again they might get an upsurge of rebelliousness and Imnitrin will start trampling on them again. That will only set us back.”
“Imnitrin has demanded a million slaves right away. Can’t we persuade him to cut down that figure?”
“He wouldn’t understand. Besides, his masters on Merame are impatient to see the Rotrox tribe become a race of warriors who don’t have to work for their living. We’ll get the million by transporting entire communities from outlying districts. That way it won’t be noticed so much. We can always put around the idea that anybody sent to Merame is going to come back after a term of service.”
“Who’s going to swallow that?” I wanted to know.
“Don’t be hasty; maybe we can even arrange it in time. All the Rotrox care about is results. They like success when they see it, and that’s what we’re giving them.”
“I never thought I’d see you soft-pedalling anybody,” I said, grinning.
Bec smiled tightly. “I learned quite a lot from those old books Tone got from Harmen. They called it statecraft: the art of manipulating society. You know something, Klein? I think I like it here. There’s room to manoeuvre. Klittmann was like being in a pressure chamber!” He laughed. “Anyway, that brings me to another matter I want you to attend to.”
He paused. “I’ve found out something interesting. It seems the Rheattites had a National Leader called Dalgo, who got wiped out during the first wave of the Rotrox assault. His wife’s still alive and living here right under our noses. Apparently she’s still something of a symbolic figure for the Rheattites. She could exert a lot of influence.”
“Why haven’t the Rotrox killed her?” I asked.
He frowned. “You’d expect them to, wouldn’t you? Anyway, go and see her, Klein. Maybe we can make some use of her.”
The Lady Palramara lived in one of the green towers that dotted the capital plain of Rheatt — the Rheattites called the place by a name that meant simply “parkland”. By now the Rotrox corridors had overgrown Parkland, tentacling out and trampling down its beautiful gardens, squeezing it tight like some monster.