Obviously, the Hyfft were unaware of the Commitment. Nor did their ferocious and admirable allies the Niyyuu give any indication of being aware of its reality. Certainly neither representative of either species exhibited any indication of recognition. Ki-ru-vad sighed inwardly. The Commitment could be ignored, of course. But that would be unworthy not only of the dominion caste as a whole and of the many castes that supported it, but of himself personally. Pains would have to be taken to dispel the evident ignorance.
To a certain degree, he was looking forward to it. Whenever the Commitment had been made in the past, it had only led to the elevation of the Iollth. He believed strongly that it would not have to be made to the Hyfft. That in itself was a relief. Bestowing the Commitment was difficult enough. Granting it to the Hyfft, who for hundreds of years had been nothing more than pitiable victims of the noble Iollth, was almost unthinkable. The Niyyuu, now—that he could see doing. It was likely to be the Niyyuu, he knew. But one could not be certain. Where the kind of unexpected tactics that had been used against his people were concerned, nothing could be taken for granted.
As for himself, personally, he fully expected to be killed, and hoped only that his demise would present itself in a concise and forthright manner. There was nothing in the history of Iollth-Hyfftian interaction to suggest that the victors were inclined to the use of torture. Still, he had steeled himself for whatever might come.
The summit went well. When not being slaughtered and abused, the Hyfft were quite efficient. Aside from having to endure some vociferous chiding for multiple past wrongs committed, nothing was said to the assembled quartet of Iollth about taking revenge. Not even on Ki-ru-vad and his colleagues, who had been chosen by their peers as much for their suitability as sacrifices as for the prestige they conferred on the occasion.
“None of us are to be killed?” he finally felt compelled to ask.
The Delineator of Pedwath regarded her ancient enemy out of small, dark eyes. “What would that gain? An entirely nonproductive response. We prefer that you return, all of you, to your homeworld, to convey the news of what has transpired here.” The reaction of the other Hyfft gathered around her was proof that hers was not a response that had been decided individually.
Ki-ru-vad looked over at Sa-ru-vam and the others. They were equally as resolved as he to follow through with tradition. Being of dominion caste, they had no choice.
“We cannot do that,” he told the Hyfft.
Confusion engendered animated discussion among the locals until one, whom Ki-ru-vad knew as Mardalm the Linguist, stepped to the fore, fingering her translator gear as she did so.
“There seems to be some confusion in translation. You have agreed to the provisions of treaty. What is it you cannot do? With what element of the surrender terms can you not comply?”
“We cannot return home,” Sa-ru-vam told her. Among the Hyfft no one said as much, but it was clear all were thinking, “Well, you certainly can’t stay here.”
“Why not?” inquired a curious elderly historian from among the pack of suddenly uneasy natives.
Ki-ru-vad explained patiently. “It is a matter of the Commitment. A custom among the Iollth that extends backward for eons, to the time when our ancestors first emerged from the harsh hills of Ioll and set to fighting among themselves. The Commitment is one of our oldest traditions. On those exceedingly rare occasions when soldiers of Iollth are overcome, practice demands that the defeated pledge themselves and their fealty to the one responsible for their defeat.” His attitude and tone showed that he did not believe the individual in question to be among the multitude of gaping Hyfft.
That was fine with the Delineator. Receiving allegiance from a host of the Hyfft’s ancient enemies was not a condition she was anxious to accept, though she was prepared to do so. All the Hyfft wanted, now that peace and security had been obtained, was for the Iollth to go away and never come back. It had never occurred to the Delineator, nor the astronomer Ussakk standing nearby, nor even Yoracc the Historian, that their erstwhile tormentors might not wish to leave.
No, the Delineator corrected herself. That was not what the horrid, if overcome, Iollth had said. The bottom-heavy alien invader sought the one most responsible for the defeat of his kind. To her relief, she knew that praiseworthy individual was not to be found among the Hyfft.
Uncertainty followed the dissemination of this unexpected development. The commander of the visiting force of Niyyuuan soldiers was put forth as a logical candidate to receive the resolute Iollth commitment. He promptly declined the honor, and not just because he felt himself unworthy.
“Was not I who propounded strategy that led to victory,” the officer explained honestly. Lifting a limber, armored arm, he gestured skyward. “Devising of tactics employed originates with senior command.”
Word of the unanticipated conundrum was dutifully passed along to the ships in orbit. It stimulated energetic debate among Gerlla-hyn and his staff.
Gazing down at the milling throng of Iollth, Hyfft, and Niyyuu, George strained for a better look. “Wonder what they’re deliberating down there? I thought this ceremony was supposed to be pretty much cut-and-dried.”
“That’s what I thought.” From where he had been uncomfortably seated on a Hyfftian chair alongside his friend, Walker rose and leaned forward. “My translator doesn’t work at this range, but it sure looks like they’re arguing about something.”
“Inconsequentialities.” Behind them, Sque clung to the back of her seat and thought fondly of rain. “The lower orders worship mindless babble for its own sake.” Behind her, scrunched down beneath the curving ceiling and up against the rear wall of the chamber, Braouk murmured verse under his breath, his vertically aligned jaws opening and closing silently in time to his thoughts.
“I not responsible for this development.” Gazing out the port at the world below, his senior officers arrayed behind him, Gerlla-hyn was adamant. “None here can claim credit for such. For elaborating tactics that led to victory in battle, yes. But persuasion to do and therefore ultimate source of causality arose from other source.” Neck frill erecting, tails twitching in unison, he gestured at the port. “Credit for initiating alliance with Hyfft lies elsewhere. True responsibility belongs to those who first propounded it.” He glanced over at a technician. “Is only proper, I think, to so inform senior Hyfft as to who is nominal commander of expedition, and with whom final decision making on any course of Niyyuuan action ultimately rests.”
George frowned as a pair of Hyfft approached. Ussakk the Astronomer was one of them. The other, clad in the finery of a Hyfftian administrator, eyed the canine with the kind of fawning adoration usually attributed to the dog’s own kind.
Reaching the level where three of the four aliens reposed, Ussakk made sure his translation gear was fully operational before beginning. Glancing only briefly at George and Sque, the astronomer directed his attention to the lone human, who at the moment was looking more than slightly bemused.
“Your presence is required below,” he announced politely.
Walker frowned. “Is there a problem with the surrender?” He looked past the much shorter Hyfft. “I thought the Iollth had already agreed to the terms of the treaty.”
“They have,” Ussakk informed him. “This is something else. Something in the nature of a post-surrender complication. There is some awkwardness. The Niyyuu have been in touch with their superiors.” A small, furry hand gestured cryptically. “It appears only you can resolve the quandary, friend Walker.”
“Me?” The commodities trader blinked. “What about the surrender could possibly involve me?”
“Maybe both sides need you to bake surrender cookies,” George quipped tartly. With a sigh, he dropped off his seat and started down the ribbed walkway. “Come on. The sooner we find out what they want, the sooner we can head out for Tuuqalia.”
The rendering of the Commitment was no small matter. Having been conquered, Ki-ru-vad knew that he and his kind had
no choice in the matter. But one could hope for a respectable recipient. Ki-ru-vad studied the human intently. Appearance-wise, the creature was certainly an improvement over the inoffensive Hyfft. While not as tall as the Niyyuu who had done the actual fighting against his kind, the nearly hairless biped was considerably broader and presumably more muscular. Its eyes bespoke a certain intelligence, though less so than the slick-skinned decapod that spread out across the floor behind it. Most promising of all was the tentacled monster that loomed impressively over every other sentient in the room.
But it was the biped that the Hyfft and a Niyyuuan officer had urged forward.
“Wait a minute,” Walker protested. What was happening here? “What’s going on? What’s this all about?” His questions ceased when Ki-ru-vad raised his right side and took a heavy, ceremonial step toward him.
The top of the defeated alien’s slim skull came up to the level of the human’s chest. Extending its short arms, the Illoth turned them bony side down in a gesture that meant nothing to Walker. One massive foot slid forward, to slide atop the commodities trader’s right foot. At that, each of the three members of his caste who accompanied him raised a right foot and placed it behind their neck, balancing easily on their other broad foot. Walker’s translator received the alien’s words as Niyyuuan speech and efficiently translated them into English.
“Know, all present, that we of the dominion caste, and those of all the lower castes aboard the Five, do thus offer fealty to the architect of our defeat.”
Walker swallowed hard. “Excuse me?”
Wide, powerful feet returned to the floor. Ki-ru-vad slipped his own off of Walker’s. The alien’s foot had not pressed down hard, but neither did it exhibit the disgustingly gracile touch of the Hyfft, either.
“We are yours,” the Iollth repeated more succinctly. “All castes, all ships. This is the might of the Commitment. So it has been since the beginnings of Iollth civilization. So it will be until the last of my people breathe their last.”
“No. Oh no.” Backing up, Walker waved both hands, palms outward, at the alien. Ki-ru-vad strove mightily to grasp the meaning of the energetic but incomprehensible gesture. “We don’t want that. I don’t want that. There’s been some mistake.”
Next to him, an amused George was slowly shaking his head from side to side. “You make a decent cook, Marc, but a lousy pack leader.” He grinned, showing white teeth. “I guess the Niyyuu don’t want the responsibility, either. Gerlla-hyn and his staff must have fingered you once again as the titular leader of the expedition. Carrying that logic to its conclusion, I guess that makes you the ultimate ‘architect’ of the defeat of the Iollth.”
A glance at the small group of Niyyuuan officers confirmed the dog’s assessment. Dazed, Walker turned to his other companions. “I can’t do this. I can’t be expected to do this. I’m already in over my head with the Niyyuu. Braouk, maybe if you…?”
With a shifting of his lower limbs, the huge Tuuqalian turned his dorsal side on the human—though both eyes, on the ends of their stalks, continued to gaze back at him.
“Not for me, the command of others, for fighting. I am a gentle singer of songs, reciter of sagas, lover of the open plains profound. Better for you, manipulator of clever schemes, to lead.”
Desperately, Walker tried another approach. “Listen to me, you puerile purveyor of punk poetry! You’re the toughest fighter among us, worth more on the battlefield than any fifty humans or Niyyuu. I’ve seen what you can do, everyone has, and it makes you the master of throwing more than words around! It’s your chance to use your true natural abilities, to direct others, to—”
Pivoting on four massive lower tentacles, the Tuuqalian thrust both eyestalks toward Walker so sharply that the human nearly stumbled backward. Even George flinched.
“Not this time, will you incite me, with taunting. We are not now on board the Vilenjji ship, surrounded by captors I was delighted to dismember.” A huge tentacle wagged knowingly at Walker. “I am on to you, cunning human.” Strong enough to rip off one of Walker’s arms, or his head, a second upper tentacle reached toward him—to allow the sensitive tip to stroke the tense commodities trader’s right shoulder and drag lightly across his chest.
“You are my friend, Marcus Walker. We have been, through very much together, we two. But in your anxiety you forget that my size and strength does not make me stupid.” Withdrawing, the tentacle joined the other on Braouk’s right side to wave in the direction of the patiently waiting Iollth.
“These have pledged themselves to you, according to their own custom. Such traditions are no less legitimate than those of my own people. Or those of the Niyyuu, who have done the same.” One eye dipped so close that Walker could study his own reflection in the perfectly spherical ocular. “Our objective here, for all of us, is home-going. If that means that you must show the way for Iollth as well as for Niyyuu, it must be so. Accept this new burden with the grace and skill of which I know you are capable, Marcus Walker.” The eye retracted. “And maybe later, you can make dinner, for all.”
Rebuffed by the Tuuqalian, a troubled Walker turned to the K’eremu. Raising several tentacles of her own, Sque forestalled him. From the center of her body, her pinkish speaking tube danced as she spoke.
“I anticipate what you are about to say, friend Marc. That as your intellectual and moral superior, I should be the one to assume this obligation. That, there being no comparison between your level of native intelligence and mine, I should be the one to assume the onus of command of these rapacious but conciliatory folk. That given your inborn obtuseness and ignorance, I should—”
He interrupted dryly. “Granting for a moment the validity of the never-ending comparisons between your species abilities and mine, Sque—how about it?”
Silvery eyes regarded him unblinkingly. “I wouldn’t think of challenging you for command, Marc. You are clearly the one best suited to stand in the line of fire and—wait, allow me to rephrase. You are the designated nominal commander of our expedition. It’s only right and proper that you ultimately give direction to these simple folk as well as to our humble friends the Niyyuu.” A tentacle wiped meaningfully at one eye. “As ever, I shall be available to offer constructive advice, should you have the sagacity to seek it.”
As a last hope, Walker turned to George. Except that George was no longer lingering in the vicinity of his feet. The dog had wandered off and was conversing with the astronomer Ussakk. Seeing Walker staring at him, George raised one paw and waved cheerily.
Ki-ru-vad took a step forward—which, given the size of Iollth feet, constituted no small advance. “You must do this thing, Marcus Walker. It has been true throughout the modern history of the Iollth that those who are strong enough to defeat us inevitably lead the defeated on to greater glory and triumph.”
“That’d be you, I reckon,” observed George, who had trotted back to rejoin his companion. “Or you could offer to lead them to the food synthesizers, though I expect when Ki-ru-vad here speaks of ‘greater glory,’ he’s thinking of something on a somewhat more meaningful scale.” Walker glared down at the dog, then turned back to the expectant Iollth officer.
“What if I say no? What if I simply refuse? Won’t you go on as you have before—taking your new treaty with the Hyfft into account, of course?”
A small hand executed a gesture Walker could not interpret. The eyes of the Iollth had turned, of all things, limpid.
Surely, an aghast Walker told himself, this leader of murdering invaders, this representative of a species of raiding, killing sentients, was not going to stand before him and cry?
Ki-ru-vad did not. But his reply was undeniably impassioned. “You and your allies have beaten us. We cannot return thus to Ioll. The shame would require that we step, one by one, every member of every caste, naked into the space through which we traveled. Some new victory, however modest, must first accrue to us before we can go home.” Though the squat, powerful form straightened, the head of
the Iollth still reached no higher than Walker’s neck.
“You have to understand, Marcus Walker, that this is how it has always been for the Iollth. You are not of any caste, so your defeat of us carries with it no permanent stain. It is only the weight of the downfall we must remove. This can only be done by replacing loss with triumph, and this must be initiated by the conquerors themselves.”
“You again,” George reminded his friend helpfully.
“I’m not a conqueror,” a frustrated Walker protested firmly. “I’m a cook. And a commodities trader.”
“A trader!” The revelation (though Walker felt it to be more of a confession) seemed to please Ki-ru-vad. “Then you must understand what is at stake here, and how it must be resolved. Defeat must be replaced by triumph. You are not in the forefront: you are in the middle. A trader true. An honest broker of downfall and resolution.” One foot rose up toward him. Sensing that some sort of response was in order and not knowing what else to do, Walker reached down and grabbed the foot. The material of the slipper-like covering was sandpapery rough. The alien sustained the one-foot-in-the-air pose seemingly without effort.
“You accept.”
“No, wait,” Walker began again. But Ki-ru-vad had already lowered his right foot.
“It is done. The Commitment has been bestowed.” While Walker sought urgently for a way to object further, the Iollth was already speaking into his communicator. Next to him, his three companions had raised their own right feet and were showing the fabric-clad soles to Walker and his friends. A salute, a gesture of fealty, a sign of acquiescence—he had no way of knowing the deeper meaning of the dramatic podal gesture. In fact, he was increasingly certain of only one thing.
He was stuck with it.
Feeling a demand for attention at his left leg, he gazed morosely down at where George was pawing his knee. “Congratulations, Marc.”
The trader-chef-conqueror sighed heavily. “What am I going to do? I can’t even call in to a radio talk show for ideas.”