Cobra Strike

Chapter 23

The Menssana had returned from its survey mission to Aventine to the sort of welcome explorers throughout the ages must have received. Its personnel were received with an official vote of congratulations by the Council, its magdisks of data copied and disseminated to hundreds of eager scientists around the planet.

The Dewdrop's reception, two days later, was considerably more subdued.

The last page of Telek's preliminary report vanished from the comboard screen, and Corwin put the instrument aside with a sigh.

"Reaction?"

Corwin looked up to meet his father's eyes. "They were lucky," he said bluntly.

"They should all have been killed out there."

Jonny nodded. "Yes. The Qasamans' only error was that they wanted as much information as they could get before destroying the mission. If they hadn't cared they could have blown up the Dewdrop any of a dozen different times."

Corwin grimaced. York's arm gone, Winward's eyes only slowly coming back,

Cerenkov and Rynstadt still in critical condition aboard an orbiting Troft ship-and with all of that, he could still consider the mission lucky. "What in heaven's name have we gotten ourselves into?" he muttered.

"A real mess." Jonny sighed. "How long before Sun and company finish with their debriefing? Any idea?"

"Uh..." Corwin retrieved his comboard, punched up a request. "Not before this evening. And they're not releasing anyone to the public until morning."

"That's okay; we're not public." The elder Moreau stared into space a moment. "I want you to call your mother and arrange with her to go to the Cobra Academy tonight-use my name to get in, and if they give you any interference quote 'em some next-of-kin prerogatives-I'm sure you can find something applicable on the books. Don't talk politics with your brothers, and don't keep them up too late; life'll get hectic again for them when the Council gets its turn tomorrow."

Corwin nodded. "Will you be there, too?"

"Yes, but don't wait for me. I've got a couple of errands to do first."

"Alone?"

Jonny gave his eldest a lopsided smile. "My joints just had a nice vacation on sunny worlds. I can face Aventine's winter on my own for a few hours, thank you."

Corwin shrugged. "Just asking."

But he lingered in the outer office long enough to hear Yutu make arrangements with the starfield for a ground-to-orbit shuttle. His father, it appeared, would not have to worry much about Aventine's winter tonight.

Winter, as such, didn't exist aboard Troft warships.

For the fourth time in almost that many minutes the comboard screen seemed to blur in front of Telek's eyes; and for the fourth time she shook her head stubbornly and swallowed a mouthful of cahve. It was late, she was tired, and she would need to be at least marginally coherent for the Council meeting in the morning. But this was the first chance she'd had to see the Menssana's report, and she was determined to have at least a passing acquaintance with what they'd found before she checked out for the night.

There was a light tap at the door. "Come," she called.

It wasn't, as she'd expected, one of the Academy medical staff. "The nurses at the monitor station are annoyed you haven't gone to sleep yet," Jonny commented as he walked into the room.

She blinked, then snorted. "They brought you all the way from Capitalia to tell me that?"

"Hardly. I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop in." Pulling up a chair, he sat down.

Telek nodded. "They did good. You can be damn proud of them."

"I know. Though Justin doesn't think so."

"Well, he's wrong," Telek growled. "If he'd tried to get to Purma's underground stuff, he wouldn't have made it out alive. Period. And if he hadn't made it out, we might have taken Yuri and Marck aboard before we knew how the Qasamans like to stack their deals."

"I understand that. He will too, eventually. I hope." Jonny waved toward her comboard. "The Menssana's report?"

"Uh-huh. You people did pretty well yourselves."

Jonny nodded. "They all look promising," he agreed. "At least two are better even than that."

Telek looked him in the eye. "I want those worlds, Jonny."

He returned the gaze without flinching. "Badly enough to fight a war for?"

"Badly enough to do whatever we have to," she said bluntly.

He sighed. "I'd rather hoped that what happened on Qasama would have blunted your eagerness a bit."

"It's made me aware of what it'll cost. But the option is the loss of the last nineteen thousand people on Caelian."

"Or so goes the argument. They can always move back here, you know."

"But they won't. Anyone who was willing to lose that much face by admitting defeat has already done so. We can't move the rest of them back to civilization-their pride won't take it."

"Whereas your pride won't let you turn tail on the Qasamans?" he countered.

"Pride has nothing to do with it."

"Sure." Reaching into his tunic, Jonny produced a magdisk and handed it to her.

"Well, whatever your motives, as long as you're solidly hell-bent on smashing

Qasama, you might as well know as much about the place as possible."

Telek frowned at the disk. "What's this?"

"The official Baliu'ckha'spmi report on Qasama."

She looked up at him, feeling her mouth fall open. "It's what? Where did you get it?"

"From the Troft ship out there," he replied. "Clearly, any ship sent to back up our mission would have their own world's report aboard for emergency reference.

So I went up this afternoon and got a copy."

"Just like that?"

"More or less. A combination of bluff, bluster, and legal footwork." He smiled faintly. "Plus a healthy new respect for us on their part."

"God knows we earned that much," she said quietly. York and Winward alone had earned them at least that much.... She shook off the sudden resurgence of guilt for her failures on the trip. "So why give it to me?"

"Oh, the whole Council will get copies in the morning," he shrugged. "As I said,

I was in the neighborhood."

"Yeah. Well... thanks."

"No charge." Jonny got to his feet-wincing with the effort, she noticed-and walked to the door. There he paused and looked back at her. "Lizabet... I'm not going to let the Worlds go to war for your new planets," he told her quietly.

"Not after what we've seen of Qasama. A surgical strike against their technological base, perhaps, if feasible; aerial bombings, probably, if it'll actually do any good. But no land war. Not even for Caelian."

She nodded slightly. "I understand. And I'm as willing to look for middle ground as you are."

"Let's hope we can find it. Good night."

He left, and Telek found herself staring at the Troft magdisk in her hand.

Suddenly she was very, very tired....

Ejecting the Menssana's report, she inserted the Trofts' into her comboard, keying to run it through the Academy's central translator. Then, sighing wearily, she splashed more cahve into her mug and began to read.