I could sense Askavor’s relief as the man took his place among the rest—and I caught the faint wisps of pink around T’Kit’s mouth as she breathed the calming pheromone over the gathered audience. It was… nice. Oh. Damn. It was relaxing me, too.
I wanted to be really upset about that, but I just couldn’t find the energy.
“Snap out of it!” Askavor said, sounding annoyed, but he’d kept that thought just between us, because the settlers who had gathered to hear him, just sat around the spider’s feet, and gazed adoringly up at him.
“They are ready,” T’Kit said, and Askavor began.
I can’t say having the image of an arach appear suddenly in my head was the best thing ever, but I still couldn’t bring myself to be afraid of it, and the stars knew I had plenty of reasons to be terrified. The settlers were having the same reaction. They sat and gaped up at the spider as he showed them, first the physical differences, and then the differences in the way the arach and weavers treated humans.
By the end of it, even those who had been too afraid to move were looking less so.
“Sleep, now,” T’Kit said, and they leant against each other, and did exactly that.
“Well, that was educational,” I said. “Why didn’t you just do that to start with?”
“We only use it when it will help, and when the targets are willing.”
A small part of my head called bullshit, but I shoved it aside. Regardless of how they used their coercive powers in a battle, I had yet to see them using it against the unwilling outside combat. Realizing I had been inside my head a little bit too long, I took a careful look around, making note of where Mack and Tens were standing.
The queen was still moving among the settlers, as were the other warriors, but I could see a group of men and women waiting to one side.
“The settlement leaders,” T’Kit explained. “The queen will negotiate the changes with them.”
Looking at the leaders, it was easy to see their uncertainty, and I guessed I would be uncertain, too, if I was faced with the same changes.
“They will comply.”
T’Kit seemed sure of that, and I wondered why the humans had stayed, when the wasps had defeated them… or why the wasps had let them.
“They had little choice, and we recognized a need for change when we saw it.”
They had?
“We might be shaped like creatures of insignificance on other worlds, but we are more than capable of recognizing when great change is upon us, and destiny calls. We offered them sanctuary against the laws that would have seen them punished for settling a preservation world, and they provided us with a voice beyond our own horizons.”
I remembered that it was the victors that wrote the histories, and wondered what she hadn’t told me.
“You’ll have to do your research,” she said, and I couldn’t tell if I’d offended her or not. “We must go.”
I took up my place at her side, and, together, we walked back through the settlers to where the queen had finally crossed to talk to their leaders. We were halfway there, when the screaming started. T’Kit and I pivoted towards it, and were in time to see four arach burst out of one of the large hangars that stood at the edge of the shuttle-field.
They were making for the drop-ship, even though I was pretty sure Rohan had buttoned it up tight before he’d left.
Rohan! I looked towards the boy, in time to see him scramble onto the flat area behind Askavor’s head.
Damn! The boy was taking his duties as a pilot seriously—and that included securing ‘his’ ship.
From behind me, I could hear both Mack, and Tens calling the boy’s name, but Rohan didn’t answer, and Askavor didn’t stop as he raced towards the drop-ship with the boy clinging to his carapace. The settlers stared as they passed, and I guessed it must have been the first time any human had seen a boy riding a spider into battle.
It was almost funny, except that Rohan was trying to beat four arach warriors to a shuttle whose engines had been allowed to cool. Damnit! This wasn’t funny. Not even a little bit.
I caught sight of Cascade bounding along underneath Askavor’s overarching bulk, and still didn’t like the odds. I bolted after them, readjusting the Blazer’s settings for solids, but keeping the safety on. There was no way I wanted to trip and shoot anybody by mistake. I figured I could start shooting as soon as I hit the edge of the crowd.
I should have known T’Kit would see what I was planning. I should probably have expected that the guard would help me do it faster. Even so, the sudden grip on the back of my flight suit came as a surprise, and I nearly lost it.
“I’ve got you,” she said, her voice echoing through my skull, and damping down the fear.
“You’d better not be dosing me with anything to calm me down,” I told her, and heard laughter in her head.
“I would never dream of it.’
Like Hell, she wouldn’t. These guys were every bit as bad as Delight… or Mack, for that matter.
“Hey!”
I ignored him. He shouldn’t have been in my head, anyway.
“Shut it, Cutter.”
Honestly, the man needed a new catch phrase.
“Ready?” T’Kit asked, and I got ready for my feet to hit the ground.
I had no intention of stopping. I was going after those eight-legged bastards with prejudice, and I was going to take them down.
“Stay out of my line of fire!” I yelled, and was surprised when T’Kit landed beside me, instead of closing with the arach threat.
Oh. Right. She had Blazers, as well.
“And I’m not afraid to use them,” the vespis warrior told me, and I wondered if she knew how far back into human psyche that phrase extended.
“No, but it
