Xintoday.
The second chapter of Hangover Hall, the actual novel. All this text is a bit wearing, so I have some image stuff to break it up a bit - that's next post sorted, then...
It was a green, overcast day. The clouds scudded over the grim sky, and Xbaal pulled his cloak collar tighter around his neck. He hated wearing a cloak, and the ridiculous body armour that went underneath. It had to be gleaming, polished every day, or else he was disciplined by Xway, his superior officer. If they had actually been involved in a situation where armour was in some way applicable or necessary, he probably wouldn't have minded so much: but the miserable truth was that he sat at a desk all day in the war office, and the broadsword he wore at his side was forever getting entangled in the wheels of his swivel chair. Last week he had turned too quickly in the office and put it right through the screen of his computer terminal. The shock of metal meeting electricity had thrown him across the room, and his chest plate had glowed for three hours. But he asked himself, did he get any sympathy? No, all Xway had done was reprimand him for carelessness and make a note to take the cost of a new terminal out of his salary.
Xbaal scowled at the sky. He was sure it was going to rain. That would make his armour go rusty; especially in these not-so ecologically conscious days. The Xaal people had an old saying that had been corrupted over the years. It now ran something like: 'it never rains but that it eats through your brickwork.' This was due to the amount of chemicals and background radiation that now suffused the atmosphere, the result of their eight hundred anum war against the Crithode people.
He muttered an obscenity under his breath and began to trot towards the portals of the war office. A few drops of rain had begun to fall - heavy, ponderous packages of water and chemical that splattered the marble paving under his feet. The marble was already pitted from years of such showers.
Grumbling under his breath, Xbaal broke into a run and just managed to make the war office before the shower started in earnest. There were distant screams from domestic pets and strays caught in the acid hail. He shivered at the sound and brushed the water from his cloak.
After checking in, he took the elevator to the thirty-fifth floor. It was one of those elevators that move slowly, and never actually stop: instead, whoever wishes to alight has to be smart on their feet and jump before the upwards motion precludes any such alightment. As usual, Xbaal's broadsword clanged noisily on the moving floor of the elevator, travelling as it did some sixteen inches behind him.
'Ah, early for once,' came the voice of Xway from behind the closed door of his office. 'In here, please. I have something of import to discuss.'
Xbaal knew what he would like to discuss: why the officials of the war office still had to wear this ridiculous armour. Why couldn't they have nice one-piece suits in black and silver polyhystamine, like the real soldiers? After all, times had changed. No longer did warriors ride into battle on chargers with long swords and armour plate. Now they sped across the empty tracts of space; although not so empty since the war had started. Now, plenty of debris from battle and careless driving littered the darkness. Anyway, they sped across the tracts of space between Crithode and Xaal in those dinky battle cruisers and their equally dinky silver and black one-piece suits. He thought about raising the matter but decided against it when he entered Xway's office.
Xway was approaching four hundred anums in age, and as such was near his retirement. By comparison, Xbaal was a mere stripling at one hundred and ten. Xway's high domed and completely bald head was staring out of the window as Xbaal entered, and he turned to face his junior. The effect was a little disturbing, as the dome of Xway's head seemed to be perfect: he had no chin, thin colourless lips, and a stub of a nose set under beady little eyes with a few frown lines delineating a forehead. If he turned quickly, it always looked to Xbaal as though someone had just suddenly sketched features on the back of his head.
As usual, it made him want to laugh. He managed to suppress it, a bare quiver giving him away. Xway's eyes grew even beadier.
'Something amusing you?' he hissed in low, peevish tones.
'Nothing,' Xbaal spluttered with a wave of the hand. Please, he thought, don't let him ask me for a report, or even what the weather's like - I'll be in hysterics by the end of the first sentence.
This tendency to laugh at his superior had led to Xbaal receiving the worst jobs in the department. Who had to account for the waste product to food ratio on battle cruisers in action? Who had to then present that information with graphs and charts in front of the council of elders? Worst of all, who had to endure the Supreme Leader joking that his report was 'a pile of poo?’
It couldn't be that bad again. Nonetheless, he kept an admirably straight face when Xway flexed his bowed legs, forming a perfect 'o' shape from pelvis to ankle, before walking to his desk. He made to sit down, and then stopped. He fixed Xbaal with an even beadier eye than before.
I wonder if he practises those looks, thought Xbaal, a shiver running down his spine.
'I've got a job for you. It's right up your street.' He smiled at Xbaal, whose blood now ran cold. Xway would only smile if it meant certain death for his least favoured employee. The old man picked a file off the piles of paperwork on his desk. 'A report from the null zone. As you know, we send spies out to try and pick up anything that may be of interest or use to us.'
Xbaal's blood was now frozen solid in his veins. The null zone was dangerous. Not many spies got back alive, or at least in a recognisable form.
'As you may be aware, our scientists have been developing a sonic weapon that will send waves across space and destroy Crithode.'
'Uh, is that possible? I thought that space was... well, sort of empty, like...' Xbaal shrugged.
Xway's lips pursed into a thin white line: a line whiter than the light bouncing off his polished dome.
'If our boys say they can do it, then they can. Obedience and trust in others are what makes Xaal great.'
Xbaal nodded. Sure, it was like when they trusted President Xandu to strike up a trade deal with Crithode and he got drunk, insulted them all by calling their beer weak (which it obviously was not), and started this war back in the mists of time. Like they trusted all the peacemakers ever since who had got drunk, called the beer weak, and blown any chance of peace. The Xaal's didn't have too great a record on the 'trust' score. At least, not in Xbaal's book.
'Now then,' continued the old man, 'our spies have located an invention in a sector of the null zone that will - our scientists say - form a vital component of the new device.'
Which means, thought Xbaal, that they're stuck, and stealing this thing will save them work and face. Stealing...oh no.
'You have been assigned the task of, shall we say, gaining this invention for us. It is a great honour.' There was something particularly wicked about Xway's smile.
Xbaal didn't really listen to the rest of the dissertation on what an honour it was: he was far too busy trying to come to terms with the thought that he would soon be dead. A deep gloom overcame him, and he wished he could be like the bird that perched on the window ledge outside Xway's office. It was small, and nature had adapted it for the chemical rains: its feathers had mutated into a kind of scaly armour. Come to think of it, with its smooth head and beady eyes it looked a little like Xway. The thought did nothing to cheer him up.
'... and now you must begin. Hurry, boy, there is little time to lose.' His superior had thrust a file and video tape into his hand and was guiding him towards the door with an extremely malicious grin on his face. He pushed him through, and then saluted.
' 'Fraid he's out.'
' 'Fraid he's out,' returned Xbaal limply before the door was slammed in his face.
Xway returned to his desk with some satisfaction. At last, he had found a way to rid himself of that idiot Xbaal. Xway came from a great line of warriors, and it pained him to be stuck in a desk job without recourse to battle. It also pained him to see fit young men like Xbaal idling away in cushy office jobs. He looked down at his chair with longing, then returned to the window: the thing that pained him most of all was to be from a long line of warriors, to be stuck in a desk job, and - the final humiliation - to be stricken with chronic haemorrhoids.
He flexed his knees again. He was sure Xbaal knew this, and that was why he laughed at him.
Xway hated to be laughed at. He had no sense of humour himself, and humour in others merely baffled him. He didn't even understand the Xaal salute, which was a perfect example of their sense of humour. The world capital was called Xintoday, and in the early years of its dominance, traders who had arrived from other parts of the planet had been baffled by the lack of signs into the city and had stopped locals with the query 'Xintoday?'.
All signs had been removed to allow the locals to reply 'No, 'fraid he's out,' before collapsing into hysterics in front of the baffled visitors.
With a sense of humour like this, it was perhaps no wonder that they had been at war for so long.