Plan B

by Sharon

  Val Con sank into the thin dark place between a water tank and a metal shed bearing the Yxtrang symbols for "Danger: High Voltage" and assessed the situation.

  Communications Central was well lit and very busy, indeed. There were two sentries at the entrance and a constant hubbub of coming and going. Val Con frowned, noting the abundance of officer's markings on the scarified faces of those frequent arrivals and departures.

  Something had happened. Something big had happened. He knew it.

  He sank back in the shadow of the two buildings, watching the crowd come and go. He checked his internal clock. Fifty Standard minutes before the first explosion took the camp by surprise. Not enough time, good sense argued, to listen at Yxtrang doors in the hope of hearing something worthwhile.

  And, yet—If the 15th had arrived?

  He slid to the very edge of the shadows, held his breath, chose his path across the brightly lit roadway, and waited. His patience was shortly rewarded by the simultaneous arrival of three agitated officers, whose jostling at the door distracted the sentries' attention just long enough for him to dart through the dangerous light and into the shadow behind the flimsy temp structure, where he followed the wires to his goal.

  Liad: Jelaza Kazone

  On the sunny eastern patio, Anthora yos'Galan looked up suddenly from her breakfast, and frowned as she scanned the empty lawns.

  "Jeeves. . ." she murmured and the hulking robot standing near her chair replied, its voice proclaiming it a male of Terra's educated class:

  "Working, Miss Anthora."

  "I . . . believe . . . we may have company. Four individuals?"

  "One to each compass point," yos'Galan's butler said smoothly. "Shall I deal with it?"

  She was silent a moment, biting her lip and considering the patterns of the intruders. Coldness, imbalance, disharmony and ugliness—each so like the other that one nearly became persuaded they thought with one brain. But, no. She had seen the like of these before. The work of the Department of Interior was impossible to mistake, once seen.

  "How did they get in?" she asked the robot.

  "Accessing perimeter files. I have an anomaly, sixty-three seconds in duration, one-half hour ago. My apologies, Miss Anthora. They came through a particularly resistant section of perimeter. I see that stronger measures are called for, though one dislikes employing coercion."

  She turned her head and blinked up at the featureless ball of its "head," momentarily diverted from the threat of potential assassins.

  "Coercion? Jeeves, my brothers told me you were a war robot before they reclaimed you to be our butler. Surely you've practiced coercion in the past."

  "One may be practiced in an art of survival without necessarily enjoying it," Jeeves commented, moving a pincher arm toward the teapot. "May I warm your cup?"

  "Thank you," she said and held it out, silent until the tea was poured and the pot replaced.

  "Tell me the truth, Jeeves. Were you a war robot?"

  "I was many things, Miss Anthora. As befits the motivating force of an Independent Armed Military Module. Shall I deal with the interlopers on our lawn? It won't take but a moment."

  Anthora sipped her tea, and extended her thought to the eastern pattern. Idly, experimentally, almost playfully, she exerted her will against the chill ugliness. And felt something move, deep within the construct imposed by the Department of Interior.

  Anthora sipped again, shook her head, Terran style, and lazily set the teacup aside.

  "No," she told the robot, "leave them. They won't be staying long."

  Erob's Boundary: War Zone

  Jason heard him out impassively, then got up and walked to the rear of the tent.

  "Coffee, boyo? It's old, but the tea's older."

  Val Con leaned back in the camp chair, weary, now that there was leisure. "Is there water?"

  "That there is."

  There was a slight clink and the sound of liquid running, then Jason settled again at the table, big hands curled around a steaming steel mug. Val Con raised his mug, closing his eyes and concentrating on the sweet feel of water along a parched throat.

  Jason sighed, sudden in the silence.

  "So, the 'trang're massing and they're facing this way. Not the best news we've had on the week, but not unexpected. Why else did you spend all that time with Erob's people, planting those little tokens of esteem around the grounds?"

  Val Con opened his eyes. "It would be better, if they did not get this far."

  "Can't argue with that," Jason conceded and raised the mug for a swallow of old coffee.

  Val Con sipped at his water, and allowed himself for the first time in days to touch the place where Miri's song lived within him.

  For a moment, he simply beheld her essence. His eyes filled and he closed them, bringing all of his attention to her, asleep and distant as—

  He opened his eyes and put the mug down so suddenly it thumped on the table.

  "Fact of the matter is, 'trang general has his nose outta joint because Kritoulkas and Redhead just threw a bunch of his crack kiddies out on their ears," Jason said, possibly to himself. "Not only that, but they lost the prize, and a bit of their own armor, to boot." He shook his head. "Small wonder we're up for special attention." He raised the mug, drained it and set it aside.

  "We're as ready hereabouts as we're likely to get," he said, suddenly brisk. "Next good thing to do is make sure we've done our best down the hill." He pushed back from the table and paused, eyes suddenly speculative.

  "You'll want to be with Redhead for this next bit, will you, lad?"

  Miri had been in battle while he was away from her side. She might have died—Val Con shook his head sharply and glared into Jason's face.

  "I certainly want to be with her so we might usefully plan the best defense," he said, more curtly than he had perhaps intended.

  Jason merely nodded and stood up. "We're both on the same wavelength. Meet me at the flitter in fifteen minutes and we'll go on down together. I'll just call over the Big House and let the general know he's in charge."

  They were met by an improbably cheerful soldier with a newly healed gash on her chin. She ran a disinterested eye over Val Con and gave Jason a wide grin.

  "Morning, Commander. You missed the party."

  "That's right, Sandy, rub it in," Jason said mournfully. "I suppose I'm not taking it hard enough that you had such a good time t'other day when I was stuck up the hill with nothin' to do but watch the tyros train."

  She laughed and turned, guiding them expertly through a series of interlocking trails.

  As the lady's conversation was reserved for her commander, Val Con amused himself by identifying trenches and probable weapons caches, while he kept half an inner ear on the song that was Miri. She was very near now, he could tell from the flavor of the song. He discovered his heart was pounding, though the pace their guide had set was no more than brisk. Indeed, it was all he could do, not to leave his companions behind and run through the forest, into his lifemate's arms.

  "Almost there," Sandy said, guiding them sharply right, then left, and abruptly there was a camp, and soldiers, and sky shielding strung over the whole.

  The sentry went left without hesitation. Val Con, his attention on Miri's song, looked right, toward its emanation, hoping for a glimpse of copper braiding, or an edge of her face, but the way was filled with leather-clad strangers—

  Val Con stumbled, heartbeat stalling. He found his feet instantly, heart slamming painfully into overaction. Breath returned with a shout.

  "Shan!"

  The white-haired man whipped around, pilot-fast, graceful in fighting leathers. His arms opened and Val Con hurtled into the embrace, hugging tight, his cheek against his brother's shoulder.

  In that moment, he was a child again and Shan returning home at last from the long year of contract-marriage. He had been with his music tutor when he heard his brother's voice in the entry-hall and had leapt from the 'chora to fly down the stairway,
into the ready embrace.

  "Shan, Shan. . ."

  "Hello, denubia."

  Beloved voice and oh, gods, to hold his brother to him, to feel the heartbeat beneath his cheek and the lungs laboring so. . .

  He eased his hold, leaning back in arms that seemed reluctant to lose him, raised eyes, and then shaking fingers to his brother's cheek.

  "You're weeping."

  Shan grinned, wavering. "So are you."

  There was a sound quite close at hand, as possibly of a whetstone being drawn slowly down a blade: Jason Carmody clearing his throat.

  "Take it you two know each other."

  Val Con flicked a glance to Jason, noting the high color in those portions of the face not hidden by golden beard.

  Blushing, he thought in astonishment. We've embarrassed Jason Carmody, the man who has no shame. Carefully, he went half a step back, releasing Shan with a reluctance that was echoed in his brother's withdrawal.

  "Shan, this is Gyrfalks Junior Commander Jason Carmody, commanding the forces here." He lay his hand on the leather sleeve—merciful gods, to once again touch kin—gulped a breath and looked up into the big Terran's face.

  "Jason, here is—here is my brother, Shan yos'Galan. Master Trader and—and. . ."

  "And captain," Shan's voice smoothly covered his emotion, "of the battleship Dutiful Passage, in Lytaxin system. Perhaps, by now, in Lytaxin orbit."

  The unnatural color was already leaving Jason's cheeks, though his eyes sharpened considerably.

  "You don't say. Wouldn't be that you're the laddie brought that lifepod down into our quarry, would it?"

  "Unfortunately, it would," Shan said soberly. "I do apologize, Commander, but there really was nothing for it. The pod was all but out of fuel. I had to come down somewhere."

  "Well, and you're part of my reason for being here. We're bound for a bit of chat with Sub-Commander Kritoulkas and Captain Redhead, if you'd care to join us?"

  Shan inclined his head and Val Con caught the flicker of a smile in his direction.

  "I'd love to join you, Commander. You should be warned, however, that Sub-Commander Kritoulkas doesn't seem taken with me."

  "Sub-Commander Kritoulkas," said Jason, turning to the left once again and motioning the patient sentry to move on, "isn't taken with most people. Count yourself approved though, laddie. After all, she let you live."

  Val Con had changed, Shan thought, settling next to him round the sub-commander's hastily cobbled conference table.

  He had thought so, when the two of them had spoken mind-to-mind and Val Con issued the orders that ended with four of the line direct on or near Lytaxin, and in peril of all their lives. Mind-to-mind speaking, however, had claimed more of his attention than he had supposed. The larger pattern had matched the Val Con he had known, and he hadn't leisure, then, to peruse its subtleties.

  Now, as Commander Carmody spoke apart with Sub-Commander Kritoulkas while they awaited the arrival of Val Con's lifemate, he had leisure.

  Damage. With Healer's eyes he traced a swath of devastation through memory, heart, and thought. That there had been enough of the essence of Val Con yos'Phelium left after the storm of destruction to effect a Healing was nothing short of miraculous.

  For Healing there had been. Shan traced that, too, along the brutal path of ruin. Whole segments had been regrown, others were still in process. Still other segments had been patched, strengthened, and reintegrated into the whole—a whole that was recognizably and indisputably Val Con.

  Only—different.

  And just now beginning to show the colors of tension and distress.

  Shan blinked, brought his brother's face into focus, and reached out to touch his hand.

  "Val Con. What befell you?"

  The mobile mouth tightened and Shan heard anguish and something that tasted of—shame?—along the edge of his Inner Ear, but the green eyes did not falter.

  "The Department of Interior befell me." He took a hard breath. "I'm sorry, Shan."

  Sorry? Shan shook his head, extending Healer's senses and once more tracing the scars, the damage, so very—much—damage.

  "How?"

  Val Con smiled, humorless. "You don't want to know."

  "Then at least tell me—with intent?" But even as he asked, his inner eyes found the pattern, among the layers of scarring and repair. Not a Healer's touch, no. But the touch of someone very certain of his effects, who had inflicted his tortures with foreknowing thoroughness.

  He blinked and looked again into his brother's eyes.

  "Balance will be—difficult."

  "Balance by Code," Val Con told him, "is not an option."

  Shan nodded, seeing that resonate through the darkness of the man who was now his brother. Formerly, Val Con's pattern had—sparked, flaring here and there with excess energy and passion. This revised person showed no such exuberance, yet passion was not dead. Merely, it was—consolidated—a hot, bright glow from the deep center of him, from that place one might call his soul.

  From that lambent center, from Val Con's very soul, leapt a construct of living opalescent flame, arching strongly and entirely out of that which was Val Con, to find its equal and apposite root—in the scintillate, stubborn essence that was Miri Robertson.

  "Hey, boss." Her voice brought him out of a contemplation of that astonishing structure and into the world that was. She slid into the vacant seat at Val Con's left hand and nodded cordially to Shan, her Yxtrang taking up guard behind her—No, Shan corrected himself, behind them.

  "Found your brother, I see."

  "Cha'trez." Val Con's smile was so tender Shan felt his stomach wrench, even as he saw the flames of the lifemate bridge ripple and flow, back and forth, from soul to soul.

  "Nelirikk." Val Con had turned in his seat to address the Yxtrang. "I find you well?"

  "Very well, Scout. We have won glory for the Troop on the field, and gained two flags which hang subservient to our own."

  Val Con lifted an eyebrow and looked to his lady. "Have we a battle standard, I wonder?"

  She grinned at him. "Piece of quality merchandise, too. Cultivate a little respect and we'll show it to you, after the jaw's done."

  "When am I not respectful?"

  "You want the whole list, or will a summary do?"

  "OK, here she is." Jason Carmody broke off his conversation with the sub-commander and the two of them approached the table. He grinned.

  "Redhead. Kritoulkas tells me your bunch worked like pros."

  She shook her head. "We did OK," she said seriously. "Lost a lot of people, though."

  "Happens, when you're running with volunteers and tyros," Jason said, matching her seriousness. "Important thing is, you seen action and got the job done. They'll know what to expect next time, which is fine, because the scout's brought news of a bigger party coming our way. Seems you and Kritoulkas have earned yourselves some admirers."

  "Not just that," Kritoulkas said in her sour way. "This last bunch of 'em were after the captain's lifeboat. Expect they might have thought he was sent from this battleship of his down to the house. House looks like a command post. Hell, a month ago, it was a command post."

  Jason Carmody nodded and looked over to Shan. "Want to bring me up to speed on that?"

  So, for the second time in as many days, Shan told the story of the sabotaged pod, the Yxtrang attack, and his unplanned arrival on the planet surface.

  "And I find since that I've made a rather serious error, Commander. I honestly did think it was best for everyone to detonate the lifeboat and stop the Yxtrang armor. However, the lifeboat contained a working space-link radio, which Sub-Commander Kritoulkas tells me is something of a local rarity at the moment."

  Jase nodded. "'trang took out the satellite net first off. Standard operating procedure, according to Beautiful. We're gonna need to know what upstairs looked like, last you saw it. Grab you a computer outta—"

  "That's done," Val Con's—Miri—spoke up. "Had him working on it so
on as we pulled back here." She reached in her jacket pocket, removed a disk and passed it over. Jason grinned.

  "One step ahead of me, which is what I should have expected, my small!" He looked back to Shan, who lifted his eyebrows.

  "An outline of my ship's capabilities and strengths is also on the disk."

  "Hah! Your idea?"

  "It did seem the sort of information you might find helpful," Shan said and Jason grinned again.

  "Gonna retire and let the crowd of you run the war. Call me when it's over."

  "Might want to reconsider," Miri said, her shoulder nestled companionably against Val Con's. "My experience is that retirement's a good way to get yourself into more trouble than you know the name of."

  Jase nodded. "I'll hold off a bit, then. Not any too fond of trouble, myself." He looked around the table, abruptly serious.

  "Here's what, people. We're as ready up the house as stubbornness and the scout's ingenuity can make us. Kritoulkas and me're gonna walk the area when we're done here, to see if we're missing anything the 'trang might want. But we're at a bad disadvantage when it comes to air support and cover. As in, 'trang got it, and we don't." He looked at Shan.

  "Think that ship of yours can provide any cover?"

  "We carry one space-to-world gun," Shan said slowly. "Which is good for offense, but not particularly outstanding for defense. Besides that, we have no radio. . ."

  "Don't give up so easy," Jase advised him. "Very possible that we'll capture us a 'trang radio for the scout to coax into honesty. You're right, though, son. Space-to-world weapon's nice to have on the side of the angels, but it's no substitute for good local air cover, which is what we don't have, Erob's force having gone West when 'trang bombed the fields, coming in."

  Val Con stirred. "Air cover. But would a bombing run—several bombing runs—against Yxtrang strategic targets be of just as much utility?"

  Jason shrugged. "Sure. While we're wishing for pie-in-the-sky we might as well wish for ice cream, too."

  Val Con shook his head and leaned forward across the table. "There is nothing fantastic in such a bombing run, Jason. We have here—" he pointed to Shan, to Nelirikk, and touched himself lightly on the chest—"three pilots of Master quality. We have there—" a point off to the southwest—"many dozens of aircraft."