“I am here, Mallivan. What do you need?”
“Get on the tight-beam and convince these Avaraks that we are not a threat to them. And do it fast! Seyal!”
“Also here, Ryler.”
“You help Zenzie. After all, these are your people, aren’t they?”
Seyal seemed doubtful. “They were,” she admitted. “I don’t know as they would say they were now.”
“Just speak Avarak to them. I need more time. Denaraz needs more time.”
“I understand.”
The two women began to spout Avarak at the communications station. There was a long pause, until a tinny voice began gruffly to interrogate them. Zenzie took the time to turn around and look at me, giving me a nod of her head to show me that they were obeying my orders.
I ran over to Sammy. “What about shields, Sam? How long will they hold?”
He screwed up his face. “Even though we have the most modern type of Tyzaran shields, if that battleship starts taking potshots at us, we will be in trouble. Not that I want to be the bearer of bad news, mind!”
“Yeah. Thanks a lot. Not to worry, we have Zenzie and Seyal. They will sort it all out if anybody can.”
Mel rolled her eyes. “And I was thinking we were about to become law enforcers for the new Alliance!”
“We all were. And are!” I realized that we could use the alliance to barter our way out. “Seyal! Tell them about the Alliance! Tell them they need to sign. Tell them it is in their best interests!”
Seyal shook her head. “They won’t listen to me. I am a female of their own species, and I am now unlanded. I will do more harm than good.”
“Zenzie then. Get that convincing patter of yours together, girl!”
She rolled her eyes. “No pressure!” But she began to speak with great emphasis.
At first they seemed very disinclined to listen. Then there was a more receptive silence on the other side of the channel. Finally, they agreed to connect by vid-screen, so that we could see each other.
I put Zenzie in front of me, and pasted a welcoming false smile on my face. Seeing this, the others immediately followed suit.
I was seeing more teeth than I had in a long time. It was extremely disconcerting. I moderated the amount of tooth on display.
The heavy Avarak on screen glared at us. He addressed us in Universal, much to my relief. “My name is Celodon. What is all this about an Alliance?”
“Zenzara Zylarian. Good morning! If the Avaraks joined the Alliance, and the Terrans did not, you would immediately find yourselves allied with the rest of the Major Shells.” She frowned, realizing that was not completely true. “Except the Vaers, who we do not expect to join. At least, not in the first phase.”
“And why would the Avaraks want to join?”
Zenzie gave a charming little girl smile. If it had been directed at me I would have been extremely worried. “Because,” she said in her sweet voice, “if you do then you would immediately obtain the latest technology from the Tyzarans, would you not?”
Celodon’s enormous jowls quivered. “We would?”
“Well, I should think that you would. If I were you, I would demand it as a condition. I mean, you could point out to the Tyzarans that joining an alliance where others would have the latest technology but you wouldn’t would be very difficult. Especially since this whole war against the Terrans started because of the ZEPH drive technology.” She looked down at her hands and took the time to examine her nails. “It doesn’t seem in the least fair. And, of course, by joining you would also ensure that the Raksora Accords be honored. That would be a great importance to my people. You know that we feel very strongly about those accords. The war of succession two hundred years ago is still considered barbaric by my people. Your joining a new alliance would be a way to ensure peace between the Tyzarans and the Avaraks.” She looked up again, her eyes sharp. “After all, your people must be feeling very isolated now that they have irritated both the Tyzarans and the Spacelanders. I am sure that your government would like to hear of this offer.”
Celodon harrumphed. “It is conceivable that they might. Very well. You will come with us. We will escort you and your ship to Rhyveka. You can tell your tale to the Avarak Grand Council.”
I hurried forward. “You know, although we appreciate your kind offer of escort, we really should be getting on with—”
“It is not optional. Avarak Karax! ”
The Avarak ships penned us neatly in their midst. There was no way we would be able to escape from this show of space might. We were going to Rhyveka. I closed my eyes. At least they hadn’t opened fire. Yet.
After the vid-screen went grey again Zenzie did a small dance. “See how good I am?” she told us. “I have saved you all again!”
“Yeah. Terrific. Thank you so much.”
Her face fell. “What? You do not think I did a good job?”
Mel took pity on her. “You were great, Zenzie! You saved all our lives. It is just that we don’t quite know what will happen to us when we reach Rhyveka.”
I noticed that Seyal was looking quite unwell. “What is it, Seyal?”
She swallowed. “They might … Solutor’s family might think they have a right to Segaton. If they find out he is on board, I believe they will remove him from me. I have no rights on Rhyveka, remember.”
“I do remember,” I said grimly. “Look, we can outrun the whole of this fleet any time. The only danger is the period before we escape their weapons range. We need a diversion. Seyal, we won’t let the Avaraks take Segaton. Really. We won’t.”
Seyal nodded, but I could tell how worried she was. I couldn’t blame her. “All we can do at the moment is wait. We will use that time to get ourselves into some semblance of order for any future emergencies. We need some drilling to get a quick response to attack. We will use this time for that.”
And we did. We crawled along in the midst of the Avarak fleet, limited to their old-fashioned drives. We drilled and drilled and practiced and practiced. Using the simulator we discovered that both Anzany and Sammy were great at the weapons console. That became their station, under the supervision of Denaraz. He delegated Sammy to the rail guns and Anzany, who seemed almost telepathic about where and when shots would be fired, to the ABlasers. So we put Mel and Neema on pilotage. The two girls got on together really well, and both were becoming excellent pilots. Neema, perhaps had the edge on Mel, but only because of Mel’s inconvenient claustronetia. It dogged her footsteps wherever she went in space. I honestly didn’t know how she could still function as well as she did. I don’t think I could have. She was gaining my admiration more and more. Sammy couldn’t hide his pride in her progress. Even if she was sweating with terror, she performed better and better.
Didjal of course took the engines. He was the only one of us who could. Eshaan, although technically not a member of crew because of his status as an artist, offered to shadow Didjal. Engineers usually had whole crews down on the lower deck. Another pair of hands would be essential for him.
Zenzie was too young to fight. It was possible that Celodon would ask after his fluent young Tyzaran interlocutor, but I doubted it. Avaraks didn’t take much notice of females. If he did remark on her absence, I could always get somebody to fetch her. She would be safer well out of the way. Her job would be to find Segaton and protect him. They were both to go to the very centre of the ship – the safest place. I spent nearly a day exploring the crawl tubing of Nivala, trying to find where that place would be. Even though she was a small ship at only around sixty meters overall length and three decks, there were still many, many meters of crawl tubing under each deck. There had to be. On a spaceship you could not assume that lifts would always function. The first place that came to mind as a possible safe space was the swimming pool, on the m
iddle deck.
Perhaps swimming pool is a bit of a misnomer. It is in fact a storage facility for the water that is needed both for propulsion and for personal use. The ZEPH drive uses Zero Point energy to split water into its components. The recombination is what drives the ships. So much is needed that the Tyzarans had decided to store it in a pool that could then be used for exercising. One of the great problems of prolonged space travel is the muscle deterioration suffered by space travelers. Swimming is extremely good at combating such side effects, while not putting too much stress on the bones themselves, which are also at risk. There was also a gymnasium, on the upper deck. Health is taken very seriously in space. It has to be.
Although the crawl tubes were perhaps safer if we were boarded, I thought that the water itself would form more of a protection if we should be attacked. Then I realized that it wasn’t very practical. On attack, automatic steel covers would deploy over the pool so that the water was kept retained in the event of acute maneuvers. The thought of the two youngest members of our crew being swilled around inside a watertight steel box was not a pleasant one. I discussed it with Zenzie, and didn’t need to look at her rigid crest to know how she felt about that. However, we still stowed an EVA spacesuit for Zenzie herself and a child’s portable safety airbag in one of the lockers in the pool area. As a last resort it might be a viable option. Water was a great insulator. I showed her how to manually open the access hatch on the retractable cover, and told her that she and Segaton were to get into the pool and submerge if missiles were about to connect with the ship. I agreed a series of code words that would keep her up to date with the threats. She nodded. She would take her job seriously, I knew. She and Segaton got on very well. She absolutely adored the Avarak baby, playing with him whenever she got a chance.
We finally decided that she would take the baby into the crawl space which led under the swimming pool. The entry hatch was close to the pool, which would give them the capability of redeploying to the pool if the situation deteriorated.
I led her to the intersection of the front to aft tube with the starboard to port tube. There was two meters of water above us and nine meters of cargo hold below. It was in the dead center of the ship. It was about as good as we could manage.
We dragged some bedding down into the space, together with nappies and food, both for the baby and for Zenzie. It was hard to stow them in the small space, which was only one meter high by fifty centimeters wide. Finally we were able to lodge most of it under the removable slats that made up the walkway.
It was a good hiding place. I wasn’t too worried about sound. The crawl spaces were lined with a plastic derivative which dampened our voices considerably. I was pretty sure even a baby’s crying wouldn’t be heard.
Finally we made our way back to the bridge. I told Seyal of our exploration. The Avarak’s face lightened. “Segaton should be hidden in this place when we reach Rhyveka,” she said immediately. “They will not find him there.”
I wrinkled up my nose. I wasn’t too sure of that. “They will undoubtedly search the ship.”
She nodded. “Yes. But the male Avaraks cannot fit in the crawl spaces. They will send females. I will leave a sign with Zenzara to show the females. I do not think that they will betray me. Not when I explain to them. They are like me. They know what life is like for us on Rhyveka. If they can, they will protect me.”
She was the one who should know about that. It sounded sketchy to me. However, Zenzie seemed convinced, so I let them organize the signs and take them into the crawl space below the middle deck. After that Seyal seemed calmer. She knew that, in any exchange with the Avaraks, she would have to stay on the bridge with me. I would need her translation. My Avarak had improved over recent weeks, though not nearly as much as Seyal’s Universal. I wasn’t up to negotiating with irate male Avaraks.
Since she would have to be on the bridge with me, she offered to undertake the job of interpreter. I agreed instantly. Not just for the Avaraks. She told me that she would start to study the other five languages of the Major Shells.
She certainly had a gift for languages. She had become fluent in Universal in the short time she had been with us. I wondered if all of the female Avaraks had been so severely underestimated. I had no doubt she could be chattering away in Nepheal or Vaer in a few months.
She was ridiculously pleased to have found another way to be useful. The factions of her face seemed more angular now. She was less diminished. I was pleased for her. She was becoming an essential part of the crew, quite apart from her nursing training. She was already our first aid specialist, now she would be our translator. And it was not likely to stop there. She told me that she would need to investigate the history of each race in order to conform to social protocols. When Seyal decided to do something, she did it really, really well. I personally thought that the males of her species had been extremely short-sighted.
She had told me all about life as a female on Rhyveka. Whilst most female Avaraks are submitted to injections which block signals from the nerves to the muscles of the throat, Seyal had not suffered this indignity. Her father, Hegaton, had belonged to a small group of Avarak males who thought that females should not be altered in this fashion.
Females are considered of importance only for breeding. No females are taught universal. No females are allowed to do any job considered to require decision making. Most are conjoined to a male by fifteen years old and pregnant by sixteen. As many as sixty-five percent of females die in childbirth, so it is most unusual to meet one who is older than twenty. By then they will have given birth three times, which means that they have only around a four percent chance of reaching twenty-one.
Female Avaraks have no vote on anything in their world and do not enjoy emancipation. They belong to their husbands, who are free to mistreat, sell, exchange and even kill them. Even though this, nowadays, is frowned upon, it still occurs in some mountainous districts of Rhyveka.
A female death is not acknowledged by Avarak society, whereas a male death requires a long ceremony, attended by all his offspring. This goes on for three days by law, and any female wives surviving him are ceremoniously auctioned off to the highest bidders. The resultant moneys are used to erect huge mausoleums to his achievements, so most Avaraks make sure they have at least ten wives at all times. They will search far and wide for the females with the most breathy voices, to ensure, if the worst should come to pass, that their resting places should be worthy of them. The most important Avaraks can have up to thirty wives at any one time.
Since she had not had the injection, Seyal’s own voice was not particularly breathy. I asked about this. She reddened. “My father was obliged to … pay … my husband.”
“A dowry?”
She didn’t know the word. “Money to make up for my harsh voice.” She lowered her head and blinked rather rapidly. “My father gave him many monies.”
“Your voice is very soft.”
She blushed again. “It is kind of you to say so, but you will see that it is not so. My voice grates on most males. At least, the ones of my own species.”
I grinned. “Well, I am very grateful to your father. If he had altered your voice, I am sure it would have been much harder for you to master Universal. You could not have been our interpreter.”
Her head came up at that. “It is true, what you say. Many females would not be able to pronounce your words correctly. I had not thought of it like that.”
“We need you, Seyal. Just as you are.”
Her eyes opened wide. “I agree, logically, but it is hard for me to feel needed on an emotional level. That is a new experience for me.”
“A good one, I hope?”
“A very good one!”
We watched carefully as we were escorted towards Rhyveka. Aldhiba had been left far behind. We had entered the Adhara C
orridor, about eighty light years north of Veka. We didn’t want to miss any chance of escape. Unfortunately, none presented. We were watched and hemmed in by the Avarak ships, and at any one time at least three of them were in range and had their weapons trained upon us.
The wait was taking its toll. I was ramped up ready to go and it was sapping my energy levels. If something didn’t happen soon I honestly thought I would snap. Waiting had never been one of my strong points. If I have strong points. Anyway, waiting is for sure not one of them.
I shook my head at Denaraz and Neema, the only two people with me on the bridge. “I’m going into the gym for a while. See if I can work off some of this stress. I’m only next door. Shout if you need me.”
Neema nodded. “Sure, Rye. Take some time. We can cope here.”
The gym was situated exactly on top of the swimming pool, only one deck up. It was a large rectangular space right in the middle of the ship, flanked forward by the bridge, aft by the crew’s cabins and to port and starboard by the mess hall and kitchen and the saloon and arms cache, respectively.
I slammed one of the mountain routes on the enveloping vid-screen and clambered onto the synchronized bike. That should pound the flutters out of me. Within minutes I was lost on a four percent incline over six kilometers. Enough for me. Enough for many cyclists, I guess. The confines of the ship had extended out to old Earth. I was struggling up one of the blue-grade trails in a place called Italy. It was beautiful. And I was out of practice. I had already had to change gears three times. I only had two changes left. I stood up on the bike. I might not be able to do this.
A klaxon burst into my peaceful little private hell. Again. A loud klaxon.
I tumbled off the bike, almost falling off when the clip shoes didn’t disengage. I tore at them and flung them away, racing back to the bridge barefoot.
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