The Lost (The Maauro Chronicles Book 3)

by Edward McKeown

  I nodded.

  An older Veru standing in the front turned to me. “Greetings Humans. Welcome to our world. Do you know where you are going?”

  “This is the airboat to the university?” I ventured.

  “It is. Don’t get off at the first dock though; the second one is closer to the admin museums and the colony museum.”

  We pulled up to a dock and some Veru shuffled on and off. One younger-looking Veru, turned as he stepped onto the dock. He made a noise in our direction that didn’t need translation. Derision was also a universal language. Two Veru with him shook in what I took to be laughter.

  “I apologize,” the older Veru said. “Young people these days seem to have no manners.”

  “It’s a common problem in the galaxy,” I said.

  “Maybe more so here for humans,” the old Veru said. “Take some advice and do not wander about much after dark.”

  “That bad?” Olivia asked.

  “Lately,” the old Veru said.

  A young female next to him piped in. “Not all of us feel that way, the Confederacy has friends here.” The male Veru with her touched her with a tentacle and rumbled something in their native language. The female looked away.

  “Ah,” said the older Veru as the airboat surged up to the dock of a shopping district. “This is my stop. Good fortune and travels, Humans.”

  “Thank you,” Olivia and I returned. The Veru moved off stiffly, along with most of the other beings aboard including the female and her reticent companion. The airboat pulled out quickly.

  “University is the next stop,” I said, observing the map.

  “Let’s take the old boy’s advice,” Olivia said.

  “About the second stop?”

  “Probably both pieces of advice were good,” Olivia said.

  We got off at a broad dock. Young Veru hopped about, getting on and off, some bouncing right over the airboats rails. We walked off and headed up a tree-lined street of broad but steep stairs, with Veru bouncing up and down them. I wondered what they did when they broke a leg or got old. We were both grateful for the shade of the tall, broad trees that resembled Terran willows, except for their great height.

  The university occupied several hills and a broad valley with the usual wide buildings. Either a sporting event or a demonstration was creating noise and a crowd down at the admin end.

  “Let’s stay out of that,” I said.

  “Bexlaw would have come here,” Olivia said. “But I bet he would have headed to the colony museum. Birds of a feather, you know.”

  I didn’t, but I followed her as it made as much sense as anything else.

  We found ourselves at a long, low building filled with photos, holos and scale models of the colony, from first landing to the building of the giant reflectors that had begun the cooling of the poles and the lowering of the sea levels.

  I found a young, Veru female, chewing bubble-gum and reading a newsfolio. She looked up after we stood there for a few seconds. “Oh, sorry,” she shook the folio in a sharp gesture and the paper instantly dissolved, the frame folded until next time she had it extrude something. “Can I help you?”

  “We were wondering if some colleagues of ours visited this university about a year ago,” I said. I rattled off a list of the names of Bexlaw’s expedition, including Maximillian.

  The young Veru consulted her monitor. “Yes, they were here. The whole crew was using our research facility pretty extensively before they left.”

  “What were they looking at?” Olivia asked.

  “Says here,” the Veru replied, “they were doing work on an artifact recovered on the moon, some sort of encoded plaque. It was found about fifty years ago, not much was ever done with it until they showed up. Records say it was of human origin.”

  “And they didn’t communicate with Earth about it?” I said.

  She shrugged. “Doesn’t say. But I’m guessing not. Fifty years ago, was pretty close to when the Confederacy forced us into it. Humans weren’t that popular then.”

  “Little seems to have changed,” I said.

  “Hey,” she said, “don’t put any of that on me. I treat all species alike.”

  I nodded. “Yes, thanks. I didn’t mean you, but it seems that there is some anti-Confederacy feeling around here.”

  She nodded reluctantly. “Yeah. Well, it’s mainly the older generation. Live and let live I say. Too many people dwell in the past.”

  “Too true,” I said. “Could we speak to the staff that Bexlaw’s people were working with?”

  “Not today,” she said. “They are all at a seminar two islands over. If you want to come back tomorrow, I’ll book you an appointment with Senior Professor Horst.”

  “Ok,” I said.

  After we made arrangements, Olivia and I went out, taking the path back to the boat dock. The noisy demonstration we had seen in the distance however, had rolled around the campus. The street between two large campus buildings ahead was full of shouting Veru bearing flags and signs. The crowd beat their hands in time to music and I could hear chanting. Some of the signs in Standard urged secession from the Confederacy.

  “I don’t like the look of this,” I said to Olivia.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Let’s backtrack and go around the white building to the left. We may skirt most of this and that side is closer to the docks if we have to run for it.”

  Olivia’s suggestion took on some urgency as nearby Veru took notice of us. A few pointed. We faded back, ducked behind some shrubbery and made our way around the back of what appeared to be a dormitory. But ahead of us were more demonstrators.

  “Crap,” I said. “Backtrack again.”

  “No,” Olivia said, glancing over her shoulder. “We’re being followed, a number of Veru who were with the anti-Confed demonstrators. Wrik, they don’t look like college kids to me.”

  I looked ahead again and noticed a difference. There were people waving the gold and blue Confed flag, these students were Veru and other races. “Hey, this is the counter demonstration.”

  Olivia glanced their way. “They’re badly outnumbered.”

  “Not our problem. We should be able to get through them though.”

  We walked forward. “Smile,” I said, “try to look friendly.”

  “Use your brain,” she snapped. “Don’t bare your teeth at anyone here. Veru don’t smile.”

  We slipped into the crowd, which, smaller than the group overflowing the next street, was still noisy and sizeable. As we pushed forward the crowd got tighter. Some music blared and shouts came louder. People began to notice us.

  “Hey,” said one, well-meaning Veru. “Welcome Humans. Up the Confederacy.”

  I waved and shouted back. “Up the Confederacy.”

  My appearance spurred the crowd which, to my dismay, took up the cry and closed around Olivia and me. For a horrible second, I thought we would be lifted on their shoulders. We managed to elbow forward, being cheered and patted on the shoulder as we went.

  The crowd’s pressure pushed us to the front between the two groups, where we didn’t want to be. Already I could see the anti-Confed line with their red and black secession signs. Only a few campus police separated the lines and I saw no riot gear on them.

  Suddenly bottles flew through the air. Shouts turned to screams and a demonstrator near me went down, blood spurting from a head wound. Bodies crashed together as Verus made impossible leaps into each other. Flags became batons and staffs as demonstrators clashed. The police were shoved aside, and then began firing stunners into the crowd. In seconds a complete riot had broken out.

  A wedge of secessionists crashed into the people near me. Olivia and I were engulfed in them. I easily blocked a strike by a Veru tentacle and gave back a straight right which dropped the Veru. I turned to Olivia who had wrestled a flagstaff out of
a Veru’s tentacles. Their ropy arms were no match for human muscle and bone. She slammed the Veru in the mid-section and head in a move almost too fast to see. Overhead, leaping Veru’s exchanged kicks and bodies crashed down around us.

  A flung bottle struck Olivia and she fell.

  “Olivia,” I shouted, shoved two Veru and a Morok aside as I headed to her. A stocky Veru in dark clothes stepped in my way. Dark Suit didn’t look like a college kid. He knocked down the Morok. I took the advantage to throw a shoulder into him, knocking him over. Then I slammed a foot into the sternum of the Veru bending over Olivia, a bottle wrapped in his tentacle. He and the bottle flew in separate directions.

  I turned, Dark Suit was back. I moved to face him and he leaned back, balanced on his tail and let fly with both feet. The wind left me in a way that made me doubt it would ever come back. I had the vague sense of flying through the air, crashing into bodies and then night fell on me.

  I came to, bound to a chair, with a hood that smelled lousy over my head. I struggled for a second before realizing the futility of it and throttled down panic. There wasn’t a lot of air in the hood. I heard Veru voices around me and got the sense of a crowded room.

  A light shone through the hood, which was pulled off to leave me facing a bright lamp. I blinked, effectively blinded for a moment. I wasn’t sure what to make of the hood being removed. Didn’t they care I’d be able to see them?

  A Veru sat opposite me on one of their peculiar chairs. I realized I was tied to something ad hoc, maybe nailed together just for me. They wouldn’t have had a human chair handy. With the light facing me, I couldn’t see a face, but the Veru was large; he might have been the one who’d decked me earlier.

  “You are Wrik Trigardt off the Stardust,” he said in excellent Gal-Standard.

  “Yes, I’m a merchant. I was just visiting the university when I and my friend were swept up in the demonstration. Where’s my friend? Is she ok?”

  “I ask the questions. You are a Confed Intelligence agent on our world without authorization, in direct violation of the original Confederate charter.”

  “What?” I said. “Look, I’m not a legal scholar but the original Confed Charter was superseded by the Articles of Confederacy—”

  The blow across my mouth was unexpected. Veru tentacles lacked the bone and muscle power of our limbs but they made very good thick whips. I tasted blood.

  “We do not recognize the Articles,” the Veru said. “They were forced on us by the Imperial Confederacy.”

  Great, I thought, revolutionary rhetoric, always fun arguing with fanatics. But on second thought, I wondered if my interrogator actually believed it, or if he was posing, either for the others in the room or some recording device.

  “Assuming I was a Confed agent,” I said, carefully and deliberately. “This is a Confed world and you don’t get to pick which Confed laws you want to obey. Whatever I am, you have no right to detain or abuse me. Where is my friend?”

  Again a blow rocked my head. Ok, I thought, blinking tears out of my eyes, reconsider that strategy.

  “The Veru Alliance maintains,” my interrogator growled, “that Confed agents must register with local authorities. You have not done so. You are here illegally.”

  Shouts came from outside the room. Suddenly the door opened and bodies pressed in. I tensed, to at least try and throw myself to the floor if shooting broke out, but instead the room became very quiet. Voices now spoke, low, urgent, with tones of respect. A VIP had arrived.

  The light was turned from my face and a new Voit-Veru sat opposite me. His clothing was somber, but expensive, elegant on what was an awkward-looking creature. His muzzle and fur were grizzled and gray. I drew an impression of age from him. I could see almost a dozen Veru behind him.

  The elderly Voit-Veru gazed impassively at me. I looked back steadily with a resolve that was a millimeter deep. Every part of my body ached.

  “Greetings, Captain Trigardt,” he said finally. “I wish to have a very careful conversation with you. I represent a party. My own name is of no significance. Call me Arzarafel.”

  “You’re a little late on the careful,” I said around swollen lips.

  “Let us hope not for both our sakes. We are aware that…some force…protects you. Rumors of disastrous outcomes from conflicts with you and your team have reached our ears.” As if to confirm that, the large vertical ears twitched.

  “I’m listening.”

  “We are trapped, you and I here, and others elsewhere, in a situation that we did not make and would not have allowed to occur had we known of certain actions before they were taken. We can choose to remain trapped and allow the escalation to continue, with consequences that will multiply beyond our ken or control. Or,” he leaned forward, “we can reverse course, stand down to the status quo ante. This would require demonstrations of good faith on both sides.”

  I licked my sore lips. “Would one of those demonstrations include getting these damn restraints off me?”

  Arzarafel considered. He barked out a series of commands in his own tongue and the large Veru who had slugged me earlier, quickly undid my bonds with a wicked-looking knife. A smaller Veru, a female I thought, came in with a plate and a cup: water and bread.

  Trying to preserve the dignity that I felt was some sort of protection; I sipped the water and slowly ate the bread, which was likely the best idea in my state anyway. I didn’t know how long I had been out. I suspected from the groggy way I felt, that I might have been drugged to keep me unconscious longer. In any event I was starving. When I finished I turned back to the elderly Veru who’d waited patiently while I ate.

  “Is my friend here?” I asked, “the human who was with me?”

  The old Veru turned to the younger interrogator and exchanged words with him, then faced me. “She was not taken. The circumstances did not permit it. Our information is she was detained by the campus police then returned to your ship.”

  I nodded, relieved. “Tell me more about your proposal. I’m not sure I understand what’s going on.”

  Arzarafel nodded. “Let us discuss a hypothetical situation. Assume my master represents a power. Your master, whoever that may be, is another. Let us say that they are rivals. My master may have had a servant, who in the manner of those who seek advancement, does all he can to foster his master’s aims.”

  I rubbed my wrists, impatient, but unwilling to risk provoking Arzarafel.

  “As such,” Arzarafel continued, “this servant knew of his master’s enmity to your master. There is an old grudge against the other party. Let us refer to that one as the Death Angel.”

  My ears would have pricked up had they been as far up on my head as his. Death’s Angel was an old nickname for Shasti Rainhell.

  “The servant of my master set a trap for one of the relations of the Death Angel. This was not known, or sanctioned, by my master. Had he known, it would have been stopped. Such petty acts have no place on the stage of power and are only distractions from the greater game.” Arzarafel looked at me with what I took for an expectant expression.

  “So this overzealous servant,” I began cautiously, “may have, let’s say for now, leaked information to a certain party. That information would set that party in motion, a motion that would carry the relative of the Death Angel into danger.”

  “Just so,” the old Veru said. “What seemed like a low cost way of dealing out some minor retribution has now taken on a life of its own. Assets were deployed by the Death Angel and then by the servant. This caused more assets to be deployed and the violence escalated.

  “By the time my master learned of the plan, the relative had gone missing and a rescue was both in progress and being actively thwarted. I was commissioned by him to deal with the situation.”

  “And the manner of that dealing?” I asked.

  “I disapprove of violence, most especially in
effective violence that merely incurs costs and no benefits. We could of course, with some effort, ensure that your small team and ship disappear, thus ending the matter.”

  “The power,” I said slowly, “that protects me, would not appreciate that solution.”

  “One imagines you refer to the smallest member of your team, an apparent female in your crew we take to be the most recent model robot of the HCR series built for the Conchirri war. Something developed by Confed Intelligence.”

  “Then you take her for something vastly less dangerous then she is.”

  “Still, it is one mechanism. We can overwhelm it if needs be.”

  “You have either not fully believed what you learned from your sources about her, or you are misinformed. I take those sources to be Guild. They should have warned you better for whatever you paid them.”

  “It might,” Arzarafel said, “have been in their interest to exaggerate, either in the hope of gaining more money for a more unusual tale, or covering up their own incompetence. As it is in your interest to exaggerate its abilities now.”

  “Her abilities,” I stated, “and I do not overstate them. You can believe it, or learn and bitterly regret it later. I don’t want a planet for my headstone. But that’s what could happen. Maauro is her name and she doesn’t place much stock in the concept of collateral damage. Once you are classed as enemy, she doesn’t keep count. She just keeps at it until there is nothing left.”

  “We have a planetary militia and an ISM force—”

  “She’ll take those first,” I said. Something in the conviction in my voice must have registered on the Veru. He sat back in his chair, placing his chin on one of his tentacles to study me.

  “Say then,” Arzarafel continued, “that we choose another option. De-escalation serves us all best in my view.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “What’s the deal on the table?”

  “You will be returned to your ship. You will lift off immediately, proceed to the warp point and jump out. You forgo any retaliation and you will not be impeded or molested in any fashion.”

  I considered. “If we just jump out the way we came, this will not end. We’ll report what happened to…the party that sent us. The next ships you see in your sky might be Confed Navy. Or, worse for you, the Death Angel has ships, not enough to penetrate a navy defense, but ISM auxiliaries won’t stop them.”