“All of which was taken in unjustly severe taxes from my people of Valadon,” the Kahani noted. He regarded her with chilly eyes, and the beard lifted arrogantly.
“The Kahani is aware she is asking for the help of my loyal troops—the protection of my fleet—the—”
“Oh, very well, take what you must—but the amount shall be agreed upon beforehand, and it must only be a portion.”
He smirked.
“Of surety—a portion, a fair, just portion!”
Say one hundred percent, Linton thought.
“Thirdly, once the Kahani’s officers have taken command of key positions on the planet, and all is securely within her power and our aid is no longer required, we shall depart in force for our central objectives, Omphale, Diika, and the Inner Worlds. Now,”—he coughed delicately—“we come to a minor but not unimportant point, one over which I think discussion will not be needed.” He gazed deliberately around the low, circular table from lord to lord, including Linton, and back to the Kahani.
“And what is that, of gentility?” she inquired.
“The battery of 177-micron surface-to-space laser cannon,” he said silkily. “These shall, of course, be in loyalist hands at the beginning of the taking of Valadon. There is a certain risk involved here: when we return out of the Inner Worlds and cruise past Valadon to reenter the Rift, we shall be directly in line-of-fire of this battery. Purely as a safety precaution, to make certain the battery is in friendly hands, I wish to leave a company of my troops behind to mount guard over these weapons—”
Her eyes flashed, then were veiled behind a fringe of sooty lashes.
“Of honor, I feel certain my lord the Arthon does not suggest he cannot trust my warriors in such an occasion?” she purred silkily, as the chieftains muttered and grumbled—
Raul caught a flash of outrage in Zarkandu’s dark eyes, and near him, he noted Sharl of the Yellow-Eyes stiffen.
The Arthon was all a fluttering of deprecating hands and soothing mouth-sounds.
“Such prospects do not enter my mind,” he said warmly. “But is it not just within possibility that Imperials or local malcontents might, in the confusion and stir of events, break loose of restraint and seize control of this key battery? Such occurrences are not unknown, particularly are they not improbable considering the planet only new-taken and all disloyal elements of the population would not have yet been traced and apprehended?”
“It is not impossible, true; but I shall personally see that a powerful force of my most loyal warriors holds the laser battery. Of honor, Arthon, having just freed my people from one foreign garrison, I cannot in all good faith see myself permitting another foreign troop, however friendly, to occupy the planetary defenses.” Her tones were conciliatory, but the meat of her words was a definite refusal.
As if he had decided to test her mettle, the Arthon chose to deliver another veiled ultimatum.
“I’m afraid—of honor, kazaral—there can be no question of trusting or not-trusting. I must insist on this point, purely as a matter of friendship between our two sides of this pact. I dare not risk the chance of error in this, and, recall, my lady, if you will not trust my garrison to hold for a brief time the defenses of Valadon—how can I, in all gentility, possibly trust your forces to man the laser battery past which my fleet must pass to seek entry of the Rift?”
At this point, Linton decided the situation was perfect. He rose to his feet, pulling all eyes to him with his lean, raw-boned height, flaming thatch of foreign red hair, and flashing eyes. He fixed his gaze on the surprised face of the Arthon.
“Kak.”
The obscene monosyllable exploded amid the festoons of flowery, complementive and ceremonially sugary Rilké like a needle-spray of iced water. The warrior-chiefs were literally frozen where they sat. Jaws dropped, eyes gaped at him.
The Arthon turned crimson, and then, as the full, hideous weight of the insult seeped into his consciousness, the blood drained from his features, leaving him paper-white. He sprang tremblingly to his feet, turning to the astounded Kahani and spreading his arms—but before he could mouth a single protest, Linton was at his side with a single great stride, and tore open his robes.
“This Outworld zepht dares speak of ‘trust,’ ” he said in a thunderous voice, naming a peculiarly loathsome and repulsive Border pest resembling, both in habits and basic appearance, an obscenely pink and naked rodent which fed on human droppings. “Trust—and all the time he is ready and prepared to betray you all! Look—and see the amount of trust this fat, impotent boy-dandler has in you—”
Beneath the silken tatters of the Arthon’s robe, his torso gleamed naked, strapped into a complex harness of miniaturized electronic equipment.
It would be difficult to have said, at that moment, who was more petrified with astonishment—the Arthon, wheezing and gasping like a fish out of water—or the warriors who were springing to their feet and staring at the harness. A confused babble of noise arose from a dozen tongues: Raul spoke over them all, his flightdeck command voice shocking them into silence. He spoke in finest Rilké, deep bell-like chest-tones:
“This is a device of vokarthu science, called a tightbeam communicator. It projects a narrow-focus beam of microwaves through neospace, without possible detection by an ordinary communicator station! Up there in the Rift, seventeen warships from Pelaire are waiting for his signal—just beyond range of your kazara’s radar! If you were not willing, or could not be threatened or shouted into agreeing to every wish of the Arthon, he planned in cold-blood to violate the flag-of-truce oath of this conference and seize this world of Ophmar by armed force and make you perform his bidding!”
Uproar! Swords flashed from scabbards in a ring of hissing steel. Men shouted, cursed, blasphemed—no more gross insult is know to the Border Rilké than this sort of treachery.
The Arthon went mad with rage.
He tom himself loose from Linton’s grip and faced them all, stammering incoherently with fury until froth gathered at the comers of his mouth.
Linton lifted a hand to still the tumult—
“Let the filth deny it if he dares I Speak—what have you to say?”
White face twisted in a rictus of blind rage, the Arthon glared at him with burning, basilisk-eyes of black fire. Linton met his furious glare with a cool, mocking grin.
“I have—only this—to say,” the Arthon grated, struggling for control. One hand lifted swiftly to the control-box of the harness.
“This—only. I can still summon my ships at this very instant if I desire! I would prefer your free and willing cooperation—I still ask for it—but if not, then before one of you can move a finger, I can depress this stud and give the signal prearranged. Answer! Which shall it be—your cooperation in the pact—or the other!”
The Kahani, too, had risen to her feet and stood glaring down at the tense white face and mad eyes of the Arthon. Her face, too, was white—livid with the outrage and insult of broken truce. She regarded him with a piercing glance, eloquent of contempt and disgust.
“Not to save the lives of all of us would I stoop to discussion of any pact or union with such as you have proven yourself to be,” she said simply, coldly. It was, truly, a royal answer, and Linton’s blood leapt to hear it.
The Arthon sneered deliberately.
“Then you prefer to have this outlaw-nest scourged from one kepht-hole to the other by my ships?” he flashed. “And your women—what of them? And the children of your warriors who are here in exile with them?”