Spy Station

by J. M. R. Gaines

  It must be an instinct, for him if not for others. Perhaps there was a scrap of it left in all Garanians. There was another old saying, now mouthed only in the most private places: “Deny the claw, deny the eye, deny the brain, but never deny the blood.” A ghost of honor in his blood was declaring that there was a stain of infamy on his unseen, unknown “allies.” They must be unmasked to him. To him, if to no one else. At some point, he must bare his teeth and hiss a warning to them, not to drag him down to their dishonor. Tashto’s eyes must not hide a memory that he could slink away from an act like a scavenger into the forest. He made an oath to it. Then he simply stopped and heard his breathing, slowed almost to hibernation, but still sure and self-renewing. That let him know that his meditation was successful and his path was right. Ever so slowly, he tensed back into the “spring up” pose, then arose and walked the length and breadth of his quarters. Lucid and devoid of fatigue, he decided he wanted to take a stroll through the corridors of Varess to check on a few hunches.

  5

  E ntara and the Forlani delegation had just turned out of sight down a corridor when a gaggle of Powls came scuttling from the opposite direction and halted in front of the residence guard detachment. After a lot of tablet-tapping, a message was handed to the nearest Forlani guard, requesting access to the heating apparatus which needed further adjustment. Kantua signaled back to them that admittance was inconvenient now and they should return later. They tapped out a curt retort that failure to do the work now would result in a delay of several cycles. Wary because of Ayan’we’s earlier orders, Kantua was tempted to simply dismiss the Powls, but she dreaded the idea of exposing Quatilla to a faulty heating system that might even put the security of their quarters in question. So she ordered the third and fourth guards to accompany the Powls back to the heating area and observe them carefully as they worked.

  Kantua and her second had resumed their vigil and were just beginning to wonder how long the Powls would take when four more figures came dancing into the corridor and headed their way.

  “Oh, no. Not the Gropers Four!” she muttered to her comrade. “The last thing I want right now is to have them pawing me all over. Let’s get rid of them quickly.”

  However, that was easier said than done. The four Phiddians pirouetted around the guards playfully, poking at them gently and then pulling back before they could be grabbed or pushed away. Suddenly, three of the Gropers converged on the second guard and rubbed their bodies close against her as she tried to pry them apart and repel them. Really annoyed at last, Kantua drew a discipline rod from her cape and prepared to intervene when she felt hands running across her backside. In fact, it was the same kind of approach that had been used on Vahon the Garanian just a while ago and by the same person. Forlani did not lash out as angrily as the reptiles did, but the irate Kantua had just begun to draw back her stick for a solid swat when she realized her arm was not obeying her brain. She never felt the prick of a dart in her skin before she slumped into unconsciousness.

  Tionar the Newt was so worried that the conference would break up after Tashto’s accusations that he had worked tirelessly on a desperate plan to save the proceedings. He had convinced the Kael and the Blastöo to join his people in offering their three votes unconditionally to the Song Pai if they would agree to continue the negotiations. Together with his allies, he had hurried to be the first to the hall so that they could claim the floor before the cephalopods could begin their expected tirade. To their surprise they found they were not the first to arrive. The usually tardy Blynthians were already writhing in their tubes and had prepared a statement that greeted the other delegations as they took their places. In over a dozen languages, an astonishing declaration appeared on the viewscreens. It read:

  Blynthian position, confirmed by highest authority – our direction considers all acts of the preceding session to be completely irrelevant and immaterial to current interests. Likewise, we consider the absence of physiological advisor Torghh to be irrelevant at this time. We ask specific planetary objectives of any representatives that seek them. Prepared to consider them immediately.

  The announcement seemed to have left the Song Pai in disarray, as their chief delegate peered at it without comment. Tionar seized the moment to move acceptance of the Blynthian report and was instantly seconded by the Kael delegate. The Blastöo began a lengthy discussion of planetary properties within the zone the Blynthians had indicated as a non-combat area. Entara had whispered to Ayan’we that she was setting up an additional consultation with the Rokol when the two of them received an alert that something was wrong at the residence. Entara lit the abstention light and rushed from the hall with Ayan’we and a pair of assistants at her heels.

  I-35 had been lingering in one of the corridors adjacent to the Forlani quarters and had stayed in the area, noting the activity of the Powls and then the approach of the lascivious Phiddian quartet. Something had not seemed right, so he had shuffled back and forth just within sight of the entrance to the quarters, puzzled that an operation seemed to be taking place while both prime targets, Entara and Ayan’we, were away, safe in the council hall. The Gropers Four had disabled the two guards in the doorway so skillfully that I-35 had seen nothing of the actual ambush. However, as soon as the four burst out of the doorway again, carrying something covered with a cloth, and had headed in his direction, he made all the haste he could to trail them from ahead. As they drew closer, he was able to grab an egg-shaped detector from his utility belt and point it backwards at his quarry. Sure enough, the light display confirmed the packet covered with the cloth was organic, and it didn’t take I-35 long to surmise that it must be the infant Quatilla, whom the Forlani had foolishly brought along on this dangerous assignment. He pushed those thoughts out of his brain as he reviewed several lightning-fast alternatives for neutralizing the Phiddians. They were getting closer and closer. Suddenly, at a junction, they veered left and took a ramp that sloped upward to several cargo areas. Good places to hide. He had to follow them now, before they were able to lose him in a maze of containers. I-35 pulled a fire alarm lever on the wall as he passed. The diversion worked. As they turned a corner, one of the Gropers started fell behind the lead three, frozen by the sound of the alarm. I-35 killed it in a flash and rushed up, letting out a bleat that stopped the others.

  The Phiddians turned to face their fallen comrade and the clumsy-looking Kholod that stood over it. I-35 could see that all three were now armed with bladed quoits, a traditional weapon of their race. One against three was bad odds. I-35 bleated again and waved his two arms around in a confused manner. He hoped it would stall the Phiddians long enough for him to come up with an action plan. Their contempt of Kholods stood him in good stead, because instead of flinging their sharpened disks, they looked at each other indecisively while he took a few more awkward steps forward, getting in range. Then, before they could budge, he shot out his four-meter-long, triple-forked tongue and delivered a lethal electrical shock to the closest Phiddian, as he had for the one he caught at the turn.

  Before I-35 could retract and hit out again, one of the two surviving Phiddians flipped a quoit through the air. He was able to catch it with a raised leg to protect his vulnerable belly. It stuck fast above one of his leg joints. By the time his injured leg hit the ground, his charged tongue had reduced the aggressor to an inanimate lump.

  The last Phiddian was holding his quoit to the neck of the now-exposed baby Quatilla, who stared innocently ahead. “Back away, or I will kill the hostage!” shouted the desperate hermaphrodite. I-35 would have to try to hit the quoit itself before it cut off Quatilla’s head. It would be tricky. He waited a second, hoping for a flinch or an eye movement that would strengthen his chances. When none came about, he struck.

  It almost worked. The quoit had barely nicked Quatilla’s skin, and its edge sliced off one lobe of I-35’s tongue. Simultaneously, a powerful jolt of thousands of volts fried the Phiddian’s entire nervous system. Unfortunately, the electric
spark jumped the gap between the quoit and the youngster, hitting Quatilla at almost full force. Two unmoving bodies lay on the floor of the corridor. I-35 held a long finger to the infant’s neck. Quatilla still had a pulse. I-35 gave a jowly sob. “Sorry, little one. Live, now, please!” Hearing the approach of running feet, he made off with all possible speed, bleeding from the mouth and the leg, in the direction of the Song Pai quarters. But not before Ayan’we, rushing headlong toward the scene, caught a glimpse of the stocky form vanishing up the ramp.

  As soon as Entara entered the unguarded portal to the Forlani quarters, she had begun to tremble. The sight of four inert sentinels had increased it to an almost uncontrollable shaking in every limb and the view of Quatilla's deserted nest had thrown her into near-spasms that she made every effort to control. After a second's hesitation, she rushed to the medicine cabinet and jabbed herself with a prepared syringe of powerful nerve decelerant. Ayan'we had observed this in a state of panic and was tempted to ask her mother if there was another dose handy, but she instantly realized she could not afford herself this distraction. She had never felt the birth bliss or gazed down at the miniscule Quatilla that had come into the cosmos in that moment of overwhelming joy. Her love was that of a genuine sister, but nothing like the grief of a mother. Gritting her teeth, she spun around and headed for the door, signaling the two security cluster members to follow.

  Ayan'we shouted back at her mother, “Mom, signal all the others. Send them left down the corridor. I'm heading right.” Though her head was throbbing and her stomachs doing somersaults, she found relief in pure speed as she shot down the corridor, literally bouncing off the walls as she trailed the unseen assailants.

  Entara slumped against a wall as the medication coursed through her veins. She pulled herself to a control panel and pulled the alarm for the rest of the delegation, then crawled over to Kantua's outstretched body. She searched for a pulse and breathed a little easier when she found it. As the other Forlani reached the room and surveyed the dismal scene, she summoned the energy to relay Ayan'we's orders, keeping only the medical attaché with her to tend the wounded. They would no doubt have to be handed over to a real team of doctors as soon as possible. She had noted that, fortunately, the Weh medical ship had arrived at the station while they were sleeping, so she told the medic to arrange for an immediate shuttle transfer for the four sentinels. If necessary, those sea creatures could actually swim inside the Forlanis' bodies and remove the poisoned blood drop by drop, stunning tissues almost cell by cell to avoid necrosis. Almost forgetting that she herself was sick, she staggered toward the door to join the pursuers of Quatilla, but the medic caught her by the arm just in time, laid her on some cushions and covered her with a warm cape. Then the medic entrusted Entara to a couple of Phiddian physicians who showed up, not so much thinking they would really help Entara as hoping that her commander would stay out of her way until she could place the sentinels on a shuttle on route to the able care of the Weh masters.

  The medic needn't have worried about Entara staying out of the way. Wavering between the shuddering of grief and the swoon caused by the narcotic nerve decelerant, Entara felt battered from side to side, even as the weight of family responsibility seemed to crush her. My child. My last. They have taken her. Please don't kill her! She accused herself of every motherly crime that surged into her head – neglect, stupidity, crass selfishness, hunger for recognition, and a thousand more. Why did I insist on bringing her when so many qualified sisters at the mahäme would have been thrilled to take care of her and never let her out of their sight? Why, when all the wisest told me not to, was I so stubborn? If she dies, it is nobody's fault but my own. How will I explain it to the other children? She tried to clear her head and think logically. She was making a bad situation worse by this flood of emotion. Had to come to the conference, that much is sure. If not, Forlan would be at war. War could cost her everything. At the first incursion into their system, the hex-interceptors of the Guard would rush to meet it. They would almost surely be annihilated – it was part of the battle plan. Ayan'we would almost certainly be at the commands of one of them, since Forlan still had less than a hundred trained pilots. Ayan'we would be one of the first casualties if the conference should fail.

  But that was not all. There would be a planetary bombardment. Before the Song Pai could arrive to save them – if the Song Pai were able to come at all – the slaughter on Forlan could be appalling. It had happened before. Long, long ago during the First Zetan War, an attack from space had devastated Forlan. Though all landings by the Zetans on the surface had been foiled by waves and waves of suicidal charges by the inhabitants, the departing invaders had spitefully concentrated every weapon they had on the helpless survivors prior to leaving the system for their home world. The whole population had been effected, and one matriline had been almost totally expunged. In more recent history, the Hyperion Corporation had sent a conquest task force to Forlan that had begun a bombardment before the Song Pai's redoubtable Carrier 12 had come to the rescue and sent the remnants of the human fleet wildly rushing away. The human weapons had been particularly lethal to Forlani children. Adult Forlani, their bodies rendered tough and adaptable by the rigors of mating and the jarring physiological changes that followed it, were incredibly resilient to many kinds of wounds and poisons. However, the young ones, still in a fragile developmental state, were far more susceptible. More than a hundred thousand had died within a few days and others had been marred for life. Entara had horrible visions of a lifeless and mangled Quatilla lying in the ashes. And that was just what Earth could do! What if Forlan had to withstand the Blynthians, those mysterious creatures that had demonstrated recently that they could alter whole star systems with ease? Blynthians might be able to atomize the entire planet in nanoseconds. There might be no time to grieve, only silent, eternal oblivion.

  Ayan'we's team of three soon divided in their headlong race down the corridors of Varess. At junctions, her two companions followed different trails as she plunged on ahead, following raw instinct more than her sensitive nose. All the corridors of the space station were saturated with smells of Kholods, Powls and Phiddians, owing to their years of occupation there. As for Quatilla, there was just the faintest trace of the infantile Forlani. Ayan'we would lose it completely for a moment and then sniff it again – at least she hoped it was the same scent. They've probably wrapped her in something to throw me off the track. Why am I saying “they?” I don't know how many of them there were. It must have been several, to overcome four of my guards. Damned Phiddians, they seldom travel alone. There! There it is again. Acrid smells, as well. The kidnappers are excited. Scared? Something else. A certain desperation. Somebody's going to get violent. Oh, heavens, I hope it's not towards her. Anything but that. Even if it's me and they're laying a trap. At least I can set the others on the right trail.

  She froze as she came around a corner and found the corpse of the first Phiddian to fall. Was this one of the abductors or an innocent victim? It carried a sharpened disc, a throwing weapon. Silent and deadly. There would be no detonation, no cocking of a weapon. But why slow down here? This must have been one of the kidnappers or it wouldn't be armed. Did they run into someone else by accident? Was someone else on their trail? Ayan'we took out her hand weapon and inched around the curve of the corridor just in time to see a shape hurrying off down the other end of the passageway. Her eyes flicked to the objects on the ground. Three Phiddians and a bundle of Quatilla. The bundle was not moving. Without a thought as to whether one or more of the Phiddians might be playing possum or temporarily passed out from a wound, she bounded to Quatilla and unwrapped the infant. Her own hearts nearly stopped when she saw the baby was having seizures. She punched the call button on her sash but could already hear steps pounding in her direction. Had she signaled already without thinking of it? Forlani crowded around her asking if the child was all right. A couple of Robotic Guild sentries rolled up, too. Others were there – Kael, Rokol, Phidd
ians, Blastöo, a feathery reptile.

  “Secure the scene. Nothing moves!” she yelled at her cluster sisters.

  A Kael's rodent-like paw gripped her shoulder and ran along with her. “This way to the nearest shuttle. The Weh hospital has arrived and they can examine her.”

  When she reached the shuttle bay, a mechanical voice ordered, “Place the patient on the examining table for compatibility scan.”

  Ayan'we laid her sister down and drew away the cloth she had been wrapped in. Every few moments the shudder of another seizure would wrack the infant.

  “Remove the mouthpiece from the blue chamber and place it in the patient's mouth for safety.”

  Ayan'we obeyed the tinny voice again. It must have been a mechanical speaker, since the Weh did not vocalize in an audio range. Taking commands from a computer worried her more, since she would have preferred a living, breathing organism present to share her anxiety instead of a network of wires and components. Ayan'we fidgeted as she awaited further instruction to get her little sister into a shuttle and on the way to a cure.