"For the beards of our mothers," he roared.
"For the beards of our mothers," the crewmen shouted back.
In unison, they drank from the horns. Otho wiped his meaty lips, turned to the Bhor tech waiting by the missile bay door. He raised a paw for the command and Sten could hear the Jann squeak through the stickiplast. He almost felt sorry for the poor clot, guessing what was coming next.
"By Sarla and Laraz," Otho intoned. "By Jamchyyd and... and... uh..."
He looked at an aide for help.
"Kholeric," she stage-whispered.
Otho nodded his thanks. "Bad luck to leave a clotting god out," he said.
He cleared his throat, belched, and continued. "By Jamchyyd and Kholeric, we bless this voyage."
He brought his hand down, and the Bhor tech slammed the BAY OPEN switch. The doors hissed apart, and the two Bhor guards lifted the wriggling Jann prisoner into the tube. Otho roared with laughter at his struggles.
"Don't fear, little Jann," he shouted "I, Otho, will personally drink your heathen soul to hell."
The crew hooted in glee as the doors slid shut. Before Sten could even blink, the tech slammed the MISSILE FIRE switch and the ship jolted as air blasted the Jann into vacuum. He barely had time to moan before his body exploded.
The ship's metal floor thundered with the footsteps of cheering Bhor crewmen as they rushed and battled for room at the porthole to watch the gory show.
Sten fought back a gag as a smiling Otho heaved himself over to him. His breath whooshed out as the Bhor slapped him on the back, a comradely jackhammer blow.
"By my mother's beard," he said, "I love a blessing. Especially"-he thumbed toward the missile bay doors and the departed Jann-"when it's one of those scrote."
He bleared closer at a pale Sten. "Clot," he cursed at himself, "you must think me a skinny, stingy being. You need a drink."
Sten couldn't argue with that..
"It is good," Otho said, "that the old ways are dying."
He poured Sten a horn of stregg-the pepper-hot brew of the Bhor-and heaved his bulk closer.
"You won't believe this," he said, "but the Bhor were once a very primitive people."
He'd caught Sten in mid-drink, and he nearly spewed the stregg across the table. "No," Sten gasped, "I wouldn't."
"The only thing left now," Otho said, "is a bit of fun at a blessing."
He shook his huge head. Sighed. "It is the only thing we have to thank the Jann for. Before they came along and started killing us, it had been... in my grandfather's time that we last blessed a voyage."
"You mean, you only use Jannisars?" Sten asked.
Otho frowned, his massive forehead beetling.
"By my father's frozen buttocks," Otho protested, "who else would we use? I told you, we are a very civilized people.
"We had almost forgotten the blessing until the Jann arrived with their clotting S'be'ts. But when they slew an entire trading colony, we remembered. We clotting remembered."
He drained his horn, refilled it. "That scrote we just killed? He was one of fifteen we captured. What a treasure trove. We shared them out among the ships. And one by one we used them in the blessing. Now, I must admit a small regret. He was the last."
Sten understood completely. "I think I can solve that for you," he said quietly.
The captain belched his agreement. Pushed the jug of stregg away. "And now, my friend, we must discuss our business. We are three days out from Hawkthorn. My fleet is at your disposal. What are your orders after planetfall?"
"Wait," Sten said.
"How long?"
"I assume that the credits I have already paid will hold you for quite a while."
The Bhor raised a hand in protest. "Do not misunderstand, Colonel. I am not asking for more..." He rubbed thumb and hairy forefinger together in the universal gesture of money. "I am merely anxious, my friend, to get on about this business."
Sten shrugged. "A cycle at the most."
"And then you go to kill Jannisars," Otho asked.
"And then we kill Jannisars," Sten said.
Otho grabbed for the stregg again. "By my mother's beard, I like you." And he filled the horns to overflowing.
The Bhor were a wise choice in allies. If ever there was a group noted for fierce loyalties, fiercer hatreds, and the ability to keep a single bloody goal in constant sight, it was they. They were the cluster's only native people, the aborigines of a glacier world, an ice planet pockmarked with a thousand volcanic islands of thick mist and green.
In times of legend, the Bhor lived and died in these oases. Growing what little they could. Bathing in their steaming pools. And, when they became brave enough, hunting on the ice.
At first, it was really a question of who was hunting whom. No one knows what the streggan looked like in those days. But Bhor stories and epic poems describe an enormous, shambling beast that walked on two legs, was nearly as intelligent as a Bhor, and had a gaping maw lined with row after row of infinitely replacable teeth.
Starvation drove the Bhor out on the ice. A dry professor in a room full of sleepy students would say it was merely a need for a more efficient source of protein.
Tell that to the first Bhor who peered over an ice ledge, considered the streggan crunching the bones of a hunting mate, and thought fondly of the empty—but safe—vegetable pot back home.
It must have been an awesome sight when the first Bhor made the historical decision. Compared to the streggan he would have been a tiny figure. Compared to a humanoid, however, the Bhor was solid mass. Short, with a curved spine, bowed but enormous legs, splayed feet, and a face only a "mother's beard" could love. His body was covered by thick fur. A heavy forehead, many cms thick. Bushy brows and brown eyes shot with red.
Although about only 150cms tall, the average Bhor is one meter wide—all the way down—and weighs about 130 kilograms. As far as mass equivalent, this equals the density of most heavy-worlders like Alex.
And so what the streggan was faced with was enormous strength in a small package. Plus the Bhor ability to build cold-heat-tempered tools. All the Bhor had to figure out was how to club the streggan down.
There were many mistakes. Witness the gore of early Bhor legends. But, finally, somebody got it right and the streggan became a major source of that missing protein.
There was an early error, quickly corrected. The first thing a Bhor did at a kill was to rip out the liver and devour it raw. With a streggan, the Bhor might as well have been consuming cyanide. The lethal amount of vitamin A found in a streggan liver would be double that of an Earth polar bear (also lethal) or that of a century-old haddock. Eating the liver of your enemy was the first of the Old Ways to go.
Before they could expand offworld, the Bhor first had to master the ice of their native world. With the streggan at bay, the Bhor then learned to trade. With that came the ability to kill their own kind. After all, what else was left to brag about in the drinking hall?
Unlike those of most beings, Bhor wars over the centuries were small and quickly settled into an odd sort of unity through combat.
Basic principle of Bhor religious emancipation: I got my gods, you got yours. If I get in trouble, could I borrow a couple?
When the Bhor first began expanding their "oases" by melting the glacier ice, the great cry came to "Save the Streggan." The Bhor had killed so well that their previous Grendel of enemies was nearly extinct. Today the only examples left are in Bhor zoos. They are much smaller (we think) than before, but still fierce. Enough for a Bhor mother to still use them for traditional boogey-men.
The streggan are now as much a legend as the saying "By my mother's beard." All Bhor have a great deal of facial hair to hide their receding chins. The females have slightly more than the males. In ancient times, it was a long, flowing beard for their children to cling to when mother was gathering veggies—or was faced with a shot at pure-protein streggan.