Commander began to slow down, although Velmeran continued to move pieces as if he selected them at random.
'If I may be so bold,' Councilor Lake said hesitantly to Dveyella, who sat beside him on the sofa beside the game table. He spoke slowly, obviously embarrassed. 'Since you ladies only come to port in armor, there is no way to tell. But I have always wondered — since you have two sets of arms — whether you also have two sets of breasts.'
Dveyella sat for a moment in bemused silence, the only sound that of her suit cycling on. Before she could reply, Trace roared aloud with laughter. 'Ah, you lecherous old fool! There are no wolfettes among the pictures in those magazines you have taken to looking at… to refresh your memory in your old age.'
Councilor Lake swatted indignantly at the accusing finger that was waving in his direction. 'There is nothing wrong with my memory. I look at those pictures to remind myself that I am not so old after all.'
'Can a horse do this?' Velmeran asked suddenly.
'Yes, a
'We have only the one set,' Dveyella answered softly.
Councilor Lake only shook his head slowly. 'It still amazes me, the knowledge our ancestors must have had to build those big ships and then fill them with Starwolves. We could not hope to duplicate either.'
'We have never tried,' Trace remarked without looking up. The two Starwolves tried not to look surprised, but to them that was a dire threat. The only thing they could not fight was themselves.
'Actually, our genetic design and engineering was accomplished by the Aldessan of Valtrys,' Dveyella said quickly, changing the subject.
Commander Trace stared at her in open amazement. 'Valtrytians? Now you speak of myths and legends.'
'Not so,' Velmeran insisted. 'The language that we speak among ourselves is Tresdyland, the language of the Aldessan. And our names are of Valtrytian origin.'
'Then you have seen a Valtrytian?' the Councilor asked, greatly awed.
'No, but I have seen their ships,' Velmeran replied. 'There is considerable trade between us, and they are always there to help.'
That, Dveyella realized, was a slight but obvious exaggeration. But she also believed that, whatever he was leading to, he had just made his point and these two worthies had swallowed the bait. And the Sector Commander must have swallowed his whole; he sat back in his chair, his arms crossed, and snorted with derision at the young Starwolf's apparent inability to protect trade secrets.
'So that is it. I always did wonder what you pirates did with all the loot you do not sell back, and who maintains your technology,' he said. 'But what do the Valtrytians have against us?'
Velmeran shrugged innocently. 'They do not like the way you do business.'
'And what business is that of theirs?'
'The Aldessan are a very old and wise race,' he explained. 'They have a strong belief in the concepts of freedom, self-determination and the rights of the individual. Naturally they find you objectionable.'
'That still does not make it any of their concern.'
'Your great and glorious Union is of no concern to them. If you had ever become a big enough nuisance to be a problem to them, then you would have learned the meaning of real trouble. As it is, they have only provided technical assistance to the Terran Republic in the matter of ships and pilots.'
'But there is no Terran Republic.' Trace pointed out what seemed obvious.
'We are the Terran Republic,' Velmeran said.
'You? Just look at you! A band of thieves, dependent upon your petty piracy to keep food in your bellies and your ships in space.'
'We may not be Robin Hood,' Velmeran replied evenly. 'But you are hardly democracy and free enterprise, whatever you pretend. We have kept you to your own space for fifty thousand years. Enough said?'
Trace looked at him in surprise, recalling only too well how the Union had declined, and knowing that the Starwolf spoke the truth. Then he sat back and laughed. 'Yes, we do understand each other. We know, beneath all the rhetoric, how matters really stand.'
Velmeran smiled. 'At least you are an honest man.'
'And you are a pert Starwolf,' Trace answered. He moved a piece, then watched closely as Velmeran moved another. He glanced up reprovingly at his opponent. 'You cannot play chess defensively, or you have lost from the start. You have to make sacrifices.'
'I know what I am doing,' Velmeran replied. 'I refuse to make sacrifices. It is a wasteful, careless way to make war.'
'It is only a game!' Trace replied with enough irritation to prove that beating this Starwolf was a matter of life and death.
'You know, Don, there is some logic in that,' Lake said.
'What?' Trace stared at him in disbelief. 'He has yet to come up with anything I recognize as a strategy. This game will be over in a minute.'
'No doubt,' Velmeran agreed quietly.
They proceeded in silence through two more rounds of moves before Trace sent his queen in for the kill with a decisive gesture. 'Check.'
Velmeran shook his head. 'I think not.'
He sent his king to temporary safety. Trace made the first of two moves that would put his opponent's piece back into check. Velmeran ignored it, moving a piece on the other side of the board. 'Check.'
Momentarily startled, Trace moved his king to safety. Ignoring the rook pursuing his own king, Velmeran sent a bishop in from the other side for the kill. 'Checkmate.'
'What?' Trace demanded incredulously, his consternation growing when he realized that he had no options. 'How did you do that?'
'It was just luck, I am sure,' the Starwolf replied, his innocent tone all the more mocking. 'I certainly am not smart enough to have figured that out for myself.'
'You were smoke-screened,' Councilor Lake said, laughing.
Commander Trace could see that he had been tricked, but he still refused to believe that a Starwolf could defeat him outright. The second time Velmeran led him through an elaborate pretense in a game that lasted nearly half an hour, letting him build up his confidence before moving in for a sudden and unexpected kill. And for their third game Velmeran defeated him in only five moves, just to prove that he could. By then Trace decided that Velmeran was a practiced master at the game and refused to play again.
Donalt surrendered his seat to his uncle after the third game. Privately he believed that if anyone — human — could defeat this Starwolf, it would be Councilor Lake. But at that moment, even before the game began, Javarns entered with a message.
'Excuse me, Commander,' the servant said from a safe distance, hardly daring to enter the room. 'Your secretary is calling. It seems that a courier has arrived from Bineck. The Station Commander has come himself and wishes to speak with you.'
'I am sure he does!' Commander Trace remarked sarcastically. 'Lie to me, more likely. Starwolf, you must have hit that place hard for him to come himself. You were there. Special tactics, I believe you called it. Can you give me an honest report?'
'We got what we were after and got away,' Dveyella replied. 'My ship was scorched in an explosion, but that was the extent of our damage. We did not leave much of the station, I fear. That was the diversion that got us back out.'
'So I thought,' Trace said as he rose, and bowed to the Starwolves. 'Will you excuse me? This has been a… memorable evening.'
'Well, my young Starwolf, you have just met the Commander of the Rane Sector Fleet,' Lake said after his nephew was gone. 'You have made a reluctant friend, but also a bitter rival.'
'A rival?' Velmeran asked, sitting comfortably back in his own chair.
'Certainly. You have proven yourself superior to him at the chessboard, and that was surely a terrible blow to his pride. I suspect that he will not be satisfied until he has challenged you in real battle.'
'But how could I be of any consequence to him?' Velmeran asked. 'He is a Sector Commander. I am just a
