A World of Difference (38 page)

“This and that,” he said. She thought that meant he wasn’t going to tell her, but he did, a little. “Some real special codes, for one thing, the kind you hope you never have to use—I mean, there’s a lot worse things could go wrong than one crazy Russian.”

“Like for instance?” Sarah asked, genuinely curious.

“Like the whole crew of
Tsiolkovsky
attackin’ us on purpose—when we set out, remember, we didn’t know how far apart we’d be from them. Or like the natives bein’ high-tech after all, just without radio on account of they’re telepaths or some stupid thing, and overrunnin’
Athena
. They’d have to be ready back home then, in case we had somethin’ happen out of
Invaders from Minerva.
”

In spite of herself, Sarah giggled. “Stupid damn movie,” she said, having watched it on TV at least two dozen times since she was a kid. A late-fifties low-budget sci-fi classic turkey, it featured “Minervans ”—who looked nothing like real Minervans—remarkable chiefly because the zippers in their costumes were visible in several scenes. Every so often, coming up with something silly like that, Emmett could surprise her and remind her that he was human, too.

“Isn’t it?” he said now, quietly laughing himself. “I’ll tell you what I wish I had in there, and it’s got nothin’ to do with guns and such.” He waited for Sarah to raise an eyebrow, then went on, “I wish I had a couple o’ bottles o’ good sippin’
whiskey put away, for celebrating gettin’ down here, gettin’ back home …” He paused, studied her in that way she found alarming and attractive at the same time. “Maybe sharin’ a little, now and again.”

“Hmm,” was all she said. She was damned if she would encourage him.

“Doesn’t matter anyhow,” he said when he decided that was the only response he’d get. “NASA doesn’t understand that sippin’ whiskey is for
sippin’
, if you know what I mean. When I put the idea to ’em, they just reckoned I wanted to get lit.”

“When you what?” There was about as much likelihood of NASA bureaucrats okaying a couple of fifths of Jim Beam, she thought, as there was of dying of heatstroke on Minerva. My God, the manifest might leak out one day, and then somebody could kiss a career good-bye.

If anybody could see that, it was Emmett. He had boundless contempt for all bureaucracies save the military. For all Sarah knew, he had asked about the bourbon just to give the three-piece-suit boys fits. That was his style.

She expected him to chuckle and own up to twisting NASA’s tail just for the fun of it. Instead, she saw with a thrill of alarm that he had what she thought of as his sniper’s face back on—behind his eyes, he was taking dead aim at something. After a moment, she realized it wasn’t her.

Or was it? “Get lit,” he said dreamily. “That just might work.” Now he was focused on her, sharply.

“What might work?” she demanded. “I hate it when people think through things and then leave out all the interesting parts when they start talking. It’s like—” She started to say “sex without foreplay,” but decided that might not be a good idea. “I hate it,” she finished.

Bragg nodded. “Can’t say I blame you.” He spent the next several minutes explaining.

By the time he was done, Sarah wished she hadn’t asked. She knew that was stupid. As soon as Emmett got this brainstorm, he would have come to her with it. The real trouble was, it made too much sense for her to tell him he was crazy.

But when he said, “You know, I’m jealous as hell,” she had all she could do not to reach up and bust him right in his grinning chops. She probably would have, had it not been so obvious that he meant it.

*   *   *

Fralk watched the latest raiding party come in from the north. They were leading enough massi and eloca to keep the Skarmer army fed for a couple of days. “We’ll squeeze the Omalo domain until Reatur’s eyes pop off their stalks,” Fralk declared grandly.

His warriors cheered as the beasts, complaining every step of the way, passed through the gaps in the barricade of frozen snow. Other males, high-ranking by virtue of their closeness to Hogram—but none so close as Fralk!—spoke up in loud and prompt agreement.

Then someone said, “May the domain come down with the purple itch. When are we going to take out the cursed Omalo army?”

Sudden silence fell. The officers edged away from the male who had spoken, as if they wanted to show they had nothing to do with his words. It was Juksal, Fralk saw. What rank he had sprang only from his ability to fight and fight and fight and stay alive. Still, he had a great deal of that ability—and he had kept the human from escaping. Thus Fralk spoke firmly but politely: “By plundering the domain, Juksal, we also weaken the army, you know.”

Juksal grunted. “Beat the army and the domain is ours. No matter what we do to the domain, the Omalo army can take it back if they beat us. We should have crushed them just as soon as we fought our way out of the gorge.”

“Do you recall the state we were in when we made it out of the gorge?” Fralk asked indignantly. “Those accursed boulders almost wrecked us altogether, in spite of the rifle.” He pulled in arms and eyestalks at the memory.

“The Omalo were worse,” Juksal retorted. “Otherwise they wouldn’t have run from us. We should have chased ’em and slaughtered ’em instead of letting ’em get away to have another chance at us.”

“All in good time.” Fralk saw his skin begin to take on the yellow tint of anger. With an effort of will, he made himself turn green again. He would
not
let Juksal make him angry. Now that the warrior was under his command instead of the other way around—that ghastly, endless series of drills with spears and shields!—he could listen or ignore, as he pleased. And now he was pleased to ignore. “In a few more days, when we are fed, rested, and otherwise recovered from the ordeal just past, we will sally forth and put an end to the Omalo once and for all.”

Juksal had the stubborn rudeness Fralk would have expected
from someone who could find nothing better than fighting with-which to make his way through life. “The Omalo will be feeding and resting and recovering, too, eldest of eldest.” In his mouth, Fralk’s title was a reproach.

When Fralk started to turn yellow this time, he did nothing to try to hide his feelings. “Yes, Juksal, I am eldest of eldest,” he said proudly. “I am also commander of this army. Remember that, please. Moreover, as commander I have just won a victory. Remember that, too.”

“You may have won it,” Juksal said, “but you don’t know what to do with it.”

“Warrior Juksal, you are dismissed,” Fralk shouted. He was yellow as the sun now.

Juksal widened himself, a salute as sardonic as his use of Fralk’s title. Still widened, the veteran waddled away. But he could not resist having the last word. “There’s humans here, too, remember,” he shouted back. “What if they have rifles, too? What then,
commander?
” Resuming his full height, he tramped off.

What then? Fralk did not like to think about that. But Lopatin had said the humans over here probably did not have rifles. The human Juksal had killed certainly was without one, or the warrior never would have gotten close enough to use a spear. Still, Fralk trusted Lopatin’s word much less than he had before the human tried to escape. And
probably
was a far more reassuring word on the other side of Ervis Gorge than here. Here, being wrong would kill a lot of males.

All the more reason, then, for proceeding slowly and carefully, Fralk thought. Otherwise, he might run the army into a krong’s nest before he found out the beast was there. He remembered how Tolmasov’s rifle had riddled the krong back on the west side of Ervis Gorge. What would have happened, though, had the krong had a rifle, too?

“Hit them
now!
” Ternat shouted. His males cried “Reatur!” and rushed through the brush toward Dordal’s waiting warriors. They yelled back. The snorts and whistles of the massi Ternat’s band had already freed only added to the din.

This time, Ternat thought as he drew near the enemy, his warriors lacked the advantage of surprise. They had just finished smashing one half of Dordal’s would-be ambush and sent the survivors fleeing to warn the other half. Ternat wished Dordal’s warriors were like humans, blind to half the world around them.
Were that so, none of the first batch of males might have escaped.

As it was, Reatur’s eldest was happy enough with himself. Because people were as they were, surprise attacks were hard to pull off. But Dordal’s males had been surprised, sure enough, when the war band came crashing through the undergrowth at them. A good three out of every eighteen had turned blue and thrown down their spears; Ternat’s warriors had some of them back with the massi. Even the ones who hadn’t turned craven also had not fought well, most of them.

Then Ternat had no more time for reflection. Spears were flying, out toward his males and from them back at Dordal’s. This second band was larger than the one his warriors had already smashed and better situated, too, with several large boulders giving Dordal’s males almost the protection of a wall. If they stayed back there, they would have an edge.

Some did. More did not. As was true of the band Ternat led, most of Dordal’s warriors were young males with more temper than sense. They charged to do battle with their southern neighbors.

Along with Reatur’s name, the war band also shouted, “Thieves!” Dordal’s males screamed insults back at them.

“Why aren’t you hiding in the chambers under your castle, waiting for the Skarmer?” one of them yelled.

Ternat froze and almost took a spear in the gut because of it. But he had heard that voice before. “That’s Dordal himself!” he cried. “Get him and we bring a lot more than massi home!”

The warriors surged forward. Now fewer spears were in the air, and more clutched tight between males’ fingerclaws. One of Dordal’s warriors thrust at Ternat. He turned the stroke aside with his shield, tilting it upward as he had been drilled. He thrust back, low. The male managed to get a shield down to block that spear but left himself open for Ternat’s other one. He wailed as Reatur’s eldest drove it home and bled like a mate when Ternat pulled it free.

Ternat and another warrior engaged one of Dordal’s males from three arms apart. The beset male was good, but not good enough to resist for long two foes attacking from opposite directions. He went down, briefly yammering.

A rock grazed Ternat, just below one arm. He swore, twisted an eyestalk so he could look down at himself. He wasn’t bleeding or swelling up too badly. He decided he would live.

He looked around for another male to take on. There weren’t
any, not close. The bravado that had fed that first rush from Dordal’s warriors faded as they found Ternat’s war band meant business—and had more males than their own force. Even the chance to gain glory by excelling where the domain-master could see them was not enough. The northern males gave ground.

“This is harder work than stealing massi that can’t fight back, isn’t it?” Ternat shouted.

Dordal’s males were less interested in returning taunts now, more concerned with finding safety behind their heap of boulders. For a moment they made a stand there, but the rocks proved an insufficient barricade. One of Ternat’s males—Phelig, he saw it was—killed a warrior in the gap between two stones and then took control of it for himself. His fellows swarmed after him into the breach.

Then Ternat’s warriors forced their way through another opening. That proved too much for their foes. Some surrendered, others fled. Dordal was one of those who tried to run. When three of Ternat’s males dragged him to the ground, the last fight went out of his warriors.

“Get their spears and other weapons, and see to the wounded,” Ternat said. As his warriors began to obey, he walked slowly over to Dordal. That bruise he had taken started to hurt. He had forgotten all about it till now.

As Reatur’s eldest had remembered, Dordal was a large, imposing-looking male, very much the opposite of Elanti the massi-herder: even standing tall, he was so well fed he looked widened. His eyestalks, however, were at the moment drooping dispiritedly. He raised one eye a little to see who was coming up. He did not widen himself, though Ternat saw that he recognized him.

“Domain-master, you made a mistake,” he said, giving Dordal the courtesy of a title he knew his captive might not enjoy much longer.

“What are you doing here, Ternat?” Dordal’s voice was still proud but confused—he hadn’t changed much since the embassy, Ternat thought.

“I would think that was obvious, domain-master—we are taking back what is ours. If you hadn’t crossed the border, we wouldn’t have come. Since you did—” Reatur’s eldest let Dordal draw his own conclusions.

Those, as was characteristic of the northern domain-master, were bizarre. “I think you were lying about the Skarmer this
whole time, to lure me into raiding you without enough males.” Dordal sounded thoroughly indignant.

Ternat thought Dordal was a fool, but then he had thought that for a long while. “I’m afraid your greed made you stretch your eyestalks further than your arms would reach,” he said.

Dordal started to turn yellow. Ternat’s eyestalks twitched. Dordal quickly greened up again. Even he was not so stupid as to show his captor he was angry. “What will you do with me?” he asked.

“Take the lot of you back to our domain, I suppose,” Ternat said. He hadn’t thought much about that; he hadn’t expected to win such a complete victory. “Reatur will decide in the end. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s likely to let you go back home after your eldest pays enough ransom to remind you not to trifle with us again.”

He waited for Dordal’s reaction. It did not disappoint him. This time Dordal turned yellow in earnest. “My eldest!” he shouted. “Grevil won’t pay a strip of dried meat for me! Let that grabby budling loose among my treasures and mates and he’ll want to keep everything for himself.”

Maybe Dordal did have some sense: that confirmed Ternat’s impression of the northern domain-master’s eldest. It also confirmed that Grevil was his father’s budling. Dordal, Ternat was certain, would have done exactly the same thing in Grevil’s place.