Neuregensburg, a Small German Settlement
Close to the Border of the English Colony
“Get along there, you lousy skinks!” shouted Simon O’Rourke. He slapped his gift from his new employer, a riding crop made of razor-scaled garg leather, against the arm of a sluggish lizard-man. Bright blood, emerald green in the diffused light from the constant cloud cover, welled up and pattered onto the hard-packed ground. The lizard-man gave a sibilant hiss of pain and nearly dropped the heavy pack he was struggling with. Other lizard-men who were dragging crates and boxes up a gangplank and storing them in the hold of the small airship speeded up their work.
O’Rourke watched for a moment. The lizard-men gave him a wide berth, especially the one whose arm was still bleeding, but the loading seemed to be going well. The Irishman ambled back to the only bit of shade near the airfield.
“You are firm with these creatures. It is good, it is necessary, but the Verdammten Englisch do not recognise that fact.” Oberst Kurt nodded approvingly as he wiped the sweat from his narrow face with a snowy handkerchief. He sat at a small table under a wide overhang outside the zeppelin shed, and the heat was even more intense than usual. “They insist on coddling the creatures, treating them the same way they do their colonials on Earth, and then they are surprised when the beasts turn on them and bite them.”
Kurt tucked his handkerchief back in his sleeve and pulled out a pocket watch. “Another hour and you should be ready. Are your preparations in order?”
O’Rourke nodded. “The location you’ve chosen is perfect, Herr Oberst. The British would murder for the stuff there, and I’ve had all your people moved out and some quiet skinks moved in. It’s a small family group of Lassensee, no more than forty including females and cubs. The Lassensee are passive, unlikely to fight; the other tribes don’t think too much of ’em, if you know what I mean.” The Irishman winked at the German. “Much like you Prussians think of the Bavarians.”
Kurt turned to glare at him. “My uncle married a Bavarian,” he said, his tone icy. “And I believe you mean my plan, not our plan, do you not?”
O’Rourke shrugged. “Yours. Ours. What does it matter, as long as the plan works? But you might just want to consider,” he cocked his head to one side and grinned, white teeth flashing like some feral predator, “that it’s my knowledge and experience that’ll get your plan to succeed. You need someone like me, have needed someone like me for quite a while now, have you not?”
Kurt eyed the Irishman. “And what exactly is ‘someone like you,’ if I may ask? Do you mean someone who is concerned only for himself, who wishes only enrichment and a life of ease, no matter what it costs in the lives of others?”
O’Rourke threw his head back and laughed. The cheerful sound echoed through the dense air, and two of the heavily burdened lizard-men looked curiously about, as if they had never heard such an odd sound before. Since they had been enslaved by the Germans for some time, perhaps they had not.
“You’ve got me there, sir, you have indeed.” O’Rourke’s chortles died away slowly. “The lives of others have no hold on me; never have done. I’m out for myself at all times. As, if you will forgive me for pointing it out, are you.”
“I?” Kurt sat up even straighter and shook his head. “I am a loyal officer of the Kaiser, may God preserve him from his enemies. I wish only to serve the Most High in all I do and say. Do not taint me with your own dark intent.”
“Taint, is it?” O’Rourke grinned impishly. “Don’t fool yourself, my boyo; you’re as eager for some things as I am, and you’ll wade through blood to get ’em. I know your type.” He laid a finger against his nose. “You want to be at your Most High’s right hand, and you know, if you get the bloody English off Venus, you will be. That’s what you are…sir.”
Kurt had his hand on his pistol, but did not draw it—to O’Rourke’s carefully hidden relief. “Have a care how you speak to me. I am a Junker,” he said, his teeth gritted. “My blood is noble and my temper is short.”
O’Rourke decided he’d better listen—this time. His opportunity to take the wind out of this kraut’s sails would come soon enough. He touched a finger to his new hat and put a solemn look on his face, though his eyes still twinkled.
“Sorry, Herr Oberst.” He turned and eyed the lizard-men still loading the cargo hold of the small zeppelin. “Won’t happen again,” he said over his shoulder, and only then let his smile return.
Oh, he had Kurt’s number, and that was a fact. If he played his cards right—and when did he not?—he would have his ticket of leave and be back on Earth in no time. Perhaps he’d visit the Americas, he thought idly; he had some relatives in New York. Not that they’d be glad to see him…
A lizard-man, an old one by the faded and washed-out colour of its scales, dropped a heavy box and bent over, panting. The box split open, the wood gone soft and spongy from the constant humidity of Venus. Half a dozen weapons spilled out, gleaming .577 Snider-Enfields, the breech loading artillery carbine, which had been phased out by the British army when they began using the Lee Metford instead. Phased out on Earth, at least; they were still the official weapon of Her Majesty’s Colonies on Venus.
O’Rourke strode over and kicked the lizard-man, who curled up into a ball and began making soft, mewing noises. The Irishman bent over and examined the rifles. The weapons were in good shape, not damaged yet by the ever-present danger of rust. A bit of a cleanup with an oily rag and they’d be top notch. He wondered where the Germans had gotten them, but decided it was safer not to ask.
“Get these weapons packed up in another crate,” he shouted. “And clear this old skink out of the way. He’s for the cook pot soon, I’ll wager. Though he’ll be naught but stringy meat, and no fat on him at all.”
Simon O’Rourke had been on many expeditions in the jungles of Venus. He knew how to make sure his men were fed, and how to make the best use of those who were no longer able to carry on.
The Irishman strolled towards the overhang and lounged before the table where Kurt sat, papers spread before him. The oberst ignored him for a time, then looked up.
“You have questions? Concerns? Reservations?” he snapped.
O’Rourke threw his head back and laughed. “Reservations? Me? How little you know me…sir.” He pulled up a chair and sprawled in it. “Is it you who’s the one with reservations now? A bit hesitant at spilling red blood instead of green, are you?”
“If the blood belongs to an Englishman, I have no compunctions at all about seeing it spilt,” was the reply. Kurt gave a grim smile. “I would happily wash in the blood of their kind. Wash my boots, at least; I would not deign to use it for any other purpose save staining the ground below me.”
“A real fire-eater, aren’t you now?” O’Rourke sat up straighter. “I’ll have to watch my step around you; that I can see.” He waved his hand at the zeppelin. “Aren’t you worried about supplying any sort of weapons to skinks?”
Kurt shook his head slowly, economically, once left, once right. “Worried? Why should I be? The native species under German control follow orders. Or else.”
O’Rourke nodded slowly. “Or else what?” he asked.
“Or else they die,” Kurt said simply. “As you have already seen, we do not coddle our slaves. Indeed, you are much like us in that. It is only the damned English who treat these inferior creatures as if they were almost human. It is their single greatest weakness, and it will destroy them.” He closed his notebook and put the cap on his fountain pen, then laid it precisely at the top. “You should not be too concerned about the lizard-men being armed. They shall not. I will supply German soldiers to do the shooting. Your main concern, O’Rourke, is to provide the corroborative English bodies we shall need to make our farce look real.”
O’Rourke cocked his head to one side. “Now don’t you worry yourself about that little bit of the plan,” he said. “Once we get our stage set, all I need is a lift to the nearest English settlement.”
“Timing is critical,” Kurt reminded him. “The American journalist is already at Fort Collingwood. He is scheduled to remain there for another two weeks before he comes to tour our own, far superior settlements.”
“No problem at all,” said O’Rourke, hiding a smile at his employer’s arrogance. “We have the time. All you have to do….”
Kurt opened his notebook and uncapped his pen. As he talked, O’Rourke watched as the German took copious notes.
These krauts, he thought; all the same, every one of ’em. Lists and schedules and outlines. If the dear Lord had been a German, he’d have taken months to create the world instead of six days.