He was right on that one, at least, Trevik had to admit. The cam would blend in perfectly. Whoever this Stromma was, he knew precisely how a bowlcarrier’s vest looked. “How do I operate it?”
“You touch the upper right corner as you arrive at the Dwelling of Guests,” Jirvin said. “The cam itself will do the rest.”
“And make certain that it faces each piece of Nuso Esva’s artwork during the time you’re in the dwelling,” the Circling added.
“I will.” Trevik drew himself up. “And I will bring proof that the Queen has indeed chosen Nuso Esva as our ally. Then will you cease this foolishness?”
“If you bring back such proof, we will cease,” Jirvin promised. “But if the proof is of her captivity under Nuso Esva’s strength of mind, then our opposition to his presence will continue.”
Trevik grimaced. How does one prove a negative? But it was clear that this was the best he was going to get. “I will bring the cam back at this hour tomorrow,” he said, rising from the couch. “And then you will cease.”
“Agreed,” the Circling said, finally stepping away from beneath the lintel. “Farewell. May you eat and sleep deeply.”
“May you eat and sleep deeply,” Trevik replied with a sinking heart.
A minute later he was once again walking beneath the strange sky, heading toward his home. Surely he was right. Surely the Queen had chosen Nuso Esva as her ally of her own free will and depth of thought.
But if she hadn’t, what did that mean for her? What would it mean for the rest of the Quesoth?
More immediately, what would it mean to Trevik if he was caught spying for Thrawn?
He had no way of knowing. But he was certain that it would not be pleasant.
Trevik slept poorly that night, and his food was equally unsatisfying. He woke early, groomed himself with extra care, and made certain he was at the palace a few minutes earlier than required. The nectar bowl was waiting for him beside the Queen’s litter in the welcoming chamber, along with the Workers who would carry the two litters and half of the Soldiers who would escort them. Borosiv arrived a few minutes later and without a word took his place on the smaller litter.
His timing was perfect, as was only proper for the Circling who was the chosen attendant to the Queen. Barely a minute after Borosiv had settled into place, the inner doors opened and the Queen strode into the welcoming chamber, flanked by the other six Soldiers of their guard. She climbed up onto her couch, and the Workers hoisted both litters to their shoulders.
And with Trevik trying not to look as nervous as he felt, the group headed out the door and across the courtyard to the Dwelling of Guests.
After all of the evening’s worry and the night’s fitful sleep, the day turned out to be a welcome anticlimax. No one spotted the cam, nestled into the pattern on Trevik’s vest, and it was easier than he’d expected to surreptitiously take the pictures that Jirvin wanted. By the time the Queen recalled her Soldiers from their defensive ring outside the Dwelling and the group returned to the palace for her midday meal, he had managed to face the holocam toward every one of Nuso Esva’s chosen artworks. After the meal, when they had returned to the Dwelling for more talk with Nuso Esva, he made sure to take a few more pictures.
There was one other big difference between Trevik’s first and second days as the Queen’s bowlcarrier. The day before, his mind had been fully occupied with keeping himself motionless and the bowl level. Today, after all those strange things Jirvin had said, he made an effort to listen to the conversation.
It was confusing. That didn’t surprise Trevik—this was the Queen of the Red, after all, along with an alien she found intelligent enough to spend hours conversing with. Their talk was probably above even the wisdom and intelligence of a Circling, let alone a mere Midli like himself.
But the parts he did understand were disturbing. There was talk of shuttles, and of the building of fighter aircraft, and of weapons that were either hidden or soon would be. There was talk of umbrella shields, and traps, and more hidden weapons.
And there was a great deal of talk about death.
But none of that was important. What mattered was that the Queen was clearly not a prisoner of Nuso Esva and the rest of the Storm-hairs.
Later that evening, as he returned the cam to Jirvin, he told his brother exactly that. Jirvin said nothing, except to reaffirm his promise that he and the others would end their opposition to the Queen if the record bore out Trevik’s own observations. His unexpected and unwanted mission finally ended, Trevik again made his way to his home.
And that night, he did eat and sleep deeply.
The recorder erupted with a bewildering cacophony of squeaks, clicks, and squealings. “Go through the Dwelling doors,” Nyama translated, his ears twitching with concentration as he listened to the recording their Circling contact had delivered an hour ago. “Surround and protect the Guests.”
There was another squeal. “We obey the Queen,” Nyama translated. There was a faint scuffling of feet, then the sound of opening and closing doors. “And they’re gone,” Nyama added, leaning back in his seat. “Everything else from now on should be in Quesoth Common Speak. Which I presume you understand.”
“We do,” Parck said, looking at Thrawn at the head of the conference table. The Grand Admiral’s glowing eyes were narrowed, his full attention apparently on the photos of the Dwelling of Guests artwork that the secret recorder had also provided. “What do you know about Soldier Speak, Liaison Nyama?” Parck asked as he keyed for a quick-search of the audio track.
The Stromma gave a snort. “Obviously, I can understand it,” he said. “What else is there to know?”
“What Council Liaison Nyama means,” the conciliator put in, “is that there is nothing more that anyone except a Quesoth Queen and Soldier can know. It is a highly secret language.”
“Yet you know it,” Parck pointed out. “So do several of our Stromma recruits.”
“Including two of my stormtroopers,” Balkin said.
“And will understanding gain you anything?” Nyama shot back. “I tell you right now that it will not. We’ve fought the Quesoth, Captain Parck. All that an understanding of Soldier Speak will gain you is the brief advantage of knowing which of your troops will be the next to die.”
“Which can also be useful,” Thrawn said, looking up from his datapad. “More important, understanding a language is the first step toward speaking or otherwise reproducing it.”
“No,” Nyama said flatly. “There’s no reproducing of Soldier Speak. Believe me, Admiral Thrawn, we tried.”
“That was a long time ago,” Thrawn reminded him. “We have resources that weren’t available to you back then.”
“There’s no reproducing of Soldier Speak,” Nyama repeated, his tone sharper this time. “Queens have a unique set of vocal cords and resonance cavities, which even Soldiers themselves don’t have. Besides that, Soldier language utilizes at least five different resonances and pitch variants, not to mention an entirely different vocabulary from Common Speak. The fourteen loudspeakers they’ve set up beneath the umbrella shield zone have to be specially designed to handle that entire range.”
“So they don’t use comlinks in battle?” Fel asked.
“Weren’t you listening?” Nyama ground out. “I said they needed special loudspeakers. No comlink ever built can even come close to handling the necessary frequency range. Their speakers are simply too small.”
“Yes, we heard you,” Fel said. “So if we can knock out the loudspeakers, we’ll cut off all communication between the Queen and her troops.”