Conquerors' Pride

by Timothy Zahn

  He spent most of those four days on his cot, either bundled up to keep warm or with the blankets thrown off and his jumpsuit open to the waist trying to cool himself down. He slept a great deal, too, with strange dreams blending into the equally strange reality of his imprisonment and back again. Occasionally, he would wake up to find some of the aliens standing around him, poking or studying him with dull white instruments. But the memories were foggy. Perhaps they too were dreams. The fifth day he woke up to find himself healthy.

  He lay there for a few minutes, running through a mental checklist and trying to decide whether he really believed it. But the discomfort and confusion were gone, and for the first time since landing he realized he was ravenously hungry.

  Carefully, he sat up, aware that four days of dehydration could make him as light-headed as the sickness itself had. On his bed's pullout nightstand was a tall cylinder of some clear liquid and two of his escape pod's ration bars. The liquid proved to be a delicately scented water; the ration bars proved to be just what he needed.

  He sat on the edge of his bed, looking around the room as he ate. Three aliens were visible, two of them working at one of the consoles, the third lying on what looked like a sort of stretched-out vaulting horse in the lounge area. None of them seemed to be paying all that much attention to him, but he somehow doubted he was being ignored.

  Still, they were aliens; and any excessive sense of privacy he might have once had had been burned out by fifteen years in the Fleet. He finished his breakfast, stripped off his decidedly rancid jumpsuit, and stepped into the shower.

  The standard Fleet-shower soap drip was missing, but with some experimentation he discovered that a bumpy section of wall near the shower head was a thick slab of some soapy substance. He scrubbed himself clean and shut off the water, remembering only then that there was no towel out there to dry off with. But that was okay. Simply being able to take a shower had made him feel like a civilized human being again, and if he had to walk around buck naked while he air-dried, it was a small price to pay.

  He brushed off the excess water and stepped out. To his mild surprise he discovered that his old jumpsuit was gone, replaced by a new one that had been laid neatly across the bed. "Good maid service," he murmured. He walked across to it, glancing around the room as he did so-

  And suddenly felt a surge of adrenaline jolt through him. There, off to his left, a vertical crack was visible in the wall of his cell. A vertical crack that bisected the milky-white lock mechanism set into the wall.

  It was the edge of the door to his cell. And it was open.

  He continued on to his bed, looking around quickly as he tried to kick his brain cells into activity. Could his captors really have left the door open when they brought in the fresh jumpsuit? No-surely they wouldn't have been that careless. It had to be a test of some sort. A test to see what he would do if they offered him a way to escape.

  He sat down on the bed, picking up the jumpsuit and pretending to examine it. On the face of it the whole thing was so blatantly obvious as to be an insult to his intelligence. Here he was, barely recovered from four days of illness, imprisoned on an unknown world with nothing but the clothes they themselves had provided for him; and they expected him to jump at the first hint of a way out?

  Or were they expecting a different reaction entirely? A reaction like charging out and trying to kill the aliens in the outer room?

  His hand, he noticed suddenly, was dry where he was touching the jumpsuit: the material seemed to have wicked the water away from his skin. Possibly why they hadn't provided him with a towel in the first place. He started to get dressed, watching the aliens out of the corner of his eye as he did so. They were still just going about their business, completely oblivious to the open door.

  All right,he told himself as he finished sealing the jumpsuit. It had to be a test, which meant that ignoring the door would tell them only that he was smart enough to be suspicious. But with luck maybe he could use it to plant a few false assumptions. Stuffing the empty water tube awkwardly into the top of his jumpsuit, he mentally crossed his fingers and stepped to the door.

  The one time he'd seen them use it, the door had swung open on its own at the touch of a button on a milky-white plate set into the cell wall near the door's edge. It wasn't nearly so easy to push open by hand, but it was also not nearly as hard as Pheylan tried to make it look. Whatever method he used to eventually break out of this place would almost certainly include simple raw strength, and the more the aliens underestimated human muscle power, the better chance he'd have.

  So he pushed hard against the door, clenching his teeth as he strained to inch it open, hoping that those who were watching couldn't see that his shoulder was simultaneously pushing against the wall itself. He shifted to a two-handed grip on door and jamb as soon as it was far enough open, grimacing all the more dramatically as he forced tired muscles to strain isometrically against each other and against the skintight material of the jumpsuit. He got it open just far enough and squeezed out.

  The three aliens were watching him now, all right. But there was no mad scramble for the door or for hidden weapons. Sacrificial goats, for sure, there to draw the tiger in for the attack.

  An attack Pheylan had no intention of making. He'd demonstrated his physical weakness with the door; now it was time to demonstrate his innate innocence and lack of aggression. Stepping up to the nearest alien, he pulled the water tube out of his tunic and held it out. "Do you suppose," he said, "that I could have some more of this?"

  They led him back to his cell, one of them going off to one of the consoles to refill the water tube. This time the door was closed properly behind him.

  Apparently, that part of the test was over. Pheylan wondered whether he'd passed or failed.

  He drank half the water, then lay down on his side on the cot. Propping his head up with the pillow, resting one hand against the smooth coolness of the cell wall, he gazed out at the aliens as they resumed their work.

  Or at least he hoped it looked as if he were watching them. At the moment he was far more interested in the wall of his cell.

  His first reaction on seeing it had been to identify it as glass. Later, before succumbing to his illness, he'd changed his mind and decided it was probably a plastic. Now, running his fingertips and nails across the material, he decided he'd been right the first time. An incredibly tough glass, undoubtedly, and a good five centimeters thick on top of it, but a glass nonetheless.

  He turned over to lie on his back, trying to think. Glass was a noncrystalline substance, often but not always silicon based. Generally acid resistant, though there were one or two acids that he vaguely remembered would attack it. An old memory drifted up from the past: the time he, Aric, and Melinda had been playing drag ball and he'd driven the ball squarely into the window of his mother's study. The glass itself had survived, but the impact had cracked the framing and popped the pane neatly out onto the desk, knocking over a cup of tea his mother had left there and creating a major mess.

  At the corner of his eye, something moved. Pheylan turned to look; but there was nothing there. Just the wall of his cell and the usual flickering of lights from the consoles on that side.

  "Cavv'ana."

  Pheylan sat up and looked the other way. Standing just outside his cell were three of the aliens. From the design of their jumpsuits, he tentatively identified them as the three who'd accosted him on the ground outside the ship. "Hello," he said, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and sitting up. "And how are you today?"

  The alien in the center regarded him for a moment, the tip of his tongue flicking in and out of his beak. "I well," he said in a deep voice. "You well?"

  For a second the whole thing went straight past Pheylan. Then, abruptly, his mental gears caught with a grinding jerk.

  The alien had spoken in English.

  "I'm much better," he managed, staring at the creature. "I was sick for a few days."

  "Who few days
?"

  Pheylan frowned. Then he got it. "Notwho; what. What is a few days," he corrected. "In this case a few is four." He held up four fingers. "Four days."

  The alien paused as if digesting that. "I bring your container," he said. He gestured with his tongue to the alien on his left and the pod survival kit gripped in his hand. "You want?"

  "Yes, I do," Pheylan said, standing up. "Thank you."

  The alien with the bag took a step to the side and knelt down beside the cell door. Three small white squares were set into the glass near the floor, positioned just about right for hinges and a lock. The alien did something with the upper square, and a flat rectangle of the wall swung down. The survival kit turned out to be slightly larger than the opening, but with a little effort he got it through. "Thank you," Pheylan said again as the alien closed the flap.

  "You keep alive," the center alien said. Svv-selic, if Pheylan remembered the name right. And if they were standing in the same order as before. "Container necessary?"

  "It'll help," Pheylan said, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Such solicitude, all of a sudden, from these things who'd coldly butchered his crew. "But if you want me kept alive, I'm going to need more food than I've got here."

  For a minute the aliens conversed softly among themselves. "Food prepare," Svv-selic said.

  "Terrific," Pheylan grunted. "So when does the interrogation begin?"

  There was another quiet debate on the other side of the glass. "Not understand."

  "Don't worry, you'll figure it out," Pheylan assured them sourly. "How'd you learn how to speak English?"

  "We later," Svv-selic said. He turned, the others following suit-

  "Wait a minute," Pheylan called, scrambling to his feet. For a second, as they'd turned, he'd caught a glimpse of something....

  The aliens turned back to face him. "Who?"

  "Notwho; what," Pheylan corrected again, moving right up to the wall in front of them and thinking quickly. He'd gotten them to turn around as he'd wanted, but now he had to figure out what he'd presumably wanted to say.

  Behind the aliens the outer door swung open, spilling a wedge of bright sunshine into the room as another alien came in. Sunshine, and inspiration. "I need more than just food," Pheylan said. "My body needs sunlight every day or two to stay healthy."

  For a moment the aliens looked at him. "Not understand," Svv-selic said again.

  "Outside," Pheylan said, gesturing to the door, now closed again. "My skin creates chemicals I need to live." He tapped the back of his hand with a finger. "Skin. Chemicals. Vitamin D, melanin-many others."

  "Not understand," Svv-selic said. "We speak later."

  They turned around again. This time Pheylan knew where to look... and at this distance and angle, he saw it clearly.

  They went to the door and exited in another brief flood of sunshine. "Sure you don't," Pheylan muttered under his breath, picking up his survival pack and taking it back to the bed. They understood, all right. That pidgin English was nothing but an act, probably designed to lull him into a false sense of security as to how much of what he said they could understand. But it wouldn't work. He'd seen the scars now, nestled there under the overhang at the base of those long skulls of theirs, and he knew what those scars meant.

  Svv-selic and his friends were wired.

  He sat down on the bed, pulling open the survival bag and dumping the contents onto the blanket beside him. Wired. Probably with wireless transceivers-there hadn't been any sign of a Copperhead-type jack implant, unless that part had been wired in out of sight beneath the jumpsuit material. But they were wired, all right... and in retrospect, given the technology, it was foolish to think they wouldn't use it. Everything they saw or heard-his words, his intonation, his expressions and body language-were probably going straight into a computer somewhere on base, a computer that was undoubtedly spitting back to them exactly what they should say. Obvious and inevitable, and the only question left was where they'd gotten the grammar and word base from. Perhaps in his fever he'd done a bit of babbling.

  There wasn't much left in the survival bag that they'd decided he could have. He sorted the ration bars in one pile, the vitamin supplements in another, the juice tubes in a third. The medical pack was mostly full, though a check showed tiny indentations in each of the capsules where the aliens had taken a sample for analysis. The tool kit, extra flechette clip, rope, and spare clothing were gone. Pulling out the first of the under-bed drawers, he dumped in the ration bars and juice tubes. The vitamins and med pack went into the second drawer. Wadding up the now empty bag, he opened the third-

  And stopped suddenly as the last piece fell into place. Commodore Dyami's stateroom, intact enough for the aliens to make a copy of it for Pheylan's cell. Including the under-bed drawers.

  Where Dyami had kept his personal research computer.

  Slowly, Pheylan dropped the bag into the drawer and pushed it shut. So that was where the aliens had gotten their word base. Dyami had been one of those secretive paranoiac types who hadn't wanted all his personal records going into his ship's computer system where it could theoretically be accessed by anyone willing to dig through all the security barriers. Keeping a private computer was technically a breach of regulations, but it was an open secret among the task force's senior officers, and Pheylan had never heard of anyone being unduly worried about it. The few concerns he'd heard had focused on what sorts of discomfiting secrets about them Dyami might be compiling in those private records.

  He took another sip of scented water and lay back down on the bed. A word base was bad enough; but what else might have been in those files? A detailed map of the Commonwealth, maybe, complete with navigational data? Strength and organizational data on the Peacekeepers, including base and task-force locations?

  Or could there even have been something about CIRCE?

  Abruptly, Pheylan twisted around. There it was again: something he thought he'd seen, brushing past just at the edge of his vision. But again there was nothing there.

  Or at least there wasn't anything there now.

  Slowly, he scanned that part of the room, taking a good look at everything and everyone there. There was nothing that could account for the movement he'd seen: no physical movement, no trick of lighting, no reflection. It had to be something else.

  Perhaps, like the open door, another test.

  He turned again to face the wall. Fine; let them play their little games if they wanted to. Sooner or later he'd find a way to turn one back on them, and then he'd be out of here.

  Resting a hand against the wall, he scratched idly with a fingernail, and tried to remember everything he'd ever learned about glass.

  7

  Edo was the last gasp of the once-proud and ambitious Japanese Hegemony; the last of fifteen colonies still politically united with the home country. Like most other Earth colonies, the others had broken off from their founding nation somewhere along the line, either grouping together with other colonies on the same planet or else joining the Commonwealth directly as independent states. NorCoord's unique political prominence had kept a handful of colonies aligned with it, but union with the Hegemony had had no comparable advantages, and only Edo still remained. The Peacekeeper base on Edo had been a political compromise, one that critics at the time had roundly criticized. Sixty light-years from Earth, straddling the Lyra and Pegasus Sectors, it was considerably closer to the nonviolent Avuirli than it was to either of the more dangerous Pawolian or Yycroman world groups. As such, the base had long been considered the perfect example of military bureaucratic waste by Peacekeeper opponents. There was no reason, they maintained, to have such an extensive facility out on the fringes near such minor colony worlds as Massif, Bergen, Kalevala, and Dorcas.

  For the moment, at least, such criticisms were likely to remain muted.

  The base's public waiting room was impressive, too, one that you could be comfortable in for hours. And it was starting to look to Cavanagh as if they mig
ht have the chance to put that to the test.

  "I'm sorry, Lord Cavanagh," the Marine at the inner door said for probably the tenth time. "Admiral Rudzinski is still in conference. I'm sure he'll contact me when he's ready to speak to you."

  "I'm sure he will," Cavanagh said, struggling to contain his irritation. "Can you confirm for me that he has at least been informed I'm here?"

  "I'm sure he's been told, sir."

  "Can you confirm that?"

  "I'm sure he's been told, sir."

  "Yes," Cavanagh muttered. Turning his back on the Marine, he strode back to the seats where the other four were waiting.

  "Anything?" Aric asked.

  "They could replace him with a tape loop," Cavanagh said with a sigh as he sat down between his children. His remaining children. "Rudzinski's still in conference."