there was a limit after which they would indeed fight, and the math was on their side. Millions of Yabbans, a few hundred Chalidangers. Yabban losses could be massive, and the Chalidangers would still be wiped out.
But now they were here, and with only two exceptions appeared to have survived the process with no ill effects. The two that didn’t make it were from separate causes; one had a container that clearly leaked out the sustaining cryogenic fluid, and the other was botched in revival.
Mochida seemed quite pleased. He had actually allowed for up to fifteen percent fatalities. Two put him well ahead in bodies.
And their presence was now a fait accompli. The Yabban government was informed as soon as the thawing was well enough along that stopping it would have been a moot point. A surface supply ship from Jirminin was directly overhead and had sufficient supplies to maintain the Chalidang force for the period that they required, and also provide a cover and a conduit for the force below.
Faced with this, the natives were not the least bit pleased, but felt they had little choice in the matter. The force wasn’t big enough to threaten Yabbo or its immediate neighbors, and there had been assurances that no weapons would be provided the force until they were leaving the nation. A Kalindan commission, at Yabbo’s request, had actually boarded the ship above and verified that it contained only food and medical supplies of use only to Chalidang. No weapons.
That, and the fact that the general and the Chalidang ambassador in Zone both assured the natives that the entire crew would be out of there in under seven days, won grudging assent. So long as none of this commando force ate any Yabbans, it seemed as if the bastards had gotten away with it.
Ming and Ari had to wonder what Core thought of all this now that it was public.
But how were they going to move the two hundred or so kilometers north to Sanafe without both choking on the thick living soup out there or seeming an imperious army marching through towns and villages, raising resentment?
“You already know, don’t you?” the General responded to the question.
“The pneumatic railroad? But there weren’t any plans to run it to Sanafe, as far as we knew, and in any event, how will you, with those large spiral shells, soft or not, fit inside the tubes?”
The General chuckled. “One of the lines does in fact go that way, and it’s got an unusually large tube diameter,” he told them. “You see, the Yabbans have always felt they were the stepchildren of Kalinda, dependent on your people for all those nice tech-type handouts, the materials themselves, even the building of things like the pneumatic train system. Most of them have thought of themselves as working for the Kalindans since they were born, and that’s not far wrong. Kalinda has always treated most of its neighbors like ignorant colonials, markets rather than equal and sovereign races and nations. We offered them an alternative source of what they needed, as well as international funding, with no strings. They’ve been quite tolerant of us so long as they felt we were working only against the interests of Kalinda and not against them. It’s been a fairly happy arrangement. And now we are going to reap some of the rewards of that association. We’re all going to the one neighboring hex that sealed itself off rather than become a Kalindan dependency. It was a conscious decision. They essentially banded together and threw you all out.
Alkazar
She was barely settled into the Pyron consulate in Kolznar when she was awakened. It was the middle of the night, and she felt some alarm at the sight of the snakelike creature. Worse, they all looked alike to her, making it impossible for her to tell the friendly consul from the suspicious security chief. She hoped they were all on the same side, otherwise she’d never figure out who was who.
“I beg your pardon for waking you,” the creature said to her, “but I am afraid you must leave now and move toward Quislon with as much speed as possible.”
She yawned and tried to shake the lead from her brain. “Now? Why? I know I wasn’t to stay here long, but—”
“There has been an, um, unforeseen development. I am afraid that if you remain here you will either be arrested when you leave the consulate or you will wind up imprisoned here for an indefinite future. We must move quickly! Gather up whatever is yours and come with me. I shall explain the situation on the way.”
She managed, with the help of some cold water from the basin, to get her small kit strapped on and follow him, but she felt miserable, and everything looked like it was being viewed through a curtain of fog and blurry reflections.
The consul was below. She knew it was him because of his manner and his warmer-than-normal—for a Pyron, anyway— empathic signature. “What is going on?” she asked him.
“They were going through cleaning and maintenance on the ship you came in on and they discovered a body,” the consul told her. “Murdered, in a most brutal and ugly fashion, and apparently after some torture.”
“A body! Whose? Where?” She feared that somebody had done in the stubborn Kehudan she’d left in her cabin, for failing to complete her mission.
“An Ixthansan. One of our people. They’ve been shadowing the ship off and on all along. This one was supposedly bringing you information of some importance. We don’t know if they got it or not, but did you?”
“I—I saw one such, a very pleasant fellow, but that was far back, not long after I boarded.”
“Probably not the same one, but a cousin. It doesn’t matter. You were not approached by an Ixthansan at any point after leaving Suffok?”
“No, not a word. I’d been wondering, considering the first contact, why I hadn’t heard from any others.”
“Apparently the second one was discovered, and since then they’ve been laying for them. There should have been three contacts.” The translator gave the suggestion of a resigned sigh. “All right, then. We must move.”
“Surely they do not think that
“Well, I’m afraid that folks like the Alkazarians think that everybody else is just like them, and in this port they have jurisdiction. Fortunately, that also means they’re corrupt to the core, but that can only reach so far. We need to get you completely out of the Colony District before somebody we missed comes looking, and I suspect that won’t take long.”
“Surely they would not hold me! I had nothing to do with this!”
“Ah, but you’re the one closely connected. They have at least one witness who claims to have seen you speaking with an Ixthansan on the ship, and it’s a witness that isn’t part of any side in this conflict. That must have been the first one. That’s enough for them. And as to not holding you, well, Ambora doesn’t have much of an army or navy, and that’s all they’re scared of here. The justice system actually harkens back to the days of ancient belief systems, when you could be accused of trafficking with evil demons and they’d torture you. If you died, you were innocent. That’s the thinking in criminal inquisitions here as well.”
“But where will I go? I mean, by sea is certainly out, and it is roughly four hundred kilometers overland to Quislon, all in Alkazar. How can I avoid them?”
“Well, some bribes help,” the consul admitted, “but there is also the point that somebody out of their local district jurisdiction is somebody they don’t have to deal with, explain, account for, etcetera. You see what I mean? If we can get you out of this city, we’ll probably not have any problems over it.”
“But how?”
“Let me worry about that,” said another Pyron, from the entry parlor to her right. She turned and saw what at first seemed to be another identical snake-man, but his empathic signature was very different, almost as if he were not truly kin to the others here. It was also vaguely familiar.
