by Timothy Zahn
Flyingbelow treetop level.
The diversionary maneuver a few minutes earlier had been impressive. This one literally took Holloway's breath away. Flying just over the tops of the shorter trees, corkscrewing deftly between the tops of the taller ones, the Corvine was only sporadically visible even to the Peacekeeper spotters. To the lower-flying Zhirrzh copters, it would be all but invisible. The Zhirrzh at the laser would never even see it coming.
Five seconds to go. Holloway hoped Duggen's strike force had gotten the word to go flat.
And then, suddenly, a small but brilliant fireball bloomed in the forest. Half a second later the Corvine reappeared, climbing into clear air again and curving hard around back toward the incoming copters.
Takara shouted something in Japanese. "They did it!"
"Crane, get the aircars back in the area," Holloway ordered. "Form up to support the Corvine-I want those copters warned away. Then get me a status check on the strike team."
"Yes, sir."
The monitor area's mess table was a few steps away, sparsely stocked with local fruit, Peacekeeper field meal bars, and drink carafes. Holloway walked over to it, stretching tired leg muscles, and pulled himself a steaming mug of tea. "You think it's over?" Takara asked, coming up beside him.
"I suppose that depends on how badly the Zhirrzh want a fight," Holloway told him, adding a few precious drops of lemon.
For a moment Takara was silent. "You really think it's in there?" he asked quietly.
"What?" Holloway asked, taking a sip of the hot liquid and turning around to look at the monitor. Nothing had changed: the Zhirrzh copters were still there, and the Corvine was still drawing the equivalent of an imaginary line in front of them. So far they hadn't taken the dare to cross it.
"You know," Takara said. "A CIRCE component."
Holloway looked at him, his stomach tightening. "Is it that obvious?"
Takara shrugged. "Probably not to anyone else. I just happen to know you better than most of the others. You wouldn't risk your people like this unless the stakes were astronomically high. There's not much on Dorcas that comes under that heading. At least nothingI know about."
Holloway looked back at the monitor. "I don't know anything either, at least not for certain. There were never any official disclosures or even unofficial hints-it was Dr. Cavanagh, actually, who got me thinking this direction. But the longer this war drags on without CIRCE making a grand entrance, the more I wonder if maybe we really are sitting on a piece of it."
Takara grunted. "Let's just hope the Zhirrzh don't get hold of it," he said grimly. "If they do, we might as well start calling them the Conquerors again."
"Yes," Holloway said. But even as he envisioned those invulnerable Zhirrzh warships armed with CIRCE weapons, the face of Melinda Cavanagh floated into view. Her earnest, serious expression as she'd relayed that Zhirrzh ghost's opinion that this war was a mistake...
"Colonel?" Crane called excitedly, half turning in his seat. "The outriders have reached the target. Looks like Duggen's got the drop on them."
"Get me a picture," Holloway ordered as he and Takara hurried back to their places. A moment later the image came up.
Holloway leaned forward, resting his mug on the back of Crane's chair. It was the entrance to the tectonic station, all right-he'd been there once and remembered what the place looked like. The outer door had been opened and swung wide, and he could just make out some figures inside the darkened entryway. "Can you enhance it?"
"Yes, sir." Crane worked his board, lightening and sharpening the view.
Takara whistled. "That's not getting the drop on them, Crane. That's a full-fledged thud."
"A thud and a half," Holloway agreed. A group of Zhirrzh-the whole contingent, it looked like-were lying unmoving in the front of the entryway. Stunned or dead.
He clicked his comm onto Duggen's channel. "Duggen, this is Holloway," he said. "Looks like you've got a clear path."
"Already on it, Colonel," Duggen's voice came back. "Squad One: pincer in. Outriders, stay sharp-we don't know how fast they can recover."
And as if on cue, the alien farthest back in the entryway cautiously lifted his head. For a moment he peered toward the doorway, apparently assessing the situation. Then, keeping low, he began slinking toward the door. "Duggen, you've got movement," Holloway said.
"I see it," Duggen said. "Outriders, stand ready; Squad One, hustle it to backup. You got a choice here, Colonel: you want a prisoner or a cadaver?"
"Prisoner, if possible," Holloway said. "But don't lose anyone in the process."
"No problem," Duggen said. "I doubt they've got much fight left in them."
The alien was still moving, and now Holloway could see involuntary-looking twitches in some of the others. "Looks like they're all starting to come to," Holloway warned.
"Squad Two's just about here," Duggen replied. "Soon as they're in backup, we'll move in."
Holloway bit at the inside of his cheek. They'd saved the tectonic station-at least for the moment-and in another minute they'd have some prisoners. Bargaining chips, if the Zhirrzh understood such things. Maybe even a way to corroborate this ghost/Elder thing of Melinda's.
And then the alien reached down and picked up one of the laser weapons.
At the edges of the monitor screen the muzzle ends of two Oberon assault guns appeared as the Peacekeeper outriders within camera range drew a bead on the enemy soldier. "So much for their not having any fight left," Takara said.
Holloway didn't answer. A word from him-a couple of bursts from those Oberons-and that would end it. The Peacekeepers could take the time to well and properly seal the tectonic station, and this potential threat to a possible CIRCE component would be finished. Certainly enough humans had died already in this war; and if Melinda was right, the aliens probably wouldn't take another six or seven Zhirrzh deaths all that seriously.
But if Melinda was also right about this war's being a mistake...
The alien had gotten the weapon to his shoulder, its muzzle angled downward toward the ground, and was moving with a strange awkwardness toward the entryway door. "Target him," Duggen ordered. "If that muzzle starts up, take him down."
The alien reached the entryway door and stopped. For a heartbeat he just stood there, weapon ready but still not aimed.
And Holloway came to a decision. "This is Holloway. All Peacekeepers, hold your fire."
"Sir?" Duggen said.
"You heard me," Holloway said. "Hold your fire unless and until fired on."
"Colonel, we're damn exposed out here," Duggen said, his voice tight. "If we wait until he fires, we could lose half the team."
"That's an order, Sergeant," Holloway said, clicking his comm to the aircars' channel. "Aircars, this is Holloway. Do either of you have a working external loudspeaker?"
"Aircar One, sir," the answer came back promptly. "I have one."
"I want you to fly over toward the Zhirrzh village, Erikson," Holloway said. "Not fast, like an attack. Just sort of drift over toward there, the way Sergeant Janovetz flew in four days ago. Be sure to stay well away from the white pyramid."
"Yes, sir."
"Crane, give me a split screen," Holloway ordered, ignoring the look on Takara's face. "Strike-team monitor and spotter view of the aircar."
"I hope you're not planning to send him all the way in," Takara murmured. "We still don't know what's happened to Janovetz."
"This is a different kind of experiment," Holloway assured him, watching the monitor. Aircar One had left its position and was moving gingerly toward the waiting line of attack copters. So far they were just hovering there watching him. "I want to see how willing their commander is to make deals."
Takara snorted under his breath. "Cass, these are the Conquerors," he reminded Holloway darkly. "You don't get a name like Conquerors by making deals."
"Maybe," Holloway said. "On the other hand, they did let Duggen's team get away unharmed the last time we tried to get to t
he tectonic station. That kind of lenience wouldn't seem to fit the Conquerors tag, either."
Takara grunted. "If they even spotted them. I'm still not convinced they did."
The copters had broken formation now, one of them moving to flank Aircar One. Holloway held his breath; but the alien aircraft didn't open fire. Instead, it merely dropped into a parallel course, its weapons trained warningly on the Peacekeeper craft. "Hold it steady, Erikson," Takara reminded the pilot. "No sudden moves."
Holloway glanced at the ranging data from the spotters displayed at the bottom of the monitor. "Close enough," he told Erikson. "Do some lazy circles around that spot and put me on loudspeaker."
"Yes, sir. On loudspeaker."
Mentally, Holloway crossed his fingers. "Zhirrzh commander, this is Commander Holloway of the Peacekeeper forces. We have seven of your soldiers trapped. I want to offer you a deal for their return."
Takara threw him a frown. "I thought you wanted them as prisoners."
"I've changed my mind," Holloway said. "Crane, I need a contrast or gain change on the strike-force picture. Something that'll pick up faint objects, focused on the area around that entryway. Can you do that?"
"I'll try, sir," Crane said, fiddling with his board and splitting the strike-force picture into two duplicates. One of the images zoomed forward to frame the dark entryway, then faded into a strange pattern of black-and-white blurs. "How's that?"
"We'll know in a minute," Holloway said, leaning forward to gaze at the blurs. If Melinda's ghost had been telling anything even approaching the truth...
And, suddenly, there it was: a ghostly figure, barely visible even on the enhanced picture but clearly recognizable as a Zhirrzh, floating just outside the dark blob of the entryway. One of the blurs in the entryway moved, and on the unaltered strike-force picture the Zhirrzh holding the laser weapon lowered its muzzle the rest of the way to the ground. Then, as abruptly as it had appeared, the ghost vanished.
Takara whistled softly. "I'll be damned. She was right."
"Looks that way," Holloway agreed, feeling a shiver run up his back. Real, living ghosts...
"Sir, report from Aircar Two," Crane spoke up. "The Zhirrzh reinforcements moving up from the south have stopped."
"Confirm that."
"Copperheads confirm, Colonel," Crane said. "Enemy reinforcements holding position one hundred forty-three meters south of the target zone."
"Maybe they're setting up another of those ground laser stations," Takara said.
"There's no indication of that, sir," Crane said. "They just seem to be waiting."
"Colonel, I'm getting something," Erikson's voice came from the speaker. "Boosting gain on the external mikes..." The speaker crackled for a second with background noise. Then, as the enhancers cleaned up the sound, a distant and oddly mechanical voice came through. The same voice, as near as Holloway could tell, that had been in the recording Sergeant Janovetz had sent back before his pulse transmitter had gone silent. "-of the Zhirrzh. Speak your offer."
Holloway clicked on his comm. "Your soldiers may return to you unharmed," he said. "But they must first leave behind all equipment and weapons that they are carrying."
He lowered the comm, his eyes on the enhanced strike-force picture. A few seconds later the ghost flicked into sight, its hands gesticulating, its tongue flicking in and out of its insubstantial mouth. On the other picture Holloway could see the Zhirrzh soldier responding, his tongue doing some serious flicking of its own. One of the other Zhirrzh had rolled groggily to his knees, and the first Zhirrzh broke off the conversation to lean over for a quick consultation. The kneeling Zhirrzh's tongue flicked, and the first straightened again for more discussion with the ghost. He leaned over for another dialogue with the other Zhirrzh, then stood upright again.
"I wonder why the Elder doesn't just move in between the two of them," Takara said.
"He can't," Holloway said. "Check out the geometry: the walls of the entryway are blocking a straight-line path between that point and the nearest white pyramid. Elder's can't go through metal, remember?"
The ghost flicked its tongue and vanished; and as it did so, there was another crackle of background static from Aircar One's external mike. "Why do you want their equipment?"
Holloway grimaced as he clicked on his comm again. He didn't give a damn about the soldiers' equipment, actually-the Peacekeepers had already collected enough alien stuff to keep the ordnance techs busy for months. All he wanted was to make sure none of the Zhirrzh carted away something that might turn out to be that elusive CIRCE component. But he could hardly tell the Zhirrzh commander that. "I want to make sure they have no weapons they can harm my troops with as they leave," he said instead. "Do you agree?"
He clicked off the comm. "Maybe you should point out that we can turn the whole bunch of them into Elders if he refuses," Takara suggested.
"I'm sure that's already occurred to him," Holloway said. "Anyway, I'd just as soon he not know that we know anything about that."
The ghostly Elder messenger had reappeared beside the entryway now and was holding another conversation with the standing Zhirrzh soldier. A fairly animated conversation, from the looks of it.
And understandably so. This was the critical moment, Holloway knew: the point at which the alien commander had to choose between his soldiers' lives and whatever passed for pride or command authority in Zhirrzh psychology. If he decided to slug it out rather than buckle to enemy demands, the first Holloway would know about it would be those laser weapons swinging up to target his men....
And then the standing Zhirrzh leaned over one final time, lowering his laser weapon to the entryway floor.
There was another crackle from the speaker. "I agree," the mechanical voice said.
Holloway took a deep breath and clicked the comm on again. "All right, Erikson, pull on back," he ordered. "Again, nice and easy. Duggen, have you been listening?"
"Yes, sir," Duggen answered. "I don't trust them, Colonel."
"I don't necessarily trust them, either," Holloway said.
"Stay sharp, and make damn sure none of them is carrying anything before you let them go. Watch for attempts to palm anything, odd bumps in their clothing-you know the drill."
"Understood, Colonel."
"I hope you're doing the right thing, Cass," Takara said as four Peacekeepers moved into the picture from off camera and headed purposefully toward the Zhirrzh. "We're outnumbered enough down here as it is. I don't much like the idea of letting seven of their soldiers go back home. Especially when we still don't know what they've done to Janovetz."
"I'm betting he's still alive," Holloway said. "They didn't let him land in their camp just to kill him. Not unless he attacked them first."
And yet, it suddenly occurred to him, perhaps Janovetz had done precisely that. The recorder and transmitter they'd attached to Janovetz's cheek dumped its reports via a pulsed, multi-high-frequency radio signal. Would the Zhirrzh have interpreted that as an Elderdeath attack? Probably. Would they have then killed Janovetz in perceived self-defense? Probably.
"Keep on top of this, Fuji," Holloway said, moving away from the monitor. "Vanbrugh and Hodgson should have their Corvine on the ground by now. I want to go check out the damage."
"Yes, sir."
Holloway threw one last look at the Zhirrzh soldiers divesting themselves of equipment under the watchful eyes of the Peacekeepers. Proud warriors-Conquerors-yet submitting to this indignity with only minor argument.
He wasn't yet ready to take everything Melinda's ghost friend, Prr't-zevisti, said at face value. But it was clear that there was more to all this than met the eye. And much more that needed to be learned.
"So that's that," Klnn-vavgi said as the last of the Elders vanished from the command/monitor room, heading out to quietly oversee the operation to the north. "We lose a mobile ground defense station, get eight warriors raised to Eldership-and then we just give up and let them have their underground structure back.
"
"I don't see a lot of practical alternatives," Thrr-mezaz growled, his tail spinning with frustration. Outmaneuvered, outgunned, and utterly dazzled by those unbelievable Copperhead warriors, the operation had been a fiasco. To have his warriors captured, disarmed, and sent back was just the crowning flick of the tongue to the whole thing.
"I don't see any, either," Klnn-vavgi said. "But not everyone will let it go at that. And I'm sure there'll be some who'll say you gave in just to keep Klnn-dawan-a from being raised to Eldership."
"And when they say that, you can tell them Eldership wasn't one of the options," Thrr-mezaz retorted, his tail twitching. "If I'd refused their commander's offer, the Human-Conquerors would have cut down Klnn-dawan-a and the warriors right where they stood. And inside all that metal, they would have been dead. Not raised to Eldership. Dead."