Conquerors' Pride

The alien hit the dirt like a dropped sack of cement, throwing a cloud of red dust into the air. The other Zhirrzh gasped something, swinging his flashbulb gun up again as he tried to brake to an emergency stop.

Neither effort proved successful. Pheylan's second kick caught him the same place as his partner, dropping him neatly to the ground beside him.

"That wasn't very smart," Pheylan said, giving Thrr-gilag's neck another squeeze. "I could have killed you right then, you know."

"I know."

"Good. Now let's try it again, shall we? And get it right this time. Otherwise I may have to kill you, this tech here, and all the rest of that group over there."

"The Zhirrzh right," Thrr-gilag said. "You predators."

"You're damn right we are," Pheylan agreed. "It's up to you what happens here. What's it going to be?"

He could feel Thrr-gilag take a deep breath. "Shalirr i crr'arrea mazzasprr akrr'trr i parrsavva crri," he called. "Parr've krrti."

Ahead, the gray sticks seemed to waver. "Krrti svvarr?" one of the Zhirrzh called.

"Parr've krrti," Thrr-gilag repeated.

They kept at it for another half-dozen exchanges. Pheylan resumed walking toward the ship, his right eye closed again in case they decided to try that stunt a second time. The three Zhirrzh who guarded the white pyramid had come out of their domes now, he saw, but they didn't seem to be making any move to come join in the festivities.

And then, to Pheylan's mild surprise, the weapons pointed at him lowered to the ground. "So what's the decision?" he demanded.

"You allowed to leave," Thrr-gilag said. "They agree."

Pheylan smiled grimly. Sure they did. He'd seen far too much of the Zhirrzh to believe that one for a minute. They had something up their sleeves, all right, something that would probably involve a brief fire fight in the upper atmosphere. But that was all right. Short odds or not, once in the air he would at least have a fighting chance.

The group by the Mrach ship had moved a respectful distance back by the time Pheylan and his two unwilling shields reached the landing ramp. "You leave us here?" Thrr-gilag asked as Pheylan awkwardly backed the three of them up the ramp and into the ship.

"That depends on whether I can find something to tie you up with," Pheylan said, glancing quickly both ways down the corridor. There was no one in sight. Sidling over to the hatchway control, he jabbed it with an elbow. The panel slid down; and as it did, he let go of the Zhirrzh tech and gave him a hard shove toward it. The other stumbled, off balance, and hit the ramp. Pheylan got a glimpse of him begi

"Lie down," Pheylan ordered Thrr-gilag, pushing him toward the floor. "On your face. Stay there or I'll break your neck."

Silently, Thrr-gilag obeyed. Keeping an eye on him, Pheylan stripped off the obedience suit and used the sleeves to tie Thrr-gilag's arms behind him. "All right," he said, hauling the Zhirrzh back to his feet. "Let's go."

The cockpit was at the end of the corridor. "Sit here," Pheylan ordered, pushing Thrr-gilag down into one of the seats and using the legs of the obedience suit to tie his legs together. The rising sun was shining brightly nearly straight ahead through the canopy, its light glittering off the edges of the strangely curved Mrach control panel.

A canopy, like his glass-walled cell, that the Zhirrzh lasers would be able to shoot through. But there was nothing Pheylan could do about that except try to get out of here before they got their sharpshooters into position. Mentally crossing his fingers, keeping his head down, he climbed into the control seat and keyed the engines.

They came on with a muffled roar. Pheylan studied the instruments, trying to dredge up that unit on Mrach ships from his memory. The injection feed control... there? Tentatively, he eased it forward, and as he did so the roar beneath him changed pitch and tone into the familiar twittering drone.

So far so good. Shift to preflight: check. Activate stardrive and run internal-operations monitor: check. Confirm Icefire ducts in lift position....

There was a faint sound behind him. Pheylan looked up, started to turn around—

And jerked back against the contoured cushions. Floating over the control-board displays, less than a meter in front of his face, was a full-size image of a Zhirrzh.

Pheylan gasped, the shock of it freezing his muscles as effectively as a jolt of electric current. Pale white, insubstantial yet sculpted in exquisite detail, the image hovered half in and half out of the cockpit like something from one of the ghost stories Aric had loved to tell as a child. The mouth moved, and as if from a great distance he could hear what sounded like Zhirrzh speech—

And then, abruptly, something jabbed like a hot needle into his right shoulder.

He spun around, the paralysis broken. Thrr-gilag stood at his side, his tongue just retracting again into his mouth, the part of the obedience suit that had restrained his legs hanging in tatters around his waist.

And on Pheylan's shoulder a drop of blood had appeared. "Damn!" he snarled, spi

Or rather, trying to grab him. To his bewilderment his right arm had suddenly become inexplicably heavy. He tried again to force it upward; but even as it dropped limply to his side, he stumbled and dropped to his knees on the hard deck.

He barely felt the impact. His whole body was going numb... and in front of him Thrr-gilag's image was begi

The image faded away... and with his last thought Pheylan wondered what death would be like.

And whether the men and women of the Kinshasa whom he'd failed would be there. And would be able to forgive him.

"There's no doubt at all, Commander," Max's voice said in Aric's ear. "I've run three different samples of neutrino and gamma emissions. There's definitely a Mrach ship down there. One moment: I'm now getting tachyon emissions. Most likely a stardrive self-monitor."

"A Mrach ship," Qui

"No," Max said. "Engine emissions are still at preflight levels."

"Let me know the minute he goes up," Qui

"Oh, we're going in, all right," Clipper said. "The only question is whether we go cold or risk letting Max fire up the active sensors first."

"They must know we're coming," Dazzler put in. "That last static bomb is still burning out there."

"Knowing we might be coming is a far cry from our setting off a flare in their faces," Clipper countered. "Max, have you spotted anything down there besides that cleared area?"

"Not so far," Max said. "I'm still searching. I do have a good scrub of the cleared area now."

"Pipe it down," Qui

"How does it look?" Aric asked, staring at the half-darkened planetscape stretched out above them.

"There's not much there," Qui

Aric clenched a hand into a fist. "So are we going down?"

"Commander, the Mrach ship has shut down its engines," Max said before Qui