by Timothy Zahn
"I just popped one of his rear tires, that's all," Merrick told him. "It should have brought him to a stop and kept him there. Instead, he lost control."
Daulo snarled a word Merrick's Qasaman classes had somehow never covered. "What do we do?"
"We get him to a hospital," Jin said. "Merrick, I'll take his head. You lean him out and get his torso and legs. Daulo, is there a medical kit in the truck?"
"Yes, but only a simple one."
"We'll take whatever you've got," Jin said as she and Merrick eased the unconscious man out of the car. "I'll ride in back and see what I can do for him."
Merrick grimaced. "No, I'll do it," he said. "My training is more up-to-date than yours."
"You sure?" Jin asked, peering closely at him. "I thought you hated the sight of blood."
"So what?" Merrick growled. "Besides, I'm the one who wrecked him."
His mother hesitated, then nodded. "All right. Daulo, can you get the back of the cargo area open?"
The cargo area had a very low ceiling, and getting Zoshak inside without jostling him proved to be a delicate operation. But between them, Merrick and Jin managed it. Merrick climbed in beside the wounded man, accepted the first-aid kit Fadil handed him, and settled himself into a cross-legged position as Daulo closed the rear door.
Zoshak's teeth were chattering quietly as Merrick pried open the kit and took a quick inventory. Bandages, cleaning cloths, painkillers, a few patches of unknown purpose, and a handful of small color-coded hypos whose contents consisted of medical-looking words that Merrick had never learned. As the truck headed off again, Merrick set the kit aside and carefully eased open Zoshak's outer robe and tunic.
Back at the Sammon house, Daulo had suggested that the gray scaly material Merrick had spotted under Zoshak's sleeve was a krisjaw armband. To Merrick's surprise, it wasn't.
Beside him, the connecting window to the truck's cab slid open. "How's he doing?" Jin asked, looking through the opening.
"His teeth are chattering," Merrick said, shifting his eyes to Zoshak's face as he took off his own robe. "Well, they were a minute ago, anyway. His skin doesn't feel cold, so I'm guessing it's shock."
"You need to keep him warm."
"Already on it," Merrick assured her, laying his robe across Zoshak's legs and abdomen. "Where's Lorne and his magic health-ometer ears when we need him?"
"You're the one who insisted on inviting yourself along on this trip," his mother said.
"Don't remind me," Merrick said. "By the way, you can tell Daulo that this krisjaw armband of his goes all the way up. And down."
"What do you mean?" Jin asked, frowning.
"I mean he's got a whole suit of the stuff," Merrick said. "Shirt, trousers—the works. Might have socks, too, for all I know. Either he's one heck of a hunter, or else he has serious compensation issues."
"Never mind his issues," Jin said. "What can you tell about his injuries?"
"Not much," Merrick admitted, gently kneading the usual places on Zoshak's torso. "I don't feel any swelling in his major organs. No broken ribs, either." He shifted his hands to Zoshak's arms. "Arms seem okay, too. That just leaves his head."
From the front seat, Daulo said something Merrick didn't catch. "Daulo says you can use the green hypo to wake him up," Jin repeated. "It's a mild stimulant."
"I'd rather not pump any chemicals into him if we don't have to," Merrick said, eyeing the hypos dubiously as he sealed Zoshak's tunic and robe again. "As long as he seems stable, I vote we just watch him and let a real doctor handle the treatment."
"That's probably best," Jin agreed reluctantly. "I just hate to sit here and do nothing."
" 'The patient heals; the doctor collects the bill,"' Merrick quoted. "How much farther?"
Jin glanced over her shoulder. "We're here."
Merrick ducked his head and looked between Daulo and Fadil. There, rising up from the plain ahead, framed against the red fire of the rising sun behind it, was Sollas.
The first mission to Qasama had spent the bulk of their time in and around Sollas, and Merrick had studied all the pictures they'd brought back of the city. The skyline had changed a little since then, he noted, with a few new buildings and some extra height on some of the others. But the most striking change—"Is that a wall around the city?"
Jin turned around again. "Certainly looks like one," she confirmed, her voice sounding odd. "Daulo, when did they put that up?"
"Quite a few years ago, actually," Daulo said. "A few years after your visit. You didn't know?"
"Not even a hint," Jin said. "Our observation satellites all started dying shortly after I left, and with the . . . new political climate the Council decided not to replace them."
"Probably because they would have showed that the Moreau plan had worked," Merrick put in sourly.
Fadil shot a glance over his shoulder. "The Moreau plan? The razorarms were your idea?"
"Partly," Jin told him. "Well, mostly, I suppose. But the people who opposed it wanted to smear our family, so they dubbed it the Moreau plan and worked hard to make the name stick." She turned back to Merrick. "Any change?"
Merrick looked down at Zoshak. "Nothing obvious," he reported, checking the young Qasaman's neck again. "Pulse and breathing are still steady."
"Keep an eye on him."
"I will." Merrick shifted to a side-sitting position, easing the strain on his leg muscles, and glanced out the cargo area's rear window. Thoughts of Zoshak had suddenly sparked the thought that the Shahni agent might not have been alone. But the road behind them was empty of vehicles. With a sigh of relief and fatigue, Merrick started to look away.
And paused. The road itself was clear, but there was something in the distance above it: a black spot, moving rapidly toward them out of the darker part of the sky. One of the SkyJo attack helicopters that Daulo had mentioned? Hoping fervently that it was something else—anything else—he keyed in his telescopic enhancers.
The next instant his vision exploded into a violent back-and-forth sway, the unavoidable price for using telescopics inside a moving vehicle. Merrick clamped down on his sudden vertigo and let his head and neck float, compensating as best he could for the bounces. An image flashed into view and then back out again before he could identify it. He set his teeth, fighting to bring it back.
And as he did, he felt his breath catch in his throat. The vehicle back there wasn't a SkyJo. It was a Troft spaceship. "Are we expecting company from the Trofts?" he called toward the cab.
"What do you mean?" Daulo asked, turning in his seat.
"There's a ship coming in from the west," Merrick told him, working furiously to maintain his hold on the image. "It's definitely a Troft, but it isn't a type I've ever seen before."
"Can you describe it?" Jin asked, bobbing her head up and down as she tried to look out the back. "It's too high for my angle."
"Looks sort of like a wrigglefish," Merrick said. "Tall but thin, at least from the front. It's—well, it's longer than it is tall, but it's too far away for me to get a definitive scale. There are two sets of short wings on each side . . . wait a minute."
"What?" Jin asked.
"He's not coming in on gravity lifts," Merrick said, frowning as the strangeness of that suddenly struck him. Troft spacecraft always came down on gravity lifts. "He must be using airfoils." Blinking, Merrick shut off the telescopics, trying to give his brain a brief rest.
And stiffened as his field of view expanded back to normal again. The strange Troft ship wasn't alone. There were at least fifty of them, coming out of the darkness in a wedge formation, none of them running grav lifts.
Running without the telltale red glow of grav lifts.
Merrick keyed in the telescopics again, focusing on the lead ship . . . and this time he spotted the cluster of objects nestled up beside the hulls beneath the stubby bow and stern wings. "Oh, hell," he murmured.
"What is it?" Jin asked tautly.
With an effort, Merrick found his voice. "Te
ll Fadil to punch it," he said, marveling at how calm his voice sounded. "Those are Troft warships. Fifty to a hundred of them."
He turned to face his mother's suddenly widened eyes. "Qasama's under attack."
Chapter Seven
"God in heaven," Daulo breathed. "Are you sure?"
"Trust me," Merrick said, looking back and forth between the various incoming ships. "There are at least twenty more of the wrigglefish ones, but also a few that look like flying sharks. I see a couple of wider ones in back too—whoops; there go their grav lifts," he said as red glows appeared in unison beneath each of the incoming ships.
"Coming in for a landing," Jin said tightly. "Looks like Sollas is the target."
"Like there was any doubt," Merrick said. "What do we do?"
"We have to warn the Shahni," Daulo insisted.
"Right," Jin said. "You have any kind of comm or radio? Ours are still in our packs back at Milika."
Daulo hissed viciously between his teeth. "Unfortunately, the only radio equipment simple villagers like ourselves may use are the short-range sets we use to communicate into the mines," he said. "Everything else is reserved for the Shahni and military."
"Maybe Carsh Zoshak has something with him," Jin suggested. "Merrick?"
"I'm on it," Merrick said, running his hands quickly over Zoshak's tunic and robe. But there was nothing. "No good," he said. "If he had something, we must have left it in the car."
"Any idea where any of the Shahni live?" Jin asked. "If we can't call them, maybe we can go pound on someone's door."
"They and their families all live together in the Palace in the center of Sollas," Daulo said. "Unfortunately I doubt we can reach it before the invaders do."
"Depends on how smart the Trofts are," Jin said. "If they decide to secure the airfield area first—which is what I'd do—we might have time to get to the Shahni and at least help them get to cover."
There was a soft noise from Zoshak, and Merrick looked down to see that the other's teeth were chattering again. "We may have to postpone any door-knocking," he warned. "I think Carsh Zoshak's going into shock again."
"Daulo, check and see where the nearest hospital is," Jin said. "Someplace that can handle—"
She broke off as the forward edge of the invasion force shot past overhead, filling the air with a deep, throaty roar. For a long minute the sound continued, the truck rattling as Fadil fought the buffeting slipstream of the ships' passage.
And then the wave was past, and the sound faded away into the tense stillness of the predawn landscape. "Someplace that can handle possible head trauma," Jin finished her sentence. "Doesn't look like they're all headed for the airfield, does it?"
"It would appear they mean to take the entire city at once," Daulo agreed tightly. "But we won't be destroyed without a fight."
"Fortunately, mass destruction doesn't seem to be part of the Trofts' playbook," Jin said. "At least, not the Trofts the Dominion of Man ran into a century ago. They prefer to conquer planets and peoples in more or less working condition. Did you find us a hospital?"
"The closest is just inside the southwestern gate," Daulo said, holding up the map for her to see. "Once he's there—"
A hand brushed Merrick's knee. "Hold it a sec," Merrick interrupted, looking down.
Zoshak's eyes were open, though just barely. "Where . . . ?" the young man whispered. "What . . . ?"
"You were in an accident," Merrick told him, feeling a fresh flash of guilt at having been the one who'd caused the wreck. "We're taking you to—where are we going?"
"The Everhope Hospital," Daulo said.
"The Everhope Hospital in Sollas," Merrick repeated. "We'll be there in just a few minutes."
Zoshak closed his eyes. "Lodestar," he murmured. "It must be Lodestar."
"What's Lodestar?" Merrick asked.
"It's another hospital," Daulo said, studying his map. "But it's near the city center. Even at this time of morning it would take an additional quarter of an hour or more for us to reach it."
Merrick nodded. "The Everhope's closer," he told Zoshak. "We'll take you there."
Zoshak shook his head weakly. "Lodestar," he insisted, his voice almost too weak to hear. "Specialist. Kambuzia."
"He says there's a specialist there named Kambuzia," Merrick repeated.
"Not smart," Daulo objected, looking over the back seat at the cargo area. "The first rule of emergency care is to obtain it as quickly as possible."
"Kambuzia," Zoshak whispered. "Kambuzia."
"Yes, but he clearly wants this Dr. Kambuzia," Merrick said, touching his fingers to Zoshak's throat. "Pulse is still good," he said, gazing down into the other's face. Zoshak's eyes had opened a little again, and behind the drooping lids Merrick could sense an unbending insistence. "I don't think he's going to be happy with anyone else."
Daulo muttered something under his breath. "Probably some relative," he muttered. "Fine. Fadil, at the ring road swing north toward the western gate instead of continuing on to the southwest entrance."
They reached the ring road and turned north. Merrick tried to see what might be happening in the city, but the wall blocked everything but the tops of the nearest buildings.
But at least there was no sound of gunfire or lasers. Yet.
The western gate was standing wide open when they arrived. It was also deserted, with no guards or other travelers anywhere in sight. "This isn't right," Fadil muttered as he drove through. "Where is everyo—?"
The rest of his question was cut off by the abrupt screech of tires on pavement as he slammed on the brakes. Merrick grabbed for a handhold and ducked down to look past his mother's head out the windshield.
And found himself gazing at the tall side of one of the Troft ships.
It was squatting on wide landing skids in the center of the intersection just beyond the gate, positioned with its longitudinal axis along the wider southeast-to-northwest avenue and its flank toward the narrower street the Sammon truck had entered by. "Regular air field not good enough for them?" Merrick muttered.
"First rule of urban occupation is to control or block major intersections," Jin said tightly. "Looks like they've decided to do both. Look at the firepower they've got under those wings."
Merrick craned his neck and grimaced. Now that the ship was close by and standing still, he was able to get some detail on the weapons mounted on pylons beneath the stubby wings. "Looks like lasers and missile launchers," he said.
"All mounted on individual swivels on those pylons, you'll notice," his mother said. "Makes it easy to fire in any direction."
Merrick nodded. And with Qasaman city avenues nice and straight and wide, a single gunship's weapons would command a lot of territory.
"God in heaven," Daulo murmured.
Merrick tore his gaze from the ship. Striding toward them with hand-and-a-half lasers held at the ready were four Trofts.
He felt his muscles stiffen, a sudden flood of claustrophobia gripping his heart. Each of the aliens was wearing a thick armored leotard with heavy knee-high boots and a belt that sported a small sidearm, a long knife, and half a dozen gadgets that Merrick didn't recognize. Their helmets were of an odd, almost flowing design that curved down behind them to protect the backs of their necks, with a thick plastic or glass faceplate covering their faces.
And here Merrick sat, trapped in the back of a truck, with his mother and her friends blocking most of his field of fire. If the Trofts decided to mow them all down, there was nothing he could do to stop them—
"Merrick, do you recognize the demesne pattern?" Jin asked quietly.
With an effort, Merrick forced down his fear. His mother was right—this was the time for thought and planning, not panic. Anyway, if the Trofts wanted them dead, they would have already opened fire. "I think I can see some elements of the Pua demesne," he said. "But taken as a whole it isn't any combination I've seen before."
"That's what I was thinking," his mother agreed. "Which may imply the
attack isn't coming from any of Qasama's immediate neighbors, or at least not the ones who first told us about their presence here."
"What does it matter where they came from?" Fadil snarled as the Trofts continued toward them.
"I don't know yet," Jin said calmly. "But all information is eventually useful."
"If you live through it," Fadil bit back. "You're the brave demon warriors. Do something."
"Patience, my son," Daulo said. His voice, Merrick noted with a flicker of resentment, was as calm as Jin's, and far calmer than Merrick himself was feeling. "Jin Moreau, how do you wish to play this?"
"As low-key and truthful as possible," Jin told him. "We were coming to Sollas to shop around some ore samples, found an accident victim on the road, and are trying to get him to the hospital."
"We'll try it," Daulo said. "Remember to let me do all the talking."
Five meters from the truck the Trofts shifted formation, one of them approaching the driver's side while the other three fanned out sideways with their lasers covering the occupants. At a murmured word from Daulo, Fadil rolled down his window. "What's the meaning of this?" Daulo demanded, his voice stiff and even a bit haughty. "We are citizens of Qasama—"
Behind the faceplate, Merrick saw the Troft's beak moving as he said something in cattertalk. "You will remain silent," a round pin on the alien's left shoulder boomed out the Qasaman translation. "State your business in Sollas."
"We bring ore samples to the refineries." Daulo nodded back toward Merrick and Zoshak. "More importantly, we also have an injured man we found on the road. He needs to be taken to a hospital."
The Troft looked past Fadil's head into the cargo area. Merrick crouched low over Zoshak, putting as much concern into his face and his body language as he could. He had no idea whether the Troft could even read humans that closely, but there was no harm in trying. "Where was this accident?" the alien asked.
"About twenty kilometers back along the Azras road," Daulo said. "Go look for yourselves if you don't believe me."
Merrick felt his stomach tighten. If the Trofts examined the wreck closely enough to find the laser damage to the car's tires . . . but that was pretty unlikely. If they did anything, it would be a quick flyover to see that an abandoned car was, in fact, where Daulo said it was.
