Manta's Gift (27 page)

Faraday had never wanted to hit anyone as much as he wanted to hit Liadof. But he resisted the impulse. There were other ways to fight this. There had to be. Somehow, somewhere, he would find the right one.

And until he did, it would serve no purpose to get himself thrown back into his own quarters.

There was nothing he could do for McCollum right now. But maybe there was still something he could do for Raimey.

Stepping past Liadof, he went and stood behind Milligan. Liadof's top-secret probe was centered in one of the sensor displays, a three-dimensional version of the sketch he'd been studying and analyzing over the past few days.

A study which, he saw now, had been decidedly hit and miss. The top ovoid was indeed a modified
Skydiver
probe, as he'd concluded; but it appeared to be rigidly attached to the lower ovoid instead of being connected to it with a second-stage tether. The lower part was indeed composed of McCollum's mesh; but the mesh wasn't simply acting as a breathable outer skin. There was some kind of mechanism vaguely visible near where the two shapes joined, but most of the lower ovoid appeared to be completely empty.

And while the wands atop the upper probe were indeed control and sensor antennae, the ones stabbing downward from the lower ovoid were something else entirely. From all appearances, in fact, they seemed to be jagged-edged spikes.

"Omega Control to Contact Room," a voice announced from the ceiling speaker. "Omega Probe is ready to launch."

"Acknowledged," Liadof called back. "Launch Omega Probe."

On the display the double ovoid dropped away from its transport, descending rapidly toward the swirling clouds below. There were no tether lines visible, Faraday noted, which meant the thing was going to be free-flown. The grab rings must be simply for retrieving it later. "Which crew do you have aboard the tether ship?" he asked.

"My people are controlling it from Bay Seven, actually," Liadof said. "Omega's flight characteristics are outside the expertise of anyone on Prime."

"Then why are we even here?" he asked.

"You're here, as I've already said, in case we have to talk to Raimey," Liadof said. "The rest of Alpha Shift is here to handle the sensors and monitors and generally make themselves useful."

And to prove their loyalty in the face of McCollum's object lesson? Probably that, too.

Milligan was fiddling the telescope controls, keeping the probe centered and in focus. "Rather confident designation, calling it Omega," Faraday commented. "Do the Five Hundred expect this to be the last probe design we're ever going to need?"

"As a matter of fact, we do," Liadof said calmly. "After Omega, the designation won't be 'probe' anymore."

Faraday frowned over his shoulder at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Liadof's lips compressed slightly. "If we're fortunate, you'll never have to find out."

"That's not much of an answer," Faraday said. "Is the next generation going to be bigger or faster or something?"

She shrugged. "No need for extra size. I hardly think the Qanska could build and control a stardrive bigger than that cage."

Faraday glanced at Milligan, got an equally blank look in return. "Are you telling me you know where the stardrive is?" he asked.

"Not yet," Liadof said. "But the Qanska will soon be giving us that information. After that—" She shrugged. "It'll simply be a matter of sending Omega to pick it up."

"Really," Faraday murmured, frowning at the displays. No. That couldn't possibly be the entire plan. Why on Earth would the Qanska just meekly hand over their stardrive?

He sent a sideways look over at Beach. His face was rigid, his lips compressed tightly together. He and McCollum had gotten along pretty well in the past, he knew. Could McCollum have picked up a few more pieces of this puzzle from her friend in Bay Seven before Liadof locked her away and passed them along to him?

Possibly. Easing away from Milligan's shoulder, he drifted in Beach's direction—

"You'd better come back here with me, Colonel," Liadof called, almost lazily. "We wouldn't want you distracting the techs with unnecessary questions, now, would we?"

Faraday gave Beach's profile one last look, then turned away. "No, of course not," he said.

"Right here, Colonel," Liadof ordered, indicating a chair she'd set beside her. "You'll have a good view from here."

"And what is it I'll be looking at?" he asked as he sat down.

Liadof turned to the displays, her eyes shining again. "The end of an era," she said quietly. "And the beginning of the next."

Raimey had reached Level Two, and had leveled off from his climb, when he began to hear the first whispers of the distant Qanskan call.

He paused, letting himself drift with the wind as he listened. The voices were faint and indistinct, the tonals coming across as little more than mutterings. But if the words were still obscured, the tone of the call was clear as empty air.

Danger!

He resumed his swimming, putting a little more speed into it. He'd heard a thousand such warnings in his lifetime, most while he was a child, almost all of them signaling a Vuuka attack.

But he'd never heard a warning with such an edge of fear to it. What in crosswinds could be going on up there?

Whatever it was, it seemed to be getting worse. More Qanska were picking up the call now, echoing the original and adding to it.
Danger, attack, fear, terror.

And there was something else different about it. Something that set it apart from all the other warnings he'd heard since birth. Something odd and chilling...

And then, with a jolt, he got it. All the voices in that call were female.
All
of them. The only ones who were calling for help were the Nurturers and the female Breeders. None of the Protectors were calling.

Which meant the Protectors were too busy fighting the attack to add their voices to the chorus.

Or else all of them were already dead.

Raimey leaned his muscles hard into his swimming, putting every bit of strength and speed he could into it. He had the direction now: straight ahead, definitely on Level One.

Somewhere near his old herd.

"You must be insane," Faraday said, tearing his eyes away from the displays and staring in disbelief at the woman beside him. "What are you trying to do, start a war?"

"Calm yourself, Colonel," Liadof said. Her own eyes, he noted, were still on the displays, her manner glacially calm. "And no, I'm not trying to start a war. I'm trying to end one."

"If you think a few Martian protests and riots constitute a war, you are sorely deficient in historical perspective," he bit out.
"This
is the sort of thing that starts
real
wars."

"Gently, Colonel," Liadof warned. "Proper respect and decorum, or I'll have you sent back to your quarters."

Faraday took a deep breath.
Calm down,
he ordered himself. She was right; and there would be absolutely nothing he could do to stop this madness if he was kicked out of here. He had to keep silent and control himself, to stay here and watch for something—anything—he could do.

And so he clamped his mouth tightly shut and let his eyes return to the displays. To the image of the Omega Probe, carrying out Liadof's grand scheme.

Carrying out her act of war.

A small group of Qanska shot past Raimey in the near distance, mothers and children of various ages, swimming as fast as they could. He thought of calling to them, but he didn't have the breath to spare right now for a conversation. Neither, he suspected, did they.

He kept going. More Qanska were visible now, most of them children with their mothers or other female Breeders, all of them swimming hard away from a point somewhere still ahead of him.

Something coming up from below caught his eye.
Vuuka,
was his first, startled thought. But no, it was just a pair of Protectors, swimming upward toward the distress call. If they noticed him, they didn't say anything.

Ahead, now, he could see something moving through the atmosphere. Or maybe a pair of somethings, one of them attached to the back of the other. His mind flashed back to that Sivra attack so many dayherds ago, where the smaller predators had hitched a ride on a hijacked Vuuka.

But the shape ahead was all wrong for that. Besides, unless his eyes and distance perception were playing strange tricks on him, the thing up ahead was far too big for any Vuuka that could get up this high.

In fact, it was too big for a Vuuka of
any
sort, at least any Vuuka he'd ever heard of. That lower shape had to be at least a hundred-size across from nose to tail, bigger than anything but the oldest of the Wise. What in crosswinds...?

And then, suddenly, it clicked. "Vuuk-mook," he muttered disgustedly to himself. This was no natural phenomenon threatening the lives and well-being of the herd. This was nothing but another of the humans' probes.

With an exasperated snort, he let himself glide to a halt, annoyed at himself and even more so with the Protectors and Nurturers of the herd. These were people who had seen Raimey delivered to them by this same sort of machine, after all. Had they forgotten all about that?

Apparently so. Ahead, he could still see Qanska fleeing from the probe's advance. Mostly they were the slower Babies and younger Midlings, all of them being herded frantically away by their mothers. Behind them, the Protectors were gathered around the probe, churning the air madly as they repeatedly rammed their bony foreheads into its sides.

Mentally, Raimey shook his head in contempt. Idiots.

Still, if they kept beating themselves against the probe that way, someone was going to get hurt. He'd better go over and patiently explain that this was nothing to be worried about.

He started forward again; and as he did so, the dull rumble of the probe's engines began to grow louder. The probe changed course, swiveling a few degrees into the wind and heading off toward Raimey's left.

Raimey frowned, altering his own course to compensate. What in turbulent air were the humans doing? Trying to get their probe away from the Protectors before they damaged it? Probably. He picked up his pace, noticing as he did so that the probe was likewise speeding up.

Still, if they wanted to get away, they were going to have to do better than that. Behind the probe, the Protectors had regrouped and were giving chase. Apparently, someone in charge over there was really determined to chase this intruder away.

The probe was still picking up speed, outpacing the pursuing Protectors, the sound of its propellers filling the sky. Already it was moving far faster than Raimey would have expected something that big could go. Clearly, the humans had decided their best bet was just to give up and go do their research somewhere else. It wasn't like the skies of Jupiter were that crowded, after all—

And then, abruptly, something seemed to catch in Raimey's throats. The probe wasn't running away, he suddenly realized. It was instead heading straight toward one of the straggler groups of Qanskan children and their mothers. Chasing them across the sky like a huge metal Vuuka.

And it was gaining.

"That's enough, Arbiter," Faraday said, the tightness of his throat making his voice sound strange in his ears. "Please. You already have more than enough. Just leave the others alone."

"Thank you for your advice," Liadof said coolly. "Mr. Boschwitz: those two on the left—the smaller ones. I want them both."

"Acknowledged, Arbiter," the voice replied from the ceiling speaker. "Commencing run."

Faraday took a deep breath. "Arbiter, this is completely and thoroughly unconscionable," he said, fighting hard against the frustration boiling inside him.

"Again, your opinion is noted, Colonel," Liadof said coldly. "But the base rule of negotiation is that the more cards in your hand, the stronger that hand is." She nodded toward the display. "Two more will make a nice even ten. A good number to have when the Leaders finally arrive."

Faraday looked over at the techs. Sprenkle was staring back at him out of the corner of his eye, his face rigid.
Do something,
that look seemed to say.

But all Faraday could do was give him a small, helpless shrug in return.

The probe was closing fast on the fleeing Qanska. Raimey pushed hard against the air, trying to get there first, a sense of unreality swirling through his mind like a poisonous mist. For Faraday to be deliberately chasing down Qanskan children this way was utterly beyond comprehension.

But chasing them down he most certainly was. Raimey was close enough now to see that the hundred-size lower shape was made of a loosely woven mesh; and inside, pressed against the back wall by the probe's speed, he could see the figures of several more Qanskan children, flailing away in helplessness and fear.

An old, almost alien memory flicked into his mind: himself as a human child, spending lazy summer days hunting frogs in the creek that ran behind his house. But he'd always put the frogs back again afterward.

That couldn't be what was happening here. Could it? The humans had had over twenty dayherds to study the Qanska before Raimey had even come here. Surely they didn't need to swoop down now and take fresh samples.

But whatever they needed or thought they needed, the bitter-cold fact was that that was what they were doing. Even as he charged toward the probe, the front end of the mesh opened wide like a gaping mouth. Some kind of tentacle shot out the gap, snaking its way straight to one of the swimming Babies.

And as the tentacle reached its target, the tip exploded into a tangle of smaller threads, wrapping securely around the small form.

The Baby screeched in terror. Its mother braked hard, fins slapping against the air as she cut around in a tight circle to come to her child's aid.

But there was nothing she could do. The tentacle was reeling the Baby in now, pulling it into the gaping mouth of the humans' cage with the inevitability of a pack of Sivra chewing their way under the skin. And then, even as she bit and slapped uselessly at the tentacle, a second cable shot out through the opening, barely missing her. A ninepulse later, a second Baby was being pulled in with the first.