“Please do, Lieutenant McCue,” Athaclena said. “We were nearly finished anyway.” The dusky-skinned human woman entered and sat on one of the crates next to Robert. He gave her a faint smile but soon was staring down at his hands again. The muscles in his arms rippled and tensed as his fists clenched and unclenched.
Athaclena felt a twinge when McCue placed her hand on Robert’s knee and spoke to him. “His nibs wants another battle-planning conference before we all turn in.” She turned to look at Athaclena and smiled. Her head inclined. “You’re welcome to attend should you wish. You’re our respected guest, Athaclena.”
Athaclena recalled when she had been the mistress of these caverns and had commanded an army. I must not let that influence me, she reminded herself. All that mattered now was to see that these creatures harmed themselves as little as possible in the coming days.
And, if at all possible, she was dedicated to furthering a certain jest. One that she, herself, still barely understood, but had recently come to appreciate.
“No, thank you, lieutenant. I think that I shall go say hello to a few of my chim friends and then retire. It was a long several days’ ride.”
Robert glanced back at her as he left with his human lover. Over his head a metaphorical cloud seemed to hover, flickering with lightning strokes. I did not know you could do that with glyphs, Athaclena wondered. Every day, it seemed, one learned something new.
Fiben’s loose, unhinged grin was a boost as he followed the humans. Did she catch a sense of something from him? A conspiratorial wink?
When they were gone, Athaclena started rummaging through her kit. I am not bound by their duty, she reminded herself. Or by their laws.
The caves could get quite dark, especially when one extinguished the solitary glow bulb that illuminated an entire stretch of the hallway. Down here eyesight was not an advantage, but a Tymbrimi corona gave quite an edge.
Athaclena Grafted a small squadron of simple but special glyphs. The first one had the sole purpose of darting ahead of her and to the sides, scouting out a path through the blackness. Since cold, hard matter was searing to that which was not, it was easy to tell where the walls and obstacles lay. The little wisp of nothing avoided them adroitly.
Another glyph spun overhead, reaching forth to make certain that no one was aware of an intruder in these lower levels. There were no chims sleeping in this stretch of hallway, which had been set aside for human officers.
Lydia and Robert were out on patrol. That left only one aura beside hers in this part of the cave. Athaclena stepped toward it carefully.
The third glyph silently gathered strength, awaiting its turn.
Slowly, silently, she padded over the packed dung of a thousand generations of flying insectivore creatures who had dwelt here until being ousted by Earthlings and their noise. She breathed evenly, counting in the silent human fashion to help maintain the discipline of her thoughts.
Keeping three watchful glyphs up at once was something she’d not have attempted only a few days ago. Now it seemed easy, natural, as if she had done it hundreds of times.
She had ripped this and so many other skills away from Uthacalthing, using a technique seldom spoken of among the Tymbrimi, and even less often tried.
Turning jungle fighter, trysting with a human, and now this. Oh, my classmates would be amazed.
She wondered if her father retained any of the craft she had so rudely taken from him.
Father, you and mother arranged this long ago. Yo« prepared me without my even knowing it. Did you already know, even then, that it would be necessary someday?
Sadly, she suspected she had taken away more than Uthacalthing could afford to spare. And yet, it is not enough. There were huge gaps. In her heart she felt certain that this thing encompassing worlds and species could not reach its conclusion without her father himself.
The scout glyph hovered before a hanging strip of cloth. Athaclena approached, unable to see the covering, even after she touched .it with her fingertips. The scout unraveled and melted back into the waving tendrils of her corona.
She brushed the cloth aside with deliberate slowness and crept into the small side chamber. The watch glyph sensed no sign that anyone was aware within. She only kenned the steady rhythms of human slumber.
Major Prathachulthorn did not snore, of course. And his sleep was light, vigilant. She stroked the edges of his ever-present psi-shield, which guarded his thoughts, dreams, and military knowledge.
Their soldiers are good, and getting better, she thought. Over the years Tymbrimi advisors had worked hard to teach their wolfling allies to be fierce Galactic warriors. And the Tymbrimi, in truth, often came away having learned some fascinating bits of trickery themselves, ideas that could never have been imagined by a race brought up under Galactic culture.
But of all Earth’s services, the Terragens Marines used no alien advisors. They were anachronisms, the true wolflings.
The glyph z’schutan cautiously approached the slumbering human. It settled down, and Athaclena saw it metaphorically as a globe of liquid metal. It touched Prathachulthorn’s psi-shield and slid in golden rivulets over it, swiftly coating it under a fine sheen.
Athaclena breathed a little easier. Her hand slipped into her pocket and withdrew a glassy ampule. She stepped closer and carefully knelt next to the cot. As she brought the vial of anesthetic gas near the sleeping man’s face, her fingers tensed.
“I wouldn’t,” he said, casually.
Athaclena gasped. Before she could move his hands darted out, catching her wrists! In the dim light all she could see were the whites of his eyes. Although he was awake his psi-shield remained undisturbed, still radiating waves of slumber. She realized that it had been a phantasm all along, a carefully fabricated trap!
“You Eatees just have to keep on underrating us, don’t you? Even you smarty-pants Tymbrimi never seem to get it.”
Gheer hormones surged. Athaclena heaved and pulled to get free, but it was like trying to escape a metal vice. Her clawed nails scratched, but he nimbly kept her fingers out of reach of his callused hands. When she tried to roll aside and kick he deftly applied slight pressure to her arms, using them as levers to keep her on her knees. The force made her groan aloud. The gas pellet tumbled from her limp hand.
“You see,” Prathachulthorn said in an amiable voice, “there are some of us who think it’s a mistake to compromise at all. What can we accomplish by trying to turn ourselves into good Galactic citizens?” he sneered. “Even if it worked, we’d only become horrors, awful things totally divorced from what it means to be human. Anyway, that option isn’t even open. They won’t let us become citizens. The deck is stacked. The dice are loaded. We both know that, don’t we?”
Athaclena’s breath came in ragged gasps. Long after it was clearly useless, the gheer flux kept her jerking and fighting againt the human’s incredible strength. Agility and quickness were to no avail against his reflexes and training.
“We have our secrets, you know,” Prathachulthorn confided. “Things we do not tell our Tymbrimi friends, or even most of our own people. Would you like to know what they are? Would you?”
Athaclena could not find the breath to answer. Prathachulthorn’s eyes held something feral, almost animally fierce.
“Well, if I told you some of them it would be your death sentence,” he said… “And I’m not ready to decide that quite yet. So I’ll tell you one fact some of your people already know.”
In an instant he had transferred both of her wrists to one hand. The other sought and found her throat.