The trip down was short and swift, and after only a few seconds the tram began to brake to a sudden stop. Since there was no need for the protection of a roof overhead, the tram ramps opened directly onto an open platform overlooking a wide square formed by the two wings of the port hotel. Looking outward from the platform, Vannkarn appeared much the same as any other port city. Tall buildings of various shapes and colors rose across the uneven landscape. Wide avenues formed ordered paths between the towering structures, complete with forested parks and fountains, but above a gently curving ceiling of rock replaced the open expanse of sky, the Starwolves standing at the northern edge.
But above all there were humans to be seen by the thousands wherever they turned, nearly half as many in this one city of two million as there were Kelvessan in existence. To Velmeran, humans were descended from the Great Ones of long ago, Olympian gods of antiquity such as Shakespeare, Beethoven, Tolkien and Brahms, who had written the stories and the music he loved, and that influenced his own image of the race. When he fought it was against machines, with only a dim awareness that there were men at the controls. By contrast, Tregloran appeared to see only the ancient enemy of his people.
Most Kelvessan had a quiet fascination with the human race. Some, like Velmeran, believed that humans had greater control over their own destinies, and were free to be whatever they desired. Others thought that humans lived a fairly idyllic and purposeful existence, free of struggle, fear and devotion to duty beyond their own wants and desires. Those, of course, were the dreams. A few port leaves quickly impressed upon a young Starwolf that humans were, by their standards, physically, mentally, socially and morally inferior, greedy, quarrelsome, selfish, bigoted and slow of wit beyond anything they would accept in themselves. Velmeran simply was not 'worldly' enough to know that; his image of the human race was still hidden beneath the veneer of what he wanted to believe it should be.
There was an unseen barrier between men and Kelvessan, such as did not exist with other races. Each possessed the virtues that the other lacked. Kelvessan were intelligent, strong, long-lived and lacking the baser emotions and drives that formed the dark side of human nature.
But humans also possessed a naive belief in themselves that lent originality to all things of their creation. It was that self-belief that the Kelvessan had yet to learn, and what Velmeran wanted most to discover in his kind. It had not yet occurred to him that he needed to look inside himself for that belief and confidence.
But the younger pilots were not given time to look around, for there was one remaining task to be completed before they would be free for port leave. Dveyella, the senior officer, took the lead. They boarded a smaller overhead tram that took them from the port entrance to the far side of the cavern. Here, protected by the thickest roof of solid rock, was the sector capital building, the residence of both the Sector Council and the High Councilor, as well as Sector Command of the Union Fleet. It would seem about the last place in all Vannkarn where Starwolves would care to go. And yet they had been coming here for many thousands of years like pilgrims to an ancient shrine.
Near the top of the immense terraced structure was a single vast chamber. Tiles of dark stone covered the walls and floor, and large windows, behind and to the side, were enclosed with panes of gold-tinted glass. Indeed it did seem like a shrine for some sacred or revered object, and yet, positioned on a low stone slab atop a three-step dais, was but a single block of dull gray metal. It was large, two meters high by three wide and eight in length. The metal casing appeared to be quite thick, not unlike armor, and rounded at the edges and corners. Bands of some protective metal also enwrapped it, and yet there was no other feature to it except the twin tracks that ran down each of its long sides and a number of rectangular receptacles on each end, as though it was meant to be interconnected with a battery of computers.
There were few visitors in the chamber and those left quickly when the Starwolves arrived. Dveyella continued to lead the way, walking quickly across the room to stand at the base of the steps, where a rope of gold braid was hung from gilded posts to hold back visitors. She turned to face the students, who gathered about her.
"Do you know what this is?" she asked quickly, but did not wait for them to reply. "You see before you the one great trophy the Union has been able to take in the course of this long war. This is, as well, one of our two greatest shames. It is not likely that you have heard this before. Now that you can see it for yourselves, it is time for you to learn of the two times that the Starwolves have failed."
"Failed who?" Tregloran alone dared to ask.
"Failed themselves," she answered. "Do you know what this is?"
"It looks like part of a large computer," he speculated cautiously.
"This is a memory cell from a Starwolf carrier," she said. "The traits and personal memories of a ship are held in there. There are eight scattered throughout a ship, with enough duplication in the information they store and the computers they drive that even extensive damage does not affect the operation of a ship. That, for all practical purposes, holds the life of a ship. The Theralda Vardon, to be exact.
"The Vardon came out of the early days of the war. That was back when the Union still had the technology and industry to be able to fight us... and occasionally win. The Vardon was besieged and destroyed about sixteen thousand years ago, the last of the fifty-seven carriers to be lost, in the years when the Kelvessan were in some danger of dying out.
"Most likely she was ripped apart by a small thermonuclear explosion from a shield-penetrating missile, such as the Union has not been able to build in ten thousand years. According to the Union's own story, a piece of the wreckage was found much later, and the unit was discovered inside. They salvaged it, recognized it as something important and brought it here for safekeeping. Since they assume that we cannot get to it here, they soon grew bold enough to place it on public display."
"Can we get it back?" Merkollyn asked.
"Yes, if we want to try hard enough," she answered. "Since the unit is of no use to the Union, we have let matters stand until we are ready for it."
"Ready for it?" Tregloran, always the quickest, caught a hidden meaning in that.
Dveyella nodded slowly. "That is the second of our failings. You recall, do you not, that we left Terra during the early days? The Union could not get at Terra directly, but they did something that forced us to retreat from the planet for many thousands of year. Just what is not exactly known.
"Now comes the strange part of the story. We lost much in that hasty retreat from Terra. Since we could no longer return there, within time even its very location was recorded only in the memories of the great ships. And the Vardon was the last ship built before the loss of Terra, the last ship that knew where to find it. Since the Union knows even less of Terra than we do, there is no one today who knows where Terra is.
"But Terra was not destroyed. Whatever happened, it was understood from the start that we could return there someday. And our kind has long held a belief, almost a prophecy, although based, I fear, on wishful thinking. The Starwolves have long believed that when the time comes that we may at last win this war, when the Union is waning in strength and we are waxing, then Terra will be found. And the only place where we might discover how to find it is in the Vardon's memory cell."
Tregloran stared in disbelief. "You mean this unit is still operational?"
"Of course," Dveyella replied. "A sudden ripping out of the leads can cause the memory to scramble, but a failure of the system causes an internal protector to preserve the memory indefinitely. The Union has never been able to get at that memory, and they gave up trying long ago. But we can access that memory easily. In fact, we can restore the Vardon to life by installing that unit in a new ship. We have allowed it to remain here until we find a way that we are certain to get it out in a single try, and until we need it enough to make the attempt."
"What is to stop us from trying?" Tregloran asked, as if he thought th
at attempt might be an interesting way to spend their port leave. At least, Velmeran thought, he had daring.
Dveyella shrugged. "Access is the main problem. The only apparent way of getting our ships inside the cavern is through the dome, which is protected by reenforcing shields comparable to a carrier's forward battle shield. And it would take the concentrated power of a carrier's main cannons to pierce that shield, cooking the city beneath in the process. All this, mind you, while the planetary defenses and a quarter of the sector fleet is hammering away at us."
"I do comprehend the situation," Tregloran replied soberly. The results of such an attempt were obvious, since the Union knew the only way into the city and had planned their defenses around it. The Starwolves could do it, if they were prepared to pay the price.
Dveyella allowed them several minutes to walk about the chamber and view the unit from every side. Soon their thoughts would return to the more immediate problem of port leave, but in times to come they would think often of the memory cell and devise complex and devious schemes to recover it with little or no risk. Such thoughts had occupied the minds of Starwolves for four thousand years, and yet the unit remained where it was.
After a time Dveyella led them down to a lower level of the building, where they waited in a terraced foyer near the main entrance to the sector defense offices. Minutes later a Starwolf in white armor got off an elevator leading down from those offices, somewhat to their surprise. Soon they saw that it was Veyndayk, the cargo supervisor.
"Business done," he said, stepping up to join Velmeran and Dveyella at the rail where they had been watching traffic pass on the level below.
"Did you sell Keth back to the Sector Commander?" Velmeran asked.
Veyndayk laughed. "No, although that might be a good use for old Starwolves. Farstell Freight and Trade bought back a shipment of clothing, conveniently packed in their own shipping containers. And fleet ordnance has just now payed us a finder's fee for an intact cutter."
"A cutter?" Velmeran asked. Cutters were the smallest of the military ships, hardly bigger than a transport, and generally used only for police work.
"My little joke," Veyndayk explained. "We took two intact cutters as riders on salvaged battleships, and one we have had sitting in a forward bay for the last year. We took them apart down to the smallest bolt and rebuilt the ships by taking parts at random. Now I am going to collect finder's fees on those ships in three different ports. That should give the boys in fleet ordnance fits, when they cross-check serial numbers of those parts."
That appealed to Dveyella, who liked frustrating Union officials best of all. "You know, they will not be able to use those ships until they take them apart and rebuild them as they originally were."
"You laugh, but that is probably the truth," the cargo officer said. "Are your pilots ready?"
Veyndayk, as the conductor of the ship's business, always took those on their first port leave about the city to introduce them to the workings of commerce. Buying and selling were new experiences; on board ship, anything they needed was easily gotten from ship's stores. Young Starwolves were also very gullible and in need of careful guidance. Their only protection lay in the fact that not many people would dare to try to take advantage of them.
"Ready?" Velmeran asked. "They have been ready for days."
"Seven at once," Veyndayk muttered to himself, glancing at the group of young pilots. "Well, we already have plans to divide them into three groups. Baress and Baressa will have Tregloran and his sister, Marlena and Threl will have two more, while Dyenlerra and I will have the remaining three."
"And what about me?" Velmeran asked.
"Dveyella will take care of you," the cargo officer said. "My word, Pack Leader, you have watched over this herd day in, day out for months now. This is your port leave, and I expect that you have it coming. Fair?"
Velmeran agreed reluctantly. Veyndayk called the pack together, gave them his primary instructions and took them away in less than a minute. They would take the tram back to the port entrance, where they would find the rest of their appointed guardians.
"Well, that is safely done. Now we have a night and a day to ourselves," Dveyella said. She stepped over to stand before a thick column covered by panels of Beldiian quartz, rare and expensive and as highly polished as a mirror. Using its reflection, she carefully pulled her long, thick hair out of the collar of her suit, arranging most of its length to cascade over her black cape.
"Baress and Baressa are keeping company?" Velmeran asked. "What do they have in common – besides the same name?"
"Is that not sufficient for a beginning?" Dveyella asked.
"Ordinarily, no. Not for Baressa. She is very careful of the company she keeps. Pack leaders as a rule, although she has briefly entertained officers from other ships."
"Oh? Has she been after you?" Dveyella asked mischievously.
"Hardly! I am too young for her."
"I would never think so."
"Perhaps you do not have very high standards," Velmeran teased in return, realizing too late how that reflected back on him.
"Starwolves!"
Velmeran and Dveyella both froze as their ears picked up that single voice some distance behind them. Ordinarily they would not have noticed, but there was something about the way that single word had been said. In amazement, certainly. But it was also an accusation, and an acknowledgment of defeat.
"Coincidence?" another, older voice asked. "Neither of us believe that, obviously. You have lost your captive, it seems. A courier should be in soon."
Velmeran saw that Dveyella was staring into the mirrored surface of the column, and unobtrusively shifted his stance so that he could see the image reflected there. The stone was dark, and the images were indistinct. The older man was richly dressed, slightly bent with age but still taller than himself. Beside him, glaring at the two Starwolves, stood a giant of a man to match the deep, forceful voice. Tall and gaunt, he was clearly a warrior. And, judging by the uniform, this was no less than the Sector Commander.
"They have their nerve to come hopping in here!" the tall man declared.
"So? And what can we do about it?" the older one asked. "Come along. Why don't we ask them to dinner?"
Velmeran did not know what to make of that final statement, but the two were indeed approaching. After this, he began to believe that his kind had been given enhanced hearing for the sole purpose of eavesdropping.
"Your pardon," the older man said, and the two Starwolves turned as if noticing for the first time. He nodded to them politely. "I am sorry to disturb you. You are just in port, are you not?"
"We have been in less than two hours," Velmeran replied, trying to hide his amazement at their height. Even the older man had to glance down at him, while the one in uniform was indeed a towering giant of about two meters, a head and a half taller over Velmeran.
"Are you, perhaps, recently out of the planet Bineck?" the older man asked, surprisingly straightforward.
"Yes, we have just come from there," he replied, equally direct.
"Oh? I should like to hear more about it. Could you possibly come to dinner tonight?"
"Of course," Velmeran replied quickly, not pausing to consider whether or not he should. Dveyella looked surprised, although she did not seem inclined to protest.
"Would the seventh hour, local time, be too early for you?" the older man asked. "My residence is on the twelfth floor of the adjacent building, the rather conspicuously pink one. Ask for Jon Lake. I will leave word that you are expected."
"Councilor Lake?" Velmeran asked.
"The same," he answered, and glanced at his companion. "This brooding spartan is my nephew, Sector Commander Donalt Trace. You must excuse his ill temper, but he was born with it. And it has recently been aggravated by distressing news."
"An occupational hazard, surely. I am Pack Leader Velmeran of the Methryn. This is Pack Leader Dveyella, of special tactics."
"Special tactics?" Lake asked. Eve
n his nephew looked at her with interest. "I do look forward to hearing any tales you might see fit to share. Tonight, then?"
"But of course," Velmeran replied. "Dinner with Councilor Lake at seven. Attire is black armor. We would not miss it for this or any world."
"How did you manage that?" Dveyella asked when the two worthies had continued on their way.
"I did not manage it," he insisted. "He asked, and I leaped at the opportunity with due and proper grace."
"High Councilors and Sector Commanders are not in the habit of inviting Starwolves to dinner," Dveyella continued persistently. "Why did he?"
Velmeran shrugged. "He offered for the same reason that I accepted. We are both insatiably curious and are fascinated by the chance to probe each other's secrets."
"No doubt," she agreed. "And at least you seem well able to fence words with that old man."
"He is quick and bright, and no doubt quite dangerous in his own way. But I am willing to take him on. The only thing that worries me is if they will be serving something for dinner I like."
-10-
As small as they were, Kelvessan had to eat prodigiously to maintain their fierce metabolisms. While on port leave, they would often eat at two or three different places in the course of one meal to hide how much they had to consume to satisfy their enormous hunger. In fact, a large part of what they spent on leave went to feed their deceptively small stomachs. Naturally, they would not willingly pass up a chance for a free meal.
This was one invitation that Velmeran would not pass up, with no regard for what was placed on the table before him. Dveyella was less certain about the matter; she had every intention of going, but she did not share her companion's enthusiasm. By Starwolf reckoning, the Sector Commanders and members of the High Council were the enemy, the ones who made the decisions and determined the policies of the Union. They ran the trade monopolies, ordered the invasions of the fringe worlds and set the traps by which Starwolves died. She could not deny that she feared these two more than she feared anyone in all space, and she marveled that Velmeran seemed ready and willing to meet them in their own element. Still, she would do her best to support him in what she expected to be a fierce battle of minds and wills.
The Starwolves Page 15