For Love and Glory

XLVII

“A tactical nuke,” Hebo mumbled into the abrupt void. “No, we’re not confronting God. It’s worse than that.”

The warship still looked small at her remove, toylike athwart the stars. Another missile could cross the distance between in a second or less. Lissa seized his hand.

“Receive any communication,” Dzesi coolly ordered Hulda.

The visiscreen flashed to life with the blunt head and snaky neck of a Susaian. Lissa caught a gasp. She knew that countenance, that rufous, cloudily spotted skin. “Naval unit Authority of the Great Confederacy, Dominator Ironbright commanding, calling Asborgan vessel,” rendered a trans. “You are under arrest. Make no attempt to escape or otherwise resist. If you do, we shall fire upon you. Acknowledge.”

“Do you wish to transmit?” asked Hulda.

“Yes, and challenge this outrage,” Dzesi rasped.

Hebo made a shushing motion. “Better let Lissa speak for us,” he said. “You seem to’ve met yon bugger before.”

She nodded, again abruptly cool, totally alert. “He was second in command of their expedition to the black hole.”

“And you saved his slippery ass. Some gratitude.”

The pickup focused on her. Recognition became mutual. “Greeting, Milady Windholm,” said Ironbright. The nonhuman voice sounded as imperturbable as what came out of the trans. “We thought very possibly you would be here. We trust you will understand that necessities of state force us to take stern measures. Cooperate, and you will live.”

A part of Lissa noted a change in the underlying timbre and, yes, barely perceptible to a human who knew what to look for, the posture and manner. During the years since their last encounter, Ironbright’s life cycle had changed gender. She was no less grim now for that—if anything, was more so. That could well be part of the reason for giving her this mission, that and past experience and—

We’re caught, knew the detached observer and calculator. No weapons except for what we brought along ourselves. We can’t reach hyperjump distance if they don’t let us. Oh, we can out-accelerate that craft by more than enough to make pulp of us. However, we can’t a target-seeking missile.

She had a far-away sense of feeling cold, but her body did not tremble or sweat or even uselessly tense very much. “Why are you doing this?” she heard herself ask.

“It ought to be fairly obvious.” Was Ironbright capable of dry humor?

“That was insanely reckless, blasting the Forerunner guardian. I hope we aren’t included in the retaliation.”

“It has not happened thus far. Observation leads us to think that there are no others.” Ironbright leaned forward, as if to stretch across the kilometers till she hissed in the woman’s ear. “Still, delay among countless unknowns does certainly court disaster. For your own survival, you will do well to obey orders promptly and fully.”

“How can we unless we know what this is all about?” This nightmare upset of everything.

“Suffice it for now that the Great Confederacy has established sovereignty, which you have violated. You are therefore prisoners subject to what penalties any agent of the Confederacy sees fit to apply.” A pause, as though to give weight to what followed. “Do not claim innocence. At the black hole event, an agent of Asborg committed massive theft of data obtained at large cost and sacrifice, belonging to the Confederacy. Since then, Asborgans have freely made use of the information and disseminated it indiscriminately. Consider this the first of the sanctions to be imposed.”

Yes, Esker Harolsson did “borrow” and copy that file, recalled the calculator in Lissa’s head. How did the lizards find out?’’ We never publicized the fact. It somewhat shamed House Windholm. We simply released the data, because suppressing it would have been worse.… Well, the deduction was rather simple, after all. But what more about the incident has their intelligence service collected over the years? I wonder if Esker kept his own mouth shut. It’d be like him to at least drop what he imagined were sly hints—and at last be such a fool as to go to the lizards!

“No more delay,” snapped the trans. “Have your scanner sweep the compartment where you are. Identify each member of your crew. At once.”

Lissa cast a glance at Hebo. Though rage whitened his face, he shrugged. Dzesi hissed but sat still. “Do that,” Lissa told her ship, and named her companions.

A human would have nodded. The skin rippled down Ironbright’s neck. “This is as expected,” she said. And who led you to expect it? wondered Lissa. I can guess. “If you are concealing anyone, that will come to light and be punished. Meanwhile, it hardly matters. You have been cruising around in this system for some time. In due course you will give the details. Again, it does not matter at the moment. You surely sent a few hyperwave progress reports as you scouted. But now the guardian has disabled your transmitter.”

“And yours,” Hebo put in. “How else would you know?”

“Silence. These are your orders. Listen well, carry them out faithfully, and redeem your lives. The alternative is immediate death.

“We want all the information we can possibly get before reporting back. Authority is not designed for planetfall, nor does nest-honor let us risk her and our mission further in the possible hazards of closer exploration. You will make landing at one of those Forerunner installations, examine it as best you can, and keep us continually informed. We will take synchronous orbit, to observe and receive from above.”

Up in hyperjump escape range from this small planet, Lissa knew, though not too high for instruments with resolutions of less than a meter to follow what happened. Nor too high for hurling a missile. Transit time—Torben probably knew something about such weapons. He could figure out how long theirs would take to strike. A few minutes, at most. …

“Do you understand?” Ironbright demanded. “Repeat.”

“We’re to land, look around, stay in touch, and try to stay alive,” Lissa said mechanically. Then: “But just where? How? What’ll we do down there?”

“As for deciding on location, in our present state of ignorance that is a question of practicality,” replied the Susaian. “You may pool whatever information you have with ours, bearing in mind that your lives depend on accuracy. Since none of us know what the machines will do next, discussion will commence at once, decision be reached in minimal time, and maneuvers commence directly thereafter. I will turn you over to Navigation Officer Leafblue.” Again a brief span of silence. “If all seems to be going satisfactorily, you may thereafter converse with a human among us. He can further clarify the situation for you.”