“All right. I’m here. What’s so important?”
“Several things. First, I’ve confirmed that they know they didn’t get all of Anu’s people.” Francine looked up sharply and received another thin smile. “Obviously they don’t know
“No, I suppose we wouldn’t. What else?”
“This.” A data chip was handed over. “That little item is too important to trust to our usual pipeline.”
“Oh?” She looked down at it curiously.
“Indeed. It’s a copy of the plans for Marshal Tsien’s newest toy: a gravitonic warhead powerful enough to take out an entire planet.”
Francine’s hand clenched on the chip, and her eyes widened.
“His Majesty,” the man said with a soft chuckle, “has decided against building it, but I’m more progressive.”
“Why? To threaten to blow
“I doubt that bluff would fly, but there are other ways it might be useful. For now, I just want the hardware handy if we need it.”
“All right.” She shrugged. “I assume you can get us any military components we need?”
“Perhaps. If so, we’ll handle that through the regular channels. In the meantime, how are your action groups coming along?”
“Quite nicely, actually.” Hilgemann’s smile was unpleasant. “In fact, their training’s developing their paranoia even further, and keeping them on a leash isn’t the easiest thing in the world. It may be necessary to give them the odd mission to work off some of their … enthusiasm. Is that a problem?”
“No, I can pick a few targets. You’re certain they don’t know about you?”
“They’re too well compartmented for that,” she said confidently.
“Good. I’ll select a few operations that’ll cost them some casualties, then. Nothing like providing a few martyrs for the cause.”
“Don’t get too fancy,” she cautioned. “If they lose too many they’re likely to get a bit hard to control.”
“Understood. Then I suppose that’s about it … except that you’ll want to get your next pastoral letter ready.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. His Majesty’s decided to bite the bullet and begin enlisting Narhani in the military.” Hilgemann nodded, eyes suddenly thoughtful, and he smiled. “Exactly. We’ll want something restrained for open distribution— an injunction to pray that His Majesty hasn’t made a mistake, perhaps—but a little furnace-fanning among the more hardcore is in order, I believe.”
“No problem,” the bishop said with an equally thin smile.
“I’ll be going, then. Wait fifteen minutes before you leave.”
“Of course.” She was a bit nettled, though she didn’t let it show. Did he think she’d lasted this long without learning her trade?
The door closed behind him, and she sat on a floor cleaner, lips pursed, considering how best to fill her pen with properly diffident vitriol, while the hand in her pocket squeezed the data chip that could kill a world.
Chapter Five
Sean MacIntyre landed neatly in the clearing and killed the power.
“Nice one, Sean,” Tamman said from the copilot’s seat. “Almost as nice as I could’ve done.”
“Yeah? Which one of us took the top off that sequoia last month?”
“Wasn’t the pilot’s fault,” Tamman replied loftily. “
“He couldn’t have been; you got home,” a female voice said.
Tamman smirked, and Sean raised his eyes to the heavens in a plea for strength. Then he punched Tamman’s shoulder, and the female voice groaned behind them as they grappled. “They’re at it
“Too much testosterone, Harry.” The younger voice dripped sympathy. “Their poor, primitive male brains are awash in the stuff.”
Tamman and Sean paused in silent agreement, then turned towards the passenger compartment with vengeful intent, but their purposeful progress came to an abrupt end as Sean ran full tilt into a large, solid object and
“Damn it, Brashan!” he complained, rubbing the prominent nose he’d inherited from his father to check for damage.
“I’m simply opening the hatch, Sean,” a mechanically produced voice replied. “It’s not
“Some navigator!” Harriet sniffed.
“Fortunately for a certain loudmouthed snot,” Tamman observed, “she’s a princess, so I can’t paddle her fanny the way she deserves.”
“Don’t you just
“Don’t worry, Tam,” Sean said darkly. “I’ll be happy to deputize. As soon—” he added “—as a certain oversized polo pony gets out of my way!”
“Oooh, protect me, Brashan!” Harriet cried, and the Narhani laughed and stood aside, blocking off the cockpit as the hatch opened. The girls scampered out, and Galahad’s litter-mate Gawain followed, raised muzzle already scenting the rich jungle air.
“Traitor!” Sean kicked his friend—which hurt his toe far more than his target. Brashan was only ten Terran years old, six years younger than Sean, but he was already sufficiently mature for full enhancement. The augmentation biotechnics provided was proportional to a being’s natural strength and toughness, and the heavy- grav Narhani were very, very tough by human standards.
“Nonsense. Simply a more mature individual striving to protect you from your own impetuosity,” Brashan returned, and trotted down the ramp.
“Yeah, sure,” Sean snorted as he and Tamman followed.
It was noon, local time, and Bia blazed directly overhead. Birhat lay almost a light-minute further from its G0 primary than Earth lay from Sol, but they were almost exactly on the equator, and the air was hot and still. The high, shrill piping of Birhat’s equivalent of birds drifted down, and a bat-winged pseudodactyl drifted high overhead.
Sean and Tamman paused to check their grav rifles. Without full enhancement, neither could handle a full- sized energy gun, but their present weapons were little heavier than Terran sporting rifles. The twenty-round magazines held three-millimeter darts of superdense chemical explosive, and the rifles fired them with a velocity of over five thousand meters per second. Which meant they had enough punch to take out a pre-Imperial tank … or the larger denizens of Birhat’s ecosystem.
“Looks good here.” Sean’s crispness was far removed from his earlier playfulness, and Tamman nodded to confirm his own weapon’s readiness. Then they turned towards the others, and Sean made a face. Sandy was already perched in her favorite spot astride Brashan’s powerful back.
He supposed it made sense, even if she did look insufferably smug, for something had gone astray in Sandra MacMahan’s genes. Neither of her parents were midgets, yet she barely topped a hundred and forty centimeters. If she hadn’t had Hector MacMahan’s eyes and Ninhursag’s cheekbones, Sean would have suspected she was a changeling from his mother’s bedtime stories. Of course, she wasn’t quite fifteen, but Harriet had shot up to almost one-eighty by the time she was that age.
Not, he thought darkly, that Sandy let her small size slow her down. She was so far out ahead scholastically it wasn’t funny, but the thing he really hated was that whenever they got into an argument she was invariably right. Like that molycirc problem. He’d been positive the failure was in the basic matrix, but,
