with which he'd become increasingly familiar.
'Well, Sir,' Porath said, 'I'm afraid I did find this.'
He held out his hand, and Neshok frowned as he took the small, bronze falcon pin. For just a moment, his belly tightened as he realized the information from his previous interrogations hadn't been completely accurate, after all. He looked down at it, weighing it in his palm for a moment or two, then snorted. He'd already known the Sharonians were scrambling to push the necessary personnel forward as quickly as possible. Apparently, they'd managed to get at least some of those personnel almost into position in time.
'I don't suppose you found someone actually wearing it, did you, Javelin?' he asked, smiling thinly.
'No, Sir. But I did find it-or, rather, one of my troopers found it-on the trail between here and the fort.'
'Which would tend to suggest that someone took it off and tried to lose it, is that what you're saying, Javelin?' Neshok inquired genially.
'Yes, Sir. That's exactly what I think happened.'
'Well, I'm inclined to agree with you.' Neshok tossed the pin into the air and caught it two or three times, then turned to face the prisoners directly.
'I'm perfectly well aware of what this means,' he said through the translation spellware, holding up the pin. 'At least one of you is what your people call a 'Voice.' I want to know how many of you are, and who you are.'
No one responded, and Neshok bared his teeth. Whoever the Voice-or Voices-might be, he was clearly a quicker thinker than most. He couldn't have known what technique Neshok had developed for dealing with his kind, but he'd obviously recognized at least the possibility that the Arcanans might have figured out what that little bronze pin meant.
'I've asked pleasantly once,' the acting five hundred said. 'I'm not going to ask politely again.'
Still no one responded, and Neshok's smile grew a bit broader. On the one hand, assuming Shaylar had been anything remotely like truthful, the hidden Voice had been neutralized by the simple act of bringing him to this side of the portal. On the other hand, Shaylar had probably been lying about anything she thought she could get away with. Which, given Olderhan's stupidity, had probably been just about everything. And even if she hadn't been lying about that, Neshok wasn't exactly brokenhearted by the opportunity to begin creating the proper psychological impact.
Besides, his encounter with her hadn't exactly left him feeling very well inclined towards other Voices.
'Javelin Porath?' he said, and held out his hand.
Porath handed him one of the hand weapons-the 'revolvers'-which had been captured from the enemy. Neshok didn't much like the thing. The recoil was painful (and, little though he liked admitting it, frightening), and he'd found it very difficult to adjust to the incredible noisiness and brilliant flash when it was fired. Still, he'd forced himself to acquire at least some proficiency with it-although, in his more honest moments, he rather doubted that he could have expected to hit anything at much more than arm's length-because he'd wanted a weapon his prisoners were going to recognize as such. Now he nodded to Porath, and the javelin reached out and grabbed a randomly selected prisoner by the front of his tunic. With his hands manacled behind him, the Sharonian had no choice but to stumble forward, and Porath hauled him over to Neshok.
'Would the Voice care to identify himself now?' the Intelligence officer inquired, pressing the muzzle of the captured weapon against the prisoner's temple and cocking it.
Still no one spoke, and Neshok shrugged.
'Suit yourself,' he said softly, and squeezed the trigger.
It was the first time he'd actually used a 'revolver' for its designed function. The recoil was as unpleasant as ever, but he'd allowed for that. What he hadn't quite allowed for was the way the prisoner's head splashed as the heavy bullet blew it apart. Blood and bits of tissue erupted across Neshok, but he managed not to flinch as the corpse flipped backwards and thudded to the ground.
The other Sharonians stared at him. Clearly, they hadn't believe he'd actually shoot one of them in cold blood.
Well, he thought, at least we've established now that I will. That's worthwhile in its own right.
'Would the Voice care to reconsider his position?' he asked, watching Porath choose yet another prisoner, once more at random.
The second Sharonian stumbled forward, his face white and strained. He tried to dig his heels in, but without the use of his hands, resistance was ultimately futile. Porath dragged him over to stand where the first prisoner had died, and Neshok pressed the muzzle against his head, in turn.
'Wait!' a Sharonian voice called.
Neshok turned his head, quirking one eyebrow, and gazed interrogatively at the speaker. The Sharonian looked to be a bit older than most of the prisoners, and he wore only a sleeveless undershirt of some sort above the waist, which meant he wasn't displaying any rank insignia. But there was something about his eyes-a hard, challenging something, like the eyes of that wiry little senior-armsman back at Fort Shaylar.
'I'm the Voice,' the Sharonian said.
'Are you?' Neshok considered the other man for a moment, then shrugged and beckoned the one Porath had chosen back in among the others. 'Come here.'
The man who'd identified himself walked across to face Neshok.
'So, you're the Voice?'
'Yes,' the Sharonian said, but Neshok shook his head and held up his personal crystal. A bright red light strobed down inside it, and the Intelligence officer sighed.
'I'm afraid you're not,' he said. 'This is a truth spell. And according to it, you've just lied to me.'
'I don't care what your rock says,' the prisoner replied. 'You wanted the Voice. You've got me.'
'Yes, I have, but you're not a Voice. And I've decided I don't like people who lie to me.'
The second shot was just as noisy as the first one, and the second Sharonian fell diagonally across the body of the first.
'We can keep this up as long as you like,' Neshok told the remaining prisoners, and nodded to Porath again.
'That won't be necessary,' another Sharonian said. His face was hard with hatred, and he stepped forward on his own. 'I'm the Voice.'
Neshok looked at him for a moment, then glanced down at his PC again. This time, the crystal showed no flashing red, and he nodded slightly.
'And would you happen to be the only Voice?' he asked calmly, still watching the crystal.
'As far as I know, I'm the only one still alive, at any rate,' the Voice said harshly, and once again the crystal remained clear.
'And who would this fellow have been?' Neshok said, nodding his head at the second dead man.
'Company-Captain chan Robarik,' the Voice grated, and Neshok just managed not to curse. Just his luck. They'd actually managed to take the fort's commanding officer alive, only to have him get himself killed out of sheer stupidity.
'It's too bad you didn't step forward soon enough to keep him alive,' he told the Voice.
'No Sharonian made you pull that trigger,' the Voice said.
'You may have a point,' Neshok conceded, then cocked his head. 'Tell me, is it true that no Voice can communicate with another one through a portal?'
'Of course it is,' the Sharonian replied.
'So you all keep telling me, and I suppose I have to believe you,' Neshok said, glancing back down at his PC once more. 'Still, it's probably best not to take any chances, don't you think?'
The Voice only glared at him, and Neshok shrugged. Then he raised the revolver again.
'Now,' he told the other prisoners a moment later, his own voice sounding strangely far away and tinny through the ringing in his ears, 'I trust the rest of you will see the wisdom of answering my questions promptly and thoroughly. If you don't-' he looked down at the three bodies sprawled grotesquely across the ground '-I'm afraid I'm going to have to reload, aren't I?'
Chapter Thirteen
