Resistance
Christopher Stasheff
“IT LIES!”
The messenger quivered with indignation, drawing himself up on his hind legs—in indignation, yes, but also to bring his own eyes level with Steetsin’s, where he reclined on the couch from which so many of his ancestors had delivered judgment.
Around them, the Great Chamber of Wedge Hold stirred to the mutter of Steetsin’s warriors. Above their heads hung the tattered banners captured in hundreds of years of fighting. The walls boasted their trophies, too—ancient weapons from celebrated battles.
There were a few more recent weapons—sidearms and slugthrowers once carried by officers and men of the Fleet.
“Chief of the Wedge Sept,” the messenger insisted, “this missive was penned by the Clan Chieftain’s own hand!”
“It cannot have been!” Steetsin snarled. “Never would a Khalian chieftain stoop to such cowardice!”
“How can it be cowardice, if the Clan Chieftain does it?” the messenger demanded.
The Syndicate envoy leaned close to Steetsin’s back and murmured, “How can the Clan Chieftain have done it, if it is cowardly?”
The answer was clear, and Steetsin did not shy from it. “If it was the Clan Chieftain in truth who wrote it, he must have taken the Terrans’ pay!”
The messenger spat an oath in sheer shock, before he managed to control his outrage. His voice quivered with rage as he said, “It is not cowardice, but the honorable respect due an adversary who has proved himself worthy.”
He did not explain; he did not need to. The Fleet had driven the Khalia back on all fronts, had captured Target in spite of the Khalia’s furious defense, and now had invaded the home world itself! They might he hateful, but they were mighty—and being mighty, they were worthy of allegiance.
And being the victors, Khalian honor demanded that the Khalia accept whatever task the Fleet assigned them, so long as it was in battle.
Yet they had slain Steetsin’s mate and cubs on Target and, what was worse, had slain them unknowing, when the city in which they denned had exploded in flame. That, Steetsin could not forgive—nor could he truly think of the men of the Fleet as allies. “Therefore does the Chief of Clan Ruhas say that we must be done with war-for-hire, and ally with the Alliance Fleet, who had proved themselves worthy—and be done also with the Syndicate, who have sought to buy our honor, and have lied!”
“Be still!” Steetsin flowed off his couch, claws out, lips writhing back in a snarl. “I will hear no evil against the councilor who has advised me so long and so well! Cartwright is no liar, but a tried and valiant warrior, who has watched with me in the cold of the night and has stood by my side through many battles. Speak not against him, or his kind!”
Cartwright smiled and inclined his head in gracious acknowledgment of Steetsin’s praise.
The messenger’s lips writhed back in a harsh laugh. “What! Are we to hear no wrong of your Syndicate shadow, who would have honor for coin, and say the Chief of Clan Ruhas lies?”
“If he speaks truly, let him come here to the Hold of the Wedge and speak it to my face! Let him stand against the upbraiding of a vassal who has ever been honorable and true! Until he does, the Khalia of the Wedge Sept will harry any human of the Fleet who comes near!”
“Then up and out!” the messenger sneered. “For an army of the Fleet even now rolls through your valley, coming to your gate with tokens of friendship—and its gunboat circles overhead!”
Steetsin stood rigid. Then he hissed, “If they come, they bring destruction, not gifts—and we shall know you for the traitor you are!”
Running steps, and a soldier burst into the Great Chamber. “Lord Steetsin! The Blind Eyes show an army within the Wedge, and a Scout overhead!”
Steetsin spared the messenger a look of hatred.
“Go up to your battlements,” the messenger urged. “Look down and see that they are truly humans of the Fleet—and count any weapons you may see, that are more than sidearms!”
“I go,” Steetsin hissed, “and if I see cannon, you shall die!’
Cartwright was only two paces behind Steetsin, in spite of the steep incline of the tower steps. The Chief noted the fact with grim satisfaction as he came out onto the battlements—as he had said, Cartwright was a warrior. He leaped to the crenels and reared up, forelimbs resting on the stone—stone that had been laid down by his father (dead in battle ten years ago), with money given them by the Syndicate—money, and the use of gigantic shambling machines that had cut and lifted the stones. He looked down, as his father had before him, and his grandfather, and all his forefathers, over the Wedge—the two rivers, dimly seen off to each side, that flowed toward each other, meeting in a point as they flowed into the Great River. Beyond its waters lay the domain of Clan Chirling—allies now, but for hundreds of years, enemies. Hundreds of years, until the Syndicate had come and shown them wondrous weapons, that could be theirs if only they would fight the Fleet. He felt a stab of shame, quickly buried—there was no surprise that the Khalia had hearkened to the Syndicate’s promises, for who would not at the sight of weapons that could reach to the horizon, and ships that could carry an army to the stars? They must have been wonders indeed to Steetsin’s grandfather, and he could not be amazed that all the Khalia had put aside hostilities to pounce on the contemptible humans of the Fleet . . .
And here came the contemptible ones, marching ten abreast in a long flowing carpet, down the valley and up toward his gates.
He stared again at hairless skin and unc1awed hands. How could such creatures know of fighting? It should have been so easy . . .
But it had not been, and the Chirlings were his friends now, had been the shield on his back at Target, and the enemy was now his ally . . .
The memory rose up of his mate and cubs, a memory sheathed in flame, as he imagined it must have been when the bomb struck, and the hatred raged up again. What honor could they have, who cared not if they slew families and cubs? How could the Chiefs of the Clans have made peace, and allied with the Fleet? Better to have died one and all, each and every Khalian! He had to admit to a certain sneaking admiration for the enemy, for their tenacity arid their fighting skills but the hatred was still there, over all.
“It is true, Cartwright,” he hissed. “I see no rocket launchers, no cannon. They come in peace—as much as an army can do.”
“And how much is that?” Cartwright breathed at his shoulder. “What will happen if you admit them within your gates, Steetsin?”
Steetsin stood rigid, and the lifelong animosity of one raised to regard the humans of the Fleet as his enemies rose to the fore, and with it the hatred in flames. “Gunner!” he snapped to the soldier nearby. “Bring down that gunboat!”
The soldier was too well trained to hesitate or argue. He turned to his cannon. Its barrel rose, swiveling, and a huge gout of flame burst from the muzzle. Its thunder shook the turret as the energy bolt split air aside, and the gunboat lit with a brief dazzle.
“A force-shield!” Steetsin spat. “Treachery!”
But the gunboat had been too close for the shield to absorb all the energy—an edge was twisted, scorched. Not enough to cause any great damage, no, but enough so that the gunboat spat back at him, a lightning bolt that seared the air near Steetsin and blasted two crenels off the turret. By the time they started to fall, Steetsin was already down under the stone. “What friends are they who fire!?”
“Ones who insult you.” Cartwright was down beside him.
“So little energy, so small a shot . . .”
“They shall learn the anger of the Wedge Sept!” Steetsin howled, leaping to his feet. “All warriors! Arm and form for a sally! As your grandfather did, against Khalian thieves!”