Chapter 5

5.

Yuri found the imperial starship somewhat peculiar. For him it was absolutely gigantic, but Ambrozy had told him that it actually was a relatively small one, since the less noticeable their journey would be, the better. The expedition consisted of five hundred men, two tanks, one armored vehicle with a howitzer, mining vehicles, several armored personnel carriers, some robots to do the heavy lifting and digging to get the mine up and running plus a few "infantry man's friends," four-legged robots that carried a lot of the extra equipment and ammo that soldiers needed. Besides the soldiers, the men consisted of medical personnel, mechanics and engineers, but there were also a linguist in case they needed one with the natives of Dolustea - "I would have never believed in a million years that there would be one on Llapus" Ambrozy had said to Yuri – and a biologist, who had apparently almost begged to come with the expedition, so curious he was of the flora and fauna of a world that was so little researched. The starcraft had hyperspace a day before and it would take three weeks to reach Dolustea. Once close to it, the starcraft would emerge from the hyperspace and the expedition would land on the planet with two smaller ships, one containing the men and the other most of the equipment. The imperial starcraft would go back immediately and once the mining operation was up and running – this was estimated to take a few months but there were bound to be at least some complications so now exact timetable was established – ships from Llapus would come and fetch the first patches of red menicite. The construction of the pulse ray had been started when the expedition left Llapus's orbit. This was the plan, and the traffic between Llapus and Dolustea was going to be kept minimal. The expedition would be on its own, and if things went wrong, they would have to make do.

This all sounded good and well, but Yuri could not help but notice a certain shabbiness in almost every corner he looked. The tanks and the howitzer had seen better days, the paint on them was chipped here and there and you had to open the doors in a specific way, since the locks weren't functioning like they were supposed to, and the starcraft itself was generally worn down and some places in it seemed like safety hazards, as wires could poke out from the ceiling or the automatic doors didn't necessarily recognize that somebody was standing there and they would shut forcefully. A few elevators took several extra seconds to move when a button was pushed and you couldn't always get hot water from the showers or taps. Ambrozy had told him that since Llapus was so far in the boonies and the local hostiles had been vanquished ages ago, Llapus was destined to get second-class hardware. Yuri could not but comment that if they were supposed to build something better out of Llapus they would need to fix problems like this: Ambrozy could only sigh and admit that this was the case. Yuri was also pretty sure that people in general just took and sold things if they were not nailed down, and the flight mechanics responsible for spaceships like these had been wetting their beaks for who knows how long, especially if a lot of this stuff wasn't needed all the time.

The Major was also worrying Yuri, and by the looks of it Ambrozy too was bothered. He smelled like alcohol like it was some sort of a perfume he put on every morning with a tasteless excess, and even though the man seemed like a work horse – he was constantly marching through different sections of the ship to make sure that everything was going alright – he really did walk about with a glass of booze in his hand no matter the time of the day and didn't even bother hiding his habits by drinking from a pocket flask. Yuri could not but wonder if such open debauchery was not affecting the men in some way, and he did notice that the recreation room for the soldiers was basically a dingy bar. After their shifts most of the men could be found sitting there under yellow, weak lights with apathetic looks on their faces and nursing cheap beer. It was clear that they were not happy to be here. Yuri could not believe that this was normal on other imperial cruisers.

But there was nothing to be done about any of this, and Yuri found that he only had time to kill. It was weird to suddenly be on this side of the society, since on Llapus he had always been a slum rat that could be kicked by the soldiers passing by, but now he was one of the men, sporting their uniform and he had even gotten a rank, private first class. Yuri had no idea what his surname was supposed to be and when he had been asked about it by the staff sergeant, Ambrozy had jumped in and said that it was Broniec. "If anybody asks, we are brothers. That allows you to get some liberties since you'll be associated with me. Even though you now technically are one of the soldiers, the officers here know that you are one of Khairullin's agents that helped to deliver the information that started this mission and you have your own, separate directives, so you are not under the obligation to follow their orders." Ambrozy told him. "I have one brother already so why not have a second one." He had gotten a badge that Yuri was supposed to sew into his jacket, as that apparently showed that he was a special case, despite his rank. Then Ambrozy suddenly started to think about something and he rubbed his chin, and one could see that the gears were turning inside his head. "You know what, why not. Couldn't hurt." he said and told Yuri to follow him. Yuri wondered what was going to happen as he followed Ambrozy through the industrial corridors of the starcraft. They met up with another monk that Yuri had not previously seen: he was also a young man, a thin thing with a bald head and big blue eyes with a somewhat off-putting glazed look in them. Ambrozy greeted him and asked about some sort of a ritual that seemed to delight the monk. They went to the monk's room that was as bare bones as could be, but the monk pulled out two small carpets with elaborate designs on them from his drawers, told Ambrozy to kneel on one and Yuri on the another, then he put a small statue in front of them depicting a sitting bald man. He opened a book with writing that Yuri could not read and he placed himself in front of them, holding a prayer bead in his right hand, the open book in his left. Suddenly the atmosphere was solemn and dignified, and Yuri wanted to ask Ambrozy what was going on, but he hushed him to be quiet. The monk started to read from the book with a surprisingly deep, singsong voice, and Yuri didn't understand a word. After a while he drew two markings into Ambrozy's and Yuri's hands, clicked the prayer beads three times and then all of them bowed nine times, forehead to the floor. This apparently marked the end of the ceremony and the monk seemed genuinely pleased, and then he called on the phone to the medics quarters to come here "with ink" and then the monk and Ambrozy started to fill out forms on the computer. Yuri was just utterly confused and when the medic showed up, it turned out that he and Ambrozy were now supposed to get tattoos. The procedure took a few minutes and it stung a little bit, but it was not a big deal. A marking similar to the ones that the monk had drawn on them could now be permanently found on the left arms of Yuri and Ambrozy, close to the spot where the pulse could be measured. The monk thanked the medic as he packed his things and left. "I know that I am supposed to do those myself, but truth be told I am complete klutz and the tattoos would not be presentable." he explained, clearly being a little embarrassed. "But I'm sure the emperor would forgive." He was given a paper that had more writing on it with those foreign characters and he was told to store it carefully, Ambrozy got one too. Ambrozy thanked the monk and bowed deeply before they left, and as they walked Yuri tried to get anything out of the paper to understand what exactly happened.

"Will you finally tell me what was going on?" he asked. Ambrozy folded his paper neatly and put it into his wallet. "Well now we are officially brothers, even in the eyes of the law and you can use my surname with a proper permission. Monks are not allowed to marry and have children, so there has been an ancient custom where monks can join the imagined lineage of a Kai master. The master can be somebody that we personally know if we get his permission but it can also be somebody that has died hundreds of years ago and we can just say that we admire his teachings so much that we want to be his children. In this way, the monks can become actual family members of each other, and strangers become brothers, sons and fathers to each other. So if anybody asks, you are now the descendant of the great grandmaster Batjargal." Ambrozy explained. Yuri stopped walking and looked at Ambrozy peculiarly, who also stopped to see what was the sudden hold up. "Brothers? Just like that?" Yuri asked. Ambrozy just shrugged, not really seeing what was the big deal. "It just makes things easier. The brotherhood of Kai has always been a way for outcasts to become accepted in the empire. Although if my biological father dies, you won't inherit a penny from him. By custom he is now also supposed to treat you as a family member, the law still marks a difference between blood and religious ties. Apparently people tried to game the system once upon a time through this ceremony." Ambrozy said. Then he seemed to think that some things might bother Yuri. "Well, the monks officially aren't allowed to have sexual relations and although you are one now, many monks keep mistresses pretty openly, but then they live outside the monasteries. Same with having kids." Yuri could only shake his head at the bizarre situation. "I just thought that you had gone off your rocker and we were married." Now it was Ambrozy's time to be surprised, since Yuri very rarely joked.

After this procedure Yuri wondered what he could do. Walking through the starcruiser he discovered the gym and two separate rooms for combat practice, one with wrestling mats, another with practice swords and protective equipment on the shelves. Yuri was a bit surprised, since he had thought that these sports were a local Llapus thing: There was little in the way of entertainment in the slums and the two sports that had tournaments several times a week were wrestling and fencing, since neither of these activities required much money or equipment to do, although the fencing basically meant beatings with sticks rather than proper fencing and injuries happened often. But the only people on the starcruiser who practiced here were the sons of the nobles: almost all the officers besides the Major were men in their twenties who were from the elite families of Llapus who had jumped into the expedition for glory and adventure, eager to show that they had what it took to be leaders. Yuri had assumed that the aristocrats would have done something else in their spare time and these kinds of activities would have been too boorish and crude for them, but apparently not. It looked like these sports had been brought by the empire and everybody did them without realizing their origins. Yuri had participated a lot in these tournaments since the winners got cash prizes and he had done well, but he had stopped when the gangs who were responsible for the betting side of the events started to impose their will on him, trying to fix the competitions and threatened to hurt him if he did not comply.

Yuri watched the officers gather for the fencing class and all of them looked at him sideways, without greeting him or otherwise acknowledging his existence, and they started the class like he wasn't there. Yuri approached the one that apparently was the head instructor and asked if he could join, and it seemed physically painful for the officer to look at him and talk to him, but he seemed to notice the badge on Yuri's jacket that Ambrozy had given him. The officer nodded and turned his back on Yuri as quickly as he could, addressing the class like nobody had talked to him. Yuri didn't care about the cold shoulder he was shown and went to get a practice sword from the wall. The class started with familiar solo drills that Yuri had done a thousand times before and when everybody paired up so that they could practice blocking vertical strikes, nobody wanted to be with Yuri and the one that could not get anybody else since the number of the class was even came to him with a sour look on his face, again without answering to Yuri's greeting.

When it was time to actually fence, then somebody came to challenge him immediately. They squared up and on the command "Go!" Yuri's opponent struck with his sword, which Yuri blocked, turned his weapon and hit the officer to his head with the pommel of his weapon. As the opponent stumbled backwards, Yuri scored a hit to his chest and head.

"Private! What the hell are you doing!" the instructor yelled and everybody else in the room had also stopped what they were doing in shock. "Fencing." Yuri answered, not understanding what they were so upset about. "Since when have you been allowed to strike your opponent with anything else than the blade of your sword!" the instructor yelled at him, and Yuri was baffled. "What do you mean when? Since always." The instructor was flabbergasted and seemed to become even more angry. "You are not allowed to do things like that! Never have! I don't know what armpit you were raised in but here we do things properly." Yuri could only lift his eyebrows, since in the tournaments of the slums you could strike your opponent in any way, even though you only got points from scoring hits with the blade. "No kicking either?" he asked. This seemed to be the stupidest question the officer had ever been asked and he had trouble even making coherent sounds, so Yuri could only shrug and apologize to his opponent, who seemed really bitter. They squared up again and when the officer attacked, Yuri closed the distance before the strike would connect, grasped the upper body of his opponent and threw him over his hip, then hitting the downed opponent to his head with the sword. Again everybody in the room gasped, and this time they were really angry.

"Private, never have I seen such unsportsmanlike behavior! This is fencing, you understand? Fencing!" the instructor yelled at him, shaking his sword two inches from Yuri's face to drive the point home and stretching the word "fencing" to a comical degree. They didn't kick him out but Yuri was only allowed to spar with the instructor, who apparently was now trying to humiliate him. Yuri was getting bored with the whole circus quickly: after the striking and wrestling were ruled out the only thing that remained was a very artificial game that had very little to do with actual fighting. The instructor scored hits on him since Yuri had to adjust to a basically completely different sport on the fly and he was quickly losing interest to even try. On top of it all, the fencers here seemed to give points to the person who hit first in situations where both got hit, even though back in the slums only the hits scored where the fencer connected without getting hit himself. Yuri decided to let the baby have his bottle and barely tried to defend himself so the instructor kept scoring points on him, thoroughly convinced that he had shown who was the boss and the better fencer. Yuri just wanted to leave and didn't come back for another class.

The next day Yuri wanted to try wrestling just out of morbid curiosity, and it turned out to be completely identical to the fencing experience. Nobody greeted him but he was allowed to participate and in the actual wrestling Yuri completely dominated, but again he was being yelled at from the weirdest things: certain throws were prohibited since they were either too dangerous – which was contradictory since other moves that were just as dangerous or actually worse were allowed – or because they were not "proper wrestling"and then you were only allowed to do things from certain holds but not from others, which could not be justified in any way. Then the weirdest accusation started coming out. "You're using psionics! You come here and cheat as much as possible, is that it? You could not do half of what you do now without that!" Yuri didn't understand this at all, but the whole class was after revenge and they wrestled him with all their might, but to no avail. The situation heated up so much that his opponent was now trying to injure him deliberately, cranking Yuri's joints violently with as much strength as he could muster to the wrong directions, and finally Yuri flared up. In one exchange Yuri headbutted his opponent to his temple so strongly that the man almost lost consciousness and Yuri slammed his limp body to the mat in a way that the wind was knocked out of him, and now there was almost a complete riot in the practice room. The young officers yelled like hairless monkeys and Yuri was completely prepared to fight all of them at once, but one of the doctors of the medical staff appeared to the scene to break up the upcoming fight. Two medics came to help him and Yuri and the others were separated, the doctor escorting Yuri out of the room while medics handled the rest and went to look how the knocked out one managed.

The doctor led Yuri to the examination room, all the while talking to him in a soft voice and calming him down. "It's okay kid, take it easy. Let's just take a look at that eye of yours and you can have a nice drink afterwards, alright?" he said, as if Yuri was a child and a promise of tasty treats would soothe him after a temper tantrum. Yuri wondered what was supposedly wrong with his eye, and it turned out that it was just blood from the guy he had headbutted. The doctor cleaned him up anyhow and then gave him a glass of sugary juice. The doctor had not been kidding about the drink, but he wasn't condescending even though he treated Yuri like a toddler. It just seemed that he had been babysitting those young officers all his life and this was the method that worked the best.

"I don't understand it doctor, but I'm sorry about the mess. It really became heated after they started yelling that I wasn't wrestling properly even though I've been doing all that stuff back on Llapus since I was a kid. I get that some people are sore losers but it didn't seem to be just about that." Yuri said. The doctor nodded, seeming to understand what was wrong. "So you're from the slums then? That explains it." the doctor said. "Back when the commoners started to do the royal sports of wrestling and fencing, the aristocrats felt the need to separate themselves from the riff-raff, so they modified the rules so that they could say that what they did was more refined than unsophisticated distortions of the lower classes." The doctor chuckled. "Then they modified the rules even more when the commoners won over them in the sporting events where the upper and lower classes were both allowed to compete. You just hit that raw nerve son, if you would have been a poorer wrestler they would have not become so upset with you. You threatened their very existence, so to speak. You did very well, though. You've really got talent." The doctor seemed completely different from all the others in this ship, and Yuri's background didn't seem to bother him at all. Then he looked at the medicine cabinet and grumbled. "And it doesn't help at all that all of those boys are hopped on stimulants and the strength and endurance enhancers. The soldiers of the empire have always been assisted by pharmaceuticals and when in war, the fighting men need all the help they can get. But those substances are only meant to be used on the campaign and when in reserve, you are supposed to be off the stuff! Moderately used they are not that bad and with other drugs their toxic qualities can be diminished, but constant use on the long run can damage the body in serious ways. Then those knuckleheads break their bones and joints with the uncontrolled use of all that extra strength but, because they come from money, they can get artificial implants and the same behavior continues. They even treat those implants as badges of honor and status items, because it shows that they are macho and they are wealthy! But the damned idiots don't think about the fact that their bodies can reject the implants no matter how expensive they are and the drugs they need to take to counter those ailments cause all sorts of side effects too. Then they don't listen to reason and I can't say no to them since they then complain to their parents that I am not letting them have the medical care they need! I swear, if the future of the empire is in the hands of these rich babies it's no wonder that we have all these troubles!" The doctor was genuinely angry and frustrated by the issue. It seemed like he was in need of a tasty drink. "Plus, I'm not sure that the substance abuse helps them mentally either. They start to think that they are supermen and become more and more reckless. Their egos grow out of all imaginable bounds."

Somebody was walking in the hallway and the door was open, so Yuri saw one of the fencers of yesterday's class walk by with a medic escorting him. The fencer's arms were wounded and bloody, being wrapped around in towels that were almost completely red. When they had passed, Yuri could not help himself. "What was that about?" he asked. The doctor had to close his eyes and apparently count to ten. "Those idiots aren't any better. Every now and then they use sharp swords and cover their vitals with armor but then allow cuts to their arms and head, their eyes, mouth and throat being covered and protected. They want the scars so they can show their manliness. We can patch them up with medical gel easily but they don't want the whole dose since that would heal the skin so completely and there would be no scars to left to show, but the all the medical gel from the opened up package have to be used at once or it spoils and we have to throw it away. How many lives have been lost since there is no medical gel left since bastards like that have spent it all like that, I don't want to know." The doctor looked really depressed and Yuri felt bad for him. The doctor poured another glass of juice for Yuri. "Listen, don't be like those idiots, you hear? If for no other reason, then for my sake." he said, looking pleadingly at Yuri like a father that he had never had. "I promise, doctor. Thanks for the help and the juice." He wouldn't have gone to practice with those people anyway ever again, realizing how frustrating jobs people in the empire could have.

After those two days Yuri just went to the gym where there were treadmills and weights, and he just put the treadmill settings to the maximum, disappointed how slow they were, and ran for hours every day. He thought about the machismo of the fencers and the wrestlers and how contradictory it was. Both groups wanted to exhibit their toughness, but neither of them were ready to get hit. Back in Llapus the final matches wrestling competitions allowed punching too, so boxing was an integral part of wrestling, but it wasn't practiced all the time to stretch the careers of the athletes. There were all sorts of people there, but neither in fencing or wrestling getting hit wasn't a big deal. It was brutal but nobody forced you to participate, and the sports reflected the raw nature of the sums. It was what it was. The young officers Yuri had faced, however, were on one hand ready to go to the extremes but then at the same time they were terrified of the contact of combat sports. Nobody in the slums did fencing with sharp swords to get scars like that, the idea was completely macabre. It seemed that the young officers on Llapus had no traditional enemies since the natives left posed no threat to them, so their energies were poured into the ritualization of combat wholeheartedly, even though the combat really did not resemble real fighting anymore at all. Yuri wasn't really sure what to think about it all.

One day when he was running he heard a vaguely familiar voice. "Heard you almost got into a fight with the younger officers?" Yuri looked to his right and saw the monk standing there who had conducted the family ceremony. Yuri stopped the treadmill, then jogged along until the movement stopped, then jumped off. "Yes sir, that's correct." The monk chuckled. "We in the brotherhood of Kai or not 'sirs' to each other. My name is Oktai Bayarsaikhan, Oktai is fine." Yuri scratched the back of his head since he didn't know what to do with his hands. "Well, Oktai, there almost was a fight, yes." There was a second or two of an awkward silence as Oktai looked at him with his odd gaze. "They complained that you were cheating in sport by using psionics, but your brother came to soothe them and said that you couldn't help it since your innate ability is so strong. He said that this was one of the reasons why you were chosen to be trained as one of the sentinels of Axon. I was so surprised to hear that, I had thought that the holy creed of Axon had been disbanded centuries ago! Can you tell me how you ended up on such a journey? This really is great news to the empire, especially in such a time of need as this! Is this the reason you chose the great grandmaster Batjargal as your religious father?" Yuri felt his face redden as he doubted his ability to bullshit through whatever Ambrozy had told. The young monk seemed to fall on saying whatever to solve problems and Yuri had no idea who the sentinels of something or other were supposed to be or even if this "Batjargal" was the one who he had been connected to in the ceremony. "Truthfully, my journey is in its beginning stages and many things are still unclear to me. Ambrozy saw something in me and asked me to join him on this expedition. You'll have to ask him to know the details." Yuri stammered, thinking that he had been diplomatic enough. "I'm not very educated, so a lot about the Cult of Kai is not familiar to me." he added, trying to dodge any more questions that might be coming his way.

Olek nodded, seemingly accepting Yuri's explanations. "I see, I see. But your psionic abilities? May I try?" Yuri wasn't sure what this really meant, so he just agreed. He then had a weird sensation, as if a foreign object was pushing inside to his mind, causing pressure before penetrating the outer shell. Yuri shrugged it off as it felt uncomfortable, and Olek almost fell backwards, taking two steps to regain his balance. Sweat suddenly poured from his forehead. "I'm so sorry, I was being too forceful! That was very rude of me!" He wiped his face on the sleeve of his right hand, trying to calm himself. Yuri felt bad and even more awkward since he apparently had caused the monk a great deal of physical pain, but Olek just brushed it off and walked to the treadmill to see the panel that showed the running speed, time and distance Yuri had covered. He shook his head and almost giggled from excitement. "And you've been running like this daily?" he asked. "Well now I'm about halfway, I'll do more after dinner. I'm usually outdoors so being inside a spaceship for long periods of time makes me... uneasy." Olek just stared at him, then he pointed to the treadmill's control panel. "And there is nothing peculiar about those numbers to you?" Yuri shrugged. "Why would there be? It's less than the distance I usually travel on Llapus on any given day, but the machine just doesn't go any faster." Olek's eyes shined. "My dear friend, not even the greatest athletes of the empire can perform feats like that. And your training? How well do you control your psionic abilities?"

To this day not Yuri had never even thought about possessing any psionic abilities whatsoever. He had just lived his life day by day and some days had been harder, some easier. He knew that he was physically able but he had never really compared himself to anybody else, most likely because of his pariah nature. So what the officers had accused him of had been true? "Well I haven't really done any practice of that nature yet. Like I said, beginning stages." Olek nodded very seriously. "So you have never even tried? Let's try an experiment then: I'll lift that dumbbell over there into the air with my mind, you try to get the grasp of what I am doing, then you try it. It should be easy for you." Olek apparently meant one of the weights on the other side of the gym, and Olek closed his eyes and Yuri definitely could feel a very light electric sensation in the room. One of the dumbbells really did rise from the floor, steadily and smoothly, and Yuri was impressed. He suddenly felt his heart race as he realized that he apparently possessed the ability to do things like that too. "See? Now you try. Do it just like I did." Yuri didn't know at all what exactly Olek had done, so he had to close his eyes and feel inside his own mind. He thought about what lifting was, what movement was, and instead of the word or meaning of the word, he ended up with the sensation of the physical action, and he generated that same feeling in his mind. Suddenly everything on the side of the gym Yuri was facing crashed against the wall with a thunderous noise, equipment, weights, chairs and all. Yuri and Olek jumped in the air from fright, and once Yuri saw tha Olek was okay and the wall of the gym seemed to be undamaged too, he went to clean up the mess he had made without saying anything. "Maybe it's better that we practice more on Dolustea when we can be outside." Olek said and came to help Yuri. Luckily no one came to peek through the gym door as Yuri was embarrassed enough.