Conquerors' Pride

24

Pheylan frowned. It was an odd sort of sound, now that he was concentrating on it. An aircar? No, more likely a spacecraft. One whose engines made an unusual sort of twittering drone.... And suddenly every muscle in Pheylan's body went rigid, his throat tightening as he strained to hear. Half-afraid he was imagining it... but there was no mistake. The sound was unique and unmistakable.

A Mrach ship.

With an effort Pheylan forced his muscles to relax, the hammering of his pulse abruptly loud in his ears. This was it. His best chance—maybe his only chance—of getting out of here. His training at the academy had included a unit on Mrach ships, instrumentation and flight technique both. If he could get to it, he would be out of here.

If he could get to it.

He lay there another minute, running through all the nebulous gambits and wild schemes he'd thought up in the past three weeks. None of them were all that terrific, but there was no time now to come up with anything better. Outside, the drone of the Mrach engines had fallen silent, and there was no way of knowing how long it would be before the ship took off again. It was now or most likely never.

Taking a deep breath, he propped himself up on one elbow. "Hey," he called plaintively, pointing to one of the techs as they all turned to look at him. "You. Go get Thrr-gilag. I don't feel well. I think I'm going to be sick."

The tech turned back to his console and began speaking quietly into the intercom. Pheylan stayed where he was, rubbing his stomach and making all the faces he'd learned to use on his mother when he wanted to stay home from school and his symptoms were only marginal. The Zhirrzh had learned a lot about humans from him, but there were one or two things that might still surprise them. And if it surprised them enough...

Half-hidden behind its console, the prep-room door swung open and Thrr-gilag stepped through. "Good day, Cavv-ana," he said. "You not well?"

"Not at all," Pheylan said, screwing up his face in agony. He had no idea whether or not Thrr-gilag could even read human body language, but this was no time to go half throttle. "Fact is, I'm bloody sick. You've got to let me get out into the sunlight right away."

"It only three days," Thrr-gilag reminded him, moving up to the glass wall and peering at him. "You without sun seven days before."

"I wasn't coming down sick with something then," Pheylan said.

"Why sunlight help?"

"Because it will," Pheylan said, suppressing a grimace. Clearly, Thrr-gilag wasn't going to give in for the performance alone. He was going to have to go all the way with this. "I know this sickness. It's common among humans—" He broke off, letting his face go stricken as he kicked off his blanket and swung his legs over the side of the bed. "Oh, God—here it comes."

He stood up, throwing a hand up the glass wall to steady himself. His other hand went to his mouth; and under cover of the motion he stuck his finger into his throat.

And vomited at the wall directly in front of Thrr-gilag.

The Zhirrzh jumped nearly a meter backward in a single leap, barking something startled sounding. The four techs scrambled into motion, two of them heading toward Pheylan's cell door, the others running toward the prep room. "They bring suit," Thrr-gilag told Pheylan, his voice noticeably higher pitched than usual. "What that happen, Cavv-ana?"

"Like I said, I'm sick," Pheylan said, weaving his way to the shower on trembling legs and starting to have some belated second thoughts about this. He'd expected the cramps that were twisting through his stomach muscles, but he hadn't counted on this sudden weakness that had hit his legs. If he wasn't ready to act when the time came, this wasn't going to work at all.

Still, he had a few minutes before it came to that. Turning on the shower full blast, he stepped halfway into the stall, shoving his face into the stream and spitting mouthful after mouthful of water onto the shower floor. "What this for?" he could hear Thrr-gilag shouting over the noise. "Cavv-ana? What this for?"

"I'm rinsing my mouth," Pheylan said, shutting off the water and stepping wearily out to lean against the side of the stall. Good; his legs were starting to settle down again. "These stomach juices are full of acid. Very bad for my skin and mouth. The vapors aren't good for my lungs, either. You've got to let me out of here."

From the prep room the two Zhirrzh techs reappeared and hurried toward the cell door, one with the obedience suit flapping in the breeze behind him, the other fumbling with the black trigger gadget Nzz-oonaz normally handled. One of the two techs at the cell door reached over to unlock it, stopping at a sharp word from Thrr-gilag. More instructions, and the Zhirrzh with the obedience suit stooped to stuff it through the dog flap. "You can put on?" Thrr-gilag asked Pheylan.

"I'll try," Pheylan said, straightening up and making his way across the cell. So much for doing this the easy way. He'd rather hoped that this startling new behavior from their pet human would have rattled Thrr-gilag enough to forget either the obedience suit or the standard procedure concerning it. Clearly, the other had more presence of mind than that.

Which just meant Pheylan would have to do this the hard way.

He got the obedience suit on as quickly as he dared, trying to balance the feigned weakness of his illness with the need to make his move before more Zhirrzh could be called in on the crisis. "All right," he said, leaning briefly against the doorjamb as they got the door open. "I'm—wait a minute," he interrupted himself, reaching again to his stomach. Turning around again, he stumbled back to the toilet and dropped on his knees in front of it.

There was even less available to come out this time around, and about all Pheylan got for his efforts was dry retching and another bout of cramped stomach muscles. But that was all right. All he really wanted was an excuse to get back into the shower... and by the time he staggered out again, the obedience suit with its wonderful water-wicking action was well and thoroughly soaked. "All right," he said, mopping his face uselessly with an already saturated sleeve as he returned to the waiting knot of nervous Zhirrzh. "Let's go. Before it happens again."

The sun was still mostly hidden behind the swaying tops of the gray-green trees as they emerged from the prison building. The air was cool, turning Pheylan's breath into little puffs of smoke and slicing through his wet jumpsuit like a set of sharpened icicles.

But he hardly noticed. There on the landing area, no more than a hundred meters away, was his ticket home. And arguably the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen.

A Mrach Premra-class courier ship.

Or at least, what was left of one. The thing had gone through the wars, all right, or at least a typical Zhirrzh battle. The distinctive Mrach flowing-metal design was blackened and pitted, crisscrossed with bubbled-edge slashes that looked as if they'd cut completely through the outer hull before the interior sealant had caught up with the damage. Nearly all of the port-bow hull was missing completely, the gaping hole having been filled in by a rough white material that didn't look like anything the Mrach used. But the aft section looked relatively untouched, and it had clearly made it in through the atmosphere under its own power. On the near side a group of Zhirrzh had gathered together near the exit ramp, a scene reminiscent of his own arrival three weeks ago.

That could be trouble. If any of them were armed...

"It good?" Thrr-gilag asked from beside him.

Pheylan turned his face a few degrees away from the ship to face into the rising sun. "Yes, it should help," he said, shivering as a breeze intensified the chill soaking through his skin. "It'll take a few more minutes before I'll feel any effect."

Thrr-gilag was silent a moment. "It not work," he said.

Pheylan's heart seemed to seize up. "What do you mean?" he asked, a cold chill running through him that had nothing to do with the air temperature.

"I say it not work," Thrr-gilag repeated, his tongue sliding out to point at Pheylan's soaked jumpsuit. "You try damage with water. But it not damage."

Pheylan breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Thrr-gilag was smart, all right. But for once he was being smart in the wrong direction. "I'm not trying to damage the suit," he said, looking casually around. Three of the four techs who'd come out with them were standing around him about an arm's length away; the fourth, the one holding the obedience-suit trigger, was facing him from about twice that distance. Beyond them a pair of Zhirrzh had left the group by the Mrach ship and were heading toward him, those compact flashbulb guns of theirs hanging loosely in their hands.

It was now or never. Turning his back to the Zhirrzh with the trigger, Pheylan took a step away—

And suddenly his knees buckled beneath him, pitching him face first into the dirt with a thud. A thud, and a spray of water from the saturated jumpsuit.

A spray of water that turned the dirt where he'd landed into instant mud. Coating the entire front of his obedience suit... including the sensor disks embedded there.

Thrr-gilag made a strangled sound in his throat; but whether he thought his prisoner had hurt himself or whether he'd suddenly realized what had just happened Pheylan never knew. Before anyone could react further, Pheylan rolled onto his back, leaped to his feet, and charged at the Zhirrzh tech holding the obedience-suit trigger.

The other was backing desperately away, firing the trigger uselessly at him, as Pheylan caught up with him. With one hand he grabbed the Zhirrzh's arm, wrenching the trigger out of his grasp with the other and stuffing it down the front of the obedience suit. Yanking the alien toward him, he swung him bodily around, bent him over at the waist, and jammed his head and neck into a football-style grip between the magnet rings under his left armpit.

An instant later the other four Zhirrzh were on him, clutching at his arms and head as they tried to free their trapped comrade. But their thin arms and double-thumbed hands were no match for human musculature. Pheylan swung his shoulders and his prisoner at them, shaking and throwing them away from him.

All but one of them. Grabbing Thrr-gilag's arm, Pheylan swung the Zhirrzh into shield position in front of him. "Call them off," he snapped, releasing the arm and shifting quickly to a grip across Thrr-gilag's neck. "Those two Zhirrzh. Call them off or I'll break your neck."

"Not allow escape," Thrr-gilag said, his voice gone suddenly high-pitched. "Zhirrzh not allow escape."

"That's entirely up to you," Pheylan bit out. The two Zhirrzh were still coming, their flashbulb guns raised into firing position now. "But they either let me go or they kill me," he told Thrr-gilag. "Those are the only options they've got left." He gave the other's neck a sharp squeeze for emphasis. "And if they kill me, you two will go too. Your decision. Make it fast."

Clutching his two captives tightly against him, Pheylan started walking toward the Mrach ship. He had the full attention of that whole group now, and two gray sticks had joined the flashbulb guns that were pointed in his direction. Pheylan kept walking, feeling utterly naked behind Thrr-gilag and wishing now that the slightly taller Svv-selic hadn't been demoted from spokesman position. Holding the Zhirrzh tech upright instead of under his arm would give him a better shield; but the minute he did that, he'd be open to the spare obedience-suit trigger they undoubtedly had stashed away somewhere. This way they would have to sacrifice the tech if they wanted to stop him. He could only hope the tech had lots of friends here.

The two closest Zhirrzh guards had stopped, their flashbulb guns still targeting him. "Tell them to put their weapons down," Pheylan hissed to Thrr-gilag, looking slightly away from the weapons and keeping his right eye tightly closed. "Now."

Thrr-gilag took a deep breath. "Kasar!" he called.

And in reply both flashbulb guns went off together.

Pheylan stopped in his tracks, keeping a firm grip on his prisoners as he blinked hard against the double purple blob blocking the view from his left eye. It didn't seem as bad this time as it had been in his cell, possibly because he'd been looking away. Ahead, he could hear and dimly see the two Zhirrzh running toward him. He waited, shifting his balance onto his left leg; and as they reached him, he opened his right eye and kicked the lead Zhirrzh hard in the torso.

The alien hit the dirt like a dropped sack of cement, throwing a cloud of red dust into the air. The other Zhirrzh gasped something, swinging his flashbulb gun up again as he tried to brake to an emergency stop.

Neither effort proved successful. Pheylan's second kick caught him the same place as his partner, dropping him neatly to the ground beside him.

"That wasn't very smart," Pheylan said, giving Thrr-gilag's neck another squeeze. "I could have killed you right then, you know."

"I know."

"Good. Now let's try it again, shall we? And get it right this time. Otherwise I may have to kill you, this tech here, and all the rest of that group over there."

"The Zhirrzh right," Thrr-gilag said. "You predators."

"You're damn right we are," Pheylan agreed. "It's up to you what happens here. What's it going to be?"

He could feel Thrr-gilag take a deep breath. "Shalirr i crr'arrea mazzasprr akrr'trr i parrsavva crri," he called. "Parr've krrti."

Ahead, the gray sticks seemed to waver. "Krrti svvarr?" one of the Zhirrzh called.

"Parr've krrti," Thrr-gilag repeated.

They kept at it for another half-dozen exchanges. Pheylan resumed walking toward the ship, his right eye closed again in case they decided to try that stunt a second time. The three Zhirrzh who guarded the white pyramid had come out of their domes now, he saw, but they didn't seem to be making any move to come join in the festivities.

And then, to Pheylan's mild surprise, the weapons pointed at him lowered to the ground. "So what's the decision?" he demanded.

"You allowed to leave," Thrr-gilag said. "They agree."

Pheylan smiled grimly. Sure they did. He'd seen far too much of the Zhirrzh to believe that one for a minute. They had something up their sleeves, all right, something that would probably involve a brief fire fight in the upper atmosphere. But that was all right. Short odds or not, once in the air he would at least have a fighting chance.

The group by the Mrach ship had moved a respectful distance back by the time Pheylan and his two unwilling shields reached the landing ramp. "You leave us here?" Thrr-gilag asked as Pheylan awkwardly backed the three of them up the ramp and into the ship.

"That depends on whether I can find something to tie you up with," Pheylan said, glancing quickly both ways down the corridor. There was no one in sight. Sidling over to the hatchway control, he jabbed it with an elbow. The panel slid down; and as it did, he let go of the Zhirrzh tech and gave him a hard shove toward it. The other stumbled, off balance, and hit the ramp. Pheylan got a glimpse of him beginning to roll down it as the hatchway sealed.

"Lie down," Pheylan ordered Thrr-gilag, pushing him toward the floor. "On your face. Stay there or I'll break your neck."

Silently, Thrr-gilag obeyed. Keeping an eye on him, Pheylan stripped off the obedience suit and used the sleeves to tie Thrr-gilag's arms behind him. "All right," he said, hauling the Zhirrzh back to his feet. "Let's go."

The cockpit was at the end of the corridor. "Sit here," Pheylan ordered, pushing Thrr-gilag down into one of the seats and using the legs of the obedience suit to tie his legs together. The rising sun was shining brightly nearly straight ahead through the canopy, its light glittering off the edges of the strangely curved Mrach control panel.

A canopy, like his glass-walled cell, that the Zhirrzh lasers would be able to shoot through. But there was nothing Pheylan could do about that except try to get out of here before they got their sharpshooters into position. Mentally crossing his fingers, keeping his head down, he climbed into the control seat and keyed the engines.

They came on with a muffled roar. Pheylan studied the instruments, trying to dredge up that unit on Mrach ships from his memory. The injection feed control... there? Tentatively, he eased it forward, and as he did so the roar beneath him changed pitch and tone into the familiar twittering drone.

So far so good. Shift to preflight: check. Activate stardrive and run internal-operations monitor: check. Confirm Icefire ducts in lift position....

There was a faint sound behind him. Pheylan looked up, started to turn around—

And jerked back against the contoured cushions. Floating over the control-board displays, less than a meter in front of his face, was a full-size image of a Zhirrzh.

Pheylan gasped, the shock of it freezing his muscles as effectively as a jolt of electric current. Pale white, insubstantial yet sculpted in exquisite detail, the image hovered half in and half out of the cockpit like something from one of the ghost stories Aric had loved to tell as a child. The mouth moved, and as if from a great distance he could hear what sounded like Zhirrzh speech—

And then, abruptly, something jabbed like a hot needle into his right shoulder.

He spun around, the paralysis broken. Thrr-gilag stood at his side, his tongue just retracting again into his mouth, the part of the obedience suit that had restrained his legs hanging in tatters around his waist.

And on Pheylan's shoulder a drop of blood had appeared. "Damn!" he snarled, spinning out of the seat and grabbing for Thrr-gilag with both hands.

Or rather, trying to grab him. To his bewilderment his right arm had suddenly become inexplicably heavy. He tried again to force it upward; but even as it dropped limply to his side, he stumbled and dropped to his knees on the hard deck.

He barely felt the impact. His whole body was going numb... and in front of him Thrr-gilag's image was beginning to waver. "Damn," he murmured.

The image faded away... and with his last thought Pheylan wondered what death would be like.

And whether the men and women of the Kinshasa whom he'd failed would be there. And would be able to forgive him.

"There's no doubt at all, Commander," Max's voice said in Aric's ear. "I've run three different samples of neutrino and gamma emissions. There's definitely a Mrach ship down there. One moment: I'm now getting tachyon emissions. Most likely a stardrive self-monitor."

"A Mrach ship," Quinn murmured. "Interesting. Does he have lift yet?"

"No," Max said. "Engine emissions are still at preflight levels."

"Let me know the minute he goes up," Quinn said. "Clipper? What do you think?"

"Oh, we're going in, all right," Clipper said. "The only question is whether we go cold or risk letting Max fire up the active sensors first."

"They must know we're coming," Dazzler put in. "That last static bomb is still burning out there."

"Knowing we might be coming is a far cry from our setting off a flare in their faces," Clipper countered. "Max, have you spotted anything down there besides that cleared area?"

"Not so far," Max said. "I'm still searching. I do have a good scrub of the cleared area now."

"Pipe it down," Quinn said.

"How does it look?" Aric asked, staring at the half-darkened planetscape stretched out above them.

"There's not much there," Quinn told him. "Two linked-hexagon buildings that look a lot like the way the Conquerors build their ships. Three or four smaller structures in between them... make that a definite four structures. Looks like one of them might be another of your screaming pyramids. A good-sized landing strip, with one small ship on it. Mrach design, all right. The whole area's surrounded about a kilometer away by a fence. Could be some people around the ship, too—the compound's near the terminator line, and it looks like we've got some narrow shadows, but the fueler's telescope isn't good enough to resolve anything that small."

Aric clenched a hand into a fist. "So are we going down?"

"Commander, the Mrach ship has shut down its engines," Max said before Quinn could answer.

"Malfunction?" Clipper asked.

"Nothing I could detect from the emissions," Max said.

"Someone must have changed his mind," Bookmaker suggested.

"Or else they've spotted us," Clipper said.

"Our cue, either way," Quinn decided. "Combat code red; let's do it."

The clamps released with a jolt, and the fueler fell away above him; and suddenly Aric was jammed hard into his seat as Quinn threw full power to the drive. "How soon?" he called over the roar from behind him.

"Five minutes," Quinn called back. "Maybe less. Hold tough—it's going to get a little hot back there."

"I can handle it," Aric gritted. Already he could feel the air heating up around him as the Counterpunch sliced through the upper atmosphere at near-meteor speed. The drive was a violent roar in his ears, drowning out the pounding pulse he could feel but not hear. Directly ahead, past Quinn's helmet, the dark of space met the dark section of the planet, giving him nothing to look at but blackness; only later did it occur to him that Quinn would have deliberately chosen that vector so as to hit the Conqueror compound with the rising sun at their backs.

"Maestro, we've got visual," Dazzler's voice came suddenly. "A definite on aliens down there. A whole group of—"

"We're drawing fire," Paladin cut him off. "Medium-intensity lasers—probably light arms."

"Target and destroy," Quinn ordered. "All fighters, go to—"

"There he is!" Dazzler cut him off. "Maestro, we've got him!"

"Go to laser link, damn it," Quinn snapped. "All ships."

The voices went silent. "Quinn?" Aric murmured.

"It's him," Quinn confirmed tightly. "It's Commander Cavanagh. He's being carried out of the Mrach ship." He hesitated. "Looks like he's unconscious."

Aric's heart seemed to freeze. "Unconscious? Or dead?"

"We'll find out in thirty seconds," Quinn told him grimly. "Hang on; we're going in."

The Counterpunch dipped suddenly, throwing Aric into a half second's worth of free fall, then pulled into a tight turn with gee forces that left him gasping for breath. Above the roar of the engine he could hear the sputtering bursts of precision antipersonnel guns. Another surge of gee force as the Counterpunch's nose swung up—something slammed into the underside of the fighter as the engine roar suddenly cut back—

And above him the canopy slid back. "He's there to the right," Quinn shouted. "Get going."

Aric ripped off his helmet and scrambled up and over the cockpit side, throwing a quick look around as his feet found the top of the flowmetal ladder. Twenty meters away was the Mrach ship; ahead and to the right was one of the two complexes Quinn had mentioned. Overhead, three of the Corvines were screaming tight circles over the area, spitting death at anything that moved.

And lying sprawled on the ground five meters away was a naked human form.

Pheylan.

Later Aric would never fully remember the leap to the ground and the mad dash across the eye of the war zone, or the task of hoisting Pheylan up over his shoulder, or the even more formidable task getting the two of them up the ladder and into the cockpit. Only one solid memory would remain from those few seconds: the terrifying coldness of his brother's skin.

And then the canopy closed over them, and the Counterpunch was again clawing its way through the air. "How is he?" Quinn called.

"Not good," Aric gritted back, struggling to reach around Pheylan's legs to get to the small medical pouch behind Quinn's seat.

"Get the diagnostic band out of the medic pouch," Quinn said.

"I'm trying," Aric snapped back, finally getting the pouch open. His left arm was pinned beneath Pheylan's back, but the band was designed for one-handed operation, and a few seconds later he had it secured just above Pheylan's knee. "Okay," he said, plugging the lead into the jack beside the pouch. "Max?"

"Heartbeat is slow but regular," the computer reported. "Blood pressure and nerve function are similarly low."

"What's wrong with him?" Aric asked.

"Unknown as yet," Max said. "There are several unidentified factors in his blood, but some are undoubtedly from alien foodstuffs. One moment. Indication of a mild poison in his bloodstream."

Aric looked down at Pheylan's right shoulder, and the slow oozing of blood from a small puncture wound there. "I can see the injection point," he said. "Should I try the snakebite technique?"

There was a short pause. With his free hand Aric dug through the medic pouch, searching for a knife or field scalpel or something else sharp and wishing desperately that Melinda were here instead of him. If it came to deliberately cutting into his brother's skin, even to save his life—

"That won't be necessary," Max said, relief evident in his voice. "His vital signs have bottomed out and are beginning to come back. Is there a general stimulant injector in the kit?"

"It's the bright-orange one," Quinn said. "You know how to use it?"

"Yes," Aric breathed, pulling out the orange injector and popping off its cover.

"Start with one dosage," Max said. "We'll see how it goes from there."

"Right." Pressing the flat edge of the injector against Pheylan's skin, Aric touched the trigger. "Any change?"

"One moment," Max said. "Yes, it's definitely helping. I believe he's out of danger, at least for the moment."

"We can do a more complete check when we get back to the fueler," Quinn added. "Might as well get some use out of that miniature pharmacy your sister stuffed aboard."

Wrapping his arms around his brother, Aric hugged him as he hadn't since childhood. They'd done it. They'd really done it. "Thank you, Quinn," he said quietly, his eyes filling with tears. "And all of you."

"Our pleasure," Quinn said. "Let's go home."

"We've decided to head directly for Edo," Aric said, hovering in the doorway. "Dorcas and the Mrach worlds are closer, but Quinn thinks that Colonel Holloway might still be too mad at us to listen before he threw us all into the stockade."

"Probably wouldn't be able to do anything even if he wanted to," Pheylan said, taking a sip of coffee—real, genuine Earth coffee—from his squeeze bottle. "Not unless Command's reassigned some warships to the region."

"True," Aric agreed. "They hadn't as of four days ago, anyway. And under the circumstances, none of us liked the idea of taking any of this into Mrach space."

"Can't say I blame you," Pheylan said. "Though I have to point out that the whole idea is probably a waste of time. Even if Command authorizes an expeditionary force to go back there, we're talking a good eighty hours of transit time, plus whatever it takes to throw the force together. Plenty of time for the Zhirrzh to pack up shop and clear out."

"Quinn knows that," Aric said. "There might still be some rubble left worth sifting through."

"Maybe. Might be a pleasant diversion from court-martial paperwork for them, anyway."

"Thanks for the reminder," Aric said, making a face at him. "I trust you'll be able to find time during your busy debriefing schedule to come by as character witness for the defense."

"Don't worry," Pheylan promised. "Trust me—I'll lay 'em dead in the aisles."

Aric's smile faded. "You were lucky," he said quietly. "You know that, don't you? They should have killed you the second they knew we were coming. All I can figure is that they thought they'd already finished you off."

Pheylan sipped again at his coffee, freshly aware of the dull throbbing in his shoulder where Thrr-gilag had stabbed him. There was sense in that, of course. He'd learned a lot about the Zhirrzh during his captivity; surely they wouldn't have wanted him rescued to take all that information back.

And yet... "No," he said slowly. "I don't think Thrr-gilag was trying to kill me. You haven't seen those tongues of theirs, Aric—damn things work like gutting knives. He could have ripped me clear to the bone and dumped in enough of that poison to kill me where I sat. Or skipped the poison routine entirely and just sliced my throat."

Aric shivered. "Maybe."

"No maybes about it," Pheylan told him. "He had to have been just trying to knock me out so they could haul me back to my cell. With that hologram sent in to distract me while he sliced up the obedience suit and took his shot."

"Must have been one impressive hologram," Aric said. "That still doesn't explain why he didn't change his mind when Paladin came roaring in over the trees at them."

Or why he or the Zhirrzh tech hadn't attacked long before they reached the Mrach ship, come to think of it. Had they been afraid Pheylan would be quick enough to break their necks before he succumbed to the poison? "Maybe he didn't have time," Pheylan said. "Maybe he panicked. Or maybe..."

"What?"

"It's a long shot," Pheylan said. "A real long shot. But maybe those little seeds of uncertainty I tried to plant in Thrr-gilag were finally starting to take root. Maybe he'd started to wonder if his leaders had lied about what happened at the Jutland battle."

"I suppose that's possible," Aric said doubtfully. "But I wouldn't count very hard on it if I were you. You're asking him to take the word of an alien over his own people."

"He was thinking about it," Pheylan insisted. "He really was. He'll check into it."

"Maybe." Aric rubbed his cheek. "Speaking of aliens, you have any thoughts about that Mrach courier ship?"

"Not really," Pheylan shook his head. "The most likely possibility is that they ran into it at that mining world you mentioned, shot it out of the sky, and took it home as a souvenir."

"Figuring out how to fly it en route?"

"It would have been a little tricky," Pheylan conceded. "But on the other hand, I was outside pretty soon after it landed and never saw any actual Mrachanis." He shrugged. "Though on the other hand, the Zhirrzh could have just gotten them inside quickly."

"That's what I like about you, Pheylan: you always keep things clear-cut," Aric said dryly. "Well, at least that one's not our problem."

"Just as well," Pheylan said, setting his squeeze bottle on its patch and adjusting the straps on his sleep pad. "We're going to have enough on our hands just getting you, Dad, Quinn, and Melinda out from under all this."

"Not a problem," Aric assured him, dismissing it with a wave of his hand. "Quinn and I are heroes now, you know, and you can't jail your heroes. And with Dad's connections, he and Melinda are probably already back home wondering what's taking us so long."

"I hope you're right," Pheylan said.

"Of course I'm right," Aric soothed him. "Besides, medical types with Melinda's credentials are far too valuable to lock away somewhere." Reaching into the room, he switched off the light. "Anyway. Max says you should get some rest. War may be looming on the horizon, but that's no reason we shouldn't catch up on our sleep."

Pheylan reached up to rub his sore shoulder. "If the war hasn't already started," he said quietly. "It wasn't more than three days ago that Thrr-gilag was asking some rather insistent questions about the Copperheads."