Othaglot and Cane - Story Thread

[Baron Munchausen]

Well, obviously we have lots of unanswered questions. There are uses for background information, both for the world and for the characters, so I don't think it's 'dragging' yet. And we expect inter-stellar travel to take some time even with 'warp points' to save the bulk of it. But it's got to be time to start answering some of those questions soon, I hope?

[dogscoff]

Here's Chapter 22. Not sure when you can expect to see chapter 23, but you've all been waiting for this for too long.

Earlier chapters are available on this thread and on my website, although i know that the website is missing some of the more recent chapters.

I'm finding this story harder and harder to tell lately, and I'm really starting to feel that it's drifting off in the wrong direction. I'd really appreciate any feedback on this. Does anyone think there's too much emphasis on the emotional side of things lately? is it getting bogged down? Is it clear what's happening to the two main characters in terms of their development since their reunion? I find it really hard to look at it objectively, I'd really appreciate some help.

Anyway, here it is, Chapter 22.
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Cane began his tale.
�The Oxy wars took place about fifty years ago- I�m afraid I can�t translate that into the Earth or Cue Cappan Calendar.�
�Fifty-nine years on Earth, about forty Cue Cappan.� Chipped in the Navigational Officer, who had a huge store of such facts and figures available for instant retrieval.
�Thank you.� Continued Cane, now addressing myself and Loorl. �This is all long before we made contact with your Commonwealth, so I should explain a little of the background history. Ceres IV was colonised just under eighty years ago - Plenty years - at the end of the first great human expansion. It has a favourable climate, huge surface area and rich natural resources, so it was quite a prize. To this day it is the wealthiest, most heavily populated planet of any nation in the known galaxy, if you discount homeworlds.�
Everyone nodded sagely, including Loorl who had adopted the habit of bobbing his eye stalks to indicate a nod.
�With the scarcity of uninhabited nitrogen/ oxygen-atmosphere planets in the galaxy and the proliferation of oxygen breathing species looking for worlds to colonise, a planet like that was bound to cause aggravation for whoever got there first. We did, and none of the other oxygen races were happy about it. Most notably, the Sergetti claimed to have had a coloniser fleet on the way which mysteriously disappeared just before arrival.�
Several of the crew grumbled sourly at this point, and Cane chuckled at their response. He explained for the benefit of the non-humans.
�Even though the war ended half a century ago, anti-Sergetti sentiments are still strong on Earth.�
I sympathised, but did not mention the uneasy relations between the Sergetti and my own people.
�Ironically,� added Cane, �those feelings are now almost non-existent on Plenty, where we have the best reason to hate them.� The audience fell silent again, allowing Cane to continue.
�The Sallega also claimed to have rights to this system, since it is close to their space, and there were at least two other oxygen breathing species who wanted it. Now this was shortly after Earth�s first contact with these races- who were among the first non-humans we had ever met- and interstellar relations were shaky to say the least. The framework we have now for interspecies trade and politics was not in place, and in a way, this lack of understanding was one of things that delayed the inevitable war. We all knew very little about one other and no one wanted to risk conflict with an unknown opponent. As understanding and political co-operation grew, however, so did jealousy and discontentment. Twenty-five years later, when Earth colonised some oxygen moon in the Quikil system, the Segetti declared it the latest act in a greedy monopolisation of the galaxy, which had started with the unlawful colonisation of Ceres IV. A coalition of the Sergetti, Sallega, Praetorian and Piundon declared war on Earth. It was fairly evenly matched. Due our extensive colonisation, we Terrans were by far the largest power in the known galaxy, and with support from the methane-breathing Druckshoka we were able to hold them off.

Plenty, as we had optimistically named Ceres IV, had grown impressively in the three decades it had been colonised. Although its industrial and economic contribution was limited in comparison to the homeworld�s output, it was strategically important and so was equipped with impressive defensive installations and considered itself ready for any attack. However, no enemy fleet came. The Sergetti had a far more sinister offensive planned, concentrating their firepower instead on the eastern end of the Terran territories.

The Sergetti captured a human officer and then allowed her to escape in the southern portion of their empire. She stole a ship � as they had intended her to do � and made her way to the nearest human outpost, which at that time was Plenty. Unfortunately, they had introduced into her gut a specially engineered breed of Sergetti knife-worm, suspended in tiny capsules. Within hours of the escapee�s triumphant arrival, the capsules made their way into the environment and dissolved as they were designed to. The knife-worms were released and began to multiply.

Plenty has no native animal life, but it has evolved its own plants, which happen to be toxic to just about everything. Therefore humans had to either ship in all their food or set up the ecosystem necessary to grow it there. Setting up a full ecosystem takes decades, even over a small area like the islands which hold Plenty�s human population. Hydroponics and dome farms and so on are all very well, but on a fertile planet like Plenty it is far more economical and reliable in the long run to have old fashioned farms growing meat and vegetables in the context of a fully self-sustaining ecosystem.

First, then, they introduced bacteria, grasses, mosses, plankton and seaweeds from Earth which competed extremely well with the less-evolved native flora. After just five years or so, the terraformers were confident enough to introduce herbivorous insects, small plant-eating mammals and fish, and a variety of more complex plants. The animal life flourished, and soon minor predators had to be introduced to keep their numbers in check, with larger herbivores and other creatures imported and released later at the appropriate stages. Balancing all of the different parts of the complex food web, from tiny bacteria all the way up to humans, is crucially important and extremely difficult, and it is now understood that the original plan for Plenty�s ecosystem was far too ambitious- They introduced too much too soon. In thirty years they had almost a complete ecosystem installed around the inhabited islands, but and it was unstable. Every year one link or another in the food chain would be verging on extinction or explosion.

The Sergetti knew all this and their voracious knife-worms tipped the balance. They damaged everything they encountered on land or sea, multiplying more rapidly than anything could kill them and feeding at an unsustainable rate. They ate the introduced plankton and plant life, but they would also infest the digestive system of animals, including humans, knotting together to cause painful and damaging blockages. With the basic plant life under attack, the ecosystem was doomed. Once they had eaten every shred of introduced chlorophyll on the entire planet the knife-worms starved to extinction, but the damage was done. Plenty had only a month�s worth of food stored up. The Sergetti moved to block relief ships from Earth, forcing us to divert fleets away from the eastern front in an attempt to get supplies through.

With all the introduced plant life gone, people ate the starving cattle and other herbivores, and then when the herbivores were gone they ate the starving carnivores and then the starving scavengers. Then everything was gone. A few pockets of introduced life remained in unreachable parts of the ocean but effectively, there were now just the humans, the inedible native plants, dirt-and dung eating bugs and the flies which fed off the dead humans. In the end the people of Plenty were reduced to eating worms, maggots, fabrics and even � allegedly � one another.

It was horrific. Four million people � a third of the planet�s population - were dead within five months of the first knife-worm. At was at this point that a Terran and Drukshocka joint offensive seized a number of key Sergetti planets and forced the coalition to make peace. The Sergetti themselves flew in the first relief packages to Plenty, and were allowed to establish a community in the planet�s vast ocean as part of the peace treaty�s terms. Disease and malnutrition affected every single survivor to some extent, and more than a half of them were destined to die less than two months after the aid finally came.�

Everyone had stopped eating.

�My grandfather lived through it all.� said Cane, solemnly. �So did my father, but he was just a baby. My Grandmother and her three other children all died in the famine. All of my mother�s family was wiped out except for her and my uncle. My Grandfather died ten years ago on Festival�s Eve, at just eighty-eight years old. He was one of one of the Last of Plenty�s first-generation colonists, and until the day he died his cupBoards were always stocked with a half-year�s worth of food.�

Loorl looked guiltily at his plate. I noticed with some alarm that I had already emptied my wine glass. It didn�t seem to have affected me so I accepted some more.
�That is why we fast.� Concluded Cane.

The meal had a rather more solemn tone after that, although it did recover a certain amount of joviality toward the end. For once I was actually enjoying myself, my frustrations at being restricted to just conversation and eating forgotten for the time being. I was pleased that Cane seemed to be prepared to converse with me once more, although he was understandably quiet for the rest of the meal. He left the table quite soon after finishing his story, leaving me with Loorl, who for some reason seemed more tolerable than usual. I retired that night more satisfied than I had been in months, and awoke the next morning with a persistent, thumping ache in my brains.

Loorl came to find me in the morning, making loud and irritating jokes about hangovers, whatever they are. I was feeling far too uncomfortable to take much notice. He told me that Cane had persuaded him to resume my instruction in viking lore, and that he would try to be more tolerant of my intolerance. Under ordinary circumstances I would have thrown him out and told him exactly where he could tolerate his instructions, but I took the quieter option and accepted his peace gesture.

We began immediately. Loorl started in his usual style, speaking authoritatively on a subject I had already researched for myself. Within ten minutes, as usual, he had meandered away from the topic in hand to tell a tale about the time he and his friends had been drinking with the murdered human. Rather than provoke another argument, I simply allowed him to talk, listening absently to his words, and discovering that my brain-ache made it very uncomfortable to read his mind. It soon became clear that he was inventing much of this re-telling - his official accounts of his night in the container had been very complete and not consistent with what he was saying now- and I was about to dispute this fact with him when suddenly it all clicked into place. I knew he was making it all up, and he knew that I knew, but it didn�t matter. That�s what he had been trying to teach me all along. He had altered the events of the night to include a lengthy retelling of one of the old myths and I felt a pang of recognition. The myth he had woven into the story concerned the thunder god Thor. Thor�s hammer had been stolen by a giant named Thrym, and in exchange for its return the thief demanded Freya, a much desired Goddess, as his wife. Freya was unwilling to participate, so Thor himself disguised himself as a bride to retrieve his property.
I suddenly realised that the story was about me: He was drawing a parallel with my undercover mission to infiltrate the Viking clan in the guise of the murderess. From the emphasis of certain parts of the tale I also guessed that Loorl cast himself as Loki, the quick-witted half-god, half-giant trickster who accompanies Thor and explains away Thrym�s suspicions.

This story-telling that I had dismissed as childish foolery had taken on a new depth, and I listened carefully to the rest of his tale. I was at once gratified and dismayed by the ending in which Thor successfully accomplishes his mission, but then having retrieved his hammer bludgeons Thrym and his family to death with it. By the end of the story I had much to think about. His story concluded, Loorl left to find some of his new human friends. He was genuinely surprised as he exited when I thanked him for the lesson.

Alone again and lost in my thoughts, for the first time in a long time I took time to stare out at the stars. This time, the sense of peace and comfort I normally find in the void escaped me, and I felt something I do not ever remember feeling before- loneliness.

*********************

Addendum- the norse tale Loorl told is known as Thrym's Lay. If you want to read it for yourself, there are a million Versions of it available Online.Click here for one of them.

[dogscoff]

EDIT: obselete post. Thanks for your comments BM.

[ June 04, 2003, 09:52: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

[dogscoff]

Not so much a bump, more of a gentle nudge

[ June 04, 2003, 09:52: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

[dogscoff]

No new chapters to report i'm afraid, but I have just updated my website to include the Last four chapters or so, which had been missing.

Also, following the discussion on this thread from a few pages ago, I've re-ordered the story a bit to make it a little more linear. The content hasn't changed at all, just the order of certain chapters.

[dumbluck]

It's been so long since I've had time to read all the stories floating around, I'm gonna have to go back and read them all from the beginning.

[dogscoff]

hey dumbluck that should be a not a ... if I had time I'd love to sit and read all the fanfic on this forum back to back, even the stuff I've already read.

[dogscoff]

uh oh: check out "hero" rule number 68- Cane could be in trouble.

I'm pleased to say I've managed to avoid most of these plot pitfalls so far...

[dogscoff]

*Taps mic experimentally. Blows dust off it.

Uhh.. hello? Anyone still out here, or did you all wander off? Well, if there is anyone left, I've just finished a new chapter. I've finally managed to leap some of the plot-hurdles that were holding me back, and I think things will soon be good once more.

This chapter is a bit of a recap, summarising some of the plot points from earlier chapters. It also sets us up for what is to come. If anyone notices any glaring holes in the plot, please let me know, I've been inside it for far too long to look at it objectively.

Anyway, enough BS, here it is:

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Othaglot and Cane, Chapter 23. For previous chapters, click here.
=============================================
The �Bocca al Lupo� lowered itself gracefully into orbit, and from my viewport I saw the distant outline of the Worthwhile Endeavour, no doubt preparing to leave by now. It wouldn't have done my credibility as a fugitive much good to arrive on a naval starship, and so I had been given a feasible cover story and transferred to a civilian craft about week from Plenty. She was registered locally, and I couldn�t be sure whether the crew�s boisterousness was normal behaviour for Plentians or whether they were simply glad to be home.

I was interrupted by a knock on the door. It was Enyemin Cane.
�Mr Othaglot, good to see you in the flesh at Last.� He said, in that jovial way of his.
�Quite astonishing that, ah, incident on the way over. Dashed sorry to have put you through all that, but I suppose now your killer is out of the picture, so to speak.�
I had my own doubts about this, as I had discussed with Commander Lock. I made a non-commital sound.
�Anyway, the intelligence people asked me to brief you. No doubt they�re afraid to send one of their own people in case you read their minds and find out all their dirty little secrets.� He laughed heartily, but we both knew there was probably truth in his remark.
I shook the senior Cane�s hand, and took a moment to look at him more closely. Like his nephew he was a little shorter than the Earth-born humans I had met, probably as a result of Plenty�s above-average gravity. Like Captain Frasier he seemed to be somewhat rounder than the norm, but unlike the unfortunate captain he dressed almost to accentuate the shape, thus increasing his already considerable presence. He spoke loudly and, if the accent assigned to him by my translator was a reflection of his true voice, with a hint of privilege. As he came closer to me and took a seat, I noticed that his skin was indeed blue- I had dismissed this as data corruption when I had seen it in his Messages. I was sure that this wasn�t a natural colour for humans so asked him about it, eager to find conversation and with it an opportunity to study his mind.
�Oh, the skin. Well, call it a disguise. That nephew of mine tells me it�s terribly out of fashion, and that I should use my natural coloration like the youngsters do, but what he fails to realise is that I have an image to maintain. Now by homeworlder standards I�m as shocking and unruly as anyone else on this planet, but most of the locals regard me as something of a conservative- Last of the Old Colonials, they call me. To them I�m just a harmless, blustery old stuffed shirt with his foolish head full of cobwebs and overpriced brandy... oh, this probably isn�t making much sense to you, dear boy, but just take my word for it when I say that sometimes it pays to be underestimated.�
�Not in my line of work.� I replied. �In my job I have to give the impression that I�m twelve times smarter, quicker and tougher than I really am.�
His smile gave way to laughter, before turning into an altogether more serious mood. �Well then, my boy, I�m glad I�m not a detective. I certainly don�t envy you the task before you now.�
�I have extensive undercover experience, and I�ve studied the Viking culture in depth. I�ll be fine.� I asserted, noting with grim irony that I sounded twelve times less scared than I really was.
�Well, I may have some new information to help you along. Most of what we know was included in the report I sent to you in Outlier, but we�ll go over it anyway, just for the sake of being thorough.�
I appreciated this scrupulousness. I was beginning to suspect that the man beneath the fa�ade was someone I could really work with. He opened a small case and extracted an array of papers.
�We have identified your headless Viking.� he began �I have his details here, but to tell the truth they are of little interest. The important thing is that he was a trusted member of the Jormungund clan, recruited four years ago by this fellow.�
Cane showed me an image of a thin human with a large mass of hair on the lower half of his face.
�His Viking name is Tor Hammer, but he was born Jemmt Andrel Viscount. Middle class, well educated, various radical political affiliations in his teens and early adulthood. He came into a little money at a relatively young age and built himself up a small business empire- legitimately, as far as we can tell. Then, despite his success, he cashed most of it in and joined the Jormungund back on Earth, around 10 years ago. Back then it was just another gang of drinkers and brawlers- rather odd company for our entrepreneur- but he soon made his way to the top of the pile. Information is sketchy about this period because the intelligence agencies pretty much ignored the whole viking phenomenon until Mr. Hammer started making his presence felt.

He first caught intel�s attention four years ago, when they noticed that his name was turning up repeatedly in conversation with various ambassadorial types. I�ve met him myself on at least two occasions. It seems he had been using his old business connections to cultivate contacts and even recruit in political and diplomatic circles. A year after that he handed control of his clan over to his second-in-command and came out here to found the Plenty chapter. He�s been holding meetings with various alien parties for some time now, and we�re fairly sure he�s used the Jormungund to do �favours� for the Sallegan and Sergetti. Nothing necessarily illegal, but all very secretive: Information gathering, couriering and so on. There are suggestions that he may even have contacted the Piundon.�
�What do you think he�s hoping to achieve?� I asked. �If money was his only motivation it would have paid him more to stay with his business pursuits.�
�That�s the big puzzle, and we�re hoping that you will be able to answer it for us. This latest stunt- the so-called �petty theft� from the military research lab- is a definite step up in the scale of the Jormungund�s activities. We�re hoping it will give us- give you- the opportunity to uncover their agenda.�
�So you�re sure that the theft was perpetrated by the clan?�
�No. We are sure of the thief�s identity, but we�ve no solid proof that he was a Viking. We are sure that he was a known associate of Olric, your headless man. We believe they hadn�t seen one-another for a few years, and then suddenly they were spotted together several times in the weeks running up to the break-in. Both of them disappeared from view immediately afterwards. Those facts, combined with our belief that the Jormungund have been doing these �favours� are enough to make us suspect that he stole the data on their behalf.�
In my opinion there were far too many uncertainties underpinning this case, but that�s the difference between police work and intelligence work. Spies don�t have to prove their assertions before a court. They are accountable only to their own superiors. I pressed for more information.
�What sort of data was stolen?�
�It was the design for some kind of new armour, apparently. Supposed to protect warships more effectively from weapons damage, give them an advantage in combat. We assume they were stolen on some foreign government�s behalf- the Sallegans, probably, they�re always trying to keep up with us- but it�s possible they have something else in mind.�
�Something else?� I was alarmed. �You think the Vikings are planning to use the information themselves? Build warships with it?� The idea of a fully armed warship crewed by a crowd of rowdy, helmet clad drunkards like Loorl filled me with a kind of dread I had never before experienced.
�We can�t afford to rule it out. The Viking organisation has quite a bit of funding behind it, thanks largely to Mr Hammer, and to tell you the truth the only thing we�ve managed to predict with any certainty so far is that we never know what they�ll do next. In short, we wouldn�t put anything past them.�
This was an extremely unsettling notion. How could I ever hope to survive in such a chaotic culture? Cane sensed my discomfort and changed the subject.
�Anyway. As I say, the thief and his associate both disappeared after taking the plans, we assume they were in hiding together. We knew about his connection to the Viking fellow so we started watching the clan immediately, and that way we�re almost certain that neither of them had a chance to pass the stolen data to the rest of the Jormungund. However, we�ve since been able to work out Olric�s movements and he left Earth just two days after the theft, 12 hours before his friend was slashed to death. The plans weren�t found on the body.�
He made a significant face at me, no doubt checking to see that the importance of this statement had sunk in. It had.
�So Olric could have had the data, in which case it may have been taken to Outlier and then stolen by the Gla when he was beheaded.�
�Yes.�
�Alternatively, it�s possible that the thief held on to the plans. If his killer really was my suspect, then she could have taken the data. From Earth she must have gone directly to the Cue Cappan homeworld, and from there to Outlier.�
�That is another possibility.�
�Or, one of them handed the data over to some unknown party in the two days after the theft.�
�Perhaps.�
�Finally, Olric or the murderess could have passed it on, hidden it or lost it anywhere on their travels between Earth, Outlier and my homeworld.�
�Also true.� The human said, solemnly. �That�s why we�ve brought you in. We have people searching every rock between here, your homeworld and ours, but as you can imagine their chances aren�t good. For now our best chance of finding out where the designs are is by infiltrating the Viking organisation. That is your primary objective. Your secondary objective is to find out why they took them in the first place. If it was under contract from a foreign government, we want to know which one. If not, well then we definitely want to know what they�re up to.�
�What about the Cue Cappan secret service? Have they been able to give you anything?�
�Only you. They say they�re investigating their own Viking clans and the movements of your suspect between Earth and Outlier, but to be honest they don�t seem very hopeful.�
I looked into his mind, and I was fairly sure that he wasn�t holding anything back. He himself had obviously been briefed on a need-to-know basis, since it would be very hard for him to keep secrets from me. Unaware of my psychic scrutiny, he paused and pulled his face into an expression I didn�t understand. It was my turn to speak, but I didn�t know what to say. Eventually, I asked the only question I could think of.
�Where do I start?�
�We�ve identified a likely starting point for you. It�s a bar in Primavera called the Bifrost Lodge. It�s a popular spot for Vikings from the Loki clan. The man you�ll need to speak to is one of them. As well as being a part of the cult, he�s known to deal in stolen goods, and he has contacts with the Jormungund, who are all keeping their heads down following the theft. Your man�s name is Erik the Shed. Make yourself known to him, and we hope they�ll make themselves known to you.�
I bobbed my eyestalks in agreement. �And what about my identity?�
�We�ve gathered together the information we have the woman you were tracking, and to be honest there isn�t much. We know that she travelled under this false identity to get to Outlier,� he handed me some convincing Cue Cappan documents in the name of Gleesl, �and that she used the name �Sloo� aboard the Marilyn. That might be her real name.�
�If it is, it�s only part of it.� I explained. �She was joined, so her full name would be longer than just �Sloo.�
�I see.� Said Cane. �Well, following up your own investigations, your homeworld colleagues have been able to inform us that she was a member of the Hreidmar clan there. Also, it�s possible that news of her escape from Outlier and the subsequent destruction of the Marilyn will have made its way here. The Lupo was in Gamallon at the same time as you, so if anyone asks, you can claim that you wanted to make your trail as complicated as possible and took a shuttle across to the Lupo shortly after leaving Outlier. We�ve already made the necessary changes to the records, in case anyone tries to confirm it, but if they should speak to a member of the crew you could be in trouble. For that reason I recommend you stay here another 24 hours and go down to the surface tomorrow. The Lupo will be leaving orbit shortly afterwards, making it a little harder to disprove your story.�
I was comforted that they were at least trying to cover every possible angle for me.
Cane reached into his case once more, and produced a few items for me.
�Here�s a Viking helmet. You may want to wear it in to get those distinctive sore patches on your eye stalks.� They really had covered everything. �Here�s an emblem for your clan- I believe you should wear it on the helmet, seeing as you don�t have any other garments. We�ve also procured for you a cheap, market- bought translator. It�s not as sophisticated as the one you currently carry, I�m afraid, but your Frontier Order issue equipment is something of a giveaway.� He smiled, but I could tell the smile was hiding something else. I reached into his mind and touched upon was a sense of finality there, as though he were arming a soldier for a battle from which he knew there could be no return.
�There are various other items in this bag. There�s no weapon, you�ll have to get through customs fair and square, but we can direct you to a place where you can buy one. Illegally, I�m afraid, but we�ve made arrangements to ensure the local police don�t catch you at it. There�s some information about your clan in this data pack, you�ll have more than enough time to familiarise yourself with it tonight. I can keep your own belongings safe for you if you like, or I can have them forwarded to your office.�
I chose the former option and handed over my carry-pouch: It contained my only possessions for 50 light years and my entire identity. Cane stood up, gesturing with the hand that held the pouch.
�When this is all over, come and find me at the foreign office to pick this up. I�ll have a large brandy and a cigar waiting for you.�
I mumbled a thankyou and bobbed my eyes.
�Is there anything else you need?�
I could think of nothing.
�Then I�ll bid you farewell, Mr Othaglot. Farewell and good luck.�

[Baron Munchausen]

Well, I'm glad you haven't completely forgotten us. But this feels a bit rushed. Couldn't we have been in on the actual move to the other ship to prepare his background cover? And was there any mention of the other 'victim' in any previous chapter? But suddenly there he is in Cane's background story.

Also, a theft of a new military technology is hardly a 'petty' theft!