continued, "And at such times, would the UFP not look to us to join them in any such violent endeavors, since we would be part of the alliance?"
'There is every likelihood that you would be approached, yes," Shelby said slowly. "But no one would force you to fight if you felt strongly against it"
"If that were to be the case, why... then we would be most frustrating and annoying allies to have as part of the Federation, would we not?" Hauman asked with a gentle smile. "On the one hand, having no hesitation to avail ourselves of whatever benefits the UFP might have to offer, while, on the other, refusing to pro-vide support in times of dire need. What's that Earth phrase used to describe such people... ?"
"Fair-weather friends," Wagner said. Shelby fired him a look that indicated she wasn't happy with him right then.
But Hauman smiled and nodded gratefully. "Yes. That is it A very good term. We would only be friends when the weather was fair. When the clouds open up and the torrents descend, then we would not be found. Does that sound like someone with whom you would like to ally yourself, Captain?"
"All the UFP ever asks is that an ally do the best and most that it can for other member-worlds," she explained. "That should not sound unreasonable to you. Besides, the unfortunate troth is that there are hostile worlds out there. You need protection against them. We can provide that."
"I have no doubt that you can, Captain," replied Hauman. "Ob-viously, you care a great deal about providing protection, includ-ing for yourselves." He indicated the phaser that was attached to Shelby's uniform at the hip.
"Standard issue in away situations," Shelby said by way of ex-planation. "One can never be too prepared."
"Another philosophy of the Federation, no doubt," Hauman said, although he didn't sound sarcastic so much as mildly amused. "Again, though... I am inclined to wonder what we are providing in return."
It was Augustine who spoke up. "The pleasure of your com-pany, Hauman. Sometimes... that is sufficient."
Hauman smiled at this, and laughed appreciatively. Shelby glanced at Augustine and gave an approving nod. Discussions weren't going as smoothly as she'd hoped, but they weren't crash-ing and burning either. Perhaps if she remained consistent enough, pushing gently toward the answer she wanted, she could-
Her combadge beeped. "Excuse me a moment," she said to Hauman, who nodded. She tapped it and said, "Shelby. Go."
"Captain, this is Tulley," came the voice of the science officer. "I've been scanning your immediate area, and I'm getting a life-form reading I can't say I like."
"Life-form? What sort of life-form?"
"Insectoid would be my best guess. A considerable swarm, in fact, and it is at this moment approaching the-"
And that was when a loud howl began to sound throughout the city. Hauman, so at ease only moments ago, suddenly was whip-cord-tense. He was looking urgently to the skies, although he clearly didn't have an idea of which direction to check first. At that moment, a short woman with an urgent expression dashed up to them. "What is it, Brandi," asked Hauman, but there was no in-terrogation in his voice. He sounded like he knew what the answer was going to be before she gave it.
Very rapidly, she told him, "Bugs. Coming in from the North-west. ETA, three minutes."
All the remaining pleasantness in Hauman's manner evapo-rated like tissue in water. "Come," he said with sudden urgency, "We have to go. Right now."
Shelby hesitated. The link was still open and she could call for a beam-out-but her gut said that would be wrong. "After you" Shelby said to Hauman.
"Captain!" said Wagner, sounding shocked. "We have to call for beam-out! My job is to-"
"Protect me, I know. I'll be fine. This is Hauman's planet and
I'll trust him to protect us. That's what the Federation is all about: Trust."
"But, Captain, the risk-"
Shelby quieted him with a look. Then she turned to Hauman and Brandi. "All right. Now what?" *
"Come," he said, gripping her hand. "Pardon the overfamiliar-ity; I wouldn't want you to get separated in-" "Don't worry about it," she said.
They dashed across the town square, and Shelby could faintly hear a distant buzzing. She looked off in the direction that Brandi had indicated, and saw a dark cloud appearing on the horizon. For one wild moment, she thought that the Black Mass was attacking. That, somehow, they had survived the encounter in Thallonian space and had returned to wreak more havoc. But then she brushed that off, knowing it not to be the case. Aside from the fact that Tilley would have recognized them as such, it was clear that Hauman had some sort of prior familiarity with whatever it was that was swooping down toward them. And if it had been the Black Mass, well... no one has familiarity with them, because once they show up, that's more or less it for the planet in question. "Up ahead!" called Hauman. "There's a shelter!" There was indeed: a steel doorway that seemed to rise up directly from the ground, obviously with stairs that angled it down to some sort of subterranean safe house. Hauman's long stride would have carried him there easily in a heartbeat, but he was slowing in order to make certain that Shelby kept up. Others who were in the streets were likewise dashing into the shelter. And all around Shelby could see people in their homes slamming shut large metal sills, covering over their windows to provide shielding from the new arrivals.
Suddenly an alarmed and pained screech came from behind her. She stopped, turned, and saw that Brandi had fallen, tearing up her knees. She was sobbing in hysterical fear, and Shelby im-mediately saw why. Whatever the creatures descending upon them were, a couple of them had managed to get ahead of the rest of the swarm and were dive-bombing toward Brandi. Shelby
couldn't believe the size of them; she made them out to be at least six inches in length, perhaps more, but they were moving so quickly that she couldn't see much in terms of detail beyond that.
"Get to safety!" Hauman shouted at Shelby as he turned to help Brandi. But Wagner and Augustine were already helping her stag-ger to her feet, blood smearing her lower legs, and the bugs were almost upon them.
Shelby had absolutely no idea what the oversized insects would do once they made it to their prey, but she wasn't about to find out. She yanked out her phaser, thumbing it to wide-beam even as she brought it up, and she fired without even taking the time to aim. The blast intercepted the insects just before they could strike and knocked them out of the air. Shelby couldn't quite believe what she was then seeing, though. The phaser blasts should have been more than enough to stun a human into unconsciousness, even with the wider dispersion of the beam. In this case, the bugs were down, but most definitely not out. They were flipping around on the ground, thin legs clawing at the air, emitting out-raged buzzing noises and obviously trying to reorient themselves so that they could make another pass.
Fortunately enough, no one was waiting for that to happen. Brandi was limping, but she was doing it very, very quickly, and with help they made it to the shelter. Other Makkusians were standing in the doorway, gesturing frantically for them to hurry. Wagner was supporting Brandi on one side, and Augustine was helping to keep her up on the other. They half-ran, half-stumbled into the shelter, and the door slammed resolutely shut behind them.
The shelter was nothing incredibly deluxe, but it was more than enough to serve the immediate need. There were foodstuffs lining the wall, obviously in case a lengthy stay was going to be re-quired. And a monitor up on the wall was alight, giving them a view of the city itself.
The bugs were now descending from everywhere, more and more seeming to show up with every passing moment. The sound of the buzzing would have been deafening, had they been outside.
As it was, the walls of the shelter dampened it somewhat, but Shelby still had to speak loudly to be heard. "What the hell are those things?" demanded Shelby. "Bugs," he said tersely. She was now getting a closer look*at them, hurtling about or crawling on walls. She frowned. "I don't see any stingers on them." "They don't have any."
"So what's the danger they provide? Diseas
e?" Brandi, whose sniffles had died down, nodded mutely. Hauman looked equally grim* "Their bite transmits an assortment of lethal diseases. It's a relatively recent problem, only within the last year or so. But it has become our number-one health and safety issue." All around Shelby, other Makkusians-huddled together for warmth in the coolness of the shelter-watched the screen with morbid fascination as the bugs flitted this way and that. "They look for food, for nourishment. When they do not find it here, they will move on, although we cannot know when they'll return. They're bloodsuckers by nature," said Hauman. "They've always been an irritation. But they've never been deadly until, as I said, about a year ago. Have you ever experienced anything like this?" "Personally? No. But my homeworld certainly has. We had dis-eases spread by insects called mosquitoes, few instance, capable of annihilating half a countryside." "And what did you do?"
"At the time? Died, mostly. We didn't have the technology and ability to treat it. Over time, though, we developed the tools to combat them."
"Can you combat these?" It was Brandi who was asking, with tremendous urgency. Hauman tried to stop her from talking, but she wasn't listening to him. "Our scientists have tried. You saw; they resisted blasts from your weapon. Their exoskeletons are very formidable, protecting them from most force. We have tried to use insecticides to eliminate them, but they have adapted to them with terrifying ease. But, as advanced as our scientists are, they're nothing compared to yours. Everyone knows that."
"We don't know that at all," Hauman said, sounding a bit de-fensive. But then she looked at him in a way that said, This is no time for foolish pride, and Hauman sighed heavily. "I suppose there is some likelihood that your facilities could succeed where ours have failed. Can you..." He took a deep breath. "Can you help us?"
"I don't know," Shelby said honestly. "We'd have to examine the creatures, see what makes them tick, and then, maybe... but until then, I don't know."
"One chance is better than no chance."
She had to admit that that much was true. And when she saw the eager, hopeful faces around her, she realized she was looking forward to trying to help them. Unfortunately, she also realized that doing so might present some problems... and she was most definitely not looking forward to explaining why she might very well have to let them all die.
TAPINZA
tapinza arrived precisely on time for the breakfast meeting he'd scheduled with Praestor Milos, and was not a little annoyed to dis-cover that Milos was nowhere to be found. That was not at all how Tapinza liked to do things. To him, an appointment was an appoint-ment, a breakfast a breakfast, and he did not like being made to wait for anyone... least of all an officious bureaucrat such as Milos.
He sat in Milos' receiving room for an unconscionable amount of time (ten minutes, in fact), being assured by Milos' staff that the Praestor would be along as soon as possible. That he was in an emergency meeting, and really, it wouldn't be long at all, not at all. This did not assuage Tapinza, however, and he was preparing to give Milos a serious piece of his mind when he suddenly heard raised and urgent voices from a room down the hall.
Tapinza, of course, knew no fear. Was he not a Maester, after all? There was nothing that daunted him, nothing that he had any reluctance to do if it suited his purposes, and that certainly in-cluded barging into meetings being held at a time when attention was to be paid to him. He rose from his chair and headed down the hall. Milos' agitated staffer tried to stop him, to get him to return to the waiting area, but Tapinza brushed him aside scornfully and strode into the room. The chatter abruptly stopped as Tapinza saw
several confused faces looking up at him... and one face that was utterly calm.
There was Milos, and over there was that withered crone, Maestress Cawfiel. He recognized a couple of others from the town council... that preening, self-satisfied mortician, Howzer, and the annoyingly earnest Spangler, the fellow who ran the local newspaper. And there was another fellow, whom Tapinza made no pretense of doing anything other than staring at openly. Tapinza's stare was levelly returned by deep, purple eyes that seemed per-fectly capable of boring straight into Tapinza's head and dissecting down to the smallest atom whatever it happened to find in there.
"Maester Tapinza," Milos said hurriedly, rearing to his feet. "I'm... I'm so sorry... we had an appointment, I know, but this matter, it..." He cleared his throat. "We had an emergency."
"The Majister was killed," Spangler said, in a dark voice laden with portent. "Just this morning." That was typical of Spangler; he thrived on being the first one with bad news.
"I'm sorry to hear that," said Tapinza, who wasn't. Fairax had always been a bit too full of himself, too annoyingly obsessed with the mechanics of the law, to suit Tapinza's tastes. He had not looked away from the purple-eyed man. "Is this the man who killed him?" It didn't seem likely, considering that he was simply sitting there and not looking particularly threatening. Then again, for all he knew, the council had hired this man to dispatch Fairax because they had likewise tired of him. He doubted that was the case, but a man like Tapinza didn't like to rule out any possibility, no matter how absurd on the face of it.
"This man? Kolk'r, no," Milos said quickly.
'This man saved me. Saved my life," the Maestress informed him. "Faced down by four brutes, and survived to tell the tale."
"And what a tale it was, I imagine," Tapinza said. "Congratula-tions."
"Thank you," said the purple-eyed man.
"I am Maester Tapinza."
"Mackenzie Calhoun." He rose slightly from his chair in what
seemed to be an acknowledgment or greeting, but he didn't stand very tall, and there appeared to be deep distrust in his eyes. Well... good. That made him Tapinza's kind of man, since Tap-inza trusted no one as well.
"You're not from around here," Tapinza observed.
"That's right."
"May I ask where you are from?"
Calhoun gave the matter a moment's thought, and then said, "Up north."
"Up north. Really. I've been up north," said Tapinza. "I have to say, I've never seen anyone who looks quite like you."
"Then I imagine I'm from further up north than you've been," Calhoun said evenly.
'We were just discussing," Howzer spoke up, not having made any contribution thus far-and not terribly likely to make one in the near future, even though he was now speaking-"the possibil-ity of Calhoun here becoming Majister."
"Making a total stranger Majister?" Tapinza made no effort to hide his surprise. "A bit unprecedented, don't you think?"
"Not really. Who ever heard of Fairax before we took him on?" Milos pointed out. "We're more interested in someone who can do the job than someone with whom everyone in town has familiarity."
"And he can do the job," the Maestress said firmly. "I wouldn't be alive if he couldn't"
And wouldn yt that be a tragedy, Tapinza thought sarcastically.
"But how will the people of the city take to the idea?" mused Spangler. "They might be suspicious of him."
"Good," said Howzer. "Let them be suspicious. Let them be un-sure of him. He's supposed to be enforcing the law. He's supposed
to be instilling fear in people. But people don't fear what they know too well. If they don't know much about him or what to make of him, they're that much more likely to stay in line."
Calhoun spoke up, with what sounded like a touch of amuse-ment in his voice. "I hate to bring this up," he said slowly, "since you all seem to have made up your minds about it... but I
haven't said I would take the position. I haven't even said I'm in-terested."
"But... you have to be," Milos nearly stammered. "You can't leave us in die lurch...."
"I can't?" asked Calhoun, one eyebrow slightly raised. "You people stood by while I was thrown in your 'gaol.' And she," he indicated the Maestress, "said I was ugly. Pardon me if I don't feel as if I owe you anything."
"You said he was ugly?" Milos turned to the Maestress, looking stricken. "Did you say that?"
"I didn't know him then," Maestress Cawfiel replied tartly. "It took me a while to adjust to him, because he has unusual fea-tures." Defensively, she added, turning to Calhoun, "Well... you do. I apologize if I gave offense."
"Very well," said Calhoun diplomatically. But Tapinza was watching him carefully, and he was fully aware that Calhoun did not give a naked luukab's hindquarters what Cawfiel thought of his looks. He was simply yanking her around a bit, probably for his own amusement. It was an attitude that Tapinza could readily appreciate.
"Nevertheless, I don't know that I'm interested in any sort of law-enforcement job. I'm just passing through, you see."
"Really," said Tapinza. By this time he had taken a seat, even though none had been offered him. Tapinza was not on the town council, mostly because he saw no reason for it. Through his busi-ness dealings and power structure, he already had significant in-fluence and control over these people's lives. Why waste time in pointless council meetings to reinforce that which he already pos-sessed? "And where are you passing through to... precisely?"
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