Sharrock then started to warily look around him. There were twenty or more Kindred warriors strolling out of the village to join us, each twice as large as he, wearing furs and hides over their shoulders and groins, leaving legs and arms and midriffs bare; and many were ornately tattooed.
And there were a considerable variety of smaller hairless bipeds too; some with three eyes, some with two, or five; some with two arms, some with four, some six arms, some eight; some with soft skin, some with tough hide; some were grey in colour, many pink, some blue, some purple, quite a few black, many were bronzed, and a handful of exceptional specimens had colourful striped skin. But all were of a similar morphology to Sharrock; comprising minor variations of what I firmly believed was an archetypal biological form.
And some of these small bipeds wore loose shackles with chains at their feet, to prevent them running away, and bore a haunted look. While others wore rich leathers and strode proudly; but still wore metal shackles around their upper arms, and kept their eyes averted from the members of the Kindred.
Sharrock was studying it all, with that attentive and curious look on his face; I knew it would not take him long to work out the power balance here.
“These peoples live side by side?” he whispered to me. “The giants and the similar-to-Olarans?”
“In a manner of speaking,” I explained. “The smaller bipeds are slaves to the Kindred.”
“Slaves?”
“They have no freedom; they fetch and carry; they are flogged if they disobey; slaves,” I clarified.
The sharp and angry intake of breath from Sharrock alarmed me.
“We came here,” I explained to Sharrock, “for you to see this, and to absorb the lessons it holds about the reality of power on this world, and then to leave.”
“Have you brought this squalid wretch to join us?” asked Gilgara, interrupting our private conference with arrogant brusqueness; as if we were the food on his plate that had dared to converse.
“Not so,” I explained, “Sharrock has come merely to pay his respects.”
“He must stay. All bipeds live in the Valley,” Gilgara said fiercely.
“Fuck away,” I said calmly. “This one is protected by me.”
“You’d live with this monster, not with your own kind?” roared Gilgara to Sharrock.
Sharrock stared up at the giant warrior. “Why do so many wear metal bands on their arms?” he asked.
“Each band bears a name; it denotes the master of the slave,” Gilgara said, matter-of-factly.
“We are all captives here,” Sharrock said calmly. “But none should be slaves of-”
Gilgara spat at him; it was a vast gob of green, and I admired the giant’s aim; it struck Sharrock on his forehead, and dripped down his face; but Sharrock’s stare did not falter an instant.
“We are the Kindred,” said Gilgara. “We are no creature’s slaves. We serve the Leaders of this ship freely, and voluntarily.”
It took Sharrock a few moments to comprehend what he was being told. He looked at me; I waved my tentacles to indicate agreement, and realised that made no sense to him, so I said: “That is so.”
“The smaller bipeds, however,” said Mara proudly, “ are slaves, And you shall be too.”
“Never!” Sharrock said angrily.
Mara drew her finely forged metal sword, and pointed it menacingly at Sharrock. Gilgara did the same, in a swift gesture as fast as lightning spanning the sky. Sharrock tensed, ready to fight.
I caught Sharrock with a tentacle and threw him on my back. Then I tentacle-flipped away.
The Kindred did not give chase; they knew me too well.
“The fucking bastards!” roared Sharrock.
“I wanted you to see for yourself.”
“This is why,” said Sharrock, piecing together the parts of a puzzle that, until that moment, he had not realised was a puzzle. “This is why you put me with the arboreals, not with others more akin to my physical type.”
“Nine hundred cycles ago, the Kindred enslaved all the biped species. I was unable to prevent them.”
“Why would they do such a thing? To their own kind!”
“The Kindred are the Kindred; they have no ‘kind.’ ”
“And I am the only ‘biped’ who is free?”
“Yes.”
“Why? What makes me so special?”
“You are under my protection.”
“You mean, you’d fight for me?”
“No,” I conceded. “But the Kindred rely on me; I make their rivers flow, and their crops grow; I discourage rebellion among the giant sentients; I keep the world from falling into anarchy and Despair. The Kindred rule the Valley. They have biped slaves to dominate; and so they are content. We other sentients keep apart from them. We lead our own quiet lives.”
“Well, that’s going to change,” said Sharrock, quietly smiling now.
“No, it will not change.”
“Just watch, sweet beast. Now Sharrock is here, the world will come to its senses, and freedom will prevail!”
“No! We cannot have freedom! Things must not change,” I said angrily, “For what we have achieved here is precious beyond all measure: it is equilibrium. ”
And Sharrock stood up; and his eyes shone with fury; and spittle came from his mouth when he spoke, so great was his wrath.
“Sai-ias, hear this!” said Sharrock, and I knew I was in for a poetic rant; a common foible amongst battle-worshipping warriors.
“I have come to know you Sai-ias, and I know your heart is full of love,” said Sharrock, with his usual withering condescension; oblivious to the fact I am old and wise, and large enough to keep him in my mouth for years on end and yet not notice his presence when I dined.
“And yet you are a fool,” Sharrock continued; and his voice had a rich timbre, as if he were addressing a hall of drunken wastrels who needed to be inspired to commit acts of glory. “You allow yourself to be used by these monsters, these Ka’un! You preach obedience; but that is just servitude. You teach acceptance; but that is just another way of making slaves more docile. And worst of all, you all-”
I was bored by now; so I picked him up with one tentacle and shook him as a child shakes a toy that has lost its rattle in the hope it might yet make some kind of rattling noise.
Eventually I dumped Sharrock on the ground. He was dazed, winded, dizzy, and began vomiting profusely.
“All the biped slaves on this world,” I told him coldly, “volunteered to be so. They prefer it that way. You may despise that decision, but you will respect it. Or else, I shall carry you to the valley of the Kindred myself; and watch as they bind and shackle you and put a whip to your back!”
This was an idle threat, in fact; for, however much he vexed me, I could never be so cruel to him; but I hoped that Sharrock would not realise that.
Sharrock finally managed to get back to his feet. He staggered a little, getting his balance back. He spat the last of the vomit from his mouth. His eyes were out of focus, and he was in shock; but his body was, I knew, resilient, and he would recover swiftly.
Yet though he was now standing, he did not seem to me to stand as tall as before. And when his eyes refocused, they had lost their piercing stare.
“Why would anyone,” he asked, with a bafflement like that of a child discovering that her parents are fallible, “ choose to live as a slave?”
I had no answer to give him.
The Days passed.
Day the First.
Day the Second.
Day the Third.
Day “Come,” said Lirilla, and I came.
I found Sharrock in the centre of the grass amphitheatre. He was unconscious; one arm was ripped and bloody; there were savage sword wounds in his torso; and both his eyes had been gouged out. Fray stood by, scratching the ground with her hooves.
“What happened?” I asked, after a few moments of feeling overwhelmed with sorrow.
“The aerials called me,” said Fray. “They found his body high on a mountain crag. I clambered up, and carried it here.”