by Timothy Zahn
Yes, the Wisp said.
Good. One more thing. I understand them. They don’t understand me. Not a single bit. They don’t, and they never will. Can you make sure they get that message?
Yes.
Good. Then you two can go back to your duties.
She started to pull her hand away, then pressed it again against the Wisp’s shoulder. One more thing. When the Oracle was finished betraying the Fyrantha’s Protector, did it send my message to the gray group’s Sibyl?
Yes.
Good. Go back to your duties now.
For a moment the two Wisps continued to stand motionless. Then, they turned and headed back the way they’d come.
“Did you get the information you wanted?” Teika asked.
“Some of it,” Nicole said. “We had a nice conversation.”
“What did you say to them?” Moile asked.
“I told them they can’t win.”
“Do you think they believed you?” Moile asked.
“If not, we’ll just have to prove it to them.” Nicole took a deep breath. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” Teika said.
“Back to the arena door,” Nicole told him. “Hopefully, by a safer route.”
“We’re going back to the arena?” Moile said. “Why?”
“Because Wesowee is probably waiting by now,” Nicole said. “And I’d rather not make him mad.”
* * *
By the time they went down the four levels Nicole wanted, walked all the way past the arena, then came back up near the door, Wesowee was indeed waiting.
Luckily, he didn’t seem to be mad.
“Nicole!” he called, his birdsong trilling as he trotted down the corridor toward her and the Ponngs with open arms. “I’m so pleased to see you.”
“I take it you got my message?” Nicole asked.
“Yes indeed,” the Ghorf said, coming to a halt, his neck gills fluttering. “Though at first I thought it wasn’t from you at all. I thought our Sibyl was playing a trick on me. Then I thought the ship was playing a trick. Then I thought you must have changed your mind. Then I thought you’d been captured. Then I thought you might be playing a trick.” He huffed out a breath. “I’m so relieved I was wrong on all of them.”
It was a wonderful performance, Nicole decided: the same strong, cheerful, slow-witted role that Kahkitah had pulled off so successfully the whole time the Ghorfs had been aboard the Fyrantha. Briefly, she wondered what the Ponngs would say when they learned the truth. “I’m sorry I worried you,” she said.
“I’m just pleased you’re unhurt,” Wesowee said. “How may I help you?”
“Well, I started out wanting to talk to Kointos and the rest of your work team,” Nicole said. “There’s something we need to do, and the more people on our side, the better.”
“Some kind of major work project?”
“You could say that, yes,” Nicole said evasively. She didn’t know how much Wesowee knew—or for that matter, how much Kahkitah had told the Ponngs—and it would probably be better to keep the details quiet. “But first, there’s something else I need your help with. We need to go into the arena, and we might need your muscle.”
“Into the arena?” Wesowee echoed. “What for?” He looked at the Ponngs. “Do they need to be rescued again?”
“We didn’t need to be rescued at all,” Moile said stiffly.
“Yes, we did,” Teika said. “Now, we return the debt as the Protector’s guardians.”
“Indeed,” Wesowee said, looking pointedly at Moile’s toy sword. “I’m certain Nicole feels much safer.”
“Anyway, we’re not rescuing anyone today,” Nicole said. “There’s a new batch of fighters in there, and they have these.” She pointed to the wrecked drone in Teika’s hand.
“It looks damaged,” Wesowee said, leaning over for a closer look. “Do you wish to return it to them?”
“No,” Nicole said, taking the drone from Teika. It was heavier than she’d expected. “I want to steal another one.”
five
There were a couple of back doors into each of the arenas, entrances that bypassed the main hatches and took the visitor into the side away from the living areas. But getting to one of them would require extra time and, worse, take them dangerously close to the observation balcony where the Shipmasters could watch the fighting. The main hatch they were now standing beside would be faster and easier.
Unfortunately, it would cost Nicole another puff on her inhaler to get the access code. But it was becoming painfully clear that she wasn’t likely to die of old age, anyway.
In fact, odds were that she wasn’t even going to last long enough for the inhaler to kill her.
“Caretaker, I need to get into the Q3 arena,” she called out into the empty corridor. “Have the Fyrantha ready to give me the code when I use the inhaler. Please.”
She gave it a few seconds, then put the inhaler into her mouth and sent a blast into her lungs.
Enter the arena with the code seven nine two zero nine four seven.
“Got it,” she said, putting the inhaler away. She stepped to the door and punched the code into the keypad.
The lock snicked open. Wesowee was ready, his big hands already gripping the handle, and as Nicole stepped back out of the way he swung the door open. Taking a deep breath, motioning to the Ponngs to stay close, she headed inside.
The door on this side of the arena opened up near one of the two hives. Nicole’s first fear was that the Shipmaster and stick hornets would be right in front of her, maybe standing around talking about what had just happened in the corridor. To her relief, none of them were anywhere in sight. With the others beside her, she headed in.
She looked closely at the hive entrance as they headed for the tall grass that filled most of the arena, wondering if the Shipmaster might be lurking in there. But again, no one was visible.
She’d taken three more steps and was starting to breathe easier when the grass ahead parted and a pair of wolves stalked out and headed toward them.
Nicole jerked to a halt, her heart seizing up. What the hell—?
She was still staring when the wolves lurched up onto their hind paws and continued toward them on two feet, their forelegs now hanging very much like normal human arms at their sides.
“Those are new,” Wesowee murmured from beside her.
“Or really old,” Nicole murmured back. Now that the creatures were walking upright, she could see that they looked more like really hairy men than wolves. Hairy, hunched-over men with long snouts, rounded shoulders, and short-fingered hands. “We used to have stories about things called werewolves.”
The two wolfmen stopped, and one said something that had a lot of pops and crackles in it. “Who are you?” the translation came through. “What are you doing with our flyer?”
“What, this?” Nicole asked, hefting the drone a couple of inches. “First off, it was one of the other guys’ flyers, not yours. Second, it’s not really a flyer anymore. I mean, it doesn’t fly.”
“The flight doesn’t matter,” the other wolfman said. “It’s still food for our bellies. You will hand it over.”
They started forward.
“Explain,” Moile said, stepping in front of Nicole and lifting his sword to point at the wolfmen.
They ignored him and kept coming.
Beside Nicole, Wesowee gave a rumbling birdsong warning. “No—stay back,” Nicole ordered him quietly. The Shipmasters would be monitoring the arena action, and she didn’t want them spotting an aggressive or even a protective Ghorf. “Let’s see how the Ponngs handle it.”
The wolfmen were still coming.
“He asked you to explain,” Teika said, stepping to Moile’s side and also raising his sword.
“It’s a simple question,” Nicole added. “A simple answer, and you can have the flyer.”
“We will have it regardless,” the first wolfman said.
“When we’ve had our answer,�
�� Nicole said firmly. “Really, are you that eager to lose some blood? Especially when it’s going to drain out onto all that fur? It must look really gross when it mats up.”
The wolfmen stopped. “Are you trying to be funny?” the first demanded.
“What does appearance matter when one is starving?” the second added.
“Not much,” Nicole agreed. “And I wasn’t trying to be funny. I was trying to get an answer. How are these flyers connected with your food?”
The first wolfman gave a brief scrunch of his snout. “We’ve been ordered to fight the Skinless. We have been—”
“The Skinless?” Nicole interrupted. “You mean those stick hornet things?”
“Stick hornet?” the wolfman echoed, scrunching his snout again.
“The ones we got the flyer from,” Nicole said. “That’s what we call them.”
“Stick hornet,” the wolfman said again as if trying out the term. “No. The Skinless.”
“Whatever,” Nicole said. “So how do you fight?”
“We are twenty,” the wolfman said. “The Skinless, too, are twenty. Each group has fifteen flyers.”
“Fifteen of us operate the flyers,” the second wolfman said. “We search the grasslands for the Skinless operators. When we find one, we use the flyer’s flail-tips to briefly paralyze him.”
“So the spinning weed-whacker edges are drugged?”
“I don’t know what a weed-whacker is,” the first wolfman said. “But yes, the edges contain a suppression poison.”
Nicole shivered. So that was why the Shipmasters had recruited the stick hornets and their drones. A single touch, and the Shipmaster could have just strolled over and picked her up.
“Those of us who aren’t operating flyers then go to him and take his controller,” the first wolfman said. “We use it to bring his flyer to us, then bring it to our hive. For each drone we have at the end of the combat period, we receive one ration of food.”
Nicole nodded. So each side needed to keep all its own drones intact plus capture five of the other side’s, or someone was going to go hungry. That sounded like a Shipmaster scheme, all right. “Don’t they try to protect their operators?”
“There are fifteen operators and only five to guard them,” the wolfman reminded her.
“And those same five also have to retrieve the enemy operators’ controllers,” Teika added. “Too many tasks for them to accomplish them all.”
“I suppose.” Nicole shifted her drone to a two-handed grip and held it up in front of the wolfmen. “So how much of the drone do you need to get food? And do you also need the controller?”
“That much will be sufficient,” the first wolfman said. “The Masters understand that damage can happen.”
“And the controller?”
“Unnecessary and unneeded. In the morning fifteen flyers and fifteen controllers will await us.”
“Great,” Nicole said. “Here’s the deal. You can have this one—if”—she lifted a finger—“if you help us steal an intact one and its controller.”
“Why would we help you do that?” the second wolfman countered. “We would be helping you steal food from our companions’ bellies.”
“You wouldn’t be any worse off than you are now,” Moile said.
“How would you steal it?” the first wolfman asked.
“These are Moile and Teika,” Nicole said, gesturing to the Ponngs. “I’m the Sibyl, by the way. And you two are…?”
“Our names are unimportant,” the second wolfman said.
“And you two are…?” Nicole repeated pointedly.
“Our names are—”
“I am Worwol,” the first wolfman said. “He is Rywoo.”
“Thank you,” Nicole said. “As to Moile and Teika, their people once fought in this same arena. They may know things about it that you don’t.”
“Such as?” Rywoo asked, not sounding particularly impressed.
“Moile?” Nicole invited.
“Have you investigated the various types of grasses in the arena?” Moile asked.
Rywoo made a sound that sounded a lot like a dog sneeze. “Grass is grass,” he said contemptuously. “Only the bushes matter.”
“The bushes?” Nicole asked, frowning.
“The bushes are the favored hiding places for Skinless flyer operators,” Worwol told her. “They lie beneath them so that our own flyers cannot see them from above.”
“And I suppose you use the bushes on your side the same way?” Nicole asked.
“We do,” Worwol said. “Our strategy is to—”
“Are you mad?” Rywoo cut him off, slashing a hand past the other wolfman’s snout. “How do we know they’re not spies for the Skinless?”
“Let me guess,” Nicole said. “Your strategy is to sneak around their side trying to find them.”
“Or else hoping your appearance will drive them from hiding,” Teika said. “We can help.”
“How?” Worwol asked.
“Some of the grasses don’t wave very much when passage is made through them,” Teika said.
“Particularly when passage is made near the roots,” Moile added. “The grasses flare out from a central core, rather like our own species of—”
“Stick to the point, Moile,” Nicole murmured.
“My apologies, Protector,” Moile said, ducking his head. “The point is that the operator won’t hear us coming, and there won’t be any disturbance in the tops of the grasses to warn him or the other flyer operators.”
“How do we do this?” Worwol asked.
“You don’t,” Teika said firmly. “You’re too large. We’re the only ones who can do it.”
Rywoo gave another dog sneeze. “And once you find him, you’ll defeat him?”
“There are two of us,” Moile said, a little stiffly.
“Who together barely make up a single Skinless,” Rywoo shot back. “What if the operator has a guard? Will you defeat both?”
“Who says they have to defeat anyone?” Nicole asked.
“Weren’t you paying attention?” Rywoo gritted out. “We need the flyer to earn food.”
“Yes, I got that,” Nicole said. “Why can’t they just grab the controller and run?”
“Because—” Rywoo broke off. For a long moment he and Worwol looked at each other. “Because they would be caught,” Rywoo continued at last a little hesitantly. “Wouldn’t they?”
“Moile?” Nicole again prompted.
“We would split up,” the Ponng said. “The Skinless would have no idea which of us had the controller.”
“Furthermore, once we were out of the immediate area we would again go to the ground and travel unseen through the grasses,” Teika added.
“What of the river dividing our territories?” Rywoo asked.
Nicole cocked an eyebrow. So the Shipmasters had left the river the way it was after she’d flooded the once-empty channel? Interesting. She’d expected them to drain it again, out of spite if nothing else.
“One of us will swim it while the other remains in hiding,” Moile said. “If there’s no reaction or attack from the Skinless, the one will reach the shore and the other will throw the controller to him. After that, retrieving the flyer will be easy.”
“Why not reach the river and throw it across to one of us?” Worwol suggested.
“And meanwhile, you can let us have that,” Rywoo added, holding out a hand and wiggling his fingers at the broken drone as he took half a step forward.
Nicole felt her forehead crease. There’d been something odd in the wolfman’s voice just then. Actually, there’s been something odd in both their voices.
“Yeah, let’s hold on a second,” she said quickly, taking a step backward. Rywoo started to take another step, stopped as the Ponngs twitched their swords warningly.
“Why do we wait?” Worwol growled. “You take food from our bellies.”
“I said hold on,” Nicole said. Was this just paranoia? The uneasiness of s
omeone who’d too often seen the chaos and betrayal that tended to follow a deal where either the sellers or the buyers seemed too easily convinced?
Or was this the Fyrantha, doing its brain nudging thing again?
She looked around, trying to see the scene with fresh eyes. Standing near their hive and the exit door, discussing how to get the wolfmen more food. Nowhere near the quiet war going on elsewhere in the arena. Worwol and Rywoo didn’t seem to be drone operators, which meant they must be two of the five guards and hunters. So why were they here instead of guarding or hunting?
Were they working with the Shipmasters? Had they been warned Nicole was coming and ordered to retrieve the broken drone the Ponngs had snatched? But then where were the Shipmasters, and why hadn’t they already attacked?
And then, she saw it, and all the troublesome pieces fell together. “So what are the Masters offering you to grab your people’s flyers and hand them over to the Skinless?” she asked.
“What?” Moile asked, half turning to frown at her.
And in that instant of inattention, the wolfmen struck.
Worwol hurled himself at Moile, paws outstretched toward the Ponng’s throat. At the same time, Rywoo threw his own long arms up over his own head, probably in hopes of drawing Teika’s sword up out of guard position and allowing for a strike at his torso.
But they hadn’t reckoned with Nicole.
Rywoo had finished his diversion and was starting to drop his arms for a jab at Teika’s head when Nicole hurled the damaged drone with all her strength into his stomach. The impact jerked him to a halt, half folding him over. Worwol’s paws were past Moile’s sword and nearly to his throat when Teika’s sword point jabbed hard into his side.
The wolfman’s arms jerked away from Moile and grabbed at his wounded side. He turned snarling jaws toward Teika, just in time to catch the flat of Moile’s sword across his face. Even as the two wolfmen staggered away from the attack, the two Ponngs leaped to counterattack, pressing their sword tips against the wolfmen’s throats and forcing them to hastily back up.
“How did you know?” Moile asked, his voice cold.