The Starwolves (27 page)

"What of it?" he asked casually.

The elder Lake shrugged, as if it was an unimportant matter. "I can
guess why you wanted to talk to them again, and I approve. Did I not invite
them to dinner? But it did cause a bit of talk – not quite scandal
– and Rik heard of both incidents. He thought it beneath our dignity to
consort with Starwolves."

"Oh? And what business is it of his?"

"He will be the next High Councilor of this sector, and I will at least
give him the courtesy of hearing his opinions before I tell him to shut
up," Lake replied. "We're in this mess now because we spent too long
pretending that our enemy didn't exist. Whether we win this war or lose, at
least you and I have started something good."

Trace glanced up at him, startled, "Lose? How can you even doubt?"

"You may be right, but I still have hope," Councilor Lake teased,
then stopped short, suddenly aware that his nephew took this all very
seriously. Donalt Trace, so thoroughly trained – perhaps too well trained
– in his belief in himself, his own kind and the rightness of his cause,
could not even consider the possibility of his own failure.

Or so he thought, although in truth Trace had been gnawing upon those same
doubts since his final meeting with the two Starwolves hours before. He could
admit to himself that Velmeran might be the better of the two. He even told
himself that he could accept his defeats, so long as he could learn from them.
There was room in his own mind for doubt, but it shattered his confidence
entirely to hear his uncle express such doubts. He had never realized that so
much of his own confidence depended upon his uncle's belief in him. Now he felt
alone, empty and afraid.

Councilor Lake leaned back in his chair casually, his hands clasped behind
his head. "Nothing has changed, really. You are still the only real hope
we have of defeating Ihem, or I would not divert half the profits of Farstell
Trade to building your weapons. But will it be enough? Don, you have to have
the right weapons to defeat them, and the best that we can give you might not
be enough. That has been our failing before, as much as bad leadership. You
know the weapons you need, but can we make them for you?"

"I can design weapons that you can build."

"But you have no one to use them."

Trace frowned. "I need Starwolves of my own. We can build fighters to
match their own for speed and performance. But there is no mechanical brain
that I can put inside the thing to make it fly as well as they can. To fight
Starwolves, I need Starwolves. Fighting them would be easy enough on their
level. But I work under such a handicap that I have to be ten times smarter
than them to come out on top."

"Which you cannot be every day. Lord, Don, if you could capture and
keep a Starwolf like Velmeran or Dveyella, I would move worlds to see that a
viable race is created from their genetic stock." The Councilor paused a
moment to reflect, and shook his head sadly. "They just have too many
advantages. Velmeran might be smarter than you are and beat you at chess a
thousand different ways, but he was designed for that. But I sincerely doubt
that anyone can be bred for wisdom and insight. That is where I hope you will
prove superior."

"And yet young Velmeran has more than his share of both wisdom and
insight," Trace pointed out.

"Yes, what is it about that boy that is so special? He surprised even
me – and I thought I knew Starwolves better than to underestimate them.
There was really nothing he said or did that impressed me so much as just that
tremendous sense of presence he seems to radiate. I fear, Don, that you have
met your match."

"That remains to be seen," the Commander said coldly. "But I
do know now just who my enemy is."

"You did not fare so well against him last night," Lake reminded
him.

"I could have done no better against a computer, and I'm told that
there is a portion of every Starwolf's brain that is very much like a computer
in its functions. But real life is very different from a game of chess. For one
thing, some of my best pieces are not on the board but hidden under the table
where he can't see them. Surprise has always been our best weapon, and I know
how to use it."

"Just as long as you remember to play the game onl your terms and not
on his. Unfortunately, someone like Velmeran is very likely to play the game by
your rules and still win."

"We will see," Trace said, rising swiftly to stand beside his
chair. "I will take a look at that decoy ship."

"You might wait a couple of hours yet. I told them to stay clear of the
area until the Methryn leaves, which should be any time now."

Trace shrugged. "Good enough. I have enough to do up at the station to
keep me busy until they get in. I hope Rik sent me a decent ship."

"One of his best. Medium bulk freighter, and only five years old."

"Good! Send him my thanks."

"All right. Stay out of trouble," Councilor Lake called after him.

Trace smiled to himself as he paused for the door to open. Trouble was the
very thing he had in mind.

The Methryn was barely an hour out of the Vinthran system when a rumor ran
through her many decks like the echo of a meteor strike reverberating within
her armored hull. Or, rather, a series of related rumors, and all of it
surprising. Velmeran, it seemed, was going to stay. Dveyella had disbanded her
own pack to stay with him – an occurrence that had caused Consherra, the
normally reserved and capable second in command, to abandon her post while
on duty. And, strangest of all, they had dined, by private invitation, with
personages of no less import than Councilor Lake and the Sector Commander.

Valthyrra Methryn did not believe that she should be made to endure
confusion or be forced to assemble what she could of the story from bits and
pieces. She considered that an accounting of that evening with Councilor Lake
was very much her business, and she sent a probe, the most formidable of her
remotes, to Velmeran's cabin to demand, entice or beg an explanation. As it
turned out, she had no need to worry. While Velmeran and Dveyella were not
willing to discuss such matters with the rest of the crew, they were willing to
tell her anything she wanted to know about the time they had spent with
Councilor Lake and his nephew. And since they had each committed most of those
two conversations to selective recall, they were able to report to the very words.

For the most part, Velmeran related the story himself, since most of the two
conversations had been directed at him. He sat, together with Dveyella, in the
two large chairs in his cabin. Valthyrra's probe was perched precariously atop
Velmeran's desk, so that its relatively short neck could place its camera pod
on a level with the others. Velmeran was not entirely pleased to have her
there, since the desk was of real wood, purchased on port leave months earlier,
and the probe weighed over an eighth of a ton.

The probe's camera pod looked thoughtful. "What I wonder is if this was
something Lake has been calculating for some time or if it was just
spur-of-the-moment, because he was so impressed with the two of you and, as
Dveyella so eloquently phrases it, well into his cups."

"Do you suppose that he might regret what he did and warn the Sector
Commander?" Dveyella asked, then paused. "No, he cannot do that, can
he?"

Valthyrra laughed. "I do not see how he can possibly explain that he
told all the Union's best secrets to Starwolves over dinner. For better or
worse, he cannot change what he has done."

"But do you think that he did tell us the truth?" Velmeran asked.

"Yes, I believe that he was completely honest with you – as far
as he knew," she answered thoughtfully. "As I indicated before, I
think that he is mistaken on a few points. But after careful thought, I believe
that I now understand his motives a little better."

"How is that?"

"Councilor Lake is interested in saving as much as he can of many
things: his race, his civilization and the wealth and power of the sector
families. Yes, they will fight only so far and sue for peace, making the best
deal they can in the process. Dethroned emperors of worlds, they would at least
live on as merchant princes."

"Councilor Lake will not be there to negotiate that surrender,"
Dveyella pointed out.

"True, but he has trained his replacement well. It is a shame that the
younger Lake – Richart, I believe – could not have been there as
well." Her camera pod made some ambiguous gesture that might have been
anything from a symbolic appeal to fate to a helpless shrug. "You, Velmeran,
will live to see an end to this war. Perhaps you will even win it for us."

"What about the prophecy?" Dveyella asked suddenly.

Valthyrra's camera pod regarded her with a decidedly wide-eyed stare.
"In my experience, there is no such thing as prophecy. Just educated
guesses, wild guesses and things that never come to pass."

"And which do you suppose this to be?"

"This is the case of an educated guess," she explained. "We
want the Vardon's memory cell in the hope that it will show us the way to lost
Terra. Have you ever wondered how that was supposed to win the war for
us?"

"How?"

"Because Terra holds the original Home Base of the Kelvessan Fleet. Terra
and her moon have the construction docks and support factories for the assembly
of Starwolf carriers – ships so technically advanced that they make me
look like an antiquated hulk. Can you not see how the possession of such ships
could win this war for us?"

"Yes, if there were crews for them," Velmeran said.

"Our ships operate at only a fraction of their fighter capacity
now."

"Because that is all we have been able to use for some time now,"
Valthyrra said. "Five thousand years ago your race was in danger of dying
out. At that time there were only eighteen thousand Kelvessan divided between
twenty carriers and one freighter. Now there are sixty thousand divided between
twenty-seven ships. And, as you ship-born ones are inclined to forget, there
are now five and a half million Kelvessan who do not call themselves Starwolves
but live in our stations and on human worlds. We can recruit a few shiploads of
pilots and crewmembers from their numbers. And the rest are surely ready for a
world of their own."

The idea obviously appealed to Velmeran, who smiled broadly. "Just
imagine, the cradle of human civilization becoming the home world of the
Kelvessan. But where would we live? There are few portions of the planet that
we would find comfortable."

"Yes, there is that," Dveyella agreed. "And I wonder if there
is anything left. We have no idea what forced the evacuation of the
planet."

"Well, we will have to see," Valthyrra said. "We have to find
it first. And for that, someone has to go after the Vardon's memory cell."

Velmeran was so deep in his own thoughts that he did not notice both
Valthyrra and Dveyella staring at him expectantly. Although his qualities as a
leader were beginning to manifest themselves quickly, he was still very much a
child in one respect. Although he could make decisions in a hurry in an
emergency, he still waited for his elders to initiate any spontaneous action.
Since he did not comment on this idea, there was no way to tell what he thought
about it. Valthyrra realized that the time had not yet come.

"I also wonder about these new weapons," Velmeran said after a
long moment. "I wish that we did not have to just wait until those weapons
are used against us."

"If we had some idea of what those weapons are or where they are being
built and tested, we could strike first," Valthyrra agreed. "Once we
know what a weapon is, we are always able to neutralize it or guard against it.
That is why all this talk of new, secret weapons does not worry me greatly.
Those weapons tend to work well, if at all, only the first time they are used.
Also the Union is in a constant cycle of forgetting and reinventing technology,
so that they seldom come up with anything we have never seen before. You say
that these are designs that Commander Trace himself worked out?"

"That is what Councilor Lake said," Velmeran answered.

"According to my intelligence work, Trace has had years of training in
various fields of engineering," Valthyrra mused. "Because he is of
undeteriorated human stock, he is much smarter than anyone who works under him
and; so he does it all himself. Engineering computers must take his finished
plans for conversion into working designs."

"And can we take anything that he throws against us?"

"Yes, if we are careful. The effectiveness of a weapon depends most
upon the cleverness of the user and the carelessness of the victim. You know
yourself that carriers have been destroyed by simple means when they are caught
unprepared, while at times the best of plans have gone awry for no apparent
reason."

"And if Commander Trace has a fault, I suspect that it is his own
impatience to act when he is sure that he is right," Velmeran mused.

"His second fault is that he believes that he is right until proven
otherwise," Dveyella added.

"As well as the two of you have him figured out, we have nothing to
worry about," Valthyrra said, amused. "It is strange to think that
this ancient war is finally coming to an end. It will be nice, never again
running this endless patrol."

Velmeran glanced at her, startled. "You are a fighting ship. What will
you do when the war is over?"

"I shall probably be decommissioned," she replied dryly.

"What?" he demanded. "You are not exactly a machine to be
thrown away."

"No, and there certainly will be enough police work for me to do for
some time to come. Humans are capable of incredible mischief. But, once our
duties are fulfilled and our fates are our own, I am sure that our old alliance
with the Aldessan will be strengthened. They made us both, you and I. At least
they drew up the specifications. We are like them in heart and mind. Someday I
would like to be an explorer, a long-range research vessel. I would need no
special modifications."