"It's our worlds they're proposing to live on. And I've already told you, they've classified us incorrectly. We're not intelligent! Now listen up. We're going for a little walk. But before we set out, I want you to fam yourself with this tacmap, here." I slid the tacmod across the tabletop to Tara. "I want both of us to have the interior of this ship in our heads. If we do make it to the point when we can start our attack, there's not going to be any time to consult the tacmap."
"And what about those alien devices that are cruising our bloodstreams?"
"There's nothing we can do about them."
"You're just going to ignore them?"
"Do you have a better idea?"
"Yes—give up your plan to attack the O's."
"Thanks. I'll think about it. Now memorize the tacmap. And take off that ridiculous shirt and get into your litesuit."
Chapter 14
Cross of the Legion
The door opened and we ventured out into the corridor.
It was just a little recon—an experiment, to look over the ship and see what limits the O's had placed on our movements, prior to settling on an ops plan. We were totally unarmed, and the truth is I was terrified, but I didn't want Tara to know it. For all we knew, the O's might decide to exterminate us the instant we stepped out of our room. I had the tacmod strapped to my waist, and the toolpak over one shoulder. Tara was back in her litesuit, and she had the medpak. Gildron had his shirt back on again. He paused outside the doorway, sniffing the air.
"Zip," he said. "O zip." We were in a perfectly circular corridor, standing on a narrow strip of softly yielding material, a walkway for the O's. Pale green lights shone down from the top of the corridor, and strange black devices lined the walls.
"This is the corridor that leads straight to the bridge," I said. "It's right up ahead there, on this level. And our weapons are stashed in the third room on the left."
"And the human?"
"Up ahead, down two levels, right at the intersection, third room."
"All right. I've got it."
"Let's go—we need to look at the doors, and those elevator things."
We moved forward. I could see from the tacmap that the two O's were still on the bridge. We passed the first room on the left. A sealed door, a control panel to one side. Our own door had opened and closed at a touch of the panel; the O's were making no obvious moves to isolate us.
The second room. Then the third. Both the same, a closed door, a control panel.
"Don't even pause," I ordered. "Just walk past it. Gildron, did you get our gear out of that room? The tacmod, the toolpak, did you get it from that room?"
Gildron stopped, and pointed to the room. "Dak-more," he said. "Doolbak, loom. Loom!"
"Don't stop," I snapped. "Go! Keep walking! Can you open that door, Gildron?"
"Ofen!" He stepped towards the door, intent on the task.
"No! No! Walk! Gildron, follow us!"
Confused, he stood there an instant, then followed, a puzzled, almost comical look on his face.
"You're confusing him," Tara chided me.
"Sorry—I thought he was smarter than us."
"He is—look!" It was a little alcove in the corridor. We'd seen this before, in the Mound.
"That's an elevator," I said. "And it leads down to our human."
"Let's go," Tara urged me.
"No," I said. "it can wait. We go to the bridge. I want to see how far we can get."
###
We made it all the way. The door to the bridge snapped open as we approached it. Gildron stepped in gingerly and Tara and I followed and then stopped in the doorway, stunned by the scene. The bridge swirled with activity—there was so much movement and color that I had trouble sorting it all out. Lights floated in the air, glittering like stars. Strange weightless objects darted around like miniature birds. The walls and ceilings flickered with soft light from strangely shaped devices. And the bridge was full of Omnis—there must have been six or seven of them, strapped into tall vertical body chairs, standing in place silently, pacing slowly and lazily in front of banks of alien instruments.
"What the hell, over," I squeaked, too frightened to move.
"They're not real," Tara whispered back. I reached down to my tacmod, not daring to take my eyes off the O's, and raised it up to where I could see it.
"Sweety—report." It was all I could manage.
"I detect two O's, Three," Sweety said calmly, "as marked. The others are holos—artificial energy images."
"Thank you," I replied, carefully lowering the tacmod back to my waist.
"Do you see the forward viewport?" Tara asked. "Look—we're in regular vac!"
I could see it now—a wide plex viewport in a wall of glowing readouts. A cold slit of vac, spangled with stars. It was truly beautiful. Tara was right—we were still in the vac. The O's had evidently not yet initiated stardrive.
One of the O's detached itself from a tall bodychair and approached us. This was a real one—my adrenalin gave me a jolt.
Gildron stepped out in front of us, confronting the O. The O surveyed him calmly, then turned away. The other O's ignored us. It was horrible seeing them so close. I noted they were not in armor, and their mag shields were down. They were completely off guard, on the bridge of their own ship.
Gildron snarled at us, then spoke. "Ko," he said, and began herding us off the bridge. We retreated back through the door and it snapped shut behind us as we left.
"O o-tah ko," Gildron explained, once we were safely back in the corridor.
"No dogs allowed on the bridge," I commented.
"Did you see all those O's? Did you see those artificial stars hovering over the instruments?" Tara was breathless.
"There's only two of them that are real. They're unarmored and unarmed. And we walked right in. If we had been armed, we could have killed them both."
"Don't be too sure," Tara said. "They could have flattened us in an instant with their psypower. And don't forget those little nasties inside us. If they're not worried about us, there's a damned good reason."
"Still, I feel a lot better about this. There's no effort to restrict our movements—except they don't want retards on the bridge. Probably afraid we'll press the wrong button and depressurize the ship or something." I paused, awash in ideas.
"Forget it," Tara continued. "We've only got two partially functional A-suits, and by the time we suited up, they'd be on us."
"You may be right. Let's see if we can find that human."
###
But by the time we neared the suspect room, Tara and I were engaged in a violent argument about the correct course of action.
"I'm sorry, Wester," she said. "You're wrong. You're totally wrong! And I'm not going to let you do this!"
"Just blackout, will you, Tara. We've already discussed this—there's nothing left to discuss!"
"Yes, there is! The future of our species! The future of the galaxy! That's what's at stake here—and we've got to get it right! There's no room for errors!"
"There'll be no errors! We're going to seize the ship, and kill the O's. That's the mission."
"No! No, Wester. The mission has just changed."
I spun around to face her. We had taken an elevator down, and now we were in another circular corridor and the unidentified human was up ahead somewhere. Tara's lovely face was grim and determined. Gildron hung over her, a massive bodyguard.
"No?" I shouted. "Don't tell me no, trooper! Not again! We've been through this! You'll shut down and follow my orders, that's all! And my orders are not subject to debate!"
"I'm pulling rank, Beta Three. You are no longer in command." Her exotic Assidic eyes were icy cold and glinting with resolve.