Timothy Zahn - Manta's Gift

"The question is who are you?" the Protector countered, still not raising his eyes. "You, Manta, child of the humans."

So that was it. Someone had recognized him, or else they'd heard Drusni call him by name.

And he was in for it now.

"I am indeed a child of the humans," Manta said, keeping his voice low. "But my childhood is over.

Now, I'm a Breeder of the Qanska."

"Are you?" the Protector retorted. "Does a Breeder of the Qanska help the humans capture our children?"

"The humans had me under their control," Manta told him. "They made me try to stop you from freeing the children. But that's over now."

"Perhaps," the Protector said darkly. "Or perhaps they have let you go merely so that they can use you to another purpose."

"A purpose that involved letting me ruin their plan?" Manta asked, flipping his tails pointedly at the dark shape and huge engines above them. "This device cost them a great deal of time and effort to construct; and as you may have noticed, I was the one who lured the Vuuka who are busily destroying it. There's no reason they wouldn't have stopped me from doing that if they still had the power to do so."

"Perhaps there was no reason," the Protector said. "Perhaps it was simply the random whistling of the wind. Or are humans not subject to the winds?"

"Trust me, they would have," Manta assured him. "Humans have a reason for everything they do."

"Do they really?" the Protector demanded. "And what was their reason for you to shatter the honor and life of a bonded female by mating with her?"

In the past few ninepulses Manta had almost managed to forget about that. Now, it came rushing back like the edge of a twistwind. "It wasn't like that," he said through suddenly aching throats. "It was... I can't completely explain what happened."

For a long moment the Protector remained silent. "You don't need to discuss it with me," he said at last. "I'd rather you not, in fact. But be assured, you will discuss it soon. You've committed a crime of violence and disgrace, and the Counselors and the Leaders and the Wise will be required to pass judgment."

"Yes," Manta said quietly. "I understand."

"But until then—" the Protector flipped his tails "—it's time for action."

Manta looked. The group of Protectors who'd been standing by to the side weren't standing by anymore. They were in full charge, driving their way toward the Vuuka at the cage.

"The opening must be large enough," the other Protector said, rippling himself into motion. "Wait here. We'll drive off the Vuuka."

"I'm coming with you," Manta said, pushing off the wind into his wake.

"No," the Protector snapped, half turning around. "You're a Breeder, and you've violated the law enough times today already. Now wait here."

Manta sighed and let his fins come to a halt. "Very well," he said quietly. "I obey."

"Damn it all," Liadof ground out between her teeth, her thin hands balled into thin fists in her frustration. "They're getting away. Boschwitz, they're getting away."

"I'm sorry, Arbiter," Boschwitz's voice came back, the words edged with his own frustration. "I can't get this damn thing to clear. The error messages keep shifting back and forth, like we've got two or three separate faults, all of them intermittent."

Liadof spat out a set of jawbreaker syllables; some blistering Russian curse, no doubt. Not that Faraday could really blame her. With their attention fixed on the cage, the Vuuka had been caught completely by surprise by the massed Qanskan charge. Even worse, at least from the Arbiter's point of view, chewing on the hard metal that way had apparently been exhausting to even Vuukan jaw muscles. Disorganized and too tired to fight back, the predators had quickly scattered before the attack.

The three Breeders inside the cage had been ready. Even as the last two Vuuka were being butted away by the Protectors, the first of the Qanskan children had been sent swimming out through the hole, his fins flapping with nervous haste as he passed bare meters away from one of his deadliest enemies. A Protector had intercepted him and ushered him away to safety, clearing the path for the next child in line to make her break for freedom.

The last of the children were out of the cage now, and the first Breeder had begun the more cautious maneuvering necessary to ease her larger bulk through the hole.

And Faraday could finally breathe a silent sigh of relief. Liadof's scheme had seriously damaged relations with the Qanska, and it was going to take some fancy talk and footwork on someone's part to heal that breach.

But not nearly as much as it would have taken if that same someone had had to do all his talking while a group of Qanska were being held hostage somewhere in the wilds of the Jovian atmosphere.

And all because the normally perverse demon of equipment glitches had chosen for once to smile on them. A simple interlock fault, plus a lot of ingenuity on Raimey's part, and Liadof was going to have to back out with her tail between her legs. For want of a nail, the old line echoed through his mind—

"Mr. Milligan," Liadof said suddenly. "What are those red lights on your board?"

"Excuse me?" Milligan said, frowning down at his board.

"Lift your hands," Liadof ordered, taking a step toward him. "Keep them away from the controls."

"I don't understand," Milligan said, his hands reluctantly coming up.

"I think you do," Liadof said icily, bending over for a closer look. "Mr. Boschwitz, what does

'proximity sensor lockdown' mean?"

"What?" Boschwitz asked. "Where?"

"All over Mr. Milligan's board," Liadof said. "What does it mean?"

Boschwitz hissed into the speaker. "It means we've found the problem," he said darkly. "One of the standard safety interlocks is that if a proximity sensor shows you up against something solid, you can't move that direction without an override. By overloading the whole batch of them, he's tweaked it so that they're all showing something solid. You can't go anywhere; ergo, the engines shut down to standby."

"Why didn't you override it?"

"Because the glitch kept changing," Boschwitz growled. "He must have been alternating between different sensor-group overloads to keep me from ever catching up with the right one. Keep his hands away from his board and I can get Omega moving."

Liadof looked up at the display. "It's too late," she said, her voice ominously quiet. "Go ahead and do the overrides and bring Omega back up to reel-in position. No hurry."

"Yes, Arbiter."

Liadof gazed down at Milligan. "Mr. Milligan. Do you have anything to say?"

Milligan folded his arms across his chest. "Not really."

She nodded as if that was the answer she'd been expecting. Shifting her gaze to the doorway, she hooked a finger in invitation to the remaining Sanctum cop. "Escort Mr. Milligan to the brig. And while you're at it, you can take Colonel Faraday back to his quarters. The show's over."

She looked at Faraday. "For now," she added.

Silently, Milligan stood up and walked toward the approaching guard. For a moment Liadof watched him go, her eyes betraying nothing of what was going on inside her. The cop reached Milligan and began to cuff him; and as he did so, Liadof turned around to face the sole remaining tech seated at the curved control board. "Or shall we go ahead and make it a clean sweep, Mr. Beach?" she invited.

Beach's lips compressing briefly. "I'd rather not, Arbiter," he said firmly. "I like my job. I'll stay."

She studied his profile briefly, then nodded. "Very well, Mr. Beach. Carry on."

She turned back to Faraday. "This isn't over yet, Colonel. But we'll speak about that later."

"I'm sure we will," Faraday said, standing up calmly as the Sanctum cop motioned him to his feet.