Agha-pa was looking out a viewing field at the end of the row and turned around. Somehow, despite the enormous, glistening teeth and the tiny eyes set into the slick green flesh, he managed to look nervous. “I don’t know. The records are sparse, to be honest.” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “The city has never been successfully attacked, so the coverage it has must be sufficient?”
“Perhaps our records are a bit more substantial than the official reports of the city?” Khet Nhan smiled politically, his paws rubbing together again. “I believe, from what I have gathered, that there are more than sufficient point defense batteries, the purposes of which were manifold, but now serve to defend Penumbra from an attack originating overhead. Batteries were added to those towers deemed insufficiently protected. We also believe that there is an inherent capability of the Relic Core itself to defend the city, should the need arise. The records speak of at least one instance when the city was called upon to do that. The details are scant, but there can be no doubt that the Core rose up in its own defense.”
Marcus shook his head, his mouth twisted. “Forgive me if that’s not quite enough for me. I think—”
“Master.” The word cracked across the confined space like a whip. They all turned to the dark-robed acolyte. “You should address him as Master.”
Marcus stared at her. The hostility in her eyes was undeniable, and he suddenly doubted his instinct to trust the Thien’ha with his safety. Killing those damned Ntja would have been an easy way to earn his trust; and cheap, too, if the reports of the Ntja’s value as agents were true.
“Please, Sihn, there is no need to stand on ceremony.” Khet Nhan’s smiled sent the fine green beard fringe writhing. “I am no being’s master here save maybe yours, and even that only by courtesy, it would seem.” It was a mild rebuke, but the fires in the girl’s eyes guttered, and she looked down as if she had been slapped.
The tension in the room ratcheted up another notch, and the two Humans and the Leemuk exchanged uncomfortable glances before the small Thien’ha master clapped those small hands and gestured back to the viewing fields. “Regardless, I believe we can trust in the defenses of the city. Others can be sent to reassure you of their status, Administrator, but I think there will be more pressing concerns for you to pursue in the days ahead.”
Marcus stared out the viewing field at the massive batteries and then turned back to the little alien. “And what would you suggest I pursue?”
The big red eyes blinked, and the smile faded. “Your efforts here are noble, Marcus Wells. The potential of this city is great, if it were to be realized. The concerns of its many, disparate citizens must be harnessed and pointed in the same direction.”
Justin nodded. “Sounds like we’re getting sent home either way, Marc. If you can lock down some of your ideas before the fish takes over, could be some of the good we’ve tried to do here will stick after we’re gone.”
Khet Nhan nodded, while Agha-pa looked between them as if he could not follow the conversation. Marcus smiled a grim little grin as he thought of the big Leemuk’s nanites trying to translate ‘fish’ in context.
Marcus turned toward the chief of security. “I want at least five towers manually checked in each quadrant. The rest can be reviewed remotely, but by morning I want a report on all of the defenses,” he looked sideways at the little mystic, then back to the giant green monster. “I want reassurance that everything is in working order.”
“Yes sir.” The Leemuk’s bulbous head dipped, his small eyes blinking rapidly. “I will see to it personally.”
“No.” Marcus shook his head, looking back through the view screen. “I want you to go back to the control center. We need to get in front of Taurani. See that any of our initiative partners have security, and run up a schedule that will see as many of those who have proven willing to work with us will be as protected as we can make them.” He closed his eyes, shaking his head. All of the time he had spent in his quarters studying the city could now pay dividends, if only he did not let his newfound appreciation for the scope of the work ahead crush him into immobility.
He turned back to the room, meeting each creature’s gaze. “We’re going to need to recruit more security personnel. The office of the administrator has never been configured to provide active security for the entire city. I think we’re going to need to think in those terms from now on.”
Khet Nhan’s furry head bobbed up and down encouragingly while his acolyte’s lips tightened. The Leemuk’s eyes had shrunken into the massive head even deeper, and Justin looked lost in thought.
“I might have to give this all up soon, but Justin’s right. There’s a chance to do something worthwhile here, and I mean to do the best I can to see that it doesn’t fall apart the minute we have to leave.”
Chapter 18
Ambassador Khuboda Taurani floated in the shallow pool, his wide eyes closed to glittering slits as the salty water lapped all around him. His thin, lipless mouth had settled into a contented slash that did service with the Kerie as a smile.
He could not have foreseen, when he first heard that a Human had stumbled into the administrator’s throne, how much easier this was going to make achieving his ultimate goals for this filthy backwater.
Marcus Wells had faltered from error to error. The Human had been most obliging in his lack of guile and his reflexive response to every cut and thrust. The city was on the verge of collapse now, and he had barely had to stir himself from his consular apartments for a gratifying stretch of days.
“Ambassador.” The growling word sliced through the peaceful calm, but he rigidly refused to allow his body to jerk upright in the water.
“Yes, Iranse?” His Eru servant had been instrumental in directing the breakdown of the city’s morale. His Ntja guards made excellent shock troopers, but they tended to behave more as a blunt weapon, and required a bit of a controlling hand to ensure their most effective use in a sensitive operation like this.
Iranse, however, had been indispensable.
“Another consortium has refused the Human’s offer of protection. Most of the independent interests have now turned him down, and are barricading themselves in their offices, awaiting the end.” The tall purple creature stood respectfully ten paces away from the pool, hands folded over his belly and red eyes downcast.
“Excellent.” Marcus Wells’s move to offer protection to those syndicates that had opted to work with him in the past had been one of the few decent ideas the foolish Human had had. Luckily, the Ntja had managed to beat his fledgling security forces to the punch in several key locations, and the resulting massacres had done wonders to convince the rest that the administrator’s office would be incapable of protecting them.
“The entire city is all but shut down.” The Eru were a naturally-subservient people, and thus it was hard to judge from Iranse’s tone of voice, but it appeared he was quite pleased with the Ambassador’s work. “By the time Admiral Ochiag arrives, they will have lost the last vestiges of unity they might have possessed.”
Taurani tightened his mouth but decided to allow his servant this moment of unseemly exultation. He finally sat up and drifted to the smooth edge of the pool, his hands flowing back and forth in the warm water. “I do not suppose you’ve any Iwa’Bantu tucked away somewhere against such a celebratory moment?”
He asked, knowing that he had wrung the last moments of amusement from the final plaything available to him in the city days ago, after Iranse had reported the successful completion of the mission that had seen to the Diakk troublemaker and his whelp .
“Ah…” Iranse cleared his throat, obviously at a loss. “Well, no, sir. Aside from the deputy…”
That brought the smile back to Taurani’s tight mouth. The Iwa’Bantu were gentle and quiet, and almost never voluntarily ventured from their home planet of Iwa’Ban. It was intriguing that this female should have wandered so far on her own. But there would be plenty of time to pursue those intriguing thoughts when he ha
d secured control of this nest of vermin once and for all.
The Ambassador shook his head as he emerged from the pool. “Let’s allow poor Iphini Bha these last moments of calm while we can afford to be magnanimous.” The servant rushed to a stand by the wall and brought forward the soft robes Taurani preferred when relaxing. “I think we are entering the last stages of our plan, my friend. Is everything in readiness?”
His massive servant’s incongruously small head dipped in acknowledgement. “Everything is in place, sir. When the admiral arrives, you will be in full possession of the city. I have seen to the last elements personally.”
“Never underestimate the impact of the fear of imminent death, Iranse.” He smoothed the robes over his well-formed body with a nod of approval. “Such terror is an essential tool in any good diplomat’s arsenal. By the time the fleet arrives, there will be little more for the admiral to do than to show the Council’s flag, round up a few undesirables, and head back to the galactic core with nothing more to show for his time and effort than a trophy prisoner or two.” The tight smile stretched from one side of his face to the other. “The glory will belong almost entirely to the Kerie, and our important work can begin.”
*****
Marcus sat behind the big desk in the administrator’s office. He was exhausted. He had gotten almost no sleep since the latest attempt on his life. Each time he closed his eyes, the pale, still form of Copic Fa’Elic, the innocent Diakk boy he had tried so hard to save, was waiting there to stare at him with blank, accusing eyes.
Iphini Bha was silent at the table, going over reports in the silence of her own mind, the ancient stylus spinning in her fingers.
On the wall, the images hung silent in their frames, their dull tones reflecting a lack of hope and conviction that he found disheartening, knowing they were picking up on his own thoughts. He thought he could see hints and suggestions of a face lost somewhere in the somber shadows, Clarissa looking out at him through sad, lost eyes. But her image in the framed pieces had faded more and more with each passing day. Lately, he could hardly see her at all.
There was a jagged, violent disturbance in the background of some of the images that he found confusing, but there was enough going wrong now that almost any negative reflection would have made sense.
The halls and pathways of the city were empty. The citizens had withdrawn behind barricaded doors, venturing out only when necessary, and then only in numbers, and heavily armed. There was no denying the sense of impending doom that hung over the entire place. It was as if the people of Penumbra were holding their breath, waiting for the Council to come and finally end their independence once and for all.
It did not help that every attempt he had made to forge his loose alliance of corporations, consortiums, and syndicates into a more cohesive whole had come to nothing. The massacres at the two Namanu factories had not helped in that regard, of course.
What made things even worse was that Taurani, for he had no doubt the damned Kerie bastard was behind the whole thing, had managed to avoid leaving even a single piece of damning evidence behind. The independent-minded citizens of Penumbra would rather live in this constant fear than have him descend upon the Council Ambassador’s residence without proof.
And that, of course, presupposed he had the ability to attack Taurani’s gang of thugs. Despite his mandate to expand the city’s security forces, he was losing guards every day, and there were precious few recruits stepping forward to take their places.
By the time the damned fleet arrived, he’d be holed up in the control center with Justin, Angara, and Iphini Bha. The city better be able to defend itself, at that point.
“What I don’t understand, Iphini,” he began hesitantly. His deputy had been acting more and more distant over the past few days. “If the city is so capable of defending itself, why is everyone afraid?”
She turned to look at him, her face a mask of stillness and despair, the pencil-like rod pausing in mid-spin. “The Council’s reach is long, Marcus Wells. Most of those here in the city have already fled from them once.” She looked away. “They are not likely to stand up to them now.”
He still didn’t understand. “But with the defenses up, how can they get to us? Taurani’s got his thugs, yes, but how many can he have? Twenty? Thirty? Against a whole city?”
“Agha-pa fears that he may have far more than that. We have no way of tracking arrivals in the city. It’s one of its many attractions for those seeking refuge. Agha-pa is afraid that Taurani has been bringing Ntja in for quite a while, before we even knew to watch for them.”
That sent a cold shiver down Marcus’s back. “How many does he think they have?”
She shrugged and turned away from him. “There is no way to know. It could easily be hundreds.”
Hundreds of violent thugs against a city already suffocating under a blanket of fear. It was not a thought liable to make sleep any easier.
As things had continued to collapse, he had begun to look forward to Angara’s long-sought successor making his appearance. As much as it still disturbed him on some deep level to be replaced by a dolphin, he was afraid he might be ready to leave.
The door slid open and Justin and Angara came through. He hadn’t seen Justin in days, but it was his bodyguard that caught his undivided attention. She was brusque as she came into the room, and her intense, distracted energy swept through the psycho-reactive images like a tidal wave of primary colors and hard, blocky shapes. Justin, moving behind her, looked directly at him, his pale eyes wide and sympathetic.
“Warder Oo’Juto is on his way.” She moved to stand before his desk. “A scout ship has just returned. The Council fleet will be emerging into the system in a matter of hours. Oo’Juto was reluctant, but he understands our desperation. He has worked with the Council in the past, of course, in his capacity as Warder of Earth. Hopefully that will carry some weight with the admiral of the fleet when they arrive.”
“I think we might want to make a quick exit before this all goes down, Marc.” Justin shook his head. “Even if things are as peaceful as we’re hoping, there’s a lot of folks here who’re going to be looking for someone to blame for the disruption of the status quo.” He shrugged. “You know we’re going to be the number one target. It’s not like we’ve scored any major PR achievements as far as the reputation of Humans around here is concerned.”
Marcus found that a bit disingenuous, spoken as it was from behind concealing contact lenses, a dyed beard, and a galactic wardrobe. But there was too much occurring, too quickly, for him to indulge in petty sniping now.
“You think this will do it?” There had been a time when Marcus had taken great pride in never leaving any job unfinished, but that had been a long time ago. “If you’re convinced the dolphin’s taking over will spare these people, I’ll go. But if you think Taurani and his bulldogs are going to continue to make trouble…”
Iphini Bha stood abruptly and moved to a far corner. The art nearest her altered subtly, something dark swirling in the background.
“I don’t think anything is going to deter Taurani now, Marcus.” Angara paced behind the long table. “But Oo’Juto will be able to talk to him. The transition will be less painful.” She shrugged, looking at him through a fall of white hair, her violet eyes glittering within her dark, purple-tinged face. “Perhaps something can be salvaged from your work here.”
“And all I have to do is run away to even find out.” Marcus felt something inside his chest give way. His shoulders slumped; he slid back into the seat.
The low murmur of conversation out in the control center faded suddenly to a hushed quiet. Marcus knew that the Thein’ha were watching the door, and had no doubt that anyone moving into the room outside did so only with their permission. Nevertheless, a chill chased itself down his back as he turned to look at the door, his heart beating painfully against his ribs.
The door slid open, and a massive gray shape floated through.
Marcus had se
en the giant creatures Angara called Aijians a few times around the city. They floated along on some kind of anti-gravity system that must have been related to the variable control surfaces grav-locked to the hull of Angara’s ship. They were surrounded with a shimmering field of water that softened the lines of their body and caused them to glisten under light.
No matter how graceful or stately they might seem, he only saw them as giant dolphins swimming through thin air.
The fact that these creatures were, in fact, responsible for keeping mankind locked on Earth for God alone knew how long bothered him on more levels than he cared to admit. The fact that no one seemed willing or able to explain the crime that had relegated Humans to their distant prison in the dim, lost past of the galaxy only made things worse.
He had always liked dolphins; who didn’t? He remembered a visit he had once paid to a small local aquarium in Clearwater, Florida. He had stared at the dolphins swimming around in their pools for hours, and had daydreamed about diving in with them.
And those little bastards must have been staring right back at him the entire time, laughing behind their slab-nosed faces.
He understood, vaguely, that Aijian DNA had been altered in some way to bring it into some cosmic norm with all of the other denizens of Earth. He even understood, on some level, that this alteration made them more likely to successfully replace him if he stepped down from his office. He looked down at the Skorahn. It gleamed brighter than the office’s subdued lighting could account for. He wondered if he would be more comfortable giving it up to someone other than an alien who had overseen the incarceration of his entire species.
“This is the Human to whom you have granted the power of the administrator?” The voice seemed to speak directly into his mind, with undertones of high-pitched trillings just out of his range of hearing. A quick glance at Justin showed his friend wincing in reaction.
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