Page 56 of Xel: Broken Bond
“That’s all moving a fair bit quicker than I’d expected,” he said to Aiden, which immediately piqued my curiosity. What new plans were they making now? “We’re not going to have anywhere to house them.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Aiden said, from the holographic screen. “They’ve assured me they’ll figure something out for themselves. They’ll be there this afternoon, though, and I’m going to have to go back to the Parliament to get approval on this Anicrian issue. I absolutely agree with your offer to Yona, but that could set off another whole interplanetary issue. But as far as this goes, just remember to be direct and don’t apologise for anything unless you’re factually wrong about it. And expect the same from them.”
“Got it,” my master said. “I’ll send you an update this evening. Bye for now.”
He ended the call and I stood patiently, desperately hoping he was going to tell me what was going on, while at the same time knowing it was not my place to beg for information. A good dimari served his master’s wishes, not the other way around.
“Let’s go inside,” my master said, and my hopes plummeted… until he added, “I’ll fill you and Vonnie in at the same time. No point repeating it all.”
Inside, Rohinavon was still sitting at the table, scrolling through some information on her comm. She shut it off when she heard us coming. “Good news or bad?” she asked, when she saw the harried look on my master’s face.
“Mostly good,” my master said, slumping down into one of the seats. “But things are going to be moving a fair bit quicker than we’d anticipated. Right now, my head’s just spinning.” He let his head rest on his hands, closing his eyes, and I took the opportunity to fetch the bowls of salad and glasses of water, before sitting down in my own seat.
“Rohinavon,” I said, taking advantage of the silence. “I noticed earlier that Yona was calling you Vonnie. Is it okay if I call you that as well?” I hadn’t thought twice about it until I’d noticed my master calling her the same thing.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” she said easily. “The Anicrians have a habit of shortening everyone’s names. It’s not really a Vangravian thing, but I kind of like it. So yeah, go ahead.” She took a few bites of her meal, then peered pointedly at my master. “Cole? I know this is a lot, but it would be good to keep things moving as much as possible.”
“Hm? Yeah. Of course,” my master said, pulling himself out of his daze. He looked down at his food, but didn’t begin to eat. “There’s a mountain of details going on here, so I’ll try to give you the short version. Basically, the Alliance Parliament has leapt on the opportunity to punch some holes in the dimari slave trade. Some of that is due to the Culrads, but the Parliament was plenty pissed off about it even before the Culrads joined the Alliance. And there are a growing number of treaties we have with other species who are just as opposed to the slave trade. And it’s a lot bigger than just the Vangravians. The Nwandu are the species that originally designed the mind control technology that’s used to train the dimari. And they’ve managed to get half the known species in the galaxy off-side, including some of the ones who buy dimari. So there are cracks already appearing in the whole system and the Parliament’s eager to take advantage of those weaknesses.
“What that means for us is that they’re absolutely willing to throw a huge pile of resources at this idea of yours. They have some ethical concerns about asking you to singlehandedly produce twenty female children, but at the same time, they’re ready to back you up with plenty of surrogate parents and the best medical care the Alliance has available.
“But the biggest problem the Parliament has is concerning security. What Aiden said is true, it’s too long a project to have a large number of Alliance soldiers marking time babysitting children – no matter how valuable those children are. But they have managed to come up with a solution to that. Aiden mentioned earlier that the Ranzors are very much against slavery, and that they now also have a treaty with the Alliance.” Rohinavon and I both nodded, though half my attention was on the fact that my master still hadn’t begun eating. I paused in my own meal, wondering if there was anything I could do to help. But until he’d explained everything Aiden had said, I didn’t think I could make much of a difference.
“One of the Alliance soldiers right here on Rendol 4 was instrumental in negotiating that treaty. And Ranzor culture has one particular quirk that’s going to be very useful in helping us protect the colony.”
I forgot my own meal as I sat up straighter to listen to this part. The various cultural values of different species had been an important part of my training – largely in the context of which species were most likely to buy a dimari – but I’d always found the nuances of social interaction to be fascinating. I knew little about the Ranzors aside from the most superficial stereotypes, but I had a suspicion I was about to learn a hell of a lot more.
“Fighting prowess is the backbone of Ranzor culture,” my master explained. “Every individual is expected to prove themselves in battle before they’re allowed to take part in various aspects of their wider society – marriage, havingchildren, owning property, and so forth. But the thing is, there are plenty of Ranzors who are injured in those fights and end up maimed in some capacity – a lost limb, a broken bone that doesn’t heal right, or whatever. And those soldiers are left with their honour intact, but they’re also sort of excluded from society in a way that…” He paused, then shook his head. “In a way that has a thousand nuances attached to it and I can’t begin to explain. But a lot of those people are still looking for a way to be useful to their species, even though they’re not fit to fight in any more serious conflicts.
“Which brings us to a couple of dozen babies who need protecting while they grow up, with the long-term goal of tearing down an entire empire. There is literally nothing the Ranzors like more. So…”
Perhaps just to buy some time to get his head around it, or perhaps because he was just very hungry, my master shoved a forkful of salad into his mouth. He chewed, then swallowed, then set the fork down again. “So this afternoon, there’s going to be a Ranzor cruiser landing in our back paddock, so that they can begin to set up a camp for their soldiers and renovate the barn for the Vangravian children. The Parliament’s still working on the other details – medical care, surrogate parents, teachers, whatever – but the nuts and bolts of it are that the Parliament loves the idea of using the rest of this property as a Vangravian colony, and they’re ready and willing to move mountains to make it happen.”
Absolute silence fell on the kitchen as my master finished his explanation… until Mr Beans suddenly and loudly proclaimed, “Moaaawwww!” from the far corner, where he had just discovered that his food dish was empty.
I snorted out a laugh, then leapt up to refill his bowl with dry food. He gave me a brief look of disgust as he realised he wasn’tgetting anything more appetising, like a fresh can of fish, but then settled in to eat his lunch.
By the time I sat down again, Vonnie seemed to have recovered from her shock. “They’re going to do it?” she asked, her voice tight. “They’re actually going to do… all of it?”
“All of it,” my master confirmed. “It’s going to be a hell of a lot of work. But as of about half an hour ago… Well.” He shrugged. “Welcome to the revolution.”
Vonnie made a snorting sound that could have been part shock, part laughter, and part pure disbelief. But then she said, “Ranzors? They’re going to eat us alive.”
“Aiden says there are a couple of things to keep in mind when dealing with them. Firstly, they tend to be very direct – similar to the way Yona was this morning. Secondly, they see apologies as weakness. If you get factual information wrong, by all means apologise for it, but never, ever apologise for your opinion, no matter how much they disagree with it. And finally, we must always display respect and appreciation for any declarations of fighting prowess. It’s deeply embedded in their culture that personal worth is attained through battle, and they will be deeply insulted if we don’t acknowledge the sacrifices they’ve made.
“The leader of the group coming here is a male named Borl, and Aiden assures me he’s had plenty of dealings with Alliance species before, so hopefully, there’ll be a minimum of misunderstandings.”
“The problem there is that I’m not Alliance,” Vonnie said. She was starting to look as overwhelmed as my master had ten minutes ago. “I don’t knowyourcustoms any better than I know the Ranzors.”
My master looked rather poleaxed by her declaration, no doubt imagining that he had to solve that problem as well, so I jumped in before he had to say anything. “I suspect themost important difference between Vangravian culture and the Ranzors is that their males and females are respected equally,” I guessed. “Along with the emphasis on fighting ability, of course.”
But then, the rest of the information my master had given us replayed through my mind. “So when you say that there are Ranzors who have been injured in battle,” I asked him, “does that mean the people coming here have all had serious injuries? They’ve lost limbs or don’t have full use of their senses? How are they going to defend the children if they’re all impeded in their ability to fight?” I didn’t want to bring dozens of children here – particularly if one of them was my own daughter – if they were still going to be so vulnerable to injury if we were attacked.
My master huffed out a breath, and I took it to mean that he didn’t have any clearer ideas than I did. “The Ranzors are one of the most feared species in the known galaxy,” he said, after a moment’s thought. “I don’t know. Maybe if you cut the hand off a Ranzor, he’s still eighty per cent as effective at killing things as he was before? In a culture that’s based purely on fighting ability, that’s a significant disadvantage, but when they’re going up against humans, or Vangravians, or Eumadians, they’ve still got a hell of an advantage. In the end, I don’t actually know,” he admitted, with a helpless sort of shrug. “I guess we’re going to have to find out when they get here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
COLE