The House of Three Faces

by Ché Monro

Dramatis Personae

Darwin Station

David Shelby - "The Man who fell to earth"

Wilfrid Sander-Shelby - His lover aboard Darwin Observation Platform

Krii'ik - Thom's Study Partner among the Q'tok

Pastor Simms - David's pastor on Darwin Station

The House of Three Faces

Julias - Former King, now dead.

Gias - Witch King of the House of Three Faces. Sandy golden hair, grey green eyes. Handsome, well muscled body.

Yilla - Princess of the House of Three Faces, half sister of Gias. Fine golden hair, beautiful delicate features. Clear grey blue eyes. "Ice Maiden" appearance.

Miranda - Yilla's half sister. Brown eyes, brown hair, stubborn expression. 

Priscilla - Miranda's mother.

Ginny - Yilla's mother.

Livina - Gias' mother.

Fia - Yila's maid. Brown hair and eyes, nut brown complexion.

Klio - Fia's s Sibling

Girde - Lady Centurion, Canine soldier lady

Jano - Boy thief.

Hanse -  Family bodyguard - Girde's brother

Claudio - High Chancellor

Asamarit Clan

Tommah Asamarit  - The Prophet

Selah- Clan Leader

                   - Prophet's wife

                   - Prophet's servant

David's Captors: Kerr, Zarro, Tezik

Falah - Senior most slave in the village.

Timah Clan - Another Clan - Clans are made up of tribes, a smaller unit.

Prologue

White, white, pure soft whiteness. The clean light of science, of purity, of death. White is the color of Darwin Observation Platform in its endless high orbit above the crazy square form of Planetside. The control station, ancient, degraded and forgotten but maintained in crystal white purity by the perfect machinery of the ancient. White, cold, antiseptic and pure, there is no dirt aboard the Darwin Platform but that which the ancients brought there for growing plants, no animal life but the wan, inbred population of the scientists, four species from the initial ten, after ten thousand years the station as much an experiment in evolution and genetics as the world it was set to observe. The white light, the moving star in the sky above Planetside, this is Darwin Observation Platform.

This was the home of David Shelby, home of his family, friends and lovers for the first twenty years of his life, a life of cycle and ceremony, ancient practice and ritual, training, observation, documentation and worship, and the social dance of the human part of Darwin Station, a life laid down by the Protocols of the Founders, closed off from any outside contact except from the endless observation of the teeming world below.

It is a truism on Darwin Platform that the Observer effects that which is observed. See the effect of an ancient digging tool, lost aeons before on some ancient surface expedition. See its passage down the generations, initial effects spreading out through the gene pool and across the surface of the artificial world. Entire generations of anthropologists ponder impact of this one piece of technology, writing report after report which are read by no-one but other scientists aboard the Station. How much more so then does that which is observed effect the observers?

Three alien species share Darwin with the humans, the Q'tok, chattery and inscrutable, insectile, common words transferring little shared meaning. Hissti, group mind of single organism? In any case retreated long ago into solitude and reflection, silent. Mad? Zonar, prolific and hostile, methane breathers, strange and violent in their habits, no common interest or language cuts across the barrier of different atmospheres, no contact for centuries and that disastrous, slaughter. Only the humans and the Q'tok still observe the world below, still hold true to the Purpose, but their individual motives are obscure, alien, insular and hard to fathom.

The world gates are still open, a vast galaxy opens still from the departure gates of Darwin Station, but what is out there? Dust and ruined space station with ancient atmosphere or none at all. Overgrown ruins onworld or strange smelling alien cities where languages swirl and shift and action becomes reaction becomes hostility at the speed of instinct. Most who go that route never return, for ten thousand years Darwin station has bled personnel into that void singly, or in tens or hundreds, never to return. Nothing comes through the gates to disturb the stasis of Darwin Observation Platform.

Those humans who are left are insular, alone among the echoing white spaces which were once habitats for ten races, thousands huddling in the spaces made for hundreds of thousands, a village on the edge of the deeps of space practising observation and promiscuity as tenants of an ancient religion worshipping the diversity of Life and the Hand of Evolution, a religion they call Observation for a god they call Science.

Fads and fashions sweep across Darwin from the world below. An entire generation might play at the packs and dens of the Canine People, or take up the sacred daggers and narcotics of the desert nomads. Planetside fashions from a thousand generations and cultures are remembered and revived among the men and women of the station, languages and custom, art and slang and jewellery and fashion, all of these things migrate from the world to the station - As below, so above - while nothing passes the other way.

Nothing except the winners of the Planetside Discovery Mission.

The House of Three Faces sits high on a pinnacle crowning the corner of the world, its grim stone catching the first and last rays of the sun. A rambling stone fortification, ancient and timeworn, looking out from its triangular sides on three planes of the square planet.

History has passed through and by this castle. Long ago an army of the canine people led by a fanatic marched up an alpine valley from the jungles below using an ancient digging tool to carve passages and catacombs through the central peak which dominates and controls access to half the world through its position at the corner of the earth. From here they moved out in strength, carving an empire across the face of the world, conquering the weak swamp dwelling hermaphrodites and fighting war after war with the human cities of the plains. Eventually they were driven out of their stronghold by the humans, only to return as allies, and eventually, servants.

Soon a human empire arose, centred once more around the three faced castle and spreading out across plain, jungle and swampland. Then rot and decay and corruption drove the borders back and back until only the castle remains, still rich from the tolls it extracts from trade and traffic through the subterranean roads carved out beneath the peak by the now long lost digging machine.

The House of Three Faces is more than just a castle, it is the junction of three underground trade highways in a vast chamber beneath the peak. It's a warren of storage chambers, cisterns and living quarters, a town carved out of the living rock. Finally it is scrabbles of clay and stone huts clinging to the cliffs at the heads of three high valleys, subject villages growing crops to feed the stone fortress brooding high above.

Three races built and occupy this cold redoubt. The humans, aristocratic rulers and tradesmen and craftsfolk, cunning and clever, ruling by wealth and diplomacy and tradition, arch manipulators, deal makers and deal breakers lorded over by the Witch King himself.

The Canines, the dogsoldiers, with ancient traditions of honour and loyalty, specialised warriors with their own ruling hierarchy who police the possessions of the Witch King with force and brutality in exchange for money, food, weapons and an honoured place in the social traditions of the place, below the human aristocrats but above everyone else.

Finally the Hermaphrodites - Herms, Hissies, Slatterns. Hereditary slaves conquered thousands of years ago by the Canines and then by the humans they exist as a permanent owned underclass, silent and ubiquitous. More slight and delicate than either the Canines or the Humans, with small but noticeable breasts, their genitive organs discretely hidden in a pouch between their legs, the Herms are treated as a race of slave women, keeping their eyes downcast and their heads bowed. Too weak for heavy work or soldiering, their tasks are menial and degrading - drudgery, cooking and cleaning, sewing, agriculture, child minding and satisfying the carnal desires of males of the two ruling species.

The House of three faces is an ancient caste system, its power structures entrenched, reflexive and reactionary, incapable of change, social mobility impossible, waiting for the push from outside that will send the whole house of cards tumbling down, waiting for the barbarians to arrive at the gate.

In the big white chapel the preacher's voice drones on, a final service for the select final fifty candidates for the Planetside Discovery Mission. A crowd fills the chamber, a solemn social occasion and a last chance to gawk at the candidates, resplendent in their mission jumpsuits, the cream of their generation, seated in a bloc at the front of the chapel. A last chance to gawk before they retire for a ritual period of privacy before the decision will be announced.

"Birth in life, life in death, death in rebirth, flows the endless river of Evolution," the preacher intones. "Let us give thanks." We give thanks, the crowd murmurs, responses as ingrained as a thousand years of scuff marks on the endlessly renewed plastic floor. We give thanks.

David Shelby tugs at the collar of his candidate jumpsuit, swallowing awkwardly. Eyes watching. A thousand eyes watching. For the rest of his days, win or loose the eyes will watch now. The candidates are already minor celebrities - One will go to Planetside and die, the rest will be official Observers, wooed and courted both sexually and academically - both at once in the traditions of Darwin Station - but always there will be watching eyes, greedy and envious, forever. Such is the price of fame.

"So Darwin made Evolution and Evolution made Planetside. The Observed. Our Great Covenant." We keep the Great Covenant.

It was an interdenominational service, which meant it was stripped and bare of the ornate theatricality of the High Orthodox church that David was used to, but it was free of the kind of fanatical irrationality he associated with the more outrageous heresies. This made the service seem bland, non confrontational.

"In the beginning there was Darwin, and he preached the doctrine of Natural Selection," the preacher said, smiling at the mixed congregation beatifically. He was a middle of the road choice, of course, a bishop of the Low Church known for his tolerance. "Darwin taught his disciples through stories we call parables. This is the Parable of the Sower."

David nodded, half closing his eyes. It was an appropriate choice, but very dry ground, familiar and boring. Some of the wilder heresies, who held that Darwin was an alien, or that each race brought forth their own incarnation of Darwin would probably have made a more interesting sermon, he thought, smiling a little at the heretical nature of his musings. Religious controversy was the biggest cause of conflict on the Station although it was a time of tolerance as these things went - fist fights or bar brawls were more likely to break out over academic questions of interpretation or theory about the Observations than the deep and meaningful questions of religion. Of course the Planetside Mission was something which by its nature brought everyone together, in any case.

"A man sewed seeds in a field. Of ten grains that he sewed, three blew into the air and were lost. One fell on stony ground and was lost, six fell on the prepared soil and grew. Of the six, three were sickly and were overcome by weeds. Of the three that remained, one was the true seed which continued the line into the next generation. One was a mutant showing strange possibilities which are usually fatal, but sometimes of vital importance, and one was the divine seed showing the grace  and perfection of Darwin's Purpose..."

Yilla sat and watched the snow drift down over the mountains outside her window. Her apartment was on the plains side of the House of Three Faces but it looked out towards the distant blue horizon across an endless sea of mountains, in truth the view was similar from any window in the castle.

"Milady?"

"Come." She looked up and smiled faintly at the maid's timid knock from the doorway to her own adjacent room. "You can brush my hair, Fia."

"Yes Ma'am." The little hissy slave trotted over and took up the silver brush and began to pull it through Yilla's long golden hair. Fia was slight, with the nut brown skin and brown eyes which predominated among the Hissy slaves of the House. She wore a dark blue livery dress with the three faces heraldry embroidered on the breast. Technically she was a hermaphrodite, but like most of those destined to become inside servants at the House of Three faces she had been neutered as an infant, her male genitalia teased out of its pouch and removed, which left her capable only of a female reproductive role. Ostensibly this practice was to protect the purity of the human and canine women of the castle, but as far as Yilla could tell it made little apparent difference - Fia was perhaps a little smaller and a little higher voiced than an unaltered hissy, perhaps the gentle swell of her small breasts were a little fuller than they might otherwise be, but that was all, to a human eye, after all, all hissies looked slight and effeminate with their delicate features, bald heads and delicately pointed ears.

In any case it made no difference to the way they were treated. To the humans and canine of the House all hissies were female because they had no external genitalia and they were capable of being impregnated and bearing children. To the dominant culture of the place this made them less than male and hence property. The Hissies themselves knew who was capable of the male role when they wished to have children, or were ordered to produce offspring by their masters to make up the next generation. Nobody bothered to keep track of things like hissy marriages - such things were not important to the masters of slaves who could be bought, sold, traded or killed on a whim.

"Is something troubling you, Fia?" she asked, eyes half closed. The girl had been moping about for several days - perhaps one of the men had been rough with her, or something of that nature. Yilla didn't like to see her slaves abused, although there was little that she could do about it if it was her brother or someone important, still, if it was just one of the guard canines or something then she could and would protect her maid, such small kindnesses, she had found, led to happier, better service and loyalty, and in any case she felt it was dishonourable to allow one of her own personal slaves to be mistreated. Slaves should be punished when they deserved it, of course, that was only common sense, but deliberate cruelty was abhorrent to her.

"Umm, yes Mistress."

"Well you'd best tell me what it is, then, girl, or else I can't help you."

"Oh, thank you Mistress, thank you."

She looked up and patted the girl's hand, the little hissy was almost in tears, which mad her feel comfortably superior to the fluttery little thing - A lady had to keep a much tighter reign on her emotions in the House of Three Faces where any sign of weakness could be a very dangerous thing.

"It's about my sibling, Klio, Mistress, who works in the kitchens. She has been arrested and she's to be killed in the games."

"Oh good grief," she sighed and shook her head. Her brother Gias had reinstated the ancient practice of gladiatorial games in the big market chamber as one of the earliest acts of his reign. She thought it was bloody and barbaric herself, but it did keep the canines happy and brought in extra revenue from the traders and the bettors. One of the unfortunate consequences was that the canine guards were always scouting about for deadbeats or minor criminals they could make into gladiators, or, more likely in the case of disobedient hissy snips, to be run before wild beasts to please the crowd who would bet on how far they would get. "What has Klio done now?"

"She had a paper, Miss."

"A paper? What paper? What in the world for?"

"She said she found it. She wanted to learn to read. It was something... They said it was something about the Free Hissies, in the swamplands. She didn't know!"

"Oh Fia, why didn't you stop her? You know reading isn't allowed. And free hissy propaganda? That's serious, we can't have that kind of thing."

"But she didn't know what it was, Mistress, I swear she didn't. She didn't tell me that she had it, I didn't know until after she was arrested and now she'll be in the game and, Oh... Oh..."

"Oh don't cry, Fia, please. It'll be alright, I'll speak to my brother, maybe I can get her off with a whipping or something. But this will be the last time. If she persists with this foolishness she will end up in the games sooner or later. Free hissies indeed!"

"Yes Mistress. I'm sorry Mistress."

"It's alright, Fia, it's not your fault. I'll speak to Gias."

"Thank you, Mistress..."

"What's this, do I hear my name mentioned?" Gias leaned in the doorway to her sitting chamber, clad in the green tunic which flattered his grey-green eyes and curly sandy gold hair. Even Yilla had to admit that he was handsome - his clean, shaven young body powerful and handsome, as little as she cared for his smug manner. The young witch king of the House of Three faces swaggered over and pushed up against her. "Doesn't my sister have a kiss for me?"

"Half sister," she murmured coolly, turning her face away, nothing she did seemed to discourage him, if anything her regarded her unwillingness as a challenge.

"Mmmm, half sister then." He kissed her on the cheek and stroked her ear, making her blush. As the ruler of the House of Three Faces there were thousands of women in his power, and even she had no power to refuse him, and no-one to defend her. But no-one had any defence against Gias, not now, he owned everything. His attentions, of course, had ruined her marriage prospects, although she was realist enough to know that if he got her pregnant he would marry her off to one of his cronies, perhaps then he would loose interest, perhaps. "So what is it you want?"

"Nothing. Gias, please."

"There must be something, hmm? What is it."

"Fia, leave us." The maid bowed and turned to scurry out with relieved haste. "There's a hissy who works in the kitchen, she got in trouble with free hissy nonsense."

"Oh yes, a pretty little thing, such a shame, but don't worry yourself about it, honey."

"Gias, please, no," she tries to pull away from his kissing and fondling. "Can't you just let her off with a whipping or something?"

He pulled her close again. "I could... If my sister asked me... nicely."

"Please, Gias."

Gias gathered her up in his arms, making her feel hot and sick to her stomach. He was her brother, and it was so wrong. But Gias knew no right or wrong since he had become king, he did what he wanted, took what he wanted, and nobody, nobody dared tell him no for fear of what he might do to them if they did, even his sister. He kissed her, his tongue sliding across hers, somehow slimy and electric all at once.

"Alright then," his hand began undoing her robe. "I'll look into some other form of... punishment.. for the hissy. Mmmm."

"Please Gias, no," she whispered. "It's wrong, please, not again."

"Shhh," he whispered, smiling, his hands caressing her. "Don't say no. You can't say no to your brother."

Wilfred Sander-Shelby laughed. "That's OK David, you've earned this."

"Well, things will get back to normal after the launch."

"Unless you win."

"Well, yeah. Still, that's only a one in fifty chance."

"Sure... um,  but I worry about you."

"We'll be OK, Wilf, um, oh look, I want to see Pastor Simms for a moment. I want to confess before the announcement."

"Just in case, eh?" Wilf laughed indulgently. "Think it will help?"

"Of course not. The panel probably made its decision weeks ago."

"Alright then. Don't be too long, though. I miss you already."

"OK. I'm sorry. We'll spend more time together after this, I promise."

He squeezed Wilf's hand and then disengaged and made his way across the echoing white marble vestibule. "Father? Pastor Simms? Um, could I speak to you for a moment?" 

"David, my son, of course." The silver haired priest smiled in greeting. He wore the traditional long black robes of a pastor of the Church of Darwin with the insignia of David' own High Orthodox sect. Father Simms was an understanding, easy going elderly man, his thoughtful advice and guidance was valuable to David especially in times of stress or uncertainty.

"Can we go somewhere quiet, Father? I'd like to make confession, um, if you've got time?"

"Of course I have time, my son. Please, um, why don't we go back into the chapel? There's nobody in there now."

The stepped back through the great wooden doors into the now quiet chapel, its white and pink synthesised marble and wood immaculate as ever, maintained by a million microscopic machines. Through the high arched windows the heavens were inky black, filled with the slowly wheeling stars. They sat on a pew at the back of the vast empty hall.

"What did you want to say, my son?"

"Father, um, oh, it's been two weeks since my last confession. Um, I want to confess pride, um, in being chosen as one of the fifty, um, uncertainty in Darwin's purpose in this. Fear, I suppose.. of going... and not going... Confusion..."

Father Simms smiled gently. "Fear is not a sin, David. You wouldn't be human if you weren't afraid. Planetside. It's... terrifying. Have you thought about pulling out?"

"Oh yes, of course.. but... I can't."

"Why not?"

"All my life I've been studying Planetside. The Prophet. To pull out now when I finally have a chance to actually land on the planet. No, I couldn't. I couldn't. Besides, everyone would think I was a coward, I, my life, my career, it would all mean nothing. I - I'd be out of the Fifty, my career would be over."

Father Simms frowned and nodded. "People are harsh, on those who refuse. You would be out of the Fifty, no longer recognised... No longer guaranteed advancement."

"My career would be ruined. It's too late to pull out now."

"Yes..." Pastor Simms agreed, nodding slowly. "Perhaps so, yes. Then, have you thought what would happen, if you won?"

"Of course, Father. I'd, I'd have to go, but.. It's one in fifty. The odds are against it, seriously. Scientifically."

"Science moves in mysterious ways, David. If you won, would you go? Really?"

"Yes Father, I would. I'd have to. I couldn't live with myself. To be offered such an opportunity, to actually go there, to see it. I could not refuse."

The old Pastor nodded again. "That is good, David, to be so sure of your own mind. That is a gift. Treasure it. Hmm." He nodded some more and added. "Have you.. .thought... seriously..  about what would happen if you won?"

"Well yes, of course, the psych tests and everything. They all ask about that. I wouldn't be able to come back, I know that."

"You would die, David. Have you studied the Archives, of those who have gone before? What they suffered, at the very end?"

"Yes," he sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Of course. Endlessly." The deaths, quick and violent, slow and lingering, and the diseases, the sickness. "Yes, I've thought about it."

"Hmm. I'm sure you have. The ancients had techniques, medicines, which allowed them to visit Planetside and return, but we have come too far over the millennia. Our immune systems have changed too much and we have become too vulnerable to the diseases that exist down there to allow an explorer to return to the Station."

"Yeah, It's been tried. It's all been tried. Even bringing the guy back and keeping them in quarantine doesn't work. They still die. It's a one way trip."

"Yes, they still die. You would really go?"

"Yeah, I would Father. I'd have to."

"But it's only a one in fifty chance that you'll be the one they select. Are you prepared for the disappointment if you're not selected?"

David rubbed his temple once again. "Um, yeah. No, oh gee.. I don't know."

Father Simms chuckled and reached out to pat David's shoulder. "Well that's honest, at least. I'm not sure if anyone can prepare you to be disappointed not to be the one who dies."

"Survivor guilt."

"Perhaps. So, how have your studies been going."

"Badly, I haven't had time to do more than review the latest recordings. There's been too much to do."

"Understandably. Have you contacted Krii'ik recently?"

"No, I've been neglecting it shamefully. I'll um, apologise. Or try to," he shrugged. Aliens were, um, alien. Krii'ik was a Q'tok, one of the inscrutable insectile beings who, along with Hissti and the Zonar were the four species which still occupied Darwin Station. The other alien enclaves sat empty, still maintained in a state of readiness after thousands of years by the ever patient machines. Krii'ik had been David's study partner since they were teenagers. The arrangement had been popular among David's grandparent's generation, rejected as meaningless by his parents, and then taken up again in David's own generation as a kind of light hearted novelty. As the only other alien race which still took an interest in the events on Planetside the Q'tok were considered to be an interesting, if often incomprehensible second opinion for human theories.

"Do that. Um, is that everything?"

"Yes Father, I guess so."

"Say a decade of prayers for your penance. In the name of Darwin I give you absolution. In the name of Science I give you absolution. Go forth in the light of science and sin no more."

"Thank you Father."

David went to the altar and knelt to pray. When he was finished he rose and left the chapel with a spring in his step, feeling renewed in his purpose.

~*~

Yilla drew her shawl closer around her shoulders as she strode out of the gardens into the cavern-like entrance chamber of the castle, the winds of late spring chill at such an altitude. Her maid Fia trotted a few paces behind as she threaded her way through the bustling chamber where soldiers and slaves moved about in purposeful confusion, shifting the thousands of burdens which kept the immense establishment running.

"Wait! Your Highness, please wait!" A commanding feminine voice rang out across the stone paving.

Yilla turned and saw Lady Girde getting off one of the lift cars, an immense wooden platform which traversed the long shaft from here to the great market chamber far below in the roots of the mountain. The continuous chain of lifts was powered by hundreds of slaves sweating in the great treadmill in the market chamber, another punishment for recalcitrant kitchen hissies or pleasure slaves who failed to please. Yilla frowned - it was an unpleasant thought - then she turned on a bright smile for Girde.

"Hello Girde, good to see you my dear, now what's this?" Since her friend was wearing the metal and leather armour of her military rank Yilla did not move to embrace her, but rather nodded and smiled in acceptance of the Centurion's bow. Girde was a canine woman and like all her family she was part of the military tradition of the House of Three Faces. Yilla thought that rather than a dog like appearance her friend bore a proud leonine aspect - tawny and lean with golden eyes and erect ears, her fur melding into a curly red gold mane around her head and shoulders.

"Look what I found, Yilla. Now can you guess where I found her? Down in the market chamber consorting with urchins and vagabonds!"

"Oh Miranda, how could you?"

Miranda was wearing a familiar stubborn expression on her ten-year-old face, brows drawing together above her dark brown eyes. "I didn't do anything wrong. I was talking to some people because I enjoy talking to them."

"Who were you talking to?" Yilla asked in exasperation. "Oh, we mustn't argue here. Come along to my apartments." She whirled and lead the way to the passage leading into the rock face and through to her rooms. The others followed.

"I was talking to Jano," Miranda explained. "He was teaching me how to pick pockets."

"What?!" Her jaw dropped and she turned to glare at her sister. "Who is Jano?"

"He's a thief. He makes his living by cutting purses and stealing from market stalls. I met him in the market."

"What were you doing in the Market? You're not allowed to go wandering off by yourself Miranda!"

"But I wasn't by myself. I wasn't alone because Hanse was with me."

Yilla and Girde both turned their frowns on the big bodyguard. "Why did you take her down there?" Yilla demanded of him. "What in the world were you doing?" 

Hanse blinked and straightened up, sensing that he was in trouble. "Your sister ordered me to accompany her, Ma'am."

"Half sister," Miranda contributed.

"What? You put her in danger!"

Girde growled deep in her throat. "A week's double shift kitchen duty. You're confined to barracks, Soldier."

"Aw Sis..."

"Yes Sir!" Girde screamed up at him.

"Yessir," her brother agreed with a woebegone expression. 

"Report to the kitchens. Go!" 

The big dog-soldier nodded and  came to attention, saluting. He turned and lumbered away down the passageway.

"That's not fair," Miranda said. "He was only..."

"Shut up!" Yilla snapped. "That's quite enough. One more word and I'll have your bottom quite soundly smacked. You're confined to your quarters for a week too, and when I say that you'll stay there, I mean that you will stay there, or it will go very much the worse for you, young lady. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes Yilla." 

"Fia, escort Princess Miranda to her room." 

"Yes'm," said Fia with a bobbed curtsy, keeping her eyes downcast and meek.

Miranda bowed formally to the Yilla and Girde, expression sulky. She turned to stride off down the corridor, Yilla's mid trotting dutifully along behind.

"That girl!" Yilla exclaimed. "She'll be the death of me. Pickpockets! What next?" She sighed and shook her head. "But this is no way treat an old friend. I'm sorry Lady Girde."

"Oh that's OK. My fool of a brother messing up again. I thought a ceremonial guard job would be in the scope of his wits, at least. Um, no offence, Your Highness."

"Oh bother with the titles between us, well in private, Girde. Um," she mopped her brow and sighed again. A scene in a public corridor... how utterly vexed Miranda made her feel! "Please, come to my chambers and accept some refreshments. It's been too long since we managed to catch up."

Girde smiled. She was much more beautiful than Yilla, striking. "My pleasure, Ma'am."

She smiled in return and bowed slightly, turning once more to usher the canine Lady towards her apartments.

~*~

A light was blinking, Krii'ik had responded to his message and was waiting to speak to him. David smiled as he touched the console to make the connection.

Krii'ik appeared on the screen. In appearance the alien was like some kind of aquatic plant or animal with a long flexible looking trunk rippling with different colors, It branched into hundreds of tentacles at top and bottom. In the centre of the trunk was a slit of a mouth above it two large staring eyes. Kri'ik's speech sounded like a polyphonic chorus engaged in interstellar cat fight with atomics, but the screen translated it as a high pitched female voice.

"Hello David, It has been a long time since I have spoken to you. You are busy with the Planetside visit, aren't you? When is the winner going to be chosen?"

"Yes Krii'ik. I'm sorry. The winner will be chosen today. Everyone's very excited over here."

"My race does not visit Planetside because the conditions are unsuitable. It would be very unpleasant. We would need to wear special environmental protection suits."

David laughed. "Yes, I suppose the inhabitants would find you rather unsettling. There's no-one like you on Planetside."

"No, there isn't, is there? You're very lucky to have this chance, although the cost is very high. I'm afraid to die, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I guess so. Of course I'm only one of the Fifty, there's no guarantee that I'll win." 

"Oh no, of course. But how many of your race entered? Over ten thousand! You are extremely lucky to have gotten so far. It is a tribute to your academic achievement and your physical and mental fitness. The screening tests you've been through are very stringent. We've been watching the process with much interest over on this side." 

"Uh, thanks, Krii'ik.Um, have you been keeping up on the latest development with the Prophet?"

"Oh yes, that is my favourite study. Have you viewed the latest events? Another tribe has joined the Asamarit Clan."

"Really? No, I haven't had time to look at them." Below, on Planetside a billion microscopic cameras spied on everything that occurred. "Has the prophet spoken of any further revelations?"

"No, Prophet Tommah has come out of his cave for the celebrations. Clan Leader Selah insisted that he must be present."

"Politics, eh? The Prophet won't have liked that. How did he take it?"

"Surprisingly well for such a volatile man. The Asamarits are now one of the largest Clan on the swamplands face of Planetside, and there is much talk of a possible alliance with the Timah Clan which would make them even more influential."

"Right!" David blinked several times as he absorbed this news. "And this is all down to the Prophet's religious message?"

"I think so. Some of the other observers over here are excited about an analysis which attributes it more to economic and  strategic forces, however. What do  you think, David?"

"Whoah... That's a big question Krii'ik. I'd like to see the economic and military analysis before I tried to make a definite call, but... Well there's never been a religious movement like the Prophet's among the canines before, has there?" 

"No. Canine religions have always leaned strongly towards polytheistic and animistic traditions, while the Prophet's revelations have been completely different - Monotheistic, paternalistic... And you believe that monotheist religions foster scientific and technological development?"

David leaned back in his chair and nodded, sighing. "Yes, eventually. But this religion is still in its infancy, in the revelation and conversion phase. The Prophet has been remarkably successful so far, due mostly to the sociological factors we've discussed before - Canine dissatisfaction with human dominance and the society's willingness to accept a male dominant, warrior ethos."

"How passionate you humans are with your religions and your gender dominance, David. So you don't accept the economic and strategic theory?"

"Oh I wouldn't say that, Krii'ik. It makes a lot of sense. Social factors and strategic factors - that just means that the Canines aren't happy being the second power on Planetside and need to link together to challenge the humans. Lack of unity has always been their problem, after all. It's likely that their leaders realize this just as well as we do. You should look for that."

"I will."

"Send me the economic analysis, OK? I'll look over it. If there are economic motives for a canine religious crusade then that strengthens our argument rather than weakening it."

"Alright, I'll do that. Um... Are you still intending to try to meet the Prophet, if you win?"

"Oh, yes. Canine religions have been the work of my life, Krii'ik. I'd love to meet him and discuss his plans and ideas with him."

"Do you think that they'll accept you, a human?"

"Well... I don't know. There have been winners who've been accepted among the canines before..." And others who have died, slowly, painfully, from violence and sickness and accident. He had watched them die, face after face twisted in pain and wondered if it would happen to him. "But Planetside is a very violent, unpredictable place." He shrugged.

"Yes, it is, David. I am glad that it is you who must face this choice and not me."

"Thanks Krii'ik"

"I will send that analysis to you."

"Thanks."

After Krii'ik disconnected he spent a long time staring at the screen. He heard Wilfred come out of the bedroom behind him. "Hey, breakfast. You didn't make me any?"

He looked up and smiled at his lover. "Good morning, sleepyhead. Just go tell the synthesiser what you want like you do every morning."

"Oh right, you expect me to work on a day like this. How are you feeling." He came over to the table and David reached up to run his hand down Wilfred's arm.

"I'm OK. Everyone keeps asking me that."

"I bet. Well, what do you want to do today?"

"I don't know. I feel so tense, waiting for the announcement ceremony. Will you just stay here with me, together?"

"Together." Wilfred smiled. "I like that. I'll stay with you."

"Good."

~*~

Yilla ushered Girde to a seat and drew the drapes over the windows to keep the heat in her sitting room. Fia had returned so she set the maid to making tea on the hearth for them as she sat to talk to the soldier lady. "I don't know what's come over Miranda - consorting with thieves! She has no notion of her place. I blame myself, it is so difficult to set an example around this place."

Girde nodded. "I'm sure that you do your best, Ma'am."

"Yilla, please, when we're alone. I'm sorry your brother got into trouble, Miranda should have more sense than to give him orders like that."

"He has to know how to deal with her, Yilla. I'll talk to him about it."

"Please assure him that he will have my total support in anything that he needs to do to prevent a recurrence "

"Thank you, I will. I'm grateful to you, Ma'am, um, Yilla. It's easy for a soldier to get into trouble in a situation like that."

"Yes, I'm sure it is, but Miranda must be protected, that's his job, even if she disagrees."

"Yes, yes of course."

"And I'll speak to her, you can be sure of that. Although talking to Miranda can be like talking to a stone wall sometimes." Or like talking to Gias, she thought. She smiled at Girde, who gave a slightly grim nod in return. Of course she can't criticise her superiors, she realised. It made conversation difficult a lot of the time because there was practically nobody who was her equal in society. Why can't I have one friend that I can confide in? She shook her head to clear it of this self pitying thought. 

"Thank you." 

"That's alright, Lady Girde. I owe you a favour now so please let me know if there's anything I can do for you." 

They both looked up as the doors to the apartment were rudely pushed open and Gias entered, followed by a couple of guards who held a limp, bedraggled hissy between them. 

"Here's a gift for you," Gias announced, gesturing for the guards to drop the hissy sprawling on the floor. "You said you wanted her released so I thought she could be your responsibility. You can have her for another maid or something."

There was a gasp from Fia as she recognised the prisoner: It was her sibling Klio, filthy and dishevelled, her tunic in rags, covered in prison filth and smelling of sweat, rotting food and human waste. Klio got to her hands and knees, still blinking as if the light was too bright for her eyes.

"Good heavens, Gias!" Yilla declared. "Fia, take her away and wash her. And find her something to wear. I'll speak to both of you shortly." She got to her feet and gestured to the maid to remove her filthy sister.

Girde rose to her feet and bowed formally as well. "Your Majesty."

Fia bobbed a curtsy and then rushed forward to put her arm around Klio. "Thank you, Your Majesty, thank you, Mistress," she murmured as she assisted Klio to rise and bustled her out of the room towards the laundry.

"No, no, no need to thank me, Sister," Gias declared smugly. "Good day Centurion."

"Thank you, Gias," Yilla said dryly.

"I only require one small thing in return, sister. There's news of unrest among the canine Clans of the forest region. I plan to organise a great expedition there, an expedition of scholars, craftsmen and soldiers to explore and map the region and to demonstrate our power to these savages. I want your help in organising it."

Yilla frowned and nodded doubtfully. "Is that wise, Gias? Such an expedition will be very expensive. The guildsmen are already complaining about your extravagance."

"Stuff and nonsense! Don't worry your pretty head about the grumblings of those windbags - They'll do as they are told. Just help me with the organisation, Yilla, you're good with all that counting and stuff."

She nodded again. "Yes Gias. I suppose there could be some advantages to such an expedition..."

"Guards, leave us." Gias gestured to the guards, then turned to smile at Girde. "M'lady, my sister and I need some private time."

"No Gias, please," Yilla protested. "Please don't keep doing this, it's not right, and you want my help."

"Kings are not bound by the common perceptions of right and wrong, my dear. Lady Girde, please, leave us."

Girde bowed and gave Yilla a sympathetic look, she thought, before striding after the guards.

Gias began removing his clothes. "Now come to me, my little one..."

~*~

Fia lay in the darkness on her pallet in the little windowless maid's room. She could hear Klio crying softly so she put her arm around her sibling. "There there, it's alright. You're safe now, don't cry..."

Klio gripped her hand tightly. "I was so scared," she whispered. "I thought that they were going to kill me." 

"Things will be good now. Mistress Yilla is fair, she does not punish you unless you deserve it." 

"I was just so scared," Klio whispered. "I didn't know what it said. The writing." 

Fia patted her arm and lent her head against her sibling's shoulder. "Forget about it," she advised quietly. "Just forget about it. It's over now. Just keep your head down and do your job. Forget about it."

"Alright," she whispered. "Thanks Fia."  They lay in silence for a while, then she said, "I can't sleep."

Fia nodded her head resting against her sibling's shoulder. She was so glad that she'd gotten Klio back. "I'll tell you a story," she whispered. "Long ago and far away across the plains and over the mountains there was a princess in the hidden free city of Shambala where all of the people have wings..."

~*~

White. Clean white lights illuminated the white auditorium on Darwin Station. The judges and officials wore the pristine white robes of Science while the fifty candidates wore uniform white jumpsuits. Crowds of researches and spectators filled the vast hall and thousands more watched in real time over the net. The Planetside Mission was for this generation was just beginning but already it was the biggest social event anyone could remember and the cables buzzed with gossip, speculation about the Fifty and betting on who would be chosen and why. A slim younger woman approached David as he stood with Wilfred, waiting for the ceremony to begin.

"Hello? You're David Shelby, right? I'm Anna Ming-Mathews."

"Hello," he replied, smiling a little, but also slightly put off by her approach, assuming that she was another fan or groupie. "This is my partner Wilfred," he said, nodding, giving the woman a pointed look and, silently rebuking her for excluding him. It was rude, and Wilfred hated being ignored in that way. It had been very hard to balance the stress of a relationship with the pressure of fame in being chosen as one of the Fifty.

"Charmed," Wilfred said dryly. 

"Oh, uh, hi. Um, look, sorry to bother you tonight and everything, but Krii'ik said that I should give you this." She held out a data card.

David blinked twice. Oh. "Um, oh, OK. I'm sorry. You know Krii'ik then?"

"Oh yes, he sends me email," she replied with a timid smile. "He said that you wanted to see my economic analysis?"

Some more blinks while Wilfred sniggered into his drink. "Um, oh, it's your economic analysis? I thought one of the Q'tok wrote it." He placed her now, she'd given a talk at some seminar. "I, um, we've met, haven't we? At the seminar on slavery as a social institution? You gave a paper on the economics of the slave trade. Hey, it was really good, if a bit over my head. I come from more of a psychohistorical background."

She smiled and nodded and he took the data card and played with it in his hands. "Um, yeah, that's right. I wrote this analysis, um, it's not ready for publication yet, so don't reference it yet, OK? I sent a copy to Ki'iik and she sent it to all her friends. That's how Krii'ik got hold of it, it's kind of embarrassing. There's all kinds of typos in it at the moment."

David nodded and smiled. "Yeah, I know what you mean..." A gong sounded to mark the commencement of the ceremony.

"Would all of the Fifty and their partners please take their places on the stage."

"Sorry, we've got to go..." They quickly made their apologies and their way to their appointed seats. The First Lord of the Academy of Science was traditionally the person who made the announcement of the winner. The current incumbent was Una Sagan, the dignified and ancient sage who had written the historical account of the decline and fall of the Hermaphrodite Kingdom. David felt his pulse beat quicker as the elderly and venerated lady mad her way to the podium. He squeezed Wilfred's hand, glad that his lover could be with him for this tense moment, even if he knew, cynically, that it was all arranged that way for the benefit of the cameras - more tears and emotion to capture for posterity from the winners and the losers both that way.

"It is traditional," the First Lord intoned. "On this occasion to make a long winded speech about Darwin's Purpose and the role that this competition plays in the Perfection of Mankind," she nodded. "And indeed it's a worthy topic. I could muse at great length on the way that a single sacrifice rejuvenates our dedication to our studies once in each generation. I could philosophise about how the experiment changes the experimenter, and how the experimenter changes what he observes. I could even say how much I wish that I was eligible to go on this mission to the remarkable, remarkable planet that we orbit. But I won't."

Polite laughter.

"I know how long people have been waiting for this moment. I know how important it is to every soul on this station, and what an obsession it will become for all of us in the days and weeks to come. Therefore I propose to cut right to the chase and announce that after the most intense and careful scrutiny and the most painstaking deliberations it is my great honour as spokesperson for the Academy to announce that the winner of the 357th Planetside Discovery Mission is...."

The lights held the sage's face as she paused dramatically and everyone in the room held their breath.

"David Shelby!"

David's stomach seemed to fall through the floor and he turned to stare at the look of utter consternation on Wilfred's face, mirrored and exceeded only by the expression on his own face.

Chapter 2

A jolt rattled the descent module as it touched the first whips of Planetside's atmosphere. Darwin Station was gone, lost in the glitter of the stars above. Already the universe had been divided into halves - up and down - bisected by the horizon of the immense bulk of the planet below. It was a queasy, restrictive feeling and David wasn't sure that he liked it. Too late he remembered all the hazards that awaited him - poisonous animals and snakes, atmospheric effects such as rain, tornadoes and electrical discharges, unpredictable overflows and floods in the world's unplanned drainage systems, not to mention the threat from humans and other sentient beings. He shivered as the little craft hit another, thicker layer of air with a bump. The sky below was matted with clouds and space was beginning to turn a deep, faint, purple blue. David was about to land on Planetside.

Departure had been swift and sudden. He had been called on to make a brief, stammering speech for the cameras and then permitted short farewells with his family and his lover. Wilfrid had been stunned, and had cried in his outgoing, melodramatic way. He would be alright, David smiled slightly grimly at the thought. Wilfred was such a drama queen - he would play the grieving spouse to the hilt and find tens, or hundreds of handsome men to console him. His parent's reactions had worried him more deeply, his mother in particular seemed to be grief-stricken by the sudden wrenching loss of her only child.

But already Darwin Station was far away! The capsule's thrusters fired, pushing him deeper into his seat. The descent would top two and a half gees, coming in hard and fast to make his appointed plateful. Red and yellow flames flared across the crystal window above him. Still, he was  confident that he would survive. They hadn't lost a probe in over five hundred years and he had been subjected to every possible medical test and examination to ensure his fitness for this mission. Nothing would go wrong. The acceleration pressed him even harder into his seat as the thrusters roared. 

The had bustled him away from the ceremony and stripped him of his clothes and all the technological jewels and accessories of his culture. Watch, communicator, music maker, they all went, along with the data cube Anna Ming-Mathews had given him - he hadn't even had a chance to read it! Under the non-interference protocols of the Experiment he wasn't allowed to take advanced technology with him to Planetside. Instead he was given a suit of generic native clothes woven from synthesised plant and animal fibres common on the world below.

The descent module rattled and jounced hard, as if it had flown into a wall. The view went dark as the glass was filled with a million splattering drops of water. The tiny ship rang as if being sandblasted by a million bullets. I must be flying through a rainstorm! As if to confirm his guess the cabin was suddenly filled with light and an immense crack of sound as atmospheric electricity discharged around him. What did the natives call it? Lightening. He had never dreamed of being this close to it. The acceleration peaked and his vision began to grey slightly even as further bolts of lightening flashed and boomed all around him. What a ride!  It was both terrifying and exhilarating.

Finally they had pushed him into the tiny cabin of the descent probe, a raft scarcely bigger than a spacesuit and fastened him into the form hugging mould of the acceleration couch. The transparent cover lowered and he was encased in a metal womb or coffin, quite the largest and most delicate component of the hardy sampling probe. With a clunk and a whoosh the probe detached and fell away from the station, its graceful white arms, arches and domes becoming visible as they swiftly moved further and further out. Soon David's home shrank to a dot, then a bright point, and then it was gone, lost in the immensity while Planetside grew and began to fill his universe.

There was a moment of screaming thrusters, and then a thump, then a blessed sense of steady lightness as the noise of the thrusters fell away to nothing. He was down, he was on the ground. he tried to get up but the couch clung to him stubbornly, despite his efforts to wriggle free. Then the capsule opened, the canopy lifting permit moving, strangely scented air to enter the cabin. The couch released him, opening like a flower, allowing him to sit up.

He had landed in a clearing, surrounded by immense pillars of vegetation, trees. Well, he was in the middle of the Jungle face. "I've, ah, I've landed on Planetside," he said self consciously, speaking for the cameras. There were billions of cameras on Planetside, smaller than a pinhead they were constructed by even smaller machines and released to float in the atmosphere, to collect in the soil and settle on the skin of people and animals. Every bite of food contained tiny cameras which would pass through his digestive system unharmed. Every dwelling, every game trail, every forest tree was monitored by hundreds or thousands of the devices which would automatically focus on any event of interest - any spoken word or sentient action, any tree or sparrow that fell - and relay it to robot transmitters which beamed it up to the stationary moons where it was relayed to the Archives on Darwin Station, where it could be retrieved and viewed by any interested person. Right now, although he seemed to be alone he was seen and heard by thousands.

Moving stiffly he got to his feet and looked around. The clearing glistened with millions of raindrops. It was beautiful. Off to one side there was a wall of white and grey and purple - a thunderstorm, sailing off on the wind. Birds sang, he could see them flying among the branches of the trees. It was hot, but pleasantly so. "I'm really here. I'm really here on Planetside."

His whisper echoed through the speakers on Darwin Station, watched by everyone he knew and thousands that he'd never met, and never would now meet. His privacy was an illusion, but it was a good illusion: he had not been permitted to bring any communications device - Officially the reason for this was to prevent a thousand people second guessing him and giving him contradictory advice, preventing him from acting naturally. For all intents and purposes David was alone on Planetside, monitored no more or less than any other resident of that world. The experimenter had become part of the experiment.

He took a step off the landing craft and immediately sank knee deep in thick, foul smelling mud. David Shelby had taken his first step on Planetside.

~*~

Yilla sat straighter in her chair as the two hermaphrodite maids came back into her chambers. Her posture and manner made her wooden chair into a throne. Sometimes it was necessary to reinforce the difference between your status and theirs when you were dealing with inferiors. "Thank you," she declared coolly. "Now Klio, I am very disappointed with you. You know that reading is forbidden, and as for the Free Hissy movement, that is treason. What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I'm sorry, Ma'am."

"And?"

Klio glanced sideways at her sibling for help. "It, um, won't happen again."

"It certainly will not!" Yilla declared. She sighed and folded her arms. "I hope that this incident has foolishness of your ways and you will now be a good girl like your sister. I hope you know that it is only because she has served me well that you are not waiting your fate in the cells right now. Is that understood?"

"Yes Ma'am."

Yilla gazed at them both in silence for a long moment. "Well I hope that it is. You are my responsibility now and that means anything you do reflects on me. I will not have criminal behaviour among my slaves." She nodded, and both the girls nodded too. "Therefore if you should do anything worthy of punishment, Klio, your sister will receive exactly the same punishment you do. Exactly. You have my word on it. Do you understand?"

""Yes Ma'am."

"If you do something wrong, what will happen?"

"Fia will be, uh.. punished."

"Exactly." She nodded again. "Do you understand Fia? You must keep your sister out of trouble or you will both be punished."

"Yes Ma'am."

"Good. Then I hope that this is the last time I will need to speak to you both. Go to your room now and think about what I have said. You're dismissed."

~*~

The clearing was a swamp. Frowning, David fought his way through the muck to the trees where he climbed a bank, finding a path at the top. The other side of the bank was swampy too, huge buttressed rooted trees growing straight up out of the water. There was a roar behind him and he turned to see the landing probe rise into the air atop a growing column of steam. It streaked away into the air, vanishing into the low overcast and was gone, roar diminishing to a screaming whistle and then finally silence. He gave the departing craft a belated wave.

"Well, that's that."

He washed the mud off his legs and feet then returned to the path, sitting down to put his boots on. The boots were crude by the standard of Darwin Station. His clothes and equipment and even the bag of food that he carried had been made by the Crafts Guild on the station, people who researched and reproduced Planetside tools, clothes, arts and handicrafts indistinguishable from those available on the world below.

Smiling to himself he strode along the path, gazing about at his surroundings. There was more water than he expected, the path crossed sluggish streams and skirted ponds, zigzagging around following no particular course. I didn't expect so much water. No wonder the canines had so much success in conquering the swamp face - It must have seemed just like home. The only problem was what he couldn't see - The Sacred Mountain. The Prophet lived in a settlement near one of the most important religious sites on this face of Planetside, a gnarled granite fist that thrust up out of the surrounding jungles, wreathed in clouds. This monolith was honeycombed with caves, many containing ancient tombs and shrines. The sages on the Station had chosen a landing site nearby, but between the trees and the clouds he couldn't see the mountain anywhere. He could be walking away from it for all he knew. I guess I just keep going along this path till I find someone that I can ask. 

It seemed no time at all. He had landed at local noon but already the sun was falling swiftly towards the horizon and rays of its light slanted through the trees. Night would come swiftly at this equatorial latitude. Once the sun moved below the mountains that edged the world night would fall completely over the entire surface. There was so much to see, animals and plants, strange smells and sounds. The world was a lot bigger than he'd ever realised. I should talk, make a record of this for the cameras. "Um, the world is a much bigger place... um, when you're just watching it, when you can switch from view to view instantly, to see whatever you're interested in, then you don't realize. But when you're in it, when you're walking through it, then the size of it becomes real. Then it's a whole world..."

It was the silence that alerted him first. The birds had stopped singing, or something. David wasn't sure what it portended, but he felt that he was being watched. He turned to look uncertainly down the trail behind him, but he could see nothing. "Um, hello? Is anyone there? I come in peace..." 

Pow! Something hit him from behind. He didn't black out, but the world did go very far away and full of pain. Several bulky figures loomed over him and began arguing over his possessions. There were three of them. They pulled his boots, cursing over the knots. He moaned, but they ignored him. They were speaking some kind of canine language, a dialect. I should be able to understand this. Wife, woman... One of them wanted his boots for his woman. The others disagreed - boots were valuable, these were good boots, if a little small. They stripped him naked, still arguing over his gear. The clothes were of good quality, finely woven, a pity that they were so small, but they would make a fine gift for a woman. The craftspeople will be glad to hear that their work is appreciated.

He had to concentrate. Perhaps he could crawl away while they were arguing? The attempt earned him a powerful kick that rolled him over in the dirt and another curled him around the pain in his gut.

"Be still, or you will get worse," one of the canines growled, dragging him back to lie between them, surrounded by his gear. Human beings are valuable too, he realised. As slaves. He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream that he wasn't a chattel to be argued over and divided up as loot, but he was shivering, afraid. He didn't dare. Besides which, he instinctively understood that screaming anything would just earn him more kicks and he was already hurting enough. How quickly we learn the habits of a slave.

Listening to them he caught their names. Tezik, Kerr... Zarro was the third. They don't care that I know their names because nobody is going to punish them for attacking me.

Finally they finished and two of them dragged him to his feet, pushing him ahead of them down the path. They had long strides and he had to trot to keep ahead of them but he didn't want them to hit him any more. It was undignified, running naked ahead of his captors, but somewhere along the line he had lost his dignity The cameras are watching this too, he realised. A million micro cameras embedded in the dirt of the path and dusting every leaf of the surrounding trees observed their progress and forwarded the information to Darwin Station. All his family, his friends, everyone he knew watched his humiliation and would do nothing to help him - That was forbidden by the Protocols. Once he set foot on Planetside he was on his own. Now I understand what that means. 

.One of the Canines grabbed his arm and directed him off the path and into thigh deep swamp. He waded grimly through the muck and one of them grabbed his arm and held him roughly. Afraid I'm going to run away? It was a bitterly ironic thought, that he might be able to run through this slime. 

The sun vanished, the daylight ending as if it had been cut by a knife. The darkness was illuminated by a small silvery disk, one of the stationary moons, high above, watching everything. Then even that disappeared and it began to rain. David was staggering and sliding down the muddy path, covered in filth when he staggered into the settlement. It was nothing more than a ring of huts built from mud and wood and reeds, lit by a couple of fires. Two of the canines grabbed David and dragged him over to one of the huts. The third man drew back the door-bolt and then they threw David inside. The door was slammed shut and bolted from the outside.

~*~

Many of the supplies could be obtained by depleting the castle's existing stores, but others she was expected to find or commission, hampered, of course, by a continual lack of funds and the mounting debts caused by Gias' extravagance. If she were king, she thought irritably, she could surely manage things better than this.

This simple list of supplies was amazing, showing the breadth and scope of the proposed expedition. Supplies, food, and rations of all kinds, of course, for all that the expedition must primarily live off the land, like any military force, which meant fishhooks, traps, bows and arrows, spears, bird nets. Oxen and carts to carry the gear. Weapons and armour for the soldiers, which necessitated the blacksmith's gear - bellows, hammer and anvils, tools and coal, flint and steel, a stock of metal rods… Then there was the leatherworker's tools for the repair of harnesses, saddles and armour. Other tradesmen would accompany the expedition as well - carpenters, coopers, butchers, a tinker, a baker… For all Yilla knew a candlestick maker as well!

She smiled and shook her head ruefully. Whatever ill you might wish on Gias you must concede that he thinks big. The expedition would be unprecedented, and expensive beyond precedent too. Yet it was not without its benefits, like all Gias' schemes it had an infuriating element of almost reasonableness at its core. It had been generations since anyone showed the flag on the jungle side of the world and the exercise could only do them good, curbing a disturbing trend of insolence towards the House that had been growing of late. It's about time we showed the world we're still a military force to be reckoned with.

A few victories and a bit of plunder would keep the troops happy. The exercise would discourage bandits and encourage trade, increasing their all important revenue from tariffs. Conquest meant saving on pay to the army. Sacking a city or two would bring funds into the treasury, and more funds would come from the tribute other tribes would pay not to be attacked. Hells, even the troops we loose are a gain, since we no longer have to feed or pay them!

She made a snort and a half-smile at the thought, but in an awful kind of way it was true - garrisoning troops was expensive, they got fat and lazy, while a campaign would trim the legions down and toughen them up, turning sleek garrison soldiers into tough, hard bitten veterans. There was the tantalising, of course impossible, yet still alluring notion that the expedition might be made to break even, might even be arranged to make a profit. It was not to be, of course, it was impossible, but, but…

Yes, it was another of those grandiose schemes typical of Gias. He tossed them off like shrugging off one of his fancy tunics, leaving them for her or someone else to manage and then going on to something else equally bizarre and impractical. Then, just when you were convinced that he'd forgotten all about it he'd be back, expecting it to be all planned and organised and then flippantly doubling the size or adding some ridiculous wrinkle that meant everything had to be done over. He's infuriating, disgusting, terrifying and irritating. Annoying, annoying beyond belief! And he was her brother. Her half brother, damn him.

Yet like so many of his other projects there that faintly lunatic core of intelligence at the heart of it all. She sighed, continuing to underline and annotate the list in front of her automatically. Some of these entries must be queried - surely they didn't need seven astrolabes?

Less defensible than the military aims, she supposed, was the scientific side of the expedition. Cartographers and geographers, certainly - good maps would be a godsend for their generals in any case. Geologists, too, arguably, might find new mines and trading opportunities. But why take astronomers, priests, fortune tellers and philosophers? Why take mathematicians and mystics and teachers? Gias insisted that the his grand expedition would lead to a revolution in the way of thinking about the world. Yilla shook her head. Who knows, come to that, who cares? But I suppose if we're going anyway they don't cost that much extra to feed.

"Yilla, what are you doing? Can I help?"

She looked up and smiled, for once, to see Miranda. "Yes Miranda, you may indeed help. Copy out this list in your best hand, neatly now, use this blank scroll. It's for Gias' expedition." Miranda could be, and often was, just as irritating as Gias, albeit in a different way, but she could read and write and those skills were not common among the residents of the House of Three Faces.

"The expedition? That is interesting because it is of interest. I wish to go on this expedition so that I may learn more about the world."

Yilla blinked and looked up askance. "Go on the expedition yourself? You most certainly will not! This is a military force into hostile territory. There will be battles. This expedition is no place for a little girl."

"But I wish to learn," Miranda protested. "You are always telling me that I must pay attention to my tutors and work hard at my studies."

"This is completely different. This is an expedition to a dangerous part of the world. It's ridiculous - I will hear no more about this."

"But Yilla, I.."

"No," Yilla broke in firmly. "I will hear no more."

Miranda, nodded, pouting, and a stubborn expression coming to her features, but she said nothing.

Yilla turned to accept a message from a hermaphrodite slave and read it. "My mother wants to see me. I'd better go, but I'll try to be back as soon as I can."

"I don't have to come, do I?" Miranda asked anxiously.

"No, no, that's quite alright." Yilla's mother Ginny didn't bother to conceal her dislike for Miranda. Rightly or wrongly she blamed Miranda's mother Priscilla for displacing her in the affections of old King Julias, and she didn't like anything or anyone to do with the old king's junior wife. "You'll copy that out for me, won't you, Miranda? Then when I return we'll go and do something fun together, alright?"

"Yes Yilla."

"Good."

~ * ~

David landed on a huddle of hermaphrodites. The floor of the hut was covered a huddle of bodies who yelped shrilly and struggled to get clear as he was thrown on top of them. The door was slammed shut and the bolt scraped back into place on the outside. It was pitch black.

Immediately the slaves began talking to one another in their own language. David could only make out one word in ten of the thick patois. I know this language! But it was no use - without the real time translators and the reference texts and computers available on Darwin Station he was lost in a sea of confusing babble.

Giving up on understanding, he cleared his throat and spoke slowly and clearly in the hermaphrodite language that he had been schooled in. "Hello. My name is David."

There was a sudden complete silence that stretched on and on. So much for communication. He sighed and stood up and began examining the hut. The floor was loosely pressed dirt - utterly filthy. Hermaphrodites moved out of his way as he approached the wall, which proved to be constructed from solid logs. The door was solid planks of hardwood, held together with wooden pegs most likely. The ceiling, however, proved to be a thick thatch. It should be possible to cut through and escape. He stood on tiptoes and began to push and dig at the thatch, trying to determine how thick and strong it was.

"I would not do that, if I were you." A voice sounded thick and soft in the darkness, speaking slowly in the common trade tongue. "I am Falah, David, and welcome to our hut. You are not one of us, are you?"

David turned to peer at where the voice was coming from but could make out no more than a faint shape in the darkness. There was a stir faint of hermaphrodite voices, talking to each other. He switched to the trade tongue and spoke. "Yes, I am David. I am of the human race, not yours. I am honoured to meet you. But tell me, is there something in the thatch which is dangerous?"

Falah laughed softly. "No, come, sit with me, David and tell me the news of the outside world. How did you come here and how were you captured? Are your friends likely to rescue you?"

"My Friends? Hah, no, not likely." His friends were back on Darwin Station, bound by the Protocols not to interfere whatever happened. Frowning uncertainly David felt his way through the darkness to the corner of the hut Falah was speaking from. The unseen hissy reached out and took his hand.

"That is unfortunate. If you break out of here the Masters will hunt you down. They are excellent hunters, tracking by scent. When it is discovered that you are gone we will all be beaten for letting you go."

"Damn, I hadn't thought of that."

"Worse still, they will cut your legs, the muscles, so that you cannot run again."

"Ugh." Cutting his Achilles tendons. He had seen that done sometimes in the pictures sent up from Planetside, done to slaves that escaped, leaving them crippled and hardly able to walk.

"So you see that breaking out of here on your own is not advisable."

"Uh… No. I guess not." He sat down and sighed, his body aching from the beating he'd received. How am I going to get out of here?

 ~*~

Yilla sat demurely in the hard chair in her mother's room and listened to Ginny's complaints, hardly paying attention as she made the correct replies automatically. They were in her mother's small chambers high up along the side of the castle. The former king's dowager women were kept in a place of luxury and security, but remote from the halls of power where Gias and his court reigned. 

"..room so high and cold and only one maid to serve me. It's not right and you should tell Gias that I deserve better."

"Yes Mother."

"And this room is so small! I don't see you suffering such hardship as I do. How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have an ungrateful child!"

"I'm sorry Mother."  In her head she was thinking over the lists of supplies for the expedition. Rope. Of course they were taking some, but was it enough? How much would they need?

"Are you listening to me, Yilla?"

"No Mother, um, I mean Yes Mother. Sorry, what was that?"

"I said that the tea I am served is of inferior quality! Can't you at least do something about that?"

Yilla smiled reassuringly and sighed. "I'll speak to the head kitchen slave, Mother. I'm sure that they give you the best tea that they have."

"They don't, you know. It's alright when you're young and close to the King, but as soon as you're old and out of favour the service goes to pieces. Nobody listens to you."

"Yes Mother."

There was a faint scratching at the door and Ginny's hissy slave looked in. "Missus, there is the Lady Livina here to see you, shall I show her in?"

"What? Why would I want to...  Oh Livina, how delightful to see you." Yilla's mother broke into a brittle, icy smile as Livina swept into the room, ignoring the maid. Ginny rose and embraced the newcomer stiffly.

"Lady Ginny, how nice."

Yilla stood and awaited her own turn to greet Livina. Protocol, endless protocol must be observed. The tiny antechamber must be rapidly filling up with hissy maids. I wonder what they do out there? She shook her head to clear it of such trivia and embraced Livina's angular form. "My Lady. So good to see you," she murmured with every trace of warmth, utterly false. She and Livina regarded each other with the all the warmth and affection of snakes.

"Lady Yilla, how nice. You are looking well. Have you been looking after that son of mine?"

Yilla forced a smile to her face at this insinuation, the back of her mind faintly amused at how red her mother was turning. Embarrassment, or rage? "Why I do my best, M'lady. But you should know, hasn't Gias been to see you, Livina? Oh dear, he can be such a forgetful man at times, I'm sure he means no coldness or rebuke by it." She felt some satisfaction to see this wipe the false smile from Livina's features for a second. That bolt had struck home.

"But Gias is far to busy to bother with us dry old sticks, dear Lady Yilla. He is the ruler of this House and a very busy man."

"My daughter takes time to come and see me," Ginny broke in eagerly, keen to score points against her rival.

"Yes, I see. You are blessed with a singularly loving and affectionate child." Her black eyes glared narrowly at Yilla as she spoke with venomous emphasis.

Yilla let her own eyes half close as she digested the hidden reference to her affair with Gias. His affair with me - His forcing himself upon me, dammit! She rose to her feet and forced a smile to her face, reluctant to cede the ground to Livina but aware that she had nothing to gain in this battle. "Affectionate is as affectionate does," she murmured sweetly, apropos of nothing. Let her scan that back and forwards to find its hidden meanings because it has none! "Good day Mother, I must return to my duties now. Good day dear Lady Livina."

"Good day child," Livina replied with syrupy sweetness. "Do give all my love and affection to dear Gias. Do tell him how sadly he is missed by his family."

Yilla just smiled and nodded formally, noting clinically the way her mother was quite unable to talk, her jaw clenched and her expression furious, but Ginny had always been barely to play the game of courtly insult and rivalry, a serious shortcoming in the House of Three Faces. "Of course, M'lady. Perhaps one day he will come and come and see you himself. Good day." She turned and swept out, skirts billowing around her legs, picking up her small entourage of maids as she moved wordlessly through the antechamber.

David was bent over, knee deep in mud, planting grass seedlings in the flooded paddy. A line of hissy slaves worked beside him, watched over by a single bored canine overseer. The air was hot and humid, the sky a brassy, battleship grey, a wall of forest and a thick haze obscuring the horizon.

"Where is the Holy Mountain, Falah?" he asked softly in the hissy language. The guards did not seem to mind them talking as long as it was not loud and did not interfere with the work.

"We live close by the mountain, it is over behind the village. You can rarely see it in this season."

By the light of day Falah had turned out to be an ageing, wrinkled figure, stooped from a lifetime of toil. Falah seemed to be a friend, or at least, to be curious about him, the rest of them ignored him, perhaps fearful, perhaps uninterested. He couldn't tell.  The hissies were an ambiguous, enigmatic race. To David they seemed slim and delicate, childlike, feminine, but to a woman, perhaps they would seem boyish, puckish. You never know where you are with them. They wore filthy, ragged grey shifts, or tunics, belted loosely about the middle with a rag or a length of rope. Of necessity David wore one too.

"What have you heard about the Prophet?"

"Nothing, David. The masters do not discuss religious matters with us. Where do you come from?"

"I come from a place in the sky called Darwin.. um, Darwin Settlement. It is one of the lights in the sky at night."

"Ah. I have heard tales of such visitors, although, I mean you no disrespect, most are said to have wings."

"Well... I guess that's possible. I think those are another kind of visitor perhaps, although my people have some here before too. What Clan does this village belong to?"

"This village belongs to the Asamarit Clan. Why did you come here?"

"I wanted to meet the Prophet, and study his preaching and maybe tell him about the universe outside this world."

"Ah."

"Do you know if Clan Leader Selah has approved the proposed alliance with the Timah Clan?"

"An alliance with the Timah? That certainly is news. Where did you hear of this?" Falah was a most frustrating informant - endlessly chatty and interested yet her knowledge was so parochial and limited. She had never left this small village in her entire life and she knew more about tales and legends a thousand years old than she did about what might be going on no more than ten miles from here right now. Not for the first time he missed the observing power of the omnipresent eyes of Darwin Station. 

"When I was at home we had ways of seeing what was happening on the world below."

"You saw us in your dreams?"

"No, no. It's more like we had eyes, hidden eyes everywhere."

"Ah." The hissie's tone was level, conveying neither conviction or disbelief. "So you have seen me then, before we met?"

"No Falah, I never looked at this village before. There was never any cause to." Now of course Falah and the other inhabitants would be of intense interest to the scientists of Darwin Station, now that one of their own was living there. The archives would be searched backwards and forwards, every significant moment of Falah's life would be viewed and discussed. DNA patterns and family trees would be plotted and compared. Environmental and social influences would be pondered. Economic models would be developed. The history of the village would be traced back to its origins. Papers and articles would be written and discussions aired. Suddenly everything about the village was significant because of his presence, and, just when he could have used that information stream he was cut off from it. It was infuriating. 

"Ah. Why did you come here then?"

"I didn't choose to come here, Falah. I was forced to come here. I was captured while on my way to the Prophet." 

"Couldn't you have flown away again?"

"No, no, I don't think you understand. I didn't fly like a bird, I came down encased in a machine, um, a kind of, a made thing. A bit like an ox-cart or a chariot... Or a ship for sailing through the void."

"I see."

Suddenly the guard loomed near. The overseers were usually male. According to Falah the women of the tribe did most of the work, planting and tending the gardens, making pottery and cloth, gathering in the forest, cooking and cleaning and looking after children. They owned all the land and the houses which they passed down to their daughters. The men were warriors and hunters, they scorned agriculture as being beneath their dignity. Their duties were not arduous, they trained with their weapons and hunted game for food and sport. They burned and cleared the forest for the women to work when the old gardens were exhausted. They owed military service to their Clan when they were called on by their Lord. Warriors did not require wealth or possessions - They took pride in the fact that they nothing but their personal effects - clothes and jewellery, their weapons, tools and livestock. And slaves.

"You two there keep quiet and get back to work. No slacking!" The hulking canine kicked David's backside, making him stagger.

He and Falah returned to pushing the grass seedlings into the thick black muck with a renewed vigour. Behind the clouds the sun moved across the sky and began it's swift plunge towards the oddly linear horizon of Planetside.

"We'll take this one now," another canine male announced, grabbing hold of David's arm and dragging him up out of the mud. He recognised Tezik, one of his captors, the youngest, he thought. What do they want me for? He given no time to think as the canine pushed him roughly along the path towards the village. Among a small grove of fruit trees at the edge of the settlement two more canine figures appeared from the shadows and dragged him off the path. Kerr and Zarro. The other two held him firmly while Kerr punched him hard a couple of times. The world shook painfully and his ears rang.

"Where are you from?" Kerr growled. "Who sent you."

"I come from Darwin Station. I'm on a..."

Pow! Kerr hit him again. His nose started to bleed.

"You're a spy. Who sent you. Which city?"

"I don't come from a city. I come from a place up there. I don't mean you any harm. I'm not a spy!"

Kerr took a knife out of his belt and poked it into David's chest, not hard, just a prod to break the skin. It stung. "Tell the truth!"

"Ow! I am telling the truth!"

"Where are you from? You are a spy!"

"Ow! No! I'm not!"

They took turns to interrogate him, striving to show inventiveness in their crude torture, punching him, cutting lines in his chest and down his arms and legs. It hurt. Soon he was sobbing and screaming whimpering, telling them whatever they wanted to hear, begging them to stop. They didn't listen. They didn't listen even when he agreed that he was a spy, when he said they paid him to come, that he was from this city, or from that city, that he would say anything, do anything, only please, please stop hurting him. He began to realize that they didn't care what answers he gave, they were enjoying torturing him. The blood trickled down his arms and legs. It began to rain.

Finally they stopped and he slumped to the ground, shivering. It was over. Thank Darwin it was over. Then they held him down and they raped him. 

~*~

The council chamber was located high in a turret on a corner of the House of three faces. Broad windows afforded vertiginous views of the mountainscape and the land beyond which fell away at impossible angles due to the strange geography of a square planet. Even those like Yilla who had been born here were not immune from a queasy sensation looking out over such an incredible vista - the mind rebelled at the prospect, confused by conflicting reports of what was up and what was down.

She sat with the other members of Gias' High Council and tried to ignore the view. The chamber had been carved from the mountain centuries ago and furnished to intimidate and impress representatives from distant states and cities, to shock and awe them into a submissive position in trade or negotiation. The unique and terrible view afforded by the castle's position at the end of three flat worlds was at the heart of the cunning design. She drew her cloak closer about her shoulders. However impressive the oversize windows might appear they made the chamber very cold.

"The expeditionary army will consist of ten legions with a division of cavalry for support." Gias was pacing the length of the room, gesturing expansively as he outlined his vision for the expedition. "The support train will include every craft and industry in the city, as well every science and school of learning."

"But Sire, how will this be paid for?" It was Claudias, the High Chancellor that Gias had inherited from his father, a dignified old man with white hair and neatly trimmed beard, wearing the long robes of his office. There was a twitter of amazement in the chamber at his boldness in standing up to the king like this.

"That doesn't matter!" Gias snapped. "Why must I always be opposed like this? Why is everyone against me? Nobody understands my vision. I am the king and you will do as I tell you. This expedition will be a great achievement which will be remembered for a thousand years. We will teach the wild canines a lesson and put down this troublesome prophet of theirs. We will show our strength. We will be victorious! Who cares about money?"

Claudias rose shakily to his feet. "But Sire I protest. With all due respect, the royal coffers are empty. The traders already complain about the high taxes and levies to pay..."

"I don't care about the bloody traders!" Gias screamed, a shrill note coming into his voice. His face was red and sweat glistened on his forehead. Despite this he was shivering. Yilla shivered too, and shrank back into his chair. When Gias got this angry bad things happened, very bad things.

Even Claudias backed down a little bit, holding up his hands in supplication. "My liege, hear the cries of your people. There will be starvation in the lower caverns this winter if the tax burden is not lightened. You must give up this insane expedition. You must not do this thing!"

Then Claudias broke off as Gias advanced on him and lifted him bodily from the floor. "Don't tell me what to do!" the king screamed. "Don't dare tell me what I must do!" His shout mixed with Claudias' cries of alarm and the hubbub of exclamation from the spectators. Gias turned, listing the old man in his arms as he strode across the room towards the wide windows overlooking the gulf below. "Don’t tell me what to do!" he shouted one last time as he threw Claudias through the open window.

The old man's despairing wail could be heard for a moment, receding rapidly, then there was silence as the gathered nobility stared at Gias in shock. Gias stood like an animal at bay, his eyes swept the room, furious, defiant, daring anyone to tell him that he'd done wrong. Yilla shrank in her chair, making herself as small as possible. Nobody spoke.

"I am the King. Nobody can tell me what to do." Trembling with rage, his face white, Gias strode to the door, turning again to face the cowed people in the council room. "None of you understand me, none of you! Why can't one single person understand what I'm trying to achieve?" He turned and was gone, his canine bodyguard filing out after him with a clatter of armour.

Yilla got up and ran to the balcony and leant out over it, shivering, but not from the icy mountaintop wind. The desolate rocky gorge seemed thousands of feet below, from here a body would fall and hit and fall… Was Claudias' body falling even yet?

She looked up to meet Girde's golden eyes looking back at her. "He's dead," Yilla said. "He must be dead."

Girde glanced down at the drop again. "Yes, he's dead," she confirmed.

She turned to find the gathered nobility of the castle staring at her, a low murmur of chatter running throughout the room. She raised her hands for silence. "Chancellor Claudias is dead," she said, clearly and loudly. "There will be a funeral, when, when his body is found. There will be no dissent, no talk, no whispering in corners. The King will be obeyed. This meeting is at an end. Go to your homes and your postings. I will be in my chambers if you need to see me."

Lady Girde bowed deeply, and after a moment the others followed suit. She favoured Girde with a tight little smile. Stout woman, loyal. Then she swept from the room, her maids falling into place behind her. She did not look back, but headed for her apartments, obeying her own commands and trusting that the others would do the same.

Chapter 3

Yilla hurried through the darkened rooms, her hood drawn up around her face, eyes down, hoping that she might be unobserved. Gias had been with her again and she had to get to the bathing chamber to wash his sweat from her body, his sweat, him. She only wished that there was some way she could wash her mind clean of the memories, but that was not so simple.

The House of Three Faces was an ancient warren, starting out in a honeycomb of caves and passages on many levels and culminating in the keep on top of the mountain. It had been built long ago and had many architectural anomalies. Most of the times rooms opened onto adjoining rooms, there was no concept of passageways for through traffic, instead the traveller must go through the connecting doors and across all the rooms in between. Most of the rooms in the castle had multiple purposes - The Great Hall served not only as a eating and dancing and social space, but also as a servant's and guest's bedroom. The kitchen hissies slept in the kitchen where they worked, and many servants slept outside their master's room.

So it was hardly surpriing that she came across a private scene tucked away in an odd shaped little storage room just as she drew close to her destination. Her maid Fia was being accosted by a burly guard Canine, the little hissie shrinking back against the wall as the Canine leaned over her, invading her space, speaking cajolingly.

Yilla shook her head free of her cloak "Oh give it up man, can't you see she doesn't like it?" she snapped at the guard.

"Huh?" He looked up, then bowed awkwardly. He looked back at Fia, who took the chance to break free and scuttle towards Yilla. The guard reached out to grab her arm. Mine!

Yilla felt a sudden anger flare up inside. "Let her go!" she snapped coldly, stamping her foot. "Let her go, curse you, and stand up straight when I address you. Why must you men force yourself on women who don't want you?"

The Canine male straightened abruptly to attention, releasing the girl.

"This is my maid and you will not touch her without my permission. Do you understand me? Tell your mates to leave my maids alone. Be very clear on this - Do you understand? Answer me."

"Y-Yes M'lady."

"Good. Leave us."

The guard gave Fia one last confused look, cheated of what he thought of as his rightful prey, then turned and lumbered off to find someone else to play with.

Yilla turned to Fia, still angry. "Return to my chambers. I will speak to you later."

The maid bobbed a curtsy and scuttled off.

Yilla ground her teeth and put her head down and resumed her inturrupted journey. Enough is enough, she thought. Of course the men were entitled to a bit of fun with the unattached slave women, that was simply how things were, but that didn't mean they had the right to interfere with her women. Fia was a good worker, polite and dutiful and Yilla had her trained the way she liked her. She didn't want her maid being upset or bothered by some oaf of a soldier. Enough is enough, she thought as she hurried onwards. Enough is enough!