Conquerors' Heritage

Final messages. Or final orders. "Understood," Thrr-mezaz said. "Keep a close watch; the Human-Conquerors may have a second wave on its way."

"I don't think so," Kl

Thrr-mezaz turned to find an Elder hovering beside Kl

"They've moved back to this point, Commander," the Elder said, indicating a spot. He vanished, reappeared—"They're here now. Moving back the way they came."

And moving pretty quickly, if the Elder was marking their position correctly. "Check and see if they're carrying anything they didn't have before," he instructed the Elder. "Or whether they seem to have left anything behind."

"I obey," the Elder said, vanishing. A handful of beats later he was back. "No to both questions," he said. "At least nothing larger than hand-sized. Do you want us to try to make a closer examination?"

"No need," Thrr-mezaz said. The Elders wouldn't have had a detailed list of what the Human-Conquerors had carried in, anyway. "Looks like they've aborted their mission. Whatever it was."

"There's still plenty of time to hit them before they get to the mountains," Kl

Gently, Thrr-mezaz rubbed his tongue against the inside of his mouth. Tactically, of course, the Second Commander's suggestion was certainly the thing to do. Every enemy warrior destroyed was one less warrior to threaten their beachhead. Plus the intangible but inevitable damage it would inflict on Human-Conqueror morale.

And if they hit the ground team now, before they got another half thoustride away, the Zhirrzh warriors would have the advantage of instant targeting and tactical information from the Elders anchored at the north pyramid. It would be a chance to prove to the skeptics, from Supreme Ship Commander Dkll-kumvit all the way up to Warrior Command, that using Elders as sentries this way was a sound and practical military tactic. A way finally to silence the rumblings of criticism and contempt that had been circling his head ever since the theft of Prr't-zevisti's fsss cutting.

Yes, he could easily destroy them. But if he did, they might never try this again. Whatever it was they were trying...

"No," he told Kl

The low buzz of conversation around them vanished into silence. "Excuse me?" Kl

"We're letting them go," Thrr-mezaz repeated, turning away from the monitor. "We'll have the Elders watch them, of course, and I'll want both the ground warriors and the Stingbirds standing ready. But as long as they continue to head away from the village and the pyramids, we don't attack."

Kl

"They were up to something out there, Second," Thrr-mezaz said. "Something important. I want to make sure they feel secure enough to try it again."

"Understood," Kl

The warriors turned back to their monitors. Kl

"So do I," Thrr-mezaz agreed. "History will have to pass the final judgment."

"That won't stop a thousand clan Speakers from writing their own versions of it."

"They'll be doing that whatever decisions I make at this point," Thrr-mezaz said. "The Thrr family is in political trouble, and there are going to be a lot of Zhirrzh scrambling to capitalize on that. That's the nature of politics."

"I suppose so," Kl

"I think they do," Thrr-mezaz said, sliding his tongue thoughtfully across the roof of his mouth. "There's been something different about Warrior Command these past few fullarcs. They've become more serious than I've ever heard them before."

"You know, I've been thinking the same thing," Kl

Thrr-mezaz nodded. The messages and orders had suddenly become terse and grim, and Warrior Command had begun scrambling together new expeditionary forces to throw at the new enemy.

And so there they sat, underequipped, overvulnerable, trying to hold on to a barely tenable beachhead on a clearly minor Human-Conqueror world, while similarly underequipped and overvulnerable expeditionary forces did the same on other Human-Conqueror worlds.

Why?

"They know something, Kl

"Could be." Kl

"Maybe," Thrr-mezaz said. "If the data in that Human-Conqueror recorder can be believed, anyway. Personally, I'm not convinced the thing wasn't a deliberate deception. Planting a recorder loaded with disinformation would be just the sort of thing a devious conqueror race might do. Maybe this mission to the Mrachanis isn't so premature after all."

"The Mrach—? Oh, right. Those new aliens. That mission's confirmed to fly, then?"

"That's what I hear," Thrr-mezaz said. "I want you to keep close track of the Stingbirds heading out to the warcraft wreckage. It's still possible the ground warriors were nothing but an attempt to distract us."

"Maybe." Kl

"I don't know," Thrr-mezaz said. "But I can't help noticing that that's the same general area they were in when they took Prr't-zevisti's cutting."

"Interesting point," Kl

"Or else they're trying to plant some non-line-of-sight weapon in position," Thrr-mezaz said. "Or trying to gain access to an underground supply or tu

Kl

"Unfortunately, circumstances seldom stay constant for long," Thrr-mezaz countered dryly.

"Point," Kl