Timothy Zahn - Cobra Bargain

It pleased him to see that that knowledge was completely new to her. "Well, that's relief. In that case it should only take us a couple of hours to get to the shuttle."

"Good," he nodded. "And maybe to pass the time you could explain to me just why your world declared war on ours."

Watching her out of the corner of his eye, he saw her grimace. "We didn't declare war on you," she said quietly. "We were told by others that Qasama was a potential threat. We came to see if that was true."

"What threat?" he scoffed. "A world without even primitive spaceflight capability? How could we possibly be a threat to a world light-years away?-especially one protected by demon warriors?"

She was silent for a moment. "You won't remember it, Daulo, but for much of

Qasama's history all of you lived together in a state of extreme noncompetition."

"I know that," he growled. "We aren't ignorant savages who don't keep records, you know."

She actually blushed. "I know. Sorry. Anyway, it seemed odd to us that a human society could be so-well, so cooperative. We tried to find a reason-"

"And while you were looking you became jealous?" Daulo bit out. "Is that it? You envied us the society we'd created, and so you sent these razorarm killing machines in to kill and destroy-"

"Did you know that mojos can control the actions of their owners?"

He stopped in mid-sentence. "What?"

She sighed. "They effect the way their owners think. Cause them to make decisions that benefit the mojo first and the owner only second."

Daulo opened his mouth, closed it again. "That's absurd," he said at last.

"They're bodyguards, that's all."

"Really? Does your father have a mojo? I never saw him with one."

"No-"

"How about the head of the Yithtra family? Or any of the major leaders of Milika or Azras."

"Cities like Azras have hardly any mojos at all," he said mechanically, brain spinning. No; it had to be a lie. A lie spun by Aventine's rulers to justify what they'd done to Qasama.

And yet... he had to admit that he had always sensed a difference in the few mojo owners he knew well. A sort of... placidity, perhaps. "It doesn't make sense, though," he said at last.

"Sure it does," she said. "Out in the wild mojos pair up with krisjaws for hunting purposes-hunting and, for the mojos, access to embryo hosts."

"Yes, I know about the native reproduction cycle," Daulo said hastily, obscurely embarrassed at discussing such things with a woman. "That's why cities were designed to let bololin herds charge on through, so that the mojos there could get to the tarbines riding the bololins."

"Right," she nodded. "You could have walled the cities like you did the villages, you know, and kept the bololins out completely. It would have saved a lot of grief all around... except that it was in the mojo's best interest to keep the bololins nearby, so that's how you built them. And because they didn't want to risk their own feathers with any more bodyguarding than they could get away with, they made sure you cooperated with each other in every facet of life."

"And so we had no warfare, and no village-city rivalry," Daulo growled. He understood, now... and the cold-bloodedness of Aventine's scheme turned his stomach. "So you decided to interfere... and with krisjaws all but gone from the

Great Arc, you had to give the mojos somewhere else to go. So you gave them razorarms."

"Daulo-"

"Have you seen enough of what Qasama has become since then?" he cut her off harshly. "Okay, fine-so perhaps we used to bend our own lives a little to accommodate other creatures. Was that too high a price to pay for peace?"

"Was it?" she countered softly.

The obvious answer came to his lips... and faded away unsaid. If what she said was the truth, had it really been worth the price? "I don't know," he said at last.

"Neither do I," she whispered.

They made the trip in just under two hours... and for Jin, the whole thing was in sharp contrast with the ordeal a week earlier.

There was no way to tell, of course, how much of the difference was due to the abatement of the bololin coattail effect Daulo had described and how much was due to her own recovery. Certainly there was less fighting; only one other predator besides the krisjaw tried its luck with them, compared with the half-dozen single and multiple attacks she'd had to fight off on her last trip through. On the other hand, with her alertness and concentration again at full capability, it could have been simply that she was spotting potential trouble early enough for evasive methods to be effective.

Ultimately, though, the real reason didn't matter. She'd brought both herself and an untrained civilian safely through some of the most dangerous territory

Qasama had to offer... and it brought a welcome measure of self-confidence back to her bruised ego.

"Here we are," she said, gesturing to the battered hulk of the shuttle as they finally cleared the edge of the interweaving-fern patch and stepped out from the trees into view of the crash site.

Daulo muttered something under his breath, gazing first at the shuttle and then at the long death-scar it had torn into the landscape. "I was never truly sure..." His voice trailed off into silence, and he shook his head. "And you survived this?"

"I was lucky," she said quietly.

"God was with you," he corrected. He took a deep breath. "Forgive me for doubting your story. Your companions...?"

Jin gritted her teeth. "Inside. This way."

The hatch door was as she'd left it, stuck a couple of centimeters open, and she had to put one foot against the hull to get the necessary leverage to pull it open. At least, she thought grimly, that means none of the larger scavengers have gotten to them. Grateful for small favors, I suppose. Taking one last clean breath, she braced herself and stepped inside.

The smell wasn't quite as bad as she'd feared it would be. The bodies themselves looked perhaps a bit worse.

"The door wouldn't have kept out insects," Daulo commented from right behind her. His voice sounded only slightly less strained than she felt, and it was clear he was breathing through his mouth. "Are there any shovels on board?"

"There's supposed to be at least one. Let's try back here."

They found it almost at once, in with the emergency shelter equipment. It was sturdy but small, clearly designed for only minor entrenchment work. But Jin had had no intention of digging very deeply anyway, and the extra strength her Cobra servos provided more than made up for the awkwardness of the short handle. Half an hour later, the five graves near the edge of the crash site were ready.

Daulo was waiting for her near the shuttle, and she found that while she'd been digging he'd improvised a stretcher from some piping and seat cushions and had hacked loose five of the expended crashbags to use as body bags. They might as well be useful for something, she thought bitterly at the thick plastic as she and Daulo worked the bodies into them. They sure didn't do much good while we were all alive.

And a few minutes later she and Daulo stood side by side in front of the graves.

"I... don't really know a proper burial service," Jin confessed, partly to

Daulo, partly to the bodies in their graves before her. "But if its purpose is to remember and mourn... that much I can do."

She didn't remember afterward just what she said or how long she spoke; only that her cheeks were wet when she was finished. A quiet goodbye to each in turn; and she was picking up the shovel when Daulo touched her arm. "They were your friends, not mine," he said in a quiet voice. "But if you will permit me...?"

She nodded, and he took a step forward. "In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful..."