by B. V. Larson
I didn’t move. My face didn’t change expression, either. When a fish investigates your bait, you don’t start cheering him on. You just let him sniff and nibble it, hoping he’ll take that fatal bite.
“We’ve got a problem, anyway,” I said, pointing to the forward screens. “Two of them, in fact.”
On the screens, the returning legionnaires in their lifters were growing closer. It wouldn’t be long before the first of them docked. Behind them, the shadowy cylindrical shape of the Nairb vessel had shifted too, approaching at a cautious pace.
Claver’s boot nudged the Nairb’s corpse on the deck.
“And here’s problem number three,” he said. “Do you still piss the bed every night, McGill? I think you must. There’s never been a giant mess made in this universe that can’t be at least indirectly traced to you.”
“What do you suggest we do to solve all this?” I asked.
He scratched his face, putting one finger through his open faceplate to do it. He had visible stubble on his chin—a week’s worth, maybe. That seemed strange to me, and I realized the last version I’d seen only hours before had been clean-shaven. What’s more, newborns always came out of the revival machines without any facial hair.
This version of Claver had been around for a while. That meant he was making clones—copies of himself. I wondered vaguely just how many Clavers were drawing breath right now.
He withdrew the finger, and he turned to me.
“I should kill you right now,” he said, “but you might know where the key is.”
“I might.”
“Shut up and let a man think,” he snapped. After I was quiet for a second, he continued. “Obviously, trading teleport suits for the key and such failed to work. Since there’s no other Claver around—not even a body, that line of fair trading failed. Why?”
I pointed to the screen. “What good is running home in a teleport suit to anybody? The Nairbs are pissed off, and the battle fleet is almost here. They’ll just follow us to Earth and kill everyone.”
“You see, that’s your problem,” he said. “You’ve got no imagination. Earth is just a planet. Don’t be such a home-boy. The universe is a big place. There are even humans, if you want companionship, on dozens of other worlds.”
“I’m loyal to Earth.”
“Bah! You’re just provincial. Small-minded. But never mind, there’s no time to argue the point. We have to do something about these Nairbs before they order all these fools in your legion to self-execute.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but whatever it was, it died in my throat and my mind.
Claver stepped up to the console and punched the send button on my message. I stared at him in shock.
“Yeah, I saw what you did…” he said, “and yeah, I sent your message early. Someone had to get this show rolling. Just relax—let’s see what happens.”
-43-
My eyes were as big around as saucers. Events outside the ship were playing out, and I felt helpless to affect them.
The lifters arrived, one at a time, and legionnaires began tramping over the decks. I didn’t bother to leave Gold Deck and hide someplace. Graves would hunt me down and demand an accounting no matter where I went.
“Look at that!” I said, pointing at the forward displays. “Those are missiles!”
“Don’t worry,” Claver said, looking over the instruments. “They aren’t targeting this ship—they’re going for the Nairbs. These dome-monkeys have more balls than I’d figured...”
“Hey look,” I said. “The Nairbs are running!?”
I stepped up beside Claver, and we stared at the big screen. We watched as the Nairb’s oblong ship stopped moving toward us or the planet. Instead, it veered off and dove away at an angle.
“Chicken-shits,” Claver chuckled.
“The good Lord hates a coward,” I said.
“Well, he must hate me then. This is where I cut and run, McGill.”
“Where are you going?”
He jerked a thumb down at the dome below us.
“Isn’t it obvious? The only gain left in this system is the tech they have under glass down there. I’m going to see if I can scoop some up before they all get themselves killed.”
“Leave me a teleport suit,” I said.
He had a second one—it was poking out of the top of his satchel bag. He’d come back with it, perhaps hoping to implement his original plans to get his precious Galactic Key.
Taking a short glance down, he tucked the exposed bit of suit back inside of the bag. “Oh, come on James. Why would I do that?” he demanded. “Give me something good enough to consider it, at least.”
“Good enough? Like what?”
“Like the key. Or something equivalent. I’m a trader, boy. Trade me something I can use.”
I shook my head. I had nothing.
“Fine,” Claver said, and the room wavered and shifted blue.
A moment later I was alone and uncertain. I found myself staring for a spell—unfocused on anything. Graves showed up not long after that.
“You’re just standing around on the bridge, is that it, McGill? Innocent of all crimes?”
“Very perceptive, Primus. I’m pure and clean. Like wind-blown snow on a mountain peak.”
He chuckled. “All right. I see the remains of our Nairb friend, here. You know you’ve possibly doomed our entire homeworld by killing him, right?”
“A crazy suggestion, sir. He was like that when I got here. Maybe the rogues got him. They’ve got some pretty fancy tech—and they’re mean when they use it.”
Shaking his head, he stepped up to the console and examined the scene. “All this is related to Claver somehow?”
“And Winslade. He’s involved in this up to his bushy eyebrows.”
Graves made a show of inspecting the premises. “There’s only one trouble, McGill,” he said. “I only see you and a Nairb corpse here. No Claver. No Winslade. Just McGill, as usual. Now, as you know I’m not an overly suspicious man but—”
“Far from it, Primus!” I chimed in.
“But, there are strict limits to my gullibility. After having listened to countless fabrications and half-truths from you, I’m inclined to doubt this latest tale—which lacks a single scrap of evidence. Do you understand me, Centurion?”
“Loud and clear, sir. But I think there is some evidence.”
He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes in my direction. “Explain.”
“First off, there’s my physical presence aboard this vessel. I didn’t take a lifter up—they’re all accounted for. Teleportation plainly stands to reason.”
“All right, go on.”
“If I teleported, where’s the suit?”
He looked around. There was nothing, of course. Claver had taken both his suits with him.
“I fail to see how—” he began, but I put up a finger to stop his suspicions.
“Someone must have taken the suits away,” I told him. “Someone was here, therefore, and now they’re not.”
“I need proof, McGill. This isn’t holding water.”
My eye crawled over the bridge and the console. Sure, there was a little damage. The Nairb was stone dead—but I’d done that myself. Then I saw a splatter of blood on the deck and smiled.
“That,” I said. “That’s where Winslade was standing. Get a bio up here to run a DNA test on it.”
Graves frowned at the spot and called up a bio. She frantically arrived a short while later, took a sample, ran it through the ship’s computer and declared it a match.
“A match to who?” Graves demanded.
The bio looked startled. “To Primus Winslade, of course—I’m sorry, sir. I thought you knew.”
His eyes slid from her face to mine, then back again. “I just wanted to hear it from your lips,” he said to her, “dismissed.”
When she was gone, he turned to face me. “This is a serious situation, McGill.”
“Uhh…” I said. “Whi
ch one, sir?”
“You’re practically standing on the remains of both a Nairb and your superior officer. I really thought you’d changed, you know. This mission felt different. You seemed mature, and you functioned as a leader ought to.”
While he spoke, Graves took out his laser pistol, checked the charge, and slammed the breach closed again.
“Hold on, Primus,” I said. “You’ve got this all wrong.”
“I don’t think that’s possible. I’ve caught you with a dead Nairb, evidence of a dead superior officer, and hell, a dead ship all around you.”
“Right, right, you’ve got a point there. But Winslade killed the Nairb, not me.”
He hesitated. “Why?”
“Why’d he do it? Because he’s a greedy snake, sir. He planned to trade away the tech these rogues came up with to advance his own designs. Claver is here to make his own secret deals.”
“Why?” Graves asked me. “Why should I believe anything you say at this point?”
I threw my hands wide. Graves flinched in response, but he didn’t shoot me—not yet.
“Okay,” I said, “let’s try applying some logic here. Why would I come up here in a teleport suit? How did I get one?”
“It makes sense that Claver or Winslade gave it to you,” Graves admitted. “But that doesn’t—”
“No, no, it doesn’t mean I’m innocent. But come on now—what’s in it for me?”
“You had a girlfriend on the planet. You’re real sweet on her. You warned them about the Nairbs, and they’re attacking because of that.”
“Actually, Winslade warned them.”
“How?”
I quickly showed him the recording, and I showed him the timer it had been associated with. The trigger had never gone off, but instead someone had sent it early.
“That was Winslade,” I said, choosing to make him my scapegoat.
To be honest, I chose Winslade because I had physical evidence he had been on the bridge. There was no particular reason to hate Winslade over Claver—they were both bastards of the first order.
“Hmmm,” Graves said. “I don’t understand all this, and I’m not sure I need to. All I need to do is kill you and call it even.”
“That won’t satisfy the Nairbs, sir,” I pointed out.
His gun and his face sagged a little. “No… No, it won’t.”
“May I make a suggestion, Primus?” I asked.
He looked at me. “I know I’m going to regret this… but sure, let’s hear it, McGill.”
I dared to smile. It was a small thing, but it was undeniably there—I could feel it curving on my face.
When I was done presenting my idea, I might have thought Graves looked a touch sick—but that couldn’t be. He was too tough-minded of an officer to turn green over a little bit of adventure.
-44-
We contacted the Nairbs, and for once in his long, long life, Graves let me do the talking.
“What is this intrusion on our harmony?” droned a translation device. The Nairb that spoke pulsed toward the screen, filling it entirely. Suddenly, he slopped back and away, quivering with agitation in contrast to the bland words I was listening to. I couldn’t help it—I thought of a Jello mold at supper when the table leg gets kicked.
“Uhh…” I said. “This is the starship Nostrum. We’re an Earth vessel, charged with local enforcement of Galactic—”
“We know who you are, Earthman,” the Nairb said. “Why have you set your lapdogs on us? They can’t reach us with their missiles—we’ve moved out of range. Your unprovoked attack has been accounted and added to the growing list of—”
“You’re right about all that, sir,” I said, “except for one thing. We’re not in control of the planet below our two ships. We’re here, in fact, to exterminate these people.”
The Nairb stared at me for a second then turned and barked at someone off-camera.
“Your claims are unverified and do not match observable data,” he said.
“They certainly do,” I replied, “we’ve been battling these rogues for days—weeks, even. Surely you must have documented that.”
“It seems that you have assigned a derogatory label to the illegally operating technologists—either in a weak attempt to mislead us from your association or perhaps from sheer arrogance on your part. And yes, there was a plainly visible conflict on the world below, that’s true. But we have no intention of taking up sides. We’ve been busy cataloging numerous—”
“I’m sure you haven’t missed a trick, sir,” I said. “The point I’m trying to make is that if the missiles came from the planet below, they have nothing to do with Earth. We’ve been hit by similar attacks over recent days.”
“Are you claiming this world isn’t under your control? That you’re therefore not responsible for the actions of its inhabitants?”
“That’s exactly right, sir. They refused to evacuate. They refused to stand down. Now that we’ve failed in our mission to negotiate our way out of this rebellion, we’re asking you to put it down.”
“How so?”
“Use your hell-burners!”
The seal-like being appeared to ponder my suggestion. “You want us to destroy this world?”
“We certainly do. We insist upon it, in fact.”
“This isn’t a warship,” the Nairb complained in monotone. “We have only basic weapons.”
“You’ve got bombs, don’t you?” I demanded. “Use them!”
The Nairb looked upset. “We can’t get that close. They’ve fired missiles at us, and our analysis indicates they’re dangerous enough to keep our ship out of bombing range.”
“I see,” I said, nodding my head. “You’re chicken.”
“Your colloquialism is unclear through my translator…I am no variety of poultry animal.”
“Cowards. Shirkers of duty. You’re unreliable.”
This last insult finally seemed to sting the Nairb. “Your offensive language is counterproductive,” he said. “Nevertheless, it appears we have the same immediate goal.”
“Good, now, let’s get down to—”
“Just a moment,” the Nairb said, interrupting. “We have orders for you to carry out before our cooperation can begin. You must first provide a clear explanation concerning the fate of our field agent.”
The screen changed, and the Nairb I’d beaten to death appeared. The vid was clearly streamed and stored from the point of view of their agent. He was looking around, and apparently his recording systems followed his senses.
Suddenly, a flurry of violent motion saw the Nairb knocked to the floor and savagely beaten by a tall figure. We couldn’t make out the face in the dark.
Graves sighed and his chin touched his chest in defeat.
“I recognize that vicious creature,” I said loudly. “It’s a thing called a Winslade.”
“What is this ‘Winslade’ you speak of?”
“A treacherous beast,” I said. “An evil monster beyond calculation. Fortunately, he’s dead. I killed him myself.”
“That’s unacceptable,” the Nairb snapped. “We must have an accounting. We must mete out our own specialized punishments.”
“Uh…” I said, thinking fast. “Well, we could revive him and turn him over—along with physical evidence that he was right here at the scene of the crime.”
“That would be most satisfactory.”
“There’s a problem, however,” I said. “Our revival machines have been switched off. In fact, most of our combat gear is inoperable. One of the reasons we had to retreat from the world below in defeat is because our guns no longer worked.”
My statement seemed to cause some kind of fervor on their side of the channel. I saw the Nairb I’d been talking to speaking in alarmed tones in its native tongue to others out of sight.
But then, a truly shocking event transpired. The Nairb was collared and electrocuted—at least, that’s what it looked like.
It had to be Claver. Could he have gotten dow
n to the planet, procured deadly tech, then teleported it up to the Nairb ship to sabotage them so quickly? If so, it was an impressive feat by any measure.
But then, things became more clear. All throughout my conversation with the Nairb, I’d gotten the feeling it was listening to someone else off-camera. This being now made itself visible by gliding forward into range of the pick-up.
“Greetings, Earther.” The translator spoke the alien’s words. His glossy body, about the mass of a large man, was levered by six spidery legs to settle onto the ground. Two limbs swung before him, and the long, weird fingers steepled in a gesture of pretentious superiority.
I recognized it right off as a Mogwa. A familiar feeling hit me—like when you know not to put your hand into a dark place because a nasty critter is going to bite you.
The Mogwa were scary creatures. They might not be impressive to look at, but they were powerful. They were actual Galactics. Individuals from a superior race who lived at the Core of the galaxy on sophisticated planets of which we could only dream.
It didn’t entirely surprise me that there was a Mogwa representative aboard the Nairb ship. They were the Nairbs’ masters, after all, and this was a critical mission. A scout ship couldn’t be left entirely to underlings.
“Huh…” I said. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Mogwa. What happened to the fellow I was talking to?”
A flurry of ratcheting clicks funneled through the translating device. “He was substandard in performance,” the Mogwa said. “He has been removed from my service.”
“I see…” I said. “In that case, what can we do for you, sir?”
“What is your name, slave?” the Mogwa asked.
“I’m Centurion James McGill.”
“Are you in charge of this local militia?”
“Yep.”
Graves looked startled. He almost spoke up, but I gave him a tiny shake of the head. He deflated a little. We both knew I was the better liar. Our survival depended on my skills of deception at the moment.