Riijkhan seemed taken aback. “What?”
“You heard me,” I said. “They all get to leave with Bayta and me after we open the door for you. Unharmed, of course, and you pledge not to come after us.”
“Impossible,” Riijkhan said firmly. “But I offer a counterproposal.”
I nodded. “I’m listening.”
“Since they are clearly of value to you,” Riijkhan said, “I offer to kill one for each hour you fail to open the warship. Beginning with him.” He leveled a finger toward Morse. “The first hour begins now.”
I looked at Morse. His face was silently contorted, the face of a man who wants desperately to say something. “Let him speak,” I said.
Riijkhan shrugged slightly— “Don’t do it,” Morse gasped. “Let the bast—”
His mouth clamped shut again. “He’s spoken his word,” Riijkhan said. “Do I need again to speak mine?”
For a long moment I gazed into Morse’s eyes. He’d hated me once. Probably still did. And I’d never really liked him, either.
I sighed. “Fine,” I said, taking Bayta’s arm. “Show me this damn door.”
* * *
Riijkhan loaded us into one of the larger ground vehicles: Bayta, Morse, five of the other Shonkla-raa, McMicking, Riijkhan himself, and me. Sam and Carl they hauled away into one of the big tents, their legs securely chained.
Somewhere along the line, once he had a spare moment or two, Riijkhan would probably order their dissection.
Considering that the Shonkla-raa had known about the warships for only a few weeks, they’d done an impressive amount of work. The tunnel went straight into the mesa, cutting first through a meter or so of dirt and then boring through solid rock. Forty meters in, it had finally struck an old but still smooth wall of metal.
At that point, the tunnel branched off in both directions, widening at various points along the way, here and there climbing up the side of the hull as the Fillies had dug along an interesting set of markings or a promising groove. In a few places alcoves had been dug out of the rock beside the ship, where small machine shops or equipment storage had been set up. One of the alcoves we passed contained a collection of recovered artifacts, and I spotted a couple each of the small Lynx, Hawk, and Viper sculptures that had given Bayta and me such trouble our last time here. A string of lights glowed down from the ceiling, and a six-centimeter pipe running around the upper edge hissed out a continual flow of fresh air.
And amid the dust and light and rumble of activity, the whole damn place was filled to the brim with Shonkla- raa.
I’d thought the hundred Fillies who’d suddenly appeared in reaction to my stun grenade attack had been impressive. But there had to be at least twice that number here in the warren, digging at the tunnel faces or examining the hull or working to coax more artifacts from the rocky ground. Three of the aliens were crammed into another of the alcoves, crooning their command tone softly into an impressively large radio transmitter.
On the ride over, with the advantage of hindsight, I’d been regretting not having simply rammed one of the big tents with our aircar on our way in, wondering if I might have been lucky enough to take out the command-tone transmitter that still held the Hardin team hostage. Now, with the advantage of even more hindsight, I was just as glad I hadn’t tried it.
“Nothing like a really good group project to draw people together,” I commented to Riijkhan as we walked along the left-hand branch of the tunnel. “Are you really all here? Or was that just a ploy to egg me into calling Fayr down on you?”
“Of course we’re all here,” he said. “This is the culmination of our dreams.”
“Ah,” I said. “Besides which, with your Proteus base gone and the rest of the Filiaelian Assembly hunting you like fresh game, this is as good a place as any to lie low?”
He didn’t answer. Fifty meters later, we reached the door.
It was considerably bigger than any of us, taller and wider, implying it was probably a cargo or vehicle hatchway. There were eight small openings set into the hull on either side, evenly spaced from eye level to waist level. Some of them were covered with metal mesh, while others were little more than deep, irregular-edged dimples in the metal.
There was no handle, keyhole, touchpad, or anything else that suggested an opening mechanism. Or at least nothing recognizable as such. “There,” Riijkhan said, jabbing a finger at it. “And your first hour is now half over.”
Under normal circumstances, I would have stalled for a while, just to make it look good. But I was pretty sure Riijkhan meant what he said about the hourly executions. “Was that a collection of artifacts I saw back there?” I asked.
“It was.”
“Have someone bring me one of everything,” I said. “I think I can have this open for you in a few minutes.”
Riijkhan’s eyes flicked to Morse, who turned and headed back toward the artifact alcove. “We’ve already tried each of them in each of the openings,” he warned. “None of them is a key.”
“I know,” I said. “While we wait, how about giving us a peek at your plans? Since you’re going to kill all of us anyway, you really have nothing to lose.”
“We may not kill
“As a guarantee of my cooperation.”
“Yes,” Riijkhan said. “As to the others, we’ll soon see if we need any of them to help control this ship. Those who aren’t needed, as you say, will be eliminated.”
“I thought you didn’t like wasting troops.”
“I don’t,” Riijkhan said. “But your demonstration earlier has also reminded me that it’s dangerous to be overdependent on slaves.”
“Seems to me that leaves you between the proverbial rock and hard place,” I said. “Unless you expect more Shonkla-raa to rise spontaneously from the ground, your current crowd is pretty much it.”
“Not from the ground.” He tapped the metal hull beside us. “From here. Once the ship is activated and freed from its nest, we will have the necessary time, resources, and freedom of movement to re-create the
“Impressive,” I murmured. “Hitler would be proud.”
“Who?”
I shook my head. “Never mind.”
Morse returned, a tray of artifacts in his hands. Among them, as I’d hoped, were a Lynx, a Viper, and a Hawk, the three components of the ancient Shonkla-raa trinary weapon. “Good,” I said briskly. “Bring them here, and let’s see what we’ve got.”
Morse started forward, then abruptly stopped. “A moment,” Riijkhan said, eyeing me closely. “Modhri: are any of these devices weapons?”
I held my breath. But Riijkhan had phrased the question just loosely enough. “No,” Morse said.
Riijkhan nodded, and Morse started forward.
And again stopped. “Can any combination form a weapon?” Riijkhan added.
Morse seemed to wilt a little. “Yes.”
Riijkhan eyed me, his blaze darkening. “Fine,” I said with a sigh. “I just need the Viper.”
“What is it?” Riijkhan asked suspiciously. “What does it do?”
“It’s a power source,” I explained. “I don’t think the door’s locked. I think it’s just not powered up.”
“And you can do that from out here?”
“I don’t know,” I said with strained patience. “Give me the Viper, and we’ll find out together.”
Riijkhan whinnied a snort. But Morse had, after all, already confirmed that none of the artifacts by itself was a weapon. At Riijkhan’s silent command he set the tray down, picked out the Viper from the collection, and walked over to me.
