Wolf Among the Stars-ARC (17 page)

“Leong? Listen, Jamel, Leong was—”

“Shut up!” snapped Kharazi in a voice that went with the rest of her. “It was thanks to Leong’s quick thinking and initiative that we found out you were headed to the Kogurche system, and that there you made contact with Reislon’Sygnath, in whom we’ve been interested for a long time. We always knew he was a double agent, and now we know he’s a
triple
agent.”

“How, exactly, do you know that?” Rachel demanded. “Have you heard from Leong lately?”

“Assemblyman Valdes has many sources of information,” said Kharazi with a tight smile. “It’s true that Leong is believed dead. That will be another charge against you two, to add to the list.”

“Jamel,” said Andrew desperately, “
think!
Valdes hasn’t got any magic interstellar radio. How could Leong have gotten any information to Valdes that would have enabled you to zero in on this ship the way you did? What kind of sources of information are we talking about?” Thinking to see a flicker of doubt on his old friend’s face, he pressed what might possibly be his advantage. “You’ve got to listen to me. First of all, Leong was a member of the Black Wolf Society—”

“I told you to shut up!” screeched Kharazi.

“—and what’s more, he was an alien, belonging to a species that can masquerade as humans. No,
transform
into human semblance.” Before the stunned silence in the room could break, Andrew rushed on. “Jamel, you know me. You know I’m not insane. And you also know I’m not stupid—at least not stupid enough to invent a story this implausible.”

Taylor’s face reflected his inner conflict. “Ms. Kharazi, there are a number of seeming discrepancies in all this about which I’m confused. I think we should investigate them further.”

Kharazi gave him an unpleasant look. “I advise against wasting time that way, Captain. You already know what you need to know: that these two, through their contact Reislon’Sygnath, have sold out to Gev-Rogov—”

“We do not represent Gev-Rogov,” Borthru broke in. “In fact, we represent the opposition to the
gevah
’s current regime.”

“Of course,” sneered Kharazi. “Gev-Rogov will say the same thing about you. It’s called ‘plausible deniability,’ Captain Taylor. A child wouldn’t be fooled by it, and neither should you. The other thing you should investigate is the theft these people have committed, and locate the item they have stolen. You must use any and all means necessary to get the truth out of them. This is no time for squeamishness.”

“There will be no torture used aboard my ship, Ms. Kharazi. I’m aware that I’m under orders to consider your advice—”

“Get it straight, Captain. You’re under orders to
follow
my advice. Remember, Assemblyman Valdes has
very
high connections, inside and outside the Navy. And even now he’s in space, in his private vessel, and will probably rendezvous with us later. You’d be wise to consider the impact your decisions may have on your career prospects, Captain.”

Andrew felt a dull, dead hopelessness congeal in the pit of his stomach as he looked from one face to the other. And, in the way the mind has of seeking refuge at such moments by fleeing into irrelevancies, he couldn’t help being struck by the physical contrast—comical at any other time—between Taylor and Kharazi, who was . . .

Small, and racially indistinguishable.

No. Don’t be crazy. There are lots of people who are below average in size. And lots of people who are multiracial, especially on today’s cosmopolitan Earth.

And yet . . . what other alternative have I? And what have I got to lose?

It all flashed through his mind in less than a second. At appreciably the same time, he caught Rachel’s eye. They exchanged a look, and somehow he knew that she had had the same stunning thought, and that she knew what he was about to do.

An infinitesimal nod of her head confirmed it. Then, without further ado, she let her legs go limp under her and collapsed to the floor.

When a woman appears to faint, any men present, however well-trained and focused, are going to take notice. That wavering of attention gave Andrew his chance.

He lunged at the nearest Security guard on his left, grasping the man’s right wrist and bringing it down across his knee. The M-3 dropped to the deck. Andrew scooped it up with his free right hand. It was set on semiautomatic, but with gauss weapons there was practically no delay between shots.

Oblivious to the pandemonium that had broken out, Andrew used the fractional second he had to squeeze off several shots. The characteristic snapping sound was almost as rapid-fire as on autoburst.

The first shot hit Kharazi in the heart. Blood welled up . . . but slowed immediately, and she stayed on her feet.

The other hypervelocity projectiles all whipped through the chest and abdomen. She sank to the deck.

Then the state of slowed time in which Andrew had been living was suddenly shattered by an explosion of sickening pain as someone punched him from behind in the kidney. Helpless with agony, he was forced to the floor, and both his arms were pulled up to the small of his back. He had already dropped the M-3, which he no longer needed.

He became aware that his fellow prisoners were going prone on the deck at the shouted orders of two Security guards, who were pointing their M-3s two-handed for emphasis. Another guard, presumably with medic training was crouched over Kharazi. He looked up and shook his head.

“It’s no use, sir,” he told Taylor. “She’s dying. They don’t even have a sick bay for humans here. And even if they did . . . I can’t understand why she’s not already dead.”

Taylor swung over to Andrew as the two guards holding Andrew’s arms hauled him excruciatingly to his feet. He thrust his face to within inches of Andrew’s. “You murdering bastard!” he grated.

“Sir!
Sir!
” The medic’s voice rose to falsetto as he leaped to his feet and staggered backward from the obscenity he was witnessing.

Andrew could sympathize. It all came back to him as he watched: the horribly translucent lavender-white skin with its sprinkling of white hairs; the writhing and reconfiguring as the skeletal structure changed with creaking sound that set the teeth on edge; the huge empty eyes . . .

Shock gripped the room. The guards could only stare in horror. Andrew heard one M-3 fall to the deck. Below the level of any of the senses, he could feel panicked horror rising very close to the surface.

Taylor’s deep voice halted it.

“Release Captain Roark,” he said heavily.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“But what if you had been wrong?
” demanded Rachel as they hurried along the passageway deep in CNS
Broadsword.

“Well,” said Andrew, shrugging uncomfortably against the slightly ill-fitting uniform he had borrowed after going through the formality of reporting himself off leave to Taylor, “I suppose they would have executed me for murder after executing me for treason. Or,” he added thoughtfully, “do you think maybe it would have been the other way around?”

“You’re about as funny as pork barbeque at a bar mitzvah. And I must be as crazy as you are. I can’t imagine what possessed me to help you with your little stunt.”

“I never did get around to thanking you for that, did I? You did exactly the right thing.”

She made a nonverbal sound of deep skepticism.

They arrived at their destination, a briefing room where others were already present or filing in: Reislon, Persath, Borthru, and Commander Huai Mei,
Broadsword
‘s executive officer. This was hardly the first meeting the room had seen, as the two ships continued to coast outward from the Sun on their high-velocity hyperbolic orbit. The first had been for the purpose of revealing Kharazi’s body to Huai and Taylor‘s other officers and, while they were still in a proper state of shock, recounting the entire story to them—accurately, except that Andrew had continued to withhold the fact of Admiral Arnstein‘s suicide. Afterward had come the process, through the usual military educational trickle-down method, of disseminating the facts of their situation to the cruiser’s crew after requiring full medical scans under the guise that some type of toxin may have been released by the captured vessel. This had gone fairly smoothly. This was not the day of fighting sail, when crews had consisted of press-ganged gutter scrapings, nor even the more recent naval eras when crews had included unwilling draftees. Space crew were intelligent, educated people; they had to be.

“Attention on deck!” rapped a master-at-arms at the hatchway. Everyone rose as Taylor entered. Andrew had carefully briefed the three Lokaron on such points of human naval etiquette.

“As you were,” Taylor rumbled, taking his place at the head of the table. “We all know by now the facts of the . . . extraordinary situation in which we find ourselves. Now we must decide what to do next. Most especially, what to do in connection with
that.
” He indicated the Cydonia artifact, which sat in the center of the table, enveloped in its flesh-crawling aura of mystery. “Fortunately, we have some leeway, as we’re still in free fall and I haven’t communicated any reports as yet.”

“There is a new factor to take into account,” said Reislon. “We must assume that Legislative Assemblyman Valdes is in league with the Shape-Shifters.”

Even after what had happened aboard
Trovyr
, it was shocking to hear it put into words. Huai shook her head. She wore a Chinese flag shoulder patch—the CNEN had a policy of encouraging personnel exchanges among its national components—but her English was almost unaccented. “I simply can’t believe that of Admiral Valdes,” she said, using Valdes’s military title as most Navy people still did. “Maybe they’ve made a dupe of him, infiltrated his political organization—”

“Perhaps you’re right, Commander,” said Reislon. “But even if you are, it makes no practical difference. Either way, we cannot afford to trust him. Which means in turn that we don’t know who we
can
afford to trust in the CNE Navy or government. Remember, he has very high connections.”

Huai’s expression of resentful incredulity was unchanged, but she had no rejoinder to make.

“So,” said Persath, “it appears that we’re back where we started. All we have to work with is this device. We need to ascertain its capabilities and purpose. I propose that we take it to Tizath-Asor. At the risk of seeming immodesty, I can say without fear of contradiction that my research establishment there is amply equipped and staffed for such an investigation.”

“It is also undoubtedly under close observation by the Shape-Shifters,” Reislon reminded him. “As you’ll recall, they had infiltrated the CNE embassy there. And now that they know of your role in all this, their cloaked ships must be patrolling the orbital approaches.”

Persath made a sound that must have been an inarticulate splutter, for the translator was silent. The possibility of his privacy being violated had obviously never occurred to him.

“No,” Reislon continued, “I fear we must revert to the course of action we were pursuing before we . . . encountered Captain Taylor and his command. We must return to Kogurche, and the Rogovon rebel base there.”

Huai glanced sideways at Borthru. The rogue Rogovon starship captain had, by prior agreement with his companions, kept silent and as inconspicuous as possible, for his was a face that humans had, for over four decades, identified as the face of the enemy.

“Are you sure?” asked Huai. Without waiting for an answer, she turned to Taylor. “I don’t like it, Captain.”

“I don’t, either,” said Taylor with equal forthrightness. “And I’m open to alternatives. I can’t think of any myself.”

“Remember,” Rachel urged, “that’s one place where we don’t have to worry about Shape-Shifter infiltration, since everybody there is Lokaron.”

Of a sort
, said Huai’s expression as she glanced again at Borthru.

For the first time, Borthru spoke up. “I would remind you of something everyone seems to have forgotten: the highly advanced cloaking technology the Shape-Shifters possess. For all any of us know, this ship may be under observation even as we speak.” He gave a closed-mouthed Lokaron smile at the CNEN officers’ visible reaction. “Admittedly, Persath was able to detect the vessel following him from Tizath-Asor to Kogurche in overspace, which may indicate that the technology is less effective in that domain . . . or it may simply mean that they felt no need to conceal themselves from his yacht, as they undoubtedly would from your cruiser.” His expression hardened. “The point of all this is that by letting you come to our base, we would be running a risk of compromising its location. I have been given a wide range of discretion, and I am willing to run the risk in the interest of solidarity against a common threat.” He laid a heavy emphasis, which might have held an element of irony, on the last five words as he gazed levelly at Huai.

“You must understand our reluctance in dealing with the Rogovon,” Taylor rumbled.

“I understand why you hate and fear Gev-Rogov,” said Borthru bluntly. “Do not deny it. You have a right to. What
you
must understand is that some of us are trying to change Gev-Rogov into something neither you nor anyone else will have to hate and fear.”

“I’ve dealt with Borthru’s people,” said Andrew, using the word
people
without the slightest hesitancy. “I’ve found them trustworthy. And Jamel . . . I too was at Upsilon Lupus.”

“So you were.” Taylor wore a look of brooding concentration for a few heartbeats. “All right. Is there any further discussion? If not, we will make transition as soon as we reach the gravitational limit and then shape an overspace course for Kogurche.”

“Just two points,” said Andrew. “First, I have an idea that may help alleviate Borthru’s entirely legitimate concerns, and perhaps also provide us with additional sources of information. I got the germ of the idea when we were in Persath‘s ship being followed.” He proceeded, in very rough outline, to lay out his plan.

“Hmmm,” Taylor ruminated. “It has definite possibilities. And we all know that CNEN officers have a wide range of latitude in dealing with smugglers—which, officially, is all we know we’re looking at here. I can think of a few refinements, but . . . yes . . .”