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angry, impatient face Brannad Klav, Transtemporal's vice president in charge
of operations. The other was tall and slender with handsome and entirely
expressionless features; he wore a Paratime Police officer's uniform, with the
blue badge of hereditary nobility on his breast, and carried a sigma-ray
needled in a belt holster.
"Were you waiting long, gentlemen?" Stranor Sleth asked. "I was holding Sunset
Sacrifice up in the temple."
"No, we just got here," Brannad Klav said. "This is Verkan Vail, Mavrad of
Nerros, special assistant to Chief Tortha of the Paratime Police, Stranor
Sleth, our resident agent here."
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Stranor Sleth touched hands with Verkan Vail.
"I've heard a lot about you, sir," he said. "Everybody working in paratime
has, of course. I'm sorry we have a situation here that calls for your
presence, but since we have, I 'in glad you're here in person. You know what
our trouble is, I
suppose?"
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"In a general way," Verkan Vail replied. "Chief Tortha, and Brannad Klav, have
given me the main outline, but I'd like to have you fill in the details."
"Well, I told you everything," Brannad Klav interrupted impatiently. "It's
just that Stranor's let this blasted local king, Kurchuk, get out of control.
If I "He stopped short, catching sight of the shoulder holster under Stranor
Sleth's left arm. "Were you wearing that needier up in the temple?" he
demanded.
"You're blasted right I was!" Stranor Sleth retorted. "And any time I can't
arm myself for my own protection on this time-line, you can have my
resignation.
I'm not getting into the same jam as those people at Zurb."
"Well, never mind about that," Verkan Vail intervened. "Of course Stranor
Sleth has a right to arm himself; I wouldn't think of being caught without a
weapon on this time-line, myself. Now, Stranor, suppose you tell me what's
been happening, here, from the beginning of this trouble."
"It started, really, about five years ago, when Kurchuk, the King of Zurb,
married this Chuldun princess, Darith, from the country over beyond the Black
Sea, and made her his queen, over the heads of about a dozen daughters of the
local nobility, whom he'd married previously. Then he brought in this Chuldun
scribe, Labdurg, and made him Overseer of the Kingdom roughly, prime minister.
There was a lot of dissatisfaction about that, and for a while it looked as
though he was going to have a revolution on his hands, but he brought in about
five thousand Chuldun mercenaries, all archers these Hulguns can't shoot a bow
worth beans so the dissatisfaction died down, and so did most of the leaders
of the disaffected group. The story I get is that this Labdurg arranged the
marriage, in the first place. It looks to me as though the Chuldun emperor is
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intending to take over the Hulgun kingdoms, starting with Zurb.
"Well, these Chulduns all worship a god called Muz-Azin. Muz-Azin is a
crocodile with wings like a bat and a lot of knife blades in his tail. He
makes this
Yat-Zar look downright beautiful. So do his habits. Muz-Azin fancies human
sacrifices. The victims are strung up by the ankles on a triangular frame and
lashed to death with iron-barbed whips. Nasty sort of a deity, but this is a
nasty time-line. The people here get a big kick out of watching these
sacrifices. Much better show than our bunny-killing. The victims are usually
criminals, or overage or incorrigible slaves, or prisoners of war.
"Of course, when the Chulduns began infiltrating the palace, they brought in
their crocodile-god, too, and a flock of priests, and King Kurchuk let them
set up a temple in the palace. Naturally, we preached against this heathen
idolatry in our temples, but religious bigotry isn't one of the numerous
imperfections of this sector. Everybody's deity is as good as anybody
else's indifferentism, I believe, is the theological term. Anyhow, on that
basis things went along fairly well, till two years ago, when we had this run
of bad luck." Bad luck!" Brannad Klav snorted. "That's the standing excuse of
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every incompetent!"
"Go on, Stranor; what sort of bad luck?" Verkan Vail asked.
"Well, first we had a drought, beginning in early summer, that burned up most
of the grain crop. Then, when that broke, we got heavy rains and hailstorms
and floods, and that destroyed what got through the dry spell. When they
harvested what little was left, it was obvious there'd be a famine, so we
brought in a lot of grain by conveyer and distributed it from the
temples miraculous gift of Yat-
Zar, of course. Then the main office on First Level got scared about flooding
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time-line with a lot of unaccountable grain and were afraid we'd make the
people suspicious, and ordered it stopped.
"Then Kurchuk, and I might add that the kingdom of Zurb was the hardest hit by
the famine, ordered his army mobilized and started an invasion of the Jumdun
country, south of the Carpathians, to get grain. He got his army chopped up,
and only about a quarter of them got back, with no grain. You ask me, I'd say
that
Labdurg framed it to happen that way. He advised Kurchuk to invade, in the
first place, and I mentioned my suspicion that Chombrog, the Chuldun Emperor,
is planning to move in on the Hulgun kingdoms. Well, what would be smarter
than to get Kurchuk's army smashed in advance?"
"How did the defeat occur?" Verkan Vail asked. "Any suspicion of treachery?"
"Nothing you could put your finger on, except that the Jumduns seemed to have
pretty good intelligence about Kurchuk's invasion route and battle plans. It
could have been nothing worse than stupid tactics on Kurchuk's part. See,
these
Hulguns, and particularly the Zurb Hulguns, are spearmen. They fight in a
fairly thin line, with heavy-armed infantry in front and light infantry with
throwing-
spears behind. The nobles fight in light chariots, usually at the center of
the line, and that's where they were at this Battle of Jorm. Kurchuk himself
was at the center, with his Chuldun archers massed around him.
"The Jumduns use a lot of cavalry, with long swords and lances, and a lot of
big chariots with two javelin men and a driver. Well, instead of ramming into
Kurchuk's center, where he had his archers, they hit the extreme left and
folded it up, and then swung around behind and hit the right from the rear.
All the
Chuldun archers did was stand fast around the king and shoot anybody who
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came close to them; they were left pretty much alone. But the Hulgun spearmen
were cut to pieces. The battle ended with Kurchuk and his nobles and his
archers making a fighting retreat, while the Jumdun cavalry were chasing the
spearmen every which way and cutting them down or lancing them as they ran.
"Well, whether it was Labdurg's treachery or Kurchuk's stupidity, in either
case, it was natural for the archers to come off easiest and the Hulgun
spearmen to pay the butcher's bill. But try and tell these knuckle-heads
anything like that! Muz-
Azin protected the Chulduns, and Yat-Zar let the Hulguns down, and that was
all there was to it. The Zurb temple started losing worshipers, particularly
the families of the men who didn't make it back from Jorm.
"If that had been all there'd been to it, though, it still wouldn't have hurt
the mining operations, and we could have got by. But what really tore it was
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zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl karpacz24.htw.pl
angry, impatient face Brannad Klav, Transtemporal's vice president in charge
of operations. The other was tall and slender with handsome and entirely
expressionless features; he wore a Paratime Police officer's uniform, with the
blue badge of hereditary nobility on his breast, and carried a sigma-ray
needled in a belt holster.
"Were you waiting long, gentlemen?" Stranor Sleth asked. "I was holding Sunset
Sacrifice up in the temple."
"No, we just got here," Brannad Klav said. "This is Verkan Vail, Mavrad of
Nerros, special assistant to Chief Tortha of the Paratime Police, Stranor
Sleth, our resident agent here."
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Stranor Sleth touched hands with Verkan Vail.
"I've heard a lot about you, sir," he said. "Everybody working in paratime
has, of course. I'm sorry we have a situation here that calls for your
presence, but since we have, I 'in glad you're here in person. You know what
our trouble is, I
suppose?"
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348)16-2-2006 15:59:17
Piper, H. Beam - Paratime (v1.0) (html)
"In a general way," Verkan Vail replied. "Chief Tortha, and Brannad Klav, have
given me the main outline, but I'd like to have you fill in the details."
"Well, I told you everything," Brannad Klav interrupted impatiently. "It's
just that Stranor's let this blasted local king, Kurchuk, get out of control.
If I "He stopped short, catching sight of the shoulder holster under Stranor
Sleth's left arm. "Were you wearing that needier up in the temple?" he
demanded.
"You're blasted right I was!" Stranor Sleth retorted. "And any time I can't
arm myself for my own protection on this time-line, you can have my
resignation.
I'm not getting into the same jam as those people at Zurb."
"Well, never mind about that," Verkan Vail intervened. "Of course Stranor
Sleth has a right to arm himself; I wouldn't think of being caught without a
weapon on this time-line, myself. Now, Stranor, suppose you tell me what's
been happening, here, from the beginning of this trouble."
"It started, really, about five years ago, when Kurchuk, the King of Zurb,
married this Chuldun princess, Darith, from the country over beyond the Black
Sea, and made her his queen, over the heads of about a dozen daughters of the
local nobility, whom he'd married previously. Then he brought in this Chuldun
scribe, Labdurg, and made him Overseer of the Kingdom roughly, prime minister.
There was a lot of dissatisfaction about that, and for a while it looked as
though he was going to have a revolution on his hands, but he brought in about
five thousand Chuldun mercenaries, all archers these Hulguns can't shoot a bow
worth beans so the dissatisfaction died down, and so did most of the leaders
of the disaffected group. The story I get is that this Labdurg arranged the
marriage, in the first place. It looks to me as though the Chuldun emperor is
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348)16-2-2006 15:59:17
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intending to take over the Hulgun kingdoms, starting with Zurb.
"Well, these Chulduns all worship a god called Muz-Azin. Muz-Azin is a
crocodile with wings like a bat and a lot of knife blades in his tail. He
makes this
Yat-Zar look downright beautiful. So do his habits. Muz-Azin fancies human
sacrifices. The victims are strung up by the ankles on a triangular frame and
lashed to death with iron-barbed whips. Nasty sort of a deity, but this is a
nasty time-line. The people here get a big kick out of watching these
sacrifices. Much better show than our bunny-killing. The victims are usually
criminals, or overage or incorrigible slaves, or prisoners of war.
"Of course, when the Chulduns began infiltrating the palace, they brought in
their crocodile-god, too, and a flock of priests, and King Kurchuk let them
set up a temple in the palace. Naturally, we preached against this heathen
idolatry in our temples, but religious bigotry isn't one of the numerous
imperfections of this sector. Everybody's deity is as good as anybody
else's indifferentism, I believe, is the theological term. Anyhow, on that
basis things went along fairly well, till two years ago, when we had this run
of bad luck." Bad luck!" Brannad Klav snorted. "That's the standing excuse of
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every incompetent!"
"Go on, Stranor; what sort of bad luck?" Verkan Vail asked.
"Well, first we had a drought, beginning in early summer, that burned up most
of the grain crop. Then, when that broke, we got heavy rains and hailstorms
and floods, and that destroyed what got through the dry spell. When they
harvested what little was left, it was obvious there'd be a famine, so we
brought in a lot of grain by conveyer and distributed it from the
temples miraculous gift of Yat-
Zar, of course. Then the main office on First Level got scared about flooding
this file:///J|/sci-fi/Nieuwe%20map/H%20Beam%20Piper%20-%20Paratime.html (315
of 348)16-2-2006 15:59:17
Piper, H. Beam - Paratime (v1.0) (html)
time-line with a lot of unaccountable grain and were afraid we'd make the
people suspicious, and ordered it stopped.
"Then Kurchuk, and I might add that the kingdom of Zurb was the hardest hit by
the famine, ordered his army mobilized and started an invasion of the Jumdun
country, south of the Carpathians, to get grain. He got his army chopped up,
and only about a quarter of them got back, with no grain. You ask me, I'd say
that
Labdurg framed it to happen that way. He advised Kurchuk to invade, in the
first place, and I mentioned my suspicion that Chombrog, the Chuldun Emperor,
is planning to move in on the Hulgun kingdoms. Well, what would be smarter
than to get Kurchuk's army smashed in advance?"
"How did the defeat occur?" Verkan Vail asked. "Any suspicion of treachery?"
"Nothing you could put your finger on, except that the Jumduns seemed to have
pretty good intelligence about Kurchuk's invasion route and battle plans. It
could have been nothing worse than stupid tactics on Kurchuk's part. See,
these
Hulguns, and particularly the Zurb Hulguns, are spearmen. They fight in a
fairly thin line, with heavy-armed infantry in front and light infantry with
throwing-
spears behind. The nobles fight in light chariots, usually at the center of
the line, and that's where they were at this Battle of Jorm. Kurchuk himself
was at the center, with his Chuldun archers massed around him.
"The Jumduns use a lot of cavalry, with long swords and lances, and a lot of
big chariots with two javelin men and a driver. Well, instead of ramming into
Kurchuk's center, where he had his archers, they hit the extreme left and
folded it up, and then swung around behind and hit the right from the rear.
All the
Chuldun archers did was stand fast around the king and shoot anybody who
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348)16-2-2006 15:59:17
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came close to them; they were left pretty much alone. But the Hulgun spearmen
were cut to pieces. The battle ended with Kurchuk and his nobles and his
archers making a fighting retreat, while the Jumdun cavalry were chasing the
spearmen every which way and cutting them down or lancing them as they ran.
"Well, whether it was Labdurg's treachery or Kurchuk's stupidity, in either
case, it was natural for the archers to come off easiest and the Hulgun
spearmen to pay the butcher's bill. But try and tell these knuckle-heads
anything like that! Muz-
Azin protected the Chulduns, and Yat-Zar let the Hulguns down, and that was
all there was to it. The Zurb temple started losing worshipers, particularly
the families of the men who didn't make it back from Jorm.
"If that had been all there'd been to it, though, it still wouldn't have hurt
the mining operations, and we could have got by. But what really tore it was
Page 161
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