Conquerors' Pride

"I ask questions," Thrr-gilag said. "What more about Copperhead?"

"I don't know anything more than that," Pheylan said, fighting back a fresh surge of frustration with this situation he was in. Either the war had started in earnest, or it hadn't, and either way emotion wasn't going to do him any good.

"Where Copperhead located?" Thrr-gilag asked.

"I don't know that, either," Pheylan said, squinting at the bushes ahead. Were those long thorns nestled in among the blue-green leaves? "Peacekeeper Command's undoubtedly been shifting men and ships around like crazy since you attacked the Jutland."

They had reached the bushes now, and Pheylan discovered that he'd been right: their branches were indeed covered with thorns. Big ones, too. "Interesting plant," he commented, stepping toward it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Nzz-oonaz half lift the black trigger gadget warningly. "We've got thorn bushes back on some of our worlds, too," he added, crouching down for a closer look. "You have any on your world?"

"Thorns common plant defense," Thrr-gilag said.

"Ah," Pheylan said, shifting his weight and easing his left hand carefully into the limited space between the thorns. His attention, though, was not on his hand, but on his upper left arm. Specifically, on the small glassy disk embedded in the material of his obedience suit halfway between elbow and shoulder. He'd been pla

"We have both kinds," Thrr-gilag said, and Pheylan could imagine he could hear a note of uneasiness in the alien voice. "We do not know about this plant."

"It's okay, I'm being careful," Pheylan assured him. He was in position now: his hand with a more or less clear path back out of the bush, an inward-pointing thorn pressing a millimeter or so into the material of his suit just beneath the edge of the glass disk. "I used to play around this sort of bush when I was a—ouch!"

He yanked his hand out of the bush, feeling a slight jab in his upper arm as the thorn there poked briefly into the material before being torn from its stem. Rocking back on his heels, he gripped his hand, cursing under his breath.

"What?" Thrr-gilag demanded, stepping closer.

"Got me a little," Pheylan growled, making a show of rubbing his hand as he surreptitiously glanced at his upper arm. It had worked: the thorn had pried the glass disk a millimeter or so out of its niche in the suit material. Enough, maybe, for him to get his fingernails under the edge.

"Where hurt?" Thrr-gilag asked.

"Here," Pheylan said, uncovering the hand and peering closely at it. "Right there," he added, pointing to the white indentation he'd just made with his fingernail as he brought his hand away. "Looks like it didn't break the skin. Sure hurt, though."

Thrr-gilag jabbered something in the Zhirrzh language, and Svv-selic stepped forward. "Svv-selic take sample of thorn," Thrr-gilag said. "Examine for poison."

"Thank you," Pheylan said. So they didn't know anything about the plant. That implied that this was probably some kind of forward base, without a full-fledged colony attached to it. A potentially useful bit of information.

"Feel ill?" Thrr-gilag persisted.

"No, I'm fine," Pheylan said, focusing his attention for a moment on the pinprick he'd taken in his upper arm and belatedly recognizing the risk he had in fact taken here. If these thorns were poisoned, he could be in trouble. "Seems a little odd that the plant has thorns at all," he added, to change the subject. "Usually that sort of thing is a defense against plant-eating animals. But there don't seem to be animals of any sort around here."

"There many animals," Thrr-gilag said. "They kept away by outer fence."

"Kept away?" Pheylan asked pointedly. "Or attacked and killed?"

All six pupils in Thrr-gilag's eyes seemed to contract a little. "Zhirrzh not attack first, Cavv'ana," he said.

But to Pheylan's ears the response lacked any real conviction. "Of course," he said, putting as much sarcasm into his voice as he could manage. "I forgot. Your Elders told you that. And of course, your Elders wouldn't lie."

"You not speak evil against Elders," Svv-selic snapped. "You warned before: not speak evil."

"Perhaps the Elders are wrong," Pheylan countered. "Or were themselves lied to."

"Not possible," Svv-selic insisted. "All Elders present."

Pheylan cocked an eyebrow. "All the Elders were there?"

"Not all Elders of Zhirrzh," Thrr-gilag said. "Elders of Kee'rr and Too'rr and Flii'rr clans there."

"Then they were lied to," Pheylan said. "I was there, remember—"

"Elders not lied to," Svv-selic insisted. "Elders there."

"But the commanders of the fleet—"

"Elders there."

Pheylan sighed, recognizing a dead end when he was on one. Clearly, clan loyalty was going to prevent the Zhirrzh from asking awkward questions about the Jutland battle, even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. Probably why these particular three had been given the job of interrogators in the first place.

But even the most monolithic lie could be broken if you hit it hard enough and often enough. And in Thrr-gilag the cracks were already begi

It was by no means easy to pry the tiny disk out of the arm of his obedience suit; and doing so while in the process of removing the suit—and under a half-dozen Zhirrzh gazes, yet—was even trickier. But Pheylan managed it. Possibly he was starting to get good at this skulduggery stuff; more likely, the fact that the Zhirrzh had no fingernails had left a blind spot where this sort of thing was concerned.

He set the shower for hotter than usual and waited until he had a thick coating of condensation on the walls before examining his prize. The disk's upper surface, as he'd already noted, was composed of a dark glassy substance. The underside was lighter-colored, with what looked like a tiny patch of circuitry in the center, and a short pair of trailing wires that ended where he had torn them out of the suit.

No. He squinted closely at the disk as he rubbed soap across his forehead. No, they weren't wires, but another glassy substance. Optical fibers, then, unless the Zhirrzh had developed some sort of exotic field-effect or tu

Which meant that he'd been right about the trigger gadget that Nzz-oonaz carried. Glassy sensors—and, moreover, glassy sensors scattered around different parts of the obedience suit—meant that the Zhirrzh were using a directional signal to trigger the thing. Almost certainly an infrared or ultraviolet pulse, though it was possible they could have drifted into the X-ray bands of the spectrum. Not that it mattered.

He frowned, palming the disk again as he scrubbed soap into his hair. No, he was wrong. The type of signal they were using was not simply of academic interest. If he could block enough of the sensors on his suit without the Zhirrzh noticing, he might have the opening he'd been searching for; but the type of light involved would be an important consideration in figuring out what to block the sensors with. Infrared or ultraviolet could be handled with mud or leaves. For X rays nothing short of lead foil would do him much good.

An examination of the disk might give him some clues; but that examination would have to wait. This shower had already lasted as long as usual, and he didn't want to arouse suspicions by breaking routine. Carefully, using steady pressure, he worked the disk into the slab of soap built into the shower wall. It wasn't a perfect hiding place, but it had the advantage of that extra shower wall's worth of thickness with which to block his captors' sensors. With luck maybe this time he'd get away with it.