Cobra Strike

Chapter 26

Stiggur was neither impressed nor convinced by Jonny's arguments. Neither, very obviously, were most of the others.

"A telepathic bird," Vartanson snorted. "Come on, now-don't you think you're reaching just a little too far for this one?"

Jonny kept his temper with an effort. "What about the design of the cities?" he asked.

"What about it?" Vartanson shot back. "There are any of a hundred explanations for that. Maybe the mojos get sick if they don't breed regularly and the city dwellers don't want to take trips into the woods for the purpose. Maybe they can't wall out the bololin herds and this was the best compromise available."

"Then why build cities?" Jonny said. "They like being decentralized-why not just stick with villages?"

"Because there are social and economic advantages to a certain amount of population concentration," Fairleigh spoke up. "Masking any trace of their underground industry would be a good reason all by itself."

"And before you bring up the Tactan spookies," Roi said, "your correlation between those and the mojos is tentative at best-and the conclusions you come to about the spookies is ridiculous. I'm sorry, but it is."

"That's a rather blanket assessment for someone who doesn't know a thing about biology," Jonny told him tartly.

"Oh, is it? Well, perhaps we ought to ask our resident biologist, then." Roi turned to Telek. "Lizabet, what do you think?"

Telek favored him with a cool look, which she sent slowly around the table. "I think," she said at last, "that we'd damn well better find out for sure. And that we'd better do it fast."

There was a stunned silence. Jonny stared at Telek, her unexpected support throwing his brain off-line. "You agree the mojos are influencing the Qasamans' actions?" he asked.

"I agree they're more than they seem," she said. "How much more is what we've got to find out."

Stiggur cleared his throat. "Lizabet... I understand that your professional interests here are naturally directed more toward the mojos than the Qasaman technological base. But-"

"Then let me put it another way," Telek interrupted him. "I've known about

Jonny's theory since yesterday-never mind how-and I've used that time to do a couple of new studies on the visual record the team brought back." She looked at

Roi. "Olor, I would say that the Palatinian glow-nose is probably the most popular pet anywhere in the Worlds-you agree? Good. How many people on Palatine own one?"

Roi blinked. "I don't know, off hand. Eighty percent, I'd guess."

"I looked up the numbers," Telek said. "Assuming only one per customer the figure is actually under sixty percent. If you include all other pets the number of owners is still only about eighty-seven percent."

"What's your point?" Stiggur asked.

Telek focused on him. "Thirteen percent of an admittedly pet-crazy people don't own pets. But every single damn Qasaman has a mojo."

Jonny frowned into the thoughtful silence, trying to visualize the scenes he'd seen from the records. It was possible, he decided with some surprise. "No exceptions?" he asked Telek.

"Only three the computer scan came up with, and two don't really count: children under ten or so, and dancers and duelists. The duelists get their birds back after their curse ball game, though, and I suspect the dancers have them waiting backstage, too. At which point we're back to one hundred percent of the adult population with mojos. The floor is open for speculation."

"They're living in a dangerous environment," Vartanson shrugged.

"Not really," Telek shook her head. "The villages ought to be safe enough, with the walls and the scarcity of the krisjaw predators that were mentioned. And with the bololin alarms even Sollas and the other cities aren't all that hazardous any more. The big 'danger' argument strikes me as a convenient but flimsy rationale."

"What about all their fellow humans running around with guns?" Roi snorted.

"Yes, what about that?" Jonny put in. Across the table Hemner muttered something and began fiddling with his display. Jonny waited a second, but he didn't say anything, so Jonny turned to Vartanson. "Howie, do you allow your people to carry their weapons inside the fortified compounds?"

Vartanson shook his head slowly. "The Cobras are armed, of course, but all hand weapons are checked inside the inner doors."

"The Qasamans have grown up with a tradition of carrying their guns, though,"

Fairleigh argued. "You couldn't get them to just give them up overnight."

"Why not?" Telek asked. "They've also got a tradition of not attacking each other, remember."

"Besides which," Hemner added without looking up, "banning in-city weapons has been done successfully in dozens of places in the Dominion."

"The Qasamans wouldn't put up with that, in my opinion," Roi shook his head.

"Let's get back to the point, shall we?" Telek said. "The question is why the

Qasamans are still bothering to carry these birds around with them when it's not necessary to do so."

"But we've answered that question," Stiggur said with a sigh. "As long as anyone carries a gun and a mojo, everyone has to do so. Otherwise they won't feel safe."

"The cultural conditioning-"

"Will be adequate for most of them," Stiggur said. "But not for all. And if I were a Qasaman, I'd want protection against even that small group of dangerous people."

Telek grimaced, clearly hunting for a new approach. "Brom-"

"All right, we've talked long enough," Hemner said firmly. "We're going to vote on Lizabet's proposal. Now."

All eyes shifted to the frail old man. "Jor, you're out of order," Stiggur said quietly. "I know emotions are running high on all this-"

"You do, do you?" Hemner smiled thinly. His hands, Jonny noted with a vague twinge of uneasiness, had left their usual place on top of the table and were hidden from view in his lap. "And you prefer words to actions, I suppose. It's so much easier to manipulate people's emotions. Well, the time has come for action. We're going to vote, and we're going to pass Lizabet's mojo study. Or else."

"Or else what?" Stiggur snapped, irritation finally breaking through.

"Or else the nay votes will be eliminated," Hemner said harshly. "Beginning with him."

And his right hand came up over the edge of the table, the small flat handgun clutched in it swiveling to point at Roi.

Someone gasped in shock... but even before the pistol had steadied on its target, Jonny was in motion. Both fingertip lasers spat fire, one into the pistol, the other tracing a line directly in front of Hemner's eyes. The old man jerked back with a cry as the heat and light reached his hand and face, the pistol swinging away from the others. Gripping the table edge with both hands,

Jonny kicked back and up with his feet, sending his chair spinning across the room and flipping his body to slam onto his back on the table. His legs caught

Hemner's arm full force, eliciting a second yelp from the other and sending the gun sailing into the far wall.

"Get the gun!" Jonny snapped through the agony the sudden violence had ignited in his arthritic joints. He swung up to a sitting position, grabbed both of

Hemner's wrists. "Jor, what the hell was that supposed to accomplish?"

"Just proving a point," Hemner said calmly, the harshness of a minute earlier gone without a trace. "My wrists-easy-"

"You were what?"

"I'll be damned." The voice was Roi's and Jonny turned to look.

Roi was standing by the far wall, holding Hemner's "gun."

Which was nothing more than a pen and an intricately folded magcard.

Jonny looked down at Hemner. "Jor... what's going on?"

"As I said, I was proving a point," the other said. "Uh-if you wouldn't mind...?"

Releasing his grip, Jonny climbed carefully off the table and walked around back to his seat. Roi sat down, too, and Stiggur cleared his throat. "This had better be good," he warned Hemner.

The other nodded. "Olor, were you armed just now when I pretended to pull a weapon on you?" he asked.

"Of course not," Roi snorted.

"Yet even with a real gun I wouldn't have been able to shoot you. True? Why not?"

"Because Jonny was here and he's faster than you are."

Hemner nodded and turned to Stiggur. "Security, Brom. You don't need everyone carrying mojos for your citizens to be protected. The mojos attack anyone drawing a gun, whether their own masters are specifically threatened or not." He waved at his display. "The records of the bus attack on York clearly show that-I've just checked. Even if everyone wants to carry a gun, you still don't need that many mojos. Twenty percent, or even less, combined with the cultural bias against fighting would be more than adequate."

"Assuming they're that peaceful without that taloned reminder on their shoulders," Fairleigh growled. "Maybe they're more violent without mojos nearby."

Vartanson laughed abruptly. "Dylan, did you hear what you just said? Almost exactly what Jonny's been suggesting." He nodded at Jonny. "All right; I'm convinced the mojos need more study. But we need to learn about the Qasaman technological base, too, and I'm not sure which is more important."

"Then let's do both," Telek spoke up. Reaching to the stack of magdisks in front of her, she selected one and slid it into her reader. "This is a complete tactical plan that was submitted to my office yesterday via Almo Pyre. I'd like us all to read it through and seriously consider it as a basis for the next mission to Qasama, Brom?"

"Any comments or objections?" Stiggur asked, his eyes sweeping the table. "All right, then. Let's take a look."

Telek sent the report to the other displays and they all settled down to read.

Jonny felt memories of his own tactical training rising to the surface as he studied the plan... memories, and a growing respect for Pyre's work. Granted that there were some military manuals and histories in the computer library, it still took a great deal of raw talent to put together a scheme this comprehensive, especially with only the limited training the First Cobras had been able to give Pyre and his team.

It wasn't until he reached the end that he found the author's name... and he stared at it for nearly a minute before he finally could believe it.

Justin Moreau.

The wait in Telek's office had stretched into nearly two hours, but Pyre had been almost too busy to notice. Justin's plan was highly detailed, but the boy naturally had not done any actual personnel assignments, a task that would fall to Coordinator Sun and the Cobra upper echelon if the plan was accepted. Nothing said Pyre couldn't submit his own roster for their approval, though. He'd finished the main group and was working on the first of the three outrider teams when Telek returned.

"Well?" he asked as she closed the door and sank into her desk chair.

"They bought it," she said with tired satisfaction. "Brom wants to submit it to a review board of First Cobras, but I doubt they'll change it too much. You still hold with two weeks to equip and train the task force?"

Pyre nodded. "All they'll need is the multiple-targeting enhancers and some tactical training. For a change, all the experience we've logged hunting down spine leopards is going to do some of us some good."

"Um. You... ah... plan to be out in the forest, then?"

"I had, yes. Unless you wanted me on the village force."

Telek pursed her lips. "Might be better for you to stay aboard the ship, actually. To coordinate things."

"Oh?" Pyre eyed her. "You'd rather I not be down on Qasama?"

"I'd rather you not risk your life, if you must know," she said grudgingly.

"You've done your bit."

"Ah. You feel the same way about Justin, Michael, and Dorjay? Or is it different because you specifically asked that I be aboard the Dewdrop the last time around?"

Her lip curled. "So you did know. I'd hoped I'd hid my tracks a bit better than that."

"I have friends among the elite, too. Which is why I was surprised you'd requested me."

Telek exhaled loudly. "Well, it wasn't because you were a good friend of the

Moreaus," she said. "Though that was why I asked you and Halloran for the initial cost study. But for the trip itself...." She paused, eyes drifting to the window and the Capitalia cityscape beyond. "It bothered me all the way from the beginning why the Baliu demesne should think Cobras would have a better shot at the Qasamans then they did."

"They already knew the mojos attack drawn weapons," Pyre suggested.

"True. And there was the whole question of whether this was a test. But it occurred to me that there was one other possibility."

Pyre frowned in thought... and suddenly it hit him. "You think they knew we were the same species as the Qasamans?"

"I think it highly probable," Telek nodded. "Cobras would have an advantage in a war against other humans. And being the connivers they are, of course, they wouldn't want us to know who we were facing until we'd committed to some course of action."

"Yeah," Pyre said slowly. "We nearly got killed on Qasama and we're still barely holding our own with public opinion. Imagine the furor if we'd known in advance we were being asked to exterminate another human society." He cocked an eyebrow at her. "That doesn't explain my presence aboard, though."

She took a deep breath. "I didn't like the fact that I might be called upon to betray another human colony out there. You were there to make sure I kept my priorities straight. Did you know, Almo, that I was married once?"

He shook his head, taking the abrupt subject change in stride. "Divorced?"

"Widowed. Since before I became a governor. He was a Cobra... and he died on

Caelian."

She paused, memories flicking visibly across her face. Pyre waited, sensing what would come next. "You remind me a great deal of him," she continued at last. "In appearance; even more in spirit. I wanted you there as a constant reminder that we need a new world for the Caelians to move to."

"Even if that world is bought with the Qasamans' lives?" he snarled.

The words came out harsher than he'd intended them to, but Telek never flinched.

"Yes," she said quietly. "Even then. My duty is to the Cobra Worlds, first and foremost... and it's going to stay that way."

Pyre looked at her, a sudden chill sending a shiver up his back. All the time together on the Dewdrop... and he hadn't really known her at all.

"I'm sorry if that makes you hate me," she said after a moment. "But in my opinion I had no choice."

He nodded, though to which part of her statement he wasn't sure. "If you'll excuse me," he said, hearing the stiffness in his voice, "I need to get back to work. I have a roster to complete for the team I'll be taking to Qasama."

She nodded. "All right. I'll talk to you later."

He turned and left... and wondered that he didn't hate her for her ruthlessness.

The Cobra board took Justin's plan apart, examined it, debated it, and-in places-changed it; and then they put it together again and pronounced it sound.

The forty-eight Cobras and fourteen scientists who would be landing on Qasama were chosen and trained. The Baliu demesne expressed their displeasure at funding a second mission on what still amounted to speculation, but well before the training period was over Jonny and Stiggur were able to change the aliens' minds.

And less than a month after the Dewdrop had returned from Qasama, both it and the Menssana lifted quietly from the Capitalia starport and headed back.