[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
brought Big Eyes, among others. I'll play you the audio. It's very amusing. I
can hear
Big Voice chirruping madly in the background behind everyone else."
"Big Eyes comes?" Tall Eyebrow signed, pleased. Keff looked appalled.
"No! Send them home. This is too dangerous."
"They have better defenses than we do, Sir Knight," Carialle said, patiently.
"Besides, they want to help us. I think they recognize the risk they're
taking."
"We can't let them, Cari," Keff said. Suddenly the small ship came fully into
focus. It looked very small and vulnerable. He dashed a hand through his hair
and stared desperately at the screen. 'The pirates are armed to their
masticatory appendages."
"And a moment ago you wanted me to land in their midst," Carialle said
sweetly. Keff had a sudden, heartfelt temptation to kick her pillar.
"I'm trained to take risks," he said. "The Cridi are not. Why did they come?"
"Why? Sir Keff, you spent over a month convincing the Cridi to sign on with
Central
Worlds as a member nation with full privileges. You did a good job. They've
taken the concept of alliance seriously, and they mean to back up what they
say. How can they prove they're our equals and allies unless we let them?
"But not like this!"
"Then, how?"
file:///G|/eMule/Incoming/Nye_Jody_Lynn_-_Ship_06_-...006]%20-%20Ship%20Errant
,%20The%20(EDGv1,html).html (134 of 329)15-7-2004 1:12:50
JODY LYNN NYE - [The Ship Who Sang Series - 06] The Ship Errant
" help," Tall Eyebrow put in, with a quick sign, before Keff could object.
"They, too."
I
"See?" Carialle asked. "I'm proud of them."
Keff wasn't convinced, but suddenly the rust-colored planet off Cari's
starboard side looked more menacing. It would be useful to have backup. CW
Fleet ships were months away. If they scrambled tomorrow, it would still take
weeks to close the distance. He glanced at Carialles pillar.
"Was it unanimous?" he asked.
"By no means," Carialle said. "Snap Fingers and his brood think they should
mind their own business. But look at the ones who are risking their lives, who
weren't sure that ship would even break atmosphere safely. But, there they
are."
Keff glanced up slyly through his eyelashes. "Big Voice came, too?"
"Believe it or not, he did."
Keff raised his hands in surrender. "All right. But Alien Outreach isn't going
to like this."
Page 88
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
'Then, they can lump it," Carialle said firmly. "Would they rather have the
pirates running around loose? This is the Cridi's necks on the block, too.
It's their system, and for the last fifty years, their menace. These pirates
took their freedom, and killed who knows how many Cridi astronauts. The Cridi
have a right to be here."
"You're correct, as always, Cari. Let me talk to them. I'm going to eat crow."
He sat down in his padded seat before the console. The 1028-square grid
appeared on the screen, and coalesced into a rough mosaic of the face of
Narrow Leg.
"Captain, Carialle and I welcome you back to space."
"We are successful!" the elderly Cridi squeaked, and IT echoed his tone of
triumph.
"It flies, it is sound."
"I never doubted it," Keff signed, with a grin. "I've never seen such careful
construction. I'm glad you're with us." He cleared his throat, then emitted a
short series of chirps. "X equals Y. X plus Y is greater than X. X plus Y is
greater than Y.
We are equals, and the two of us together are greater than we are alone."
Narrow Leg nodded his head. "That is evident. You honor us. Circling this
planet.
What must we know about it?"
file:///G|/eMule/Incoming/Nye_Jody_Lynn_-_Ship_06_-...006]%20-%20Ship%20Errant
,%20The%20(EDGv1,html).html (135 of 329)15-7-2004 1:12:50
JODY LYNN NYE - [The Ship Who Sang Series - 06] The Ship Errant
Carialle spoke up. "We have traced the path of the villains who attacked the
diplomatic ship. We have no fleet, no heavy armament, so all we can do is
gather information, and send for help from the Central Worlds. We plan to
infiltrate the planets surface."
Narrow Leg's cheeks hollowed, and the faces of the Cridi behind him paled to
mint green. They looked terrified, but all of them squeaked up at once.
"Tell us how we may help."
"I didn't want them down here with me," Keff said, sublingually, hunkering
himself down further into the crevasse beyond the outskirts of the building
they had designated as the spaceport. "I wanted them up there, where they
could use their Core to help protect us, and you."
"Nonsense," Carialle said. "There's a delay in response time, even from space.
I want them where they can be on the spot if you need them."
Keff didn't protest, but the sound of the plastic globes rolling along the
rocky surface of the planet sounded louder than thunder to him. Tall Eyebrow
paddled at the head of a party of scouts, heading around toward the other side
of the compound. Big Eyes kept up gamely behind him, beside Small Spot and her
father, but most of the homeworld Cridi frankly cheated and used their amulet
power to levitate their new globes. They bobbed along behind the toiling
group, sitting at their ease in the bottom of the transparent spheres.
"Dam it, TE, tell them not to do that," he growled into his helmet's audio
pickup. "I
know the extra gravity's uncomfortable, but I'd rather take a chance on
movement being spotted than extraneous power transmissions." It was bad enough
that the Cridi had to use the Core technology to keep the water in the globes
from freezing on this cold world. They risked detection of their ship with
every deviation from strict survival. "They might at least put down a physical
twitch as indigenous wildlife. If there is any. What a bleak place."
A hundred meters away, the lead globe stopped and spun in place. The water
inside sloshed upward. Tall Eyebrow made a few signs quickly and with
authority toward the other globes. Keff was reminded abruptly that the
insecure visitor to the Cridi homeworld was also the leader of the exiled
Ozran-born Cridi, who kept his population together, alive, and sane in the
most dangerous and deprived of
Page 89
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
file:///G|/eMule/Incoming/Nye_Jody_Lynn_-_Ship_06_-...006]%20-%20Ship%20Errant
,%20The%20(EDGv1,html).html (136 of 329)15-7-2004 1:12:50
JODY LYNN NYE - [The Ship Who Sang Series - 06] The Ship Errant circumstances.
He admired the way TE threw in a tactful sign or two that alluded to the
difficulty of using a travel globe, but added staccato chops for "absolute
necessity." Reluctantly, Big Voice and the others lowered the spheres to the
ground.
The lead globe rotated 180 degrees, and the party set off again more slowly,
but more loudly. Keff flattened himself down so that he could no longer see
them. He studied his target.
There appeared to be little activity, but Carialle had detected at least four
life-forms in the building. She had a hard time finding body-heat traces. The
planets surface was cold, but it was dotted with hot spots where volcanoes and
geothermal vents broke through. Structures placed over these took advantage of
the natural heat.
Most of the population had to be below ground, with only a few exits to the
open sky.
It was impossible to pick out individuals. Ammonia/oxygen flares ignited
occasionally, and as swiftly, blew out. Carialle cursed as one trace after
another that she was tracking suddenly vanished.
Gravity was approximately one and a half times Standard tiorm; bearable for
short periods. The "spaceport" was a ridge, the edge of a huge crater filled
in over eons with dust and debris that had solidified into a flat plain.
Architects had bored into, or more likely, out of the side of the hill
overlooking the plain, and built onto it. Carialle reported that heat traces
from inside the building registered at least 35 degrees C. That sounded much
nicer than the surrounding landscape, which was bare and dusty where it wasn't
covered with discarded junk from hijacked spaceships.
"What do these people eat?" Keff wondered out loud, his voice sounding hollow
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]