Blood Perfect: Part Thirteen

While arKhana was guarding the Heisen Manufactory, Rux and Kersten Karter paid a visit to Redrock, Paradigm's main township, to smooth things over with their CEO, Telford Telford. That was where the masterplan for Arbitration finally resolved itself. They found themselves a quiet area down in Redrock Harbour. Well below Datum, and close to the reservoirs, the atmosphere was cloying. Telford seemed to like it; she breathed it in like she had Croup or something. In terms of age, she was somewhere between Rux and Kersten - two fifths of a span, maybe a little older. They found an outdoor table at a cafe with a view out onto the shipyards, where they were the only customers. Rux laid out the three rings on the clay surface. She invited Telford to try one as a gift, without any explanation. A token of good faith for the proposed alliance. Telford chose Rhôme, as she was meant to. She slipped him round her finger and gasped, closed her eyes.

''And you,'' she said. ''I'm sure we will.''

There began negotiations for the forthcoming peace: Kersten Karter with Chime, Telford with Rhôme and Rux with Lume. Rux, an experienced receptacle, advised the others to be mindful. To avoid losing themselves in their partners. Even so, she found it difficult herself and it became as though the aliens were negotiating amongst themselves, using the knowledge of the three territories which the women had already in their minds.

It quickly became clear that all three women were not the sole arbiters for their respective cultures. They were powerful for sure; they had influence and by and large they had the deciding vote but each would need to sell the deal. Clearly they would need help.

Rux came up with it, being the most lucid of the three women at that moment in time:

''Arbitration'', she said. ''We need, somehow, to involve the Nanuki in this process. To confer power to them, without actually revealing who - what - they are.''

''Why not let the people know?'' asked Kersten.

''That might work for Temperance,'' said Rux. ''Your culture is conditioned for taking weird shit on board without batting an eyelid. Mine is likely to turn it into some kind of religious epiphany. They already think it's angel DNA that gives them the blue-eye.''

''But your family know of the Nanuki, right?''

''Currently my mother, my brother and myself know and that's it.''

''That puts you in a stronger position.''

Rux shrugs. ''There's no way round that.''

''Telford?'' asks Kersten. ''What do you say?''

''I agree with Rux. We have to keep it to ourselves. If there are other guFlecht who know then we each should include a second.''

''It's not very democratic though is it?'' Kersten Karter was uncomfortable with what they were proposing.''

''If you chose democracy now,'' said Telford, ''everyone would lose.''

Kesten pulled a face, she wasn't having it.

''We have to keep it secret,'' said Telford, ''and we have to give them control. Now. Before they take it from us.''


Guided by the Nanuki, the women found a dhôlmen huddle out by the engineers' compound serving one of the smaller boatyards. Paradigm attracted the creatures as its territories tended to be at the lower levels, mostly sub-datum, and there was always lots of mechanical things for them to wonder at. They were working on a rudimentary gravel trawler, built from second-hand parts stored in a skip. The engineers let them get on with it; they didn't want to wind up in court.

Kersten Karter sent the huddle into a panic by clouting the skip with a metal bar. She then whacked the first of them to come close to her, a look of confusion on its face, on the knee and it went down with a yelp. Telford went scooting after a second male with a parallax stick she'd bought from the cafe owner before they'd set off. It had been hung on the wall as an ornament. Its hooked end made for an excellent tripping up device.

That left them a female short. Rux picked one out of the scattering huddle and darted towards it with chain and hood at the ready. She hurled the chain at the beast's feet. The dhôlmam jinked, catching Rux's eye, sidestepped the chain and lolloped off. Rux gave chase. She pursued the dhôlmam across the compound. A large propeller, leant against the back wall of the engineering shed, had been polished so meticulously it made the pair of them seem fleeting as ghosts as their reflections passed between one blade and the next. Beyond the shed a wire fence separated the compound from the harbour wall. The dhôlmam made for the hole her huddle had gained entrance by but snagged her vest as she clambered through it. The resulting catch in the fabric distracted her and she picked at it as she ran. Catching up, Rux hesitated as the dhôlmam veered this way and that along the wharf, scared to hurl the chain in case she sent the bitch over the edge into the steaming water. Instead, she moderated her pace, matching the dhôlmam's stride but not its trajectory. This brought her almost alongside the thing, who was so caught up in its unravelling vest that it hardly noticed this tall, dark, slender, Gnostic-eyed woman looming over its shoulder. Rux let go her chain and took the hood in both hands.

''Boo,'' she said.

The dhôlmam craned its neck and squealed as Rux brought the hood to bear. Even though it lost its footing, Rux had it to ground before it fell into the water. It squirmed for a bit but Rux held it tight until it just gave up.

They took the dhôlmen out onto the water in a maintenance barge. Telford sequestered the keys from the engineers who had it in a service bay. They needed a place where they weren't going to be disturbed. Telford piloted the barge out into the harbour and scanned the inlet portals for a quiet spot. She took them towards shore north-east of their position, where one of the cardinal bays looked to have been cordoned off. The guards let them past when she texted them her security code. No one was scheduled to work the tunnel that day. The vessel was designed to fit snugly into the tunnel mouth, where it could seal the inlet and dispatch smaller subs from its belly. The guards would have no access to them once the barge was locked in.

The dhôlmen were herded into a white-painted machine shop. The space was organised around a trio of pneumatic lathes, set in a triangle around a central compressor. From this, three thick, neoprene belts looped off a triple-faceted spindle, attached at the lower end of their orbits to the drill and grinding shafts. The toolposts were hung above three multi-layered workstations which could house either droids or humans. Each station was enclosed on three sides with chainmail curtains hung with different sized and shaped drill-bits and other assorted field-manipulators. Across an aisle wide enough to allow two automated trolleys to comfortably pass each other, loaded potentially with sheets of six-by-four liquiglass cladding, going in opposite directions, the outer shell of the pentagonal room was dedicated, like a shrine, to what Paradigm worshipped above all else - parts and materials. The walls were divided up into bays holding everything a sewerage maintenance operative might conceivably need: rivets, nanosteel plate, copper wire, elbows, switches, manifolds, sump housings.

The dhôlmen thought they'd been brought here to work. Rux's, Dhôlmam Circe, made straight for one of the workstations and sat herself down at the bench. She examined the various drill-bits, deciding what to use while she waited for her colleagues to bring her materials to fashion. Although the distraction made the task at hand easier, it hadn't been planned that way. The three women, under the guidance of the three Nanuki, had been improvising since they first met up that morning. However, the more things came in threes, the more the women, and Rux in particular, with her religious upbringing, saw the unfolding series of events as increasingly auspicious. This sense of the numinous, however, quickly dissipated once the serious business got started and free will came into play.

The prevailing view of the dhôlmen species was that they were sensual by nature. They liked to be tickled and stroked and they were good at building things that had no particular function but seemed, nevertheless, to create for themselves a place somehow, after the fact. For them, it seemed, it was the act of building itself which was the most important thing, with the finished product being almost irrelevant. For this reason they were often seen as aimless and lazy; bestial. Neither Rux or the other two women had had cause to think of the dhôlmen in any other way.

But sometimes, especially when you spent any amount of time with them, it became possible to imagine that they had a level of self-awareness that belied their lack of sophistication. The women felt this as their three proceeded with the work they'd allocated themselves. Telford's dhôlmun, for example, Dhôlmun Pietre, would scratch his ear every time he placed a part on Dhôlmam Circe's workbench, as if the act were part of some bigger whole. Dhôlmun Sûn, on the other hand, would place his piece down with relish, as if laying out fish on a silver platter but Kersten was convinced she could detect a sense of irony in the way he did so.

And if you saw them from within the set-up they had defined for themselves, it was clear that they weren't lazy at all; they loved to work and they were naturally adept at what they chose to do. The only thing holding them back, it seemed, was the lack of an end game.

More tellingly, under the Nanuki's influence, the women began to understand what the dhôlmen were saying to each other and, although the dhôlmen could sense the presence of the Nanuki, they weren't aware of the interpretive faculty imbued by them. Rux felt a bit guilty listening in on them like this but she, like Kersten and Telford, couldn't help herself. When their little clicks and slurps finally settled in the women's minds as a language they could understand, it gave them pause and they had some difficulty moving ahead with the next phase. They pretended to be distracted by something to do with the compressor feeder pipes.

''Sûn, help Pietre with that plating.''

''Of course Your Highness.''

''And look sharp about it, if the hybrids think we're shirking they'll tether us to the bargeboards.''

''Don't talk dooligong,'' said Pietre. ''They haven't brought us here to make totems.''

''So enlighten us, Dhôlmun Know-it-all, why else would the hybrids bring us? And why bring us here, to a workshop built just to our specification? They're clearly aware who we are.''

''And who is that, my love?'' asked Dhôlmun Sûn.

''Why the greatest totem-builders in the quadrant!'' said Circe proudly. ''Everybody knows who we are.'' The dhôlmam attached a Hookanchisel to the toolpost above it, drawing it down to bench level. She searched the housing for the on-switch.

Sûn looked dubious: ''But my love, even the Ghandles, who are our greatest advocates, maintain that the Frûndst sisters' totems sing by far the most beautiful poetry of the whole mountain, and powerful enough even to open the closed ways.''

''Come come, Dhôlmun Sûn, you know as well as I that the Ghandles only have their own interests in mind when they make this type of utterance. They know only too well that by falsely promoting the Frûndsts it will put our noses out of joint and compel us to raise our game even further. It's all a question of psychology; purely a matter of confidence. They want us to be the openers of the ways. Now put to one side this debilitating self-doubt and get to work because I tell you we've had the call and if we can make a totem that sings with just the correct amount of resonance the hybrids will want fucky-fucky with us, of that you can be certain.''

''Pish,'' interjected Pietre, placing a bolt, thick as a finger, onto the workbench. ''There's no evidence to suggest the hybrids have the first idea what to do with a totem, let alone that they will ever want fucky-fucky with us. You're really such a snob.''

''Snob, Dhôlmun Pietre?''

''Admit it! You just want to say you've had fucky-fucky with a hybrid because you think it'll elevate you in the eyes of your peers.''

''But Pietre, we truly are blessed to be in the presence of the Nanuki themselves! If they have joined with the paltry humans it's only because there was nothing better to hand. Can't you see that's why we're here?''

''Pah! Nothing good has ever come from the Nanuki. The Hive isn't going to return. We're left with these three piddlers to service our entire population? To be sure, our Gods posess by far the least amount of compassion for their client-species in the whole of the multiverse so far as I can tell.''

''Hush Pietre. We have to assume they're listening in.''

''Then let us ask them direct!'' Pietre strode across the space to where the humans were huddled. Rux, who had half turned to greet him, finished the motion. Pietre appealed to the hand which wore the ring, lowering its voice to a tone of vague menace: ''What exactly is it you want from us Nanuk Lume?''

There was a bit of a pause before Lume, through Rux, said: ''To fulfil your destiny.''

All of a sudden the lathe sprang into life. The Hookanchisel opened its maw and began a cycle, rotating faster and faster. Dhôlmam Circe, taken by surprise, let out a small shriek. She grabbed the handle with one hand and attempted to take the nanosteel sheet Sûn had placed on the bench a few moments before in the other. She came perilously close to losing a finger. There was some contact between the metal and the Hookanchisel which sent a powerful, resonating vibration through the nanosteel. Circe's head began to shake as if in sympathy with the vibrations. It tried to make a cut in the metal but it just slid about around the bench. The other two dhôlmen danced around the bench, unsure of what to do. They tentatively put out their hands to stop the metal sheet, which had begun to spin in time with the Hookanchisel embedded in it but they daren't get too close.

The humans were horrified and mesmerised all at once and seemed equally unable to do anything. Telford, the most practical of the three, came to her senses first and cut the connection between the lathe and the compressor by hitting it with a claw-hammer.

The Hookanchisel and metal sheet continued rotating but they had slowed somewhat, and everyone watched on as the lathe, bench and metal sheet came to rest. Acting on instructions from Lume, Rux took the ring from her finger and walked cautiously towards Circe, who seemed somewhat distracted, though relieved that the worst appeared to be over.

''Now you've done it,'' said Dhôlmun Sûn, wryly.

Rux spoke, via Lume, in a series of clicks and whispers and Dhôlmam Circe got down from the workbench, her head tilted slightly as she listened to Rux speak.

''Yes,'' said Circe. ''Thy will be done.''

Circe stepped away from the workbench and Rux moved towards her, offering the ring.

''Come,'' said Rux, ''Let us teach you Love.'' She moved towards Circe and Circe didn't run. The dhôlmam accepted the ring onto her middle finger as a duty to be performed. She gasped. Her body, once an open book, perused, mouthwatering, became instantly a rumpled, shabby thing, second-hand and there for the taking like a dog-eared magazine.

Rux, seeing on Circe's face what was going through her mind, offered the dhôlmam her jacket. Circe grabbed it but it did little to alleviate her sense of shame.

''My Godh,'' said Circe, as she fell. ''What have I done?''

Flick wipes Dhôlmun Finister's semen from her forehead with the hem of her dress. She still remembers that day as if it happened just a week ago.