“In addition, once we reach the Croatoan Crater, we can pick up Jeffries’ trail. This is the closest we have come to him, gentlemen.”
“But how do you know he was there?” asked Seward.
Everson fished in his tunic pocket and tossed onto the table a scrap of bloodstained khaki cloth with a button attached.
“This was found at the Nazarrii edifice by the crater. The button bears the Pennines’ crest. Since Atkins and his men were the first Fusiliers to reach that place, this can only have belonged to Jeffries. He was there. I’d stake my life on it.”
“You may well have to,” warned Haslam.
“In the meantime, what of the chatts?” asked Seward. “Without the tank, we’re still vulnerable to another attack.”
“We’ve made progress there, too,” said Everson. “I think we may be able to broker some kind of deal with the Khungarrii.”
“How? We have one chatt prisoner and not an impressive specimen at that,” said Seward, looking round the room to nods of amused agreement.
“It turns out that it’s more important than we thought. It’s one of their priest caste.”
“Well let’s hope we’ve got an ace up our sleeve, because we bally well need one.”
Everson smiled. “Oh, we do, gentlemen. We do.”
EVERSON MADE HIS way to the dugout where they held the chatt prisoner. Atkins and Evans stood to attention as he approached.
“I need to talk to Chandar,” he said.
“Best take this, then, sir.” Atkins handed the officer a PH hood. “Just a precaution after what it did to the rioters.”
Everson nodded, took the proffered gas hood and pulled it on. He ducked his head and descended the steep steps. He never got used to the idea that the creature was not of Earth. There was no precedent in religion or science to explain it, yet here it was – or rather, here they were, for this, he forced himself to remember, was their world.
At the bottom of the steps was a bolted door with a small judas hole in it. They had erected it after the attempted mutiny, for the chatt’s protection as much as that of the soldiers. He unholstered his revolver, and peered into the gloom beyond.
Chandar was one of the priest caste from the Khungarr colony of an arthropod race that called themselves the Ones, or the Children of GarSuleth, their insect deity.
Its only clothing was a woven silk garment made of a single, seamless piece of cloth that went over the left shoulder of its chitinous chest plate and wrapped around its segmented abdomen. Tassels hung from it, the knots scented with scriptural scent texts, like a prayer book or a rosary. Once white, like its carapace, the cloth was now stained and soiled.
Everson coughed. Chandar turned its head toward the door. Wet clicks issued from the mucus-slick maw between its mandibles. The smooth ivory white carapace of its facial plates caught the light of the hurricane lamp hanging from the roof beam. Its visage gave nothing away. Everson couldn’t tell whether it was afraid, indifferent, or angry at its incarceration. On top of its cranial carapace, the remaining stumps of its antennae twitched and jerked, as if phantom feelers were still scenting the air.
Everson regarded it thoughtfully for a moment. “We need to talk,” he said.
He heard an asthmatic intake of breath forced out over organs unsuited for human speech.
“If GarSuleth wills it.”
“Stand back,” he ordered as he slid the bolt and pulled open the door. It caught against the uneven earthen floor, and he had to jerk it several times to get it open.
The chatt waited patiently, and when Everson entered, sank down slightly on its legs. The vestigial middle limbs, little more than chitinous claws, splayed from its abdomen. It regarded the reflection of itself in the mica eyepieces of Everson’s gas hood, as he looked back at himself reflected in its large, featureless black eyes.
Another intake of breath and its finger-like mouth palps moved within the arc of its mandibles like a loom, almost as if it were weaving the words out of its breath. “Ev-er-son?” it asked.
Everson pulled his gas mask off. It was a token of trust, but only a small one. The guards outside would kill it if it tried to escape.
A sharp acrid smell assailed his nostrils. His nose wrinkled. He almost wanted to put the mask back on. He looked around and saw a damp patch in the corner of the room. The thing didn’t even know enough to use the bloody bucket.
“This One offers you a blessing in the name of GarSuleth,” it said, refraining from the benediction spray that was the gift of all Dhuyumirrii, the chatt priest class.
Everson got straight to the point. “I need to know if the Khungarrii will attack again.”
The chatt allowed its stunted middle limbs to fold inward against its segmented abdomen again. Its answer sailed on the top of a wheeze, the clicking of its mandibles punctuating the words. “Unless this One returns to Khungarr, it is a certainty.” The tone was flat, emotionless. There was no emphasis. It was hard to tell whether this was a threat or merely a statement.
“That’s what I’m here to discuss,” said Everson, stepping into the small dugout, leaving the door open, as much to help ventilate the place as to suggest trust.
“This One wishes Atkins’ presence,” it said, shuffling back.
“No,” said Everson calmly. “You will talk to me.” He didn’t wish his authority undermined by one of his own men. Not right now. This was something he had to do for himself.
The chatt blinked, but otherwise didn’t move. Stalemate.
“God damn it,” Everson wheeled round, the dirt scrunching under his heels as he pivoted. He called up the steps. “Atkins, get down here!”
It was as if the thing found some comfort in the Corporal’s presence. If it made it talk then he’d have to put up with it.
Atkins thudded his way down the steps. “Sir?”
“Seems Chandar won’t talk unless you’re here,” said Everson sourly.
Atkins’ face flushed. “It’s this Kurda thing, sir, some chatt sense of honour, as far as I can make out. Since I saved its life, it thinks we have a connection.”
Chandar looked from one to the other. “This One wishes to know what you have done with the collection of sacred salves recovered from Nazarr.”
Everson turned back to the chatt. “They’re safe for now. That’s all you need to know. You are in no place to make demands.”
Nictitating membranes flicked over the black orbs of its eyes. “That is where you are wrong,” it said, its mouth palps quivering as it spoke. “It appears that this One is in exactly the right place.”
Everson indicated the earthen walls surrounding them. “You’re in a prison cell.”
The chatt’s vestigial limbs opened and closed in what might have been a shrug. “This One is exactly where GarSuleth wants this One to be.”
“Why are they so important to you? What do they contain, exactly?”
“Quite possibly, your salvation and this One’s substantiation.” The wheezing chatt said. “There has long been a debate in Khungarr that has consumed every generation, concerning the nature of what the aromatic scriptures refer to as the Great Corruption. At present, Sirigar, Liya Dhuyumirrii of Khungarr, seeks to join the disparate olfactions of the Shura in order to consolidate its position. That One’s interpretation of the perfumed prophecy holds you Tohmii to be the embodiment of the ancient scriptural evil. Your actions in attacking Khungarr have only strengthened that interpretation, along with Sirigar’s standing within the Shura. With the defeat of the Great Corruption, that One’s power will be assured. Thus has Sirigar ordered your herd to be culled.”
“You mean it’s using us as a unifying threat?”