"Yana! S'great to see you again!" Disengage; embrace another-quick, quick, quick.
"Lara!"
"Hanna!"
"Inge!"
Lara even had the presence of mind to exclaim "Princess Ruth!" when she returned the embrace. Granted, the woman's grin tended to detract from the solemnity of the occasion.
Still, it was enough. By the time Berry resumed her seat, if nothing else, she'd muddled up the slaves' automatic reactions to the point where immediate mayhem was ruled out. And, thereafter, she was relieved to see that Kathryn had the good sense to continue using Berry as her combination sounding board and social relaxant.
Did it more than ever, in fact. Berry suspected that Kathryn was even more relieved than she was at the way things were remaining reasonably harmonious. And she was beginning to understand, concretely and not abstractly, what Web Du Havel had meant when he explained the political pitfalls awaiting newly liberated slaves.
Like open wounds, all of them, she thought. Never being given enough time to heal before being lacerated open again. Be nice to each other, boys and girls. Oh, and here's another crisis. More salt to rub into your bleeding flesh.
Too, there was this: Berry was by nature a very empathetic person. So, within a short time, happening almost like a gravitational attraction, she found herself emotionally identifying with the slaves and their predicament. Not the immediate one-Thandi Palane would either save their lives, or she wouldn't-but with the very uncertain future which faced them all.
"Freedom." A splendid word, especially in the abstract. A sanctified and hallowed one, even, when the person uttering it has no immediate prospect of escaping bondage. Like a mantra, or the name of a saint whispered in prayer. But once it loomed as an imminent reality…
Freedom to do what?
Starve? What does a slave do, when he or she gains her freedom-having been bred and trained to do nothing except a master's bidding?
Historically, the answer had generally been bleak. "Freedom" meant the freedom to fight over the scraps-or sell yourself back into another form of bondage, to someone who would give you the scraps from his table.
And so, in the time that followed, Berry was almost oblivious to her friend Ruth, perched nearby on a chair a little back from the central table where the deliberations and arguments took place. She was much too intent on the discussion itself, bending all her will and attention to the task of keeping it steady and as relaxed as possible.
Ruth, on the other hand, was not oblivious to her. She was fascinated, actually, watching Berry at the table. She'd come to cherish Berry's friendship, but realized now that-like everyone-she'd never really thought of Berry except in terms of friendship.
Now, studying her friend in action, "on her own" as it were, Ruth Winton applied to the task all the intent scrutiny and thought of which she was capable. Which was a great deal, indeed. Ruth had not been boasting when she told Thandi that she always studied the things she loved and the things she hated.
Here, she could do both at the same time. It did not take her long to reach a conclusion, and she resolved to raise it with Web Du Havel at the first opportunity.
The opportunity to do so would come, not long after. That didn't surprise Ruth, knowing Thandi as she did. Du Havel's reaction, on the other hand, did surprise her. Astonished her, in fact. She'd been expecting either a long lecture on girlish folly or a simple sneer of disdain.
But, he simply grinned. "Join the club, Ruth Winton. There are now two of us in the universe who are crazy."
This is crazy, thought Thandi. Pure lunacy.
She tried her very best glower on the Amazons.
"Are you all insane?" she hissed, hooking a thumb toward the bend in the corridor. She was trying to speak as quietly as possible while still being forceful-a difficult task, to say the least.
"If the schematics Ruth pulled out of the ship's computer are accurate, we're less than fifteen meters from the bridge."
As she whispered, Thandi continued stripping off all of her gear except her armored skinsuit itself. Now that she had been able to size up the tactical situation concretely, she'd decided speed was the key. She'd make the assault armed only with a hand pulser. Thandi was an expert with just about any kind of handheld weapon, but she was particularly proficient with sidearms.
"There's only one hatch leading into it," she pointed out. "How in the hell do you think you're going to pull off a 'mass charge'? And what's the point, anyway, beyond giving the bastards a lot of targets? If it can be done at all, I can do it alone."
It was no good. Great Kaja or not, the Amazons seemed to think there was a matter of honor at stake. And they were making clear that they would stick to it. Grimly, Thandi realized that no matter what she said-even if she threatened them-they would just follow her anyway.
"All right," she muttered. "But you will still do it my way, understood? You follow me onto the bridge. If a single one of you tries to push ahead of me… I'll break her neck, I swear I will."
The blood-curdling threat was met with grins.
"No problem, kaja." Lara nodded with exaggerated obeisance. "You may lead, so long as we may follow."
The last sentence had the flavor of ritual about it. Thandi realized that she knew very little, when all was said and done, of the strange subculture the Scrags had developed in their long centuries of social isolation. Given their obsessive preoccupation with "superiority," however, she suspected that they'd developed-to a very high degree-a sort of human equivalent to the dominance rituals of pack animals.
A wolfess will respect the preeminence of the alpha female in the pack, true enough-so long as her own canines are acknowledged. And nobody tries to suggest she's actually a rabbit with pointed teeth.
Thandi chuckled. "Maybe Berry can civilize the lot of you. I give up. All right, then. My plan is about as simple as it gets."
Thandi had already used a Marine spy-eye to peek around the bend-nothing more than a very thin and flexible optic cable attached to a tiny viewer. There was no guard stationed at the hatch, and the hatch itself was unlocked. So she assumed, anyway, since the tell-tale light above it was green. Unless slaver ships followed a different protocol than any other ships she'd ever encountered, she'd be able to get through it within a split-second.
"As soon as I start, Yana, you give the signal to Inge."
Yana nodded. She'd been appointed the one to stay in communication with Inge and the three Amazons who'd gone with her. Their job was to take out the men in the engineering compartments. Thandi had delegated that job, since she had the personnel to carry out both assaults simultaneously. The Masadans wouldn't have jury-rigged a blow-it-up-now switch in the engineering compartments in addition to the one she was sure they'd set up on the bridge. There would have been no reason to, and two switches more than doubled the chance of an accidental explosion. The Masadans were fanatics, but they weren't careless.
The men in the engineering compartment could still blow up the ship, true. But not quickly, with all the safeguards that would have to be removed. That was assuming the Masadans could even do it at all, without having to force the slaver crew to do most of the actual work. They certainly couldn't do it before Inge and her women had them all down and dead.
The real problem-the only problem, so far as Thandi was concerned-was the possibility that one of the Masadans on the bridge could reach the suicide switch before she killed them all. That was the reason she'd planned all along to lead the assault on the bridge. She could move faster than any of them.