Manta's Gift

SIXTEEN

In the eastern sky, the glow from the distant sun was just starting to drive the gloom away when Raimey came to the realization that he was finally home.

It was an odd feeling, especially considering the circumstances under which he'd fled this part of Jupiter. After nearly two dayherds, Drusni's rejection was still as fresh and painful as if a pack of Sivra were still chewing on him.

But even that ache couldn't dispel the excitement he could feel growing inside him as he continued to swim. He could smell the presence of his old herd; the subtle yet distinctive combination of odors that he'd grown up with. The same mixture, yet different, as the children he'd known had become Breeders, and as the original Breeders had become the Protectors and Nurturers leading the herd.

The cycle continued as it had since the beginning, the old story-circle phrase whispered through his mind. The eternal cycle: always new, yet always the same.

Only now he knew that, wherever that cycle had started, it hadn't started on Jupiter.

The familiar scents were growing stronger. It might be interesting to take a look up there later, he decided, at least go up to Level Two where the male and nonpregnant female Breeders would be swimming, keeping watch for predators. He could pop in and renew acquaintances with some of the kids he'd hung out with, see which ones had bonded together. It might even be fun, provided he didn't run into Pranlo in the process.

Or, worse, Drusni.

But all that could wait. Somewhere up there, invisible above the upper clouds, were Faraday and Hesse. They'd clearly lost track of him since his departure from this region, but he knew that they would have kept monitoring the herd in the hope he would eventually make his way back there. If that transmitter they'd built into his brain was still working, they should be contacting him as soon as he got within range. He could hardly wait to tell them the news.

Speeding up a little, he swam toward the glowing sunlight.

The uniformed Sanctum cop escorted Faraday into the Contact Room and then stepped to one side, falling smartly into a parade rest beside the doorway. His partner, Faraday noticed, was already holding up the wall on the other side of the door. "Colonel Faraday," Liadof greeted him, half turning in the command station chair to face him. "Thank you for joining us."

"I'm sure I'm most welcome," Faraday murmured, looking around the room. There was Beach, hunched over his communications panel. Milligan was busy with his sensors; Sprenkle was looking over his weather reports or whatever stuff psychologists looked over at times like this. McCollum—

He felt his breath catch in his throat. McCollum's chair was empty.

"I suppose you're wondering why you're here," Liadof continued. "We're ready to launch the Omega Probe into Raimey's old herd; and, as we knew might happen, Raimey himself has just entered the area. I thought you should be on hand in case we decide to talk to him. Yours is the voice he knows best, after all."

"Of course," Faraday murmured, his eyes still on McCollum's empty chair. Could she be merely sick, or otherwise incapacitated? But then why hadn't Liadof tapped one of the other shifts for a replacement?

"I see you've noticed our lack of a Qanskan biology expert," Liadof commented.

"Yes," Faraday said, locking gazes with her. "Where is she?"

"In her quarters," Liadof said evenly. "Shortly after you were placed under house arrest, we discovered Ms. McCollum was the one who had obtained that discarded section of mesh for you.

She is therefore no longer with the project."

"She had every legal right to be in possession of that mesh," Faraday insisted. "Just as I did."

"The Five Hundred think otherwise," Liadof countered. "On both counts."

"I intend to appeal that decision," Faraday warned.

Liadof shrugged. "That's your right," she said. "But I doubt you'll find a negotiator willing to take the case."

Faraday clenched his hands into useless fists. So that was it. McCollum's future was officially dead now, her career prospects shunted off into the twilight oblivion reserved for people who had offended the Five Hundred.

And Faraday was the one who had done it to her.

Liadof might have been reading his mind. "Consider it an object lesson, Colonel," she said quietly.

"You obviously don't care about your own career; but your people here are young and ambitious, with bright futures ahead of them." She considered. "Well, these last three are, anyway."

Faraday had never wanted to hit anyone as much as he wanted to hit Liadof. But he resisted the impulse. There were other ways to fight this. There had to be. Somehow, somewhere, he would find the right one.

And until he did, it would serve no purpose to get himself thrown back into his own quarters.

There was nothing he could do for McCollum right now. But maybe there was still something he could do for Raimey.

Stepping past Liadof, he went and stood behind Milligan. Liadof's top-secret probe was centered in one of the sensor displays, a three-dimensional version of the sketch he'd been studying and analyzing over the past few days.

A study which, he saw now, had been decidedly hit and miss. The top ovoid was indeed a modified Skydiver probe, as he'd concluded; but it appeared to be rigidly attached to the lower ovoid instead of being connected to it with a second-stage tether. The lower part was indeed composed of McCollum's mesh; but the mesh wasn't simply acting as a breathable outer skin. There was some kind of mechanism vaguely visible near where the two shapes joined, but most of the lower ovoid appeared to be completely empty.

And while the wands atop the upper probe were indeed control and sensor antennae, the ones stabbing downward from the lower ovoid were something else entirely. From all appearances, in fact, they seemed to be jagged-edged spikes.

"Omega Control to Contact Room," a voice announced from the ceiling speaker. "Omega Probe is ready to launch."

"Acknowledged," Liadof called back. "Launch Omega Probe."

On the display the double ovoid dropped away from its transport, descending rapidly toward the swirling clouds below. There were no tether lines visible, Faraday noted, which meant the thing was going to be free-flown. The grab rings must be simply for retrieving it later. "Which crew do you have aboard the tether ship?" he asked.

"My people are controlling it from Bay Seven, actually," Liadof said. "Omega's flight characteristics are outside the expertise of anyone on Prime."

"Then why are we even here?" he asked.

"You're here, as I've already said, in case we have to talk to Raimey," Liadof said. "The rest of Alpha Shift is here to handle the sensors and monitors and generally make themselves useful."

And to prove their loyalty in the face of McCollum's object lesson? Probably that, too.

Milligan was fiddling the telescope controls, keeping the probe centered and in focus. "Rather confident designation, calling it Omega," Faraday commented. "Do the Five Hundred expect this to be the last probe design we're ever going to need?"

"As a matter of fact, we do," Liadof said calmly. "After Omega, the designation won't be 'probe'

anymore."

Faraday frowned over his shoulder at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Liadof's lips compressed slightly. "If we're fortunate, you'll never have to find out."

"That's not much of an answer," Faraday said. "Is the next generation going to be bigger or faster or something?"

She shrugged. "No need for extra size. I hardly think the Qanska could build and control a stardrive bigger than that cage."

Faraday glanced at Milligan, got an equally blank look in return. "Are you telling me you know where the stardrive is?" he asked.

"Not yet," Liadof said. "But the Qanska will soon be giving us that information. After that—" She shrugged. "It'll simply be a matter of sending Omega to pick it up."

"Really," Faraday murmured, frowning at the displays. No. That couldn't possibly be the entire plan.

Why on Earth would the Qanska just meekly hand over their stardrive?

He sent a sideways look over at Beach. His face was rigid, his lips compressed tightly together. He and McCollum had gotten along pretty well in the past, he knew. Could McCollum have picked up a few more pieces of this puzzle from her friend in Bay Seven before Liadof locked her away and passed them along to him?

Possibly. Easing away from Milligan's shoulder, he drifted in Beach's direction—

"You'd better come back here with me, Colonel," Liadof called, almost lazily. "We wouldn't want you distracting the techs with unnecessary questions, now, would we?"

Faraday gave Beach's profile one last look, then turned away. "No, of course not," he said.

"Right here, Colonel," Liadof ordered, indicating a chair she'd set beside her. "You'll have a good view from here."

"And what is it I'll be looking at?" he asked as he sat down.

Liadof turned to the displays, her eyes shining again. "The end of an era," she said quietly. "And the beginning of the next."

Raimey had reached Level Two, and had leveled off from his climb, when he began to hear the first whispers of the distant Qanskan call.

He paused, letting himself drift with the wind as he listened. The voices were faint and indistinct, the tonals coming across as little more than mutterings. But if the words were still obscured, the tone of the call was clear as empty air.

Danger!

He resumed his swimming, putting a little more speed into it. He'd heard a thousand such warnings in his lifetime, most while he was a child, almost all of them signaling a Vuuka attack.

But he'd never heard a warning with such an edge of fear to it. What in crosswinds could be going on up there?

Whatever it was, it seemed to be getting worse. More Qanska were picking up the call now, echoing the original and adding to it. Danger, attack, fear, terror.

And there was something else different about it. Something that set it apart from all the other warnings he'd heard since birth. Something odd and chilling...

And then, with a jolt, he got it. All the voices in that call were female. All of them. The only ones who were calling for help were the Nurturers and the female Breeders. None of the Protectors were calling.

Which meant the Protectors were too busy fighting the attack to add their voices to the chorus.

Or else all of them were already dead.

Raimey leaned his muscles hard into his swimming, putting every bit of strength and speed he could into it. He had the direction now: straight ahead, definitely on Level One.

Somewhere near his old herd.

"You must be insane," Faraday said, tearing his eyes away from the displays and staring in disbelief at the woman beside him. "What are you trying to do, start a war?"

"Calm yourself, Colonel," Liadof said. Her own eyes, he noted, were still on the displays, her manner glacially calm. "And no, I'm not trying to start a war. I'm trying to end one."

"If you think a few Martian protests and riots constitute a war, you are sorely deficient in historical perspective," he bit out. "This is the sort of thing that starts real wars."

"Gently, Colonel," Liadof warned. "Proper respect and decorum, or I'll have you sent back to your quarters."

Faraday took a deep breath. Calm down, he ordered himself. She was right; and there would be absolutely nothing he could do to stop this madness if he was kicked out of here. He had to keep silent and control himself, to stay here and watch for something—anything—he could do.

And so he clamped his mouth tightly shut and let his eyes return to the displays. To the image of the Omega Probe, carrying out Liadof's grand scheme.

Carrying out her act of war.

A small group of Qanska shot past Raimey in the near distance, mothers and children of various ages, swimming as fast as they could. He thought of calling to them, but he didn't have the breath to spare right now for a conversation. Neither, he suspected, did they.

He kept going. More Qanska were visible now, most of them children with their mothers or other female Breeders, all of them swimming hard away from a point somewhere still ahead of him.

Something coming up from below caught his eye. Vuuka, was his first, startled thought. But no, it was just a pair of Protectors, swimming upward toward the distress call. If they noticed him, they didn't say anything.

Ahead, now, he could see something moving through the atmosphere. Or maybe a pair of somethings, one of them attached to the back of the other. His mind flashed back to that Sivra attack so many dayherds ago, where the smaller predators had hitched a ride on a hijacked Vuuka.

But the shape ahead was all wrong for that. Besides, unless his eyes and distance perception were playing strange tricks on him, the thing up ahead was far too big for any Vuuka that could get up this high.

In fact, it was too big for a Vuuka of any sort, at least any Vuuka he'd ever heard of. That lower shape had to be at least a hundred-size across from nose to tail, bigger than anything but the oldest of the Wise. What in crosswinds...?

And then, suddenly, it clicked. "Vuuk-mook," he muttered disgustedly to himself. This was no natural phenomenon threatening the lives and well-being of the herd. This was nothing but another of the humans' probes.

With an exasperated snort, he let himself glide to a halt, annoyed at himself and even more so with the Protectors and Nurturers of the herd. These were people who had seen Raimey delivered to them by this same sort of machine, after all. Had they forgotten all about that?

Apparently so. Ahead, he could still see Qanska fleeing from the probe's advance. Mostly they were the slower Babies and younger Midlings, all of them being herded frantically away by their mothers.

Behind them, the Protectors were gathered around the probe, churning the air madly as they repeatedly rammed their bony foreheads into its sides.

Mentally, Raimey shook his head in contempt. Idiots.

Still, if they kept beating themselves against the probe that way, someone was going to get hurt. He'd better go over and patiently explain that this was nothing to be worried about.

He started forward again; and as he did so, the dull rumble of the probe's engines began to grow louder. The probe changed course, swiveling a few degrees into the wind and heading off toward Raimey's left.

Raimey frowned, altering his own course to compensate. What in turbulent air were the humans doing? Trying to get their probe away from the Protectors before they damaged it? Probably. He picked up his pace, noticing as he did so that the probe was likewise speeding up.

Still, if they wanted to get away, they were going to have to do better than that. Behind the probe, the Protectors had regrouped and were giving chase. Apparently, someone in charge over there was really determined to chase this intruder away.

The probe was still picking up speed, outpacing the pursuing Protectors, the sound of its propellers filling the sky. Already it was moving far faster than Raimey would have expected something that big could go. Clearly, the humans had decided their best bet was just to give up and go do their research somewhere else. It wasn't like the skies of Jupiter were that crowded, after all—

And then, abruptly, something seemed to catch in Raimey's throats. The probe wasn't running away, he suddenly realized. It was instead heading straight toward one of the straggler groups of Qanskan children and their mothers. Chasing them across the sky like a huge metal Vuuka.

And it was gaining.

"That's enough, Arbiter," Faraday said, the tightness of his throat making his voice sound strange in his ears. "Please. You already have more than enough. Just leave the others alone."

"Thank you for your advice," Liadof said coolly. "Mr. Boschwitz: those two on the left—the smaller ones. I want them both."

"Acknowledged, Arbiter," the voice replied from the ceiling speaker. "Commencing run."

Faraday took a deep breath. "Arbiter, this is completely and thoroughly unconscionable," he said, fighting hard against the frustration boiling inside him.

"Again, your opinion is noted, Colonel," Liadof said coldly. "But the base rule of negotiation is that the more cards in your hand, the stronger that hand is." She nodded toward the display. "Two more will make a nice even ten. A good number to have when the Leaders finally arrive."

Faraday looked over at the techs. Sprenkle was staring back at him out of the corner of his eye, his face rigid. Do something, that look seemed to say.

But all Faraday could do was give him a small, helpless shrug in return.

The probe was closing fast on the fleeing Qanska. Raimey pushed hard against the air, trying to get there first, a sense of unreality swirling through his mind like a poisonous mist. For Faraday to be deliberately chasing down Qanskan children this way was utterly beyond comprehension.

But chasing them down he most certainly was. Raimey was close enough now to see that the hundred-size lower shape was made of a loosely woven mesh; and inside, pressed against the back wall by the probe's speed, he could see the figures of several more Qanskan children, flailing away in helplessness and fear.

An old, almost alien memory flicked into his mind: himself as a human child, spending lazy summer days hunting frogs in the creek that ran behind his house. But he'd always put the frogs back again afterward.

That couldn't be what was happening here. Could it? The humans had had over twenty dayherds to study the Qanska before Raimey had even come here. Surely they didn't need to swoop down now and take fresh samples.

But whatever they needed or thought they needed, the bitter-cold fact was that that was what they were doing. Even as he charged toward the probe, the front end of the mesh opened wide like a gaping mouth. Some kind of tentacle shot out the gap, snaking its way straight to one of the swimming Babies.

And as the tentacle reached its target, the tip exploded into a tangle of smaller threads, wrapping securely around the small form.

The Baby screeched in terror. Its mother braked hard, fins slapping against the air as she cut around in a tight circle to come to her child's aid.

But there was nothing she could do. The tentacle was reeling the Baby in now, pulling it into the gaping mouth of the humans' cage with the inevitability of a pack of Sivra chewing their way under the skin. And then, even as she bit and slapped uselessly at the tentacle, a second cable shot out through the opening, barely missing her. A ninepulse later, a second Baby was being pulled in with the first.

The first Baby vanished into the mesh cage. Its mother seemed to hesitate; then she, too, swam inside with her child. The second Baby was pulled in with them, and the mouth swung closed again.

The deafening rumble of the engines faded, and the probe began to slow down, bouncing slightly in the buffeting of the winds.

"Manta!" a voice gasped from behind him.

An all-too-familiar voice. Raimey turned, his heart seizing up inside him.

And there she was, swimming up behind him like something from a dream, or a nightmare.

Drusni.

It was a moment he'd feared ever since making the decision to come back. He'd played the scenario over in his mind a thousand times, trying to anticipate every possible combination of emotion and conversation and conflict and outcome.

And now, in the midst of chaos, the moment had come. Here he floated, nose to nose with the female he realized now he still so desperately loved. Gazing at her, with the sounds of fear and panic raging behind him, he waited for the windstorm of emotion.

But it didn't come. The love he felt was still there, simmering deep within him. So was the pain that a portion of that love had decayed into.

But there was no anger, no recrimination, not even any awkwardness. For the moment, at least, the crisis swirling around them was driving everything else away.

"What's going on?" he demanded, swiveling around and coming alongside her so he could keep an eye on the probe.

"They're stealing our children," Drusni said, her voice trembling with fatigue and horror. "They said—I mean, a voice came and said—"

"Calm down," Raimey said, reaching over automatically to touch her fin with his.

She didn't recoil from his touch, as he'd half expected she would. Instead, to his surprise, she moved closer to him, pressing the side of her body against his as she huddled like a frightened child beneath his fin. "I'm sorry," she breathed. "I'm just—I'm so scared."

"I know," Raimey said. "Me, too. Now, what exactly did they say?"

"They want something from us, but I don't understand what," she said. "Something that takes us back and forth between the great lights. Do you know what that means?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Raimey said grimly, anger and contempt swirling together with the fear in his stomach. So that was how it was going to be. No requests; no bargaining; no negotiation or trading.

Earth wanted that stardrive; and by the Deep, they were going to have it.

Even if they had to turn to kidnapping to get it. "And they said they would hold on to those children until we give it up?"

"Yes," Drusni said. "They said that someone was to deliver the message to the Counselors and the Leaders and the Wise, and call them here for a conversation."

Raimey lashed his tails furiously. What in the Deep was Faraday doing? Calling the Counselors and the Leaders and the Wise? He should know by now that only the Counselors could ever make it up to Level One, and they only with assistance. Had he lost his mind?

Or was Faraday even there anymore? Had he left the project, and someone else taken over?

Drusni shivered against him. "Why are they doing this?" she asked softly. "How many children are they going to take?"

"I don't know," Raimey said, pulling reluctantly away from her. Belatedly now, as he half turned to face her again, he noticed something he'd missed in their initial meeting: she was very pregnant. One of her children with Pranlo, no doubt. Distantly, he wondered how many others they'd had together.

And the humans up there were stealing children. No wonder she was on the edge of panic.

There was a sudden multiple thudding sound from the direction of the probe. Raimey turned again, to see that the pack of pursuing Protectors had caught up with it and resumed throwing themselves against the cage.

"But they're your own people," Drusni pleaded. "Can't you make them stop this?"

"I can try," Raimey said, searching his memory. It had been so long since he'd used that subvocalization trick. How had that worked again?

Ah. There—he had it. Faraday? he called silently. The English phonemes sounded starkly alien as they echoed through his mind, and he wondered if he was even getting them right. Faraday, where are you? What are you doing?

But there was no answer. Could he still be out of range?

Ridiculous. The probe was right there. If they could communicate with it, they could surely communicate with him.

Unless they simply didn't want to talk to him anymore.

His tails lashed viciously. So that was it. All they'd ever wanted in the first place was the Qanskan stardrive. Raimey had failed to get it for them; and so Raimey was no longer part of the plan.

"Manta?" Drusni asked anxiously.

"I'm sorry," Raimey said. "I can't get them to talk to me."

"Then you can't stop them?"

Raimey arched his fins, glancing again at her distended belly where her unborn child lay. Pranlo's child; and that too added a fresh layer to the ache inside him.

But if things had been different, it might have been his child she was carrying.

His child who was now in deadly danger.

"I don't know," he told her grimly. "Let's see."

And with that he leaped forward. One more Qanska battering himself against the metal cage, he knew, would probably not make a difference. But then again, it might.

One way or the other, he was going to find out.