Conquerors' Pride

by Timothy Zahn

  "You stand away," a voice came from behind him.

  Pheylan turned. Thrr-gilag was standing there, his tongue flicking in and out of his mouth, the corkscrewing tail going at double-time rate. "What?" he asked the Zhirrzh.

  "You stand away," Thrr-gilag repeated. His tongue stiffened to point across the cell at the shower. "Stand there."

  Wordlessly, Pheylan stood up and walked over to the shower, the weapons tracking him the whole way. The outer door swung open and the two unarmed Zhirrzh stepped inside. One stood beside the open door as the other walked to Pheylan's bed. Pulling open the drawer, he pushed the survival pack out of his way and retrieved the stone.

  Pheylan looked at Thrr-gilag. "Not proper," the Zhirrzh said. "Not keep."

  "I see," Pheylan said, the words coming out mechanically through a dry mouth. So he'd been wrong. All the cleverness, all the subterfuge-all wasted. They'd known about the stone, probably from the second he picked it up.

  No. That was wrong. It had been sitting in that drawer for a good twelve hours now. If they'd known about it from the beginning, they would surely have taken it away from him before now.

  He looked back at the two Zhirrzh as they stepped back through the door and swung it shut. And yet, they'd known where it was. Exactly where it was, in fact-that Zhirrzh had gone straight for it, without any hesitation or groping around. And from the way they'd burst in here like that, he would swear that they'd just that moment found out about it.

  So how?

  The first Zhirrzh circled around the cell to where Thrr-gilag was still standing, and for a minute they conversed quietly between themselves, turning the stone over in their fingers as they examined it. Pheylan watched them, possibilities swirling through his mind like leaves in an aircar backwash. They were slightly telepathic, and they'd only just figured out that he had the stone. They were very telepathic, but only some of them, and the one with the power had just gotten into town that night. They'd just completed some nightly scan of his cell, a scan sensitive enough to pick up a five-cubic-centimeter chunk of flint and place it precisely in the proper corner of the proper drawer. They had a direct pipeline to God, and God didn't want Pheylan leaving just yet.

  Or more likely, they'd known about it all along and had just been playing with him. Letting him have twelve hours of false confidence and hoping like blazes that he didn't plan to use the stone before they could get it away from him.

  Thrr-gilag looked up at him. "Not proper," he said again. "Tomorrow not go outside."

  "That's not fair," Pheylan protested, knowing full well that argument was useless but also knowing that he had to try. "You never said something like this wasn't allowed. Besides, I need to go out. I need the sunlight."

  "You punish," Thrr-gilag said. "Not do again."

  He turned away and strode back toward his private door. On the other side of the cell, the Zhirrzh commander collected his troops and led them out the other way. The techs in the outer room, the incident over, went back to their tasks.

  Slowly, feeling numb, Pheylan walked back to his bed. All right. He'd lost the stone; but then, realistically, he shouldn't have really expected to get away with it in the first place. He'd lost the stone, but in its place he had another bit of information to take back to the Commonwealth when he escaped.

  Lying back down again, he closed his eyes. And tried to figure out just what that bit of information was.

  14

  "Lord Cavanagh?"

  Cavanagh awoke with a start, to find a shadowy figure standing beside his bed in the darkened room, gently shaking his shoulder. "Who's there?" he croaked through a sleep-dried mouth.

  "It's Kolchin, sir," the figure said quietly. "We've got visitors."

  "Really." With some difficulty Cavanagh focused on the bedside clock. The glowing numbers read 4:37. "Bit early for casual conversation, isn't it?"

  "There's nothing casual about this group," Kolchin said. "They're an assistant liaison and three heavies from the Commonwealth consulate over on Mra-ect."

  "From Mra-ect, eh?" Cavanagh said, sitting up and reaching for his robe. "Nine light-years, just to see us. How flattering. What do they want?"

  "I'm not exactly sure," Kolchin said. "But I think they're after Fibbit."

  Cavanagh paused halfway into his robe. "Fibbit? What on Earth for?"

  "No idea," Kolchin said. "They keep skating around the issue-say they want to talk to you personally. But they keep looking around like they're hunting for something."

  "What do you mean, looking around?" Cavanagh asked, getting his robe in place and pulling on his house shoes. "They're not already in, are they?"

  "No, Hill's got them pinned in the foyer," Kolchin assured him. "But they keep trying to look through the privacy glass into the hallway and social room. Seemed pretty annoyed I wouldn't let them in any farther."

  "Let them be annoyed," Cavanagh grunted. At four-thirty in the morning he was capable of considerable annoyance himself. "Where is Fibbit, anyway?"

  "Actually, I don't know," Kolchin admitted. "She was working on that threading you asked her to do for a couple of hours after you went to bed. But after that I sort of lost track of her. She didn't leave, and she's not in your room here. That's all I know."

  "Probably asleep in a corner somewhere," Cavanagh said, giving his robe sash a final tug. "Let's go see what's going on."

  The four visitors were visible only as vague shapes through the smoked privacy glass divider that separated the foyer from the rest of the suite, with Hill another vague shape facing them. "I'm Lord Cavanagh," Cavanagh said, coming around the divider into the foyer behind Hill. "What can I do for you?"

  "I'm sorry to bother you, Lord Cavanagh," a burly middle-aged man in the middle of the group said, taking a short step forward. He looked tired and grumpy, but not particularly sorry. "I'm Assistant Commonwealth Liaison Petr Bronski." His eyes flicked over Cavanagh's shoulder. "May we come in?"

  "State your business and I'll consider it," Cavanagh said.

  One of the young men flanking Bronski muttered something under his breath and stepped forward to join his boss. Hill shifted position in response to block his path, and out of the corner of his eye Cavanagh saw Kolchin move up a pace as well. All four of the visitors had a brittle, no-nonsense air about them, the sort of men the Commonwealth would naturally post to a former Yycroman colony world only recently awarded to the Mrachanis. Still, even at two-to-one odds, if they decided to get rough, Cavanagh's money was on Kolchin and Hill.

  Maybe Bronski saw that, too. He lifted a hand; reluctantly, his subordinate stepped back again. "I'd advise cooperation, Lord Cavanagh," he said, pulling a wallet folder from his pocket. "I don't really need your permission to come in."

  Cavanagh took the folder and opened it. Bronski's diplomatic ID was impressive, but here in Mrach territory it didn't carry much weight. The temporary Mrach government red card beside it, though, was something else again. "In that case, come in," he said, showing the red card to Kolchin as he stepped aside. "Hill, show these gentlemen to some seats."

  "That won't be necessary," Bronski said, stepping in around the privacy glass. "All we want is the Sanduul, then we'll be on our way."

  "The Sanduul?" Cavanagh echoed as Bronski's three men brushed past Hill and headed toward the social room.

  "Yes, the Sanduul," Bronski said, falling into step behind his men. "Fibbit u something u something from somewhere on Ulu. You know who I mean."

  "What do you want with her?"

  Bronski reached the center of the social room and stopped. "Not that it's any of your business," he said, looking around, "but she's being deported."

  "She was given a one-day extension."

  "I guess it must have been revoked," Bronski said. "Where is she?"

  Cavanagh looked around. The social room was furnished Mrach-style, with odd bits of furniture and hanging artwork scattered around, all of which focused attention and traffic toward the sunken lounge that took up a quarter of th
e room in the far corner. Long, narrow couches and soft contour chairs alternated around the rim of the lounge area, focusing attention still further onto the gently undulating glow of the fire sculpture in the corner itself. Leaning against one of the couches near the fire sculpture was the threading frame Fibbit had been working on. Fibbit herself was nowhere to be seen. "Are you sure they're deporting her?" he asked Bronski.

  "I asked where she was, Cavanagh," Bronski said, ignoring the question as he walked over to the lounge and stepped down the two light-edged steps. His three men were already tromping down the hallway that led to the dinery and bedroom areas of the suite. Hill looked as if he was planning to stop them; Cavanagh caught his eye and shook his head. The Mrach government was big on authority, and a red card was the top of the food chain as far as non-Mrachanis went. Whatever they wanted with Fibbit, they wanted it pretty badly.

  "What's this?" Bronski asked from the lounge.

  Cavanagh turned to find him glaring down at the threading frame propped against the couch. "It's a threading I commissioned from Fibbit," he said.

  Bronski peered over at him, looked back at the threading. "Doesn't look a thing like you. Is it yours or the Sanduul's?"

  "Mine."

  "Let's see the receipt."

  "I don't have one yet."

  "Then it's the Sanduul's," Bronski said with a brisk nod. "It'll go with her."

  "Wait a minute," Cavanagh said, stepping over to the lounge as Bronski picked up the frame. "This isn't making any sense at all. Can't you at least tell me what's going on here?"

  For a moment Bronski seemed to study him. "Sure, I'll tell you what's going on," he growled. "What's going on is that my chief hauled my rear end out of bed four hours ago with two items of news: one, that the Mrachanis were having trouble with a Sanduul who wouldn't leave Mra-mig; and two, that there was some human running around poking his nose where it didn't belong. We'll get to you soon enough; right now we'll just take the Sanduul. You going to turn her over to us, or not?"

  "To be perfectly honest, I don't know where she is," Cavanagh said. "If she's not here, then she must have gone out after I went to bed."

  Bronski snorted. "With those two sharp-eyed bodyguards of yours standing around?" he demanded, dropping the frame onto the couch. "Sure she did."

  "My men have to sleep, too," Cavanagh countered, trying to remain patient. "Her things are still here-I'm sure she'll be back. And if you don't mind my saying so, this whole thing is a colossal waste of everyone's time and energy. I was going to take Fibbit off Mra-mig in the morning anyway."

  "Maybe that's why she's disappeared," Bronski suggested acidly. "I know you ex-Parliament types don't like to believe it, but occasionally things do go on in this universe you don't know anything about." He shifted his attention past Cavanagh. "Well?"

  Cavanagh turned to see the three men file back into the social room. There was no sign of Fibbit. "Not here," one of the men reported, stepping past the others to join Cavanagh and Bronski in the lounge. "I think he's right-she must have slipped out while everyone was sleeping. Pretty sloppy, if you ask me." He turned his head to squint down at the threading on the couch. "Who's this guy, Cavanagh?"

  "Just someone Fibbit saw recently," Cavanagh told him. "Her other threading of the man was ruined at the spaceport. I suggested she might want to reproduce it while her memory of his face was still fresh."

  "Really." The man looked hard at Cavanagh, then back at the threading. "Saw him here in Mig-Ka City, you say?"

  "I didn't say," Cavanagh said. "As it happens, she did. Do you recognize him, Mr., ah...?"

  "Lee," the other supplied. "Taurin Lee."

  "Do you recognize him, Mr. Lee?" Cavanagh repeated.

  Lee was studying the threading, his forehead wrinkled in thought. "Not at the moment," he said. "But that can be remedied." He looked at Bronski. "I presume we're taking this with us."

  Bronski opened his mouth to answer... and stopped as, across the room, the doorbell chimed.

  For a moment everyone froze. Cavanagh recovered first, throwing a glance at Kolchin. The other nodded fractionally and started for the door.

  The motion seemed to unfreeze the others. "Hold it, bodyguard," Lee snapped, dropping the threading and darting across the social room to catch up. Bronski's other two men were moving now, too, with Hill close behind them. Grimacing, Cavanagh joined the parade, wishing Fibbit's timing could have been a little better.

  And again reminding himself that none of this was any of his business. Lee and Kolchin reached the edge of the privacy glass together and circled around it, and there was a half-felt puff of air as the door opened.

  Cavanagh had expected either a shout of triumph from Lee or a squawk of surprise from Fibbit. But there was only the muffled sound of a quiet voice.

  He reached the privacy glass just as Kolchin reappeared at the edge. "It's a Mrachani, sir," he said. "He says he needs to talk to you."

  Something about Fibbit? "Ask him to step in."

  Kolchin turned to the door and nodded, taking a step back to let the Mrachani past.

  As with most nonhumans, Mrach faces were a bit tricky for humans to tell apart, but Cavanagh was pretty sure this wasn't anyone they'd spoken to at either the Information Agency or at the spaceport. "Which is Lord Cavanagh?" the Mrachani asked, easing somewhat uncertainly through the crowd around him.

  "I am," Cavanagh identified himself. "And you are...?"

  The Mrachani's body hair flattened. "No names," he hissed. "And only a little time. I bear a private message from my superior. He has learned of your search and is willing to help."

  Cavanagh felt his heartbeat speed up. So therewas something more to those legends. "You have information about the Conquerors?" he asked.

  Bronski threw a sharp look at him, but the Mrachani seemed merely taken aback. "Conquerors? No. The human. The one the Sanduul threaded. The one you have been seeking. You will find him among the Yycromae in the Northern Wooded Steppes of the planet Phormbi."

  The hairs on the back of Cavanagh's neck stiffened. "What's he doing there? Is he in trouble?"

  "I can say no more," the Mrachani hissed, backing toward the edge of the privacy glass. "I must go, lest I am discovered by the others. Seek well."

  He scuttled back around the privacy glass, his silhouette crossing quickly and disappearing out the door. "Interesting," Bronski said as the silhouette that was Lee closed the door behind their departing visitor. "You still want to claim this is just some random person your Sanduul threaded, Lord Cavanagh?"

  "I never said it was a random person," Cavanagh said. "I said I didn't know who he was. I still don't."

  "Sure," Bronski said, hooking a thumb back toward the social room. "Garcia, go get that threading."

  "Wait a minute," Cavanagh said as one of Bronski's men headed back. "That threading is my property. You have no right to take it."

  "You got a receipt?"

  "I don't need one," Cavanagh said. "Fibbit is currently in my employ. As long as she's not present, Mrach law says all her property is legally mine."

  Bronski snorted. "Nice try. But you're not a Mrachani."

  "According to that I am," Cavanagh said, pointing to Bronski's pocket. "You're using a red card. That implicitly puts me under Mrach law."

  Bronski's eyes narrowed. Apparently, that wasn't something that had occurred to him before. "That's ridiculous."

  "Not at all," Cavanagh said. "You're operating under Mrach law, and Mrach law is very serious on the subject of property seizure. Unless you choose to put me under arrest, my property and I stay right here."

  "So maybe I should arrest you," Bronski shot back.

  "Unfortunately, you can't," Lee said quietly, coming back around the privacy glass. "We have no charges sufficient to warrant such an action. Not yet, anyway."

  "How about harboring a fugitive?" Bronski demanded.

  "The Sanduul isn't listed as a fugitive," Lee said, eyeing Cavanagh coldly. "Besides the obvious pr
oblem that she's not here."

  Bronski swore under his breath. "That's typical," he growled. "Really typical. About the only thing you NorCoord Parliament types churn out more than helpful advice is paper turning that advice into law. Fine. You keep the threading, Cavanagh, and I hope you strangle yourself on it. Garcia, make a recording of the damn thing and let's get the hell out of here."

  "But don't think this is more than a temporary respite," Lee warned. "At the moment, we're limited; but that's not going to last. The minute you leave Mrach space, you'll be under Commonwealth authority again."