Conquerors' Heritage

12

"Yes," Thrr-gilag said, peering down at the motley assortment of field shelters with a mixture of nostalgia and embarrassment. Nostalgia, because it looked just like the training expeditions they'd all gone on back when they'd been students. Embarrassment, because he hadn't realized until that beat just how much better than this he'd been faring lately. His Human-prisoner study group on Base World 12 had had top-mark laboratory and living facilities; even the archaeological expedition he'd been with on Study World 15 had had warrior-style perm buildings for their encampment. Clearly, funds for studying the Chig were distributed with a somewhat less lavish hand.

"We're only going to be here about a tentharc," the pilot said as he circled around toward the more or less flat stretch of ground that seemed to serve as the expedition's landing field. "We weren't actually scheduled to make this supply run for another few fullarcs. You're welcome to fly back up to the encirclement warships with us when we leave."

"I appreciate the offer," Thrr-gilag told him. He had no idea how he could possibly get through everything he wanted to discuss with Klnn-dawan-a in a single tentharc. But the pilot was right: it was indeed a long way back up to the encirclement warships orbiting overhead. "Let's see how things go, all right?"

"Fine by me," the pilot shrugged. "Hang on—this can get a little bumpy."

Bumpy was hardly the word for it; but they made it without injuries and with no direct evidence of structural damage to the transport. Unstrapping stiffly, thankful that the study group's director had had the sense not to set up on the absolute top of the mountain, at least, Thrr-gilag made his way back to the doorway and opened it.

Three young Zhirrzh were waiting a short ways past the end of the landing ramp: typical eager-eyed student-searcher-assistant types, probably there to help the transport's crew unload the supplies. Thrr-gilag hardly noticed them. He certainly didn't give them any thought.

Standing in front of them, at the foot of the ramp, was Klnn-dawan-a.

"Hi," she breathed, favoring Thrr-gilag with one of those special smiles of hers as he walked down the ramp. "The Elders told me you were coming. I'm glad you're here."

"So am I," Thrr-gilag said, hearing a sudden slight trembling in his voice. With all that had happened lately, he'd almost forgotten how much he'd missed her. "I'm afraid I can't stay very long, though," he added as he reached her.

"I didn't expect you'd be able to," Klnn-dawan-a said regretfully as she looked up at him. "Still, even a little time is better than nothing."

"Yes," Thrr-gilag said, his hands trembling a little as he took her hands and squeezed them tightly. The strictures of propriety, not to mention the presence of the student assistants standing there three strides away, forbade the kind of greeting he really wanted to give her. He hoped they'd be able to find some time alone before he left.

Klnn-dawan-a, he could tell, was thinking along the same lines. "I was rather surprised to hear from the Elders that you were on your way down," she commented, taking his arm and turning them toward the encampment. "I'd assumed your work with the Overclan Seating would be taking all your time." She lowered her voice. "Especially with your group about to head out on a new expedition."

Thrr-gilag frowned at her. He'd been under the distinct impression that the Mrachani mission was going to be kept a fairly close secret. "How in the eighteen worlds did you hear about that?"

"Never underestimate the ingenuity of a trained searcher," Klnn-dawan-a said dryly. "As it happens, Director Prr-eddsi has had several long conversations back to Oaccanv in the past couple of fullarcs. Very serious, very secret—secure Warrior Command pathways and all that."

"And you just happened to be sort of leaning up against the shelter wall at the time?"

"Me?" Klnn-dawan-a asked with a good imitation of hurt pride. "I recoil at the very thought. No, Prr-eddsi brought me into the discussion at one point, and the word Mrachani came up. Then someone mentioned Nzz-oonaz's name, and the rest fell into place pretty quickly. Obvious, really—your people are certainly the current experts on everything regarding the Human-Conquerors and their territory."

Thrr-gilag grimaced. Human-Conqueror. The term had even made it out here. "They're hardly my people anymore," he told Klnn-dawan-a. "I've been demoted."

"I gathered as much," Klnn-dawan-a said quietly. "I'm sorry."

"My own fault," Thrr-gilag told her. "Apparently, the rule is you kill prisoners rather than let them escape."

She eyed him. "Do I detect a trace of bitterness?"

"More strong indignation than bitterness," Thrr-gilag told her. "And mostly on your behalf, actually. Speaker Cvv-panav pressured the Overclan Prime into putting a Dhaa'rr in the group; and because he was mad at me, he picked Gll-borgiv instead of you."

Klnn-dawan-a shrugged. "Gll-borgiv's not all that bad."

"He's still nowhere near as good as you."

"I appreciate the vote of confidence," she said. "Still, I don't really think you should take the blame for my missed chance at glory."

Thrr-gilag looked at the encampment ahead. At the predator fence, the shelters... and the white tip of the pyramid sticking up over them. That was something else they hadn't had on those training expeditions ten cyclics ago. No fsss cuttings with anchored Elders there to act as communicators.

Or to listen over your shoulder, whether you wanted them there or not. "Is there someplace where we can talk privately?" he asked Klnn-dawan-a.

"I'm sure we can find one," she said, her tone faintly amused. "I thought you didn't have much time."

"I'm not talking about that," Thrr-gilag said, feeling his tail speed up with both anticipation and a faint embarrassment. "I mean, not that I don't want to be close—but that's not what I meant. I meant talk. Really talk."

"Oh," she said, frowning up at him. She followed his line of sight to the pyramid. "Well... sure. I've been wanting to check out some of the farms around the other side of the ridge, anyway. And that would give me a chance to show you what we're doing here. Let's go see if Prr-eddsi will let me take out one of the floaters."

Ten hunbeats later they were in a floater, heading out from the encampment. Thrr-gilag waited until they were well outside the Elders' five-thoustride anchorline limit, and then told Klnn-dawan-a the bad news.

She listened in silence. "You're sure about this?" she asked when he'd finished.

"I don't know if you can ever be sure about Elder rumors," Thrr-gilag said, gazing out at the rocky Gree landscape flowing by beneath them. "All I know is that my father thought it was solid enough to warn me."

"Yes," Klnn-dawan-a said, her face set in hard lines as she stared out through the windscreen. "I notice that no one bothered to tell me about any of this."

"Maybe none of your Elders here have heard the rumors," Thrr-gilag suggested diplomatically.

She threw him a scornful look. "Oh, come on, Thrr-gilag. You get a rumor started anywhere in the eighteen worlds, and every Elder's going to hear about it. You know that better than I do—you wrote your searcher thesis on it. Our Elders here know, all right. They've just decided not to tell me about it."

Thrr-gilag shrugged uncomfortably. "I suppose you can hardly blame them. All your Elders here are Dhaa'rr, after all. They're probably less thrilled than even your leaders about having me in the clan."

"Well, that's just plain stupid," Klnn-dawan-a said angrily. "Stupid and unfair. No one can possibly blame you for the Human-Conqueror attack on your base—everyone agrees they were out looking for your prisoner. And as for your brother, so he's using his communicators as sentries. So what? We use our Elders here for that sort of thing all the time."

"Except that your pyramid's safely inside a predator fence," Thrr-gilag pointed out. "His aren't. Anyway, that's not really what they're mad at him about."

"They can't blame him for Prr't-zevisti, either," she said firmly. "I know he was my clan and I should be sorry he's dead; but what happened to him was at least as much his own fault as it was Thrr-mezaz's. No one ordered him to stay with his cutting—he could have gone straight to his family shrine and stayed there."

"Unless there's a link between the cutting and the main fsss organ we don't know about," Thrr-gilag said doubtfully. "Maybe if you destroy a fsss cutting, the Elder dies whether he's anchored there at the time or not."

"No," Klnn-dawan-a said. "Don't forget, it took them at least thirty cyclics of trying before they figured out how to take successful fsss cuttings. If the destruction of a cutting section killed the Elder outright, then every Elder whose fsss was experimented on back then would have died. They didn't."

"You're right," Thrr-gilag said, a small fraction of the weight lifting from his shoulders. "I hadn't thought about that. Still, I doubt it's going to make much difference to the Dhaa'rr Elders."

"No, of course not," Klnn-dawan-a bit out. "Prr't-zevisti's death is a convenient excuse for the clan leaders to back out of something they didn't want to allow in the first place." She sighed, some of the anger and toughness seeming to drain out of her. "Oh, Thrr-gilag. What are we going to do?"

"We're not going to give up," Thrr-gilag told her. "That much is for sure. The only question is how to fight back."

"Yes," Klnn-dawan-a murmured, her pupils narrowed with thought. Thrr-gilag gazed sideways at her, smiling despite the seriousness of the whole situation. A beat ago her anger and indignation had dissolved almost instantly into depression and the hint of defeat; and now that too had promptly changed again to determination. Many of her friends and colleagues, he knew, found this rapid mood processing of hers to be intimidating. Personally, he found it rather endearing. "All right," she said. "What have we got? The clan leaders have already given permission for our bonding, so to renege now is to break their word. That makes them look bad unless they can show really good reasons. So what we have to do is show that their reasons are totally inadequate."

"We can point out how antiquated these prejudices are, too," Thrr-gilag suggested. "We've had open territorial borders for a hundred cyclics now—strictures on interclan bonding ought to be obsolete, too."

"Right—let's toss in a little shame and embarrassment," Klnn-dawan-a agreed. "I just wish one of our families had more political leverage. We'd stand a better chance if we could get some of the other clans interested in this, even just as observers."

"Yes," Thrr-gilag said, feeling a little shame of his own. He'd had that leverage once, after Svv-selic was demoted and he'd been made speaker of the Base World 12 group. And had proceeded to lose all of it. "You know, it occurs to me that there were a couple of times when the Overclan Prime seemed to be on my side. Making minor decisions in my favor against Speaker Cvv-panav. But I don't suppose that really counts for anything."

"I doubt it," Klnn-dawan-a said. "The Overclan Prime doesn't like the Dhaa'rr much—he'd rule against Speaker Cvv-panav just to keep in practice. Besides, this is too much an internal clan matter for him to stick the Overclan's tongue into it."

For a few hunbeats neither of them spoke. The floater glided smoothly over the rocks and ridges, its air cushion dampening out the smaller bumps and turning larger ones into gentle parabolic arcs. Ahead, the ground sloped toward a creek in the distance; beyond the creek the terrain turned sharply upward again, culminating in more of the towering, white-capped mountains.

"Uh-oh," Klnn-dawan-a muttered.

"What is it?" Thrr-gilag asked as the floater abruptly turned to the right.

"A Chigin whelp," Klnn-dawan-a said, pointing ahead toward the creek. "Over there."

"I see it," Thrr-gilag nodded. The whelp was standing stock-still beside a pile of boulders this side of the creek, its ears standing stiffly up, its full attention on the approaching floater. "You think it's lost?"

"Well, it certainly shouldn't be out here all by itself," Klnn-dawan-a said. "It could be the lead or tail of a grazing party, though. Let's take a closer look, see what family it belongs to."

"How do you tell them apart?" Thrr-gilag asked.

"Mountain families glitter-tag their whelps," Klnn-dawan-a explained. "Those little flashes of light at the edges of their ears—there; see it."

"Yes," Thrr-gilag nodded. "Do you know all the patterns?"

"Most of them," Klnn-dawan-a said. "We're going to have to get pretty close, though. You game?"

"I don't know," Thrr-gilag said dubiously. "I was under the impression that solitary Chig whelps weren't all that safe to approach."

"So the book says," Klnn-dawan-a agreed. "Our own studies indicate that that applies mainly to solitary whelps on their own family's territory. Solitary whelps on neutral territory seem to be actually less unpredictable than larger groups."

"The exact opposite, in other words, of how the book says they're supposed to behave."

"On home territory, anyway. You got it."

"Great," Thrr-gilag said. "Just how good are these studies of yours?"

"Oh, the studies are all wonderful, of course," Klnn-dawan-a said, slowing the floater down to a drifting crawl. The whelp was still standing there, still staring at them. "It's only the conclusions you ever have to worry about. No, seriously, I'm sure we'll be okay. Still, you'd better get the stinger out of the survival pack under the seat. Set on low, please; we don't want to really hurt it."

"If you say so," Thrr-gilag said, pulling the pack out and digging the stinger out of its pouch. He turned it on, grimacing at the vibration of filling energy capacitors. He'd never liked these things, not since his first time on the target range with one. They were awkward to hold, impossible to aim, and utterly absurd looking for something that was supposed to be a weapon. Thrr-mezaz, who dealt with real warrior laser weapons all the time, had laughed himself silly the first time he'd seen one. "So what's the plan?"

"I'll bring us as close to the whelp as I can without spooking it," Klnn-dawan-a said. "Then I'll go the rest of the way on foot, and you can cover me while I try to get a look at the glitter tag. Sound good?"

"Sounds terrible," Thrr-gilag retorted. "What if you're wrong about the whelp being dangerous?"

"Well, one of us has to get close," Klnn-dawan-a pointed out reasonably. "And you don't know the first thing about Chigin glitter-tag patterns."

"I could describe it to you."

"Now you're being silly, dear," Klnn-dawan-a chided. "All right, I think this is about as close as we can get. Everybody out."

The floater settled to the ground and the two of them got out. Stinger in hand, Klnn-dawan-a started slowly toward the whelp, talking soothingly to it as she walked. Thrr-gilag crouched down beside the floater, resting his arm on the curved beak plate, keeping his own stinger trained on the whelp. A motion off to the left caught the edge of his eye, and he flicked a glance that direction—

And froze. "Klnn-dawan-a?" he called quietly. "I think you'd better stop. Take a look to your left."

She paused and turned her head. Thrr-gilag couldn't see her face, but the sudden increase in her tail motion told him all he needed to know.

There were eight of them standing there: eight Chig, all in the unmistakable mottled dark-green metal semiarmor of hunter-warriors. Grouped around them on both sides were perhaps twenty whelps. The whole crowd was gazing unblinkingly at the two Zhirrzh... and they did not look friendly.

"Just take it easy," Klnn-dawan-a said softly to Thrr-gilag. "No fast movements. Those aren't toys they're holding."

Thrr-gilag nodded, feeling his own tail speed up. He hadn't even noticed the repeating crossbows until that beat, their shapes blending into the blotchy coloration of the semiarmor behind them. Forbidden by the Zhirrzh to possess high-technology weapons, the Chig had come up with these little gems instead. And they were most emphatically not toys. "What do you want me to do?" he murmured. "Should I try to take them out?"

"Not unless you want your bonding to be with an Elder," Klnn-dawan-a said tartly. "Just stay put and let's see what they want. And whatever you do, don't point your stinger at them."

The Chig were moving toward them, weapons at the ready, the whelps scampering chaotically around their feet. The group crossed the stream, and as they approached the floater, the lead Chig gestured sharply to Klnn-dawan-a with his crossbow. "Bkst-mssrss-(cough)-vtsslss-(cough)-hrss-vss-chlss," he said.

"Mrss-zhss-(cough)-hvssclss'frss-sk-(cough)," Klnn-dawan-a replied, waving her empty hand back toward Thrr-gilag.

"Bkst-mssrss-(cough)," the Chig said.

Klnn-dawan-a nodded and started walking slowly backward toward the floater. "What did you say?" Thrr-gilag asked. "Did you tell him we weren't going to hurt the whelp?"

"I don't think they particularly care about the whelp," Klnn-dawan-a said, her voice tight. "We're the ones they're interested in."

Thrr-gilag looked at the aliens' faces. "I don't like the sound of that."

"Neither do I," Klnn-dawan-a said, backing up against the floater. "These aren't mountain people, Thrr-gilag. Look at those whelps—no glitter tags. They're from one of the cities."

Thrr-gilag felt his tail speed up a little more. Five of those repeater crossbows were now pointed directly at the two Zhirrzh. "Aren't they a little far from home?"

"A good hundred fifty thoustrides at least," she said, "Possibly farther."

The leader and two of the others were standing together, gazing at the Zhirrzh and muttering among themselves. "I thought they weren't allowed to travel long distances," Thrr-gilag said.

"They're not," Klnn-dawan-a said. "But most of the warriors who used to enforce those restrictions have been pulled off Gree."

She spoke in the Chigin language again. The three Chig paused in their discussion, the leader saying something in reply. Klnn-dawan-a spoke again, and for a hunbeat the conversation went back and forth. Then the Chig said something sharp sounding and turned his back on the Zhirrzh. The other two Chig followed suit, the three of them resuming their muttered conversation.

Thrr-gilag took a careful breath. "So what's going on?"

"You're not going to believe this," Klnn-dawan-a said. "Apparently, they're a war party."

Thrr-gilag craned his neck to look at her profile. "They're what?"

"A war party. Or maybe a justice party—they use the same word for both. He says they're here to punish the mountain people for collaborating with us."

Thrr-gilag looked at the five Chig guarding them. At the semiarmor, the metal crossbows, the slender crossbow bolts.

At the long, unusually slender feathering and tips on those bolts...

"No," he murmured to Klnn-dawan-a. "I don't think so. Look at the feathering on those crossbow bolts. They look to me just about the right size to slip through the mesh of a predator fence."

Klnn-dawan-a stiffened. "You're right," she breathed. "They must be going for our encampment. But that's crazy."

"I agree," Thrr-gilag said, looking carefully around. "But they must have good reasons. Or what they consider to be good reasons."

He frowned, suddenly aware of the stinger he still held loosely in his hand. The Chig hadn't disarmed them... and only slowly did it dawn on him that they probably didn't realize the stingers were weapons. Most likely they assumed the devices were hand recorders—the size and shape were just about right for that.

Which meant the Zhirrzh had an advantage their opponents didn't know about. The question was how to use it. If he could quietly bring the stinger up to firing position, then whip it quickly around...

He looked at their guards again, the surge of excitement fading into reality. No. Not unless he wanted to wind up at the family shrine and send Klnn-dawan-a to hers along with it. "What do you suppose they're waiting for?" he asked.

"I was wondering that myself," Klnn-dawan-a admitted. "They've got us; they've got the floater. I'd think they would want to get going before—"

She broke off. From somewhere nearby something gave a warbling yowl, the sound echoing across the mountains. The stray whelp, almost forgotten beside its pile of boulders, howled back in reply. "Uh-oh," Klnn-dawan-a muttered. "I think we're about to get some more company." Thrr-gilag looked around. Two of the five Chig who'd been guarding them were moving up beside the leader and his two friends, their crossbows pointed in the direction the yowl had come from. "More Chig?"

"More Chig. Keep quiet—this could get tricky."

Thrr-gilag had no time to wonder what she meant by that. Directly ahead, three Chig topped a small rise, a half-dozen whelps following along behind them.

"Grazing party," Klnn-dawan-a identified them. "I was right; the whelp had just gotten separated from them."

For a beat the newcomers paused as they caught sight of the group gathered together beside the creek. Then, hefting their own crossbows, they continued on down the hill.

They came to within three strides of the armored leader before stopping. "Sk-(cough)-ssst-tssmss-(cough)-mts-os-mss," one of the newcomers said, gesturing toward the Zhirrzh with the slender tentacles edging his mouth. "Sk-pss-mtss-hrss'mss-(cough)-kss."

The leader of the war party answered in kind. One of the other newcomers spoke and was answered. "What are they saying?" Thrr-gilag whispered.

"I'm not entirely sure," Klnn-dawan-a answered. "They're talking much faster than I'm used to. But it sounds like the warriors want the grazing party to join them. The grazing party is refusing."

Thrr-gilag looked at the three Chig, an odd feeling of warmth rippling through him. "They're on our side?"

"Hardly," Klnn-dawan-a said shortly. "They just don't want to risk bringing reprisals down on themselves."

The warm feeling evaporated. "Oh."

"Don't take it personally," Klnn-dawan-a advised. "There aren't any Chig anywhere who really like us."

Typical bad losers, in other words. All the more contemptible given that they were the ones who'd started the war in the first place. "So why are they still talking?"

Klnn-dawan-a shrugged. "The war-party leader is still trying to talk the others into coming along. The others just want to get their whelp back and go home."

The conversation droned on. Thrr-gilag found himself studying the two different crossbow styles: the multishot repeaters carried by the war party, the much simpler two-shot models of the mountain Chig. If it came to a fight...

But it wouldn't. As Klnn-dawan-a said, none of the Chig liked the Zhirrzh. All they were talking here was varying degrees of hatred. "I wish they'd give it up," he muttered. "Let the grazing party go and get on with it."

"I know," Klnn-dawan-a agreed, her voice frowning. "It's almost as if they were stalling."

Abruptly, she stiffened. "Of course they're stalling," she said. "They're worried about the warships."

Thrr-gilag felt his midlight pupils narrow. Of course—the Zhirrzh encirclement forces. Five warships filled with the best high-power monitoring telescopes in existence. Orbiting slowly over the Gree landscape, watching everything that happened there. "Are any of them overhead right now?"

"I don't know," Klnn-dawan-a said. "I don't know the orbit pattern."

"I'll bet the war party does," Thrr-gilag said, thinking furiously. That must have been what the three Chig were discussing just before the grazing party showed up: whether or not they were in view. The last thing they would want at this point would be for the orbiting warriors to see them kidnap a pair of Zhirrzh. Or, worse, to see them raise those same Zhirrzh to Eldership.

And the fact that they were still talking would imply the group was under at least one of those distant telescopes right now....

Klnn-dawan-a must have sensed something from his posture. "What is it?" she asked, half turning to frown at him.

"Just thinking," Thrr-gilag muttered, glancing up at the occasional fish-scale clouds scattered across the otherwise clear sky. The Chig eye, if he remembered correctly, was supposed to be incapable of seeing the darklight laser frequencies that Zhirrzh stingers operated at. If he eased his stinger to point straight up and fired it...

"What are you thinking?" Klnn-dawan-a asked.

"About trying to call for help," Thrr-gilag told her. All right. The laser, he knew, would sizzle the water in the air as the beam passed through it, producing secondary radiations within the Chigin vision range as well as a certain amount of sound. But in bright sunlight, and with the wind blowing strongly off the mountains and across the stream toward them, there was a fair chance that both the light and the sound would go unnoticed. Particularly with the bulk of the Chig attention on the grazing party.

"Thrr-gilag, are you crazy?" Klnn-dawan-a hissed. "You want to make Elders out of both of us?"

"Quiet," he hissed back, not daring to look at the three Chig still guarding them. All right. He didn't remember very much of the flash-code he and Thrr-mezaz had memorized back when they were children, but every Zhirrzh knew the old three-two-three emergency signal. Carefully, trying not to let the movement show, he turned the stinger to point straight up between him and Klnn-dawan-a. Taking a deep breath, he keyed for full power and adjusted his thumbs on the triggers—

And with a crack of a supersonic shock wave, a Zhirrzh transport shot over the hilltops and blazed past overhead.

One of the Chig screeched, a high-pitched howl that dug like knives into Thrr-gilag's ear slits. An instant later he found himself sprawled on the ground, his legs having collapsed ignominiously beneath him. With one hand he was gripping Klnn-dawan-a's jumpsuit, dragging her bodily down beside him; with the other hand he still clutched his stinger. All around him the air was alive with the thunder of the transport, the sizzling of laser shots, the sharp multiple snap of crossbow threads. The Chig and their whelps were howling madly; and over all of it he could hear Klnn-dawan-a screaming something. Pulling her tightly against him, he fired his stinger, sweeping it blindly around them. There was a crack of stressed ceramic as the beam caught the side of the floater—a sudden stab of pain slashing across the side of his head—the stinger swinging randomly toward the ground as he flinched away from the pain—

And then a new roaring sound abruptly joined the pandemonium around them. A sizzling roar, followed instantly by a violent, blinding rush of dense steam.

Unexpectedly, certainly without planning on his part, the beam from his stinger had found the creek. Bracing himself, squeezing his eyes shut against the scalding cloud, Thrr-gilag kept firing.

The Chig were still howling, but the howl had taken on a note of desperation. Buffeted and burned by the wind-driven steam, their enemies effectively shrouded from view, they must have known they had lost. But still they fought, until all the howls had been silenced.

And Klnn-dawan-a's desperate, pleading scream was all that was left.

The battlefield, once Thrr-gilag was finally able to get a good look at it, was horrifying.

Dead Chig and whelps littered the ground, some with their limbs twisted at bizarre angles, all crisscrossed with the blackened lines of laser burns. A group of Zhirrzh moved back and forth across the carnage, going silently about the grim task of collecting the dead.

And at one edge of it stood Klnn-dawan-a. Her face as dead as those of the Chig.

She didn't look up as Thrr-gilag stepped over to her. "Hey," he said softly, touching her shoulder. "You all right?"

"They killed them all," she said, her voice as dead as her expression. "All of them. Even the grazing party."

Thrr-gilag nodded. "I know."

"The grazing party wasn't even doing anything," she said. "They weren't bothering anyone."

"I know," Thrr-gilag said again with a sigh. That wasn't how the transport's pilot and Director Prr-eddsi were going to report it, of course. That much he'd been able to figure out from the snatches of conversation he'd heard while the healer had patched up his head wound. Prr-eddsi was going to report it as a coordinated Chig attack, with a violent but necessary Zhirrzh response.

Thrr-gilag and Klnn-dawan-a knew better. Not that anyone was likely to listen. Or was likely to care.

"We're finished here," Klnn-dawan-a said, looking slowly across the bodies. "Our chrysalis studies, our whelp examinations—all of it. Gone, just like that. The Chig up here will never trust us or cooperate with us again."

"Maybe," Thrr-gilag agreed. "But if the warship hadn't spotted us when it did and sent the transport over, we'd be Elders by now. You think that would have left your relationship with the Chig in any better shape?"

"No," Klnn-dawan-a conceded. "Certainly not after the reprisals were finished with." She turned and looked at him, wincing as her gaze came to rest on his bandage. "I'm sorry, Thrr-gilag. I didn't even think to ask about your wound."

"Oh, it's all right," he assured her. "And I'm fine. A near miss by a crossbow bolt, they tell me."

"More near than miss," she said, a flicker of life coming back into her face as she touched the bandage with gentle fingers. "You sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine." He looked back at the transport. "I don't mean to be callous or anything, but I'm going to have to leave soon, and we still haven't got anywhere on our problem. You have any idea of what levers we can use against the Dhaa'rr leaders?"

Klnn-dawan-a took a deep breath, visibly extricating herself from her emotional tangle about the Chig slaughter. "I don't know," she said. "I can't think right now."

"I understand," Thrr-gilag said. "I can probably stay a little while longer."

"No, you'd better head back while you can," Klnn-dawan-a said, flicking her tongue in a negative. "We won't have any chance at all if you show up late at Unity City. I'll talk to my family and friends. See if we can come up with something."

"All right," Thrr-gilag said. "Just try to be careful which Elders you use as your pathway."

"Searcher Klnn-dawan-a?" a voice called.

Thrr-gilag turned to see the transport pilot standing at the top of the landing ramp. "Yes?" Klnn-dawan-a called.

"Call for you, Searcher," the pilot said. "Direct laser link from orbit."

Frowning, Thrr-gilag followed Klnn-dawan-a back to the transport and up the ramp. "Here she is," the pilot said, keying a switch on a small communications board just inside the hatchway and gesturing to it. "All yours, Searcher."

He moved a few strides away as Klnn-dawan-a stepped up to the board. "This is Searcher Klnn-dawan-a."

"Searcher, this is the third commander of the Perseverance," a voice said. "We've received a priority message from the Dhaa'rr Leadership Council indicating that you're to be brought immediately to Dharanv."

Klnn-dawan-a threw Thrr-gilag a startled look. "For what reason?"

"The message didn't specify," the third commander said. "You'll have one tentharc to make preparations, at which time the transport currently at your encampment will bring you to orbit. We'll leave for Dharanv as soon as you're aboard."

"Understood," Klnn-dawan-a said. "I'll be ready."

"Very good. Perseverance out."

There was a click, and the communication went quiet. "I'm coming with you," Thrr-gilag murmured.

"They may not be willing to take you along," Klnn-dawan-a murmured back.

"I don't care if they're willing or not," Thrr-gilag said firmly. "We go together, or we don't go at all. Anyone makes a stink about it, and I'll raise noise all the way up to the Overclan Prime."

"All right." Klnn-dawan-a squeezed his hand tightly. "I didn't really want to go alone, anyway."

The pilot stepped over to them. "I've been ordered to take you to orbit, Searcher," he said to Klnn-dawan-a. "If you'd like, I can take you back to the encampment right now, instead of waiting for the group outside to finish up. That would give you a little more time to pack."

"Thank you," Klnn-dawan-a said. "You'll have room for Thrr-gilag, too, won't you?"

The pilot looked at Thrr-gilag, a hint of uncertainty crossing his face. He was Dhaa'rr, and the word had come down from above; and all at once, it seemed, the easy informality that had let him juggle his schedule so that he could give Thrr-gilag a lift was gone.

But only for a beat. "Sure, no problem," he assured them. "Go ahead forward and get strapped in. I'll go tell Director Prr-eddsi what we're doing, and then we'll be off."

Great, Thrr-gilag thought to himself as he and Klnn-dawan-a made their way toward the front of the transport. Off to face the Dhaa'rr leaders and Elders. All of them looking for a rock-hard reason to nullify his bond-engagement to Klnn-dawan-a. Like a group of crazed Chig whelps, waiting for their prey to make a fatal mistake...

He frowned suddenly. Chig whelps. Dangerous in packs; safer and less violent as individuals.

Just like Humans?

"What is it?" Klnn-dawan-a asked.

"I don't know," Thrr-gilag said slowly. "Maybe nothing. Or maybe I've just found the key to the Humans' behavior."

"Really? What is it?"

Thrr-gilag flicked his tongue in a negative. "Let me think about it a little longer. Can you get copies of all your studies?"

"I've already got them," Klnn-dawan-a said. "They're back at the encampment."

"Bring them along," Thrr-gilag told her. "Especially anything having to do with biochemical behavior triggers in Chig whelps."

But that wouldn't be enough, he knew. It might give them an idea of the direction to look in, but it wouldn't prove anything. The only proof would be if he could find similar behavior triggers in the Humans' biochemistry.

And for that they'd need to get hold of another Human.

"I don't like that look," Klnn-dawan-a said into his thoughts. "It worries me."

"It's all right," Thrr-gilag said, grimacing as he patted her hand. "I'm just thinking about how I'm going to ask my brother for a favor."

"A big favor?"