Prr't-casst-a vanished, returned a hunbeat later. " 'All right. You want me to call him and let him know?' "
"Yes, you'd better," Thrr-gilag nodded. "You can get a much more secure pathway than I can. No telling what kind of leakage we'd get if I tried calling him from here."
Klnn-dawan-a looked at Prr't-casst-a, wondering if she would take that as an implied insult to the reliability of Prr Elders. But if she was offended, she didn't show it before vanishing again. Maybe she was too preoccupied with her own troubles to notice. Or maybe she'd done her fair share of Elder gossiping and knew that Thrr-gilag was right.
Prr't-casst-a returned. " 'All right. Any idea how you're going to deliver your package to me?' "
"Not yet," Thrr-gilag said.
"Actually, I have an idea," Klnn-dawan-a spoke up. "We'll discuss it and get word back to you."
Prr't-casst-a looked a bit confused. "Do I repeat all of that?"
"Yes," Thrr-gilag told her. "Just make it clear along the pathway that Klnn-dawan-a said the second part."
"All right."
She vanished. "What idea is this?" Thrr-gilag asked Klnn-dawan-a.
"That I go out to Dorcas and deliver it to him," Klnn-dawan-a said. "With the leaders still making up their minds about our bond-engagement, I haven't got much else to do right now anyway."
"So naturally you want to spend this free time in a war zone?"
"Don't be sarcastic, dear," she chided. "And don't argue, either. You know as well as I do it's the only way. You have to get back to Oaccanv and get ready for your mission. And there's no one else we can trust with this."
Thrr-gilag made a face at her, but in his eyes she could see he knew she was right. That was one of the things she liked most about him: the fact that he judged other people's ideas against exactly the same standards and criteria as he did his own. "Itis a war zone, though," he reminded her. "How would you get them to let you in?"
"There are a couple of ways," she said. "Best chance would be-"
She broke off as Prr't-casst-a reappeared. " 'The sooner the better. Things are beginning to happen here. I have to go now, my brother. Keep yourself safe, and I'll speak with you again soon.' "
"Right," Thrr-gilag murmured. "Farewell, my brother." He took a deep breath, nodded to Prr't-casst-a. "Deliver that message, then release the pathway. Then get me that travel communicator."
"I will," Prr't-casst-a said, and disappeared.
Klnn-dawan-a looked at Thrr-gilag. "What's the matter?" she asked him.
"I don't know," he said slowly, his face troubled. "Just the way he said that, about things beginning to happen there. It didn't sound good."
"You want to get the pathway back and ask him?"
Thrr-gilag's tongue flicked in a negative. "No. If he could talk about it, he would have." He waved a hand, as if trying to brush the thoughts and worries away. "Never mind that. He's a warrior; he knows what he's doing. You were telling me how you were going to get to Dorcas."
"I was saying the best way might be for me to collect some personal messages or items for Thrr-mezaz's second commander, Klnn-vavgi. He's a distant cousin of mine, remember."
"I didn't think you knew him very well."
"I don't," Klnn-dawan-a said. "But that doesn't matter. Close family or distant cousin are all the same to the Dhaa'rr. And personal messages are traditionally to be delivered by hand."
"Even in a war zone?"
"Even in a war zone. So. I can get regular passage from here to the Dhaa'rr routing center on Shamanv, and from there I should be able to get a ride on a supply ship headed out to Dorcas."
Thrr-gilag pondered that. "That should get you to orbit, anyway. But what if they won't let you land?"
"I'll just have to count on Thrr-mezaz to get me past that one."
They'd reached the railcar stop. "I don't like it," Thrr-gilag said, opening the door of the first car in line on the siding and ushering her inside. "But right now I can't see any better way to do it. All right. As soon as Prr't-casst-a finds us a travel communicator, we'll check on flights to Shamanv."
"Good," Klnn-dawan-a said as he sat down beside her and keyed in his value number and their destination. The car beeped, and they were off.
It was a good idea, she knew, her going off to Dorcas like this. The best delivery plan either of them had. Probably the best plan either of them were going to have.
But that didn't mean she had to like it. She'd faced the crossbows of a Chig war party and had had enough good luck to escape without being raised prematurely to Eldership. Whether that good luck would hold her against the far deadlier weapons of Human-Conqueror warriors wasn't a question she particularly wanted to test.
"You don't have to do this," Thrr-gilag said quietly from beside her. "We can find some other way."
"No," Klnn-dawan-a said, taking his hand again. "We all have responsibilities in life. Prr't-zevisti is a Dhaa'rr, and so am I. This is something I have to do."
Gently, he leaned over and touched her face with his tongue. "That's one of the things I really love about you, Klnn-dawan-a," he murmured. "That you're always willing to do what needs to be done."
She squeezed his hand hard. "Just keep telling me that."
20
"TheImperative picked it up about ten hunbeats ago," Klnn-vavgi said, pointing to the hazy image on the monitor. "It didn't show up on our own monitors until just a couple of hunbeats ago."
Thrr-mezaz frowned at the image. A small Human-Conqueror aircraft, framed against the mountains it was coming in from. "Must be going pretty slow."
"Slow and high both," Klnn-vavgi said. "Not exactly your optimum profile for sneaking in on someone."
"Rather implies they want us to see them."
"That would be my guess, too," Klnn-vavgi nodded. "Question is, are they serious or just a distraction?"
"That's the question, all right," Thrr-mezaz agreed, throwing a quick look around the room at the other monitors. A half-dozen Zhirrzh aircraft were in the air ready to intercept, all ground defenses were activated and standing ready, all warriors were on full alert.
And across the landing field in their converted storehouse, oblivious to all the activity going on around them, the two Mrachanis were resting quietly....
"It's the Mrachanis," Thrr-mezaz said. "They saw the spacecraft land, and this is their response."
"Pretty fast reaction," Klnn-vavgi grunted. "You could be right, though. But it brings us right back to question one: what are they up to?"
Thrr-mezaz gazed at the image on the monitor, trying to put himself in the Human-Conquerors' commander's place. All right. He knew a Mrachani spacecraft had landed on Dorcas; one of his aircraft had observed the aliens' landing from a respectful distance. He'd had nearly five tentharcs now to mull over that fact, and to come up with this response. Whatever it was.
And the tone of the response might well indicate whether he considered the Mrachanis to be captive allies to be rescued or dangerous enemies to be destroyed.
Thrr-mezaz stepped over to the Stingbird monitor. "How many Stingbirds do we have in the air?" he asked.
"Four," the warrior at the monitor said. "The rest are standing ready and awaiting orders."
"Put them all up," Thrr-mezaz ordered. "Have them form a defense perimeter twenty thoustrides outside the village. They're to be alert for any Human-Conqueror activity."
"I obey, Commander," the warrior answered, setting to work.
"That goes for the Elders, too," Thrr-mezaz added, looking up at the Elders hovering overhead. "They're to keep close watch on all ground approaches."
"I obey," one of the Elders said, and vanished.
Thrr-mezaz stepped back to Klnn-vavgi. "Let's see how easily they can be scared off," he commented.
"You think it's a feint, then?" Klnn-vavgi asked.
"Actually, no, I don't," Thrr-mezaz told him. "I don't think they're going to be scared off, either. My guess is that that aircraft is on its way here to rescue our Mrachani guests. Or else to try to kill them."
"Really," Klnn-vavgi said, eying his commander. "A wide range of options, I must say. I trust you aren't going to allow them to do either."
"We're certainly going to try to stop them," Thrr-mezaz assured him. "On the other hand, whichever attempt they make should tell us something about their relationship with the Mrachanis."
Klnn-vavgi rubbed thoughtfully at the side of his face. "I don't know, Thrr-mezaz," he murmured. "Sounds to me like a pretty big risk. We're nowhere near knowing the full extent of Human-Conqueror weapons technology. And Warrior Command isn't going to be at all happy if you lose their Mrachani prisoners for them."
"True," Thrr-mezaz said. "On the other hand, the Overclan Seating is about to send an expedition out to the Mrachani homeworld anyway. Plenty of Mrachanis there for them to talk to." He gestured to the slowly approaching aircraft. "Besides, the Human-Conquerors don't have any idea where our guests are. They're going to have to land first and find some clever way to ask for directions."
"What if they just swoop overhead, drop some really high explosives, and obliterate the whole village?"
"If they had that capability, I think they'd probably have used it long before now," Thrr-mezaz said dryly. "No, we're taking some risk with this, but not as much as it looks."
"Well, you're the commander," Klnn-vavgi said. "In the meantime, that Human-Conqueror aircraft is getting closer. About time we ran all this past Warrior Command?"
"Right." Thrr-mezaz looked up. "Communicator?"
Thrr-mezaz had expected the aircraft to do at least one surveillance circle over the village before putting down. To his mild surprise it came straight in to the western part of the landing field, putting to ground a respectful distance from both the Mrachani spacecraft and the hangar-size building where the Zhirrzh had set up their own aircraft service facilities. Apparently the Human-Conquerors aboard hadn't considered it necessary to look the place over first.
Or rather, the Human-Conqueror, singular. It was a lone enemy warrior who emerged from the small aircraft into the waiting semicircle ofZhirrzh warriors, his hands outstretched and empty of weapons.
"Just one?" Klnn-vavgi murmured at Thrr-mezaz's side as they stood in the long postmidarc shadows beside the headquarters building, fifty strides southeast of the aircraft. "At least the Mrachanis sent us two."
"Maybe there are more inside," Thrr-mezaz said. "I'll have someone take a look."
The Human-Conqueror was speaking now. A few beats later the translator-link in Thrr-mezaz's ear slits came to life. "I am Srgent-janovetz of the Commonwealth Peacekeepers. I have come to discuss (something) terms with the commander of the Zhirrzh."
One of the warriors stepped forward with a jumpsuit draped around his neck. "You will wear this," he instructed the alien, his words coming faintly across the distance.
An Elder appeared at Thrr-mezaz's left, hidden from the Human-Conqueror's view by the headquarters building. "We have searched the enemy warrior, Commander," he reported. "He is carrying no obvious weapons."
"Understood," Thrr-mezaz said. Though that was of only limited comfort. As Klnn-vavgi had pointed out earlier, there was a lot they didn't know about Human-Conqueror weaponry. "What about other devices?"
"He carries several," the Elder said. "One of them is particularly troubling: a short, flat device that has been inserted into his body."
Thrr-mezaz frowned across the field at the Human-Conqueror, midway through the job of changing out of his clothing. "Where inside his body?"
"Just here," the Elder said, pointing a faint tongue at the left side of Thrr-mezaz's own face. "It seems to have been inserted beneath the skin, between the mouth area and the ear appendages."
"Odd sort of placement," Klnn-vavgi said. "Did you examine it?"
"We did," the Elder said, nodding. "None could decipher its purpose. But many of us suspect it to be a weapon."
"Let's not leap to conclusions quite yet," Thrr-mezaz cautioned. "It could be any number of other things. A timed chemical drip, perhaps, or something else healer-implanted."
The Elder snorted. "Do not allow yourself to be fooled, Commander," he said. "Aliens can be very clever. Let me tell you some of the things we found being used as weapons during the third assault on the Isintorxi homeland-"
"We'll be careful," Thrr-mezaz cut him off, not really in any mood to listen to a history lecture. "Come on, Second, let's go see what our new prisoner has to say for himself."
The Human-Conqueror was just sealing up his jumpsuit as Thrr-mezaz and Klnn-vavgi reached the group of warriors surrounding him. "I'm Commander Thrr-mezaz; Kee'rr," Thrr-mezaz identified himself. "Why are you here?"
The optronic speaker on his shoulder gave out the Human-Conqueror translation. The Human-Conqueror spoke again-"I am Srgent-janovetz. I have come to discuss (something) terms."
"We don't understand all your words," Thrr-mezaz said. "Please rephrase."
The translation was made, and the Human-Conqueror seemed to consider. Then he spoke again. "I am here to ask what must be done for us to stop fighting for a while with each other."
Thrr-mezaz glanced at Klnn-vavgi. "Are you asking for terms of surrender?"
Srgent-janovetz's face changed as the translation came through. "No, not surrender," the translator-link said. "Just to stop fighting for a time."
Thrr-mezaz flicked his tongue in a negative. Srgent-janovetz seemed to flinch back at the gesture. "And what purpose would such a partial surrender serve?"
Again the Human-Conqueror seemed to consider. He spoke-"We saw that you have taken new prisoners. Since you are unfamiliar with our species, we would like to ask permission to treat any injuries they may have."
Thrr-mezaz smiled grimly. There it was; and he'd called it straight down the line. The Human-Conquerors wanted a crack at the Mrachanis. "Our new guests are not Human-Conquerors," he said. "Nor are they prisoners."
Srgent-janovetz's face changed again as he spoke. "We are called Humans," the translation came. "What was the word you used for us?"
"I called you Human-Conquerors," Thrr-mezaz said. "It means-"
And without warning a brilliant flash of light came from across the landing field to the northeast.
"Cover!" Thrr-mezaz snapped as the sharpcrack of the explosion slapped across them. He leaped into the partial cover of the Human-Conqueror aircraft, Klnn-vavgi right beside him. Crouching down, he peered out past the aircraft's beak, just in time to get his midlight pupils dazzled by the flash of a second explosion. He twisted his head away with a curse; but he'd gotten enough of a look to locate the focal point of the attack.