Admiral Andragna listened with a strange sense of detachment. His race was split into two main camps: the “runners,” who believed the best way to deal with the Sheen was to run from them, and the “facers,”
who wanted to face the enemy and fight. The facers were in the majority—so plans had been laid for the inevitable battle. A battle in which he and his staff planned to use the Confederacy as a shield. A strategy that would be greatly enhanced if they were covered by the mutual defense pact that attended membership.
Still, in his heart of hearts, Andragna was a runner and saw the present machinations as a waste of time. He couldn’t admit that, however, not to the committee or to those around him. The Drac spoke for the first time. Maybe it was the synthesizer, or maybe it was his voice, but the result was less than melodious. “Bribery, what of?”
Seven shrugged. “We could buy DomaSa with freedom for his race, assuming there was a way to deliver, but what happens after that? The Hudathans were confined to their home system for a very good reason. They killed millions during the first and second Hudathan wars.”
“And Governor ChienChu?”
“Hopeless,” Omo concluded. “The governor is so wealthy that money holds no meaning for him. There are other possibilities however—and the Thraki are working on them. Admiral?”
The robot that rested on the Thraki’s lap was part toy, part pet, and part tool. It morphed into a globe and assumed the role of translator. “Our priesthood includes a branch focused on the martial arts. A team of assassins was dispatched to Earth with instructions to kill Maylo ChienChu. We haven’t heard from them as yet... but they seldom fail.”
“Point is what?” the Drac inquired flatly.
“Intimidation,” Ishimoto Seven replied easily. “If ChienChu’s niece can be killed then no one is safe. Not his wife, not his associates, and not him.”
“Good it is,” Noother concluded. “Next what?”
Omo glanced at the viewscreen. Special electroactive contact lenses took hundreds of separate images and combined them into one. The Friendship looked small and potentially vulnerable against the great blackness. “Isolated though he is, the Hudathan has proven far too effective for his own good. I plan to eliminate him . .. and do so in a very public manner. With DomaSa dead—the votes we require will hurry to find us.”
“How?” the Drac demanded.
“Patience,” the Ramanthian counseled. “You must have patience. Isn’t that right, Horgo?”
The War Omo stepped forward into the light. Like all of his kind, the Ramanthian’s vital organs were protected by an extremely hard brown-black exoskeleton. He possessed an elongated head, short antennae, a parrotlike beak, and a pair of seldom-deployed wings. He wore black body armor secured by bright metal links. A sword had been strapped across his back, and Horgo wore two hand weapons, butts forward. His rarely heard voice was deep and menacing. “Yes, lord. That is correct.”
The Starlight Ballroom could handle up to one thousand guests, all protected by an immense transparent dome. The planet Arballa hung like a jewel beyond the armored plastic. Only one comer of the vast space was currently in use. About sixty beings, who represented more than a dozen different races, stood in conversational clumps where they sipped, sucked, snorted, and otherwise ingested a wide variety of mildly intoxicating substances, snacked on a variety of exotic hors d’oeuvres, and told each other lies.
All except for one lonely figure who knew he should mingle—but couldn’t quite bring himself to do so. He stood with his back to a durasteel bulkhead, his feet planted firmly on the deck, wishing he were dead. Ambassador Hiween DomaSa had rendered many services to his now beleaguered race—but none involved more personal sacrifice than his presence at President Nankool’s cocktail party. He not only hated such occasions but hated them with every fiber of his 350pound body. The food was disgusting, by his standards at any rate, and the conversation was highly political, which was to say full of poorly disguised flattery, outrageous gossip, and carefully calculated untruths. All of which went against the Hudathan’s instincts.
Still, that was the price that had to be paid if he ever hoped to gather the support necessary to lift the blockade that currently confined his people to their home world. A chaotic place where a Trojan relationship with a Jovian binary caused the planet Hudatha to have a wildly unpredictable climate, and threatened the survival of the race. Just as humans threatened it, Ramanthians threatened it, and every other sentient race threatened it. Not because of anything they had done, but because they existed, and might cause harm.
All of which explained why Triads long dead had considered it necessary to attack and destroy the very races with which DomaSa now mingled. Stupid races for the most part, who, had they truly understood the nature of his race, would have killed every Hudathan they could find and sterilized the planet from which they came. But they were incapable of such pragmatism, which was good for him.
“So,” a voice said, “which ones would you like to kill most, and in what order?” The joke, because the Hudathan had learned enough about humans to recognize it as such, demonstrated an almost scary understanding of the way he felt. Was he that transparent? The possibility frightened DomaSa as he turned to face Sergi ChienChu.
The industrialist’s biological body had expired many years before. That’s why his brain and a length of spinal cord were housed in an otherwise synthetic body. A vehicle quite similar to the original. The face had a rounded, slightly Asian cast to it, the body was pleasantly plump, and the clothing was simple verging on plain. A look that was
