“Tell Aelool I said to turn loose her leash. She will know what it means.” The mentat busied herself examining the finished device critically as she boxed it for delivery. Offloading the errand gave her most of the morning to catch up on her backlog. “Please give me a moment to do a last quality check on the item for my sister. Apropos of nothing, my brother-in-law’s endeavors are developing adequately.” Giving Cally her head would certainly accomplish the Tchpth aims, but with terrible consequences, even if their planners had chosen the lesser damage. The long-term consequences to her own clan would be painful. The Earth-raised among them would, very likely, take this move as justification of their heedless, rash, headlong plunges into actions with insufficient judgment of consequences. The philosophical damage to Clan O’Neal would be laborious to repair. Most laborious. She had so been trying to set a good example. Ripples upon ripples indeed — but her friend was speaking.
“You have given an odd message. Thank you.” The Crab bounced quietly in his corner, inscrutable now that the onus of such an unpleasant deed had returned to him, plainly relieved that the message, so harmless on its face, allowed him to distance himself even farther from any ultimate actions. Regarding James Stewart’s activities, he made no reply.
Nathan O’Reilly suppressed the urge to grumble into his morning coffee. It was an unpleasant surprise that he hadn’t known there was a Tchpth in his base until Aelool walked in the door with him. He hated intelligence failures. Granted, it wouldn’t have been possible for the operatives to give him much notice, but even a little would have been nice. Especially since he was practicing his dart throwing accuracy against a cork board picture of the Tir Dol Ron. He covered his chagrin with the smooth grace bred by many years of organizational and professional politics.
“Please, have a seat,” he said, gathering darts and board, nonchalantly storing them in their proper place. “May I get you a water?” he asked.
Aelool said “please” at the same time as the unknown Tchpth said “no thank you.” His stomach was tied in a tight little knot, because Aelool was carrying the awaited device for the Michelle O’Neal mission.
“Wxlcht, I would like you to meet Nathan O’Reilly, head of the O’Neal Bane Sidhe.” If the Crab was surprised by Aelool’s deferring authority to the Jesuit priest, he gave no indication. “Nathan, my Tchpth friend is named Wxlcht. He is the Speaker of Intrigue. He is here, however, in the capacity of those of his kind far wiser than himself.”
Oh shit, O’Reilly thought, silently apologizing to the Almighty for the vulgarity. What the hell did we get into to have what amounted to the Crab head of Intel in my office, speaking with the authority of the entire Tchpth species. Lord, please be with humanity in this time of trial, he prayed.
“Wxlcht is here to deliver an instruction to me, to be repeated to Miss O’Neal,” the Indowy said.
“The human Cally O’Neal,” the ambassador interrupted.
“Yes. Miss Cally O’Neal,” Aelool accepted the correction.
“May I ask the nature of this message?” The priest continued to pray, silently.
“Four words. ‘Turn loose her leash,’ ” the Crab quoted.
“Are you very sure you want us to relay those exact words to Cally O’Neal. I do not know how she will interpret them, so I cannot guarantee the consequences. At all,” he warned. This was both far better and far worse than he had feared. That was nothing that Nathan himself would ever say to Cally. Ever.
“Yes. Those exact words. You do not know, yet, what they mean. The Tchpth do, and she will.” The planner paused, thinking. “If there is any question in her mind, and if you think it wise, you may tell her I made that delivery after speaking with her sister. And tell her that soon would be good. Very soon.” He indicated the decoy prototype with one limb. “We would not… It is, if there were not grave hazard to… We never otherw… Enough.” He sighed, his body stuttering a bit in its perpetual multilegged tap dance.
“I trust and expect your absolute discretion,” he said. “We do, of course, acknowledge the creation of a debt to the Clan O’Neal. A significant debt.”
Good Lord! Big. Dangerous, big, and either cataclysmic or priceless. He made the only possible answer, “You have my word.”
“And mine,” Aelool added.
“Thank you, and farewell.”
That it did not merely say “goodbye” was another surprise. Ordinarily, any Tchpth would avoid even a simple change of leaving-word as too explicit an expression of well wishes to any “vicious omnivore.” Curioser and curiouser.
After his unusual visitor departed, along with his own Indowy counterpart, Nathan took his AID out of his desk. “Get Cally O’Neal in my office. Now.”
Minutes after Father O’Reilly’s peremptory summons, Cally entered his office. She had not stopped to change out of leotard and leg-warmers, but instead stood before him barefoot, hair in a ponytail and gym towel around her neck. She blotted her still perspiring face and bounced on her toes, clearly feeling her endorphin rush.
“Decoy Aerfon Djigahr in?” she asked.
“Yes, but that’s not why you’re here,” he said.
She stilled. “Nothing bad, I hope?”
“That depends on you. A high-level Crab planner delivered the decoy, in person. He also, after informing us that he was speaking on behalf of the entire Tchpth leadership structure, gave us a message with the strict instructions to quote it to you, verbatim.”
“And?” she prompted, when he paused and was wasting time searching her face, as if she knew a damn thing about it. Unless it was about Stewart. That could be bad.
“Turn loose her leash,” he quoted.
“Excuse me?” She wasn’t quite sure she’d heard what she thought she’d heard. Or, she was, but thought she’d better hear it again, just to make sure.
“Turn loose her leash,” he repeated. “He also said I could tell you he delivered the device here himself. He certainly thought you’d know what he meant. If you don’t, we’re in a very bad position.”
“Oh, I know what he meant. He had to have gotten that” — she pointed at the machine — “from Michelle. Therefore, logically he got the message from her, as well. What I can’t figure out is why the hell the Crabs would order a hit on Pardal.”
“They wha — ?” It was the first time she’d seen O’Reilly slack-jawed.
“At a meeting with Michelle recently, I offered to kill Pardal for her — more to get a rise out of her than anything. If you could have just seen… I meant it, of course, but I knew she’d never bite. Or thought I knew. And I don’t know what the Crabs have riding on this. How close are my sister and this Crab, anyway?”
Nathan picked up his AID. “Tell Aelool I need him again, but phrase it nicely. Then give me an executive summary of Michelle O’Neal’s relationship with the Tchpth Planner Wxlcht.” He had learned early on to ask for executive summaries as the magic words that prevented his AID from talking his ears off.
“Michelle O’Neal and the Tchpth Planner Wxlcht,” it replied immediately. “They are both avid aethal players and partner each other frequently. They communicate often, exchange favors, and are unusually close for members of their respective species. Executive summary material prepared by analysis of organizational files. Would you like me to broaden my search or elaborate on existing material?”
“That’s quite sufficient. Thank you.” It wasn’t necessary to thank an AID, but the priest was wise enough to know that any habit of omission of the basic courtesies would carry over into his relationships with humans and Galactics. He was always polite to his AID.