Manta's Gift

NINETEEN

The whine of Omega's turboprops was starting to fill the Contact Room as the engines revved their way toward full speed. "But what about your demands?" Faraday asked, frustration churning his stomach. If the probe got away now, all of the Qanskans' effort—not to mention Raimey's—would be for nothing.

And this insane standoff would continue.

"What about them?" Liadof countered. "The Leaders know what we want."

"But they won't know where to deliver their answer," Faraday argued. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the inertial indicators at the bottom of the display were flashing. Omega was starting to move.

But Faraday wasn't really watching the indicators. His full attention was on the image coming from the spy probe. Darting up alongside the cage like a minnow swimming past a crab pot, Raimey was charging upward toward the operational part of the Omega probe. Swimming with a determination Faraday had seldom if ever seen in him.

And it didn't take a genius to figure out what he was doing. He was heading for Omega's engines, clearly hoping to prevent the hostages from being whisked away.

And there was only one way Faraday could imagine he might accomplish that.

Don't do it, Faraday pleaded silently with the image. It would cost Raimey his life; and it wouldn't stop Omega from getting away anyway. With one engine gone it would be more sluggish, but it could still outpace any Qanskan attackers in the long run. Surely Raimey could see that. Had he gotten so worked up by the Vuuka attack that he couldn't think straight?

Perhaps he had. Omega was picking up speed, and so was Raimey.

Liadof had noticed him, too. "What's he doing?" she muttered from Faraday's side.

"Trying to stop the probe," Faraday told her, hoping that his reading of Raimey's plan was wrong.

But no. Raimey had already passed the trailing communications and control antennae, and at the rate Omega was accelerating he would never make it to the group at the bow end before the probe got away from him. And there was no other exposed equipment anywhere that Faraday could see.

Which left only the propellers. And the supreme sacrifice.

"He's going for the engines," Liadof said suddenly, her voice a mixture of disbelief and indignation.

"Is there any way he can hurt them? Colonel?"

"Not without hurting himself," Faraday said bitterly. Out of another corner of his eye, he noticed Mulligan fiddling with his sensor controls. "But if he doesn't mind dying for his people, and if he can get through the forward baffle screen—"

"Damn it," Liadof bit out. "Mr. Boschwitz—get Omega up to full speed. Now."

"Yes, Arbiter," Boschwitz's voice confirmed. "I'm running the engines through their prescribed rampup; it'll just be—"

"I said now!" Liadof cut him off. "Full power now!"

"But—acknowledged, Arbiter," Boschwitz interrupted himself. "Full power now." The engine noise jolted suddenly up in pitch and intensity—

And then, to Faraday's astonishment, it just as suddenly dropped off completely.

Liadof literally leaped out of her chair. "Boschwitz!" she shouted. "You bungling little—" She choked back the rest of the curse. "Get them going again. Now!"

"I'm trying," Boschwitz said, his voice cringing. "They're not responding. Any of them."

"He warned you there was a proper ramp-up procedure," Faraday reminded her. "They've probably overheated or safety-locked or something."

"Shut up," Liadof snapped. "Mr. Boschwitz?"

"Still not responding," the controller said tightly. "Colonel Faraday's right—the diagnostic's indicating some kind of safety interlock."

"Then override it," Liadof ordered, striding forward to stand behind McCollum's vacant chair and peering at the diagnostic displays. "Everything can be overridden."

"Yes, ma'am, but I need to know the problem first," Boschwitz explained. "The overrides are specific to the particular interlock—"

"I don't care how you do it," Liadof shouted. "Rip them all out if you have to. But get that probe moving!"

"Too late," Milligan murmured, pointing up at the main display. "They're through."

Faraday looked at the view from the spy probe. Milligan was right: The Vuuka had chewed a hole completely through the mesh, still jostling against each other as they gnawed away at the edges. The hole was still pretty small, but already the youngest of the Qanskan children trapped inside should be able to squeeze through.

"Yes, well, they're not through enough," Liadof said tartly, an odd note creeping into her voice. It was an edge that in a lesser personality might be the first beginnings of panic. "Mr. Boschwitz, you have thirty seconds to get Omega moving. If you don't, I'll have you arrested on a charge of treason."

"Don't be absurd," Faraday said, keeping his voice low. "You can't blame him for this."

"I can blame anyone I want," Liadof said shortly. "I'm an Arbiter of the Five Hundred. This is my project; and it will not fail."

She turned bitter eyes toward Faraday. "Or else."

Above him, the huge driving engines suddenly stopped.

Manta slowed the rippling of his fins, letting himself coast to a confused stop. Was he misreading the sounds here?

No. The engines had stopped, the probe itself coasting to a halt.

What in the Deep were the humans up to now?

He didn't have the haziest idea. But it didn't matter. This was their opportunity to get the children and Breeders out, and he intended to take it.

He rolled over and looked down. From his distance and angle it was hard to tell, but it looked like the Vuuka had succeeded in eating through the metal cage. If the humans would be considerate enough to leave their engines off just a little longer...

A movement to the side caught his eye. A group of perhaps twenty Protectors had gathered a short distance away and were starting to drift toward the thrashing Vuuka. "Wait," Manta called, hoping the Vuuka were too busy to pay attention to him. "Not yet."

"Don't worry," a gruff voice came from his right. "They know what they're doing."

Manta turned, to find a Protector floating beside him. "What?"

"I said they know what they're doing," the other repeated, his eyes on the feeding frenzy below.

"They'll wait until the opening is large enough for all inside to escape before they drive the Vuuka away."

"Good," Manta said, frowning. Maybe it was just that the Protector was concentrating so hard on the events below; but somehow, Manta had the distinct impression he was deliberately not looking at him. "Who are you, anyway?"

"The question is who are you?" the Protector countered, still not raising his eyes. "You, Manta, child of the humans."

So that was it. Someone had recognized him, or else they'd heard Drusni call him by name.

And he was in for it now.

"I am indeed a child of the humans," Manta said, keeping his voice low. "But my childhood is over.

Now, I'm a Breeder of the Qanska."

"Are you?" the Protector retorted. "Does a Breeder of the Qanska help the humans capture our children?"

"The humans had me under their control," Manta told him. "They made me try to stop you from freeing the children. But that's over now."

"Perhaps," the Protector said darkly. "Or perhaps they have let you go merely so that they can use you to another purpose."

"A purpose that involved letting me ruin their plan?" Manta asked, flipping his tails pointedly at the dark shape and huge engines above them. "This device cost them a great deal of time and effort to construct; and as you may have noticed, I was the one who lured the Vuuka who are busily destroying it. There's no reason they wouldn't have stopped me from doing that if they still had the power to do so."

"Perhaps there was no reason," the Protector said. "Perhaps it was simply the random whistling of the wind. Or are humans not subject to the winds?"

"Trust me, they would have," Manta assured him. "Humans have a reason for everything they do."

"Do they really?" the Protector demanded. "And what was their reason for you to shatter the honor and life of a bonded female by mating with her?"

In the past few ninepulses Manta had almost managed to forget about that. Now, it came rushing back like the edge of a twistwind. "It wasn't like that," he said through suddenly aching throats. "It was... I can't completely explain what happened."

For a long moment the Protector remained silent. "You don't need to discuss it with me," he said at last. "I'd rather you not, in fact. But be assured, you will discuss it soon. You've committed a crime of violence and disgrace, and the Counselors and the Leaders and the Wise will be required to pass judgment."

"Yes," Manta said quietly. "I understand."

"But until then—" the Protector flipped his tails "—it's time for action."

Manta looked. The group of Protectors who'd been standing by to the side weren't standing by anymore. They were in full charge, driving their way toward the Vuuka at the cage.

"The opening must be large enough," the other Protector said, rippling himself into motion. "Wait here. We'll drive off the Vuuka."

"I'm coming with you," Manta said, pushing off the wind into his wake.

"No," the Protector snapped, half turning around. "You're a Breeder, and you've violated the law enough times today already. Now wait here."

Manta sighed and let his fins come to a halt. "Very well," he said quietly. "I obey."

"Damn it all," Liadof ground out between her teeth, her thin hands balled into thin fists in her frustration. "They're getting away. Boschwitz, they're getting away."

"I'm sorry, Arbiter," Boschwitz's voice came back, the words edged with his own frustration. "I can't get this damn thing to clear. The error messages keep shifting back and forth, like we've got two or three separate faults, all of them intermittent."

Liadof spat out a set of jawbreaker syllables; some blistering Russian curse, no doubt. Not that Faraday could really blame her. With their attention fixed on the cage, the Vuuka had been caught completely by surprise by the massed Qanskan charge. Even worse, at least from the Arbiter's point of view, chewing on the hard metal that way had apparently been exhausting to even Vuukan jaw muscles. Disorganized and too tired to fight back, the predators had quickly scattered before the attack.

The three Breeders inside the cage had been ready. Even as the last two Vuuka were being butted away by the Protectors, the first of the Qanskan children had been sent swimming out through the hole, his fins flapping with nervous haste as he passed bare meters away from one of his deadliest enemies. A Protector had intercepted him and ushered him away to safety, clearing the path for the next child in line to make her break for freedom.

The last of the children were out of the cage now, and the first Breeder had begun the more cautious maneuvering necessary to ease her larger bulk through the hole.

And Faraday could finally breathe a silent sigh of relief. Liadof's scheme had seriously damaged relations with the Qanska, and it was going to take some fancy talk and footwork on someone's part to heal that breach.

But not nearly as much as it would have taken if that same someone had had to do all his talking while a group of Qanska were being held hostage somewhere in the wilds of the Jovian atmosphere.

And all because the normally perverse demon of equipment glitches had chosen for once to smile on them. A simple interlock fault, plus a lot of ingenuity on Raimey's part, and Liadof was going to have to back out with her tail between her legs. For want of a nail, the old line echoed through his mind—

"Mr. Milligan," Liadof said suddenly. "What are those red lights on your board?"

"Excuse me?" Milligan said, frowning down at his board.

"Lift your hands," Liadof ordered, taking a step toward him. "Keep them away from the controls."

"I don't understand," Milligan said, his hands reluctantly coming up.

"I think you do," Liadof said icily, bending over for a closer look. "Mr. Boschwitz, what does

'proximity sensor lockdown' mean?"

"What?" Boschwitz asked. "Where?"

"All over Mr. Milligan's board," Liadof said. "What does it mean?"

Boschwitz hissed into the speaker. "It means we've found the problem," he said darkly. "One of the standard safety interlocks is that if a proximity sensor shows you up against something solid, you can't move that direction without an override. By overloading the whole batch of them, he's tweaked it so that they're all showing something solid. You can't go anywhere; ergo, the engines shut down to standby."

"Why didn't you override it?"

"Because the glitch kept changing," Boschwitz growled. "He must have been alternating between different sensor-group overloads to keep me from ever catching up with the right one. Keep his hands away from his board and I can get Omega moving."

Liadof looked up at the display. "It's too late," she said, her voice ominously quiet. "Go ahead and do the overrides and bring Omega back up to reel-in position. No hurry."

"Yes, Arbiter."

Liadof gazed down at Milligan. "Mr. Milligan. Do you have anything to say?"

Milligan folded his arms across his chest. "Not really."

She nodded as if that was the answer she'd been expecting. Shifting her gaze to the doorway, she hooked a finger in invitation to the remaining Sanctum cop. "Escort Mr. Milligan to the brig. And while you're at it, you can take Colonel Faraday back to his quarters. The show's over."

She looked at Faraday. "For now," she added.

Silently, Milligan stood up and walked toward the approaching guard. For a moment Liadof watched him go, her eyes betraying nothing of what was going on inside her. The cop reached Milligan and began to cuff him; and as he did so, Liadof turned around to face the sole remaining tech seated at the curved control board. "Or shall we go ahead and make it a clean sweep, Mr. Beach?" she invited.

Beach's lips compressing briefly. "I'd rather not, Arbiter," he said firmly. "I like my job. I'll stay."

She studied his profile briefly, then nodded. "Very well, Mr. Beach. Carry on."

She turned back to Faraday. "This isn't over yet, Colonel. But we'll speak about that later."

"I'm sure we will," Faraday said, standing up calmly as the Sanctum cop motioned him to his feet.

When push comes to crunch, he'd asked Sprenkle after that fateful meeting in his quarters a week and a half ago, are they going to stand with me?

He had his answer now. They would. And they had.

Or at least most of them had.

Beach had returned his attention to his board, giving Faraday a view of a studiously calm profile.

Still, three of the four had stood with him. That was a number he could be proud of. If he ever found a way out of this mess, he promised himself, he would make sure they were rewarded for their loyalty.

If.

The last of the trapped Breeders made it through the hole in the mesh; and only then did the big engines above Manta finally roar to life. Wonderful timing, he thought sardonically. Though he doubted it was the original timing the humans had had in mind.

Getting his fins moving, he swam away from it, keeping a careful eye on the front end of the cage.

Humans liked to keep their options open, he knew, and that cage could still hold a captured Protector or two.

But apparently they'd had enough. Instead of heading level or downward, as it would have if they were going to hunt more Qanska, the probe angled upward toward the distant clouds above.

It was over. And the Qanska had won.

Manta rolled over on his back and watched it leave, fatigue lying heavy on his fins as the emotion and tension of the battle began to drain out of him. Yes, the Qanska had won. But for him, at least, the victory was going to be mixed at best. That Protector had been right; he was going to have to answer to the Counselors and the Leaders and the Wise for everything that had happened today.

Both his own actions, and very likely those of the humans. As far as they were concerned, after all, he would always be Manta, child of the humans.

Should he try to talk with them? Use the subvocalization trick and ask them what in gritty wind they had been doing?

He flipped his tails decisively. No. They could have talked to him at any point along the way, either before they sent their probe or at any time since. If they hadn't been interested in his opinion then, they were unlikely to be interested in it now.

He smiled grimly to himself. He very much hoped that they had noticed his contribution to the Qanskan victory. Let them bask in the knowledge of what ignoring him had cost them.

The probe had receded to a tiny speck in the sky when he heard the distant scream of fear.

He rolled back over, a flash of resentment whistling through him as he forced tired muscles back into action. What now? Had more Vuuka sensed the commotion and come over to see what was going on?

Well, whatever it was, it wasn't his concern. He was just a Breeder, after all, as everyone on Jupiter was fond of telling him. This was the Protectors' job. Let them handle it. The cry for help came again—

And Manta jerked like he'd been hit by lightning.

It was Drusni's voice.

The fatigue in his muscles vanished as if it had been dropped into the Great Yellow Storm, replaced by a terrified strength. Female Breeders nearing birth can give off cues of receptiveness, Latranesto had told him. But mating at that time can kill the unborn young.

And in humans, Manta knew, a miscarriage usually involved a certain loss of blood....

He threw himself across the wind, the aching terror in his heart driving a terrible strength into his muscles. No, he pleaded with the universe. Please. Not Drusni.

And then, in the distance, he saw her, locked in a writhing struggle with two Vuuka only slightly smaller than she was. Fighting for her life.

And spraying all around was the bright yellow of Qanskan blood.

Something nudged against into his side. Manta twitched over, his rage boiling suddenly to the surface. Half curling, he slapped his tails as hard as he could at his attacker—

"Stay back," the Protector beside him ordered, grunting as Manta's tail slash caught him across his back just behind the ear. "You hear me? Stay back."

"To the Deep with you," Manta snarled, uncurling and lunging forward again.

"I said stop," the Protector barked, speeding up himself and catching up with Manta. He gave him another nudge for emphasis, a harder one this time. "We'll handle this."

Manta ignored him. Jaws clenched, he kept going—

And was nearly knocked upside down by the turbulence as four big Protectors suddenly shot past him, swimming toward Drusni and her attackers.

The Protector beside Manta took advantage of his momentary confusion to push himself into Manta's path. "It's under control," he growled. "You'd just be in the way."

"There'll be more of them," Manta warned, gasping for air. "All that blood—"

"We'll take care of it," the Protector insisted. "Besides, the Counselors and the Leaders and the Wise want to see you. Now."

Manta looked behind him. The four Protectors were nearly to Drusni and the Vuuka now. For better or worse, it was out of his strength. "All right," he murmured, his throats aching. "Lead the way."