"The mushrooms?"
"I've seen the Hur-rack stop and break off mushrooms from fallen trees and eat them on the march, even fight over them. I figured you found them tasty."
"Yours are adequate, no more. You have never tasted a heartroot, my David, which surpasses even your bread."
"How did you learn to speak so well?"
"We have a tradition, my David. When one asks a question needing a story to answer, the asker must then be prepared to tell a story in turn. Fair?"
Valentine nodded. "Fair."
"I was born here, my David, one of the first of my clan to be brought into this world once our people had settled. I am forty-one years old, and call this land home. The 'Gray Ones' you fight come from my parent's world, too; they are jungle dwellers-they do not write or shape metal and stone. We are the Golden Ones of hill and valley, builders of dams and bridges and makers of roads. Kur lured many of our clans and the Gray Ones' tribes to this world with promises of land and space, ours for the taking from a filthy and weak race. They gave us guns and trinkets, training and promises; we did the dying and helped win their victory. My parents despised your parents, many of whom sold their species for power and small wealth. In their opinion, you got what you deserved.
"We Golden Ones are happier as builders and planters than destroyers, and we claimed our land from Kur as soon as we could. Our clan settled around a fine stone building, once a library in this place you call Oma-Ha. My father was an overseer of our human laborers, and I heard your tongue. In my youth, I learned the English-speech and the English-script. I read many, many of your books, played your music on the electric toys, and grew in knowledge of your kind. I began to disagree with my parents, in simple rebellion at their narrow view at first, and later through conviction. A clan seer said my destiny would be with men, and so I chose as a profession trading. I was often in the house of the Big Man in Omaha, drinking his tea. I met smugglers who drove gasoline-powered off-roads. After being cheated more than once, I learned a valuable lesson: Know the man before sitting down to bargain; examine the product before making the trade. I learned that some men I could trust with my life-others were lower than dogs.
"By my thirtieth year, I sat at our Principal Elder's side during any meetings with your race, to help translate and advise. Men sometimes give themselves away when they lie. By my thirty-fifth year, I was an Elder, ten years before custom usually grants such an honor, and I looked forward to one day surpassing the achievements of my father.
"Our people had fine gardens of heartroot in the old brother buildings. Heartroot thrives on moisture and waste and little else. It is our staple. We learned to care for your animals, finding chickens tasty and easy to keep. We had a good land and busied ourselves tearing down the old and planting or putting up the new in our deep, rich soil.
"Then came the Twisted Cross, the emblem of our doom. I was optimistic when they first came; they showed us every respect. Their human 'ambassador' called for warriors to serve the new lord called the General south of the city, promising in exchange the General's protection for our lands.
"The ambassador, who had spoke fair words at first, turned foul when he learned we would not immediately give him all he demanded.
" 'We always protected our own before this day,' said the Elder. 'I suspect what you really offer is protection from the General himself. Look for your tribute of clan-flesh elsewhere.' "
Valentine tried to picture the scene, on the steps of the Grog-restored library, the Golden Ones talking amongst themselves, facing a uniformed contingent under the black-and-white swastika flag. Ahn-Kha, as he warmed to his tale, switched to the cadence of his native tongue, speaking slowly, his tone rising and falling like a ship in a heavy swell.
"After many words, sometimes hard, sometimes soft, the Principal Elder decreed that any free spirits who wished could go along.
"The General's man promised rich rewards of land after 'actions to destroy certain bands of rebels and terrorists' were completed. We Golden Ones had heard such before in the times of our parents and grandparents, and after much death and suffering were granted ruined lands near poisoned ground. Nevertheless, a number still returned south with the ambassador.
"He came again in the fall, again asking for a quota of able bodies. With fewer words and more anger, the Principal Elder turned him away, and only one or two malcontents went with him this time, rather than the dozens he had swayed before.
"Then came the third and final visit in the spring, now over three years ago. One of the malcontents who went with the ambassador on the second trip returned with him. The news they bore caused such shock that were it not for the many guns in the hands of the ambassador's men, there may have been bloodshed. Kur had named this malcontent,
Khay-Hefle (may he forever wander from hell to hell), to be our new ruler. Not Principal Elder, but ruler. Of course, this Khay-Hefle did not voice himself with brazen demand, knowing the gods would not allow his treasonous tongue to speak such words. All were shocked into silence at the ambassador's announcement, even the Principal Elder.
"A great anger came upon me, and I stepped forward and said: 'Go, all of you, or you will be killed where you stand.'
"The ambassador ignored me and spoke to the Principal Elder. The Elder quoted the agreement that deeded us this land, ruined and poisoned as it was, to us to be used and governed as we saw fit.
" 'Ah,' said the ambassador. 'It does say that, but as a Golden One would still govern, the agreement is still valid and Kur is still keeping its promise.' And many more words of deception like it.
"The Principal Elder grew angry, and his hair bristled. 'This is the second time in my life I have heard plain words twisted to mean the opposite of what they say, and both times your Masters are involved. Go back to your kennels, dogs, and never come again. Khay-Hefle and all who follow him no longer belong to our clan unless they return in seven days.' At this there was sorrow from the families of those who left in the two times before.
" 'You may try to enforce your demands and place this usurper over us, but do not think this task will be an easy matter,' said the Elder. 'You will go back with none of our warriors and less of your own.'
"I supported his brave words, and all the Elders stood silent and grim until the ambassador and his dog Khay-Hefle left. Then there was much argument, some saying that it would be better to preserve what we had built than suffer in a war that we would lose. Others said we must leave: go north at once beyond the reach of this General or Kur.
"In the end, the Elders sent away One of Ten, to travel north and then west to a range of mountains we knew of in the place you called Canada, beyond the reach of the Kur who care not for such cold. I was selected to lead the flight because of my skill in speaking to humans, but refused. I still felt the heat of my words before the Clan Hall and wished for nothing more than to see Khay-Hefle come with his new masters and try to enforce their wicked will."
Ahn-Kha paused for a moment and stared into the glowing coals of the fire kindled in the stone fireplace of the house. After their morning meal, it was still far too hot during the day to keep the fire going, so they let it die.
"For the rest, I shall be brief. We turned our gardens into trenches, or homes into forts, our halls into castles. Everyone carried a weapon at all times, and we gathered the children in the basements. I thought we stood a good chance, or at least would make such a struggle that in our destruction they would be destroyed, too, and our children would grow free of them.
"They came, and we had never encountered such soldiers. Our bullets knocked them down, but did not kill them. Even arm against arm, their strength matched ours by some demonic power, and we killed only one for each ten of us who died. They were as the Hooded Ones but they fought with the weapons and skill of men. They came with explosives, guns gushing streams of fire, and cannon mounted on tracked vehicles. The fire-guns were the worst. My people fear fire the way some of yours fear snakes or spiders, or great heights. Our end was bitter. Some comrades, and my father, as well as myself were holding a building in the garden before the Hall. They came with boxes of explosives, and when I saw this, I called for all to follow me out the secret tunnel going back to the old library. When the explosion came, it buried all behind me in the blast and rubble. I went to the Hall. A bomb or shell had gone off in the basement with the children, killing all there. I took another tunnel to the post where the Principal Elder commanded, but found nothing but bloodstains on the floor.
"I determined to avenge the Clan on Khay-Hefle, and lurked outside the ruins of our lands, waiting for a chance to kill him. But he set about ordering the lives of the survivors, surrounded by humans and a bodyguard of the Gray Ones. Imagine that illiterate rabble chewing on gum-root and watching Golden Ones toil as they scratch themselves.