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"They must have landed down by our ship," Galey shouted into his ear. Duncan understood his meaning: regul all over their ship, that they had not secured because there was no living enemy against whom they reasonably ought to have secured it. He cursed himself for that overconfidence.
They two were armed. The regul were insane if they hoped to outmatch human reflexes in a direct confrontation; but the fact was that regul could expend younglings such as these with little regret.
And the reverence bai Hulagh had sent them Hulagh, whose fear of the mri was obsessive and sufficient for murder.
Duncan touched Galey's arm, used the system of handsig-nals used in emergencies in space. Careful. Hostiles.
Friendlies, Galey signed back, hopeful contradiction. There was, to be sure, a treaty in effect, the utmost in courteous cooperation all over Kesrith base. Galey was confpsed. Humans did not like the regul, but hostiles was not a term used any longer.
Trouble, Duncan answered. Possible. Watch.
Shoot? Galey queried.
Possible, he replied.
The landsled lumbered on at a fair clip, enough that keeping their place on the flatbed was not an easy matter. But what would have been a long and man-killing walk in Kesrith's atmosphere and likely an overnight camp became a comparatively short and comfortable ride. Duncan tried inwardly to reason away his anxieties, trying to think it possible that in the intricacies of regul motives, these regul were trying to protect them, fearing Stavros' displeasure if they were lost.
He could not convince himself. They were alone with the regul, far from help.
They rounded the bend, and saw indeed that there was a regul ship on the ground near their own. They were headed directly for jt. Duncan tugged at the straps in Galey's hands, took the equipment to himself, all of it, then with a nod to Galey rolled off and landed afoot on the sand, in a maneuver the heavy regul could not have performed.
They had covered a considerable distance toward the safety of their own ship before the regul driver .reacted, bringing the sled back about to block their path; and other younglings began to come down the ramp out of the regul ship.
"Are you all right? You fell?" asked the regul driver.
"No," said Duncan. "No problem. We are going back to base now. Thank you.”
It did not work. The other younglings walked heavily about them, surrounding them, smiling with gaping friendliness and at the same time blocking their way.
"Ah," said Suth Horag-gi, dismounting from the sled. "You take pictures. Mri treasures?”
"Property of Stavros," Duncan said in a clipped tone, and with the dispatch he had learned was humanity's advantage over the slow-moving regul, he shouldered a youngling, broke the circle, and walked rapidly for the ramp of their own ship, disregarding a youngling that tried to head them off.
"Good fortune," said that one with the proper youngling obsequiousness. "Good fortune you are back safe, kose Sten Duncan.”
"Yes, thank you for your concern. My regards to the reverence bai Hulagh.”
He spoke in the regul tongue, as the regul had spoken in the human. He shouldered the heavy, awkward youngling with brutal force that to a regul was hardly painful. The push flung it slightly off balance, and he passed it. Galey overtook him on the ramp, almost ru
"Out," Duncan ordered. "Please return to your own ship. We are about to go now.”
It looked doubtful, and finally, easing past them, performed the suck of air considered polite among regul, smiled that gaping smile and waddled with stately lack of haste down the ramp.
Duncan set the gear down on the flooring and hit the switch to lift the ramp the moment the youngling was clear, and Galey shut the door and spun the wheel to seal it.
Duncan found himself shaking. He thought that Galey was too.
"What did they want?" Galey asked, his voice a note too high.
"Check out the ship before we lift," Duncan said. "Check out everything that could be sabotaged." And Galev stripped off the breathing mask and the visor and swore softly, staring at him, then flung them aside and set to work, began examining the panels and their i
There was nothing, in the most careful examination, wrong. "Wish we could find something," Galey said, and Duncan agreed to that, fervently. The regul still waited outside.
Galey started the engines and slowly, testing out controls, turned the aircraft and hovered a few feet off the ground, ru
Senior officer, Duncan should have rebuked that. He did not. He settled into the cushion while the aircraft lifted, his jaw clenched, his hand gripping the cushion with such force that when he realized it, long after they were at altitude enough that they had options if something went wrong, his fingers were numb and there were deep impressions in the cushion.
"Game of nerves," he said to Oaley. "Game of nerves or whatever they were going to do, they didn't have time.”
Galey looked at him. There were the patches of half a dozen worlds on Galey's sleeve, young as he was. But Galey was scared, and it was a tale that would make the rounds of the regular military of Saber, this encounter with regul.
"This is Stavros' business," Duncan told him, for Galey's sake, not for the regul, not even for Stavros. "The less noise made, the better. Take my example.”
His reputation was, he knew, widespread among the regulars: the SurTac who had lost his head, who had gone hysterical and accused a high-ranking ally of murder. Doubtless it would stay on his record forever, barring Stavros' intervention, barring a promotion on Kesrith so high that the record could no longer harm .him and that was at present unlikely.
Galey seemed to understand him, and to be embarrassed by it. "Yes, sir," he said quietly. "Yes, sir.”
The lights of Kesrith base came finally into view. They circled the area for the landing nearest Flower, and settled, signalling security with the emergency code. Duncan unstrapped and gathered the photographic equipment from its cushioned ride in the floor locker. Galey opened the hatch and lowered the ramp, and Duncan walked down into the escort of armed human security with a relief so great his knees were weak.
Across the field he saw another aircraft come in, close to the Nom side of the airfield, where the regul might be closest to their own authority.
A security agent tried to take the equipment from Duncan's hand. "No," he said sharply, and for once security deferred.
He lost Galey somewhere, missed him in the press and was sorry he had not given some courtesy to the regular who had done so competently; but Flower's ramp was ahead, the open hatch aglow with lights in the surrounding night. He walked among the security men, into the ship, down the corridors, and to the science section.
Boaz waited, white-smocked, anxious. He did not deliver the gear to her directly, for it was heavy, but laid it on a counter. There was nothing for him to do with it thereafter. He had completed his task for the human powers of Kesrith, and sold what the mri counted most valuable in all the world. The knowledge of it, like that of the ovoid that rested here behind voice-locked doors, was in human hands and not in those of regul, and that was, within the circumstances, the best that he could do.