Wolf Among the Stars-ARC (23 page)

“And I see why,” said Andrew as an entire formation of blips began to appear on the outer edges of the scanner screen.

“They could still have gotten us, sir,” said Morales. “They had time, just barely, before those ships could come in range—”

“—And obliterate them,” Andrew finished for her. “Yes, they could have done it . . . if they’d been willing to sacrifice themselves. But, as I’m coming to understand, that’s not the Kappainu way. Which,” he concluded thoughtfully, “is what may save us yet.”

“We’re being hailed, sir,” said the communication officer. And the screen came to life, revealing a Lokaron face of the green-skinned, relatively thick-featured variety.

“Borthru!” Andrew exclaimed.

Off to the side, Morales sighed, “I never thought I’d be so glad to see a face like that.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“How did you locate us so quickly?”
Andrew asked as Borthru’s ships formed a protective englobement around
City of Osaka
, just in case. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”

“When
Broadsword
failed to follow us here, we feared the worst,” Borthru explained. “We have been conducting intensive patrolling ever since. Some among us have been arguing for its discontinuance, saying all hope is gone. It is fortunate that you arrived no later than you did. But where is
Broadsword
?”

“She may or may not be following us, so please keep up your patrols for now. I’ll explain why later. We have a
lot
of news, most of which you won’t like—so much that I don’t want to have to repeat it all twice. For now, let me just tell you that we have a device like the Cydonia artifact aboard this ship, but that it’s going to require Zhygon and his team to get it out.”

“I’ll signal ahead. And now, let us proceed to the base. I’ll do my best to contain my curiosity until our arrival.” Borthru signed off.

“All right, X.O., make formation with our allies,” Andrew told Morales.

“Aye, aye, sir.” The young lieutenant’s unease was palpable as she cast glances at the Rogovon ships in the viewscreen, but she carried out her orders with her usual emotionless efficiency.

Andrew drew her aside and spoke privately. “Alana, when we arrive at our destination a Rogovon scientist named Zhygon’Trogak and his assistants are going to come aboard and extract the access key. You will cooperate with them to the fullest. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now, we’re going to be docking at a space habitat, or collection of habitats, full of Rogovon. I imagine you and your crew will be most comfortable remaining on this ship during our stay.”

Morales’s lips quirked upward in the closest thing to a smile he had yet seen on her. “That’s one way to put it, sir.”

“All right. Here’s something to occupy your time. I want you to start working on your human prisoners—the original Black Wolf crew. Take them one at a time, as is standard interrogation technique. Show them the evidence that they‘ve been pawns of aliens and see if you can turn any of them. Some of them may have information we can use.”

“Aye, aye, sir. Of course, you realize I’m not an Intelligence specialist.”

“No, but as I’ve found out, you’re damned intelligent. Close enough.”

Andrew had never realized how comforting Rachel’s presence had been when he had first been among the Rogovon revolutionaries. It had prevented him from being the only human around, as he now was as he sat at a conference table otherwise occupied by Borthru, Zhygon, three of the principal leaders of the revolutionary coalition . . . and Reislon, who barely even seemed like an alien any more.

He was hoarse from talking for hours. Fortunately, one of the few luxury items the revolutionaries possessed was coffee—a lucrative export item for Earth, for caffeine, like alcohol, affected the Lokaron and human nervous systems similarly. He appreciated their generosity in letting him keep himself awake with it as he and Reislon recounted the entire, incredible story. He doubted his Rogovon listeners would have believed him without Reislon’s corroboration.

Now there was an appalled silence. Andrew started to reach for his awkward Lokaron-designed coffee cup again, but thought better of it. It wouldn’t do to have to ask to be excused at some crucial point in the discussion.

Kostov’Zhythog, who appeared to be
primus inter pares
in the revolutionary leadership, finally broke the silence. He was a transmitter, as were his colleagues Vrontu’Torath and Gorova’Suvak, which was no surprise; the Rogovon were considered socially backward by the other Lokaron, and even their radicals had old-fashioned attitudes concerning gender roles. He also showed all the indicia of old age. But he had listened alertly. Now he shook himself in a way that Andrew recognized as a characteristic bit of Lokaron body language, denoting a wish to wake up from a nightmare known to be real.

“So,” Kostov said heavily, “this is to be the destiny of Gev-Rogov: the instigator of a war that will bring all the Lokaron societies—including, in the end, itself—down in ruins, leaving a rubble heap ruled by these Kappainu, acting through—” He glanced at Andrew and stopped himself short of saying something tactless.

“But the Kappainu may be wrong,” said Gorova’Suvak, leader of a moderate faction and a vacillator by nature. “Maybe their plan will fail in the long run.”

“In the short run, however, it calls for our movement’s failure,” Reislon reminded him.

“Which makes you and we humans natural allies,” Andrew added.

“But we can’t trust the CNE government,” declared Vrontu’Torath. He headed a hard-line faction, and Andrew had found him the toughest nut to crack. “It has obviously been infiltrated, we don’t know how deeply. And even if it hadn’t been, it wouldn’t trust
us
.”

“Probably true,” Andrew admitted. “Which is why I don’t propose that we involve the CNE. And it goes without saying that you can’t approach the Gev-Rogov government. So . . . I suggest that we deal with the problem ourselves.”

For a moment, Andrew permitted himself to savor the sensation of, for once, having left even Reislon thunderstruck. Then he hurried on before his listeners could recover.

“The Kappainu space station is in the dark outer reaches of the Sol system where their invisibility technology is practically redundant. Even without it, they’d be noticed only by a wild chance, especially considering that they’re well outside the plane of the ecliptic, which is all anyone ever pays attention to. Entirely consistent with their psychology, of course—they’re hyper-cautious by nature. But in this case their caution is self-defeating. Your fleet can go there and make transition from overspace unobserved. The CNE doesn’t even have to know about the operation.”

Vrontu made noises that the translator ignored, before finally managing to form words. “But what if we fail? You’re asking us to risk our carefully husbanded military resources on a mission that has nothing to do with our organization’s reason for existence: the liberation of Gev-Rogov. No—our duty is to Gev-Rogov, not to humans!”

“I remind you,” said Reislon, “that the Kappainu are committed to keeping the present regime in place in Gev-Rogov. It is integral to their plan. We will never succeed in overthrowing it unless their power is broken.”

“Reislon is right,” said Borthru abruptly. “This is our fight, too. And besides . . . it has been altogether too long since we have been offered a bold plan of action.” He turned to Andrew and gave a classic Lokaron smile—the smile of a race of omnivores tending to a more carnivorous orientation than that of
Homo sapiens
. Then he faced his political leaders again. “It’s too bad that we had to have it offered to us by a human. But that’s our fault, not his.”

There was an uneasy silence. Andrew knew the pitfalls of trying to deduce the political nuances of nonhumans, but he sensed that in this assemblage Borthru spoke for the younger Rogovon military officers among the revolutionaries, who had been kept straining at the leash for too long.

Gorova, ever the voice of caution, spoke hesitantly. “But even if we break them in the Sol system, they may just fall back to their home system—regarding whose location we have no clue—and try again.”

“Still,” Borthru urged, “it would be a major setback for them. They would have to start over from scratch, rebuilding a structure of infiltration that took decades. This would give us time to carry out
our
plans. After the revolution, with a new Rogovon regime that knows all about them, their scheme will no longer be viable.”

“At the same time,” Reislon mused, “It would be highly desirable to obtain more facts about them—notably the location of their home planet—so we could attack the problem at its source.”

“Yes.” Andrew spoke decisively, for Reislon had given him an opening. “Also, we need irrefutable evidence to persuade the CNE government to adopt all-out antiKappainu security measures: biological scans of all its personnel, and so forth. I therefore propose that we not destroy the station—at least not until we’ve had a chance to penetrate it. Also,” he continued, trying to make it sound like an afterthought, “they have a human prisoner, whose testimony would be useful.”

“Ah, yes, Ms. Arnstein,” said Reislon. Andrew knew what a Lokaron smile looked like, but this was the first time he had seen one being smoothed out. “Yes, I suppose it would be desirable to recover her alive . . . for debriefing.”

“Er . . . ahem . . . yes, precisely. Debriefing.”

“But,” demanded Vrontu, on whom the byplay was lost, “how can we penetrate the station?”

“I have an idea for that. Remember, we have an access key and therefore can detect the station and communicate with it. Zhygon, you’ve had time to study the thing. Can you replicate it?”

“Yes,” said the old scientist unequivocally. “In reverse-engineering an unfamiliar device, knowing exactly what it is intended to do is half the battle. It also helps that, as you have pointed out, the overall Kappainu technology is no more advanced than ours; this is just an application of it that has never occurred to us. Our facilities here are up to producing a fair quantity of comparable units—not as compact and elegant as the original, but quite functional, and adapted to installation on our ships. The greatest problem was figuring out the controls by trial and error.”

“Can you rig an auxiliary control board for the one from
City of Osaka
that will be usable by humans?”

“I should think so, with the help of your technicians.”

“Good.” Andrew turned back to the others. “So your ships will be able to detect the station. And as I’ve explained, the cloaking system their ships use is relatively elementary; detecting
them
should be easy. Knowing them, I suspect that finding out that they’re in full view of their enemies will shatter their morale.”

“You still haven’t explained how you think it will be possible to simply walk into the station,” Vrontu persisted.

“What makes it possible is that we have a ship—
City of Osaka
—of a type used by the Black Wolf Society, whose human personnel they are accustomed to employing. Also . . . I have an officer who should be able to play a useful role.”

“Sit down, X.O.,” said Andrew as Lieutenant Morales entered his cabin aboard
City of Osaka
.

“Thank you, sir.” She lowered her compact body—no more than five feet two but well-proportioned for its height—into a chair. She looked more Castilian than anything else, but with a hint of high Indian cheekbones and a slightly dusky skin tone that suggested African genes.

“So, how is it going with our guests?”

“Difficult, sir. It seems the Black Wolf Society has a very strict code of silence, and even my promises of protection against vengeance haven’t budged most of them. And they think what we’ve told them about the Black Wolf being under the control of shape-shifting aliens is an elaborate lie. There are a few, however, who’ve revealed flexibility, and I’ve made some progress with them—thanks to Zhygon.”

“Zhygon?” Andrew’s eyebrows rose.

“Yes, sir. He’s kept the body of ‘Amletto Leong’ in cryo suspension. He let us show it to the ones we thought might be open to influence. It made an impression. But there’s only one of them I really think is worth any further effort. And he’d be a good catch; he was pretty high-ranking and was involved with communications.”

“I’m
very
glad to hear that. You see, I have a plan, for which it sounds like he can be very useful. And so can you.”

“Me, sir?”

“I believe so. But first, let me ask you something. Did Da Sliva, the Kappainu captain of this ship, ever see you while we had him as a prisoner?”

“No, sir.” Morales was obviously puzzled by the question. “He was brought aboard
Broadsword
just before I was sent over with the prize crew. We never met.”

“Good.” Andrew leaned forward and spoke carefully. “Alana, I’m sure you’re already aware that you happen to bear a certain physical resemblance to the type of human form that the Kappainu assume when they shape-shift.”

“Yes, sir. That was one of the things that Captain Taylor explained to us aboard
Broadsword
before we left the Sol system. Some of my so-called friends kidded me about it. Thank God for medical scanners!”

Andrew’s expression stayed serious. “Well, this is why you can be uniquely useful—if, and only if, you choose to. You see, my plan is this.” He proceeded to set forth his idea, and her part in it, concluding: “I want you to understand, Alana, that this is strictly on a volunteer basis—a
real
volunteer basis, by which I mean that if you say no, this conversation never took place. I cannot order you to hazard yourself on a long chance like this.”

“Actually, sir, it’s worse than a long chance. With all due respect, it’s crazy as hell.” She gave an ear-to-ear smile that made her almost unrecognizable. “I think I like it.”

“You know, Lieutenant, you remind me of stories my mother used to tell me about a friend of hers named Ada Rivera, who was one of those killed in 2030. If the name sounds familiar, there are streets named after her today.” Andrew stood up, not trusting himself to say anything more. “And now, let’s go and talk to this potential Black Wolf defector of yours.”