Atu's Education Read online

  His beloveds stared at him. He remembered that they didn’t seem to like being told what to do. “Or you can wait here and I can go and get them? This place has good potential for defense, if people would stay here and not be running around the countryside …”

  They were all still staring at him, although Tomas looked like he might start laughing at any minute.

  “Unless you have a better idea?” Maybe being part of a triad meant not giving orders so much. He could learn, maybe.

  He was considering the possibility when his comm alerted him to an incoming message from the Crusader.

  “Atu, we have an emergency that we need to attend to, will you be alright there for a few days, maybe three days of that planet’s time?”

  “Yes, no problem. We have water and fuel, please transport rations for 40 people, plus two weapon packs, a #3 and a #7, with supplemental ammo packs, to me, these coordinates 10-10.”

  “Will do. Out.”

  Within minutes a number of large bundles and boxes appeared on the ground 10 feet away from them. Atu smiled fondly at them. They would be able to feed all the children, when they found them, plus there was a great deal of potential for making things blow up within those bundles.

  “Good, now we are better armed, and we have a few days to round up the children and make a plan.”

  “Tomas, leave the weapons alone.”

  He was getting fond of that young one.

  Holi, who was still far too pale, passed out again.

  Nursing, that’s what was needed. Now that he had found both of his triad lovers he was morphing from his androgynous single stage into a full hermaphrodite. He could feel it happening in his body, and he would already be able to nurse his beloveds. In fact, his breasts were aching to nurse them. That would help them to develop the triad bond, but, more importantly right now, help those two to heal.

  “Tomas, can you stand guard on the wall? Please? These two need to nurse and heal.” Tomas stared at him in disbelief, and he sighed. “I said please. Is it the standing guard or the nursing that you are not understanding? Or some other part of it?”

  “Well, um, I mean, Holi nursed some of the little ones, but you …?”

  “Yes, me. And I am far more likely than Holi to smack your butt if you don’t get up on the wall.”

  Tomas moved with admirable speed, and Atu settled under a big tree in the middle of the compound with Holi and Zeda on his lap. He was a large warrior with a broad and well muscled chest, as was very evident when he stripped his tunic off. There was lots of room for both of them at his breasts, and he just wished that his beloveds were in a bit better condition to appreciate that. Later. Right now he had to help them heal.

  He wasn’t prepared for the shock of pure pleasure that rippled through his body as they each cautiously mouthed a puckering nipple.

  ‘Gods …’

  Holi and Zeda each wrapped an arm around his strong neck and the other arm around each other, and then they latched on to his nipples and suckled, and he almost arched right off the ground.

  ‘Oh my gods …’

  Zeda smiled up at him. ‘Feels good, does it? Very strange, that your people don’t mature sexually until you’re with your triad.’

  Atu smiled back down at him. ‘Yes, your strange, our normal. And then we stay with our triad lovers forever, and hopefully raise many children together, if we are so blessed.’

  He tried to remember what he knew of these humans. ‘Your people have unstable pair bonds? You don’t think you’re going to walk away from Holi, do you?’

  Zeda looked offended. ‘No. We are bonded, Holi and I. And Holi thinks maybe you as well.’

  ‘Yes, I also think me as well, no maybe. We are a triad, my beloved.’ Atu wrapped his arms tighter around them both. ‘You and Holi, you have already played, touched each other?’

  Zeda looked uncertain, and Atu laughed. ‘It’s alright, I’m not jealous, just curious. Of course you will have started the bond. Once you are both healthy, there will be a lot of time for the three of us, and we will bond formally. And I don’t mind that you are a human. There are a number of triads on my ship where one is human, although none as beautiful as you.’

  Holi stirred, and raised his head. ‘I told you that you would love him.’

  ‘And I will always do as I am told, beloved.’

  Zeda made a rude noise, but then went back to nursing, as did Holi, and Atu lay back and let the feelings of love and desire and belonging, and many other things, wash other him. He was almost sorry when his two beloveds were sated, and they curled up against him to rest. Already their wounds were healing, Holi was a healthier shade of blue, and Zeda was not nearly as pale. In a better time and place he could have stayed there curled up with them forever, and enjoyed the other changes in his body.

  In the here and now, he made a pillow for them out of his tunic, and set about unpacking the bundles from the Crusader. The food and medical supplies he moved into the kitchen area, hoping they would have everything they needed for the children. It was hard to guess about these things, although the Supply Officer on the ship was very good at what he did.

  The weapon packs contained many excellent toys, of the kind that he had always enjoyed playing with, and now he had the added incentive of being able to use them to protect those he loved. Having his own triad, his own family, was an odd feeling, but he found that he was liking it.

  He was just finishing getting the weapons and ammo packs sorted out and distributed to the bases of the corner towers and inside the buildings, with plans and alternate plans developing in his head, when Tomas whistled quietly to get his attention.

  He joined the young one on the wall, and was not pleased to see that one of the least desirable possibilities was coming into play.

  The children had obviously sent out a scout, or maybe kept watch and seen them coming in, and decided that it was safe to come home. They were less than two miles away, just coming out of the hills to the east. The trail they were on was in a bit of a hollow and had some dead trees as shelter for most of the way, which Atu suspected wasn’t an accident either. He sent out silent thanks to whoever had planned this place.

  Unfortunately, just coming into view on the road directly south of the compound, at about the same distance but moving faster, was a ragtag attack force, numbering around fifty or sixty fighters. They didn’t appear to be armed with anything more than rifles, but he wasn’t sure about the range of their weapons. The two parties hadn’t seen each other yet, which was the only blessing.

  “Tomas, go out and meet the children, get them in here as quickly and quietly as possible. I’m going to lay down some diversionary fire – you have to ignore that and just get the children back in here, don’t let them turn around.”

  To his surprise Tomas nodded and was gone. The child definitely had potential.

  ‘Holi. Zeda’

  He got sleepy responses from both of them.

  ‘I need you both on the ramparts with rifles, now. Can you do that?’

  ‘What … Why ….’

  ‘What why later, right now you have to listen to me, please. The children are coming in from the east, Tomas has gone out to get them, we may have to distract the maggots who are coming up the road. Get rifles, get up on the ramparts.’

  To their credit, they both moved at a good speed, shouldering rifles from his supplies and climbing to the ramparts.

  ‘Hold your fire until I call for it. We will want them to think there’s a garrison here, so when you fire, do so and then move, keep moving, so they think there are a lot of us. The point isn’t to hit anyone, it’s to make them think. If they know how to think.’

  ‘They don’t’, Zeda assured him. ‘This planet has been going downhill for a long time.’

  ‘Sometime you will have to tell me the story of how you ended up here.’

  ‘Short story. Ship crashed. I found Holi, killed the one who thought he owned him, now we are together, collecting children.’

  ‘Good story. I am honored to know you. Now hold your fire …’

  Atu had a good view from the corner tower, and saw when Tomas reached the children. There was a brief conference, and then a quick shifting of burdens, and some of the bigger ones dropped whatever they were carrying and picked up the smallest children, even though a few of them had little ones strapped to their backs already. He was pleased to see that they all kept to the lowest part of the trail, and kept their heads down. If he had to suddenly have thirty-eight children, at least he had found clever ones.

  He turned his attention back to the threat coming up the road. If he did this right, and the gods were with him, the maggots wouldn’t even see the children at all, or at least not until it was too late. He sorted through the various explosive grenades he had, and selected several that created a large noise and a great deal of smoke.

  ‘Holi, Zeda, hold your fire, I’m going to make some noise here.’

  He calculated his range carefully. He wanted the rounds to land just in front of the attack force and drive them back. He could have killed half of them with a few rounds, but they could still choose to save themselves by retreating in peace. He doubted that they would, but he would give them the choice.

  The first round exploded out of the launcher and that noise of that expulsion alone brought the maggots to a halt. They had been expecting unarmed children, not artillery. The round hit just short of their force with a huge ball of fire and smoke, which conveniently obscured their view of where the children were coming in, faster now. Tomas was doing a good job.

  The second round created a massive hole in the road, and sent shrapnel, rocks and compacted dirt flying. The attacking force backed up quickly, scrambling over each other and ignoring their wounded. Definit
ely not trained troops. The third round was another of the fire and smoke variety, and for a minute Atu thought the entire force was just going to turn and run.

  Sadly, they actually had someone in charge, and he heard a great deal of yelling, which resulted in the force reassembling just out of what they assumed to be his range.

  ‘They want the children, they sell them as slaves off-planet, and get a very good price for them. They had been getting bolder in their attempts to take them. We are keeping them from a small fortune with our young ones here’, Zeda explained.

  Atu shook his head in disgust. ‘The children are valuable, indeed. All young ones are to be treasured.’

  ‘Yet you, your people, sold Holi?’ Zeda was obviously trying very hard to keep his voice neutral.

  ‘No, well yes, some evil ones among my people did that, there were many sold, maybe a hundred. The mission of my ship, the Crusader, is to find and rescue all of them, and we will. But no more will be sold, ever.’ Atu sighed. ‘Holi, I am so sorry that you had to suffer, for everything you went through …’

  ‘That’s why you said I was one of the lost children, even though I am not a child anymore? But I am found now, and if I hadn’t been here who would have helped these children?’

  ‘And we wouldn’t all be together’, Zeda added. ‘Alright, it’s a strange universe. Now what?’

  The attacking force had pulled back a bit, and seemed to be setting up camp in the remains of a dead forest by the side of the road, although it was still far from being dark. The children were almost at the door before any of the so-called troops even saw them, and most of those few who were stupid enough to run towards them were taken down easily with rifle fire. Zeda turned out to be a good shot, which pleased Atu, and Holi also showed a fine natural aptitude. Between the three of them they managed to make the attackers think that there were a great many more defenders than there were, and the surviving maggots retreated to their camp amid jeers from their own side.

  The children scrambled into the compound and barricaded the eastern door behind them, and Atu could breathe again. His new family was all in one place behind strong walls, and safe for now. Now all he had to do was keep them that way until the Crusader returned.

  The attacking force settled into their camp, but there were none of the sounds of drunken partying that Atu had hoped for. They did indeed have a leader, and that one was exercising control over what passed for troops. This wasn’t good. If he was going to guess, he would guess that a night attack was being planned.

  Chapter 3.

  Atu stayed on the ramparts to keep watch, and to keep out of the way of his beloveds and their thirty-eight children. They made an astounding amount of noise, and all of the small ones seemed to be in constant motion. They would have made a good army, as there seemed to be hundreds of them. They all fell on the rations that the Crusader had sent down with great enthusiasm, and soon the sounds and smells of cooking wafted over the compound, tempting even Atu.

  He was just debating giving in to his stomach when Zeda brought him up a large bowl of steaming stew, and a chunk of fresh flat bread.

  ‘Thank you, Atu. The children haven’t eaten this well in a long time.’

  ‘It’s been bad, has it?’

  ‘We didn’t know what we were going to do. We didn’t want to leave this place, but there isn’t any food to be found around here anymore.’

  Atu thought of Caleb’s big map back on the ship, which highlighted areas of greatest need, and nodded.

  ‘We knew there were probably orphans at risk here, because of the wars and the famine. We’ve been trying to figure out where our own children are, on a star map, and other groups of orphans at risk as well. That’s why I’m here. We didn’t know that Holi was here, though. Our map is far from perfect.’

  After everyone had eaten their fill, Atu brought everyone together in the compound to have a part in the plan. He stood in front of his troops, feeling a mix of pride and despair. No group he had ever commanded had been quite as diverse as the one assembled in front of him today, or as vulnerable.

  Of the thirty-eight children, ten were only toddlers, who would perhaps be able to stay out of the way but wouldn’t be able to hold weapons. These ten, with four of the shyer teenagers to look after them, were tucked away in a hidden cellar in the most secure of the inner buildings.

  Holi and Zeda packed food, water and supplies in with them, and hugged and kissed them all. It wasn’t said, but the adults knew that if all went wrong, if all defenses failed, these would be the ones who would still be alive when the Crusader returned. Anyone who could hold a gun would die protecting these little ones who couldn’t protect themselves.

  The rest of the children were offered the opportunity to join the little ones, and they all stared at him in disgust.

  “You can hide there if you want. We fight. If you don’t have enough guns we will fight with knives.”

  Tomas, at perhaps fifteen years, was the oldest, and clearly the leader, so Atu set him to organizing the rest of the children. Tomas partnered each older child with a younger one, and made sure they all knew how to load and shoot. Each pair had two rifles, the younger one would load and pass the gun to the older, and they would keep switching off. The important thing would be to keep their heads down, and keep shooting.

  The average age of his army was less than twelve years, and the rifles they held were taller than some of them. Atu had never commanded a force that he had been prouder of, and he told them that. They stood taller.

  They had to follow orders, he explained to them. He might know something they didn’t, and he wouldn’t have time to argue or explain. If Atu or Tomas yelled at them to fall back, they would retreat into the first line of buildings, and defend those. There was a second line of inner buildings to fall back to behind that, and after that there was no place to go. From there, there was only fighting.

  There were supplies at each line, including medical supplies, and everyone knew what to do. Atu sincerely hoped that it would never get that bad, but they had to be prepared for the worst.

  He sent another message to the Crusader.

  “Situation deteriorating. Have three adults, including self, and thirty-eight children, including babies, to evacuate. We are in good defensive position, but too many children, against an attacking force of nearly twice that number and growing.”

  He included a mental picture of the compound, including the cellar where the littlest ones were hidden.

  He didn’t expect a response, or get one. Wherever the ship was, it was too far away for an instant reply. They would get the message when they did, and respond when they could. More words wouldn’t change anything now.

  He paced the ramparts, and waited for the night attack that he knew was coming. Zeda and Holi joined him, and they talked softly in their minds as they waited.

  ‘Do you remember our home planet, Holi? Nothing like this. It is beautiful, rich, lush and green, food grows everywhere, and it is so peaceful …’

  ‘I dream of it, and hope to see it again, beloved. Zeda? What would you choose? To go back to your home planet, or come home with us?’

  Atu held his breath, the big warrior suddenly more scared than he had ever been. Zeda might leave them? He knew they were all talking as though they were going to die, and dying didn’t scare him, but to live without his beloveds?

  Zeda laughed. ‘Holi, I love you, but you are a fool. You are my home, my heart, how could I leave you? And this big one who likes giving orders … he is part of us too, isn’t he?’

  The big one breathed again.

  ‘My own planet, it is a nice enough place, far better than this, but I go with you. This place, I think their sun is dying. Most who can leave have done so, and just the scavengers and raiders are left. I travelled much of this world when I was looking for Holi, and is it all dying.’

  ‘You knew to look for him?’

  ‘I knew that I was looking, I didn’t know until I saw him what I was looking for.’

  They were all silent for a long time, just holding onto each other and praying for a future together, and a future for all the precious lives they protected. Atu let himself think of them being home on his planet, and Holi’s belly rounded with child, and all the children around them laughing and playing.