flashed words through the translucent barrier in shining Anglic letters.
WE MUST MAKE COMMON CAUSE, they sent.
So far, Lark’s idea had been fruitful. Unlike at tragic Dooden Mesa, these prisoners had been sealed within an airtight hull that kept the golden liquor from swamping their bodies and life-support machinery. Moreover, the chill lake carried away enough heat so their idle engines did not broil them. They were surrounded, enmeshed in strange time. But they were alive.
When Lark stared at one of the Rothen masters, he easily made out the creature’s facade. Rewq-generated colors divided its charismatic features, so noble in human terms, into two parts, each with its own aura. Across the upper half lay a fleshy symbiont beast, shaped to provide the regal brow, high cheeks and trademark stately nose. A gray deadness told that some kind of synthetic lens insert lay over the Rothen’s eyeballs, and the fine white teeth were artificially capped.
It’s an impressive disguise, he thought. Yet even without masks the Rothen were remarkably humanoid, a resemblance that no doubt originally spurred their cunning plan to win over some impressionable Earthlings back in the frantic, naive days soon after contact, turning those converts into a select tribe of loyal aides — the Daniks. If handled right, it would let the Rothen pull quite a few capers using human intermediaries to do the dirty work. And if Daniks were caught in the act, Earth would get the blame.
All told, those inside the trapped ship had a destiny they deserved. Lark might have voted to leave them till Jijo reclaimed their dross. Only now an even greater danger loomed, and there was no other place to turn for allies against the Jophur.
The captives inside the shell seemed eager enough. The last line of their message expressed this.
GET US OUT OF HERE!
Floating in the gentle current, Lark saw Rann, the tall Danik leader, write on his wax board.
WE MAY HAVE A WAY.
YOU MUST PREPARE A FORMULA.
IT IS
Lark grabbed for the board, but Ling got there first, snatching the stylus right out of Rann’s meaty hand. Surprise, then anger, flared across the part of his face visible between the rewq and breathing ring. But the big man was outnumbered, and knew that Jeni Shen had lethal darts in her underwater crossbow. The militia sergeant watched from a vantage point where her vigilance would not interfere with the time-jerked conversation.
Ling replaced Rann’s message with another.
HOW DO YOU SUGGEST WE DO THAT?
She slung the sign’s strap over her neck so the board rested against her back, message outward. At her nodded signal, Rann and Lark joined her turning around. A spooky feeling swarmed Lark’s spine as he imagined a flurry of activity taking place behind them. Without observers peering at them, the Rothen-Danik crew were liberated from frozen time, free to read Ling’s message, deliberate, and shape a reply.
I never read much physics, Lark thought. But something feels awful screwy about how this works.
The swimmers let momentum carry them around. Only a few duras passed before they faced the hatch once more, but most of the Rothen and human figures had moved in that narrow moment. The electric placard now glimmered with new writing.
PREFERRED METHOD: DESTROY THE JOPHUR.
Bubbles burst past Lark’s breathing tube as he choked back a guffaw. Ling glanced his way, conveying agreement with a shake of her head. The second half of the message was more serious.
OTHER POSSIBILITY: OFFER JOPHUR WHAT THEY WANT.
BUY OUR FREEDOM!
Lark scanned the crowded statues, where many human faces wore expressions of desperation. He could not help feeling moved as they pleaded for their lives. In a way it’s not their fault. Their ancestors made a stupid deal on their behalf just as mine did. People must have been both crazed and gullible in those days, right after Earthlings first met Galactic culture.
It took effort to harden his heart, but Lark knew he must.
Again, Rann tried for the big writing tablet, but Ling wrote fiercely.
WHAT CAN YOU OFFER US, IN RETURN?
On seeing her message, Lark and Rann both stared at her. But Ling seemed unaware that her words carried a personal as well as general meaning. They turned again, giving the prisoners a chance to read and react to Ling’s demand. While sweeping the slow circle, Lark glanced toward her, but living goggles made direct eye contact impossible. Her rewq-mediated aura conveyed grim resolve.
Lark expected to find the captives in turmoil, upset by Ling’s implied secession. Then he realized. They only see us when our backs are turned. They may not even know it’s Rann and Ling out here, after all!
WHATEVER WE HAVE.
That was the frank answer, arrayed in shining letters.
Ling’s next message was as straight to the point.
RO-KENN RELEASED QHEUEN AND HOON PLAGUES.
MAYBE OTHERS.
CURE THEM, OR ROT.
At this resumed accusation, Rann nearly exploded. Strangled anger echoed in his pharynx, escaping as bubbles that Lark feared might carry his curses all the way to the far surface of the lake. The starman tried to grab the message board, briefly struggling with Ling. But when Lark made slashing motions across his throat, Rann glanced back as Jeni approached from the ship’s curved flank, brandishing her deadly bow, accompanied by two strong young qheuens.
Rann’s shoulders slumped. He went through the next turning time sweep mechanically. Lark heard a low, grating sound, and knew the big Danik was grinding his teeth.
Lark expected protestations of innocence from the imprisoned starfarers, and sure enough, when they next looked, the signboard proclaimed—
PLAGUES? WE KNOW NOTHING OF SUCH.
But Ling was adamant to a degree that clearly surprised Rann. Using forceful language, she told the captives — her former friends and comrades — to answer truthfully next time, or be abandoned to their fate.
That brought grudging admission, at last.
RO-KENN HAD OPTIONS,
HIS CHOICE TO USE SUCH MEANS.
GET US OUT.
WE CAN PROVIDE CURES.
Lark stared at the woman next to him, awed by the blazing intensity of her rewq aura. Till that moment, she must have held a slim hope that it was all a mistake … that Lark’s indictment of her Rothen gods had a flaw in it somewhere. That there was some alternative explanation.
Now every complicating what-if vanished. The flame of her anger made Rann’s seem like a pale thing.
While both Daniks fumed, each for different reasons, Lark took the wax board, wiped it, and wrote a reply.
PREPARE CURES AT ONCE.
BUT THERE IS MORE.
WE MUST HAVE ONE MORE THING.
It made sense that the Jophur used this weird weapon — pouring chemically synthesized time-stuff over their enemies. It suited their racial genius for manipulating organic materials. But in their contempt, the master rings had forgotten something.
They have cousins on Jijo, who are loyal to the Six.
True, local traekis lacked ambitious natures, and were unschooled in advanced Galactic science. Regardless, a team of talented local pharmacists had analyzed the substance — a viscous, quasi-living tissue — by taste alone. Without understanding its arcane temporal effects, they managed to secrete a counteragent from their gifted glands.
Unfortunately, it was no simple matter of applying the formula, then rubbing away the golden cocoon surrounding the Rothen ship. For one thing, the antidote was miscible with water. Applying it under a lake
