The Trilisk Supersedure (27 page)

No one
fielded any more theories before the ship connected to
Clacker.
The Vovokan
airlocks were huge and circular. The iris before them opened soon after the
arrival of the
Thumper
’s escape vessel.

Shiny
emerged, pattering in on dozens of legs. Arakaki visibly recoiled.

“Damn.
That thing makes Cthulhu look cuddly!” Arakaki exclaimed. Her laser pistol hand
wavered, but she didn’t point it at Shiny. “Uh, no offense,” she added.

“It’s
Shiny, of course,” Telisa said. “You get used to it.”

“Right.”
Arakaki didn’t sound any happier.

“You
could have checked with us. That was…unexpected,” Telisa said to Shiny.

“Unexpected,
surprise, unpredictable action intended as strategy to catch Trilisk
unprepared,” Shiny said. “Intend, attempt, hope the extreme maneuver succeeded.”

“Succeeded
in killing what we hunted?” Arakaki said.

“Trilisk
disappearance requires, needs, depends upon advanced means. Trilisk with
advanced means more dangerous, deadly, capable.”

Arakaki
nodded. “It may have been toying with us all along.”

“For
what reason? Sadistic pleasure?” asked Telisa.

Arakaki
shrugged. “It’s an alien. I have no idea. But it liked to hunt us.”

Let’s
hope it isn’t one of us,
Telisa said to Magnus on a private
channel.

Shiny
will detect it if that’s happened.

What if
he already has but hasn’t said anything? Keeping his hand secret.

You can
invent horrible scenarios like that all day long if you want. I haven’t slept
in forever.

Right.

***

Telisa
and Magnus retired to the opulent lodgings of the Clacker while Arakaki ushered
in a small group of UED survivors. After a long sleep and an hour of fooling
around to make up for lack of intimate opportunities on the job, they lay
together in a huge sleep web.

“What
are we going to do about the UED guys?” Telisa asked.

“We can
drop them off on the frontier, at a small outpost or something.”

“We
should recruit from among them.”

“Probably,”
Magnus said.

“I’m
surprised you don’t sound enthusiastic. The others must not be as cute as
Arakaki.”

“The
others are used to being in a unit. One that went through a lot. Their loyalty
to each other will be stronger than any loyalty they could feel to Parker
Interstellar Travels. If we hire them, they’ll have to be on their own ship or
part of some other team.”

I
wonder if he feels they must hate him for being ex UNSF.

“You’re
right,” she said. “They’ll stay tight with each other, and if we found more
valuable stuff they would always be tempted to strike off on their own. They
might even leave us stranded on a planet somewhere. But what about Arakaki?”

“She’s
had enough of it. Ready to move on.”

He sure
knows a lot about her already.

“What
if the Trilisk is in one of them?” Telisa asked.
Or one of us.
She knew
he had dismissed the idea earlier, but it kept creeping back up on her.

“Shiny
doesn’t think so.”

“He
doesn’t know. He admits not knowing what happened to the Trilisk. Destroying
his own ship was a move of desperation, I think. He could be the Trilisk.”

“Maybe.
There’s not much we can do to prepare for that possibility. There’s another
aspect of the UED folks we should consider, though. They must hate the Earth
government,” he said.

“That
helps, since we’re basically criminals to the UNSF.”

“Yes.
That could make this work. They can be the frontier part of the PIT team. But
they could also be a part of something larger.”

“What
does that mean?” she asked.

“I mean
if you don’t like the UNSF then this is your chance to do something about it.
Build an organization to replace them. With alien technology and superhuman
immortals on your side, you’d have a shot at bringing them down.”

“Five Entities,
I suppose you’re right. I never got into this for war, though, just for the
artifacts.”

“Accomplishing
it without bloodshed would probably be an unrealistic goal. But it wouldn’t
have to be like the last war. We might be able to pull off a coup. For
instance, maybe we could put ourselves into the bodies of the Earth government
leaders, then stand down.”

Telisa
opened her mouth in astonishment. Such an application hadn’t even crossed her
mind.

“What
if we cause an ongoing conflict? What if aliens do attack while things are
confused at home?”

Magnus
nodded. “Those are both real risks we would face.”

I don’t
even know what I want anymore.

“We
need time to think about this,” she said.