Chapter III - The Yak

Chapter III - The Yak

Colonel Thomas Yaxley or "The Yak" was still an imposing figure at 62. Thanks to Albian science he was barely middle-aged and to anyone from Henry Tudor he would have looked like a man in his late 30's, or perhaps early 40's. Despite lifelong attempts to tame it he still had a mop of blonde bushy hair just beginning to turn white, plus he still looked like the archetypal Avalonian surfer that he had once been. He didn't get much time to surf the Isles of Avalon these days but he was still strong and suntanned. His deep brown eyes were still bright but I could see dark patches under them as his aide ushered me into his office. I came to full attention and saluted as I reached the front of his desk.

"Cut the crap Izzy," he said to me as he came round the desk to hug me. "You're with friends now." Even 40 years of living in Nova Anglia had done little to alter his clipped Avalonian tones.

Tom was a famously informal man and we were also old friends. I hugged him back hard and found myself getting emotional, I hadn't realised that my time amongst the Tamaratry still affected me so much. I took a seat in the big armchair to the left of the desk as Tom poured Ashanti coffee from the pot left by his aide. Like me, he took it strong and unsweetened with a splash of milk. Tom was the only officer I knew who could say that he personally knew all his scouts and took an interest in every one of them. They would all say they loved him too, that is apart from the ones who had fallen foul of his wrath for a lack of discipline or for the breaking of scout law. Memory like that would be no easy feat for an ordinary colonel in the Parallel Scouts, but Tom took time to speak to them all and had a knack for remembering personal details that bordered on the phenomenal. In reality I knew he'd been augmented by the Edelseun and forgot nothing. Every detail, every conversation and every step of his life since augmentation could be recalled with perfect clarity. The only give away was that sometimes he seemed distant as he replayed previous events in his head.

Tom had a husband from Cymru called Bryn Yorath and they'd been together for as long as I could remember. They'd had a brood of 4 children, 3 girls and 1 boy all of whom had followed their fathers into the scouts. Bryn had recently retired from the service and it was rumoured that he wanted more children - which may go some way to explaining the dark patches under Tom's eyes. Father-Children may be common now but it still requires that the parents practice the old-fashioned way.

"A shot of Cally Mist in your coffee?" Tom asked me with a wink.

"No thanks Colonel," I replied. "Too early for me and you know that stuff has a bad effect on me."

"That rather depends on your definition of a bad effect." he said with one raised eye-brow.

I blushed and just shook my head. Many of my teenage evenings had been spent in the Yaxley-Yorath household and I was still friends with Tom's children. We were all of a similar age and Tom was referring to a particular evening when his daughter Gwynne and I had gotten drunk on Caledonian Mist. Tom had been the one who held my hair out of the toilet as I was sick whilst Bryn looked after his daughter. I can't even smell Cally Mist even now without my gorge rising.

Tom leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee before saying, "I know that the events on Neraka were bad Izzy. I also know that no amount of training and conditioning can really equip you for torture. But if Albion is ever going to really understand the Tamaratry it's always going to be a risk that scouts have to take."

"I know that Tom," I replied. "And so far I'm doing OK, really. This new body and the redaction that Arturius Prime did on me have had a positive effect. My life on Neraka is still clear and Arthur knows that bastard made me suffer, but the torture now has a dream-like quality which doesn't affect me as much as it otherwise would. The death I don't remember at all."

"You wouldn't remember the death, one of our people was on that crash team that treated you when Ifshar was finished. He put you so deep under that they could have pulled you apart and you would never have known. But still, you will undergo counselling and there'll be no active duty until I am completely certain that there are no long lasting effects. My time on Matlatzinca and the recovery afterwards taught me that sometimes terrors can surface when you least expect it. We all know the dangers when you sign on as a Para, but it would be wrong of me to put you back in the field too soon. Not the kind of karma I am prepared to risk. So, tell me about the Tamaratry."

I spoke for nearly an hour about my 6 months amongst the Tamaratry on Neraka. I had no doubt that my mission had been a necessary one. The Tamaratry are a difficult race to understand, they are generally good and kind to those of their own tribe or nation. They love and care for their children and their parents. They treat their pets well and are even accomplished veterinarians. But, they are often unspeakably cruel to humans of other tribes, to other human species or to those of their own kind that they consider traitors.

They are also extremely warlike and their society is built on slave-labour. The Tamaratry do not consider any species other than their own as fully human and to be treated as animals - and at best pets, at worst as livestock.