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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 10: Kondor 259
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Cooper 75
The two versers followed the swordbirds to an empty dormitory floor. Due to the alien invasion most of the dorms were still empty, so a larger than normal floor supervisor’s room was appropriated as a hidden base by the insurgents. Once hidden, Kondor and Zeke were given food and drink and weapons. The swordbirds, minus those who had been killed in the war, were all there, ruffled up feathers, stalking about, and Kondor realized he needed to calm them down. Fourteen Parakeets and two full sized adult Human males was too many for birds to be almost bouncing from the walls.
“Sit or stand, everyone,” he ordered, and after a second, during which the birds realized that yes, this was their commander, and yes, they would obey, they all did so. “Good. Zeke and I thank you for coming to rescue us. We were on our way out anyway, but it’s very good to know you have our backs.”
“Amen,” Zeke said. Kondor twisted his lips just a touch. It was a religious sentiment of which he was not wholly fond, but then again, the meaning was close enough to what he felt, which was appreciative approval, to let it slide.
“I need information.”
The warfare professor began to chirp. “You and Zeke were taken prisoner last night. Late. They moved in with thirty birds, and had ten from the University join them. It is now morning of the next day. They still have ten birds here. Led by Clerk Leader. They tell the University that, one, Nothing will change; two, We had better turn in our weapons; three, No funny business; four, We’re all going to be fabulously rich in the new world order; five, Suspicious behavior can be punished out of hand; six, Go back to class, nothing has changed; and seven, Obey the Guard.”
Everyone laughed in their own way at this warfare professor’s dry description of the incoherent new statements and rules by the coup plotters.
“Us two?” Zeke asked.
“Cho and the minor godling will be working night and day to produce new wonders, most specifically, new spaceships for the State in your lab.”
Kondor raised an eyebrow. Earlier, there had been some push for him to work on more spaceships, and maybe the same people then had been behind this now. It had been a bad idea then, as flying saucers were too hard to build, and were not going to replace railroads in this decade or the next. They did not have the tools to build the tools to build the tools. They did not have the rare materials needed. And while there were enough bits and pieces of spaceships to put together a few, you could not run a modern or even eighteenth century level civilization on five flying saucers.
His eyes narrowed. Perhaps the people in charge were smart enough to realize that. He was not sure whether they were or not, but if they were, they might be planning on him making them fancy chariots for the Top 5, and leaving the rest of birdkind to struggle along with carts in wagonruts in the mud. He would not put it past them.
“I don’t even get a name, I’m just a ‘minor godling’.” Zeke complained loudly and the swordbirds chirped in amusement. One of them spoke lightly, the psi link translating.
“We are ‘religious extremists’. They warned everyone to be wary of religious extremists, like the former ruler, who worshipped the gods, and had associated closely with them in the last war that the gods had provoked.”
Kondor snarled. To his knowledge, the former ruler had shown almost no interest in them other than a benign neglect, and had certainly not worshipped the Humans. Now the coup plotters were making his friends out to be religious nuts, and he was supposed to have started the alien invasion. Let them have their way, and in a few generations, the name Kondor would be another name for whatever the local version of the Devil was. Kondor, being an atheist in good standing, did not believe in such a being, but he had no desire to be mistaken for him either. These coup plotters were driving him from cold fury to true, deep annoyance. They wished to add insult to injury.
“There are no gods,” Kondor declared before adding, “We Humans are not gods.”
It was a largely godless world so the first statement did not run into much disapproval, although Kondor knew Zeke was frowning, but everyone agreed to the second. Then to their surprise they heard Kondor add, “But if they want me to be a god, I might just be a god of vengeance. Let’s round up the Guard on the University, and imprison them. We can use the radio tower in the nearby town to speak to the area about what is going on. I don’t think the coup plotters genuinely understand the abilities of modern communications. We should give them a lesson.”
Within thirty minutes, all of the ‘Guard’ was tied up in the cafeteria. Some were being tended by doctors for slash wounds, and one had a broken wing, but the swordbirds and Kondor and Zeke had come up on them by surprise with boldness. The guard at their door was the last one taken, and he was still unaware that he was guarding an empty room when they came to capture him.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #524: Twisting Worlds. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
