Far Side Two
Copyright© 2025 by Gina Marie Wylie
Chapter 5
I
A little later the same day, Andie and Kris sat down with King Collum and his trusted advisor, Melek, who had met them when they first arrived on Arvala. They exchanged greetings, and then Andie turned to the meat of the matter. “I have news that will horrify you, disgust you, and may strain our friendship.
“King, a dralha attacked two of my people the day before yesterday afternoon. One was seriously injured, one much less so. The dralha escaped...” and she launched into the tale, ending with Erica reporting she had become telepathic.
Collum scratched his chin. “And what has she learned ... I feel that you have left this out of the story.”
“The woman is a friend of Kris, and they shared quarters for several months. Kris trusts her, and I listened with a minimum of skepticism. First, she linked Ragnar with Mardan and Seros with the dralha. King, those men are susceptible to dralha manipulation of their minds. They have no free will -- they do things at the direction of the dralha. They use their minds to assist the dralha in their plans. King, the slavery the Tengri impose is physically coercive. A slave can make up their mind if they are going to resist or cooperate, and if they cooperate, the extent of that cooperation. Inside their heads, they are free to make their own choices.
“The dralha ‘enthrall’ a mind. Not even your most basic possession -- a person’s sense of self -- is free. The woman learned that in three days’ time, the dralha have commanded their ‘little cousins’ -- the dralka -- to attack the Tengri base on the island. I am not as quick on the trigger as Kris...”
Collum chuckled. “I’ve seen her in action; there can be none faster.”
“Yes, King. But I went to our radio room and called the leader of the Tengri on the island and warned him of the attack. We have a saying at home that ‘two wrongs don’t make a right.’ Yes, the slavery imposed by the Tengri is disgusting and should be opposed by all men and women. But the tyranny of the dralha is more terrible than the mind can understand.”
Collum rocked back, his face turning blank. Melek uttered a curse under his breath. “And you did this without consultation? What do you call ‘unilateral?’”
“Yes. King, I did it because the dralha did you a wrong that matches anything the Tengri did; I think it is worse.” Then Andie went on to explain the fate of most of the Builder refugees from long ago. “Erica thinks only about one percent of us are subject to being enthralled. They lied to the rest of the Builder survivors for a thousand years. The dralha have no hands -- they used the hands of the Builders to build their cities, to build their rookeries and then their cities. And the enthralled leaders lied to the others to get them to do the bidding of the dralha, until one day the people found out ... and revolted, trying to throw off their chains.
“Collum, your people lost. The dralha killed most of them, there are less than three thousand left ... and in the years since, most of those not enthralled have refused to have children. As I said, there are maybe three thousand left, and all enthralled. Even those enthralled rarely have more than one or two children ... I think on some level they know.”
Collum sat staring at Andie for what seemed like an eternity. “I am still not certain that I agree with warning the Tengri.”
“King, the Tengri are arrogant. There is every chance that they will laugh at the warning and do nothing. Or they will think their firestick weapons will be sufficient. Not only did I pass a warning about the dralka, but I told Glaive Trennys to inform the Emperor that I am coming for him. And in case he would be reluctant to pass the message on, I called the main Tengri radio station and sent the same message to the Emperor.
“I had planned on waiting before going to visit the B’Lugi until Captain Danei was safe. She is now in grave danger as the dralha have spotted a Tengri ship ‘due east’ of their continent. She is heading northeast as of now, rather than south as she was. She isn’t as far south as the farthest Tengri is, but she was getting close.
“The war with the Tengri starts later this week, although it will take a while to ramp up. The dralha are another problem altogether. We will have allies against the Tengri, but you know how hard it has been fighting just the dralha. Imagine a continent filled with dralha.”
“And the dralha control both Ragnar and Mardan?”
“Yes. Erica heard a list of names of the human enthralled. Most of them she didn’t recognize, but she recognized two American names. She is not familiar with Arvalan names, but Kris had told her of Mardan, Seros, and Ragnar. She recognized those names when she heard them and I’m hoping to get more information from her. I am preparing to deal with the two Americans, but our customs are ill-suited for men who aren’t their own masters.”
Melek soberly regarded Andie. “Do you think we should reward the two survivors of the dralha attack? In the past we have done so handsomely.”
“Mardan survived a dralha attack, Melek. After Erica was struck, she became a telepath, but it appears it is different in form, differing from ‘enthralling.’ The other survivor was badly injured. I know it is not your way, but even though he lost his arm, I will find employment for him. And I will richly reward him. I understand that people can die from the simplest accidents, but when you order someone into harm’s way ... that is a special burden.”
Collum reached out and touched Andie’s hand. “Crowns are very heavy burdens, friend Andie. Your crown is mostly invisible, but real enough.” He sniffed, “At least permit me to hope that the Tengri will ignore you.”
Andie smiled. “They might in the short term, but as they learned at their fort, that works until I am determined to get their attention. Then they ignore me at their mortal peril. I have no love lost for the Tengri, but at some point they will either change their ways or cease to exist. The more mercy we show them, particularly when it is really nothing to us, may be a factor in the end.”
Collum said, “I tell myself that you are not arrogant, that you are not making the same mistake as the Tengri.”
“He’s right, Andie. Don’t get cocky, kid!” Kris said.
“Linda says it more succinctly: ‘How’s your shit smelling?’” She turned from Kris to the king. “Now I have to get back to the rookery. I set the ball rolling on the attack earlier, I need to check in and see how it’s doing. King Collum, could I borrow Melek for a few days? I’ll offer him a round trip to the B’Lugi homeland. Not now, in one or two days? I’ll even throw in a trip to my home.”
Melek was eager, and Andie made arrangements for him to come to the rookery, then she and Kris returned to Earth.
Kris hugged Andie and waved in the direction of the airport. “Dad sent the Gulfstream for me. Andie, Norwich has a new power plant. When you get a minute, stop in and open a door to China Lake.”
“Can’t -- that damn lawsuit.”
“Then one to the rookery or Arvala. Both would be overkill, but one or the other. We need to move around more quickly. I’ll tell the president he should quash that lawsuit, at least for critical doors.”
“You have that kind of juice, Kris?”
“You and Linda were in your element at the Norwich Conference. Me? I got Hoshi an invite and it turns out she knows the man and introduced me to him. God knows why, but we hit it off.”
“Politicians do that, you know, or they would have to find a new line of work. It’s called charisma, and it’s not just a D and D characteristic.”
“I guess. Hoshi and I have gotten together only three times, but she still wants to get me into politics. One of the many problems I have with that is her party. She risks her career every time we get together. Damned if I know what I want to do.”
“And maybe you should get away for a few weeks, come to the rookery. You can help Linda and me plan the Tengri campaign. And take a break.”
Kris sighed. “Only you could think that planning a war is like a vacation.”
“Hah! That piker Eisenhower spent years planning an invasion of a corner of one continent! I’ve taken a couple of weeks for the same thing! Now I’m going to do another invasion, planning it on my vacation. Piece of cake!” Andie laughed and reached out and hugged Kris. “You be careful now!”
“I will.”
Linda and Andie went back to the rookery, arriving after 1630. She went straight to the headquarters, but like everyone now, she rode in a Humvee. She went to the map room and found everyone from both shifts working. “Erica, brief me on the dralha.”
Erica drew herself up. “Andie, I’m so sorry; they wouldn’t let me send you a message. Daughter is dead; mother can obscure her thoughts quite well, while daughter wasn’t nearly as disciplined. Mother had daughter ambushed by two male dralha. It’s kind of like hamstringing -- two quick slashes of talons cut the wing muscles. Mother told her daughter a long list of her mistakes ... with the largest one screwing up the attack on the larger Tengri ship ... she laughed at everything else, but four or five males would have died on the first trip out, and just now the dralha need all their males, all their soldiers. She understands that soldiers will die in the attack, but not for something daughter had planned as a distraction. Oh, and she laughed at all of those daughter had trusted with her plans ... most ratted daughter out and the ones who didn’t joined daughter feeding the nestlings.”
“The way they do it is to cripple the wings and push them off a low ledge in the dark in the hatching chamber. I don’t know how others before her fared, but the daughter didn’t die well, screaming in pain and fear trying to save herself. The mother has hundreds of other daughters.”
Andie was silent for a second, then pointed at a computer. “Sit down, write up a complete and detailed report. As graphic as possible.” She turned to Monica. “Pack for a few days. Tomorrow you and I are going to B’Lugi, with Melek. You speak passable Tengri...”
Kurt Sandusky had come in and said loudly. “Pick someone else to go in your place, Andie. Once we are sure it’s safe, yes, you can go. But not until.”
“Once before you held me back ... a few hours later, you were begging me to go in front.”
“We had them beaten, and they knew it. Although I spent the entire time you were trading shots with that warship, screaming at all and sundry about how stupid I’d been.”
“Ezra told me that the safest place to be under fire by careless marksmen is where they are aiming. My Sea Fighter escort made me swear that I would forget his name and fighting order. They got a lot closer to him than me ... but they missed him as well.”
“It will only take one steady marksman to ruin your day ... not to mention the rest of your life. What would happen to Arvala if you end up dead?”
“I’m getting tired of people always bringing that up. Hank Martindale is just running his engine up and down the line we’ve built. Hank, Melek, and Monika will go. Monica, you can bring Hank up to speed on the dralka attack on the Tengri on the island but not their ship. Ditto, Melek knows already. We’ll have a repeater at the B’Lugi door. Erica, you only talk about Danei and her ship. Leave Charles mostly out, and if you need to mention him, he’s the American representative to the B’Lugi. We’ve improved the art of the doors, and now we can go anywhere. Try as much as possible not to directly lie, and of course, you’re limited to English. Speak to Monica; I’ll be sitting next to you.”
Andie stood up. “Now, I’ve got to go down the hall and make a call back to Earth.” With that, she was gone, leaving a confused room behind her.
Linda pointed at Kurt. “Get with Hank, tell him to pack for a few days, have him at the China Lake door tomorrow; Monica, you too. Erica, I don’t know what kind of direction to give you. Keep doing what you are doing, reporting to Andie. Only Andie, not even me. If you have something urgent to tell her and she’s not available and I am, tell me that you have something important for her. Ditto the major and the Lawsons. You aren’t to tell anyone else. Let Andie decide whom to tell. As you can tell, she’s notional, but I’ve never known her instincts to be wrong, although Dale Sedgewyck gets a pass because no one on the planet believed him ... except Kris Boyle.”
II
Hank Martindale was unavailable; the 32-footer boat had broken down, and he’d gone to help fix it. Andie found he’d gone by himself, a three-mile hike to where the boat had put in along the west coast of the Finger. Andie used the radio to talk to him. “Tell me, are you going back to wishing you were dead?”
“No, Andie. I was really careful; I looked everywhere, then jogged the three miles in a half hour.”
“Hank, ol’ buddy, you been dodging the daily briefings? All of them? The dralka flew at about a thousand feet when the Arvalans used long bows. They took it up to five thousand feet when they got crossbows. Since we’ve started beating them up pretty bad with automatic weapons, they are staying up around twenty thousand feet.
“And Hank, there was a dralha attack on two of our people a few days ago. One of our guys lost his arm, and a noob survived with a bruise. They never saw it coming, and Captain Milan reported the attack a little later as the dralha was leaving.”
Hank was quiet for a moment. “By rights, those two should be dead.”
“Hank, the dralha was going for their weapons. One of those attacked was right-handed, the other a lefty. The guard was about a step behind the noob and wasn’t bitten; it was a talon rake as it was grabbing the guy’s AR-15. The noob is made of tough stuff. I saw her weapon afterwards; the dralha had grabbed it in its talon and tried to twist it away. She barely noticed, but she noticed her shots were going wide left. Ezra discovered it, and promptly made her an official not-a-noob. All she had was a bruise on her right shoulder. Kurt wanted to tell the King, and I did that.
“Now I’m off to DC to see about a real sub, not one acquired from an asset forfeiture from a drug cartel.”
III
Jon Bullman rose to greet Andie and Linda and waved them to seats on one side of the long conference table. Andie sat down and glanced casually at the party opposite her. Two suits and two officers, naval officers she was sure. Neither of the suits rose, but the officers did. Jon Bullman was at the head of the table and there was a woman in an ugly orange pantsuit at the other end. She didn’t stand either.
“Sirs and madams, this is Andie Schultz and her deputy, Linda Walsh,” Bullman said.
“Across from you, Miss Schultz, is the ambassador to the United States from Germany, Herr Dieter Jaeger, and a representative from NATO, the Honorable Simon Wilson. Admiral Gunter Schmidt, head of the German Deutsche Marine, their Navy, and Commodore Walton Fisher, the head of the submarine program. At the other end of the table is Miss Connie Carlyle, of the State Department.”
Jon Bullman remained standing. “We are here to discuss leasing a submarine and crew from the German Navy to be employed offworld, to wit, on Arvala.”
Herr Jaeger interrupted. “Why do you want a military submarine? Are you planning to use it as a military platform?”
Andie smiled at him. “Evidently, you weren’t privy to our discussions. There is an urgency here; there are several wars in progress on Arvala, and we lack the most basic intelligence about the planet. We know there is a continent nine thousand miles east of our location on Arvala, that is like a large version of Australia ... roughly rectangular in shape, about four thousand miles by six thousand. The extent of the continent the Arvalans are on is unknown, but think Europe with a Pacific Ocean south of it, but it has at least three Italys.
“We have literally, in the last few days, discovered another substantial island to Arvala’s southwest, and five hundred or more miles south. We do not know the shape or extent of the Arvalan continent, but the island is similar in size to Ireland.”
“What we do know about Arvala is that there was no dinosaur extinction event. There are a number of critters that look like small versions of the T. Rex. Also on the Arvalan continent are raptor equivalents. The biggest problem is with flying predators. The dralka are similar to pterodactyls. They stand seven to nine feet tall, with sixteen to eighteen feet wingspans. There is another species that is about twice the size, called the dralha.
“The bad news is that the dralka are about as intelligent as a human six-year-old. The really bad news is that the dralha are about as smart as we are.
“Moreover, both species flock. The larger critters have been doing a good job -- up to now -- hiding their intelligence. Now, however, the gloves are coming off.
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