Warhorse

“Ffe-rho?” one grated as both turned.

“Yes,” Ferrol acknowledged. Beneath the filter mask covering half the misshapen face a corner of red and white cloth was visible… “Sso-ngu?” he tentatively identified the other.

“Yes.” The Tampy indicated his companion. “Wwis-khaa will assist.”

“Fine,” Ferrol said shortly, moving forward to take his place at the command station and keying for status readouts. It was, he realized, a revealing choice of assistants for Sso-ngu to have chosen: Wwis-khaa, according to the crew profiles, was the only Handler aboard Amity who’d had any experience with soothing space horses freshly captured in the wild. None of the previous calvings had required any such soft-touch Handling… but then, none of them had had Demothi poking around with an amplifier helmet, either. To the best of Ferrol’s knowledge none of the Tampies had raised any objections to Demothi’s experiment; but it was clear that they weren’t interested in taking any chances with him, either.

“Ready to go, Commander,” Ke

Ferrol shifted his attention back to his own readouts and nodded. “Looks good,” he agreed. “Let’s do it.”

Deftly, Ke

They reached the space horse’s curved side to find a stockfloor of activity already in progress. Floodlights from three outlying lifeboats illuminated the area where a hundred-meter-long cylinder was already pushing outward from the dark gray skin.

Surrounding it, spacesuited Tampies were snipping carefully through the tightfitting webbing, giving the bulge room to expand. Fifty meters away, two more lifeboats stood by, the shimmer of slack webbing between them. It was to this group that Ke

As yet there was hardly enough data to define a “textbook” space horse calving; but if one was ever written, Ferrol decided, Man o’ War’s would probably be close to the mark. Two and a half hours after the bulge first appeared the space horse’s skin abruptly split, opening like a long toothless zipper along the calfs entire hundred-meter length. Seconds later the new space horse drifted free, a shiver rippling through its lighter-colored skin the only sign of life. In theory even such a young space horse had enough telekinetic strength to play havoc with the web boats, but in practice it had never happened and this time was no exception. The calf floated docilely as the boats completed their capture; swinging in right behind them, Ke

Seated to Ferrol’s left and a row behind him, Sso-ngu stiffened and then relaxed as the rows of tiny indicator lights on the amplifier helmet flicked to green. “That’s it, Amity,” Ferrol said into the mike. “Contact’s made. Looks solid.”

“Very good, Commander,” Roman’s voice came back. “Better pull it back a little, as soon as you can. Hhom-jee? Any sign of trouble with Man o’ War?”

“Manawa

Ferrol snorted under his breath. “Glad to hear it,” he said dryly. Their third calving run had resulted in what Hhom-jee had described as “mild stress,” and it had taken him and Sso-ngu half an hour to calm the space horse down. He had no desire to be out in a flimsy lander the next time something like that happened. “So. I guess we’re ready to try this.”

“I guess we are,” Roman agreed, with only a slight hesitation. “We’ll move a few kilometers away from you first, give you plenty of room. Just in case there’s a problem.”

Ferrol stole a glance at Demothi. There were lines of tension showing through the placid serenity in his face. “Good idea,” he agreed. “By the way, have you picked a name for the calf yet?”

“I thought we’d just go with ‘Quentin,’ since this is our fifth calving.”

“Not particularly inventive.”

“Our files fail to list the original Man o’ War’s progeny,” Roman said, just a bit tartly.

Ferrol grimaced. In the excitement of the calving, he’d almost forgotten that he and Roman were on opposite sides of the war here; that the captain would almost certainly see a success by Demothi as a dangerous destabilization of the fragile truce Amity’s breeding program had provided to human/Tampy relations. “Quentin it is, sir,” he said.

For a few minutes there was silence, and Ferrol felt occasional tugs as the calf began its first, tentative movements. Most of that motion was away from the lander, and Ferrol watched as Ke

“Right.” Ke

“We’re in position, Commander,” Roman’s voice confirmed. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“Yes, sir.” Ferrol turned to Demothi, sitting quietly there between Sso-ngu and Wwis-khaa, and braced himself. “Go ahead.”

Sso-ngu removed the amplifier helmet and offered it to Demothi; with only the slightest hesitation, the other took it and placed it carefully over his head. Ferrol held his breath… and his brain had just enough time to register the indicators’

abrupt switch to red—

And he was slammed hard into his seat as Quentin bolted.

“Sso-ngu!” he snapped, his body automatically gauging the acceleration at about a gee. The calf’s full strength, probably—whatever Demothi had done, he’d done a damn good job of it. An instant later Quentin changed to a sideways motion, hurling Ferrol against his harness. The roar of maneuvering jets filled the lander; clamping his jaw tightly to protect his teeth, Ferrol watched as the two Tampies and Demothi fought to retrieve the helmet as it swayed erratically around them on its supporting cables. Quentin changed direction four more times before Wwiskhaa finally got a firm grip on the helmet and jammed it over his head. The lights changed, and the wild run began to ease up.

“Ke

“Ferrol—the Amity,” Ke

“It’s what?” Ferrol stabbed at his display controls. A complete steradian sweep showed nothing the size of a spaceship out there. “It can’t be gone,” he said, immediately cursing himself for making such an asinine statement. Relax, he ordered himself harshly. They wouldn’t just Jump off and leave us. There’s a good and proper explanation here. Somewhere. “Are we still in the 11612 system?”

“Quentin’s supposed to be too young to Jump,” Ke

“I know what he’s supposed to be—”

“And anyway, the spectrum matches,” Ke

Ferrol pursed his lips. The shock was fading, and he could feel his brain starting to work again. “Did you hear anything on the radio or laser?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “I was ru

Roman’s message was indeed brief. “Lander—Ferrol—Man o’ War’s spooking.

Hhom-jee can’t hold it—we’ll be back—” The voice and hum of Amity’s carrier cut off simultaneously.