[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
all of his athletic and military prowess.
Kren's comment was, "Well, it's sure going to make for some stinky
locker rooms!" A heavy concentration of male aerosol sperm was
considered offensive by a Mitchegai.
Kren put his scientists to selecting several gross of the female children
who had a maximal number of the genes that they thought might be
making him so good. In a dozen years, they would be mature and he
would go into another round of breeding.
Kren decided that it wasn't necessary to preserve any of the males,
since he was still there to do the male side of the breeding.
Some of his scientists secretly objected, and preserved a few
promising-looking males just in case Kren came to an early death.
Also, it would be interesting to run some tests and comparisons on
them, and a vivisection now and then always provided some comic
relief.
All of the rest of Kren's offspring were eventually eaten in house.
Meanwhile, every juvenal brought in from the surface to the
underground feed lots was branded with an ID number and weighed
periodically. Those who put on the most weight were placed in a
special group to be raised to adulthood for use as breeders.
Once they found some that were particularly productive, the scientists
could get busy at finding out why this was so, and productivity could be
increased even further.
* * *
Four weeks passed before Kren's new slaves, military and civilian,
were delivered to him. Duke Dennon had lent him a dozen trained drill
instructors to train the thousand or so resurrected soldiers in the duke's
way of doing things.
Kren told them, "It is very simple. You were all killed in combat. I
killed a fair number of you myself. It is traditional for dead enemy
soldiers to have their brains thrown into the fire, and their bodies eaten
by the victors. You were lucky. Duke Dennon permitted me to
resurrect you because I needed soldiers willing to work and willing to
fight. If you do not want to do this, let us know, and we will happily kill
you again, permanently, this time. If you want to live a fairly decent life,
you must work very hard at staying with the program. But remember
that for the next twelve years or so, your legal status will be that of
slaves. You have no rights at all. You must prove to me that you are
valuable enough to be worth feeding. After those twelve years, if you
keep your teeth clean, you will be granted the full privileges of an adult
citizen. Sergeants, take command!"
* * *
To Kren's surprise, Bronki got over her anger at being dragged off to
battle, and volunteered to set up the training program to educate the
thousand or so young vampires that their use of Duke Tendi's nobles
had resulted in.
"We're alone now," Bronki said to the supposedly mindless student
across from her. "Do you know me?"
"Yes, of course. You are Bronki. You saved my life. I'm Seba. We
studied art together."
"Well, I'm glad I've found you again, Seba. I'll be putting you in a class
along with the dozen or so others I managed to save. While in class,
you will be able to talk with the others, but outside of it, you must
continue to pretend to be stupid. It will probably be a few years before
I can get you out of this, but if you want to live, and if you want me to
live, play the role very well at all times!"
"I will, Bronki. But tell me, why did you risk your life to save me and
the others?"
"You know, I'm not entirely sure. On the one hand, being a friend of
Bronki has always meant something. Or maybe, I was just so mad at
Kren at the time that I wanted to disobey him. But once having done it,
I am now forced to protect you as best as I can, and to complete the
job, for my own security. Just remember that someday, I might need
some serious favors and when that happens, I will expect your bunch to
be obliging."
"Oh, we will be. You can count on it!"
* * *
Kren's surveyors managed to prove, with a bit of fudging, that Duke
Tendi's castle was in fact over two gross yards away from the position
shown on the ancient maps. Whether this was caused by an error in
transcription, some time in the last three dozen thousand years since the
castle had been built, or if it had been a deliberate error on the part of
the architects to confuse future aggressors, was a question on which
they could not offer an opinion. Duke Dennon grumbled, but was
eventually satisfied.
Actually, the error had to have been made by one of the engineers,
since no one else worked on the project. But Kren needed all of the
technical troops to keep his building projects going, and he didn't want
Duke Dennon to kill any of them.
* * *
In the spring, Duke Dennon was confronted with two half-hearted
attempts at counterinvasions, but when he faced them each with many
divisions of fully armored soldiers, the enemy soon ran away, or rather
the survivors did. It would be several years before Duke Dennon [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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all of his athletic and military prowess.
Kren's comment was, "Well, it's sure going to make for some stinky
locker rooms!" A heavy concentration of male aerosol sperm was
considered offensive by a Mitchegai.
Kren put his scientists to selecting several gross of the female children
who had a maximal number of the genes that they thought might be
making him so good. In a dozen years, they would be mature and he
would go into another round of breeding.
Kren decided that it wasn't necessary to preserve any of the males,
since he was still there to do the male side of the breeding.
Some of his scientists secretly objected, and preserved a few
promising-looking males just in case Kren came to an early death.
Also, it would be interesting to run some tests and comparisons on
them, and a vivisection now and then always provided some comic
relief.
All of the rest of Kren's offspring were eventually eaten in house.
Meanwhile, every juvenal brought in from the surface to the
underground feed lots was branded with an ID number and weighed
periodically. Those who put on the most weight were placed in a
special group to be raised to adulthood for use as breeders.
Once they found some that were particularly productive, the scientists
could get busy at finding out why this was so, and productivity could be
increased even further.
* * *
Four weeks passed before Kren's new slaves, military and civilian,
were delivered to him. Duke Dennon had lent him a dozen trained drill
instructors to train the thousand or so resurrected soldiers in the duke's
way of doing things.
Kren told them, "It is very simple. You were all killed in combat. I
killed a fair number of you myself. It is traditional for dead enemy
soldiers to have their brains thrown into the fire, and their bodies eaten
by the victors. You were lucky. Duke Dennon permitted me to
resurrect you because I needed soldiers willing to work and willing to
fight. If you do not want to do this, let us know, and we will happily kill
you again, permanently, this time. If you want to live a fairly decent life,
you must work very hard at staying with the program. But remember
that for the next twelve years or so, your legal status will be that of
slaves. You have no rights at all. You must prove to me that you are
valuable enough to be worth feeding. After those twelve years, if you
keep your teeth clean, you will be granted the full privileges of an adult
citizen. Sergeants, take command!"
* * *
To Kren's surprise, Bronki got over her anger at being dragged off to
battle, and volunteered to set up the training program to educate the
thousand or so young vampires that their use of Duke Tendi's nobles
had resulted in.
"We're alone now," Bronki said to the supposedly mindless student
across from her. "Do you know me?"
"Yes, of course. You are Bronki. You saved my life. I'm Seba. We
studied art together."
"Well, I'm glad I've found you again, Seba. I'll be putting you in a class
along with the dozen or so others I managed to save. While in class,
you will be able to talk with the others, but outside of it, you must
continue to pretend to be stupid. It will probably be a few years before
I can get you out of this, but if you want to live, and if you want me to
live, play the role very well at all times!"
"I will, Bronki. But tell me, why did you risk your life to save me and
the others?"
"You know, I'm not entirely sure. On the one hand, being a friend of
Bronki has always meant something. Or maybe, I was just so mad at
Kren at the time that I wanted to disobey him. But once having done it,
I am now forced to protect you as best as I can, and to complete the
job, for my own security. Just remember that someday, I might need
some serious favors and when that happens, I will expect your bunch to
be obliging."
"Oh, we will be. You can count on it!"
* * *
Kren's surveyors managed to prove, with a bit of fudging, that Duke
Tendi's castle was in fact over two gross yards away from the position
shown on the ancient maps. Whether this was caused by an error in
transcription, some time in the last three dozen thousand years since the
castle had been built, or if it had been a deliberate error on the part of
the architects to confuse future aggressors, was a question on which
they could not offer an opinion. Duke Dennon grumbled, but was
eventually satisfied.
Actually, the error had to have been made by one of the engineers,
since no one else worked on the project. But Kren needed all of the
technical troops to keep his building projects going, and he didn't want
Duke Dennon to kill any of them.
* * *
In the spring, Duke Dennon was confronted with two half-hearted
attempts at counterinvasions, but when he faced them each with many
divisions of fully armored soldiers, the enemy soon ran away, or rather
the survivors did. It would be several years before Duke Dennon [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]