Up in the Mountains
(Week 15)
Getting posted to Metella was probably the best thing that could have ever happened to my career, even after I'd signed up to be part of a Human Terrain Terrain team. You figure you'd get sent to Afghanistan, but instead I was in a village five days north of the nearest road on a completely different planet. I was also part of the team handling first contact with this specific village as a test-run to see if we could fuck this up less. So far, this wasn't turning out to be very hard.
"I can't believe you're taking pictures of them." One of our interpreters said as she sat down on a stone near a corn crib. "What if it actually does steal their souls this time? The Nokli aren't the most forgiving people, even if they look like lowlanders."
"And they'd like to see what they look like, which makes my job that much easier." I replied as I photographed some of the houses. "Arwi, why don't you go bother your husband or something? He's probably already making pancakes for the villagers."
"Of course he is." She said, rolling her eyes, "Doctor Corlett, we should join them since it smells like the rest of the food is almost ready. Why are you taking so many pictures anyway?"
"Documentation." I replied. "This is the biggest first contact event my people have had in a long time and the first with agricultural societies outside New Guinea in a few generations. I really don't want to cock this up."
"So you're recording everything?"
"Yes, I'm taking photographs and getting some video. Simmons is taking notes on everything else."
"What's the point?" Arwi asked. "With as tight as you're becoming with the lowlanders, they'll all be taken down to the valley before my children are grown and I doubt that many of the girls here will be as lucky as I was and get bought by a Marine."
"That's even more of a reason to get as much information as we can." I said as I turned to photograph more of what looked like the village temple.
"All this is doing is making it easier for the Meledli to reach these people like they did mine, while guns and roads will just help them cut out the middlemen as they hunt for labor." Arwi said. "I understand that you're trying to change them as Aede's ancestors did before, but can you do it fast enough?"
"I don't think I've ever see you not be a bubbly blonde in public." Corporal Johnson said as he walked up. "I like it."
"Well, you know how I am around men. And Wyta." Arwi said as she perked up. "Overfed lowlander bitch…"
"They made clay bird with the pheasants for dinner." Johnson said as he put his hand on his wife's shoulder, "And I know you love that."
"Anything else?" I asked.
"Boot's running the griddle and the Nokli have stew and some plums." Johnson said.
"That sounds good." Arwi said.
Dinner was good, and as we sat around with the elders exchanging stories, I finally got around to asking where the Nokli were from originally.
"That's easy." Arwi replied before any of the elders could get a word in. "They're relatives of the Meledli, and are the descendants of the people who fled to the hills to avoid King Aede's ancestors. They're like the rest of us hill people. Cast-offs, escaped slaves and ne'er do wells who went out of the lowlands and into the forests to avoid some tyrant or another. Of course the Meledli still see us all as uncivilized cat fuckers, even if they're the ones who pay extra for them."
"I'd like to hear them say that though." I said. One of the elders did that head-tossing shrug, tossing his black hair about.
"And I'm one of them." Arwi replied. "Well, I mean my father was Arawas, but my mother was Nokli."
"Right, and the Arawas are?"
"Those perverts with top knots who fuck sheep and full-bloods, and speak that godawful language." One of the elders responded.
"So that's why you get along with the Marines so well." I said as I looked at Arwi.
Both of the Johnsons gave me a murderous look, and I dropped it.
"But could you be more specific? That's a pretty wide description." I said to the elders.
"They also shave their faces and make their summer shoes from bast instead of leather." One of the elders replied almost helpfully. "They live uphill. Occasionally we raid them and sell them to the lowlanders, sometimes they do it to us, and sometimes we both raid the lowlanders when their king is weak. We also trade for saltfish and tools, but that's just a fact of life."
I switched back to english, and looked at Arwi. "I'm guessing they're not going to be big fans of Crytus' love affair with roads."
It took her a good five minutes to stop laughing. "They'll probably move." Arwi said, also switching back. "They'll buy the best axes they can and clear new land a few days away from the road, or skip the clearing and just give up corn. It's what my village did when I was a child."
"They gave up corn? What was their main grain?" I asked, scratching my chin.
Arwi shrugged. "Grains are the things you can make bread with, right?"
"Close enough."
Awri shuddered. "Acorns and chestnuts. Lots of acorns and chestnuts. You'd roast them on a rock, and then you'd grind them up into this dusty flour and dump it in with the stew to thicken it. Also, parsnips."
"Sounds delicious." Johnson replied.
"It's not bad when you get used to it, but it's still just stew or turnips all the damn time." Arwi said. "Not that the lowlanders are better off, since they're taxed and forced to grow corn, and give meat to their ruler."
"Yes, because one ear in ten is so steep." her husband replied.
"It's the principle of the thing, and I'm not sure it's something the lowest of the lowlanders would understand." Arwi replied.
"We've both been to Afghanistan, and we've seen this sort of thing." I replied. "Aside from the raiding, Crytus is actually kinda marginal as far as warlords go."
"So what defines your warlords, then?" Awri asked, chuckling.
"Politics, firepower and usually drug money." Johnson said. "Plus there was like actually a war on, and they'd use that to try and get legitimacy from a government that couldn't just enforce its will."
"I don't really see the difference." Arwi replied.
"Crytus isn't looking for any of that from the US, and we could roll over him in a weekend if we honestly wanted to, even with just the equipment we already have here and the fuel to actually use it." Her husband said.
"But you don't." Arwi said.
"We've been fighting two wars of a scale you can't even comprehend on our homeworld for the last decade. We're tired, and wars are expensive. Especially in places like this, and with people like this." I said as I swung an arm around for emphasis, "The General is happy with us just holding the portal and doing missions like this to see what else is out here, either to trade and find some way to justify the cost of occupying Metella for the next forever or just to get whatever data the scientists are so giddy about."
"Didn't Lieutenant Bear say the data he was getting was priceless?" Arwi said. "Shouldn't that be enough."
"Yes," Her husband replied. "Just don't tell the republicans. Or my parents."
"When the hell are we going to meet them anyway?" Arwi said. "I want my goddamned honeymoon."
"After Doctor Corlett is satisfied with the material he has, and the LT decides to head back." Johnson said as he looked at me. I swallowed nervously.
"We should be done in a day, and be headed back after that." I said.
