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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 13: Kondor 260
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Cooper 76
The best of the food was mostly gone according to the cooks in the cafeteria. It had been taken, and the Guards had been eating the rest, which meant that grains and tubers were going to be common elements in the diet until more food got shipped in to the University. Kondor ate the porridge uncomplainingly. He had eaten worse as an Army man, and right now he was eating as a free man.
Finishing up, he waited for Zeke. Two minutes later, the duo left the cafeteria. First they checked on the prisoners, the Guard, and the Clerk Leader. They were still secure, and unlike the coup plotters, Kondor respected his opponents enough to make sure they were solidly confined. They used the same cages in the animal area that they had used for the little green men prisoners.
“You won’t win,” the Clerk Leader said. Kondor crouched down on his heels and spoke levelly.
“Your people made so many mistakes that only the good manners of your fellow bird kind kept you from being executed the first time you pulled this stunt. But the chief mistake you made is thinking I would be a useful prisoner. I will never, ever, be your slave. Kill me first, fine. But I will never work for you. What do you have without my advanced abilities? Nothing. Even if you had not been the most clueless force of coup plotters in existence, it never mattered because you could not win. Now be grateful that the Parakeets you thought to abuse are more generous than I am. Because I’d--”
Zeke was pulling back on his arm, and Kondor saw through a haze of pink that he was reaching an arm through the cage wire, and strangling with one hand the Clerk Leader. Convulsively he released his hand, and the frightened bird hopped back out of range to the other side of the cage. Breathing thunderously, Kondor stood, and Zeke guided him away.
Once they got further away, Zeke stopped him.
“What was that? You’re usually calm, and well, you almost just murdered a prisoner.”
Kondor looked down at his trembling hands. He breathed in and out as he stood on the grass in front of a dorm.
“It's--I’m Black, Zeke.”
“Um, yeah?” Zeke came from a different timeline than his.
“Usually it doesn’t matter. I often don’t even think of it day to day. When I do it's usually in passing. And I know that pretty much everyone on my home planet has ancestors who were slaves. But my people were the most recent. And when I saw those manacles, when I realized they wanted a slave, when I realized that my would-be masters were just so dumb, it just grabbed me down deep, in a way I did not expect.”
Zeke paused. He spoke very quietly.
“I think there is more.”
“More?”
“Leah.” Zeke said, and Kondor groaned at the name of his recently dead wife. Kondor worked his fists.
“If you want to punch me, go ahead,” Zeke said softly. Kondor brushed some tears from his eyes.
“Not you, pal, but these coup plotters. They stole a legit government with trickery and just outright theft, and they’re very punchable.”
“OK.”
After a bit the two walked into town, and across part of it to get near the town hall where the radio tower was sited. The new Authorities were ‘going to make everything better soon’, but right now they needed to take all the steam cars for the needs of the State. It was a harbinger of the Glorious Future.
When they arrived and asked to use the radio tower, they were ushered into the leader’s office. Big Boy waited for them alone.
Kondor swept up his pistol, and covered the southern spy who did not move.
“What are you doing here?”
“Let’s skip past that, and go to what I can do for you now,” Big Boy replied. Kondor kept a wary eye on him. The spy was unusually muscled compared to most of the avians, and also supposedly had some sort of avian martial arts training.
“Let’s not.” Zeke said. His weapon was drawn as well. Big Boy sighed.
“OK. My nation state was worried about you ‘gods’ giving advanced tech only to this nation north of us. So I spied on you. Tried to steal a ‘laptop’; this did not end well for me as I was imprisoned. But we found out that there was no problem. You let me go free. So I helped fight aliens. But my people hear rumors so I’m sent back, and well, being a manager of a radio tower is a good gig for a spy. Before you got angry, I was just keeping eyes on things, and good thing I was. Yes, the previous ruler seems peaceful, but this new bunch, they have set their sights on all of the nations near them, including mine. Honestly, if you had not escaped in a couple days I was going to go down there and bust you out.”
“Sure,” Zeke scoffed, and Big Boy fluffed his wings slowly so as to not startle anyone with guns pointing at him.
“I believe you Zeke. You and Kondor say you don’t want war. I trust you. Trust me. Have my people done anything warlike other than try to steal information?”
“You stabbed Derek in the leg,” Kondor said, but he put his gun down, and Zeke did as well.
“How is he?”
“He’s not available right now.”
“Hmmm. Sounds like dead to me. Too bad,” Big Boy said and waited. Kondor sighed. Zeke shrugged.
“He’s useful,” Kondor said. “If he betrays us, we can shoot him in the head.”
Zeke looked over at Big Boy who nodded his beak.
“It’s part of the job. Being a spy is inherently dangerous. I accept your terms.”
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 #525: Character Battles. 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:
