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  The stalemate was not to Vashon’s advantage. The longer he kept her on the strideship, the less chance she had of escaping. He weighed more than she did, but Larians were tireless. Unless he could put her down and pin her to the deck, she would eventually wear him out.

  His endurance was nearly at an end when two soldiers inspecting the damaged stern of the ship happened by, peered into the room, saw what was happening, and immediately lent their energy to his. Together they subdued her. Where previously she’d had the run of the vessel, now an exhausted Vashon saw to it that she was bound: long arms tied behind her at the elbows as well as at the wrists, legs linked, and the powerful short, thick tail secured to her ankles.

  “A temporary inconvenience, I hope you will appreciate,” he sang in a wheeze when the soldiers had finished applying the restraints, “to ensure we are not deprived, of your most entertaining company.”

  Realizing it was futile to struggle against her multiple bonds, she chose instead to sing back at him deliberately off-key. The grave Larian insult had no effect on him, but the pair of soldiers winced at the sharpness of it.

  “One day it will be my pleasure, if the moons and the stars will align, to send you away and onward to your own world, in as many pieces as possible, after inflicting pain sublime.”

  “You do me honor,” he replied, more flattered than frightened by the threat, “to treat me as one of your own, regardless of our differences, regardless of the situation.”

  He left her in the care of the two soldiers, whom he made promise not to take their eyes off her even if she was tightly restrained. Her voice followed him out into the passageway and trailed him as he resumed his interrupted route to his own cabin. It was the kind of singspeech one might expect from someone who was part bare-hands fighter and the rest a natural coloratura: imaginative insults and vivid swearing swathed in perfect melody.

  While he had been busy foiling her escape, the pursuing strideship had closed almost to within grappling range of Zkerig’s craft. Skillful as the Tralltag was, he could not keep dodging forever. If the two vessels became linked, either by rope, hooks, or an entanglement of pistoning garulag legs, Zkerig and his soldier-sailors could very likely be overwhelmed. As an offworlder, Vashon might sing his way out of involuntary esophageal surgery, but he would at the least find himself enslaved or marooned in this northern portion of the continent. Indifferent to or ignorant of Commonwealth strictures regarding the proscribed introduction of advanced technology into Larian society, the attackers would happily confiscate all his goods, leaving him at best isolated and helpless.

  Therefore, since they were bent on appropriating his property, it might prove useful to give them a preliminary demonstration.

  There were no Commonwealth representatives present to observe what he was going to do. His intentions were not only highly illegal, they constituted a list of sufficiently serious infractions that at least partial mindwiping would be in order for the perpetrator—were he to be caught. However, no citizens of the Commonwealth were around to register as witnesses. He doubted Zkerig would report him.

  He had brought two pistols with him, smuggled with considerable difficulty beyond the station’s boundaries. One was the neuronic pistol that he had already demonstrated for, and on, the Tralltag. The other he had flashed but had not found a sufficiently serious reason to actually use. That situation was now at hand. Although the weapon could hold three of its thumb-sized rounds, he loaded only one of the half dozen he had been able to bring with him. If something happened to him, better that a Larian not be able to make use of it.

  His hurried return to the upper deck was greeted with smoke from small fires. These had been set by flung grenades and were in the process of being extinguished by Zkerig’s crew even as more hissed by overhead or landed on the ground on either side of the retreating strideship. He found Zkerig standing at the stern railing, directing return fire from his own troops. Fortunately, the loading of a primitive Larian cannon took some time. That meant subsequent attempts by their pursuers to blast their stern and disable their own water-steering gear continued to miss their mark.

  But eventually, Vashon knew, they would figure out how to predict when Vashon planned to zig to their zag. Or simple averages would result in a crippling hit. If the strideship he was on was rendered just as incapable of steering on the water as they had made their enemy, there would be no point in trying to beat their assailants back to the inlet. They would still end up in hand-to-hand combat, to the likely detriment of the crew from Minord.

  Though occupied with directing the battle, and the dipping and dodging of his ship as it continued its desperate retreat toward the water, Zkerig was sufficiently captivated by the sight of the weapon in the human’s hand to divert his attention. The glistening, smooth-sided pistol was the same color as his eyes.

  “A weapon by its looks, though different from your other, which by this one’s appearance, I assume acts differently.” While the Tralltag’s words expressed a simple appraisal, the melody he employed could not camouflage his greed.

  That did not trouble Vashon. He knew Zkerig for what he was, and vice versa. Such mutual understanding of cross-species motivations promoted, if not friendship, then respect.

  “You’re right.” Vashon confirmed the Tralltag’s suspicions while disdaining the use of proper singspeech. He had no time to waste on semantic reassurances. Holding the pistol’s grip in his right hand, he steadied his left elbow on the railing, closed his left eye, and squinted through the smoke from all the crude, sputtering grenades.

  Zkerig frowned. “I am not sure I understand, for your words are brusque and your harmony absent, and such crudeness makes comprehension difficult.”

  “Screw it, if you can understand that.” Unable to converse with anyone in his native terranglo, there were times when Vashon simply grew tired of singspeech. “Our hostage tried to escape. I stopped her. You might want to double the guard on her, no matter the circumstances and around the clock.” While a perplexed Zkerig struggled to make sense of the human’s clashing, unwieldy words, Vashon steadied his aim. “From her vocabulary ‘meek’ is absent, and I would not sleep, within her presence, where any vital body parts, might lie within her reach. Tuneful enough for you, is that image, of vengeance deployed, of crude disembowelment?” He fired.

  Despite the pistol’s advanced design there was still some minor recoil, for which he had prepared himself. The noise the gun made was proportionate to its modest size. Its consequences were not.

  The chemistry behind the small projectile’s compact warhead represented the end product of several thousand years of his species’ experimentation with explosive compounds. It struck the bow of the pursuing craft and detonated. Prepared for the consequences, Vashon had closed his eyes and turned his head away. The report of the explosion hurt his ears. Though their hearing was not quite as sensitive as that of a human, the blast’s volume had a profound effect on Zkerig’s hard-pressed soldiers. Many of them were stunned into momentary immobility.

  That was considerably less damaging than the effect Vashon’s single shot had on the crew of their pursuer. As smoke cleared and those troops in the vicinity of the stern of the Minord strideship regained their composure and their hearing, they could see that the attacking vessel had collapsed bow-first into the hard ground. Joints had cracked, braces given way, and wood splintered. The entire front of the craft had been blown apart. A plethora of scattered body parts from multiple shattered corpses decorated the devastated remnants. Zkerig’s crew was simultaneously elated and horrified. Sharply angled black eyes turned toward the offworlder and the weapon he held: a weapon smaller than their grenade slingshots or pistols that was capable of wreaking ten, a hundred times as much destruction, and with little apparent effort.

  As their pursuer struggled to recover those survivors of the blast who could still stand, Vashon’s craft began to put considerable distance between itself and the would-be coterie of assassins. In a short wh
ile they were back in the inlet. Legs were shipped and folded up against the bottom of the hull, and their exhausted manipulators returned to topside duty. When confined to the third, lowermost deck, they had been able to hear but not see what had happened; now they anxiously queried their shipmates as they rejoined them. Many sideways glances accompanied by much gravitas-laden singspeaking were cast in Vashon’s direction.

  He nodded contentedly to himself. In such situations, fear was always a useful ancillary reaction. Zkerig had experienced firsthand what a neuronic pistol could do. Now he and his entire crew had been witness to the potential of a much more powerful weapon. Let them all wonder what other surprises the human might keep in his locked carry bag. Vashon smiled. After this most recent demonstration of advanced Commonwealth technology, he could probably wave a stick in their direction and send them all fleeing in panic.

  Except for Zkerig. As he had from their first meeting, Vashon knew he would have to keep a close watch on the Tralltag. There was always the chance that Zkerig’s ambitions might exceed his good sense. Even though the Tralltag did not know how to operate either of the weapons Vashon had utilized, the master of the strideship might one day just decide to take a chance on stealing one or the other in the hope that in time he could work out their method of operation.

  Yes, Vashon would definitely keep a steady eye on his Larian counterpart. Also on Preedir the Firstborn of Borusegahm, who if given the slightest chance would need no advanced weapon to cut both their throats. He would be relieved to reach the Leeth and be rid of her. Turn her over to the shrewd but slightly addled Hobak and let him deal with her. Vashon would reap the benefits of his efforts in the form of extremely valuable native organics. Shipping them offworld and collecting payment was less difficult than dealing with potentially treacherous allies and hostile locals.

  As they raised sail and started up the inlet with the wind behind them, there was no sign of pursuit. Their attackers could have abandoned their ruined craft and tried to pursue on foot, tracking the strideship’s progress from shore, but that would swiftly grow tiring, and with no reasonable chance of success. No, they would tend to their wounded, sink their dead in the nearest appropriate body of still water, and commence a dejected march back to wherever they called home, taking with them no booty but only tales of a battle lost due to the horrific destruction wrought by an offworld weapon. This far north of the station, Vashon was not worried about such stories reaching the Commonwealth authorities there. His breach of the law would go unreported to any who mattered.

  He grew aware that Zkerig was standing close by but not singing. Instead, the Tralltag was eyeing him respectfully, unwilling to interrupt the human’s contemplation. Good, Vashon thought. Zkerig had been a bit argumentative of late. Now their respective status had undergone a useful readjustment. When the Tralltag finally spoke, his melody was almost fawning.

  “May I, with your permission, hold the device, that wrought such destruction, that saved us from calamity?”

  Vashon nodded benignly as he passed the pistol to the Tralltag. Having established his superiority, he could afford to be gracious. Zkerig handled the gun like the professional he was: carefully but not delicately, quite rightly assuming it would not fall apart or go off in his hands. One finger slid into the trigger. Due to the presence of the membranous web that linked Larian fingers and toes and allowed them to rocket through water as if they owned it, the Tralltag could only slip his finger into the trigger as far as the first phalanx. Furthermore, although the first and third finger were fully opposable, the Larians lacked a true thumb. Zkerig could have fired the pistol, but with difficulty.

  He handed it back, reverently. “With a dozen of these, could we with little effort, establish dominion, over the entirety of the Northlands.”

  “I think your Hobak, with only personal explosions, hopes to do so, beginning with the Firstborn, and using her for leverage. Politics, too, can overwhelm, as effectively and less messily, than explosives or cannon, if properly wielded.”

  He left Zkerig with that thought, with the feel of the high-tech pistol still cool and promising in the Tralltag’s hand. Retiring below deck, Vashon was hopeful that the remainder of their return journey to Minord would conclude in a more direct and less irksome fashion.

  —

  Bending forward sharply, Flinx clasped both hands to the sides of his head. Eyes shut tight, he fought as he had fought dozens of times over the course of the preceding years not to grit his teeth so tightly as to damage them. Though he had undergone it successfully before, orthodontic regeneration was a process he preferred to avoid. It was time-consuming, frustrating at mealtime, and left one looking stupid until the regrowth was complete.

  Since the human had not made a sound, Wiegl had not initially noticed his companion’s distress. Now the Larian looked over in alarm from his own saddle as both brund strode steadily northward.

  “Flinx, my friend, I see you are in pain, though from what source I cannot tell! Command me, whatever I may do, to help alleviate, the cause of your suffering.” The melody he had chosen expressed more than a modicum of concern, and it was underscored by the genuine emotion he was projecting.

  Flinx lifted his head, blinked, lowered one hand to offer Pip a reassuring caress, and took several long, steady, deep breaths. Gradually the pain at the back of his skull faded from a searing flame to mere steady throbbing. He swallowed. Though he hadn’t had an attack like this in a long time, he thought he knew the reason why he was having one now.

  Away from cities and developed worlds, in empty places like the forests and moors of Largess, he could allow his talent to roam freely and widely, safe in the realization that any robustly generated emotions were likely to be few and far between. He could test his sensitivity safely. That was why what he had just experienced had been so overwhelming. Such a focused, sharp, collective fracturing of desperate feeling hinted at multiple lives snuffed out all at once. It had come and gone in a single unified burst of pain and suffering. He took a last deep breath.

  In the midst of it all, and actively engaged in the conflict, had been a hint of something other than Larian. Given their present distance from the Commonwealth station, such an abnormality could arise only from one possible source.

  “I am okay, friend Wiegl, but give thanks anyway, for your honest concern.” Raising a hand, he pointed slightly to the left of their current course. “That way we should go now, in pursuit of our goal, but more cautiously than ever, lest we surprise ourselves and not just our quarry.”

  Wiegl was visibly confused. “How do you, such things know, such things sense, without seeing, without hearing?”

  “My small ability,” Flinx sang back softly, “that I did not ask for, but which manifests itself without asking, nonetheless. Many things can I follow, if I but try, like a fisherman casting a net, though sometimes it comes back empty, and other times too full.”

  “What this time,” a patently fascinated Wiegl asked, “have you caught, in this strange net, of your mind’s casting?”

  “Death,” Flinx told him, without harmony and devoid of the usual Larian melodic embroidery.

  It did not matter. The one-word reply might have been fraught with alien overtones, but Wiegl managed to comprehend it well enough. He wished he had not, he mused uneasily as he sang the direction-change command to his mount. In response, both his brund and that of his human companion turned northwestward as one.

  10

  ■ ■ ■

  Poskraine was the name of the small town where they opted to stop for the night. Having deduced from his painful experience earlier in the day that the individual he sought was now close at hand, Flinx would have opted to continue the pursuit without stopping in hopes of possibly catching up to him. Wiegl was adamantly opposed.

  “Can run for days without stopping, can the brund, and on low rations, and at steady pace. But at night-seeing, they are not so good, and to be saddled in a brund, that falls, from that height, can
be a journey-ending experience.”

  Locating a human emotional signature among so much Larian fury and death had been as disconcerting as it was painful, but though his head still hurt, it was not sufficient to turn Flinx from the task that had been set to him by Sylzenzuzex. Once he committed himself, he never backed away from a challenge.

  What was a recognizable if distant set of roiling human emotions doing all but submerged in a sea of churning, fevered Larian feelings involving life and death? Was the abducted Firstborn of Hobak directly involved? If she had been caught up in the surfeit of violence he had sensed and had perished as a consequence, then all of his study and travel, from Cachalot all the way to this backward part of Largess, would have been for naught. Having never met the Firstborn, Flinx had no way of identifying her emotional signature. And even if he had correctly located a human who might well be the one who was the subject of Church interest, that did not mean the Firstborn Preedir was with him, or that she was even in the general vicinity.

  However, based on what Padre Jonas had told him, if he could find the offworlder who was aiding Larians with advanced tech, the chances were good that he would also find the kidnapped Firstborn. Having proceeded from the start on that assumption, Flinx felt he had no choice at this point but to continue to do so.

  But not tonight. Now that he had dismounted and descended to the ground from the perpetually jostling brundian heights, he became aware of how tired he was. While his empathetic ability could reach effortlessly across modest distances, his body was restricted to that portion of him that was centered on his pelvis. Right now, said center and associated parts were sore and worn, in addition to which he was hungry. The dried food that provided sustenance while he and Wiegl were on the move kept them alive but little more. And the largely seafood-based (even if it came out of an alien sea) fare that made up the normal Larian diet had proven itself perfectly palatable, if not particularly flavorsome. It reminded him of Cachalot, and home.