by Tanya Huff
“How would it know incendiaries from field rations?” Ressk asked, fanning the cards and then trying to flip them back over his knuckles.
“It’ll know because it was in Torin’s head,” Craig told him.
“And yours.” Alamber’s hair spread into a pale blue corona. “It’s not like you haven’t blown shit up. With both of you there, we’ll have two possible lines for communication. No, not two, three.” He looked up from his slate. “We’re going to need Presit in on this. The plastic rode her brain, too.”
“Not our call,” Craig reminded him. “Presit’ll be there if she wants to be there, but she’s concentrating on the election right now, and the Younger Races need representation in Parliament willing to take our side.”
“Our side, their side—that’s the problem. We need the plastic not to start another war.”
“Presit’s more likely to help start another war than keep one from happening.”
Alamber rolled his eyes. “Shouldn’t that be her choice?”
“You think she doesn’t know what’s going on?”
Torin let the argument wash over her, the familiar background voices securing the space. When the volume started rising, and the arguments devolved to repetition, she cut it off. “All right, bottom line, I want no more lives lost because of these polyhydroxide molecular hive sociopaths, so I’m going to voluntarily spend time with General Morris, albeit as little as possible. We’ll talk to Big Yellow. Find out what they want. Suggest they fly into a distant sun and immolate themselves.”
“We as in you and I?” Craig asked, leaning back against the wall, arms folded, uniform fabric stretched tight over arms and shoulders.
Appreciating the view, Torin grinned. “Maybe we’ll even let Werst talk.”
“The hell with talking,” Werst called without turning. “I’m going to chow down on those serley chrikas.” He snapped his teeth together and added, “They’re coming through the wall.”
“Good.” Torin stretched, cracking her back. “I’ve had it with waiting around.”
The blocks around the cannon fell first, crashing against the tunnel floor as grimy hands emerged, enlarging the hole. The distant sound of the digger rose from a rumble to a roar. PFC di’Valing Noshikin slid through the opening like an eel. When her hands touched the floor, she rolled, came up onto her feet, and held the cutting laser ready. Torin couldn’t decide if she was impressed by the bravery of facing a Strike Team holding a cutting tool or annoyed by it. The other three di’Taykan followed. Another two blocks crashed to the floor, and the wall had finally been disassembled enough for the two Humans to get through. All six took up defensive positions, cutting lasers burning yellow-gold lines through dust-filled air.
Annoyed, she decided. Definitely annoyed.
“Torin, those are pulse cutters.” So as not to have to shout over the digger, Craig’s mouth was on Torin’s ear. “They can disengage the safeties and use them offensively.”
“Wonderful. Let’s hope they don’t know that.”
“What are you going to do?”
“End this. Mashona. Werst. Ressk.”
They fell into place around her, their weapons up and ready, hers hanging at her hip as she stepped out into the main tunnel. “Alamber, shut down the digger.”
“On it, Boss.”
Maintaining formation, they walked toward the six. Two seemed to be riding the thin edge of panic. Two were ready to die. And two looked resigned to whatever was about to happen.
They’d closed the distance between them to twenty meters when the grinding roar of the digger cut off.
Torin let the silence ring for a moment.
“I am Warden Torin Kerr,” she said when that minute ended. One of the six snorted in disbelief. Torin ignored her. “You are six pathetic excuses for ex-Marines.” Her voice dropped into gunny cadences like she’d never stepped off the parade square. “If you had half a brain among the lot of you, you’d have waited until the digger had fully emerged into the section of the tunnel you controlled, then you’d have commandeered it using the manual overdrive. You’d have been unstoppable. But no, you ran.” She shook her head. “Were you hoping we’d left? Two of you were corporals. You, at least, should have known better.” Humans flushed, and di’Taykan hair flattened as she pinned all six with a disapproving glare. “Turn off the lasers. Put them down and kick them this way. Then kneel and put your hands on your head, or we will open fire and put your embarrassing asses in a tank for the next tenday.”
The taller of the two Humans pointed the laser down the tunnel. “You don’t . . .”
“Did I stutter? Now, Marines!”
Six sets of knees hit the floor in unison.
“Well that worked better than a polite request to surrender,” Binti noted quietly.
* * *
“I are not having been tanked for the last tenday, Alamber. I are knowing Big Yellow are having returned. It are on every screen I are passing.”
If he was caught running a call through the Susumi buoy, he’d be hip-deep in shit, but Alamber was certain Presit needed to be at Big Yellow beside Torin and Craig. All of them, or none of them; that was how it had to work. “You have to get to Berbar to meet the Berganitan.”
Arms folded under the edge of her ruff, she shook her head. “I are not having to do anything but to be present on Nuh Ner for an all-party debate.”
“You were there at the beginning of the story. You risked your life to be there at the beginning, used an untested program to follow a ship through Susumi space.”
Her muzzle wrinkled, showing teeth. “I are knowing what I did.”
His cheeks stung where the ends of his hair whipped against them. “Don’t you want to be there at the end?”
“I are not having been invited to be going along, not that I are going to being going even were I having been invited.”
“Since when do you need an invitation to show up where the news is happening?”
Presit sighed and leaned back in her chair, giving Alamber a glimpse of campaign posters cycling through on the wall behind her. “I are thinking there are several hundred things I would rather be doing than be traveling with General Morris.”
“But you were marked by the plastic!”
“Ah,” she said flatly. “That are being why you are wanting me there. It are having nothing to do with news.” Combing her claws through her whiskers—right side, left side—she stared up from the screen at him. “Are it occurring to you at all that I are not wanting to give the plastic the satisfaction of seeing me come running? Unlike Gunnery Sergeant Warden Kerr, I are not at its beck and call.”
“Craig’s going.”
“He are at her beck and call.” Presit’s ears flicked forward. “There are being nothing I can do about that.”
She was acting just a little too casual. Alamber remembered the reactions Big Bill evoked walking through the market, tension running under the casual greetings of shopkeepers and shoppers to the man who ruled their lives. “You’re afraid.”
Presit waved off his revelation. “I are running for office. I are having priorities. That are not being the same thing as fear, and I are not falling for your reversing physiology. I are having nothing to prove to you. Or to anyone. I are going to be denying this if you are saying it, but Gunnery Sergeant Warden Kerr can be taking care of things without me.”
EIGHT
BOOMER MCVALE SMILED as she rerouted the incoming message. Nothing had arrived by way of the hidden subprogram for a while although she’d continued to pass the regular outgoing messages once a tenday. Didn’t matter to her either way; she got paid a tidy and anonymous retainer to be available as needed. Didn’t know who the messages came from. Didn’t know who they went to. Didn’t care. Wasn’t ever tempted to try and find out. What she didn’t know couldn’t come back to bite her on the ass.
; What she did know was that she had a nice little nest egg put aside that continued to grow and someday would be large enough to allow her to shove her success right up in the face of Captain di’Inconicho Tal, the recruiting officer on Paradise. She couldn’t pass the psych test, but di’Taykan could? A di’Taykan with nine letters in his family name could become an officer, yet according to the psych exam she wasn’t suitable? Did that make sense? Was it fair? Hardly. Humans had created the Confederation Marine Corps back when the Elder Races had gone looking for help to fight their war. Humans been the first and suddenly Humans were being turned down? She’d graduated in the top fifth of her class. She’d known her history. She’d studied and practiced and could make a ComOp roll over and beg. She’d worked out. She’d been able to snap one of those tall and skinny di’Taykan in half. But being Human wasn’t good enough anymore. They wanted the Corps balanced, so aliens had the advantage, less-qualified di’Taykan and Krai getting in while Humans were passed over.
Someday she’d show them—have the best tech, her own ship, hell, maybe even her own station, but, for now, she’d bide her time and do her job helping to keep the AES safe in its geosynchronous orbit over Silsviss.
But someday . . .
* * *
Dr. Anika Shote had gone into xenoanthropology because she’d wanted to understand why Humans weren’t allowed to excel. Why were they lumped in with the Taykan and the Krai in the minds of the rest of the Confederation? The Krai hadn’t ever bothered to come down out of the trees, the Taykan based their entire sociocultural system around procreation, and yet they were considered Humanity’s equal. It made no sense.
Had one of her papers comparing the ludicrously lauded, single-sense advantages of alien species against Humanity’s ability to adapt not come to the attention of Anthony Marteau at MI, she suspected she’d be accepting the standard-of-living supplement and writing papers for the few journals not straitjacketed by political correctness. She’d certainly never have gained the position of Lead XA on the Silsviss project without Per Marteau’s support from behind the scenes. He understood her findings the way no one else ever had, and while she’d never met him personally, she felt a great kinship to him, beyond the commonality of species.
She owed him for her chance to apply her academic findings to actual situations.
“Cyr Tyroliz, this doesn’t seem like your type of function.”
Metal bands on his tail tapping against a table leg, Cyr Tyroliz blinked down at her, throat pouch slightly inflated. “Too educated?”
“Too self-congratulatory.”
He looked surprised for a moment, and she wondered if he’d understood her meaning. The press often decried the precontact Warlord’s lack of formal education. After a moment, he bobbed his head in amusement. “I find it necessary to keep an eye on diplomacy.”
“I’m not surprised, and I thank you for recognizing the station is more than a mere threat.”
He took a step back and tasted the air. “A threat?”
“A potential threat, of course.” She sighed and took a swallow of the fermented fruit juice the upper class on Silsviss loved. “I shall miss this.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Well, I’m not planning to, but I’m not certain how much longer we’ll be allowed to stay.”
His eyes narrowed as he stared across the room at the cluster of Silsviss from the Planetary Committee, the closest thing to a planetary government they’d managed. To be honest, given the number of wars that had been going on at first contact, Anika was surprised they’d gotten so far. “Have they suggested you leave?” Cyr Tyroliz asked.
Cyr Tyroliz had voted in favor of the Confederation embassy, but Anika suspected that had been more about keeping his enemies close than about fostering cross-cultural knowledge. He’d also been in favor of Silsviss joining the Confederation and had never bothered hiding how much that had to do with gaining Susumi capability.
“The suggestion won’t come from your people . . .” She frowned, looked away, her chin tucked down in a submissive posture before returning her gaze to his face. “I assumed you had access to Confederation news.”
“I find the news gathered light-years away seldom applies to my life.”
“Of course.” She looked away again.
Cool fingers pressed in under her chin and lifted her head. Head cocked to one side, he examined her expression. “What are you hiding?”
“I’m not . . .” A touch of claw against the soft skin of her throat cut off her protest, and she knew she’d won. He wouldn’t believe information too easily acquired. If he thought he’d forced it from her, however . . .
“Don’t lie to me.”
“The war with the Primacy has ended.”
“That’s not news.” The claw dug in a little farther.
“With the war over, the Confederation doesn’t need the Silsviss to fight. And not just the Silsviss. They don’t need any of the Younger Races anymore. They want to keep us planetbound because they fear our capability for violence. Your people aren’t yet legally part of the Confederation . . .” The Silsviss refused to ratify anything that required them to entirely disarm. “. . . so you’ll be the first locked down. As there are member species who still don’t know of your existence, no one will come to your defense. Once they’ve used you to prove they can lock a warrior culture down, they’ll move on to the rest of us.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then released her. “Will they?”
Anika touched her throat, swiping away the drop of blood before anyone saw. “It’s all anyone’s talking about.”
“And you mammals will allow this. Herd mentality.” Cyr Tyroliz tasted the air again, the light of the ballroom glittering off the scales folded into his frown. “A station in orbit gives them the high ground,” he said quietly. His tail carved short jerky arcs in the air as he walked away.
He didn’t join the other members of the Planetary Committee. Anika didn’t see him beckon or show any indication that they should attend him, but three high-ranking members of the new military followed him out of the room.
The lesser species had simple, easy-to-influence reactions.
* * *
“Unscheduled VTA, please respond.” Boomer waited the required thirty seconds wondering if the idiot who’d come up with that number knew how far a VTA could get in thirty seconds, then opened the channel again. “Unscheduled VTA, please respond.”
“What’s up?” di’Murrin Keezo, the docking master, rolled from his board and across the small compartment they shared, stopping his chair to the left and a little behind hers.
“It’s our VTA up off dirt. The OS checks out, but I can’t contact flesh and blood.”
“Remote piloting?”
She raised her hands so he could see the relevant data.
“Okay, not remote piloting. Mechanical blip, then. Probably why they’re coming up. There’s a limit to what they can fix wrapped in the shit the lizards call air. The damp and the heat are doing a number on our equipment—maintenance spends most of their time bonding zinc to replacement parts.” He peered at her board, his dark purple eyes darker still, then rolled back to his own. “Docking computer has taken control. We’ll put it on three; it’s the closest nipple to the shop.”
Boomer didn’t dislike Keezo; he was great in the sack, his deep purple hair and eyes were pretty, but she couldn’t understand how sex and pretty had been enough to make him docking master. He was neither that great nor that pretty. She preferred to share the compartment with his second, Tami Dezotto. Not only did the tiny woman take up a lot less space—di’Taykan were way too there, all the damned time—but she could be sure when Keezo wasn’t around that her decisions weren’t being influenced by alien pheromones.
A third attempt at contact received the same lack of response. “I can’t get hold of the embassy either.”
<
br /> “We’re the common factor; it’s probably us,” Keezo pointed out. “A piece of junk might’ve clipped an array.”
The Silsviss had a surprising number of old satellites orbiting the planet. The Confederation had placed its station out farther than most of them, but they’d been known to wander. Boomer suspected at least half of them were spying on the station and wouldn’t have been surprised to find they all were. “Diagnostics are coming up clear.”
“Diagnostics came up clear when that hunk of junk cracked the observation window.”
“Good point.” But she ran the diagnostics again, just in case.
“VTA’s attached. Nipple sealed. Any word?”
How could he have missed word? He was less than two meters away. “Not yet.”
“Did you send a report to maintenance?”
“Don’t tell me how to do my job, Keez.”
He raised both hands. “Ce kerdin pat arventigo.”
“That’s not what you said last threesday,” Boomer muttered, wondering if it was an interference problem. Most of those abandoned Silsviss satellites still had some power, and this could be the proof of spying she’d been looking for. She’d just tagged three she wanted investigated next time they sent out a maintenance sled, when she heard a thud against the hatch. Weird. Station command never showed up without warning—she’d always wondered what it was command didn’t want to catch them doing—and it was still hours until shift change.
Another thud. Kind of a double THUD thud.
Then the hatch flew open.
Boomer had never seen a Silsviss up close. As station staff, she could have gone down to the planet on her off days, but why bother. While she didn’t hate the heat and humidity the way the Taykan did, she disliked it enough she’d never seen the point in leaving the station’s air-conditioned comfort. In the flesh, the Silsviss were bigger than she’d imagined. The Niln, the only lizards she’d ever seen, came up to about her boobs. This guy—and there might be a total lack of recognizable sexual identifiers, but she’d bet her left ovary he was male—was taller than Keezo and, like most Taykan, Keezo topped out around two meters.
