Timothy Zahn - Conquerors' Pride

"No," Aric said emphatically. "You can't take the blame for that one. We've got thousands of ships crisscrossing the Commonwealth every day, every one of them laying out a tachyon wake-trail. If the aliens really want to find us, they aren't going to need a fueler and half a dozen fighters to do it. As long as we're careful and spread a few static bombs judiciously around, that shouldn't be a real threat."

"I hope you're right," Cavanagh said.

"I hope so, too." Aric took a deep breath, exhaled it noisily. "Anyway. I'm glad we had this little talk, Dad. Better go to my cabin, I guess, and get ready to go."

"You'll say good-bye before you and Quinn leave, won't you?"

"Melinda would kill me if I didn't," Aric said wryly. "Don't worry, I will."

He stepped to the door... and paused. "By the way," he said over his shoulder, his voice sounding odd. "Did you notice what VanDiver called them today?"

"Yes," Cavanagh said. "He called them the Conquerors."

Aric nodded. "Sounds like someone's been taking that Mrach legend seriously."

"Legends often have a basis in fact."

"Yes. Might be worth sending someone out to Mrach territory to look into that. Well... see you later."

The door opened and closed behind him. "Yes, indeed," Cavanagh murmured to the empty room. "It might be worthwhile, at that."

For a moment he sat there, listening to the background hum of his ship. Then, stirring, he turned on his plate again. He had a fueler to locate and arrange purchase for. After that he would have Quinn's list of supplies to order.

It consisted of six flattened hemispheres sitting on a contoured tray just inside the dog flap they'd stuffed his survival pack through the previous day. Each of the lumps was a slightly different shade of tan paste, with chunks of brightly colored food items of different sorts embedded in them. The overall effect was that of holiday cheese balls assembled by color-blind children, and Pheylan wasn't at all sure it was something he really wanted to face first thing in the morning. But his ration-bar stock was being steadily depleted, and he wanted to save at least a couple of days' worth for whatever escape attempt he wound up making. And after all, the Peacekeeper recruiter had promised him new and exotic experiences.

Figuring out the utensil they'd supplied with the meal was the first challenge. The main part was shaped basically like a half-melted spoon, but it had a spring-loaded textured stick attached at the back end that worked against the edge of the spoon bowl like something midway between tongs and chopsticks. Probably a breeze to use with that extra opposing thumb of theirs, Pheylan decided, but his human hands couldn't seem to get the hang of it. The whole thing was made of a soft, rubbery material, and eventually he just gave up on the chopstick attachment and bent it back out of his way.

The aliens' first attempt at a home-cooked human meal was, not surprisingly, a decidedly mixed achievement. Only one of the six food lumps tasted genuinely good, the rest ranging from so-so to nearly tasteless to a near-perfect reenactment of the time he'd misread the heat setting on the oven and turned his mother's roast into charcoal. He ate all of them, though, except the last, starting with the best-tasting and working his way down the scale. It would be interesting to see if his observers took note of the order and adjusted the menu accordingly for his next meal. He rather thought they would.

His three interrogators arrived near the end of the meal, and this time he spotted the unobtrusive door they came in by. It was sandwiched between two consoles, one of which blocked any view of what lay beyond. A prep room, maybe, with no guarantee of another exit from it. Still, something to keep in mind.

"Greeting, Cavv-ana," Svv-selic said as Pheylan laid the tray aside. "You well?"

"Reasonably well," Pheylan said, dropping the tong-spoon on the tray and taking a last sip of water. Svv-selic's proficiency with English seemed to be improving, though perhaps not as quickly as Pheylan would have expected of someone equipped with the aliens' version of Mindlink connections. Either they were having trouble deciphering the data in Commodore Dyami's computer, or else their translators weren't as sophisticated as the equivalent Peacekeeper programs. He hoped it was the latter; it would be nice if humanity was ahead of them in at least one area. "And you?"

"We well." Svv-selic motioned, and the shortest of the three—Thrr-gilag, if Pheylan remembered right—stepped forward with what looked like a folded jumpsuit under his arm. He opened the dog flap and stuffed it into the cell. Pheylan watched the operation closely, counting off the seconds and trying to gauge whether or not he would have time to leap forward and grab a wrist before the alien could withdraw it. It would be barely possible, he decided, though how useful it would be he wasn't sure.

"You wear this," Svv-selic said as Thrr-gilag closed the dog flap again.

Pheylan stepped forward and picked it up. It was a jumpsuit, all right, made of the same material as the one he was wearing but with a stiffened and slightly thickened ring around the upper arms, forearms, midthighs, and ankles. There were also rings around the chest and waist, their placements corresponding to that of the arm rings. Scattered across the suit, on the chest, back, and arms, were a number of small glassy disks embedded in the material. "What's this?" he asked.

"Wear," Svv-selic said. "We go outside."

Pheylan frowned at him. "Outside?" he repeated. "As in, outside this room?"

The other seemed to consider, or maybe was waiting for the translation to catch up. "You need outside. We go."

"Yes, sir," Pheylan muttered, stripping off his clothes and climbing into the new jumpsuit. The thicker rings weren't particularly heavy and didn't seem to constrict his movements any. "All right," he said, patting the fastening strip closed. "I'm ready."

"You not leave we," Svv-selic warned as Thrr-gilag stepped to the door and opened it. "Do, punish."

"I understand," Pheylan agreed. That must be what the rings were for: some mechanism for keeping him in line. Under the circumstances, certainly a reasonable precaution.

Unfortunately, he couldn't just leave it at that. At some point along the way he was going to have to find out what exactly the mechanism consisted of. He hoped it wouldn't hurt too much.

The third interrogator, Nzz-oonaz, stayed well back as Svv-selic and Thrr-gilag moved into step on either side of him. That made Nzz-oonaz the backup, which implied that he was the one with the obedience-suit trigger. The one to be watching, then, when Pheylan made his break.

They moved across the room to the door. Svv-selic did something to one of the consoles flanking it, and the door swung open; and for the first time since his arrival nearly a week ago Pheylan stepped outside.

The weather was much as it had been the day he landed: blue skies and white clouds, a cool but not uncomfortable temperature, light breezes. At the far end of the landing area sat a small ship about the size of a Peacekeeper courier, with a handful of the aliens working busily around it. The second complex he'd seen under construction at that end of the landing area was coming along nicely, and two more of the low weapons-style domes had joined the first.

And in the center of the triangle formed by the three domes was something else that hadn't been there before. A small pyramid shape sparkled in the sunlight, perhaps three meters high, brilliant white but with dozens of dark spots scattered irregularly across the top two meters of its surface.

"Good?"

Pheylan looked at Svv-selic, trying to decipher the other's economical use of the language. Then he got it: he'd told them humans needed sunlight to survive. "It's helping," he nodded, opening the neck of his jumpsuit a few centimeters and turning his face to the sun. "Though it's going to take a while, dressed like this. Not much exposed skin area. It would go a lot faster if I could take off this suit."