by David Weber
The master-armsman stepped around behind him, and the civilian's jaw set hard as the noncom proceeded to search him very thoroughly, indeed. chan Tesh was impressed as the master-armsman demonstrated a previously unsuspected talent. The company-captain had seen very few police—civilian or military—who could have frisked a man so competently . . . and thoroughly. chan Kormai wasn't especially gentle about it, either, although it was obvious to chan Tesh that he wasn't being deliberately rougher than he had to be, and the civilian winced once or twice. By the time the master-armsman was through, however, it was quite obvious that the civilian couldn't have anything hidden away outside a body cavity.
chan Tesh was tempted to insist that those be searched, as well, given the bizarre things of which these people appeared to be capable. There were limits to even his paranoia, however, he decided. If these people were equipped with some sort of super weapon so small that it could be hidden someplace like that, then they had no need to send anyone out to talk to them in the first place. Besides, if this really was an effort to establish some sort of diplomatic contact, there was probably some professional code of conduct which ought to be followed. He didn't have a clue what it might insist that he do, but he was pretty sure it existed and that ordering a foreign envoy to bend over and spread his cheeks wasn't very high on the list of approved greetings.
chan Kormai finished and stood back. The civilian turned to face him with what struck chan Tesh as commendable aplomb, and raised his eyebrows.
"Finished," the master-armsman told him, and pantomimed lowering his hands.
"Are satisfied?"
"For now . . . sir," chan Kormai replied, and gestured for the man to move further away from the water. Two of the master-armsman's Marines kept a careful eye on the civilian without being particularly unobtrusive about it, and chan Kormai turned to the second civilian.
His search was just as thorough this time, and the younger man lacked his older companion's self-control. His face flushed with anger, and his jaw muscles bunched in obvious humiliation as he was searched. chan Kormai was no rougher than he'd been with the first man, but neither was he any gentler, and it was obvious that the ire in the younger civilian's eye left him totally unmoved.
"Finished," he said eventually, for the second time. The younger man wasted no effort on conversation. He simply stamped across the damp ground to his companion, and chan Kormai glanced at chan Tesh. There was a slight, undeniable twinkle in the master-armsman's eyes, the company-captain observed, and felt his own lips twitch as they tried to smile.
The man who'd managed the steering on the way in was calmer and more phlegmatic about it than either of the two civilians had been. Unlike them—or, unlike the younger of them, at least—he clearly understood there was nothing personal about it, which suggested to chan Tesh that his original estimate that the man was a long-term noncom had probably been correct.
Once all three of the Arcanans were safely ashore under the watchful eye of chan Kormai's Marines, the master-armsman turned to the boat itself. As with his search of the passengers, he took his time, proceeding with methodical thoroughness.
Each of the civilians had come equipped with what was obviously a briefcase, and chan Kormai went through both of them carefully. He took pains not to damage or disorder any of the indecipherable documents he found inside them, but he examined each folder individually. Then he paused, halfway through searching the first case, and held something up.
"Look at this, Sir," he said to chan Tesh.
The company-captain crossed to the boat and frowned as the master-armsman held out a rock. That was certainly what it looked like, anyway. A big chunk of clear quartz crystal, larger than chan Tesh's fist. For that matter, it was larger than chan Kormai's fist, which took considerably more doing.
"What do you make of it, Sir?" chan Kormai asked as chan Tesh accepted it just a bit gingerly. It wasn't quartz after all, he decided. It was too heavy, too dense, for that. In fact—
"Well, Master-Armsman," he said dryly after a moment, "I doubt they brought it along just to use as a paperweight. It reminds me of the stuff those artillery pieces of theirs are made of, which suggests at least a few unpleasant possibilities, doesn't it?" He grimaced. "It's not the same thing—not quite. But it's got that same . . . feel to it."
"I think you're right, Sir. And—" chan Kormai's eyes flicked sideways at the envoys, if that was what they were "—they're watching you like hawks."
"Really?" chan Tesh murmured, never looking up from the piece of crystal as he rotated his wrist to catch the hot sunlight on its polished surface. "Do they look nervous, Frai?"
"Don't know as I'd call it 'nervous,' Sir," the master-armsman replied softly. "Curious, though. And maybe a little worried. Hard to say. But I'd say they're at least as curious about your reaction to it as we are about what the hell it is."
chan Tesh snorted in amusement. He wondered how the Arcanans would react if he suddenly tossed the piece of not-rock as far out into the swamp as he could. He was actually quite tempted to do just that, if only to see how they responded. But he didn't. Instead, he handed it back to chan Kormai.
"Put it back in the bag," he said. "And I'll bet you you'll find another one in the other briefcase."
"Sorry, Sir. I don't take sucker bets—even from officers."
As both of them had expected, there was, indeed, a second, almost identical crystal in the other briefcase. Those two enigmatic artifacts made chan Tesh a bit nervous—more nervous than he wanted to let on, at any rate—and he carefully didn't immediately return the briefcases to their owners. Instead, he set them to one side while chan Kormai finished with the boat.
In addition to the briefcases, there were three canvas knapsacks which contained food and water and what looked—and smelled—like some sort of insect repellent. Aside from what were obviously eating utensils, there was nothing even remotely resembling a blade or any other recognizable weapon.
Once the boat had been emptied, chan Kormai waved a half-dozen more troopers forward and had it hauled completely out of the water. chan Tesh wasn't sure whether the master-armsman was taking caution to its logical conclusion, or whether he was simply as curious as chan Tesh himself about how they'd made the boat move. Whatever it was, neither of them found his question answered. There was nothing at all out of the ordinary about the boat, aside from the fact that it was obviously designed for a higher rate of speed than most boats its size which chan Tesh had ever seen before. Well, nothing besides that and the small, dense, glittering block of crystal fastened to its keel near the stern.
Unlike the lumps of not-quartz in the briefcases, the block clearly was made of exactly the same material as the rod-like weapons they'd captured from the other side and the perplexing bits and pieces Soral Hilovar and Nolis Parcanthi had turned up. Which clearly suggested that it was the source of the boat's motive power. It just didn't do a thing to explain how it provided that power.
Finally, chan Kormai straightened with a reasonably satisfied expression.
"That's it, Sir," he said. "Aside from those rock-things, and this," he waved at the glittering block, "I don't see anything they could be planning on using as some sort of weapon."
"I just wish we knew whether or not they were weapons," chan Tesh said dryly, and the master armsman-shrugged.
"If you want, Sir, I'll see how this block stands up to a forty-six," he said, tapping the butt of the Halanch and Welnahr holstered at his hip.
"And would you be willing to fire at the fuse of a twelve-inch naval shell, Master-Armsman?" chan Tesh inquired in an interested tone.
"Depends, Sir," chan Kormai replied with a slow grin. "Wouldn't be willing if it were a Ternathian shell, but if it was one of those Uromathian pieces of shit, I might take a chance."
"Well, I don't think we'll do that this time," chan Tesh told him.
"Yes, Sir. In that case, begging the Company-Captain's pardon, but what are we going to do with them?"
"Now
that, Master-Armsman, is the pressing question, isn't it?"
* * *
"I'm going to get that bastard," Uthik Dastiri muttered, glaring at the big, red-haired Sharonian who'd search them.
His voice was soft, but he was unable to suppress the bitter hatred in its depths. Rithmar Skirvon understood his reaction, although he didn't share it. After all, he'd understood the reason for the search, as well, and he couldn't hold it against the soldier. It hadn't been personal, merely professional, which was obviously something Dastiri hadn't quite grasped yet. But personal or not, it had been brutally thorough, and because Skirvon understood Dastiri's distress he only shrugged and refrained from reprimanding him for his anger.
"I've had warmer welcomes in my life," he observed instead.
"Is that all you've got to say?" Dastiri demanded, his face heating, and Skirvon patted his shoulder.
"I understand you're a little upset, and I can't blame you for that. But remember this—the longer you hold onto your anger, the longer you'll spend at a disadvantage in this situation. The angrier you are, the less clearly you'll be able to see or think, notice important details about these people."
"How can you be so calm about it?" Dastiri asked, his expression wavering between contrition and bitter hatred. "When he shoved—"
"He was doing his job, Uthik," Skirvon said gently but firmly. "In his boots, I'd have done exactly the same thing, for exactly the same reasons."
The younger diplomat chewed on that in silence for several uncomfortable moments. Then, finally, he sighed.
"I'll try to remember that, Rithmar. But as Torkash is my witness, I'd sooner put an arbalest bolt between his eyes than smile at that bastard for any reason."
"Yes," Skirvon said dryly. "I gathered that."
The older diplomat started to say something more, then changed his mind. There wasn't much point, at this stage, and Dastiri had to learn someday. In the meantime, he had other things to think about.
They'd been careful in their approach to deny the Sharonians any additional militarily useful information. Including, especially, any hint of the existence or capabilities of their own dragons. It was always possible, perhaps even probable, that the Arcanan prisoners these people had taken had already revealed the existence of the beasts, but there was no point in giving the other side any better feel for what they could do. So Five Hundred Klian had ordered the transport dragon to fly them and their boat to within forty miles of the swamp portal. They'd made the rest of the trip the hard way, and Skirvon devoutly hoped that the Sharonians would be thinking solely in terms of other boats for the future.
There wasn't anything else he could do about that at this point, so he'd concentrated on the Sharonians' reaction to his and Dastiri's PCs. Their curiosity had been obvious to someone with Skirvon's training, although he wasn't prepared yet to venture a guess as to exactly what had spawned their curiosity. It was always possible, he supposed, that Olderhan and Kelbryan's preposterous theories about a civilization which didn't use magic at all were accurate, but that still seemed so—
His thought broke off in mid-sentence as the man who was clearly these people's commanding officer said something to the man—probably a chief sword or something of the sort, Skirvon had decided—who'd conducted the search. The hulking noncom said something back, then the officer nodded, turned, and walked across to Skirvon.
"I am Company-Captain Balkar chan Tesh," he said. "Who are you, and what do you want?"
Well, Skirvon thought. That's certainly blunt and to the point.
"Rithmar Skirvon," he said, speaking slowly and carefully. Then he introduced Dastiri, as well.
chan Tesh—whose name indicated he was Ternathian, according to the information Magister Kelbryan had assembled for them—didn't look particularly happy to see them. His expression was controlled, but Skirvon had been a diplomat for a long time. He didn't need any "Talent" to recognize the anger crackling around in the back of chan Tesh's outwardly calm eyes.
"How did you learn Ternathian?" the company-captain demanded, as soon as the introductions were over, and Skirvon nodded mentally. He'd been reasonably certain that was going to be the first question, and he'd prepared his answer carefully.
"One person live. Short time," he said. "Bad hurt. Spoke words, recorded. Try to save, but Arcanan healer die in fight. Long days to new healer. Many, many days. Bad hurt. Talk words, but not live. Die before see healer," he ended sorrowfully. "Arcanan grief. We talk?"
chan Tesh's expression never wavered, but his eyes were cold, suspicious.
"Who was it?" he asked. "Who survived?"
Skirvon and Dastiri had argued repeatedly over how to address that particular point. Thanks to the girl, Shaylar, they had a complete list of names for the dead crew, not that he intended to admit that, even if this chan Tesh held him over hot coals. But they did know everyone's names, and they even knew which men she'd personally seen die. The Sharonians would have that same list, as well, since the little bitch had sent out her report—her visual report, no less!—right in the middle of the fighting.
Dastiri had wanted to select a name from the list of Sharonian men Shaylar hadn't seen die, rather than admit that she herself had survived. Skirvon had waffled back and forth over that choice, but he'd finally decided that they couldn't afford to take chances, given the number of Arcanan soldiers these people had taken prisoner. They'd had the survivors of Olderhan's company in custody for a month now, and if they'd had another of those damned "Voices" available to help interrogate them, gods alone knew how much they'd managed to learn. Shaylar had insisted she couldn't "read minds," and she might even have been telling the truth. However . . .
Skirvon found it disturbing that both survivors from a crew as small as the one Olderhan had encountered had "Talents" of the mind. They weren't even the same Talents, for that matter, which meant there was no way to know what else these people could do with their minds. Skirvon wasn't quite willing to risk everything by getting himself caught in an easily detectable lie this early in the negotiations, so he'd decided to play the hand cautiously.
"Arcana much, much grief," he said sadly. "Girl bad hurt. Try hard to go healer. Far, far walk. She die," he added, and actually managed to summon a few tears.
"Shaylar?" Shock exploded in chan Tesh's face. The man's hand dropped to the butt of the weapon—the "pistol"—holstered at his side, and his fingers curled around the polished wooden grip. "Shaylar survived? And you let her die?"
The sudden violence seething in chan Tesh's eyes was a terrifying shock, especially given the obvious strength of the man's self-control. Nor was he alone in his reaction. Every Sharonian soldier in sight mirrored the same sudden, explosive rage.
"Try hard save life," Skirvon insisted, dredging up more tears. "But bad, bad hurt. Hard talk. Long, long walk go healer. Arcana big, big grief. Arcana, Sharona, no shoot. Ne-go-ti-ate," he said with exaggerated care. "No shoot."
"If she was so badly hurt," chan Tesh demanded coldly, "how did you manage to get enough of our language out of her to learn to talk to us?"
Skirvon saw the man's knuckles whiten around the pistol grip and realized abruptly—emotionally, not just intellectually—that his own life hung by the proverbial thread. Obviously, Olderhan's estimate of Shaylar's importance in these people's eyes had been on the mark. In fact, Skirvon was beginning to think Olderhan had underestimated it.
He managed (he hoped) to keep his thoughts from racing across his expression, but it suddenly occurred to him that his strategy of insisting Shaylar was dead might have been a mistake. Returning her and her husband before they'd been thoroughly interrogated back in Arcana or New Arcana was clearly out of the question, of course. He'd figured that insisting they were both dead—and he knew from Olderhan's report that Shaylar had believed Jathmar was dead even while she was busy sending her accursed report back home—would be the simplest and neatest way of keeping their return off the table. Now he was suddenly confronted by the fact that beca
use he'd claimed she was dead he couldn't put her return onto the table even if he wanted to. Which, given the hatred looking at him out of all those Sharonian eyes suddenly seemed as if it might have been a very good idea, indeed.
Unfortunately, there was no going back now.
"She hurt bad," he said instead. "Head hurt—inside." He tapped his own temple, where—again, thanks to Olderhan's invaluable report—he knew the little bitch actually had been injured. "Not . . . work right," he continued, deliberately searching for words. "She talk. Not to us—to her. We recorded it."
He intentionally used the Andaran verb for "recorded," and chan Tesh glared at him right on cue.
"That's the second time you've used that word—'record,'" he said. "What does it mean?"
"It mean—" Skirvon paused and rolled his eyes in obvious frustration. "Not know words. Can show. Please?"
He managed not to heave an overt sigh of relief as chan Tesh's eyes narrowed. The company-captain's anger didn't disappear, but he was obviously forcing it back under control.