This was serious. The Kananites and the Menel only had about fifty armed spaceships, most of them small interplanetary patrol craft. All the rest of their ships were about as dangerous as a herd of dairy cows.
Eventually the Kananites and the Menel gave up trying to keep any sort of close watch on Targa. They set up a hidden base in the Targan system's asteroid belt and settled down to see what happened.
«I hope both your people and the Menel are at least building warships and training soldiers as fast as you can.»
«I think we are converting a few ships for war. The Menel are doing the same. I do not know how many, though. The Menel are divided into Gorani-I do not know what your word is. Each Goran has a special task, and only the War Goran can fight or fly armed ships.»
«Can't other Gorani of the Menel learn to fight?»
«No. It is not just a matter of law or custom. It is the way the Menel are raised from the time they are hatched. One who is hatched and raised in one Goran cannot learn to do the work of another.»
«I see.» Blade didn't like what he saw but there was no point in mentioning it to Riyannah, The Menel seemed to be divided into a series of rigid classes. They were going to be seriously handicapped in a war with the more adaptable Targans.
«As for soldiers,» Riyannah continued, «I cannot see how we will need them. If we can meet the Targans in space and keep them on their own planet, that will be enough. We don't need to conquer Targa. We don't even want to!» Her voice was almost shrill.
«I believe you, Riyannah,» said Blade. «But you seem to have a problem with making your Targan friends believe it.»
Riyannah sighed. «We certainly do.»
Everything that could go wrong went wrong when Riyannah and five other Kananites came to Targa to negotiate with the underground. They were attacked from the air soon after leaving their spaceship in its hiding place. The leader of the delegation was badly hurt. Two others, including Riyannah, suffered head injuries sufficient to destroy their implanted knowledge of the Targan language.
«The Teacher Globes will teach you almost anything, including a language,» she said. «But the knowledge does not go deeply into the brain. If you are drugged or hit on the head, you often forget what you've learned.»
So that was what lay behind the maddening language problem! Lord Leighton's computer did its usual job on his brain, and the Teacher Globe no doubt did just as well for Riyannah. But sheer bad luck drove every word of Targan out of Riyannah's battered head!
A few days later, more planes attacked the underground camp where Riyannah and her comrades were hiding, smashing it completely. One of the Kananites and many of the underground's fighters were killed. The survivors had to flee across country, taking the wounded Kananite leader with them.
«The Targans soon saw how little we knew about life in the woods. That did not make them trust us more. Then our leader Marocah died, and we buried him in the forest, far from home.» Riyannah was silent for a moment.
The fugitives eventually reached another underground camp, and were finally able to open negotiations with the underground's leaders. These negotiations didn't get far. Perhaps Chard's men had tracked the fugitives, perhaps they were just lucky. In any case, the second camp was also attacked, both from the air and on the ground. Riyannah and a handful of people escaped just before the camp fell, to run into more soldiers as they tried to get clear.
That was where Blade came in, and after that he and Riyannah were partners in their adventures.
«We'd radioed to the asteroid base, and the two Menel ships you saw were on their way to pick us up. After they were destroyed, I knew I would have to return to the ship in the mountains to the north. It is so well hidden that I do not think Chard's men have found it. I trusted you not to kill me on the way, and after that-«She shrugged.
«Yes,» said Blade. «And after that?»
«If I didn't think it was safe to take you to the asteroid base, I was going to kill you. I wasn't sure I could, but I knew I had to be ready to try. Even if I died, I could still send the ship to the asteroid on automatic control. What happened to us and what we'd learned had to get to the base.»
What they'd learned was an important development in Loyun Chard's strategy. He was pouring material and manpower into building a monstrous starship nearly a mile long, heavily armed and armored, able to serve as a warship, exploration ship, and transport for colonists all at once.
«What it will do first is attack the asteroid base. It will certainly win, and the base will be destroyed. So will many of our ships and the Menel's, hundreds of our fighting people, and any hope of keeping the Targans in their own system. We will have to meet them out among the stars. The war will be far longer and more terrible if we must do that, and we may not win.»
Loyun Chard no doubt knew that just as well as the Kananites. So he was building the great starship, Dark Warrior. The man was a formidable opponent, and peace would be in danger as long as he lived.
«If the two Menel ships hadn't fallen,» said Riyannah, «we'd already be on the asteroid base, or even on our way to Kanan. With Menel to help me, I wouldn't have needed to kill you, no matter what.»
«And now?»
Riyannah smiled and put her arms around him. «I think I can trust you to do nothing to help Loyun Chard. I do not know what else you may want to do, but if it is not dangerous to me or to Kanan, then it is your affair. I want to know more about you and your world, but you don't have to tell me if you don't want to.»
«How did you come to trust me?»
«I knew you could not be my enemy after you saved me from the bat-cats. Before that-you were still a mystery. You'd saved my life and killed Targan soldiers. Yet you looked like a Targan, spoke Targan well, and kept me from helping the Menel.»
«I did that to keep you from getting yourself killed, Riyannah.»
«I know that now. I didn't at the time. Also, you didn't seem to understand who the Menel were. That meant you could not be one of the Targan underground fighters.»
«And so I was a bigger mystery than before?» said Blade, stroking Riyannah's hair.
«Yes. Then the night after we came up the canyon, some of the mystery disappeared. I knew you could not be one of Loyun Chard's people.»
«How was that?»
Riyannah laughed. «I got you to take off your clothes, then watched you. All of Chard's men have a lightning bolt tattooed on their penis, and a triangle on the inside of the right or the left thigh.»
Blade stiffened, put both hands on Riyannah's shoulders, and held her at arm's length.
«A lightning bolt tattooed on the penis?»
«Yes. Down the middle. The officers have the triangle on the inside of the right thigh, the ordinary soldiers on the-«
«Riyannah, what are you-?»
«I'm telling you the truth, Blade. If you'd looked at the bodies of the soldiers, you'd have seen it for yourself.»
Blade nodded slowly. «A tattoo on the penis,» he said, half to himself. Then he threw his head back and roared with laughter until the echoes rolled around the forest.
«A tattoo on the penis,» he gasped, tears running down his cheeks. «A tattoo on the penis!» Then he reached out for Riyannah again, and she came into his arms. He felt her lips on his and her hands fumbling at his trousers. He thrust his hands inside the back of her trousers and cupped her buttocks. She laughed and tossed her head so that her hair brushed his face and neck.