Timothy Zahn - Conquerors' Heritage

"A great cheer for progress," Thrr-gilag growled. "Unfortunately, that's not going to help us a bit. Prr't-zevisti's fsss wasn't treated with modern preservatives, remember?"

Klnn-dawan-a winced. "You're right."

"And that means cold-knives and a compressed argon atmosphere and all the rest of it," Thrr-gilag went on. "And something to seal the cut end before everything leaks out, and a healer qualified to do that sort of work. Not to mention the whole trick of sneaking a fsss out of its niche and then sneaking it back in afterward."

"I didn't say it would be easy," Klnn-dawan-a snapped, glaring at him. "I just said it was our only chance."

Thrr-gilag glared back. But she was right. Except that it was Prr't-zevisti's only chance.

Prr't-casst-a reappeared. " 'I think I understand—' " She paused. "Are you all right?" she asked, looking back and forth between Thrr-gilag and Klnn-dawan-a.

Thrr-gilag sighed. "Sure," he said, laying a hand on Klnn-dawan-a's shoulder. "Just a little difference of opinion. What did Thrr-mezaz say?"

"Right. 'I think I understand what you're saying. Good luck, and keep me informed. Farewell.' "

"Farewell, Thrr-mezaz," Thrr-gilag murmured, an odd sensation tingling at the base of his tongue. That last message from Thrr-mezaz had sounded suspiciously rushed. Could there be some trouble with the Humans?

Prr't-casst-a was still waiting. "Go ahead and release the pathway," Thrr-gilag instructed her. "Remind them we may be needing them again later."

She nodded and vanished, returning a few beats later. "They've all agreed to stand ready. What now?"

"We need ideas," he told her. "Let's go off and think, and plan to meet back here in, say, three tentharcs. Or as close to here as we can manage," he added, glancing at the encroaching waves again. "Oh, we'll also need to know where exactly Prr't-zevisti's niche is. Can you get the number for us?"

"He's right beside me," Prr't-casst-a said, bittersweet memories crossing her face. "We were moved to adjoining niches after we were bonded."

A different system from the one the Kee'rr used. "Good," he said. "That will help. All right, then. Three tentharcs from now."

"Yes," Prr't-casst-a said. "Again, I thank you. Both of you."

"Sure," Thrr-gilag said. "Go on, get going."

"So what are we going to do?" Klnn-dawan-a asked as they picked their way carefully between the waves and left the cave.

"I see it," Thrr-mezaz nodded, peering closely at the monitor. As always with direct laser links, the image was a little fuzzy. But it was clear enough to see that the spacecraft slowly drifting toward Dorcas was not of Human-Conqueror design. "What do they make of it?"

"It'll have to get a little closer before they know for sure," the warrior said. "But their preliminary analysis indicates that it's very much like the design of the spacecraft the Cakk'rr captured at Cataloged World Five Ninety-two."

Thrr-mezaz grimaced. "A Mrachani spacecraft."

"Or at least Mrachani designed," the warrior nodded.

There was a sound behind Thrr-mezaz, and he turned as Klnn-vavgi stepped up beside him. "Anything happening out there, Second?" he asked.

"No, so far everything's quiet," Klnn-vavgi reported. "All perimeter warrior teams are on alert, and I've got all the Elders out at their full anchorline limits watching for trouble."

For all the good that would do. Elder eyesight wasn't all that terrific in broad sunlight; at latearc it was even less so. "And there's nothing stirring at the Human-Conqueror stronghold?"

"Nothing we can spot." Klnn-vavgi gestured to the image on the monitor. "You think our visitor might not be expected?"

"I don't know," Thrr-mezaz said. "To be honest, none of this Mrachani business makes any sense to me."

Klnn-vavgi shrugged. "I don't think it's all that hard to understand. The Mrachanis are a subject race under Human-Conqueror domination, and they want us to help them."

"Yes, that's what they say," Thrr-mezaz agreed. "Question is, is that really what they're about? Look at the chronology a hunbeat. We've got our first sighting of a Mrachani spacecraft about half a cyclic ago by a Cakk'rr survey ship that was poking around Cataloged World Five Ninety-two. They went back there about fifteen fullarcs after that first brush with the Human-Conquerors and found another spacecraft, which promptly opened fire on them with Elderdeath weapons."

"And was just as promptly shot back at," Klnn-vavgi said. "Injuring the crew and requiring some patchwork to make it flyable again."

"Allegedly injuring the crew," Thrr-mezaz reminded him. "Last I heard, the Overclan healers still weren't sure it was the Cakk'rr counterattack that injured them. But here's where it gets interesting. The Cakk'rr put a couple of warriors aboard the Mrachani spacecraft and were escorting it to Base World Twelve when they got a scream for help from the Elders on Study World Eighteen. The warships diverted that direction, leaving the Mrachani spacecraft to go on alone, and got to Study World Eighteen just in time to chase some Human-Conqueror warcraft away."

He touched his thumbs together for emphasis. "Which meant the Mrachani spacecraft was all alone when it reached Base World Twelve. Which means that if Thrr-gilag's Human-Conqueror prisoner had succeeded in getting it off the ground, there would have been no Zhirrzh warships anywhere nearby that could have stopped him."

"Interesting," Klnn-vavgi murmured. "Come to think of it, it occurs to me that those Copperhead warriors didn't show up until the prisoner had failed to lift the spacecraft. Almost as if they knew he'd failed."

"Right," Thrr-mezaz nodded. "And the fact that they were there at all either means they were flooding the whole region with warriors looking for him—in which case we should be seeing a lot more Human-Conqueror warcraft than we have so far—or else they knew exactly where to look. Put it all together, and it starts sounding suspiciously like a coordinated effort."

"Could be," Klnn-vavgi said. "That would mean the Mrachanis would have had to transmit the Base World Twelve vector to the humans before they left Cataloged World Five Ninety-two. And transmitted it in some way the Cakk'rr couldn't detect."

"An X-ray laser, perhaps," Thrr-mezaz said. "Or something simpler: a visual flash-code at an angle where the Cakk'rr warships and Elders couldn't see it."

"There's one other possibility," Klnn-vavgi said slowly. "It could be that the Human-Conquerors have managed to crack the age-old problem of tracking spacecraft in the tunnel-line."

Thrr-mezaz looked at the image on the monitor, an eerie tingling running through him. Thrr-gilag had half-jokingly suggested the same thing, just after the attack on Base World 12. The concept was impossible, and provably so, and he'd said so at the time.

But the Human-Conquerors had already demonstrated that their technology was different from that of the Zhirrzh. If they had found a way to do the impossible...

"Commander?" one of the warriors called. "Message from Supreme Ship Commander Dkll-kumvit. He requests your presence immediately aboard the Imperative for a full-force commanders' meeting. A transport will pick you up in fifteen hunbeats."

"Acknowledge the order," Thrr-mezaz told him, the eerie feeling growing stronger. Something was up with this, all right. "Better get a couple of Stingbirds in the air, Second."

"Right," Klnn-vavgi said, gesturing the order to the warrior at the appropriate monitor.

"And keep a sharp watch on the mountain," Thrr-mezaz added quietly. "If the Mrachanis and Human-Conquerors are working together, this might be a good time for them to attack."

"The device they dropped is still drifting slowly toward us," the commander of the Requisite said, jabbing his tongue at one of the monitors in the Imperative's strategy room. "Still apparently attached to the Mrachani spacecraft itself via a long cable. The searchers and Elders on the scene report that it appears to be a slightly different version of the recorder device found in the wreckage of the Human-Conqueror warcraft after that first battle. The message visible on the monitor is in the Human-Conqueror language. We've set up a direct-link back to the Requisites interpreter and should have something shortly."