This is a fan translation of Dark Skies (Тёмныенебеса) by Mikhail Akhmanov, currently only available in Russian and, because of the author's passing in 2019, unlikely to ever be published in English. This is the fourth book in a six-book series called Arrivals from the Dark (Пришедшие из мрака), which also has a six-book spin-off series called Trevelyan's Mission (Миссия Тревельяна).
I claim no rights to the contents herein.
Chapter 6
The Patriarch
"They died? The Hossi-moa killed them all?"
Rikkaraniji, the progenitor of the clan, stared at Baharan and Patta with displeasure. The former had the rank of Zong-ap-sidura and headed the adviser mission in the Cold World, so his opinion had to be taken into account. As for the latter, he was one of Baharan's fifteen assistants, a mere Zong-tii, who, in other circumstances, would not be allowed near the Patriarch or even his direct descendants from the first generation. Like Subyarok, who was currently sitting behind his Patriarch… But they had to listen to Patta, and that annoyed the progenitor far more than the loss of two pilots and a few Sinn-ko.
Patta made the gesture of respect, "Yes, honorable Zong-er-zong. The squad was killed, but the Paired Creatures let me go. I think, it is because–"
"I am not interested in what you think," Rikkaraniji said. "Your name, junior adviser, is shorter than a claw, and it is not your place to think ["Name shorter than a claw" is a common Dromi expression, signifying an elder's contempt for a junior. In Dromi society, the length of one's name depends on one's caste; the Sinn-ko (Named Ones) have monosyllabic names, the Zong-tii (Elders-with-Spot) have two syllables in their names, the Zong-ap-sidura (Elders-under-Big) have three, while the Sidura-Zong (Big-Elders) have four. A Patriarch's (Zong-er-zong, Elder-over-Elders) name usually consists of five or six syllables.]. I asked and heard an answer. That is enough." He squirmed in his seat, trying to turn his enormous bulk towards Baharan. "Now I will ask something else. How long will I keep sending Sinn-ko into the ruins? How long will I keep losing my descendants? Why is this necessary?"
Now it was Baharan's turn to make gestures of respect, "You, whose name is longer than the path to the star Zokkar… As I have explained, we are studying the reactions of the local Hossi-moa. Such is the will of the elders."
"Your elders," came Subyaroka's creaking voice.
"Yours too, since you have returned from the border of the Secretive Ones [The Secretive Ones is the name given by the Dromi to the Lo'ona Aeo, who employed some of their clans as Defenders for two thousand years, until their replacement by mercenaries from Earth. This term can be explained by the unwillingness of the Lo'ona Aeo to allow aliens in their space habitats (astroids) and maintain direct contact with any race. All their contacts with the galactic community is performed via their Serv biorobots.] to the sector of the Clans [The Clans is what the Dromi call their star empire. In Earth Lingua, the following terms are considered acceptable: the Clans, if one speaks of the Dromi governing body, controlled by the Elder Council; clan (tribe), if one means a specific family group ruled by a Patriarch.]," Baharan reminded him." Such was the decision of your progenitors Rikkaraniji, Korroningata, and Sinvagatansher. Having wished to fight the human Hossi-moa, instead of their Hallaha, who serve the Secretive Ones instead of you, you agreed to recognize the elders as your leaders."
"And they sent us to these worlds, where we remain insignificant," Subyaroka creaked again.
Licking the part of his face that could be considered his chin with his tongue, Rikkaraniji glanced at him in annoyance. He was too direct and probably too old, which made him unfit as his heir. But he was useful as a military leader and would, therefore, continue to receive the drug that prolonged his life. He would continue to receive it until the new Patriarch, Vittanihan or Niddakapar, decided to deprive him of that privilege.
"Insignificant!" Baharan repeated, no longer bothering with any gestures of respect. "Should you be saying that, Sidura-zong? Did your clans not deal the Hossi-moa a blow, taking away magnificent planets? Did you not destroy their ships over the Cold World? And did it not happen just recently?"
While Subyaroka was twice Baharan's age, he could not hope to match him in an argument. Baharan's tribe was small, but it produced the ruling elite, especially shifty beings, whose tongue could reach their shoulders. The Patriarch understood that and was now thinking of the fact that their exodus from the space citadels that bordered the space of the Secretive Ones had been, undoubtedly, a mistake. For a long, long time, the Splinters had been considered the flower of their race, the base for its might, for they had supplied the Dromi empire with new technology and the life-extension drug. That had been the payment of the Secretive Ones, whom they served, and, at the time, the will of the elders had been less important to them than a claw clipping. Now, everything was different: the Hossi-moa served the Secretive ones, while the Splinter clans had themselves become claw clippings.
The Patriarch scratched the edge of his seat in irritation and spoke, "I asked, Baharan, but did not hear an answer. Or are my words lighter than dry scales?"
"May the Thought Giver be merciful to you! Your words have been heard by all, except the honorable Subyarok," Baharan said, and the Patriarch realized that the head of the mission knew that Subyarok would not be his heir. "I answer to the Zong-er-zong: we must understand what drives the Hossi-moa of this world, what the source of their perseverance is. This is important, very important, progenitor. Especially now."
"Why?"
Patta gestured that he wished to speak, but Baharan quickly ran his claws down his assistant's back, tearing off several scales. That was a gesture of displeasure, but not a very big one; otherwise, blood would have poured from under Baharan's claws. Rikkaraniji himself would have torn off all of Patta's scales, along with his skin, but he had no authority over an Elder-with-Spot from another clan.
"I will explain, Zong-er-zong." Baharan once again started making gestures of respect, after which he said, "The local Hossi-moa could have assumed that their overlords from Earth would send ships and push us out of this system, as well as the neighboring one, which is occupied by Mintavarlaha and Rottizinshirah's clans. If such thoughts supported them, then the circumstances have now changed; the ships from Earth came, were destroyed in the Cold World's orbit, and the Paired Creatures know of that. We need to determine their reaction, which was why I asked you, progenitor, to send Sinn-ko to five or six settlements, and junior adviser Patta went with one of these groups. He lacks respect for his elders," Baharan once again scratched his assistant's back, this time causing blood to appear, "but he is a good observer. Now we know that there are Hossi-moa whose behavior cannot be explained with logic. With our logic," Baharan underscored. "Perhaps such beings should be destroyed."
"We need to destroy every Hossi-moa," Subyaroka creaked. "While fighting on the border against those who had taken our place, we were killing everyone. They are worth no more than Hallaha!"
"That is true, but the elders wish to know what they are capable of. That was why you were sent here. You know much about them. You have been fighting them for over two hundred years."
"But were unable to defeat them." Patta finally decided to intervene. "Perhaps you should not have been killing everyone, Sidura-zong?"
Subyaroka rose from his seat, clearly wishing to skin Patta alive, but the Patriarch, blinking tiredly, commanded, "Enough! All of you can leave. You too, Subyaroka."
Baharan and Patta, still possessing liveliness of their movements, headed for the exit, while making gestures of respect, followed by the grim-faced Subyaroka on his seat. Rikkaraniji's head drooped to his chest. He was tired. He had lived three times the lifespan of his descendants and felt his life coming to an end. The drug of the Secretive Ones no longer gave him that same sense of alertness as before, and that was a good sign that he needed to find an heir. His clan was large, over two hundred and fifty thousand named descendants, but only three Big-Elders, those who stood atop the pyramid of power. Subyaroka would not be the new Patriarch. That left Niddikapar and Vittanihan. One of them would get a long name and the title of Zong-er-zong.
Rikkaraniji directed his seat to a wide passage, protected by transparent plastic. Beyond this semblance of a window, there was bright light, unwanted cold, and air that was difficult to breathe. From the height of his metal framework tower, he saw many smaller towers, where his clan lived, the ruins of the Hossi-moa city on the seacoast, and the flat empty space, where, under the watch of Sinn-ko and Zong-tii, thousands of Paired Creatures were swarming. The construction of the spaceport, capable of receiving both the small Hallaha ships and the large Siduras, was going slowly. Rikkaraniji's clan was a warrior clan, who used to live near the border of the Secretive Ones on an enormous artificial station, and his descendants had neither the equipment for ground work nor any experience in construction. The powers-that-were should have sent an engineering tribe with hundreds of thousands of Sinn-ko here, but the Patriarch could not count on that. He knew that they, the three Splinter clans in this system and the two in the neighboring one, had been shaken off into this distant part of space like dry scales. The Dromi empire had no need for the Splinters.
He had not expected that. When the war with Earth's Hossi-moa began, it had seemed so natural to unite all the strength of the Clans, wipe out these bothersome creatures, and settle their planets, filling all of them with spawning pools. Then they could have been able to return to the border of the Secretive Ones and finish off the mercenaries, for, without help from Earth, without an influx of migrants and warriors, they would have been unable to hold off the push of the Splinters. That was an excellent strategy, and five of the eighteen tribes that had lived on the border agreed with it. Those who decided to stay had been considered brainless Hallaha by those who had left… And where were those five tribes, who had returned to the bosom of their parent race, now? Their Patriarchs had not been included in the Elder Council, they had not been sent into battle, their fleet had not been thrown into an assault on the humans, they had not been given their rightful honors… Instead, they had been sent into the cold and the darkness, to the edge of the Void, where Dromi would not reach for five centuries, even in case of unlimited expansion! As it turned out, those thirteen clans that had stayed turned out to be not so brainless after all…
Rikkaraniji understood the reason for this exile. Now he did! The five Splinter tribes were the most battle-worthy, the most experienced and powerful, for they had been fighting the mercenaries of the Secretive Ones, the human Hossi-moa for two hundred years, and before that, the other kind, those called the Haptors. Without a doubt, they would have won great victories, earning glory and power. But the Elder Council did not wish to share power, and so, the Splinters had been sent into distant worlds, attaching Baharan and his spies to them…
Who could have expected such disdain?! But it had happened, and he, Rikkaraniji, could no longer fix that mistake. His flesh had grown heavy under the weight of a century and a half, dry scales were falling from his skin, and he needed incredible effort to rise from his seat… Such was the payment for a long life! Dromi grew continuously and, by extending their lifespan, become too massive, too heavy; their legs did not hold up their enormous bodies, their fingers lost their flexibility, their neck could no longer be turned, and the spot, a sign of the ability to reproduce, faded and grew dull. Such was the fate of the rulers, those who became Big-Elders and then progenitors! He, Rikkaraniji, had been wearing the title of Zong-er-zong for eighty years and was now ready to part with it. Others would fix his mistakes. Maybe Vittanihan, maybe Niddakapar… But not Subyaroka, who had lived for over a century and could barely move…
The logical chain was over. Like all members of his race, Rikkaraniji was incapable of quickly focusing his thoughts on one subject, then another, jump from one idea to the next, or working on various tasks during the thinking process. Each thought needed to be thought out to the end or finished on an intermediate step, leaving a note in his memory to come back and finish it. On the one hand, these deliberate, patient efforts usually led to useful results, but, on the other, they made it difficult to connect facts about seemingly unrelated subjects. Intuition and epiphany were infrequent guests among the Dromi.
Rikkanariji noted that the choice between Vittanihan and Niddakapar needed to be made within the next few days, and switched to a different problem. The idea advocated by Baharan about the stubbornness and the lack of logic among the individual Hossi-moa seemed unsound and even harmful to him. Many-many years ago, after leaving the Hallaha age and becoming a Sinn-ko soldier, he had started fighting the Paired Creatures and, rising from the lowest to the highest castes, he fought them for over a century. He had a great deal of experience, and this knowledge told the Patriarch that all Hossi-moa were illogical and stubborn, even those that seemed to have submitted to the victors. Those thousands, who were building his spaceport, and those millions in the Warm World, who were working for Korroningata and Sinvagatansher's clans… For now, they needed these workers, but the Patriarch would not give a dry scale for their obedience. He was in agreement with Subyaroka that each adult Hossi-moa needed to be destroyed. There was no need to worry about the younglings, for they would die on their own without the aid of their elders…
But his descendant had been wrong about something else. The Paired Creatures of Earth should not be equated to Hallaha, or mindless beings, which did not even possess names. On the contrary, they were smart, cunning, deceitful, and had a dangerous talent for unexpected actions and decisions. Yet another argument in favor of their destruction!
He thought that the small groups, who were hiding in the ruins, were likely unable to survive without a center of some sort, like his Ho. That's what they should be looking for instead of studying the ruins! The planet's continent was enormous, and his descendants had only examined its equatorial region with the Hossi-moa cities. But what was happening to the north and south? There, on the cold plateaus and in the wild mountains, hundreds, even thousands of cities could be hidden, not to mention a few secret refuges. They needed to be found, the Patriarch decided. He should send flying craft to conduct a search and do it right now.
Contacting Subyaroka, he gave the necessary orders and once again surveyed his base from up above, his Ho, as the Dromi called a Patriarch's place of residence. The work on the landing field was moving too slowly. He selected this area for a base, since the Paired Creatures had already had a spaceport here, but it was small, only capable of receiving ten or twelve small Hallaha ships. There was no way to fit the clan's entire space force on that! His warships were now hanging in orbit along with a good portion of Korroningata and Sinvagatansher's fleets. He shuddered to think what would have happened had the reinforcements not been there! The Hossi-moa ships and their terrible weapons could have turned his flotilla to dust.
But help had arrived on time, and the Paired Creatures had been themselves turned to dust. Yet they managed to destroy a satellite that had been orbiting the equator and allowing them to monitor a portion of the continent's surface. A replacement was already being constructed, but this was also a slow process. Then again, the Patriarch was not worried about it; Niddakapar was up there. He was stern, and his technicians would not have time to polish their claws.
Pressing a lever, he pushed his seat from the window, barely managed to move his neck, and stared up into the ceiling.
Niddakapar… Or maybe Vittanihan?.. He needed to think it through seriously.
