Slamming her hands on thetable, Maddox insisted, “That’s impossible! You aremistaken.”
“I was there…on theValiant. I saw thedead.” Lateef hesitated before adding, “I even worked on the teamthat helped to ID the remains.” Slowly shaking her head, shefinished, “There is no mistake.”
“Perhaps we can table thismystery for now and attend to more pressing matters,” Ricci brokein. “What are you doing here on Tolu? Is it a candidate for this‘new home’ of yours?”
Maddox stammered, “Well…notexactly. You see, we were returning from the planet the Lignatianshad designated for us as New Earth. It proved…unsuitable.” Shedescribed the world that would have taken years of back-breakingwork to terraform and then explained that they had scanned Tolu inpassing and it seemed like a much better option.
“But there’s already anindigenous civilization here,” Decker said. “Did you miss thosesigns?”
Jallow said, “Yes, in part.Our initial scans detected only the uncloaked inhabitants, soTolu’s population seemed extremely…sparse.”
Lindstrom turned to stareat Maddox. “However sparse it might be, an indigenous civilizationshould have precluded any thoughts of colonizing this moon. Thatwas most definitely an element of the Valiant’s mission statement. Didthat understanding erode over time?”
“Not really.” Maddox bither lip and cast her eyes slightly downward; her team mirrored herguilty expression. “It’s just that we…we thought it couldn’t hurt –to take a look around.”
Ricci expelled anexasperated sigh and massaged his forehead. “It did hurt, though.Your message mentioned an attack?”
“Yes, when we attempted toland on Tolu, our ship was attacked by fearsome beasts, which thenatives call peerazu.” She gestured at Croker. “Understandably,Prince – our pilot – lost control and we crashed.”
“The whitewinged-monsters?” Kennedy confirmed. “They attacked us, too. Threeof them.”
“How were you able toland!?” Yang asked.
With a tiny shrug, Deckeranswered, “We fought them off.”
“They cannot have been thesame thing,” Croker announced. Leaning back in his chair with hishands clasped behind his head, he expounded, “No one could fight three peerazu.Especially not in so small a ship as yours.”
As Decker turned towardsCroker, Lindstrom prepared for her response with an equal mix ofalarm and anticipation. He was never to learn what she intended tosay, since Kennedy broke in, “Croker – you couldn’t be more wrong.Deck is one of the best battle pilots in the UDC. She notonly could fightthem off – she did it rather handily.”
“Ah…this I did not know,”Croker said. He grinned at Decker with arched eyebrows. “We pilotsshould get together and exchange….” He paused and leaned closer toher, huskily continuing, “…tales of our exploits.”
“Yeah,” Decker drawled,“let’s schedule that for the day after hel—”
“The day after we get youall home,” Ricci interrupted. He aimed a warning glance at hisdaughter, adding, “Knowing her as well as I do, that’s whatLieutenant Decker was about to say.”
“I see you share myappreciation for beautiful women, eh, Captain?” Croker askedRicci.
From the look on Matt’sface, Nils was certain they were about learn if holograms couldburst into flames.
Through gritted teeth,Ricci finally replied, “What I share with you, I’m sure, is a keendesire to return to the business at hand.” He looked at Maddox.“How is it that you know that the natives call these thingspeerazu? You’ve made contact?”
“Yes, with two of thecommunities – neither very friendly, I’m afraid. The people of thenearby hidden city, Maykah, are known as the Maykure; they blame usfor attracting peerazu to this region. But at least they didn’tattack us. Unlike the people of the valley, who the Maykure tell usare called the Featay.”
Lindstrom asked, “How areyou able to communicate with the Maykure?”
Maddox pointed to a metalbar clipped to her shoulder. “We have the ‘Silver Tongues’ that theLignatians provided us. They facilitate communication bytranslating alien speech – after a fashion.”
“That’s amazing,” Brodieexclaimed. “How do they work? Do they use translation algorithms orspeech pattern analyzers? Oh, I bet it’s a combination of the two.Right?”
After Maddox glanced atJallow, the scientist said, “They are simple to use and require noin-depth knowledge in order to—”
“You don’t actually know –do you?” Lateef asked. Jallow sheepishly admitted that wastrue.
“These Featay people, theyattacked your ship after it crashed?” Kennedy asked.
“No, they attacked thescouting party I sent out. Our people escaped unharmed – but justbarely,” Maddox explained. “According to the Maykure, the Featayare beyond reason.”
Maddox went on to give thesad history of Tolu as gleaned from the Maykure. Their world hadfaced a disastrous gamma ray burst hundreds of years before. Tosave their civilization, they had retreated under cover; theMaykure and Featay to domed cities and the Intabet deep inside themountains. After the disaster passed, word came from the Intabetthat the once rare and peaceful peerazu had turned savage as aresult of the gamma ray exposure. The Maykure and Featay had nochoice but to remain in their cities, hiding from the expandingpopulation of peerazu with cloaking technology that the Intabet hadprovided.
“What happened to theFeatay?” Ricci asked.
“They were struck by adisease which caused some kind of madness, turning them feral andeven cannibalistic. The Maykure were forced to cut off all contactfrom them. Since then, all three civilizations have lived asunder.”Maddox looked towards Ricci and Lindstrom. “The Maykure insist onseeing us gone. They claim the longer we stay, the greater thepossibility of attracting additional peerazu and exposing theircity to notice. So far, we’ve been unable to enact repairs onthe Aurora.That’s why we called for help.”
Ricci waved a hand atAvery, saying, “One of our best engineers is on Tolu; he can take alook at the damage.”
“Thank you.” Yang noddedat Avery. “We appreciate any assistance you can offer.”
Leaning forward, Maddoxslid her clasped hands across the transparent table. “An even morepressing concern is our missing people. The scouting party whichwas scattered by the Featay became stranded on the other side of achasm by quake activity. They are trapped in their present locationdue to peerazu sightings and fear of additional Featay attacks.”She sat up straight, continuing, “Since the Maykure are so anxiousto see the back of us, we thought they might help us; we told themwe will not leave until the rest of our crew returns.”
“What did they say?”Kennedy asked.
“That they don’t go intothe wilderness. They rarely leave their city surroundings if theycan help it. They advise giving our missing crew
