Read At the Narrow Passage Online
Authors: Richard Meredith
At the Narrow Passage (3 page)
4
Kar-hinter
Around the village the land was flat, without trees, except near the river
where the ground was too marshy for plowing and the poplars and willows,
those that had survived the shelling of the bloody summer before, still
grew as they pleased, now beginning to bud in anticipation of summer.
I wondered how many of those few trees would still be standing when the
next spring came. It was not a pleasant thought.
The village itself stood not far from the Loire, a quiet, slowly winding
river that must once have given a sensation of peace and gentleness to
the now-ravaged countryside. I had been told that last spring the Loire
had turned red with the mingling of British and Imperial German blood,
and from the looks of the river's bank, craters that the winter rains
and snows had not yet obliterated, I rather suspected that it was true.
There were only two streets in the village, unpaved, crossing at right
angles, one running from the ford of the river where a bridge must have
stood at one time, though there were few traces left of it now, the other
road paralleling the river, running a few hundred yards from its bank,
back far enough to remain on solid, dry ground, curving away from the
river at times and then back closer at others. The two roads met in the
village, crossed, and then ran on their ways, leaving what had once been a
sleepy little human habitation. But the spring and the summer of the year
before had done their damage to the village, as well as to the country.
The crossroads had been the center of life of the village, when it had
had a life. A few buildings still stood, and there was enough left of
some of them to tell what they had once been: the church, Roman Catholic,
of course -- years of British protection and then occupation had never
been able to make any fundamental changes in the religious views of the
French, though they had accepted the British with good enough grace,
considering: a blacksmith shop, half-burned to the ground, though the
forge and anvil were still visible through the wreckage, and a few rusting
tools; what had once been an inn, its sign still hanging on one hook,
weather-worn and fading -- though the image of a wild boar was still
fairly recognizable, the French words that had once been written below
it were now nearly obliterated; a store of some sort, probably a general
merchandise store, I guessed; a few other buildings that had lost their
identity; and empty, broken-windowed houses.
I suppose I must have paused for longer than I should have, looking at the
ruins and speculating about their past -- a weakness of mine; I had once,
very long ago, intended to be a historian -- and it was Kearns' harsh
voice that finally made me realize that we had more urgent business to
attend to.
"Let's go," he said curtly. "Kar-hinter is waiting for us." It was the
first time that Kearns had said the name of the Krith that we were to
meet. I hadn't thought of asking before, assuming that he wouldn't know,
and also knowing that it wouldn't make a hell of a lot of difference
anyway.
Kar-hinter, I repeated the name in my mind. He was the Krithian weapons
supervisor for this Line, an old Krith who had been my chief on several
assignments before, including the one I was just completing. He wasn't
so bad to work for, even if he was a bit taciturn. I rather liked the
old beast; well, better than I liked most Kriths, at least.
Now I don't want you to get the idea that I disliked the Kriths then.
I didn't. Not at all. Nor did I particularly like them as individuals.
I admired them as a race and appreciated what they were doing, but they
were, by and large, a rather repulsive-looking bunch that I had never
really learned to like in all the years that I had been working for
them. But Kar-hinter, well, he was okay. For a Krith.
And please don't accuse me of racial prejudice or xenophobia, not until
you've heard my story, at least.
I obeyed Kearns' urgings and follow him through the village, my feet
squelching in the mud that even by the middle of the day had not dried
very much. It would take several warm, clear, sunny days for the mud
that lay over the whole of the Touraine to become solid earth again.
We passed through the center of the village and went on down the muddy
road that led out of the town and toward the now-barren landscape beyond.
Off in the distance, sheltered by two or three naked-limbed trees,
stood a house that was virtually intact, its damages nearly repaired,
the windows boarded over, smoke rising from the remains of a chimney.
"That's it. Over there," Kearns said, apparently realizing that I had
noticed the house.
"Kar-hinter's there?" I asked.
"Kar-hinter and a British general named Asbury," Kearns answered.
It was then that I saw the British staff car parked beside the house,
half-hidden by naked bushes that grew beside the house, by bare vines that
in the summer must have covered the house with leaves and clusters of
grapes. This was the wine country of France, or it was in other places
and had been here once, when France had had the time to make wine,
when foreign armies weren't ripping it apart.
By this time you may have gathered that I wasn't altogether happy with
the way I made my living. I had outgrown a lot of the misplaced idealism
that had led me into it in the first place, but then it was a living,
and the only one I knew. It was often a dirty, nasty job, but, like they
said, somebody had to do it.
Two men in British uniforms flanked the house's front door, tommy guns
held across their chests, standing ramrod-stiff and staring off into
space like automatons. Each wore the double chevrons of a corporal,
which meant something in the British Army. Men like them had built the
Empire, I said to myself, almost admiring their stance, though I myself
was not that kind of soldier. I sometimes wonder if I was ever any kind
of soldier at all. But I got by. Most of the time. At least I'm still
alive as of this writing, and that's saying something.
The two guards came to attention as we approached, saluted me and Tracy
across the receivers of their weapons, and one of them said, "May I help
you, sir?" He was addressing me since I was the ranking officer.
Kearns answered for me: "Captain Mathers and Lieutenant Tracy to see
General Asbury." He produced a sheet of paper from a breast pocket and
handed it to the corporal who had spoken.
The corporal relaxed his grip on his tommy gun, took the paper, glanced
at it, then back to me. "Certainly, sir. The general is expecting you.
Go right in." He handed the paper back to Kearns, gave me another salute
across his weapon.
The other corporal turned, opened the door, and I entered the house,
Tracy and Kearns behind me.
The first room we entered was empty, though the floor was littered with
paper and debris left behind when the former occupants had fled.
"In here," a voice called from another room.
In the next room there were three beings, two of them human, and enough
furniture to make the place look as if it were habitable.
A large oak table occupied the center of the room, and a gas lantern sat
in its middle. Below the lantern lay a map, but from the distance I could
not tell what the map was of. Six chairs of assorted sizes and shapes sat
around the table. There was a bed, a sofa, a cabinet on which sat a bottle
of wine and some glasses, and three overstuffed easy chairs completing
the furniture. A picture of Jesus hung on the wall, holding open His robes
to expose a radiant heart. I suspected that the picture belonged to the
former occupants of the house, not to any of the present ones.
One of the men was Sir Gerald Asbury, Brigadier General in His Britannic
Majesty's Army. I had seen his picture often enough -- he had been
something of a hero the previous spring when the Touraine, or part of it,
was recaptured from the Imperial Germans -- though I had never before
met him in person. He was a short, stocky, redheaded man, witha huge
cavalry mustache, the stereotype of a British officer, but despite that,
a bold and imaginative man, so I had been told. I rather liked his looks.
The other man I had met before. His name was Pall, and his nearly
seven-foot frame was all muscle. His swarthy face was expressionless,
as always, as he stood behind Kar-hinter, his hands hanging at his sides.
He was dressed in a harshly-cut black uniform, without decoration save for
the ugly energy pistol that hung on his left hip. He was Kar-hinter's
bodyguard and one of the deadliest beings I had ever met. I don't know
what Timeline he came from, but I don't think I'd care to visit it,
not if it's inhabited by very many like him.
The third occupant of the room I knew also. That was Kar-hinter himself.
A Krith.
I suppose that this is as good a time as any to describe the appearance
of the Kriths, and since Kar-hinter was a fair representative of his race,
at least the males of the race, I'll describe him.
Kar-hinter stood six-foot-four or so in his bare feet, which were always
bare, as was the rest of him. Always. His coloring was brown tinged with
green, a color that might have been olive had it been a little greener,
but wasn't quite. I have seen Kriths who were a sable-brown and some
who were a true olive. Their skin coloring varies within these ranges,
though there seem to be no racial distinctions as there are supposed to
be with human beings.
His head was big and almost egg-shaped and somewhat lumpy-looking.
He had no hair on his head, or on any part of his body, and his skin was
a not-quite-shiny satin surface. His eyes were enormous, brown, liquid,
equipped with two sets of eyelids, but without distinct pupils, irises,
or anything else. They were like big brown marbles. I'm quite sure that
they don't work anything at all like our eyes and of course, it was
impossible to tell just where he was looking. A reflection of light on
the moist balls gave the impression of pupils, but it was not so.
Below his eyes was a row of tiny openings that dilated with
heartbeat regularity. These were the nostrils of a Krith and all
they had of a nose. The mouth below the nostril row was, like the
eyes, enormous. Kar-hinter's lips were thick, heavy, moist, and
hungry-looking. When his mouth opened, you could see rows of sharp,
fanglike teeth. Kriths are primarily carnivorous and live mostly on a
diet of uncooked meat, I understand.
Along the sides of Kar-hinter's face, running from about where his temples
were to the middle point of his jaws were two rows of feathery membranes
that twitched in the air like a fish's gills. These functioned as ears
and as something more, though I'm not quite sure what.
He had virtually no neck, his head seeming to sit right on top of his
broad, muscular shoulders. The arms that dropped from the shoulders
were remarkably human, as were the five-fingered hands that grew from
the slender wrists.
His chest was broad with prominent, almost feminine nipples. His stomach
was flat, well-muscled, and flowed smoothly into his pelvic region. And
it was there that you could see that Kar-hinter was very obviously a male.
His legs, in proportion to his long torso, were short and thick and
terminated in wide, webbed feet. A short, prehensile tail grew from his
buttocks and twitched aimlessly in the air as he rose to greet us.
Kar-hinter, as I said, was absolutely naked. He wore no decorations, no
instruments, not even a watch, nor did he carry a pouch to hold personal
belongings. I had never seen a Krith wearing anything at all. Whatever
they carried with them was locked inside their huge heads, and that was
enough. More about that later.
One more point about the Kriths: I assume that there are two sexes to
their race -- else why would Kar-hinter have the masculine equipment
he had? -- but in all the years that I had been working for them I had
never seen a female Krith, nor had I ever heard of anyone who had. They
refused to discuss the matter with humans. Krithian sex life was a
complete mystery to the people who worked for and with them.
I gave both Sir Gerald and Kar-hinter a British salute, which they both
returned, though Kar-hinter seemed to have a mocking expression on his
alien face.
"Please be at ease, gentlemen," Sir Gerald said. "Sit down, won't you?"
"Thank you, sir," I said in English.
"I am Sir Gerald Asbury," the British general said, "and, I say, you
might as well drop the formalities. I am quite aware of who and what
you fellows are. And the men outside" -- he gestured toward the front
of the house -- "are yours as well. I am the only local here."
I nodded, took off my cap and dropped it onto the couch near me. After
unbuttoning my coat, I took one of the chairs that the general indicated.
"Greetings, Kar-hinter," I said awkwardly, since I never did know quite
what to say to a Krith.
"Hello, Eric," Kar-hinter said, clasping his hands behind his back. "And
you, Hillary, and you, Ronald." The last was directed at Kearns. "Please,
do all of you sit down and make yourselves comfortable. You, as well,
Sir Gerald."
When we were all seated, Kar-hinter gestured to Pall, who got the
bottle of wine and five glasses from the cabinet behind the Krith.
He poured wine into each of the glasses and passed them around without
speaking. I noticed that he poured none for himself. Then he returned
to his statue-like position behind his master.
"Again, gentlemen, please make yourselves comfortable," Kar-hinter said.
The Krith spoke local English without trace of an accent, a policy
which the Kriths prided themselves on, though at times it must have been
quite difficult. Their speaking mechanisms aren't made much like ours,
but they do a damned good job with them anyway.
"I am sure that you are wondering why you are here," he said when we had
each taken a sip from our glasses -- the wine was excellent.
Tracy and I nodded, though Kearns didn't seem concerned at all. He had
said before that he was going Outtime later on in the day, but for some
reason I felt some doubts about that, though I didn't know why.
"Good wine, is it not?" Kar-hinter asked. "French, though not local.
Pall acquired it from a few Lines East of here where they are not plagued
by war. Not just yet, at least. Please, drink up. I brought this bottle
especially for this meeting, and I would hate to see it go to waste."
Kar-hinter
Around the village the land was flat, without trees, except near the river
where the ground was too marshy for plowing and the poplars and willows,
those that had survived the shelling of the bloody summer before, still
grew as they pleased, now beginning to bud in anticipation of summer.
I wondered how many of those few trees would still be standing when the
next spring came. It was not a pleasant thought.
The village itself stood not far from the Loire, a quiet, slowly winding
river that must once have given a sensation of peace and gentleness to
the now-ravaged countryside. I had been told that last spring the Loire
had turned red with the mingling of British and Imperial German blood,
and from the looks of the river's bank, craters that the winter rains
and snows had not yet obliterated, I rather suspected that it was true.
There were only two streets in the village, unpaved, crossing at right
angles, one running from the ford of the river where a bridge must have
stood at one time, though there were few traces left of it now, the other
road paralleling the river, running a few hundred yards from its bank,
back far enough to remain on solid, dry ground, curving away from the
river at times and then back closer at others. The two roads met in the
village, crossed, and then ran on their ways, leaving what had once been a
sleepy little human habitation. But the spring and the summer of the year
before had done their damage to the village, as well as to the country.
The crossroads had been the center of life of the village, when it had
had a life. A few buildings still stood, and there was enough left of
some of them to tell what they had once been: the church, Roman Catholic,
of course -- years of British protection and then occupation had never
been able to make any fundamental changes in the religious views of the
French, though they had accepted the British with good enough grace,
considering: a blacksmith shop, half-burned to the ground, though the
forge and anvil were still visible through the wreckage, and a few rusting
tools; what had once been an inn, its sign still hanging on one hook,
weather-worn and fading -- though the image of a wild boar was still
fairly recognizable, the French words that had once been written below
it were now nearly obliterated; a store of some sort, probably a general
merchandise store, I guessed; a few other buildings that had lost their
identity; and empty, broken-windowed houses.
I suppose I must have paused for longer than I should have, looking at the
ruins and speculating about their past -- a weakness of mine; I had once,
very long ago, intended to be a historian -- and it was Kearns' harsh
voice that finally made me realize that we had more urgent business to
attend to.
"Let's go," he said curtly. "Kar-hinter is waiting for us." It was the
first time that Kearns had said the name of the Krith that we were to
meet. I hadn't thought of asking before, assuming that he wouldn't know,
and also knowing that it wouldn't make a hell of a lot of difference
anyway.
Kar-hinter, I repeated the name in my mind. He was the Krithian weapons
supervisor for this Line, an old Krith who had been my chief on several
assignments before, including the one I was just completing. He wasn't
so bad to work for, even if he was a bit taciturn. I rather liked the
old beast; well, better than I liked most Kriths, at least.
Now I don't want you to get the idea that I disliked the Kriths then.
I didn't. Not at all. Nor did I particularly like them as individuals.
I admired them as a race and appreciated what they were doing, but they
were, by and large, a rather repulsive-looking bunch that I had never
really learned to like in all the years that I had been working for
them. But Kar-hinter, well, he was okay. For a Krith.
And please don't accuse me of racial prejudice or xenophobia, not until
you've heard my story, at least.
I obeyed Kearns' urgings and follow him through the village, my feet
squelching in the mud that even by the middle of the day had not dried
very much. It would take several warm, clear, sunny days for the mud
that lay over the whole of the Touraine to become solid earth again.
We passed through the center of the village and went on down the muddy
road that led out of the town and toward the now-barren landscape beyond.
Off in the distance, sheltered by two or three naked-limbed trees,
stood a house that was virtually intact, its damages nearly repaired,
the windows boarded over, smoke rising from the remains of a chimney.
"That's it. Over there," Kearns said, apparently realizing that I had
noticed the house.
"Kar-hinter's there?" I asked.
"Kar-hinter and a British general named Asbury," Kearns answered.
It was then that I saw the British staff car parked beside the house,
half-hidden by naked bushes that grew beside the house, by bare vines that
in the summer must have covered the house with leaves and clusters of
grapes. This was the wine country of France, or it was in other places
and had been here once, when France had had the time to make wine,
when foreign armies weren't ripping it apart.
By this time you may have gathered that I wasn't altogether happy with
the way I made my living. I had outgrown a lot of the misplaced idealism
that had led me into it in the first place, but then it was a living,
and the only one I knew. It was often a dirty, nasty job, but, like they
said, somebody had to do it.
Two men in British uniforms flanked the house's front door, tommy guns
held across their chests, standing ramrod-stiff and staring off into
space like automatons. Each wore the double chevrons of a corporal,
which meant something in the British Army. Men like them had built the
Empire, I said to myself, almost admiring their stance, though I myself
was not that kind of soldier. I sometimes wonder if I was ever any kind
of soldier at all. But I got by. Most of the time. At least I'm still
alive as of this writing, and that's saying something.
The two guards came to attention as we approached, saluted me and Tracy
across the receivers of their weapons, and one of them said, "May I help
you, sir?" He was addressing me since I was the ranking officer.
Kearns answered for me: "Captain Mathers and Lieutenant Tracy to see
General Asbury." He produced a sheet of paper from a breast pocket and
handed it to the corporal who had spoken.
The corporal relaxed his grip on his tommy gun, took the paper, glanced
at it, then back to me. "Certainly, sir. The general is expecting you.
Go right in." He handed the paper back to Kearns, gave me another salute
across his weapon.
The other corporal turned, opened the door, and I entered the house,
Tracy and Kearns behind me.
The first room we entered was empty, though the floor was littered with
paper and debris left behind when the former occupants had fled.
"In here," a voice called from another room.
In the next room there were three beings, two of them human, and enough
furniture to make the place look as if it were habitable.
A large oak table occupied the center of the room, and a gas lantern sat
in its middle. Below the lantern lay a map, but from the distance I could
not tell what the map was of. Six chairs of assorted sizes and shapes sat
around the table. There was a bed, a sofa, a cabinet on which sat a bottle
of wine and some glasses, and three overstuffed easy chairs completing
the furniture. A picture of Jesus hung on the wall, holding open His robes
to expose a radiant heart. I suspected that the picture belonged to the
former occupants of the house, not to any of the present ones.
One of the men was Sir Gerald Asbury, Brigadier General in His Britannic
Majesty's Army. I had seen his picture often enough -- he had been
something of a hero the previous spring when the Touraine, or part of it,
was recaptured from the Imperial Germans -- though I had never before
met him in person. He was a short, stocky, redheaded man, witha huge
cavalry mustache, the stereotype of a British officer, but despite that,
a bold and imaginative man, so I had been told. I rather liked his looks.
The other man I had met before. His name was Pall, and his nearly
seven-foot frame was all muscle. His swarthy face was expressionless,
as always, as he stood behind Kar-hinter, his hands hanging at his sides.
He was dressed in a harshly-cut black uniform, without decoration save for
the ugly energy pistol that hung on his left hip. He was Kar-hinter's
bodyguard and one of the deadliest beings I had ever met. I don't know
what Timeline he came from, but I don't think I'd care to visit it,
not if it's inhabited by very many like him.
The third occupant of the room I knew also. That was Kar-hinter himself.
A Krith.
I suppose that this is as good a time as any to describe the appearance
of the Kriths, and since Kar-hinter was a fair representative of his race,
at least the males of the race, I'll describe him.
Kar-hinter stood six-foot-four or so in his bare feet, which were always
bare, as was the rest of him. Always. His coloring was brown tinged with
green, a color that might have been olive had it been a little greener,
but wasn't quite. I have seen Kriths who were a sable-brown and some
who were a true olive. Their skin coloring varies within these ranges,
though there seem to be no racial distinctions as there are supposed to
be with human beings.
His head was big and almost egg-shaped and somewhat lumpy-looking.
He had no hair on his head, or on any part of his body, and his skin was
a not-quite-shiny satin surface. His eyes were enormous, brown, liquid,
equipped with two sets of eyelids, but without distinct pupils, irises,
or anything else. They were like big brown marbles. I'm quite sure that
they don't work anything at all like our eyes and of course, it was
impossible to tell just where he was looking. A reflection of light on
the moist balls gave the impression of pupils, but it was not so.
Below his eyes was a row of tiny openings that dilated with
heartbeat regularity. These were the nostrils of a Krith and all
they had of a nose. The mouth below the nostril row was, like the
eyes, enormous. Kar-hinter's lips were thick, heavy, moist, and
hungry-looking. When his mouth opened, you could see rows of sharp,
fanglike teeth. Kriths are primarily carnivorous and live mostly on a
diet of uncooked meat, I understand.
Along the sides of Kar-hinter's face, running from about where his temples
were to the middle point of his jaws were two rows of feathery membranes
that twitched in the air like a fish's gills. These functioned as ears
and as something more, though I'm not quite sure what.
He had virtually no neck, his head seeming to sit right on top of his
broad, muscular shoulders. The arms that dropped from the shoulders
were remarkably human, as were the five-fingered hands that grew from
the slender wrists.
His chest was broad with prominent, almost feminine nipples. His stomach
was flat, well-muscled, and flowed smoothly into his pelvic region. And
it was there that you could see that Kar-hinter was very obviously a male.
His legs, in proportion to his long torso, were short and thick and
terminated in wide, webbed feet. A short, prehensile tail grew from his
buttocks and twitched aimlessly in the air as he rose to greet us.
Kar-hinter, as I said, was absolutely naked. He wore no decorations, no
instruments, not even a watch, nor did he carry a pouch to hold personal
belongings. I had never seen a Krith wearing anything at all. Whatever
they carried with them was locked inside their huge heads, and that was
enough. More about that later.
One more point about the Kriths: I assume that there are two sexes to
their race -- else why would Kar-hinter have the masculine equipment
he had? -- but in all the years that I had been working for them I had
never seen a female Krith, nor had I ever heard of anyone who had. They
refused to discuss the matter with humans. Krithian sex life was a
complete mystery to the people who worked for and with them.
I gave both Sir Gerald and Kar-hinter a British salute, which they both
returned, though Kar-hinter seemed to have a mocking expression on his
alien face.
"Please be at ease, gentlemen," Sir Gerald said. "Sit down, won't you?"
"Thank you, sir," I said in English.
"I am Sir Gerald Asbury," the British general said, "and, I say, you
might as well drop the formalities. I am quite aware of who and what
you fellows are. And the men outside" -- he gestured toward the front
of the house -- "are yours as well. I am the only local here."
I nodded, took off my cap and dropped it onto the couch near me. After
unbuttoning my coat, I took one of the chairs that the general indicated.
"Greetings, Kar-hinter," I said awkwardly, since I never did know quite
what to say to a Krith.
"Hello, Eric," Kar-hinter said, clasping his hands behind his back. "And
you, Hillary, and you, Ronald." The last was directed at Kearns. "Please,
do all of you sit down and make yourselves comfortable. You, as well,
Sir Gerald."
When we were all seated, Kar-hinter gestured to Pall, who got the
bottle of wine and five glasses from the cabinet behind the Krith.
He poured wine into each of the glasses and passed them around without
speaking. I noticed that he poured none for himself. Then he returned
to his statue-like position behind his master.
"Again, gentlemen, please make yourselves comfortable," Kar-hinter said.
The Krith spoke local English without trace of an accent, a policy
which the Kriths prided themselves on, though at times it must have been
quite difficult. Their speaking mechanisms aren't made much like ours,
but they do a damned good job with them anyway.
"I am sure that you are wondering why you are here," he said when we had
each taken a sip from our glasses -- the wine was excellent.
Tracy and I nodded, though Kearns didn't seem concerned at all. He had
said before that he was going Outtime later on in the day, but for some
reason I felt some doubts about that, though I didn't know why.
"Good wine, is it not?" Kar-hinter asked. "French, though not local.
Pall acquired it from a few Lines East of here where they are not plagued
by war. Not just yet, at least. Please, drink up. I brought this bottle
especially for this meeting, and I would hate to see it go to waste."
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