The Starwolves (25 page)

"You wanted to speak to us about something?" Velmeran prompted.

"Actually, I wanted to finish our conversation from last night,"
Trace began, still hesitant. "There are some things that I would ask. The
martial creed does not allow you to sit down with your enemies and talk like
friends. Can you understand that?"

"I believe so," Velmeran said.

"I admit that I have always thought of Starwolves as just machines cut
from the same mold, identical and lifeless. Interchangeable components, you
might say, for sticking behind the controls of your fighters. You have
challenged me to think of you as people, and now I want to know more."

Velmeran understood only too well the Sector Commander's purpose in coming.
It seemed that Donalt Trace was a wiser, more open-minded man than Velmeran had
first given him credit for being. He had thought that he knew his enemy well
enough, having sifted through every legend, myth and prejudice to come up with
his own idea of what Starwolves should be. Confronted with reality, he accepted
his error and sought to correct it. Velmeran, however, had no intention of
being the source of the Sector Commander's better understanding of his enemy,
especially since that knowledge would be put to defeating his own kind.

In truth, Velmeran hardly knew what to think. The Union had always
underestimated the Starwolves, much to their own detriment. Why change things
now? The Union could easily battle itself to an early death. On the other hand,
if Union High Command had a better understanding of its enemy, it might be a
little more interested in an early surrender. Velmeran quickly decided that he
had already said enough the night before.

"Do you allow nonhumans in the military?" Velmeran asked suddenly
after they had been talking casually for well over an hour.

"What?" Trace glanced up, startled. "Nonhumans? You know the
Terms of Unification. Each race is a society in itself. Members of one race
have no business in the affairs of another."

"With exceptions," Dveyella pointed out.

"With a very few exceptions," Trace corrected her.

"And yet several races are under Union rule," Velmeran observed.

"That is different. We control on the governmental level, but we do not
interfere on the cultural level. Damn it, Starwolf, face facts. We cannot allow
hostile alien elements within our own space. The Kalfethki would drive us mad
with their ritual murder and terrorism if we allowed them free travel."

"The Feldennye are hardly a threat."

"And we make sure of that," the Commander said firmly. "How
can you tell who will be a threat and who won't? Knowing you two, if I were to
come upon a civdization of your kind, alone and untroubled, I would
suspect that you would be the most peaceful, harmless souls – if you have
souls – in all space. But I also know better."

"An interesting point. Although, for the likes of Feldennye and
ourselves, it takes an enemy to make us fight," Velmeran said. "But
returning to my original question, which you did not answer. In this sector you
have the Kalfethki and two Feldennye worlds. I do not see you as one not to
take advantage of a resource, and each does have something to offer."

"True enough, and I do admit it. We have been using Feldennye in
clerical and highly skilled technical areas for some time now. We have no
choice. Our own people can no longer do what they can. The Kalfethki are useful
in some tasks, but they are also a tremendous security problem. I think
that our new Shepherd sentries are much better."

"I did not find them all that dangerous," Dveyella commented.

"You did not?" Trace asked, eyeing her skeptically. "Do you
think that we would do better with Kalfethki guards?"

"No, your sentries are superior to Kalfethki warriors – which, I
am afraid, is not saying much. Your machines are loyal and more difficult to
kill."

Trace laughed in private amusement. "I would suspect you of
smoke-screening me, if I didn't know what you did to my sentries at Bineck.
One, they say, was picked up and tossed down a stairwell."

Now Dveyella laughed, pointing to her contrite mate. "Ask him about that!"

Trace stared at him in amazement. "You picked that thing up yourself?
My dear Starwolf, those mechanical beasts weigh over two tons!"

Velmeran shrugged. "It was not all that heavy. I thought that you had a
better idea of just how strong we are."

"So I've heard." He paused for a moment, frowning at his own
thoughts. "Does it never bother you, knowing that your race was made for a
purpose?"

Velmeran frowned as he considered that. "Yes, we do think about it
often enough. We know that we were made for a specific purpose, and that we
would not exist at all except for that purpose. But I prefer to think that we
were designed not for the specific purpose of flying starfighters, but for the
more general function of space travel. Consider the independent traders, who
have lived aboard their ships for tens of thousands of years now. They have
become as much like us as nature can manage: small, strong and quick."

"And yet it seems to me that you are still as tied to your assigned
task as if you had been a living machine," Trace observed. "Having
been born a Starwolf aboard a Starwolf ship, you had little choice in the
matter."

"Actually, very few of us are pilots."

"True, but you are a warrior and a leader. I can see that clearly
enough just talking with you."

"Then, in a sense, our destinies are largely guided by our abilities
and opportunities," Velmeran said. "My choices were no greater or
less than your own. You are of the Lake clan, and you are the warrior of your
generation. And so you were destined to be what you have become, or were shaped
to be. Where then is your freedom?"

"I could have refused," Trace insisted.

"Could you? Have you ever thought about what your other choices might
have been?"

"I cannot be anything but what I am," Commander Trace said, perhaps
to avoid a more direct answer.

"That is also the truth for me," Velmeran said, and rose from his
chair. "I am afraid that we must go now, since we both have packs waiting
that must be back to the ship by noon port time."

Trace rose as well to stand towering above the two Kelvessan. "Then
this must be our final farewell as friends, for if we ever meet again it will
be as enemies. You are at least my equal. Time will tell which of us is the
better."

"And who will that be?" Velmeran asked.

"The one who makes the fewest mistakes, of course."

"Well, what do you make of it all now?" Dveyella asked as they
made their way quickly to the tram port.

"I think that Councilor Lake was telling us the truth after all,"
Velmeran replied absently. "Donalt Trace has something very much on his
mind, something far beyond the petty mischief that Sector Commanders have
always made for us. He is making plans for that last big battle.
Götterdämmerung."

"What?" Dveyella asked.

"Ragnarok," he added, to her complete mystification.

He seemed to have resorted to a language that was neither human nor alien.

Dveyella would have asked for further explanation, but they were within
sight of the tram platform and their packs were waiting. They had been in port
less than a day, but to Velmeran it seemed like several. He wanted to collect
his students and retreat to the ship before anything else could happen.

The first thing he saw was that Tregloran had ignored the warning about
bringing home small, furry animals. Then he saw that this particular animal was
neither alive nor real.

"Treg, what is that... that beast?" he demanded.

"Ah, Captain!" Tregloran replied jovially. "This is my
wolf."

"Your what?"

"My wolf," the younger pilot replied. "An authentic replica
of a real Terran red wolf, about one-tenth life-size and handmade by the nicest
lady you could ever hope to meet... for a human."

"That is a fox, authentic in detail and about life-size," Dveyella
said.

Tregloran returned an exaggerated look of indignation. "I have her
word!"

"Let me tell you a story," Dveyella said, indicating for them to
proceed up the ramp to the tram. "I read this many years ago, although I
do not recall who wrote it. I am inclined to say Aesop, although I know that it
was one of the Roman poets.

"It seemed that there was once a nursemaid who was having trouble with
an unruly child. Finally she threatened to feed him to the wolves. A credulous
wolf, passing by at that moment, overheard and sat by the door all night,
waiting for a free meal that never came."

Tregloran glanced back. "Meaning?"

"Meaning that if you are a gullible wolf, do not believe everything a
human tells you. Especially if it sounds like a bargain."

The Starwolves filed into a tram waiting at the bottom of the inclined
shaft, the other passengers allowing them a car to themselves. The students'
first port leave was drawing to an end.

"What does this do to the Councilor's theory of the decline of human
intelligence?" Dveyella asked as the tram began its rapid ascent.

"Humans have always had a gift for deviousness and an ability to he
shamelessly," Velmeran replied. "And we have always been
uncomplicated souls, our gullibility at odds with our own intelligence. It
seems that human duplicity is still as great as Kelvessan simplicity."

Tregloran, in the seat ahead, glanced back over his shoulder. "If it
gives you two any peace of mind, I should tell you that I was not fooled for an
instant. I know a fox when I see one."

"Then why did you buy it?" Velmeran asked.

Tregloran shrugged. "Because I like it."

Mayelna glanced up as a pair of freight tenders emerged from the bottom of
the monitor screen. Valthyrra Methryn had more than her share of audacity,
setting herself in orbit just ahead of the station and then flying backward to
face it, the cannons of her main batteries open and extended. Valthyrra seemed
to court trouble, and yet her record was surprisingly clear of such undesirable
incidents. She knew exactly how to play the game, and Mayelna knew better than
to interfere.

"That is the last of it," Valthyrra reported as she swung her boom
around to the recessed area of the upper bridge. "I am securing the
holding bays."

Mayelna nodded, not looking up from the readout on her main console monitor.

"The last of the packs are in," Valthyrra continued. "We have
fourteen crewmembers planetside due to come up on the last two transports
within the quarter hour."

Mayelna nodded again.

"Velmeran and Dveyella are on their way up to the bridge."

Now that was news! Mayelna hit the hold button on her monitor and indicated
for Valthyrra to bring her camera pod in a little closer. "Do they seem to
have reached an understanding?"

Valthyrra chuckled mischievously. "That is an interesting way of
putting it! Dveyella has moved her belongings into the cabin that Keth vacated
a few days ago – the one adjacent to his own."

Mayelna only stared with open amazement. "Do you mean... ?

"Their understanding appears to be a personal one," the ship
explained. "As, I believe, I did warn you it would be. Sheesh! If I had
had my wits about me, I would have planted a bug on that boy. Then we would
have heard some very interesting conversations indeed."

The result of that came as a surprise to them both.

"Son of a bitch!" Consherra, seated at her station on the middle
bridge, declared. She gave her console a four-fisted thump that threatened to
demolish it. "Son of a bitch!"

Then, to the speechless astonishment of the entire bridge crew, she leaped
from her seat and left the bridge in a cold rage.

"I must say that I do not care much for her choice of terms,"
Mayelna remarked in the stunned sdence that followed. "Makes it sound like
I had something to do with it, and I do not like this any better than she
does."

Valthyrra's pod turned to face her so sharply that the boom rattied.
"What are you complaining about? You are only losing a son. I am losing
the best would-be Commander this ship has ever had. When I think of how hard I
worked to get that... girl on board. And if you had named him
Commander-designate when I asked... "

"I wish I had! Great Spirit of Space, I wish I had!" Mayelna
returned, then shook her head and sighed. "Where did I go wrong?"

"Twenty-six years ago, when you thought you were too old to get
pregnant," Valthyrra offered. "Quiet, now. Here they come."

"Act natural," Mayelna warned as she bent over her monitor.
Valthyrra aimed her pod upward as if she were giving the ceiling a cursory
inspection, and a whistling sound came from her speakers. Mayelna silenced her
with a sharp rap on the underside of her camera pod.

"I want you to meet my mother," they heard Velmeran say teasingly
from the corridor outside the right wing of the bridge, speaking louder than he
was aware.

"I have met your mother," Dveyella teased in return, "She is
a real bitch."

Valthyrra turned her camera pod to the frowning Commander. "That
would seem to make it unanimous."

Velmeran and Dveyella marched into the bridge, well pleased with themselves
and each other and totally oblivious to everything that had occurred prior to
their arrival. Mayelna and Valthyrra both returned to their roles of complete
innocence, the ship's cameras glancing about the bridge at everything except
the approaching couple. But Valthyrra's impatience quickly got the better of
her; she focused on the two Starwolves as if they had materialized out of the
very air.

"Ah, Meran!" she exclaimed. "Pack Leader Dveyella. Did you
have a good time?"

"Excellent!" Dveyella agreed happily. Mayelna made a rude noise.

"There is something that I would like to know," Velmeran said
quickly. "Have you kept any statistics on the genetic deterioration of the
human race?"