Qasaman translation echoed among the trees: "Continue forward. Keep your hands visible and your mojo on your shoulder. I'll tell you where to leave the road."
Quiet returned to the forest. Notching up his auditory enhancers, Justin settled down beside his tree to wait.
Telek rubbed her eyes with the heels of both hands, "The problem," she told Pyre wearily, "is the same one we've had ever since the convoy first appeared: namely, we simply don't have enough data yet to pull out."
"What you mean is that you haven't proved yet that the mojos are directly controlling the Qasamans," he retorted.
Probably true, she admitted to herself. "What I mean is that the gleaner-team hasn't finished its agenda."
"It may not get the chance," Pyre growled. "I don't think they're bluffing when they say this is our last chance to pull out before they turn up the fire. And if they don't mind how much it costs them we really aren't going to be able to hold them very long."
And that short reprieve would cost them ten good Cobras-and probably give the
Qasamans reasonably undamaged Cobra equipment to study. "The last thing I want is a full battle with you on the losing end," Telek told him. "But I don't see the hook yet, and past experience tells me there's one somewhere in this offer."
"Maybe there isn't. Maybe Moff just wants to avoid bloodshed."
Telek's lip twitched at the name. Moff. Escort for off-world visitors, sharp-eyed observer who'd pulled the whole thing down on them last time, and now one of the leaders of this thrown-together task force. A man of many talents... and a man of luck, too, to have survived Justin's Purma rampage. She wondered how Justin was feeling about Moff's presence out there, chased the thought irritably from her mind. Moff. What did she know about him that might give her a clue as to what he was up to with this? Did he want to chase the invaders away from the village into an ambush where the Qasamans wouldn't be risking civilian lives? Was there something in the village they didn't want found? Could it really be as simple as an attempt to drag the two cultures back from an otherwise almost inevitable war?
But the gleaner-team needed more time.
"Governor?"
"Still here, Almo," she sighed. "All right, let's try an experiment. Tell them we'll pull out as soon as we've shown a representative that we haven't hurt or killed anyone in the village."
"Will that give outrider-three enough time to bring their bololin herd by the village?"
Telek checked her projections. "It might, if we take things slow enough. But we probably wouldn't have time after the hunt-stress test to remove the neck sensors the gleaner-team's got on the subjects."
"The Council was pretty firm on the point of not leaving any electronics behind," Pyre reminded her.
"I know, I know. Well, if we have to scrap that test, we scrap it, that's all.
Look, just see if they'll buy the idea of a tour. I'll talk to Michael and
McKinley while you do that, see if they have any ideas."
"All right." Pyre hesitated. "If it'll really help... we are prepared to die out here."
Telek blinked away sudden moisture. "I appreciate that," she managed. "But you also qualify as electronics I'd rather not leave behind. Talk to the Qasamans and call me back."
"Yes, I do have an idea," Winward told Telek with grim satisfaction. "I've been thinking about it ever since the psych people first started complaining that we needed to do long-term studies."
"And?"
"And if you can't do the studies themselves, the next best thing is to get the results," he said. "And I think I know just where to find them."
"We want it to be someone in authority, whose word the Qasaman leadership trusts," Pyre warned the messenger, watching his words carefully. "We want to prove our people have acted humanely."
"You invade our world and terrorize an entire village and then expect to earn a reputation as gentlemen?" the Qasaman spat, "You're in no position to make demands of us; but as it happens Moff is willing to accompany your escort to the village. As a gesture of good faith only, of course."
"Of course," Pyre nodded. Winward had called it correctly... and whatever Moff's own reasons for accepting the offer, he would soon be in their hands.
And at that point it would be up to McKinley and Winward. Pyre hoped they could pull it off.
"Two... one... mark." Dan Rostin flipped the aircar's huge electromagnet off as, in perfect synch, Parker swung the little craft into the air. Just in time: the flankers of the bololin herd thundering by grazed the aircar's underside with their dorsal quills. Parker grabbed some more altitude and blew a drop of sweat from the tip of his nose. "Outrider-three to Telek," he called toward the long-range mike. "Last course change complete. Can you confirm the direction is right?"
"Telek here," the governor's voice came back promptly. "Just a second-we're getting a reading from the Dewdrop." There was a short pause. "Yes; confirmed.
Have they picked up speed for some reason?"
"They sure have," Parker told her. "I think all these direction changes and field strength fluctuations are starting to get to them. If they keep it up they'll pass the village in about fifty minutes."
"Dewdrop gives us essentially the same number. All right, I'll let gleaner-team know. I hope it doesn't ruin their schedule."
"So do I," Parker snorted. "There's no way we're going to slow them down, that's for sure."
Telek sighed. "Yeah. Well... get back here, preferably without drawing attention to yourselves. Don't worry about making good speed; it doesn't look like we'll be moving from here for quite some time."
Moff drove his car through the open village gate and then said his first words since leaving the Cobras' blockade: "Where now?"
"The mayoral building," Justin told him. "It's ahead down the street and to the left."
The other nodded, and Justin sent a sidelong look at the Qasaman's face. Moff hadn't seemed surprised to have Justin assigned as his escort; but then, little ever seemed to surprise him. Even now, entering an enemy-held village, his face was impassive, only his darting eyes giving any indication of concern or worry.
"Where are all the villagers?"
Justin glanced around. Except for a Cobra at each end of the block they were approaching, the streets were indeed deserted. He put the question via communicator to Winward. "They're all outside in the north and central parts of town," he relayed the answer.
"I'd like to see them before I speak to your leaders."
Justin shrugged, striving for unconcern. They were on a tight schedule, but he couldn't tell Moff that. "Okay with me," he said. "Just don't take too long. I want the talks to get underway before anyone starts shooting out there again."
"Our people won't start more fighting if yours don't."
Justin shrugged again and settled back to endure the detour. He was supposed to try and get an inkling of what Moff was up to, but aside from spotting a likely recording device built into the Qasaman's mojo perch he hadn't seen any sort of equipment that could give him any hints. The thought of the bacteriological attack on Cerenkov and Rynstadt on the last trip made his skin creep, despite the assurances by Telek and Winward that Moff was unlikely to risk his own life with such stuff when safer delivery methods existed. The Aventinians' logic, he kept remembering, was required by no law of nature to be the same as the
Qasamans'.
Moff drove them around a couple of corners-and there, indeed, were the villagers.
It looked like a giant in-town picnic, to Justin's eyes, with most of the adults sitting around in small groups while children played games around and among them. At the edges of the square Cobras stood on guard.
"The remainder are through the archway there?" Moff asked, pointing.
"I think so, yes."
Without asking permission the Qasaman turned a corner and headed that way. The rest of the villagers were in a smaller open area a couple of blocks further north, and Moff stopped as they came within sight of the crowd. For a moment he looked them over, as if searching for mistreatment, and Justin noticed his shoulders turning slowly as he gave the recorder in his epaulet a sweep of the area. Allowing the troops back at the blockade to see the villagers were all right, if the recorder was transmitting a live picture-