The couple who looked like they were made of living crystal were from a world called Spheris. And the big, supremely proud and athletic women in the daring, barbaric gladiatorial outfits, Gnea and Bela, came from the planet Praxis.
Karen Penn, watching from her vantage point on the roof of a commo van, stared in fascination at a foxlike pair, known as "Gerudans." They had feet whose tripartite structure reminded her Page 12
of a hat-rack's base, and their mouths and snouts were hidden by complex breathing apparatus.
Gerudans liked to thrash their long, luxuriant tails when they talked, and on-the-spot adaptations had to be done on their chairs to accommodate them.
Cabell and Exedore had helped Lang and a scratch task force from G-2 Intel and G-5
Community Affairs prepare translation programs for interpreter computers, but in general the envoys managed with broken Tiresian. Most of the REF spoke a Zentraedi-modified version of the language, and virtually everyone in the SDF-3 had had some exposure to it, while all the Sentinels spoke it-as Breetai had said, a lingua franca.
One of the first things to become clear was that the Sentinels weren't an army, or a governmental body-they were fugitives.
"Fugitives from the Invid tyranny," Veidt said in his whispery, processed-sounding voice. The voice came from no source Lisa could detect; Veidt and Sarna did not have mouths, but they could be heard and they were being recorded.
"Haydon IV, Karbarra, Peryton, Geruda, Praxis, Spheris-our homes are worlds under the Invid heel, to one degree or another. The ship in which we arrived was to be our prison, a sort of-zoo?
No, what's the word? — trophy case! Yes, and the hundreds and hundreds of us aboard, its artifacts-all for the pleasure of the Invid Regent."
"And what happened?" inquired Justine Huxley, former United Earth Government Superior Court Judge, now a council member. Her tone was neutral, from years of habit. "What changed your circumstances?"
Lang noted that Burak of Peryton-the devil-horned one-the only Sentinel with neither mate nor companion, had looked fretful throughout the getting-acquainted proceedings. Now he slammed a six-fingered hand-equipped with a second opposable thumb where the edge of a human's hand would be-on the table and raised a whistling, furious voice.
"What do the details matter? We overcame our captors, and took the ship! And for every minute we delay here, every minute we wait, sentient beings suffer and die under the Regent's savagery!
Our instruments have shown us your battles; you should recognize by now that the Regent will never offer you peace, or even a truce!
"Here you sit with your dimensional fortress all but disabled. You don't dare wait for the Regent to bring the battle to you, do you deny it? Very well! Help us bring it to him! Join us, for our sake and your own survival!"
The wicked points of Burak's horns seemed to be vibrating. He glared at them with pupilless, irisless eyes from beneath heavily boned brows. "Help us for the sake of those who are in slavery and anguish, and dying, even at this moment!"
Something was plainly tearing at Burak's guts, and Rick was afraid the Perytonian was going to come across the round table at somebody. But Lron, the big male of the two bearish Karbarrans, laid a weighty hand on Burak's shoulder, and he quieted.
Nearly Breetai's height, but far heavier, Lron looked around with what he perhaps meant as an amiable smile. On him, though, it was rather scary, at least as far as Rick was concerned-with those ferocious teeth, so long and white and keen.
Lron had lowered his heavy goggles, leaving them to hang loosely at his throat. He said in his gruff, moist, somehow mournful growl, "What Burak has said, we've all made a solemn pledge to carry out. No matter what the cost, we will fight until we win or the very last one among us is dead. Maybe you, in this REF, don't understand, but you would, I think, if you spent weeks or months in cages-animals, exhibits for the Invid's pleasure."
Lron's mate, Crysta, uttered a deep, gurgling snarl, a noise like the draining of some underground lake system. Like her husband/mate, she had horns suggesting diminutive mushrooms sprouting from her forehead.
Crysta added, "We buried at space many more of us than survived; such was the care the Invid meted out to us. You may ask why we survivors made a pact, to call ourselves the Sentinels-a Zentraedi term, and we hope you comprehend it."
"Sentinels. The Watchmen. The sentries who say, 'This place, I protect! Protect with my life!
Meddle here, and you start a war only one of us can survive!'"
Crysta was in full roar now. The Humans could smell her fur and muskiness. Lisa was pale, mesmerized, wondering if anything the universe could create was more awesome than an angry she-bear.
Crysta lapsed into her own language, and computers supplied the translation. "The Regent and his Invid have had their way! And now here is a war only one side can survive!"
Crysta deliberately drew her paw-hand toward her over the gleaming Tiresian wood of the round table, her nonretractile claws digging in. Corkscrew shavings of wood curled up between her fingers, lacquered on one side, naked and unfinished on the other.
When the squeal of the tortured wood had died away, Baldan, the living gemstone from the planet Spheris, spoke to fill the silence. "Will you help us? We need supplies, weapons, and allies."
"What is your plan?" Justine Huxley asked. She maintained that neutral voice, but Rick could see compassion on her face.
"First, to liberate Karbarra. There, we can reactivate the weapons mills and arm ourselves completely. Next, open the prison camps of Praxis, where thousands upon thousands of warriors wish only to exact revenge for what has been done to them."
"Then we liberate Peryton!" Burak said, pounding his strange fist.
Baldan ignored him, and Rick saw that the Sentinels weren't all of a single mind. "Eventually, after Geruda and Spheris are freed, we'll have certain knowledge we require to free Haydon IV-and then we'll be ready for the campaign to liberate Peryton. In the course of this war, we will battle the Invid, of course-perhaps we will even defeat them.
"But if not, our united planets will hunt down the Regent, and force him to surrender or die."
While the Plenipotentiary Council withdrew to discuss the Sentinels' request, Lisa, Rick, and a few others were offered a tour of the peculiar spacecraft.
Poor Lang seemed torn in two, as his determination to sway the council fought against his passionate desire to examine the ship. As it turned out, though, there was something much more immediate to worry about.
"Confirmed enemy spacecraft approaching on definite attack vector, I say again, definite attack vector," a loudspeaker announced. Sirens and warning whoopers were sounding. Humans and Zentraedi looked to the Sentinels suspiciously.
"It must be the Invid Pursuer," Burak grated.
"But we destroyed the Pursuer!" Baldan cried. "Our instruments confirmed it!"
"Then they were in error," Burak shot back. "We destroyed a decoy, perhaps."
"What's this all about?" Rick demanded. "What's a Pursuer?" Lisa was busy on a commo patch, making certain that the SDF-3 was at battle stations.
Exedor explained, "The Pursuer is a weapon the Invid used in the days when their empire was vast and powerful; I am surprised that there are any left."
"Perhaps this is the last," Lron grunted. "When we rebelled and took the ship, we destroyed its escort vessel, but not before it loosed its Pursuer at us. For two days we dodged and fought the Pursuer, and thought we'd obliterated it, but now it has found us once more."