Chapter 5

The day had been just as boring and uneventful as every day had been for the past three weeks. Pre-morning latrine duty had been followed by hours of cleaning out the war beast stalls. In the early afternoon, he had been back in the latrine pit, scraping waste from its bottom. For the past few hours, he had done more work in the stalls, and now he was, once again, standing at the bottom of the pit with his bucket half full of waste.

Of course, on this world, where the sun neither rose nor set, “morning” didn’t refer to dawn, but only to the time when the villagers rose from their beds. “Night” was merely the time when they slept, despite the sky being just as bright as when they were awake. How the Minvali could keep track of time when the sun always hung motionless on the horizon, he didn’t know—but however they did it, they kept to their sleep schedule like clockwork.

Suddenly, the air was filled with a new sound. The women in the village had started to sing, or so Lami thought. It was a high-pitched sound, almost ululating in nature, that had first started in the western section of the compound but was now spreading like wildfire among the huts.

Lami’s hands were still bound with the thick sinew rope Navá, the war leader, had tied around his wrists when he was first captured. He had hoped the tribal chief would eventually come to trust him enough to unbind him, but despite his weeks of faithful work, the Minvali seemed unable to express any feeling toward him other than contempt. Now, he gripped the ladder with his dirty hands as best he could. It was slippery, and with his hands tied together, he had to carefully balance himself so as not to fall over in the process.

When he got out of the pit, he stretched his back to better see what was going on. But even for a Terran, Lami was not a tall man, and the Minvali utterly dwarfed him.

There was activity in the compound, a certain energy in the steps of the guards he had never seen before. Two of the war commanders were standing on the platform halfway up the western palisade, pointing and staring into the white mist beyond. But whatever was out there, Lami couldn’t see—the high wall around the compound blocked his view of everything outside it.

With a carefully coordinated burst of energy, he jumped on top of the outhouse closest to where he was standing. From his new, higher vantage point, he could now see into the fog beyond the palisade.

At first, he saw nothing there. The raging blizzard seemed to him to be the same impenetrable white wall it always had been. But Lami knew better than to trust his eyes. He switched his multispectral vision to infrared. With the lower wavelength’s better ability to penetrate the fog, he could now see farther into the snowstorm.

That was when he saw them. Three large shadows, walking—stalking—with determined steps along the palisade wall, just outside the visual range of the men guarding the compound.

The men couldn’t see the beasts. But apparently, the women could. Perhaps their eyes were sensitive further down the infrared spectrum? Had the situation not been so dire, Lami would have found that gender differentiation fascinating, but at the moment he had more important things to think about.

At first, he thought the creatures stalking the compound were wild war beasts. Their length certainly matched the large animals he had come to know well since his first encounter with one of them out on the steppe almost a month ago. But despite their similar length, they were not as tall, they were less massive, and their movements seemed more feline than the lumbering, almost bear-like motions of the Minvali war beasts.

These animals were not omnivores. They were true predators—and the villagers were their intended prey.

To make matters worse, the guards—unable to see the predators through the dense fog—seemed to believe that whatever the women had spotted earlier had now left the area. By now, the guards had stopped looking. He heard one of them, believing the danger had passed, shout to the women to stop their singing.

The guard’s command fell on deaf ears. The women—with their better eyesight—still saw the beasts and would not allow themselves to be silenced.

Suddenly, one of the dark shapes in the mist threw itself at the palisade, rocking it and sending one of the guards standing on the raised platform attached to it tumbling to the ground. But the wall was too tall for the attacking predator to jump over, and too sturdy to be broken by the lithe creature.

The second the animal attacked, the women fell silent, their alarm no longer necessary. Now, the guards could see the creatures for themselves.

“Kaotora!” they shouted. “Kaotora!”

A few seconds later, every war commander in the village came rushing into the open plaza in front of the compound entrance. War Leader Navá shouted commands to his men. Some ran back into the armory and began bringing out the large spears the war band used for fighting, while others rushed to untie their war beasts, hoping to get them ready in time to protect the village.

At first, Lami didn’t know what to do. Up until now, his entire plan had been to stay silent and gather as much information as he could. But this attack provided him with an opportunity. So far, he had been unable to gain the trust of the chief, but if he could show he was willing to defend the Minvali despite the treatment his captors had subjected him to, perhaps they would be willing to accept him.

On the other hand, that meant showing the Minvali what he was really capable of. Once he had played that card, he could never undo it.

Moments later, another kaotora attacked the wall, but this one had better luck. It seemed to Lami that the predators had been probing the palisade, looking for weak spots, and now they had realized the sharp wooden poles were not the right place to focus their efforts.

Instead, the second kaotora went for the hide frames that barricaded the entrance to the compound.

With a loud crash, the creature smashed through the frames and pushed aside the rocks that held them in place. One of the old bones making up the side of the left frame broke with a cracking sound, sending the hide that had been strapped to it flying away in the strong wind.

The powerful, seemingly intelligent predator now stood in the middle of the plaza at the entrance to the compound—the same plaza where the war band, still not fully prepared for the fight, was beginning to gather. And behind the first kaotora to enter the village, its two comrades slowly emerged from the mist, silent as death itself.

The first line of Minvali warriors would not stand a chance against the onslaught. With that realization, the decision about what to do had been taken out of Special Agent Lami’s hands. Now, lives were at stake, and he no longer had any choice but to act.

With a flick of his wrists, he effortlessly broke the strong ropes that had bound his hands for the past month. Sprinting from the top of the outhouse to the armory twenty meters away, he grabbed one of the large Minvali spears and ran toward the three roaring predators.

The battle that followed was short, and its outcome was never in doubt. Lami streaked across the compound like a wraith, the movements of his limbs so fast they were hard for the human eye to follow. Around him, the world seemed to slow to a crawl as his brain processed sensory inputs at speeds far exceeding those of a biological human. With his right arm, he threw the spear—much too large for such a small creature as him—with enough force to penetrate the skull of the lead predator, dropping it dead within seconds.

He focused himself for a jump, commanding his biotic muscles to contract in preparation to launch him high above the ground, while simultaneously calculating the movements needed for him to land in precisely his intended position and posture. His muscles stretched, pushing him up into the air. Lami landed on the ground right next to the head of the dead kaotora. With his now free arms, he reached out and pulled the spear from the skull of the massive creature, then, with a twisting motion, sprinted toward the second creature.

The combination of his momentum and a powerful push by his arms thrust the spear through the right eye of the second kaotora, ending its life as quickly as the first. A small jump lifted his legs from the ground as he held fast to the spear with both hands. With perfect coordination, he placed his feet on the cheekbone of the creature and pulled on the spear, now stuck in the creature’s skull, while simultaneously pushing off with his legs.

The large spear popped out of the eye socket of the beast, and with it, Lami fell backward toward the ground. But as he fell, he twisted his body to rotate 180 degrees in the air so that he was now facing down, still holding the spear between his arms and legs. The moment before he smashed into the ground, he dropped the spear and stretched out his limbs to catch himself, absorbing the impact with his muscles.

Quickly, he grabbed the spear again and pushed, righting himself in the process and making the entire feat seem like he had just bounced off the ground. He was a dancer, and this was the ballet of war. Now standing upright with the bloodied spear held firmly in his grip, he turned to face the third kaotora, which was now charging him, its mouth open in a wide grin, its dagger-like teeth ready to rip him apart.

It never got the chance.

With a force exceeding 25 kN, Lami thrust the spear into the mouth of the charging creature. Flying through the air at a quarter the speed of sound, it penetrated the animal’s nasopharynx and entered the brain cavity of the creature, killing it in an instant.

The Sunguard Special Agent stopped in his tracks. Silence fell over the compound.

Eighteen seconds after it had started, the battle was over.

And not a single Minvali had been injured.

In the aftermath of the fight, the women of the village picked through the debris strewn across the compound, trying to determine what could be salvaged. But whatever damage had been done was only material. Tonight, lives had been saved, and the Minvali understood that.

They stood in front of him in triangular formation, with Chief Sote closest to Lami and War Leader Navá and Healer Lorá at the back. In his hands, Sote held his own spear, but no longer in an aggressive stance. Instead, it rested on his outstretched arms, as if he were presenting it as a gift to the Special Agent.

This was the moment, Lami thought. With his cover now blown, he no longer needed to hide his understanding of their language. He could finally speak to them and tell them he now saw himself as part of their tribe. He, ilahu, was Minvali. He hoped they would accept him as such.

“Ilahu minvali,” he said, his first words in their language intended as a gesture of friendship and understanding. He pointed to himself and then toward the large aliens. “Ilahu minvali,” he repeated, hoping they would understand his meaning, even if his grammar was not perfect yet.

Perhaps shocked that he could speak their language, the villagers reacted immediately. But it was not the kind of reaction Lami had hoped for. Instead, Chief Sote threw down his spear on the ground, symbolically retracting his previous offer. Meanwhile, War Leader Navá raised his own spear and pointed it straight at Lami’s chest, ready to strike should the chief give the order.

Chief Sote stared at Lami, his face twisted with contempt and hatred.

“Taomat ilahu minvali!” the chief screamed at him. Lami didn’t understand. What did taomat mean?

Sote seemed to realize that Lami had not grasped the meaning of what he said and repeated the phrase, this time slower and with gestures. He pointed at the waste pit outside the palisade, then drew his hand across his own throat as if slicing it, and finally gestured with his hand toward the tribe.

The waste pit—foreigners—Minvali? The phrase made no sense at all.

Then, in a moment of horror, it finally dawned on Lami: ilahu did not mean “him,” or “Terrans,” or even “foreigners,” as he had initially thought. Ilahu meant “betrayer.”

Ilahu minvali, he had said to them—“betrayer of the Minvali.” Believing he had told them he wanted to be part of their tribe, he had instead inadvertently just told the Minvali that he intended to betray them.

No wonder they were angry at him.

Realizing his mistake, he took a step backward in an attempt to appear less threatening, though, given the display of his capabilities less than an hour earlier, he doubted the gesture would do much to ease their minds. To reinforce it, he fell to his knees in front of Chief Sote and placed his arms on the ground, hands outstretched and palms facing upward.

While waiting for the chief’s response, Lami silently contemplated what he had just learned.

Taomat was the word he had been looking for all along. Taomat was the Minvali word for “foreigners.” Sote had not pointed to the waste pit in general when he said the word—he had pointed to the place where the tribe had buried the Terrans.

And if ilahu meant “betrayer” rather than “foreigner”…

With horror, the truth dawned on him.

Taomat ilahu minvali—“The foreigners had betrayed the Minvali.” That was what the chief had screamed at him in response to Lami’s failed attempt at telling the Minvali he wanted to be part of their tribe.

From the Minvali point of view, the soldiers escorting the Sunguard expedition had betrayed the Minvali, and as a result, they were now dead and buried in the pit. No wonder the aliens had shown him so much contempt after capturing him. He was one of them—the betrayers. That was why they had used the word ilahu around him when they first captured him.

If only he had known.

Author's Note

The story you're reading is one of many set in the Lords of the Stars universe I've been creating over the past 30 years, where familiar characters and places reappear, and new favorites await discovery. Check out my profile to explore more stories from this universe.

While Choices of Steel is entirely standalone, I think you’ll particularly enjoy Soldier of Steel, which serves as a prequel to this story, and Conscience of Steel, which is something of a sequel.

Visit the official Lords of the Stars blog for more information about this hard sci-fi universe: https://lordsofthestars.wordpress.com

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