There was the sound of a muffled clank, transmitted by hisfsss cutting: the door being opened. Cautiously, Prr't-zevisti came up to the edge of the lightworld for a look.
It was the Human commander. "Hello Doctor-Cavan-a," he said, pulling the door closed. "Any progress?"
"A little," she answered. "I think I may have isolated the (something) source for the (something) activity."
"That's good," the commander said, stepping over to her and looking down at the latestfsss sample. "Seen any more of the (something) from the (something) end?"
"I don't know," she said, looking up at his face. "I sometimes think I see something at the (something) of my eye. But when I look, there's nothing there."
"Try to (something) it down," he told her, throwing a quick look of his own around the room. Prr't-zevisti ducked down a little deeper into the grayworld, just to be on the safe side. "Try real hard. Bad enough they can (something) (something) across light (something). If they can (something) right through the walls of this room, too, it'll be just that much worse."
"Something's wrong, isn't it?" Doctor-Cavan-a asked, her voice suddenly quiet. "What?"
Prr't-zevisti heard the faint hissing sound of the commander's breath. "It's Srgent-janovetz. He and his (something) went silent last (something)."
"I hadn't heard," Doctor-Cavan-a said. "Do you think they've kill (something) him?"
"I don't know," the commander said. "We got one (something) (something) from him and sent one back. And that was all." He paused. "But what's really trouble (something) is what that (something) show (something). (Something), there was an attack on the Zhirrzh base."
Prr't-zevisti came up to the edge of the lightworld in time to see Doctor-Cavan-a's face change, her overeye hair tufts pressing toward each other. "You didn't tell me we were go (something) to attack."
"We didn't," the commander said. "That's what's so trouble (something). We didn't attack; and it doesn't make much sense for the Zhirrzh to have attack (something) themselves. Which leaves only one (something)."
"The (something)? But that's (something). They're prisoners."
"That's what we've been assume (something)," the commander said. "But we really don't know that for sure. The (something) we got show (something) them be (something) take (something) across the land (something) field. They didn't seem to be wear (something) anything like that (something) suit described in the report from your brother."
There was a beat of silence. "What was this attack like?" Doctor-Cavan-a asked.
"Our (something) angle wasn't very good," the commander said. "Near as we could tell, it seem (something) to be a series of explosions."
"Damage?"
"Again, we couldn't tell. But they all seem (something) to be locate (something) in the same general area. Why? You have an idea?"
"Not really," Doctor-Cavan-a said. "But you're right: by process of (something), it has to have been the (something) behind it. But what they're play (something) at, I can't begin to understand."
"Something (something), though," the commander said, his voice lowering in pitch. "I'd bet my (something) on that."
"Well, maybe-"
Doctor-Cavan-a stopped speaking as the door opened. "Commander?" a warrior called. "Observation Post Five report (something) enemy air activity."
"Probably just their (something) (something)," the commander said, pulling a metal cylinder from his waist as he moved to the door. "Hold that thought, Doctor. I'll be right back."
He stepped outside, leaving the door open behind him. Stealthily, Prr't-zevisti slipped out behind him. It was the first chance he'd had in nearly three fullarcs to get out of the metal room, and no matter what the risks, he was determined to make the most of it.
Not much had changed out there since his last trip. A few more of the equipment piles had disappeared, and it occurred to him that it might be possible to deduce from that whether or not the Humans were running low on supplies. But on the other side, it might just mean they were moving things around to other parts of the stronghold.
"(Something) here," the commander's voice said. Prr't-zevisti looked around, spotted the other standing a couple of strides off to the side next to one of the equipment piles. He had a flat rectangular device propped up on top of the pile, with the metal cylinder he'd taken from his waist held up near his mouth. Some sort of recorder, obviously-
"Post Five, Commander," a faint voice came from the cylinder.
Prr't-zevisti frowned, moving as close to the commander as the walls of the metal room allowed. So it wasn't a recorder, but a communication device. Probably would have recognized that sooner if he'd had the same darklight sensitivity now that he'd had before he was raised to Eldership. He looked around as the voice continued talking, wondering if he could spot the darklight relay. Or, for that matter, would even know what a Human darklight relay looked like.
"Interest (something)," the commander said, turning back toward the metal room. Prr't-zevisti's attention snapped back with the movement; he didn't want to risk either being seen or getting caught by a closing door. "Hang on; let me check something." The commander rounded the corner of the room and stepped into the doorway-
And abruptly, the faint background of Elderdeath annoyance exploded into a knife edge of pain.
Prr't-zevisti gasped, the sheer unexpectedness of it freezing him writhing to the spot. He barely heard the commander and Doctor-Cavan-a speaking, his full attention on the torment driving through him like a million twisting needles. The universe seemed to swirl around him as waves of dizziness joined with the pain and nausea-
And then, as suddenly as if a switch had been thrown, it was gone. He gasped again, fighting to bring the world back into focus. The commander was still standing in the doorway talking to Doctor-Cavan-a, pointing to his right away from the metal room with the hand that held the cylinder. He finished the gesture, brought the hand back in front of him again-
And Prr't-zevisti jerked in agony as the Elderdeath pain again lanced through him.
But only for a beat. He had barely enough time to gasp when the pain again shut off.
It seemed harder this time to regain his balance and equilibrium; the Human commander seemed to be walking up a slanted wall as he stepped away from the doorway and back to his equipment pile. With an effort Prr't-zevisti fought his way through the dizziness, almost too drained to be angry. So it had finally happened. His captors had finally tried a full-fledged Elderdeath attack on him. But he'd survived it, and he hadn't given himself away.
Maybe they hadn't expected him to. Doctor-Cavan-a had stepped to the door of the metal room now, looking at the commander and paying no attention to either hisfsss cutting or Prr't-zevisti himself. The commander, for his part, was still talking into his cylinder as if nothing at all had just happened.
The cylinder.
Prr't-zevisti stared at the device, an icy chill creeping across the last residue of Elderdeath ache. The cylinder. Moved into the doorway, into direct line with hisfsss cutting, as the Elderdeath attack began. Taken away as it ended. And moved briefly out of line with the commander's gesture during the equally brief lull in the attack.
And suddenly Prr't-zevisti had it. The truth. The horrifying, devastating truth.
The Humans' Elderdeath weapons weren't weapons at all. They were communication devices.
Prr't-zevisti hovered there, staring at the commander and Doctor-Cavan-a, his mind spinning with shock. The report from the study group on Base World 12 had included a claim by the Human prisoner that it was the Zhirrzh survey ships that had started the space battle. Warrior Command and the Overclan had dismissed it as a lie.
But it hadn't been a lie. Not from the prisoner's point of view. As far as he knew, the Humans had done nothing more aggressive than attempting to communicate.
And had promptly been fired on. In what the Zhirrzh commanders had naturally considered to be pure self-defense.
Which meant that this entire war was nothing but a gigantic mistake.
Numbly, Prr't-zevisti made his way back into the metal room, settling into his corner and down into the grayworld. A mistake. A horrible blunder of misunderstandings.
And if this war, then why not all the others? All of Zhirrzh history-all the wars of defensive conquest against aliens who'd attacked them on sight. Had all of those wars been sparked by similar mistakes?
There was a sound, and Prr't-zevisti moved back to the edge of the lightworld. Doctor-Cavan-a had come back inside the room, followed by the Human commander. They held a brief conversation, something with a lot of words Prr't-zevisti didn't understand, and then the commander went out again, closing the door behind him.
For a few beats Doctor-Cavan-a sat quietly, staring at the door. Then, exhaling audibly, she turned back to her work on thefsss sample. Trying, if her conversations could be believed, to understand its importance to the Zhirrzh.
And Prr't-zevisti came to a decision.
He came up to the closest edge of the lightworld, a small dark voice in the back of his mind reminding him as he did so that this whole thing could be nothing more than an elaborate stratagem, a trick to draw him finally out into the open. But it was a risk he had to take. If there was even a small chance that he'd stumbled on the truth here...
His movement caught Doctor-Cavan-a's attention. She turned her head and froze, her mouth dropping soundlessly open as she saw him-
"Hello, Doctor-Cavan-a," he said, speaking the alien words as clearly as he could. "I am Prr't-zevisti; Dhaa'rr."
23
The suborbital transport put Thrr-gilag down at a small private landing field fifteen thoustrides south of Reeds Village. The Overclan pilot loaned him a one-person runabout, promised to be back in two tentharcs, and lifted off again.
It was a long, lonely drive down the dusty roadway that led north toward his mother's house. Thrr-gilag saw only a few buildings along the way, farmhouses and related outbuildings, most of them fairly distant from the roadway. The only other vehicles he passed were lumbering planters out working the fields. Little to see, little to do except for the largely automatic process of driving down a deserted roadway.
It left him a lot of time for thought. They weren't pleasant thoughts. He tried to concentrate on the attempt to save the possibly alive Prr't-zevisti from probable death, and to speculate on how such a success might be bartered into reinstatement of his bond-engagement to Klnn-dawan-a. But there were too many ifs in the whole equation; too many ifs and possibles and maybes and doubtfuls. And even if it all worked out perfectly, there would always be the weight of his mother's crime working against it.
His mother. Thrr-gilag sighed, feeling a twinge of guilt. With all the rest of the flurry that had accompanied it, the truly basic consideration hadn't even occurred to him until midway through the flight from Unity City. Thrr-pifix-a had tried to steal herfsss because she didn't want to become an Elder.
She'd failed. Which meant that choice had now been taken away from her. And Thrr-gilag still couldn't decide whether he was relieved or saddened by that.
There were a half-dozen Elders hovering around his mother's house as he pulled up in front of it. "Hello," one of them said as he stepped out of the runabout. "Who are you?"
Thrr-gilag eyed him. "Why?"
The other seemed taken aback. "I was just wondering. I'd heard something happened here last latearc, something involving Overclan warriors and some kind of criminal activity. Just wondered if you knew anything about it."
Thrr-gilag grimaced. So the rumors had already started. Inevitable, really. With so little to occupy their time, Elders were to rumors as liquid fuel was to fires. "Sorry," he said shortly, striding past the Elder toward the door.
"Wait a beat," a second Elder said, moving into Thrr-gilag's path. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going inside," Thrr-gilag said. "Is that any business of yours?"
"Do you have permission from the occupant to enter?"
"I have the key," Thrr-gilag said, holding it up.
"But do you have permission?" the Elder repeated.
Thrr-gilag stopped. "I have all the permission I need," he ground out. "I'll ask again: what business is this of yours?"
"This is our land," a third Elder said, his voice and manner huffy. "It's both our privilege and our duty to protect it."
And suddenly Thrr-gilag was sick and tired of Elders. "That's dead bisfis effluvia," he said flatly. "And you know it. You never paid the slightest bit of attention to Thrr-pifix-a until you smelled a chance at some gossip. That's all you want, and you can forget it."
"How dare you speak that way to your Elders?" the third Elder demanded. "We are-"
"What you are is invited to get lost," Thrr-gilag cut him off. Pushing past and through the whole group of them, he unlocked the door and went in.
He half expected the Elders to join him, at least long enough to drop a few scathing comments about his manners and the importance of respect. But if they had in fact followed him in, they were keeping quiet about it.
More likely they'd simply returned to their family shrines, to tell in great detail about the rude young male who had shown up at the mystery-shrouded home of Thrr-pifix-a; Kee'rr.
His mother hadn't lived there for very long, but even so the house was rich with memories. For a few hunbeats Thrr-gilag just wandered through the various rooms, looking at the furniture and pictures he remembered from his childhood, fingering the various pieces of edgework she'd loved to do and been so proud of. Here and there was a pouch or scarflin she'd been working on, as yet unfinished. Beside the kitchen sink were her gardening tools, painstakingly cleaned from the previous fullarc's work and laid neatly out to dry. The trowel still held a drop of water in its curved surface; picking it up, he turned it over, watching the drop dribble off.
From the edge of his eye he caught a flicker of movement. So not all the Elders had gone away. Thrr-gilag spun toward the figure, drawing a breath to tell these nosy gossips once and for all what he thought of them-
"Hello, my son," Thrr't-rokik said, his voice grave. "I'm glad you've come."
Thrr-gilag's breath went out of him in a startled gasp. "Father," he murmured when he finally got his voice back.
Thrr't-rokik's serious expression cracked, just a little. "I take it you weren't expecting me," he suggested with a wry smile. "At least not if you were about to say what you looked like you were about to say."