Tabona’s farm
Pheben III
Wol had never seen so much food in one place in her life.
The House of Varnak had had its share of feasts over the years, and no one ever starved in a Defense Force mess hall, but they all paled in comparison to the huge piles of food that were placed all around the big wooden table in the middle of the clearing in front of the farmhouse.
“I can’t remember the last time I ate outside,” Wol said to Kagak.
The bekk said, “I can’t remember the last time we ever ate inside on the farm, when it wasn’t midwinter.” He laughed. “And sometimes, even then, if Grandmother was feeling particularly vicious.”
Tabona passed by, carrying another tray, this one piled high with gagh—in fact, they were the largest serpent worms Wol had ever seen. The old woman said, “Viciousness got nothin’ to do with it, boy. I just don’t think folks should eat indoors. Isn’t natural.”
“We have very little choice aboard ship,” Wol said with a smile. “Where did you get those gagh?”
“What, these?” Tabona looked down at her tray. “They’re all right, I guess. Hurgor brought them. Usually he brings bigger.”
Wol’s eyes widened as Tabona brought the tray to the already-overloaded table. She didn’t think they bred gagh that large, much less larger.
She and Kagak were standing between the table and the house. The table sat right in front of the north end of the house, bordered on two sides by farm, and on the fourth by the pathway to the main road, where Wol saw the accursed Vikak still parked. Only the fact that it seemed to be the family’s only distance vehicle kept Wol from firebombing the damn thing.
The wooden table was surrounded on each of its two long sides by a bench, with stools on the two ends. It looked like at least thirty Klingons could fit—more if they didn’t mind bumping elbows.
She asked Kagak, “How big is your family? I didn’t see that many bedrooms in the house.”
“Two of the neighboring farms also dine here—particularly on a special occasion such as this.”
Wol frowned. “What special occasion? I thought yobta’ yupma’ was tomorrow.”
Tabona, having somehow contrived to find room for the gagh on the table, said, “It’s for you, of course. Ain’t every day my grandson returns to the nest, and ain’t every day we have guests of your caliber. Now what’re you standing here for? Sit! Eat!”
Wol let Kagak lead her to an appropriate spot. He sat at one corner, next to one end of the table. Wol sat next to him. She looked around and saw Goran talking to B’Ellor, Kagak’s sister. Tabona approached them, waving her arms and pointing at the table.
Shortly thereafter, the two of them walked over, even as Klingons and Phebens started pouring in from all sides—some from the house, some from the farm, some from the path to the road. Everyone’s clothes (well, the Klingons’ clothes, as Phebens didn’t dress themselves) were covered in a certain amount of grime and dirt, adding the peaty aroma that seemed to hang over this place.
People greeted each other with laughs and head butts, and welcomed Kagak with equal enthusiasm. Goran eventually managed to squeeze his way onto one of the benches next to Wol, and B’Ellor took a seat opposite the big man, leaving room for Fuhrman, who sat between her and the head of the table, which Wol presumed to be Tabona’s place.
Now seated, Wol had a chance to examine the contents of the table more closely and saw plenty of familiar foods, but the proportion was different from what she was accustomed to. No doubt due to what they produced, there were a lot more vegetable- and grain-based plates. Where such would be only a side dish or garnish at House Varnak or on the Gorkon, they were in greater evidence here. She also saw a basket full of jInjoq bread—only this had the odd shapes and sizes that indicated that it was handmade. One of House Varnak’s chefs had made jInjoq by hand; it had been a sad day for Wol when she died.
From the far end of the table, one of the Klingons said, “Hey, Fuhrman, ain’t you gonna set traps for the korvit? Didn’t see any when I walked over here.”
Wincing, Fuhrman said, “QI’yaH, is that thing back again?”
The Klingon nodded. “Ate through half my khest’n fence and tore through my hurkik.”
Another Klingon settled in next to B’Ellor. He had a scar on his cheek and a patch missing on the chin of his beard. “So, you work with Kagak, eh?”
“Yes. And you farm?”
He laughed. “I provide food for the empire, yes.” He grabbed some food off a plate and started to move it toward his mouth.
“Kaseli! Stop that!”
Wol turned to see Tabona heading for the table, fury in her eyes.
Quickly, Kaseli threw the food back onto the table.
“You know better than to start eating before we’ve all sat down,” she said as she walked around and hit him on the back of the head. Then she turned to Wol. “Feel free to ignore this petaQ, Wol. I wonder why I continue to let him sit at my table.”
His mouth widening into a huge grin, one that accentuated the bald spot in his beard, Kaseli said, “Because you cannot deny my charm?”
“Oh, watch me deny your charm, Kaseli.” She rolled her eyes and went back toward the house.
Wol regarded her retreating form with apprehension. “She isn’t getting more food, is she?”
“Probably,” Kagak said. “This is less than we usually have.”
Wol swallowed, then said, “It is nice to see that some things remain constant.”
“What do you mean?” Kaseli asked.
“On the Gorkon,” Wol said, “we also do not eat until the appropriate time.”
Kagak added, “Though in our case, we wait for a song.” He smiled. “When B’Elath sings—”
“We all suffer,” Wol said with a laugh, “for B’Elath is a terrible singer. But the day after she sings, we are always victorious in battle.”
“So,” Kaseli said, “what is it, exactly, that you do on that ship? Do you fly it?”
“No, that’s for the bridge officers.”
“Engineers, then?”
Emphatically, Wol said, “No.” She’d managed to avoid encountering Kurak during her tour, but she’d heard plenty of stories about that madwoman. “We are the ship’s soldiers—the ground troops who fight our captain’s battles.”
Kaseli grunted. “Seems to me he should fight his own battles.”
Wol bristled. “He does. But most battles require more than one participant.”
“So let all the captains do it,” Kaseli said with a laugh. “What else do you do?”
“We have many duties—they vary depending on the situation. We guard sensitive areas of the ship, we provide the ship’s security, we—”
“So you fight? All day? That is all?”
“That is enough. We fight for the empire.”
Kaseli frowned. “Seems risky to me. Doesn’t that increase the likelihood that you’ll die?”
“Of course.” Wol couldn’t believe she was even being asked this.
A few other Klingons had sat down around them. One said, “C’mon, Kaseli, that’s what the Defense Force is there for. To die for us.”
“I don’t want anyone to die for me,” Kaseli said.
Snorting, Wol said, “Trust me, Kaseli, when I die, it won’t be for you. Besides, I believe your friend meant all the peoples of the empire when he said ‘us.’ ”
The other Klingon asked, “Why do you do it, if it carries such great risk?”
“It is the wish of every Klingon to die in service of the empire.”
That got a bark of laughter from Kaseli. “Every Klingon warrior, perhaps, but we are not all so fortunate as to be warriors. Besides, I have no wish to die in the service of the empire or anyone else. If I die, who will till the fields for my family?”
The one next to him said, “Any one of a dozen other members of your family, and they’d all do it better than you, you lazy toDSaH.”
“Hah! I still do it better than you, Kosted.”
A Pheben sat next to Kosted, which surprised Wol. Others did likewise. “The jeghpu’wI’ sits at the table?”
“Of course he does,” Tabona said, on her way back from the house. “Where else would he sit?”
The Pheben said, “Tabona honors us by allowing our lowly selves to sit with her.”
“Oh, stop that,” Tabona said as she placed yet another tray, this one containing a huge rokeg blood pie, on the table, squeezing it between the skull stew and the mutant gagh. “You work the fields, you eat the food.” Then she stood at the stool at the head of the table and shouted, “Everyone sit down! It’s time to eat!”
The few who were still standing took their seats on the benches. Only the stool at the other end was left empty. Wol was considering suggesting Goran be allowed to use it—he was straining the capacity of the bench as it was—but assumed that, with this many people, if a seat was left empty, it was done so for a reason.
Everyone quieted down, which was Wol’s latest surprise. Even on the Gorkon, when the premeal song was sung, no one ever got completely quiet.
Tabona held up a mug that appeared to be empty. In fact, there were mugs throughout the table—much more battered than the ones Wol was used to on the Gorkon, though in better shape than the malformed things she was forced to drink from in Krennla—all empty.
“K’Zinn, daughter of Kasara, was my cousin. When we were younger, a tornado came, one that was far stronger than our yIntagh of a governor said it would be. The force field generator went out, and K’Zinn immediately, without thought to herself, ran out of the house to repair it. My cousin died that day, as the winds carried her off and straight into a tree. But before that, she fixed the generator. The force field activated, and the crops were saved. It was the day before yobta’ yupma’, just as it is today, and if the force field hadn’t protected the crops, our family would have had nothing—nothing for yobta’ yupma’, nothing for the market, nothing for our market buyers. We would have had no food for the winter—no surplus crops to store, no crops to sell to pay for food. That would have been the end of us. We continue to live because she died. She cannot drink with us, nor eat with us, so the first drink is empty to honor her!”
Everyone raised their mugs and shouted, “K’Zinn!” Wol and Goran said nothing, of course, since they hadn’t known what to shout until it was too late. She noticed that the Phebens also joined in the toast.
After that, they all dry-sipped their mugs and threw them aside.
“Now let us eat!” Tabona cried.
Wol held back as everyone else dove into the food, grabbing bits of everything and tossing it onto their plates. Another way in which this is familiar, she thought.
She leaned over to Kagak. “I have never heard of that manner of tribute before.”
“Really?” Kagak asked through a mouth filled with some kind of vegetable Wol belatedly realized was a gonklik—she was used to them being sliced. “It is an old tradition—I thought everyone did it.”
Wol shook her head. “In all my days, I never saw such a thing.” She smiled. “However, I do like it.”
Once the initial frenzy had died down, Wol grabbed some food at random, though she made sure to get some of the gagh. Her teeth bit into the wriggling creature’s flesh, and the worm’s blood was rich and thick, saltier than usual. “Tabona, you must tell me where you get this gagh.”
From down the table, someone said, “Oh, no! You let the Defense Force know about this, and they’ll buy them all up! We’ll never see it again!”
“I have no intention of telling the Defense Force,” Wol said, “merely my ship’s quartermaster.”
Several laughed at that.
B’Ellor said to Goran, “Have you always been a soldier?”
“No,” Goran said, his mouth full of skull stew. “My parents were prison guards on Rura Penthe, and I did as they did. Then they were killed, and I left to join the Defense Force.”
Her eyes growing wide, B’Ellor said, “You’ve been to Rura Penthe?”
“I was born there.”
Kaseli said, “I’ve heard that all the prisoners there are killed by wild animals and eaten for food by the guards.”
Goran straightened with outrage, making his already large form seem considerably larger. “That is not true!”
“I don’t see why not,” a Pheben said. “Why else have the prisoners?”
“They do the work,” Goran said. “The prison has to be maintained.”
“Why?” Kaseli asked. “They cannot leave the prison, and the prison is maintained only so it can house the prisoners.”
Fuhrman gave one of his ground-shaking laughs, though it was muted in the greater ambient noise of Tabona’s supper table. “Someone mark this day down! Kaseli has said something intelligent!”
“No, he hasn’t,” Wol said with a wicked grin as she swallowed more gagh.
“Really?” Kaseli chewed on a piece of zilm’kach. “I’d say my logic is quite sound.”
“Were this a Vulcan supper table, that would matter—but no Vulcan would have the stomach for Klingon food.” Wol chewed on another serpent worm for good measure. “And even if it were a Vulcan table, you would be cast away from it like a fool, because your logic is flawed. The prisoners on Rura Penthe are there to be punished for their crimes.”
“Is death not the ultimate punishment?” Kosted asked.
Goran answered that. “Death is an honor. It should not to be wasted on the likes of prisoners.”
“Death is death,” said the Pheben who sat on the other side of B’Ellor from Goran. “Why does it matter?”
“Because death is death,” Wol said. “It is the only surety of life—that it will end. So how you achieve it matters more than anything.”
Kaseli laughed, spitting grapok sauce. “I suppose you have to believe that in order to fight the idiotic battles of the Defense Force.”
Goran slammed a fist on the table, shaking several pieces of food off their trays and plates. “We fight for the honor of the empire!”
“And to preserve it,” Kagak said. “And you’re all wasting your breath. Kaseli has made this argument before.”
“Yes, right before you decided to throw your life away,” Kaseli said.
Fuhrman said, “It is his life to throw, Kaseli! Besides which, you’ll notice he is still here!”
“For now.” He turned to Wol. “Tell me, how many of your soldiers died in order to defend some aliens you’d only just met? Yes, I know all about your ship. We could hardly not, what with them composing operas about it.”
“Operas?” Wol frowned as she tore off a piece of the still-warm jInjoq.
Tabona said, “On Ty’Gokor a month or two ago, they debuted a new Reshtarc opera about your ship’s battle at San-Tarah.”
“It’s now playing on Qo’noS,” B’Ellor said, “at the opera house in Krennla.”
Kagak turned to Wol. “Didn’t G’joth say his sister performed at that opera house?”
Wol nodded absently as she chewed the soft, delicious jInjoq but was focused on Kaseli. “You feel that we fought for no reason?”
“The world was conquered anyhow. Why sacrifice so many warriors like that? Your captain should have just done what the general told him to do and taken the planet.”
“He gave his word,” Wol said.
“So?”
Wol laughed. “Strange sentiments from a man who shares a table with jeghpu’wI’.”
Kaseli snarled. “That is different.”
“How? Would you renege on a promise made to any of the Phebens sitting at this table?”
Tabona glared at Kaseli. “Not if he wants to ever sit at this table again.”
“Elddeh, Kralc, and Atorec have earned the right to be treated as equals by laboring with us to provide the empire’s food.” Kaseli angrily grabbed some more of one of the salads and slammed it onto his plate.
“The San-Tarah earned the same respect from us,” Wol said. “Without honor, we are nothing.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,” Tabona said. “But without honor, we’re not really Klingons, are we?”
Kaseli shook his head. “I still say it was ridiculous for so many to die that day. It was a waste.”
“Was it?” Wol stuffed another handful of gagh into her mouth, then said, “I might say the same of Tabona’s cousin.”
Tabona threw her food onto her plate. “What?”
“She threw her life away to activate a generator. Why would she do that? It was a waste of a life.”
“If she had not done that—” Tabona started, but Wol cut her off.
“Yes, yes, so you said, Tabona, but as Kaseli pointed out, it was a waste. True, this farm might not have survived, but there are other farms on this planet, and more still elsewhere in the empire. People would not starve. Why should a woman, who was obviously important to all of you, or you would not have waited to eat until proper tribute was paid to her memory, allow herself to be killed like that?”
“She sacrificed herself for—” Kaseli started.
“For this farm, yes. For something she believed in. If I dismiss that, Tabona looks on me with disfavor.” Wol looked over at Tabona, who in fact was no longer regarding her that way, having figured out what she was talking about, which was more than could be said for Kaseli. Wol continued: “Yet you feel free to dismiss our sacrifices, when we fight for the very foundation of what makes our empire strong.”
“So say you.” Kaseli bared his teeth. “I say that the food we grow makes our empire strong!”
Several people cheered raggedly at that. Tabona was not one of them. She looked at Wol, then looked at Kagak. “I like these two much more than the last ones you brought home.”
Wol inclined her head. “Thank you, Tabona.”
Kosted asked, “How long will you be staying?”
“I do not know,” Wol said honestly. Her first instinct upon arrival was to leave the morning after yobta’ yupma’, but the more she sat at this table, and the more of this excellent food she ate, the less she wanted to leave. The Gorkon would be under repair for half a month, after all.
“You are welcome to stay as long as you like,” Tabona said.
“If you remain for a few days, you can see the tournament!” Fuhrman bellowed.
Kagak practically bounced in his seat. “There’s a tournament? Excellent! I was hoping to see one!”
“What manner of tournament?” Wol asked.
“Fistfighting,” Kaseli said. “We’ve had one every season for almost twenty turns now. And I wouldn’t get too excited. Lak’s going to win anyhow.”
B’Ellor said, “He can’t possibly win all of them.”
“He’s won the last seven,” Fuhrman said dolefully. “I faced him last time, and he nearly killed me!”
Wol chewed thoughtfully on a piece of blood pie that she’d liberated from the tray. “How does the tournament work?”
Tabona said, “It happens in the market circle. Whoever won the previous tournament fights until he is defeated. Any may challenge him, as long as he is a farmer on this world.”
“No outsiders?”
“This is our tournament,” Tabona said fiercely. She smiled. “Besides, the side bets are how many of us make our money.”
“Or we would,” Fuhrman grumbled, “if we won any of them. With Lak’s victories, it becomes difficult to lay a wager!”
“True,” Tabona said. “We could use some better clothes for this winter. We almost lost B’Ellor last winter when the worst of the frost came.”
Goran turned to look down at Kagak’s sister. “That is awful. You should wear furs.”
“Furs are expensive, boy,” Tabona said. “The animals hereabouts have weak pelts, and importing real fur from offworld costs coin we don’t have.”
“Huh.” Goran scratched his chin. “On Rura Penthe, we just hunted for fur. It cost us nothing.”
“At last,” Kaseli said, “a reason to move to Rura Penthe.”
To B’Ellor, Goran said, “I still have one of my fur cloaks. If you want, I will give it to you, so you do not freeze again this winter.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Tabona said quickly before B’Ellor could speak. “You should not give up your trophy.”
“But I want to.” Goran sounded confused. “I do not need it anymore. I serve on a ship where it does not get cold.”
Chuckling, Kosted asked, “What if they send you to a cold planet to kill more people for the empire?”
“Our armor protects us,” Kagak said. “Besides, the big man’s cloak would be considered an improper addition to the uniform. I am stunned that you continue to carry it, Goran.”
“I killed the torgot myself.”
Kaseli sputtered his zilm’kach. “You killed a torgot?”
Goran nodded.
B’Ellor stared up at him. “That’s incredible.”
“It was not difficult. I am the biggest and the strongest.”
Tabona said, “A pity he cannot fight Lak.”
Angrily, Fuhrman said, “I will defeat him this time, Grandmother!”
“You said that last season, and the season before that, boy, and yet he still reigns.”
The meal continued on for some time. At one point, Tabona told Fuhrman and Kagak to get the torches, which confused Wol; Pheben had only just started to set in the west. Soon, though, the sky was painted the color of blood, and darkness came alarmingly quickly. Every once in a while, Tabona rose and fetched something else from the house, to the point where Wol swore there was more food on the table at meal’s end than there was at its commencement. She also brought out a fresh set of mugs and a barrel full of homemade chech’tluth, which was far stronger than almost anything Wol had ever consumed.
When she said as much, Kagak asked, “Leader, when did you ever have anything stronger than this?”
“It was in Krennla,” she said.
“Oh.” Kagak looked away and sipped some more.
Kaseli, though, asked, “Is that all? Will you not tell us the story of your drunken exploits on the homeworld?”
“No,” Wol said, “I will not.” That required her to remember the Kitchen, and that she would not do.
“Is this how you repay our hospitality, Wol?” Tabona asked. “By denying us a story?”
Wol smiled. “I will gladly tell you stories of my experiences in the Defense Force. I will tell you of how we took Mempa IX from the Jem’Hadar. I will tell you of my training at the hands of a brutal QaS DevwI’ named Skragg. I will tell you of how we held the line on San-Tarah. I will tell you of how I escaped an Elabrej scientist who tried to experiment on me. I will even tell you tales of a highborn fool of a woman who let herself be impregnated by a lowborn man who was not her mate. But I will not tell you of Krennla.”
Laughing, Kaseli said, “I want to hear the one about the highborn fool of a woman.”
“That’s a redundancy,” Kosted said. “All highborn are fools.”
As laughter spread around the table, Wol reached and grabbed some of the delicious gagh, of which there seemed to be an infinite supply. She was starting to suspect that the worms on the bottom were breeding.
After swallowing two more, she said, “Very well. I heard this story for the first time when I was training as a soldier under Skragg. It was our last night before training ended, and those of us who survived would be moving on to our first assignments the next morning. We stayed up all night drinking and singing and telling stories. This was one of the stories told.”
The truth, of course, was that Wol had told the story herself—though, technically, it was indeed the first time she’d heard it, as she had never told it to a soul prior to that. She told it that night only because she had had a great deal of very bad bloodwine.
Pausing only to lubricate herself with a quick sip of the homemade chech’tluth, Wol began her tale. “It is said that one should mate only with one to whom one is willing to devote one’s life. In fact, Kahless himself said that mating without love is living a lie, and lying is the greatest dishonor.”
From down the table, someone said, “But what if he was lying when he said that?”
Laughter echoed into the darkening sky. Wol said, “Perhaps. But whether or not Kahless was lying, his words are not always observed in the breach. After all, the House of Varnak was an old and noble House, and they could not let their daughter mate with just anyone. It did not matter to Koradan or B’Etakk whether or not their daughter Eral cared about Vranx. What did matter was that Vranx was of the House of Jorn, a very strong House indeed. The alliance of these two Houses would be good for everyone.”
“Obviously not,” Tabona said wryly, “or you would not be telling the story.”
“Indeed,” Wol said, “though my words should have been true. Vranx wanted the union, the head of the House of Jorn wanted the union, Koradan and B’Etakk wanted the union.”
“But this Eral did not?” Fuhrman asked.
“No. She had given her heart to another. He was a servant in House Varnak, a man named Kylor. He was strong where Vranx was weak, solicitous where Vranx was uncaring, passionate where Vranx was timid.”
“So why didn’t she mate with Kylor?” someone asked.
“Oh, she would have if that were possible. But women from noble Houses do not mate with servants. And alliances between noble Houses are not sundered by women who do not understand their place.” She smiled. “Of course, Eral was a fool. She could have simply had Kylor be her bedmate. Women had been doing this since long before Kahless’s time. But they were discreet, for to do otherwise was to bring dishonor upon the House, and that could not be tolerated. However, their discretion was sufficiently great that the thought of following their example never even occurred to Eral.”
“Are all highborn women that stupid?” Kaseli asked.
“No, but this story is not about them.”
Several people chuckled at Wol’s response.
She went on: “This bit of foolishness was compounded by another. Eral became with child by Kylor. Vranx was surprised when a DNA test showed that the child was not his—even though Eral had never been able to bear the notion of taking him to her bed.” Wol sipped some more of her drink. She found it went down easier the third time, due in part to it numbing her entire throat. “The child was taken from her, Kylor was put to death—and Eral was cast out.”
“They didn’t kill her?” Kosted asked. “I thought that was the answer to everything for you warrior types.”
“No,” B’Ellor said, “she probably killed herself. In the stories, the lovers always give each other Mauk-to’Vor.”
“Sadly,” Wol said, “Eral was not that bright. Besides, Kylor had already been put to death, so there was no one to do this for her. Instead, she was cast out, never to be heard from again.”
“They should have let her stay,” one of the Phebens said. “Didn’t they lose the alliance with the House of Jorn?”
Surprised that a Pheben would catch that nuance, Wol said, “Yes, but that would have happened in any event. Vranx was dishonored by the behavior of a member of the House of Varnak. The alliance was dust.” She smiled. “But the House paid the price for their betrayal of Eral, for they cast their lot in with Morjod when he attempted to remove Martok from the chancellor’s chair. Like all those who supported the traitor, the members of the House were put to death, the House dissolved, its lands and assets seized by the High Council.”
“Sounds like a happy ending to me,” Kagak—who knew the whole story—said with a smile.
“So in the end, Eral was the only one who lived?” B’Ellor asked.
“Yes.”
“It isn’t very romantic,” she said.
“Oh, if you wanted a romantic story,” Wol said, “I would have told a different one.” Recalling the one that had been told right before hers during that all-night celebration, she said, “Like the one about Maelgwyn and Gha’rek, who both loved B’Urad.”
Wol continued telling that story. At one point, Tabona came out with what looked like racht—only it was dead. Worse, it looked as if it had been frozen and dipped in something.
“Candied racht,” Kagak whispered to her when she cut off her storytelling to stare at the platter. “I’ve been waiting for this. It is the most wonderful thing you will ever eat in all your days, Leader.”
The moment the platter touched the table, a dozen hands grabbed at the dead racht, a concept that made Wol feel a bit ill. But she would not insult Tabona’s hospitality—and she could not deny the looks of pleasure from those around her who ate the candied racht with pleasure—and so she grabbed one and bit down on it.
Wol had never had anything this delicious in her life. The tough flesh of the racht mixed perfectly with the sweetness of the coating. She chewed through one serpent quickly and then grabbed a handful more before they were all gone.
Perhaps this will not be so bad after all, she thought.