Pawn

by Timothy Zahn

  “I’m a human female, yes,” Nicole said.

  The Micawnwi gave her a sort of backhanded wave. “Then you will not speak unless so requested.”

  It was all Nicole could do to keep from wrenching the halberd from Varkos’s hands and giving the older Micawnwi a whack across the side of his head with it. “Are you Amrew Man-second?” she asked instead.

  “I’ve already said that you will not speak unless—”

  “Yes—right—got it,” Nicole interrupted. “Varkos Man-second, be sure you let everyone else know that it was Amrew Man-second who didn’t feel like being polite to a visitor who might have been able to help you.” She looked at Mispacch. “I’ll be back when the men start getting hungry, too,” she added. “See you later.”

  She’d made it five steps down the path before Amrew caved. “Wait,” he called. “Can you provide more food?”

  Nicole stopped, permitting herself a tight smile. For all his pompous devotion to the rules, he was badly worried and ready to clutch at any hope. Even hope offered by an alien female.

  The smile faded. Winning the mind game had been satisfying, but it wasn’t the reason she was here. “I don’t know, Amrew Man-second,” she said, turning back to face him. “Let’s find out.”

  For another moment he eyed her in silence. Maybe he’d just realized that he was no longer in control.

  Maybe he also realized that his pride wasn’t really important. Maybe. “Yes,” he said, gesturing her forward. “Come.”

  Mispacch had said that the forty Micawnwi had been stuffed into ten rooms, which Nicole had assumed would be laid out in the same more or less rectangular pattern as the rooms in the humans’ own hive area. Instead, this cluster was arranged into a circular pattern, with a large central area a little bigger than her hive’s dining room and a group of smaller rooms angling outward from it like pieces of pie. Most of the doors of those rooms were open, and while she could see glimpses of sleeping mats and other bits of furniture, none of the rooms seemed occupied.

  Which wasn’t surprising, given that the central room was currently hosting a dozen of the group, all of them engaged in serious, violent, and very loud lunging and swinging practice with their halberds.

  And unless these halberds were a lot lighter than the one Bungie had stolen, the way the Micawnwi were casually whipping the things around showed the creatures were a lot stronger than they looked. Maybe even as strong as Kahkitah.

  Amrew gave a wordless shout, and the sparring and noise abruptly halted. At least they knew how to obey orders. “This alien is the Sibyl,” Amrew announced into the silence. “She may be able to give us more food.”

  One of the Micawnwi took a step forward and made a sharp jab toward Nicole with the tip of his halberd. “That’s her,” he said darkly. “That’s one of the beings who attacked us last night.”

  Uh-oh. “We didn’t attack anyone,” Nicole said. “We came in to look around, that’s all.”

  “And to steal Borve’s weapon!”

  “That’s not how it was,” Nicole insisted, keeping her voice low and calm. She’d seen this same kind of twitchiness before, in men who were on the edge of losing it. “My companion saw your friend and thought he might be hurt. He went to see if there was anything he could do to help—”

  “You stole his weapon!” the Micawnwi snarled, jabbing his halberd toward Nicole again.

  “—and when you started shooting at him he grabbed the halberd purely by reflex as he tried to get to safety,” Nicole finished.

  The Micawnwi took a step closer. “We need that weapon,” he said. “Where is it?”

  “I don’t have it,” Nicole said. From the sounds of movement behind her, she had a bad feeling the other Micawnwi had closed the circle back there. “My companion disappeared with it.”

  “Then you’ll find it and him,” the Micawnwi insisted, taking another step toward her. “You will bring the weapon here.” He jerked his halberd. “And your companion will pay for desecrating Borve’s body with his foreign touch.”

  “There was no desecration intended,” Nicole protested, starting to sweat. This whole thing was teetering on the edge of getting dangerously out of hand.

  And then, to her surprise, Mispacch stepped forward. “Borve was already dead, Celenso,” she said, planting herself not quite between Nicole and the halberd’s spear point. “The Sibyl’s presence didn’t help or harm that. Right now, we need food more than weapons.”

  Nicole shot a glance at Amrew. Shouldn’t he be getting involved with this? But he was just standing there, watching the argument, making no move to intervene.

  So much for Micawnwi dominant men.

  Fortunately, Mispacch’s intervention—or her logic—was enough. Celenso hesitated, then raised the tip of his halberd and stepped back. “Very well,” he said. “But I’m going to watch her. Very closely.”

  Nicole eased out a sigh. “Help yourself.” She turned to Amrew. “Can we get this over with? I’m on a schedule here.”

  “The dispenser is in there,” Amrew said, pointing to the right at one of the open doors angling off the room they were all in.

  Nicole looked through the doorway. The room was well lit, with no furniture that she could see. There was a vending-machine-sized thing nestled in one corner at the far end and a similar device fitted with something that looked like a water faucet in the other back corner.

  There were also no other exits. Once she was inside, she was there until the Micawnwi decided to let her out.

  If she had any brains, she would turn and make a run for it, hoping the element of surprise would be enough to get her past the halberds. Unfortunately, even as that thought occurred to her, she realized that it wouldn’t work. If the numbers Mispacch had quoted were accurate, less than a third of the men were here in the practice chamber. The rest were probably out in the arena somewhere, and some of them had bows and arrows.

  With enough lead time, Nicole might be able to outrun angry Micawnwi men. But no head start in the world would let her outrun an arrow.

  Fighting back a grimace, she walked through the silent group and into the room. Celenso was right behind her. “There,” he said, jabbing his halberd at the vending machine in the corner. “That’s the dispenser. Fix it, or die.”

  nine

  “Yeah, yeah, I got it,” Nicole said, trying to filter her growing fear out of her voice. Kahkitah’s words to her that first lunchtime flicked back to her: that he was confident she could learn how to fix things just like the repair team did.

  He’d better have been right.

  She walked slowly toward the machine, giving it a once-over as she went. It was little more than a big rectangular box, about six feet tall and three wide, with a display of colored lights near the top of the front panel and a six-inch-wide open chute coming out from the box’s center with a wide hopper beneath it. On the wall beside the dispenser was a keylock similar to the ones she’d seen and used during their repair work.

  “Well?” Celenso demanded.

  “Keep your smock on,” Nicole told him. There looked to be a couple of access panels on the dispenser’s sides, and the whole top also looked like it might come off. The fasteners were the type used on equipment all across the ship, which meant she should be able to get the thing open and take a look inside. She reached into her vest pocket for her screwdriver.

  Only then remembering she’d left the damn thing propping open the door at the other end of the arena.

  She winced. This was going to be awkward. “You don’t happen to have any tools, do you?” she asked, turning to face Celenso. “I seem to have misplaced my—”

  And without warning, a voice suddenly bellowed from somewhere behind her.

  She jerked, reflexively taking a couple of quick steps forward. The bellowing continued, and she had just enough time to realize it was coming from the dispenser itself—

  “What are you doing?” the translation shouted into her ears. “Who are you? What are you doing
here?”

  Nicole looked at Mispacch, fighting hard to catch her breath. “Mispacch?” she hissed.

  “It’s the Oracle,” Mispacch said, her body hair fluffing rapidly up and down. “The Oracle is speaking.”

  Nicole winced. And it didn’t sound at all pleased.

  “Who are you?” it demanded again.

  Nicole braced herself. Playing big and tough had worked on Amrew. Maybe it would work here, too. “I’m Ni—I’m a Sibyl,” she said firmly, switching words at the last second. The first law of survival in a dangerous situation was to never give your real name. “Who are you?”

  The voice chattered again. “I am the Oracle,” it said. “I speak for the Masters.”

  “Well, I speak for the Fyrantha,” Nicole said. “I’m busy. What do you what?”

  There was a brief pause. “Why are you here?”

  “The Micawnwi dispenser hasn’t been providing enough food,” Nicole said, deciding to pretend she didn’t know the reason that was happening. “I was asked to come and fix it.”

  The pause this time was noticeably longer. “By whom?” the Oracle asked. “The Micawnwi or the Fyrantha?”

  Nicole opened her mouth—

  And closed it again as the strangeness of the question suddenly struck her. How could the Oracle and his fellow Masters not know that? They probably didn’t have the whole arena bugged—the thing was way too big for that—so it wasn’t surprising that they hadn’t overheard her conversation with Mispacch.

  But surely they knew what the Fyrantha had said to her. Even if they weren’t listening all the time, they must be able to go through the records and find out. Even simple Earth computers and phones could do that.

  Unless they couldn’t hear the Fyrantha.

  But that was crazy. These Masters had to be the same people as Plato’s Shipmasters. Surely they could hear their own ship.

  But then why bother to bring Nicole and the other Sibyls aboard? Why bring Carp and Plato and the rest of them aboard, either? They couldn’t hear the ship and they couldn’t fix it?

  What the hell was going on here?

  “The Fyrantha told me to come here,” she said, feeling the prickly sensation of walking out onto thin ice. The ship had indeed told her to come to the arena, but it hadn’t said anything about the dispenser. If the Oracle and Masters did know what the ship told the Sibyls, this would blow straight up in her face.

  But she had to take that chance. Every future lie she might tell depended on her knowing exactly what the Masters knew.

  “The Fyrantha is mistaken,” the Oracle said. “The machine isn’t broken. The lack of food is necessary.”

  “Why, so they can starve to death?” Nicole scoffed. “What does that gain anyone?”

  “There’s more food available,” the Oracle said. “Amrew Man-second knows where it can be obtained.”

  “You mean by fighting someone else for it?” Nicole countered. “Why?”

  “You will not touch the machine,” the Oracle said, his tone darkening. “Do you understand? The Masters demand you leave the machine alone.”

  Nicole grimaced. She hadn’t known exactly what poking the Oracle like this would accomplish. Clearly, what it had accomplished was to make him mad.

  Meanwhile, she’d picked up enough puzzling facts for one day. Time to cut and run. “I understand,” she said. “In that case, I’ll return to my other assigned work.”

  Too late. “You will not return,” the Oracle said. “The Masters wish to speak with you. One will come soon and take you to them.”

  Nicole felt her throat tighten. “I have other assigned duties.”

  “You will wait there,” the Oracle repeated harshly. “Amrew Man-second? Are you present? Speak, that I may know.”

  “I’m here,” Amrew called from the doorway.

  “The Sibyl is not to leave your hive,” the Oracle said. “An emissary will be sent to bring her to me.”

  Amrew bowed toward the dispenser. “I obey, Oracle of the Masters.” He straightened and gestured to Celenso. “Take her to Room Four.”

  Silently, her heart thudding, Nicole followed Celenso back into the central area, around the outer edge, and into the next of the pie-piece rooms. This one was somebody’s living quarters, she noted as she walked through the doorway, with three sleeping mats, two rounded white chairs that looked like they’d been carved from giant plastic eggs, and a low oval-shaped table that matched the chairs.

  Fastened to the wall in the back corner was another food dispenser.

  “Wait a second,” Nicole said, pointing at it. “There’s another food machine?”

  “It doesn’t work,” Amrew said as he backed out of the room. “Remain here until the Oracle’s emissary arrives.”

  And just to make sure she did, he closed the door behind him.

  Nicole took a deep breath. “Well, damn,” she murmured. Whoever these Masters were, she was pretty sure that she didn’t want to meet them. Not under these circumstances.

  But they were all stuck in a giant can out in space. If the Masters wanted her, they would have her, and there wasn’t much she could do except figure out how to deal with them.

  Her best approach would probably be to back off the dominance act and try the good-little-girl-just-trying-to-do-her-job routine. She’d pulled that one a lot in the old days, usually when someone’s half-baked scheme blew up in his face and she was the one the burned parties came after.

  Unlike those situations, though, here she had the incredible advantage of being able to spin virtually any story she wanted about what the Fyrantha had told her to do without the Masters being able to call her on it. She still didn’t understand how that worked, but it would undoubtedly come in handy somewhere along the line.

  She looked at the food dispenser. Speaking of the Fyrantha, as long as she was stuck here anyway, she might as well see if the ship had some thoughts on how to deal with these things. Pulling out her inhaler, she gave herself a jolt.

  Nothing. “Hello?” she murmured, frowning in concentration. “Anyone there?”

  Still nothing. Not that the ship ever answered her, of course. Their communication had always been strictly one-way. But it had been worth a try.

  She was debating whether or not to try a second jolt from the inhaler when she noticed the grips at the underside of the wall beside the food dispenser. Grips just like the ones Kahkitah used to open a section of wall when they needed to get behind it.

  She looked back at the door, wondering if she should call Amrew in and point this out to him. If the wall in the other room worked the same way, it might let her get to the dispenser’s inner workings, where she might be able to figure out how to boost its output.

  On the other hand, having just been chewed out by the Oracle, Amrew was probably not in a cooperative mood. Better to wait until she had something solid to show him.

  If she could get the wall open.

  Most of the wall sections Carp’s team worked with were huge things, fifteen or twenty feet long and eight feet high, and no one but Kahkitah could even budge them. This one also stretched all the way to the eight-foot ceiling, but it turned out to be only four feet wide. It wasn’t light, but an experimental tug showed that it would be possible for Nicole to lift it high enough to at least take a look.

  Dragging one of the egg-shaped chairs into position, she hauled the door up to chest height and nudged the chair beneath the edge with her foot. The chair gave out a discomfiting creak as she eased the wall’s weight down on it, but it held. Crouching, she peered inside.

  The space behind the wall was typical of those elsewhere in the ship: a set of equipment modules set back into a space just deep enough to hold them. In this case, that depth was about two feet, and the equipment consisted of twenty slender pipes coming down from somewhere above the ceiling and feeding into a cluster of boxes set into the wall from about six inches above Nicole’s head to about her chest height. The boxes were connected together with more pipes,
with one final large tube leading from the lowermost box to the rear of the food dispenser. Interwoven among the pipes were several sets of wires that appeared to lead back to the keylock and to the darkened display panel on the front.

  As with most of these equipment spaces, there was a lot of empty space around the boxes and pipes. No one was sure what that was for, but Carp had once suggested it was to accommodate new equipment in case some had to be added later.

  She frowned, studying the layout. It reminded her of some of the filtering stations her team had worked on, where contaminated fluids were run through a series of filters and scrubbers and then sent back out the other side.

  But those stations never had more than four inflow pipes, and both the inflow and outflow pipes ran horizontally. This system had four times as many inflow pipes and they were coming from above, with the outflow feeding into the dispenser. Apparently, the raw food material came in via the inflow pipes, got treated, mixed, flavored, and maybe textured inside the boxes, and the final goodies then rolled down the dispenser’s chute into the hopper.

  So were the Masters cutting back the supply of nutrients from somewhere in one of the floors above? Or had they simply cranked down the output from the dispenser?

  Easing beneath the propped-open door, Nicole went over to the equipment cluster. During one of the crew’s discussions, Jeff had mentioned that the simplest explanation was usually the best place to start figuring something out. The Masters could shut down all twenty of the input pipes. But if there was a valve or control box on the dispenser itself, that would be a whole lot easier.

  And if there was a valve the Masters could turn off, Nicole should be able to turn it back on.

  She was running her fingers along the sides of the boxes, searching for a knob or slider or set screw, when there was a warning shriek of metal on plastic behind her.

  And as she turned around, she saw the chair skid away across the floor and the suddenly released door swinging straight toward her.

  Instantly, she dropped to the floor, landing hard on her knees beneath the processing equipment and twisting her torso around to face the door. The panel slammed shut in front of her face, delivering a sharp slap to her forehead and bouncing the back of her head off the rear wall.