They were reading his surface thoughts, at least, to have picked up that distaste for internal snooping. He recognized the irony of that, someone whose profession was snooping on others, now being turned inside out by aliens. He tried to organize his thoughts, make a clear message.
"You stare at wall for a reason?" the Ryxi asked, its feathers now sleeked down.
Dupaynil could have strangled the Ryxi for breaking his concentration, and then he did feel a featherlight touch, soothing, and a bubble of amusement.
"I'm very tired," he said honestly. "I need to rest."
With that, he found a clear space of floor, between the wall and the Ssli tank, and curled up, helmet cradled in his arms. The Ryxi sniffed, then tucked its head back over its shoulders into the back feathers. Dupaynil closed his eyes and projected against the screen of his eyelids.
Again the mental gurgle of amusement.
The voice said nothing more and Dupaynil thought about it. If they were reading his thoughts, they were welcome. Not both Ssli? Another alien marine race? Suddenly he realized what it had to be and almost laughed aloud.
It seemed an odd question from beings who could force mental intimacy, and already had, but Dupaynil was in the mood to accept any courtesy offered.
He tensed, bracing himself for some unimaginable sensation, and felt nothing. Only information began to knit itself into his existing cognitive matrix, as if he were learning it so fast that it was safely in long-term memory before it passed his eyes. The Bronthin, he learned, had been hired by the Seti to provide them with mathematical expertise. On the basis of its calculations and models, they had defined the best time to attempt the coup.
And the Bronthin had had no way to warn the Federation. Bronthins could not manipulate Seti communications equipment, were not telepathic, and suffered severe depression when kept isolated from their social herds. As for the Ssli, it had been delivered, in its tank, after it had been stolen from a Fleet recruit depot. The Weft, a Fleet guard at the depot, had been shot in the burglary and survived only by shapechanging into the Ssli tank in a larval form. The thieves had not known the difference between Weft and Ssli larvae and had apparently supposed that two or more larvae were in each tank, in case one died.
Dupaynil asked.
Cheering up the Bronthin took all of Dupaynil's considerable charm. It turned away at first, muttering number series, but the offer of another bowl of water helped. He watered the Ryxi, too, automatically, and this time the feathered alien handed the bowl back rather than dropping it. But it took many bowls of water, and a couple of sessions of picking the burrs from the dry grass the Seti tossed in for its feed, before the alien showed much response.
Finally it scrubbed its heavy head up and down his arm, took his hands in its muscular lips, and said, "I. . . will try to speak Standard . . . in thanks for your kindness . . ."
"Inaccurate as Standard is, and unsuited to your genius, would it be possible to recall how many ships this size the Seti have with them?"
The Bronthin flopped a long upper lip, and sighed.
"The ratio of such ships to those next smaller to those next smaller to the smallest is 1.2:3.4:5.6:5:4. An interesting ratio, chosen by the Seti for its ragged harmony, if I understood them." It shook its long head. "Alas . . . never again to roll in the green sweet fields of home or be granted the tail's whisk across the sands in the company of my peers."
"Such courage in loneliness," Dupaynil murmured. In his experience, praising the timid for courage sometimes produced a momentary flare of it. "And the total to which such a ratio applies?"
With something akin to a snort, the Bronthin's lovely periwinkle eyes opened completely.
"Ah! You understand that the ratio is theoretical. The fleet itself made up of actual ships, of which at any time some fraction is out of service for maintenance and the like. Of those actually here, in the sense that here has any meaning . . . are you at all familiar with Sere-kleth-vladin's transformational series and its application to hyperspace flux variations?"
"Alas, no," said Dupaynil, who didn't know such things existed—whatever they were.
"Unhhh . . . one hundred four. Eight similar to this, which would of course make you expect 22.6,37.3, 35.9 ships of the other classes, but fractional ships are nonfunctional. Twenty-three of the next class, then thirty-seven, then thirty-six. And since it would be the logical next question," the Bronthin went on, its eyes beginning to sparkle, "I will explain that the passive defenses of the Federation Central System, if not tampered with, could be expected to destroy at least 82% of the total. Those remaining would be unlikely to succeed at reducing the planets or disrupting the Grand Council. But the Seti count on tampering, which will reduce the efficiency of the distant passive scans by 41%, and on specific aid whose nature I do not know, to disable additional defenses. This incursion is timed to coincide with the meeting of the Grand Council and the Winter Assizes, at which the presence of many ships could well cause confusion."
"They expect no resistance from Fleet?"
The Bronthin opened its mouth wide, revealing the square grinding teeth of a herbivore, and gave a long sound somewhat between a moo and a bray. "My apologies," it said then. "Our long misunderstanding of the nature of humans; our votes have long gone to reducing appropriations for what we saw as a means of territorial aggrandizement. These Seti expect that any Fleet vessels in Federation Central Systems space will be neutralized. And once again, we aided this, voting to require that all Fleet vessels disarm lest they overpower the Grand Council."
"A most natural error for any lover of peace," Dupaynil murmured soothingly.
Sassinak would be there with the Zaid-Dayan. Would she have disarmed completely, trusting in the disarmament of others to keep her ship safe? Somehow he doubted it. But with surveillance by the FSP local government, she wouldn't be able to have all the ship's scans on . . . and without warning . . . he realized he had no idea how fast the Zaid-Dayan could get into action.
If mental speech could have tones, that would be dry wit, Dupaynil thought. He sent a mental flick of the fingers to the Ssli and Weft, still swimming with apparent unconcern in the tank. Easy for them, he thought sourly, and then realized it wasn't. He would be even more miserable if he'd been stuck in a tank like that.
* * *
Despite the rising tension, he had actually fallen asleep when a screech from the Ryxi brought him upright, blinking. The viewscreen snowed what he presumed to be the real outer view, although he had no way of knowing which of the ship's outer sensors had produced the image. Darkness, points of light, some visibly moving. A Seti voice from the wallspeaker interrupted the Ryxi's tantrum.
"Captives, observe," it began, with typical Seti tact. "See your feeble hopes destroyed."
The view shown shifted from one angle to another. The outside of the Grand Luck, with a long pointed snout oozing from a recess to slide past, aimed at some dis
tant enemy. A zooming view of nearby ships, lifting them from points of light to toylike shapes against a dark background. Then another view, of the star around which the Federation Central Zone planets swung, a star which now looked scarcely bigger than any of the others.
Dupaynil tried to relax. He had already passed on all he'd learned from the Bronthin. Now he watched the screen, listened to the Seti boastful commentary and hoped the Ssli/Weft pair could contact another Ssli. Time passed. The view shifted every few minutes, from one sensor to another.
Dupaynil wasn't sure if the triumphant tone came from the Ssli or his own reaction. He expected to hear more, but the Ssli did not include him in whatever link it and the Weft had formed with that distant Ssli. The Ryxi clattered its beak, shifted from one great knobby foot to another, fluffed and sleeked its feathers, staring wide-eyed at the viewscreen. The Bronthin refused to look. Its closed eyes and monotonous hum could be either sleep or despair. And the Lethi, as before, simply stuck to each other and the sulfur.
Dupaynil had the feeling that he should do something more to prepare for the coming battle. Now that the Ssli had warned its fellow. Now surely that alarm was being passed on. He felt free to consider more immediate problems. Could they possibly break free of this compartment? Could they steal weapons? Find some kind of escape vehicle? Or, failing escape, do something disastrous to this ship and destroy it? He and the Ryxi were the only two who might actually do something, for no one had ever heard of a Bronthin being violent. He edged over to the hatch, and prodded its complicated-looking lock.
A roar of Seti profanity from outside made it clear that wouldn't work. He was looking around for something else to investigate, when the viewscreen blurred, cleared, blurred, and cleared again after a couple of short FTL skips. Then it grayed to a pearly haze and the ship trembled.
"Battle started!" came the announcement in Standard over the speaker. Then a long complicated gabble of Seti that must be orders.
That fell into his mind like a lump of ice.
He had assumed she would be aboard her ship. He had assumed she would be wary, as alert as he'd always known her. What was she doing, playing around onplanet with her ship helpless above, with its weapons locked down, with no captain? Without at least taking Wefts with her?
"Stupid woman!"
He didn't realize he'd said it aloud until he saw the Bronthin's eyes flick open, heard the Ryxi's agitated chirp.
"Never mind!" he said to them, glaring.
Here he had gone through one miserable hell after another, all to get her information she desperately needed, and she wasn't where she was supposed to be.
That stopped his mental ranting. Then the Grand Luck lurched sharply, as if it had run into a brick wall, and as his feet skidded on the floor he realized his head had nowhere to go but the corner of the Ssli transport tank.
Chapter Sixteen
FedCentral
"You're joking." Coris stared at her. "You don't realize . . ."
"I realize precisely what will happen to all of us if we don't take the initiative." Sassinak was on her feet now and the others were stirring restlessly, not committed to either side of this argument. "If you'd wanted death, or a mindwipe, and the rest of your life at hard labor, you'd have managed it before now. It's easy enough, even yet. Just wait for them to come after me. Because Jemi is quite right. They will. I'm too dangerous, even by myself." She paused a careful measure, then added, "But with you, I could be dangerous enough to win."
"But we don't . . . We aren't . . ." Jemi's nervous looks around got no support. Most were staring fascinated at Sassinak.
"Aren't what? Strong enough? Brave enough? You've been strong and brave enough to survive and stay free. How long, Coris?"
"I been here eight years. Jemi, six. Fostin was here when I came . . ."
"Years of your lives," Sassinak said, almost purring it. "You survived capture, slavery, prison, all the disasters. And you survived this life below the city. Now you can end it. End the hiding, end the fear. End the suffering, your own and others."
They stirred. She could feel their need for her to be right, their need for her to be strong for them. Give them time and they'd revert, but she had this instant.
"Come on," she said. "Show me what you've got. Right now."
Slowly, they stood, eyeing her and each other with hope that was clearly unfamiliar.
"Any weapons? We've got this." She pulled out the snub-nosed weapon Aygar had taken from the first row. "How many are you, altogether?"
They had weapons, but not many and most, they explained, were carried by their roving scouts. Nor did they have an accurate count of their own numbers. Twenty here, a dozen there, stray couples and individuals, a large band whose territory they overlapped in one direction, and a scattering of bands in another. They had specialists, of a sort. Some were best at milking the mass-service food processors without detection and some had a knack for tapping into the datalinks.
"Good," Sassinak said. "Where's this godlike Parchandri you say is running the backscenes on FedCentral?"
"You're not going after him" Coris's shock was mirrored on every face. "There'll be guards—troops—we can't do that! It's like starting a war."
"Coris, this became a war the second a warrior dropped into it. Me. I'm fighting a war. War means strategy, tactics, victory conditions." She tapped these off on her fingers. "You people can squat here and get wiped out as the enemy chases me or you can be my troops and have a chance. I don't promise more than that. But if we win, you won't have to live down here, eating tasteless mush and drinking bilgewater. It'll be your world again. Your lives! Your freedom!"
The big-framed man she'd noticed before shrugged and came up beside Coris. "Might's well, Coris. They'll be after her, after us. Using gas again, most likely. I'm with her."
"And me!"
More than one of the others; Coris gave a quick side-to-side glance, shrugged, and grinned.
"I should've slit you back up there," he said, jerking his chin in what Sassinak assumed was the right direction.
Aygar growled, but Sassinak waved him to silence. "You're right, Coris. If you're going to take out a threat, do it right away. Next time you'll know."
You can't wage war without a plan, one of the Command Staff instructors had insisted. But you can lose with one. Sassinak found this no help at all as she chivvied her ragged troops through the tunnels to the boundary of their territory. She had no plan but survival, and she knew it was not enough. Find the Parchandri and . . . And what? Her fingers ached to fasten around his throat and force the truth testimony out of him. Would that do any good? They didn't really need it, not for Tanegli's trial. Even if she didn't make it back, even if Aygar didn't, there was evidence enough to convict the old heavyworlder. As for the status of Ireta, she doubted any non-Thek court would dare to question the Thek ruling she'd received which was already in official files.
Official files to which a powerful Parchandri might gain access. She almost stumbled, thinking that. Was nothing safe? She glanced around at her new fighting companions and mentally shook her head. Not these people, who were about as far from Fleet marines as she could imagine. Give them credit for having lived so long. But would they hold up in real combat?
Ahead, a quick exchange of whistled signals. The group slowed, flattened against the tunnel walls. Sassinak wondered if the battle would begin now, but it turned out to be the territorial boundary. She went forward with Coris to meet this second group. To her surprise, "her" people were now holding themselves more like soldiers. They seemed to have purpose, and the others were visibly impressed.
"What goes?" asked the second gang's leader. He was her age or older, his broad faced heavily scarred. Hi
s eyes focused somewhere past her ear, and a lot of his teeth were missing. So was one finger.
"Samizdat." The code answer.
"Whose friend?"
"Fleur's. And Coris'."
"Heh. You'd better be Fleur's friend. We'll check that. You have a name, Fleur's friend?"
"Sassinak."
His eyes widened. "She's got a call out for you. Fleur and the cops both. What you done, eh?"
"Not everything you've heard, and some things you haven't. You have a name?"
He grinned at that, but quickly sobered. "I'm Kelgar. Ever'body knows me. Twice bitten, most shy. Twice lucky, to be free from slavers twice." He paused, and she nodded. What could she say to someone like that, but acknowledge bad experience shared. "Come! We'll see what she says."
"She's down here?"
"She goes slumming sometimes, though she doesn't call it that. 'Sides, where she is, is pretty near topside, over 'cross a ways, through two more territories. We don't fight, eh?" That was thrown back to Coris, who flung out his open hand.
"We good children," he said.
"Like always," said Kelgar. "For all the flamin' good it does."
He led the way this time and Sassinak followed with Coris' group. She could tell that Kelgar had more snakes in his attic than were strictly healthy, but if paranoid he was smart paranoid. They saw no patrols while passing through his territory, and into the next. There she met another gangleader, this one a whip-thin woman who went dead-white at the sight of Sassinak's face. A Fleet deserter? Her gang had the edge of almost military discipline, and after that first shocked reaction, the woman handled them with crisp efficiency. Definitely military, probably Fleet. Rare to lose one that good. Sassinak couldn't help wondering what had happened, but she knew she'd get no answers if she asked.
They passed another boundary and Sassinak found herself being introduced to yet another leader. Black hair, dark eyes, brownish skin, and the facial features she thought of as Chinese. Most of his followers looked much the same, and she caught some angry glances at Aygar. All she didn't need was racial trouble; she hoped this leader had control of his people.
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