"Thank you," he said quietly. "However you did it, we're in your debt."
"No problem," Bilko assured him, coming up to join us. "When Jake says to whistle up the cops, I whistle up the cops." He looked back toward the desk, watching as the glass panels receded back into the floor. "Now that it's over, can someone tell me what I just blew five million neumarks over?"
"The biggest attempted hijacking in history," I said, looking at Peter. "And unfortunately, it's not over yet."
"You really think her people will be coming to look for her?" Suzenne asked.
"It's worse than that," I said grimly. "The implication she's out here alone is nonsense—no Chen-Mellis second cousin would be stupid or reckless enough to come out here without backup already on its way. My guess is we've got maybe two or three days before they get here. Maybe less."
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Bilko cut in. "If they're that close, why didn't she just wait for them in the first place? Why bother coming in with us?"
"Because there are other people looking for the Freedom's Peace," I told him.
"And the first one to get here is going to be the one with salvage rights claim.
Odds are that those loudspeakers she scattered around the colony really are also recorders, just like she said, so that she'll have a record of her presence here."
"But then why didn't she wait for her people to arrive before revealing herself to us?" Peter asked, clearly confused. "Why risk tipping us off the way she did?"
"Pure arrogance," Rhonda suggested. "She wanted to deliver you personally to the backup team."
"Or else she wanted to be the one who got the flapblacks to get you moving,"
Bilko put in. "Maybe there's even some rivalry between her and the backup team—the Ten Families are supposed to be riddled with upper-level infighting.
If she got the Freedom's Peace back to Angorki on her own, she'd look that much better."
"The reasons and motivations don't matter," I interrupted the budding debate.
"The bottom line is that we've got trouble on the way."
"I can't allow my people to be forced into servitude, Captain," Peter said softly, the lines in his face deepening. "If it comes to that choice, we will fight."
"Let's see if we can't find a third choice," I said. "Tell me about those flapblacks that surround the colony, the ones who chase away the others. What are they, predators of some kind?"
Peter smiled sadly. "Hardly. They're merely the eldest of the Star Spirits.
The ones marking their last few weeks as they wait for death."
An unpleasant shiver ran up my back. I knew all creatures died, of course, and in fact we'd had that argument on the way in over whether our wrapping flapblacks were getting eaten. But somehow the thought of a group of aging flapblacks hovering together waiting quietly to die was more disturbing than I
would have expected it to be. Perhaps it took some of the magic away, or perhaps it felt too much like the death of a favorite pet.
"Like all Star Spirits, they enjoy music," Peter continued quietly. "But of a particular kind, the kind only we apparently know how to write for them.
That's what the music in the colony is for."
Abruptly, Suzenne looked at me and smiled. "One of them remembers you, Captain.
He says he carried you once a long time ago."
A second chill ran through me. "They get into our minds?" I asked carefully.
"Not just the musicmaster's, I mean, but all the rest of us, too?"
"No, they can't read minds, Captain," Peter assured me. "Not even ours, and we're as attuned to them as any humans have ever been. No, they simply recognize you by the shape of your minds, just as you recognize them by the spectra of their passing." "I see," I murmured. Like a favorite pet, I'd just thought. Only which of us was the pet? "So why do they drive the other flapblacks away?"
"They don't," Suzenne said. "The others stay away out of respect for the dying."
I scratched my cheek. Bits and pieces of a nebulous plan were starting to swirl together in my brain. "Does that mean that if you asked them to move aside for awhile and let the younger ones in, they would do it?"
Peter shook his head. "I know what you're thinking, my friend. But it won't work."
"Well, I don't know what he's thinking," Jimmy spoke up.
"It's simple, Jimmy," I told him. "Cousin Chen went to a lot of trouble to scatter all those loudspeakers around the colony. I think it would be a shame to waste all that effort."
"But it won't work," Peter repeated. "We've talked with the Star Spirits about this. They simply aren't strong enough to carry the Freedom's Peace."
"Maybe," I said. "Maybe not. You say you've talked to them; but you didn't say you've played music for them."
"Are you suggesting we force them to carry us?" Suzenne demanded, an ominous glint in her eye.
"It's not a matter of forcing," I said. "They enjoy the music—you know that as well as we do. I think it acts like a stimulant to them."
"So now you're suggesting we effectively drug them—"
"Excuse me," Rhonda put in gently. "Your Highness, how long have you been providing music for the dying flapblacks to listen to?"
"Quite a few years," Peter said, frowning. "All of my lifetime, certainly."
"And how often during those years have you had a younger flapblack carry any of you anywhere?"
He shrugged. "Three or four times, perhaps. But those were only our small scout ships. Not nearly as big even as your transport."
"Then perhaps that's the real problem," Rhonda said. "You can talk to the flapblacks, but your perception of them has been skewed by the fact that most of the time you're talking to the old and dying, not the young and healthy."
"You talked about whale and dolphins earlier," I put in. "I suggest a better analogy might be dogs."
"Dogs?" Peter asked.
"Yes." I waved a hand around. "You've been surrounded for decades by aging, crippled Chihuahuas. That's not what most of the flapblacks are like."
"And what are they like?"
"Big, exuberant malamutes," I told him. "And with all due respect, your people may understand them, but we know how to make them run."
For a moment there was silence. Then, with a sigh, Peter nodded. "I'm still not convinced," he said. "But you're right, it has to be tried."
"Thank you." I turned to Jimmy. "Go take a look at that player interface of Chen's and see what kind of music she's got programmed onto it. Then get in touch with that musician you were visiting this morning and have him whistle up the colony's whole music contingent.
"We're going to have ourselves a concert." The Grand Center of the Arts was considerably smaller than I would have expected for a place with such an impressive title, though considering the colony's limited populace I suppose its size made sense. The main auditorium was compact but with a feeling of spaciousness to it and a main floor that would supposedly seat two thousand people.
We were only going to need a fraction of that capacity tonight. Gathered together by the front of the stage were Jimmy and the sixty-eight colonists he'd been able to sift through his impromptu musicmaster screening test in the past six hours. Above them in the balcony, I waited with Peter and eighty hand-picked colonists who were considered especially in tune with the flapblacks. Star Spirits. Whatever.
A motion down at the stage caught my eye: Jimmy, his final instructions completed, was giving me the high sign. I waved acknowledgement and keyed the radio link Suzenne had set up to the Sergei Rock in its hangar slot. "Bilko?
Looks like we're about ready here. You all set?"