by Timothy Zahn
"I'll speak to Warrior Command about your request," Thrr-mezaz told him, ignoring the question. "We must go now. The warriors will look after you."
Lahettilas did the inhale/exhale thing again and bowed his face briefly toward the floor as he spoke. "Very well. I suppose it is all we can do. Certainly all which those of us who are minor players in this span of history can hope to accomplish."
"Farewell, then," Thrr-mezaz said, turning away from the aliens, a sudden flush of annoyance flowing across his tongue. A minor player. Was that all these aliens considered him to be, a minor player?
How dare they make such a presumption? He was Thrr-mezaz; Kee'rr, commander of a Zhirrzh beachhead in enemy territory. Not in any way a minor player.
And he would prove it to them. He would get to Warrior Command, all right-maybe even to the Overclan Prime himself. He would get this straightened out so fast, it would make their fur twist.
"Arrogant little overgrown nornins, aren't they?" Klnn-vavgi muttered at Thrr-mezaz's side as they headed across the landing field toward the headquarters building.
"Extremely," Thrr-mezaz growled back. "I don't know how Mrachanis look at it, Second, but I don't consider any Zhirrzh in a war zone to be a minor player."
"We'll just have to make sure we prove that to them." Klnn-vavgi glanced back over his shoulder, flicking his tongue thoughtfully. "It happened again," he said, lowering his voice. "Did you notice? Third time in the past two fullarcs, by my count."
"You mean the Elder who was handling the pathway back to Warrior Command suddenly cutting off the conversation?"
"Exactly," Klnn-vavgi said. "All the more interesting, given the chance they're taking."
"Indeed," Thrr-mezaz murmured. Supreme Ship Commander Dkll-kumvit had made it clear as fine glasswork that the existence of Zhirrzh Elders was to be kept a closely guarded secret from the Mrachanis. Yet the supreme commanders at Warrior Command, listening at the other end of the Elder pathway, had now risked exposing that secret. Not once, but three times.
Which could only mean they considered it even more urgent that those particular three conversations be interrupted. Which implied that Lahettilas knew something that Thrr-mezaz and the rest of the Zhirrzh warriors weren't supposed to hear. "I take it you also noticed the common element each time?" he asked Klnn-vavgi.
His second in command flicked his tongue in grim agreement. "That weapon Lahettilas keeps wanting to talk to Warrior Command about. The thing he calls CIRCE. I wonder what it is."
"I'll bet Warrior Command knows," Thrr-mezaz said, glancing around. He didn't see any Elders hovering around listening, but with Elders that didn't necessarily mean anything. Insubstantial and virtually transparent, they were ideally suited for eavesdropping.
"Something unsuitable for us minor players, no doubt," Klnn-vavgi said. "I don't know about you, Thrr-mezaz, but I'm getting the taste of politics dripping all over this thing."
"Maybe," Thrr-mezaz said. "I wonder... no."
"What?"
"Just a thought," Thrr-mezaz said, looking around again. "Whatever the Mrachanis or Warrior Command know about this, I'll bet our Human-Conqueror prisoner could tell us the whole story."
"Interesting thought," Klnn-vavgi agreed. "Maybe we ought to go have a little talk with him."
For a handful of beats Thrr-mezaz was tempted to agree. As a Zhirrzh commander in the war zone, it seemed only right that he should know everything Warrior Command did about enemy weapons his warriors might be facing.
But the Human-Conqueror prisoner, Srgent-janovetz, was under continual monitoring by the beachhead's Elders. If they asked him about CIRCE, Warrior Command would know about it within ten beats. Cvv-panav, the Speaker for Dhaa'rr in the Overclan Seating, had already tried once to have Thrr-mezaz ousted as commander of the Dorcas ground warriors. Pressing to learn something Warrior Command obviously wanted kept secret would be all the excuse he would need to finish the job.
Thrr-mezaz looked sideways at Klnn-vavgi, a sudden doubt oozing beneath his tongue. Could that in fact be the outcome his second in command was trying for here? To goad Thrr-mezaz into doing something that would get him removed from command? Klnn-vavgi was also Dhaa'rr, after all; perhaps his oft-stated contempt for clan politics was a lie designed to lull Thrr-mezaz into complacency.
His tongue flicked in self-disgust. An absurd thought, and he was ashamed with himself for having even entertained it. Lahettilas and all that talk about distrust must have gotten deeper under his tongue than he'd realized. "Let's try something else first," he told Klnn-vavgi, changing direction toward the eastern edge of the landing field. "Come on."
The warriors and techs had long since finished their examination of the storehouse building where the two Mrachanis had come under Human-Conqueror attack a fullarc ago. Outside the eastern wall where the doors had once stood, the ground was covered with wooden splinters, and Thrr-mezaz found himself wincing as he and Klnn-vavgi crunched their way through them. There, crushed beneath those doors when the explosion blew them off their hinges, two Zhirrzh warriors had been abruptly and prematurely raised to Eldership.
And were still suffering the consequences of that raising. Yanked instantly back across the three-hundred-plus light-cyclics separating Dorcas and their preservedfsss organs on Oaccanv, both of the new Elders were twisted in the temporary insanity of anchoring shock.
As were the warriors who had been raised to Eldership during their initial invasion of Dorcas. Now, seventeen fullarcs later, that group was still showing no signs of coming out of the madness.
There were, Thrr-mezaz knew, whispered rumors of searcher and healer theories that had supposedly proved that a Zhirrzh who was too far from hisfsss organ at the time of his raising would be forever locked into anchoring shock. The clan and family leaders uniformly denied that such theories had ever even been formally proposed, let alone tested or proved. But that didn't stop the rumors. Thrr-mezaz could only hope that, if such an outer limit existed, Dorcas was still inside it.
Three more jagged holes had been ripped in the north wall by the Human-Conqueror explosives after the blast that had destroyed the doors, showering more splinters and wood fragments outside the building. "What are we doing here?" Klnn-vavgi asked as Thrr-mezaz led the way to the middle of the room.
"I have a special arrangement with one of our communicators," Thrr-mezaz told him. "He's supposed to look in here a couple times per tentharc to see if I want him."
"Really," Klnn-vavgi said, eyeing his commander. "A special arrangement, you say."
"Yes," Thrr-mezaz said, starting to have second thoughts about this idea. The secure pathway which the Dhaa'rr Elder Prr't-casst-a had set up two fullarcs ago between Thrr-mezaz and his brother Thrr-gilag had been for one purpose only: to discuss the suspected capture of Prr't-casst-a's husband, Prr't-zevisti, by the Human-Conquerors. Trying to use the pathway for any other purpose might well meet with resistance from the Elders involved in carrying the messages back and forth, particularly if the discussion turned to Dhaa'rr political moves. Perhaps he should just forget about this and hope that the Mrachanis were overstating their case on this CIRCE threat.
Abruptly, the Elder appeared. "Commander Thrr-mezaz," he said. "You have a message for Prr't-casst-a?"
"Not for Prr't-casst-a, no," Thrr-mezaz said. "But I'd like to use the secure pathway she set up to contact my brother, Searcher Thrr-gilag. Can you do it?"
"I can try," the Elder said, sounding a bit doubtful. "I thought Thrr-gilag had returned to Oaccanv."
"He has," Thrr-mezaz confirmed. "He should be at either the Overclan Seating complex in Unity City, the Thrr-family shrine near Cliffside Dales, or at the Frr-family town of Reeds Village."
"I obey, Commander," the Elder said, and vanished.
"You think Thrr-gilag knows something about this CIRCE weapon?" Klnn-vavgi asked.
"He spent nineteen fullarcs on Base World Twelve interrogating the Human-Conqueror prisoner Pheylan Cavanagh," Thrr-mezaz reminded hi
m. "If CIRCE is as dangerous as Lahettilas seems to think, there's a good chance it would have come up in conversation."
"Maybe." Klnn-vavgi looked around the damaged building. "While you're at it, you might ask him if he knows anything about Human-Conqueror explosive weapons."
The beats went by, adding up until they'd reached a hunbeat. Then two hunbeats, then three, then four. Thrr-mezaz looked around, feeling his tail gradually speeding up its spinning movement and wondering what could have gone wrong. Anchored at both his preservedfsss organ and at the smallfsss cutting just east of the Dorcas beachhead, the Elder could transfer instantly back and forth across the light-cyclics between Dorcas and the Dhaa'rr homeworld of Dharanv. Passing the message on to an Elder on Dharanv who was also double-anchored to a cutting in the appropriate region of Oaccanv should likewise have been no problem. Could the Overclan Seating have moved up the departure time of the diplomatic mission to the Mrachani homeworld? Thrr-gilag was supposed to go on that mission, Thrr-mezaz knew; a changed departure schedule might account for no one's being able to find him.
And then, just as he'd decided that that was probably the case, the Elder reappeared. " 'This is Thrr-gilag,' " he quoted. " 'Hello, my brother. Is anything wrong?' "
"I was about to ask you the same thing," Thrr-mezaz said to the Elder, his tail slowing down slightly. "Where are you, anyway?"
The Elder nodded and vanished. This time he was back in less than half a hunbeat. " 'As it happens, I'm aboard a ship heading your way. I should be there in about five fullarcs.' "
Thrr-mezaz frowned. "I thought Klnn-dawan-a was going to be coming."
" 'She will be,' " the message came back. " 'She'll be leaving from Shamanv and ought to arrive there a fullarc or two ahead of me. She'll have the package with her.' "
Thrr-mezaz felt his tail twitch.The package: their private code word for the secret and highly illegal cutting Thrr-gilag and Klnn-dawan-a had somehow managed to get from Prr't-zevisti'sfsss organ on Dharanv the previous fullarc.
A cutting that was probably Prr't-zevisti's last chance at life. But that wouldn't matter a flick of the tongue if anyone caught them with it. "Any problems on that side?" he asked.
" 'None that I know of. I haven't spoken with Klnn-dawan-a since I left Dharanv.' "
"So why are you coming here, too?" Thrr-mezaz asked. "I thought you were supposed to be going to the Mrachani homeworld."
" 'I was. I've been taken off that mission.' "
Klnn-vavgi muttered something under his breath. "Taken off?" Thrr-mezaz echoed. "Whose flat-headed idea was that?"
The Elder nodded and vanished. "I'll bet you twenty fullarcs' pay it was politics," Klnn-vavgi growled. "I can see the Speaker for Dhaa'rr's tongue marks in it from here."
"Maybe not," Thrr-mezaz said, uneasiness speeding up his tail again. "I talked to my father last fullarc, and he was trying desperately to locate Thrr-gilag. Something serious is going on with our family back home, and Thrr-gilag's being dropped from the Mrachani mission may be one of the repercussions."
"Must be something really serious to get Thrr't-rokik desperate," Klnn-vavgi commented. "I've only met him a couple of times, but he never struck me as the excitable type."
"He's not," Thrr-mezaz agreed grimly.
"I take it you don't want to talk about the situation?"
Thrr-mezaz flicked his tongue in a negative. "Most of what I could say right now would be just speculation."
The Elder reappeared. " 'It was a joint decision by the Speaker for Dhaa'rr and the Overclan Prime,' " he quoted Thrr-gilag's reply. " 'I'll give you the details when I arrive.' "
"All right," Thrr-mezaz said. "A couple of other questions for you. First: do you know anything about Human-Conqueror explosives?"
" 'Only that they're as effective as lasers for raising Zhirrzh to Eldership,' " the bitter-tasting reply came back a hunbeat later.
"I know that much," Thrr-mezaz said. "Second: do you know anything about a Human-Conqueror weapon called CIRCE?"
The Elder vanished... and once again the beats began to drag by. "It's being awfully quiet out there," Klnn-vavgi said as the silence entered its third hunbeat. "How secure did you say this pathway was?"
The Elder was back before Thrr-mezaz could answer. " 'I'm sorry, Thrr-mezaz, but this really isn't something I can discuss.' "
Thrr-mezaz threw a look at Klnn-vavgi. So they'd been right on both counts. There was something about CIRCE that Warrior Command didn't want anyone else to know. And Thrr-gilag knew what that something was. "I understand, my brother," Thrr-mezaz said to the Elder. "Have a safe journey."
" 'You take care, too. I'll see you in a few fullarcs.' "
Thrr-mezaz nodded to the Elder. "Thank you. You may release the pathway."
"I obey, Commander," the Elder said, and once again vanished.
"So we were right," Klnn-vavgi murmured.
"Looks that way." Thrr-mezaz looked around the empty storehouse, wondering if any of the other Elders might have eavesdropped on their conversation. "We'd better be getting back."
"I wonder what kind of weapon it is," Klnn-vavgi commented as they headed back across the landing area. "Some kind of nuclear explosive, you think?"
"I have no idea," Thrr-mezaz said, squinting against the bright postmidarc sunlight and the dust being kicked up by a brisk northerly wind. "What bothers me more than thewhat is thewhy. Specifically, why haven't they already used it against us?"
"Maybe they have," Klnn-vavgi suggested. "Maybe what the Mrachanis are calling CIRCE are what we call the Copperhead warriors."
"I doubt it," Thrr-mezaz said. "Thrr-gilag's study group got the name Copperheads directly from their prisoner. Surely the Mrachanis have had enough contact with the Human-Conquerors not to make that kind of mistake."
"Unless the Human-Conquerors use different words when talking to different races," Klnn-vavgi pointed out. "It would be a simple way to impede communication among their enemies."
Thrr-mezaz flicked his tongue. "Interesting thought."
"Something else to ask Thrr-gilag when he gets here," Klnn-vavgi said. "Find out if the prisoner ever mentioned CIRCE to them-"
Abruptly, an Elder appeared in front of them. "Commander Thrr-mezaz: urgent message from Supreme Ship Commander Dkll-kumvit," he said, his faint voice almost lost in the wind. "He's received news from Warrior Command that Shamanv was attacked two tentharcs ago by a group of Human-Conqueror warcraft."
Thrr-mezaz's tail twitched.Shamanv -that was where Thrr-gilag had said Klnn-dawan-a would be leaving from. Carrying Prr't-zevisti's new cutting with her... "Damage?" he asked.
"Unclear," the Elder said. "The message said only that two Zhirrzh warships were involved in driving the attackers away and that one of them suffered severe internal damage from the Human-Conqueror explosive missiles. It was also reported that one enemy warcraft was destroyed. Supreme Ship Commander Dkll-kumvit thinks it may signal the beginning of a new Human-Conqueror offensive."
"Understood," Thrr-mezaz said. "Order all ground warriors to full alert and have the Stingbirds prepared to fly."
"I obey," the Elder said, and vanished.
"Come on," Thrr-mezaz said to Klnn-vavgi, picking up his pace toward their headquarters building.
And wondering if his second in command had noticed yet the frightening implications of the Shamanv attack. Either the enemy had taken a Zhirrzh prisoner and made him talk, or had found and deciphered the optronic data from a Zhirrzh combat recorder-
Or had a workable method for tracking spacecraft through the tunnel-line between stars.
Only two fullarcs ago Klnn-vavgi had speculated the enemy might have such impossible technology. Ten fullarcs before that Thrr-gilag had half-jokingly suggested the same thing.
Perhaps both had been right. And if so, it put a sudden new edge of urgency onto this war. Thanks to the Human-Conqueror recorder they'd recovered from the wreckage of that first battle, Warrior Command had till now had the advantage of knowing the loca
tions of their enemies' worlds and bases, while the Zhirrzh worlds had remained hidden away in the vastness of space. Now, suddenly, that advantage was gone. The Human-Conquerors could now stab the war straight back into the faces of the Zhirrzh.
Could begin to live up to the name the Mrachanis had given them. The name Conquerors.
"We're in trouble, Thrr-mezaz," Klnn-vavgi said quietly from beside him. "With CIRCE, and now this, we're in trouble."
"Yes," Thrr-mezaz said, glancing up again at the sky. "I know."
3
The data-feed connection is established at 15:52:25, 22.41 minutes later than the estimate I was given orally at 09:21:44 this morning. There is a contact transient of 0.04 second; and then the feed settles into proper connection linkage.
