Cold settled from brain to stomach. The argument was plausible. “Yes, sir,” Duncan said softly. “But it would be a matter of contacting them.”
“The so-called shrine—is a possibility.”
“No.”
“Another emotional judgment?”
“The same judgment. The mri are finished. They knew it.”
“So says Alagn; so, perhaps, said your mri. Perhaps neither is lying. But regul sometimes do not say all they know. Perhaps mri don’t, either. Perhaps we haven’t asked the right questions.” Hand trembling, Stavros lifted a cup and drank, set it down again. “The mri are mercenaries. Are yours for hire?”
The question set him aback. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“I think the regul as a whole fear that. I think that is one of several things Hulagh desperately fears, that having lost possession of the mri, he might find humankind possessing them. And using them. What is their usual price, do you know?”
“I don’t know.” He looked at Stavros, found that curious, half-mocking manner between him and the truth. He laid the picture down on the desk. “What are you proposing?”
“I’m not. I’m just wondering how well you profess to know them.”
“It wasn’t a thing we discussed.”
“According to your records, you’re a skilled pilot.”
He looked at Stavros blankly.
“True?” Stavros asked.
“If the record says so.”
“Elag/Haven operations required some interstellar navigation.”
“I had a ship automated to the hilt. I can handle in-system navigation; but everything in transit operations was taped.”
“That is rather well what we’re dealing with here, isn’t it?”
Duncan found nothing to say for several moments.
“Does all this come together somehow?” he asked finally. “What is it you’re really asking?”
“Take the mri in charge. Take the artifact, the egg. You say that you can handle the mri. Or is that so, after all?”
Duncan leaned back in his chair, put distance between himself and the old man, drew several slow breaths. He knew Stavros, but not, he thought suddenly, well enough.
“You have doubts?” Stavros asked.
“Any sane man would have doubts. Take the mri and do what? What is this about navigation?”
“I’m asking you whether you really think you can handle the mri.”
“In what regard?”
“Whether you can find out more than that report of yours tells me. Whether you can find some assurance for Kesrith that the mri are not going to be trouble, or that Holn does not have its hands on more of them.”
Duncan leaned forward again and rested his arms on the front of Stavros’ desk, knowing full well that there was deception involved. He looked Stavros in the eyes and was sure of it, bland and innocent as Stavros’ expression was. “You’re not influenced by my advice. You’re going to send me off blind, and there’s something else going on. Can I know what that is? Or do I guess at it?”
They had lived close, had shared, he and the old man; he leaned on that fact desperately, saw offense and a slow yielding in Stavros’ expression. “Between us,” Stavros said.
“Between us.”
Stavros frowned, a tremor of strain in his lips. “I want the mri off Kesrith, immediately. I’m sending Flower up to station, where it can proceed about its work unhindered. The regul are getting nervous about the mri since your visit to Sil’athen. And a regul ship incoming is not an impossibility in the near future. Hulagh says his doch will be getting anxious because he’s failed his schedule with a ship that was entrusted to him by their central organization: its loss is going to be a heavy blow Alagn. And he’s worried. He constantly frets on the topic of misunderstandings, demands a way offworld to meet his ships. If we have regul ships incoming, I don’t want any of ours caught on the ground. I think moving Flower aloft will minimize any chance of an incident. Saber and Hannibal together have shields sufficient to protect the station and the probe ships if there should be a problem. But with the mri anywhere accessible to the regul, there could easily be a problem. The regul have a panic reaction where it concerns mri.”
“I’ve seen it at work,” Duncan said bitterly.
“Yes,” said Stavros. “The bai has asked repeatedly about the artifact. I daresay the bai does not sleep easily. If you had at your disposal a ship, the mri, and the egg, Duncan, do you think you could find out the nature of that record?”
Duncan let out his breath slowly. “Alone?”
“You would have the original artifact. The mri would doubtless insist on it; and we have duplicated the object in holos—so we wouldn’t be risking more than the museum value of the object, considerable though that may be. Under the circumstances it’s a reasonable risk.” Stavros took a long drink, rested the cup on the desk with a betraying rattle of pottery. His breath came hard. “Well?”
“Tell me plainly,” Duncan said, “what the object of this is. How far. Where. What options?”
“No certainties. No clear promises. If the mri go for Holn assistance, you’ll lose the ship, your life—whatever. I’m willing to gamble on your conviction they won’t. You can find out what that tape is and maybe—maybe—deal with the mri. You tell me. If you think it’s impossible, say so. But going the route of the computers at Haven will take months, a year—with the regul-mri question hanging over us here at Kesrith, and ourselves with no idea what we’re facing. We need to know.”
“And if I refused?”
“Your mri would die. No threat: you know the way of it. We can’t let them go; they’d get the regul or the regul would get them. If we keep them as they are, they’ll die. They always have.”
It was, of course, the truth.
“More than that,” said Stavros, “all of us are sitting on the line here at Kesrith. And there’s the matter of the treaty, that involves rather more than Kesrith. You appreciate that, I’m sure. You say you can reason with them. You’ve said that all along. I’m giving you your chance.”
“This wasn’t in the contract. I didn’t agree to any offworld assignments.”
Stavros remained unmoved. Duncan looked into his eyes, fully aware what the contract was worth in colonial territory—that in fact his consent was only a formality.
“It is a SurTac’s operation,” said Stavros finally. “But back out if you don’t think you can do it.”
“A ship,” Duncan said.
“There’s probe Fox. Unarmed. Tight quarters too, if there should be trouble aboard. But one man could handle her.”
“Yes, sir. I know her class.”
“Boaz is finishing up on the holos now. Flower is going up to the station this afternoon, whatever you decide. If you have to have time to think about it, a shuttle can run you up to the station later, but don’t plan to take too long about a decision.”
“I’ll go.”
Stavros nodded slowly, released a long breath. “Good,” he said, and that was all.
Duncan arose, walked across the room to the door, looking back once. Stavros said nothing, and Duncan exited with resentment and regret equally mixed.
There was a matter of gear to pack, that only. He had lived all his life under those conditions. It would take about five minutes.
Regul stared at him as he walked the hall to his room, were still interested when he walked back with his dunnage slung over his shoulder—carrying a burden, which neither regul nor mri would do: the regul not without a machine, and the mri—never.
They flatly gaped, which in regul could be smiles, and, he thought, they were smiles of pleasure to realize that he was leaving.
The mri’s human, he had heard them call him, and mri was spoken as a curse.
“Good-bye, human,” one called at him. He ignored it, knowing it was not for friendliness that they wished him farewell.
There was a moment of sadness, walking the causeway outside. He paused to look toward t
he hills, with the premonition that it was for the last time.
A man could not wholly love Kesrith: only the dusei might do that. But hereafter there was only the chill, sterile environment of ships, where there was no tainted wind, no earth underfoot, and Arain was a near and therefore dangerous star.
He heaved his baggage again to his shoulder, walked the ringing mesh to the lowered ramp. They expected him. He signed aboard as personnel this time, a feeling unfamiliar only because there was not the imminent prospect of combat. Old anxieties seized on him. Ordinarily his first move would be for whatever rider vessel he had drawn, to begin checking it out, preparing for a drop into whatever Command had decreed for him.
“Compartment 245,” the duty officer told him, giving him his admitted-personnel tag: silly formality, he had always thought, where personnel were few enough to be known by sight to everyone on Flower. But they were headed for station, for a wider world, where two great warships, two probes, and an in-system rider mingled crews. He attached the tag, reckoning numbers. He was assigned near the mri. He was well satisfied with that, at least.
He went there, to ride through lift with them.
Chapter Five
The station was a different world indeed—regul-built, a maze of the spiraling tunnels favored by the sled-traveling regul. Everything was automated.
And strangest of all, there were no regul.
To walk among humans only, to hear their talk, to breathe the air breathed by humans, and never to be startled by the appearance of an alien face—in all this vast space: it was like being cast across light years; and yet Kesrith’s rusty surface was only a shuttle flight away: the screens showed it, a red crescent.
The screens likewise showed the ships that clustered about the station—Saber foremost, a kilometer-long structure that was mostly power, instrumentation, and weaponry—and surprisingly scant of crew, only two hundred to tend that monster vessel. Shields made her strong enough to resist attack, but she would never land onworld. Flower and Fox had ridden in attached to Saber’s sides, as Santiago had ridden the warship Hannibal, like diminutive parasites on the flanks of the warships, although Flower and Fox were independently star-capable. Presently the probe ships were docked almost unnoticed in the black shadow of Saber. Flower had snugged into the curve to berth directly under the long ship, and from her ports and scanners there was very little visible but Saber and the station itself.
And the station, vast, complexly spiral, rolled its way about Kesrith, a curious dance that dizzied the mind to consider, as one walked the turning interior.
Most personnel made use of the sleds. The distances inside the station were considerable, the sleds novel and frighteningly rapid, whirling around the turns with reckless precision, avoiding collisions by careful routing at hairbreadth intervals.
Duncan walked, what of a walk was possible in the less than normal g of the station that was planned for regul comfort. The giddy feeling combined with the alien character of the corridors and the sight of Kesrith out of reach below, and fed his depression.
“That’s the one that came in off the desert,” he heard someone say behind his back. It finished any impulse he had toward mingling with these men, that even here he was a curiosity, more out of place than he was ever wont to be among regulars. He was conscious of the mask of tan that was the visible mark of the kel’en’s veil, worn in the burning light of Arain; he felt his face strangely naked in their sight, and felt their stares on him, a man who had lived with humanity’s enemy, and spoke for them.
On the first evening there was leisure for Flower personnel to have liberty, he wandered into the station mess . . . found Galey, whose face split into a broad and friendly grin at the sight of him; but Galey, of Saber, was with some of Saber’s officers, his own friends, and Duncan found no place with them, a SurTac’s peculiar rank less than comfortable in dealing with officers of the regular forces. He ate alone, from the automated bar, and walked alone back to flower.
He had done his tour of the station. It was enough. He had no interest even in seeking out the curiosities of the regul architecture, that the men of the warships seemed to enjoy on their hours of liberty.
He went into Flower’s lock, into familiarity, in among men he knew, and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Worth seeing, sir?” the duty officer asked him, envious: his own liberty had been deferred. Duncan shrugged, managed a smile; his own mood was not worth shedding on the regulars of Flower. “A bit like the Nom,” he answered. “A curiosity. Very regul.”
And he received from the man’s hand a folded message of the kind that passed back and forth frequently at the desk.
He started back toward the level of his own quarters, unfolding the message as he walked.
It was Boaz’ hand. Urgent I talk with you. Lab #2.B.
Duncan crumpled it in his hand and stuffed it into his pocket, lengthening his stride: the mri program and an urgency; if running would have put him there appreciably faster he would have run.
Number two lab contained Boaz’ office. She was there, seated at her desk, surrounded by paper and a clutter of instruments. She looked up at him as he entered. She was upset, blue eyes looking fury at the world. Her mouth trembled.
“Have a seat,” she said, and before her could do so: “Saber’s troops moved in; snatched the mri, snatched the artifact, the mri’s personal effects, everything.”
He sank into the offered chair. “Are they all right?”
“I don’t know. Yes. Yes—they were all right. They were set into automeds for the transfer. If they just leave them in them, they’ll fare well enough for a while. Stavros’ orders. Stavros’ orders, they said.” She picked up a sealed cylinder from the center of the littered desk and gave it to him with a misgiving stare. “For you. They left it.”
He received the tube and broke the seal, eased out the paper it contained and read the message to himself. Conditions as discussed apply, contingency as discussed has occurred. Observe patience and discretion. Stand by. Destroy message. Stavros.
Regul troubles: ship incoming. The mri were going out, off-station, and himself with them, soon enough. He looked sadly at Boaz, wadded the message in his hand, pocketed it; he would dispose of it later.
“Well?” asked Boaz, which she surely knew she should not ask; he Stayed silent. She averted her eyes, pursed her lips, and laced her fingers under her plump chin. “I belong to a ship,” she said, “which is—unfortunately—under the governor’s authority in some degree, where it regards putting us offworld or seizing what pertains to declared hostiles. For now, in those regards, that authority is absolute. I personally, am not under his orders, and neither is Luiz. I shouldn’t say this freely; but I will tell you that if you are personally not satisfied with the treatment of the mri—there can be a protest filed at Haven.”
Brave Boaz. Duncan looked at her with an impulse of guilt in his heart. There was no word from her of canceled programs, interrupted researches, the seizure of work on which she had labored with such care. The mri themselves occurred to her. This was something he had not foreseen; and yet it was like her.
“Boz,” he said, the name the staff called her. “I think everything is all right with them.”
She made a noncommittal sound, leaned back. She said nothing, but she looked a little relieved.
“They didn’t take the dusei, did they?” he asked.
Boaz smiled suddenly, gave a fierce laugh. “No. The beasts wouldn’t sedate. They tried. There was no way they would go down into that hold with them. They asked Flower staff to do it, got rather high-handed about it; and Luiz told them they could go down for themselves and throw a net over them. There were no volunteers.”
“I don’t doubt,” Duncan said. “I’d better get down there and see about them.”
“You can’t tell me what this business is.”
“No. I’m sorry.”
She nodded, shrugged “You can’t tell me whether things are likely to reverse t
hemselves.”
“I don’t think they will.”
Again she nodded. “Well,” she said sadly. That was all.
He took his leave of her and walked out, through the lab that was, he saw, in a disorder that had nothing to do with research, small items that had been on the shelves now gone, books missing.
Saber’s men had been thorough.
But if they had taken the mri from the ship, then the dusei might pine and die, like one that he had seen grieving over a dead mri, a beast that would not leave for any urging.
He took that downward corridor that led him to the hold. His stomach was already knotting in dread, remembering what they could do in distress. He had been among them since that first night, brought them food and water, and they had reacted to that with content. But now they had been disturbed by strangers, attacked; and the fear of that feeling that had possessed him once was as strong as any fear of venomed claws.
The sensation did not recur. He entered the hold high on the catwalk, looked down at the brown shapes that huddled below, and cautiously descended to them, fearing them and determined not to yield to it. The regul avowed that the dusei thrived on synthetic protein, which was abundant enough in the station stores; that they would, in fact, eat anything they were offered, which presumably included humans and regul, as he had heard Luiz remark.
The air was remarkably fresh, a clean though occupied aroma to the hold, not so pronounced as with the fastidious regul. The beasts were very neat in their habits, and remarkably infrequent in their necessary functions, metabolizing fluids in such a fashion that Boaz and Luiz found exceedingly intriguing, with a digestion that exacted fluids and food value from anything available of vegetable or animal tissue, and gave off practically no waste compared to the bulk they had ingested—and that quite dry. Regul information on them was abundant, for regul ships had kept kel’ein and dusei for many years. Dusei seemed to go dormant during long confinement, once settled and content. In general dusei put less demand on a ship’s life-support than humans, mri, or regul.
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