Lyon's Pride Read online

  But we know what they do to planets. We know they’ve been doing it for centuries. Laria sounded querulous.

  We know what the ’Dinis have reported for the centuries of their struggle to avoid being “exterminated” and that was limited to destroying Hive ships in space. The planet Xh-33 is the only world which they, and we, have seen populated by Hivers. There is a lot more we don’t know than what we do…even by extrapolation, Laria. What exactly upsets you, my dear?

  I wish I knew, Dad, Laria confided in what Afra recognized as a wail of conflicting loyalties.

  It is not up to us to dispute the ’Dinis’ right to punish their own, he said gently. We must not let our own moral integrity be weakened by conflict with theirs. We can expect that ’Dini reactions will not mirror ours. For one thing, Humans have not fought a sustained battle for centuries, a condition which certainly alters perceptions in a way we can’t yet evaluate. That we have managed to pursue the joint purpose as far as we have and with as little friction as there has been…

  You’ve reduced Prtglm to the status of “friction”? Laria sounded appalled.

  …is a matter of no little achievement. Prtglm caused its own downfall by exceeding orders from the High Council of Alliance: orders in which it and our captains had been thoroughly briefed and in agreement. Do you not see that much?

  That’s the easy part. What bothers me so is that Gil and Kat are dead, defending Rojer, when none of them should have been put in jeopardy in the first place. But Prtglm is still there! I can’t escape seeing its carrier and knowing what’s inside and…

  Suggest in your most off-handed manner the next time you have occasion to speak to either Plrgt or—who’s its main assistant now—

  Flgtm, and Plrgt’s now Plrgtgl.

  Plrgtgl has been very efficient. I hear its name mentioned more and more. Suggest that the carrier is impeding the full use of the area available to you and is there not somewhere else that it can be placed for even more effect?

  Out of sight, out of mind, huh, Dad?

  Well, out of your sight at least if it is distressing you to the extent that it has…

  It’s not just the carrier…

  Ah yes, the matter of Clarissia? If she’s not working out, my dear, request her transfer…

  But Granddad’s going to be furious with me, and there was a quaver of uncertainty in Laria’s voice. I couldn’t get on any sort of terms with Stierlman, and now Clarissia…I never had any trouble with Yoshuk and Nesrun! I’ve excellent relations with Vanteer and Lionasha. Laria’s tone rose to the level of guilty confusion and doubt.

  Laria, dear, and Afra couldn’t resist chuckling, the tales that are told of your grandmother’s search for suitable Tower personnel are not exaggerated!

  Until you came along, Laria said smartly, and then descended into disillusionment again, but you’re you and she’s the Rowan and…

  You have exactly the same right to…ah…dismiss unsuitable personnel—though I hope you won’t need to go through as many as she did to get a comfortable “fit” in your Tower. Furthermore your situation on Clarf is far more sensitive than Callisto or Altair ever were, so it’s even more important that you are totally comfortable with and can rely on each member of your staff.

  A tone of hopefulness entered the Do you really think so, Dad?

  I know so. As Prime to Prime, inform Jeff Raven of Earth FT&T that T-2 Clarissia is unable to integrate or accept the special requirements of Clarf Tower and you must…

  I can’t say “must” to Grandfather…

  Possibly not to “Grandfather,” dear, but certainly to Earth Prime Raven! Make the distinction and request a replacement. And keep in mind, too, that you haven’t had a vacation from your duties at Clarf Tower in over a year. You might benefit from a respite.

  Not right now and not if I have only Clarissia to mind the shop while I’m away, Laria said brusquely. And when did you and Mother last have a break from Aurigae?

  Ours is a slightly different situation, my dear child. We’re not dealing with an alien culture…

  ’Dinis are not alien. I’ve known them all my life!

  …nor living on a planet where such a brilliant primary produces stress you may not realize until you are away from it. A little distance might help you resolve some of the ambiguities that bother you. You are not the only one—of us or in the Human-settled worlds—to have them.

  Oh, Dad, I don’t consider me unique. Her tone held the quaver of a laugh but immediately altered. Sometimes…sometimes I don’t know what to believe. Then I do, and then something shakes me up again. I really ought to know my own mind by now.

  Your mind you know, Laria, my dear, Afra said with an affectionate chuckle. It’s your emotions and changing perceptions that cause problems. I’d hate to think your ideas were graven in granite at not quite twenty-three. Briefly Afra remembered instances of his Damia’s captiousness which her eldest daughter certainly had not inherited. And change IS a constant we must all bear with. At least, and he let a grin color his mental tone, we are not locked immutably into a cultural pattern as the Hivers are.

  Gee, thanks for that, Dad!

  You’re welcome, he said with equal mockery. But he also caught the steadier quality of her mental tone. She’d talked out some of what bothered her. If he and Damia had trouble rationalizing the matter, how hard it was on Laria, a Prime who had not yet found a personal companion to sustain her in arduous, and so often, deeply troubling times. Now inform Earth Prime of the fact that Clarissia’s not working out and why. Either inadequacy is ample cause for replacement.

  Actually, Laria was as strong a T-1 as the Rowan had ever been: a T-3 or even a good T-4 would be adequate support if they were compatible. One never knew until one tried different combinations. He’d always been slightly amazed that he, Afra Lyon of Capella, had been acceptable to Callisto Tower Prime Rowan. Maybe…He cut off that thought. He had had parents interfering with him: he and Damia had taken great pains not to repeat such manipulation.

  When Laria signed off, he made his muscles go slack from the unconscious effort of such long ’pathing. He told himself it had more to do with the nature of the exchange than age, since the Rowan was older than he, and still going as strong as ever. That was when he also felt a bit of the framework on the left side of the couch, coming through the cushioning. How long had the couches been in use now? Nearly four decades. About time to replace the padding.

  He reached out for Damia’s mind but she was joyfully retrieving the scurriers she’d brought down with her accuracy with her slingshot. He smiled as he felt Morag’s envy and Ewain’s amazement at their mother’s casual skill. They could discuss Laria’s conundrum later. Bringing her home for a brief respite from all those pressures and conflicting theories would certainly rest her mind and buffer her when she returned to duty.

  They might be, as so often Talents said between themselves, only a thought away: but that was not precisely accurate. Contact, yes, but similarity or mutuality or harmony of thought was another matter: so was a cuddle when one was depressed.

  Afra found himself at odds with his older son on many points on the issue of the Hivers, and even more puzzled by the bizarre actions and notions of his daughter, Zara. Fortunately her grandmother and Elizara, the T-1 medic for whom she was named, were coping with her and she had passed through a difficult hormonal transition to young womanhood and stability. He knew Rojer was still fighting a private battle with grief, and a harder one with the guilt at having put Gil and Kat in fatal jeopardy. Laria could not escape being sympathetic to the Mrdini interpretations, even if these were considered biased by other, less involved citizens.

  Afra swung his long legs off the Tower couch, feeling again the worn place—worn by just this action—where the framework was no longer adequately padded. Just like the framework of long-held ethics and morals was—in some minds—prodding minds through the once comfortable habits of generations.

  Afra was also fully aware of other pr
essures at the highest level—for the Rowan and Jeff often used him as a sounding board and, as often as not, followed his advice.

  The intransigence of Prtglm and the deaths of Gil and Kat were having a more far-reaching effect on Human-Mrdini relations than that carrier left on Clarf’s Tower field. A strong faction of high-ranking Mrdini were of the opinion that, if Rojer Lyon had been old enough for the duties of a Prime, then he should have complied with Prtglm’s plan to devastate the planet Xh-33, regardless of the fact that Rojer was a non-combatant, a minor, following the orders he had been given by his superiors. He had only been on the Genesee as a substitute until his older brother was available. The fact that Thian also would not have complied with Prtglm’s orders was irrelevant. But Thian already had “hero” status in ’Dini eyes which would have given him the stature to reason with the ’Dini captain and helped him defuse the incident tactfully. It was also quite likely that Prtglm would never have tried to coerce Prime Isthian Lyon.

  Yet, since the Mrdinis had allied themselves with Humans, Afra mused, they must often have had dreams, and delusions, of using the human kinetic abilities to produce a grand rout of the Hive species. The fact that the Talents had defeated a Hive colony ship without suffering a single casualty was a frequent theme of ’Dini dream-projections and story-telling. When the Mrdini and Humans had finally made contact, the Humans had enthusiastically embraced ’Dini aspirations and followed their guidance, since obviously the ’Dini had far more information about the Hive predators than Humans did.

  In total, such information boiled down to a painfully intimate knowledge of Hive ordnance, its range and destructive abilities: of the number of suicide ships needed to penetrate and destroy any Hive intruders; enough of the Hive mode of colonial expansion to know it was fatal to any planetary life form. Deneb IV was remarkable as the only world where Hive tactics had been unsuccessful.

  Since these tactics had been effective so long, the Hive species had not altered them, or its ships and armaments, in the centuries that the Mrdini had been defending themselves. The Mrdinis had, on the other hand, improved spaceships and peripheral technologies, and created more effective unmanned missiles. They had managed to protect their own colony worlds, all the time searching for allies, the Hive homeworld and new resources to help them win the final victory.

  Humans had far too long eschewed wars: naval strength being deployed more in the search for colonial worlds, or as deterrent against the occasional renegade privateer. Consequently minor incidents of friction were bound to occur between a war-honed species and one which had been at peace, where the only casualties had occurred in space accidents which were then so ruthlessly investigated that repetitions were unlikely.

  On the positive side, since the Alliance had been formed and great efforts made by both species to improve communications and appreciation of each other, there had been significant developments that ought to have had a morale-building effect. The fortuitous discovery of the ion trails of three Hive ships had given the Alliance the splendid opportunity to send an expedition to backtrack and locate the Hive homeworld. The trail had led first to the hulk of the biggest Hive ship ever seen by the Mrdini: a hulk which had been partially destroyed by a searing nova explosion. To discover if the nova had indeed destroyed the system which had spawned the Hive species, one resolute ’Dini ship, with Prime Isthian Lyon on board, had driven to the origin of the fading ion trail.

  Discovery of the damaged Hive ship disclosed that three escape pods had managed to leave the Mother ship shortly before the nova shock wave hit it. The Human-manned ships had gone in search of the pods to prevent even a single queen from surviving to start a new colony on a hospitable world: a circumstance that the Alliance wished to thwart. One pod had already been captured and it contained a live queen. She had been “decanted,” as someone termed it, at the Heinlein Moon Facility, from which escape was unlikely. Her apprehension made her the first live specimen of this engimatic species for both Human and Mrdini. Shortly after her arrival at the Moon Facility, she had laid a huge mass of eggs.

  The other two pods had also been accounted for: or rather the remnants of the one which had collided with an asteroid and the other whose occupant had died when its supply of oxygen had given out.

  The KLTS, through Thian, had reported the absolute surety that the Hive home system had been incinerated by its nova-sun.

  Squadrons C and D were still in pursuit of the other two Hive ships, going further and further from their homeworlds. One lobby urgently wanted the squadrons to return on the grounds that the two Hive ships were light-years beyond any Alliance system and therefore no further threat.

  “No immediate threat,” another faction rebutted, and urgently wanted the squadrons to explore the significant number of G-type star systems with M-5 planets that had been identified during the pursuit, to see why the Hive ships had ignored them. Were these already infested with the Hive species? But investigation was certainly in order to discover if these primaries had generated planets suitable for colonization for either species of the Alliance.

  The quandary of continued pursuit now obsessing the High Councillors was ethical in substance. Was it right to let the Hivers continue, knowing that once the Hive ships found the sort of world they needed to colonize they would exterminate whatever life form might exist? Certainly one of the avowed aims of the Alliance was to seek out and identify worlds that had been taken over by the Hive species and prevent them from developing to the stage where their population expanded to the point of recolonizing.

  Twenty eggs of the captive Hive queen had hatched, producing creatures who were apparently limited to attendance on the queen, cleaning her, bringing her food, or sent scurrying down the empty corridors of the Heinlein Base: useless errands, since there was nothing but unfurnished rooms, offering only more empty space.

  Of more immediate, and perhaps helpful, value was the refugee Hive ship which the Rowan-Thian-Flavia merge had purloined. It would soon be back at the main Earth naval base, totally free of the gases that had destroyed all organisms.

  Human and Mrdini naval specialists were impatient to examine an undamaged queens’ quarters which contained the control systems for the ship. The most important discovery would be navigational records or star charts that might identify which worlds were Hiver-occupied.

  Ever since the Rowan mind-merge had subdued the Many Mind on the Leviathan Hive ship attacking Deneb, it had been assumed that the queens managed all aspects of control on the ship, formulating tactics and forwarding orders to their specialized minions. Whether the duties were equally distributed among them or whether each of the ten to sixteen queens on board a colony ship had different responsibilities had yet to be discovered: hopefully from the type of controls in each queen’s quarters. Engineers, astronauts, and technicians, Human and Mrdini, were eagerly awaiting clearance to board this entire ship and begin their investigations.

  The Prtglm episode had somewhat eclipsed the positive activities of the Alliance: such as the tapes Rojer had taken, unique in establishing the culture, or rather agriculture, of the Hive species.

  Destroying Xh-33’s imminent colonization project was a controversial choice from the several solutions that had been available. Most ’Dinis would have preferred to see the planet devastated in retribution for those innocent worlds which had been fumigated by Hivers. Human opinion was virtually solid that destroying the Hive ability to get off that planet was a legitimate and the most acceptable deterrent. There would have been a massive Human outcry had the affair been carried further.

  To reassure both apprehensive Humans and the aggressively vindictive Mrdini majority, Captain Quacho of the Arapahoe had remained behind on sentinel duty until a discreet space facility could be ’ported to the nearest of Xh-33’s moons. Any activity in Xh-33 space could be recorded. Should any occur, unlikely though that seemed, the Alliance could then vote on more lasting punitive action.

  Meanwhile there were other enigmas to inter
pret: if there was no communication between Hive worlds or ship-to-surface contact, how could the Alliance hope to establish any interface with the Hivers? If no communication was possible, there was no hope of arriving at any mutually satisfactory, non-aggressive cohabitation of a galaxy which had sufficient M-type systems to accommodate all—with some control on over-expanding populations.

  Afra sighed. Being of a methody upbringing as well as Talented, he eschewed violence: didn’t really know if he would even defend himself. He would, he thought, defend his children, but probably not himself. Except that that would leave Damia unsupported. So he might even defend himself, much as he would abhor the necessity. Humans had grown beyond that exigency. Association with the ’Dini had, unfortunately in Afra’s estimation, revived “war.” If only there were some avenue of interface available…

  Every attempt to get the captured queen to communicate—or notice that other intelligent beings were in her presence—had so far failed. How his daughter Zara had known that the queen was suffering from hypothermia, on the verge of extinction, was a matter no one had been able to establish—especially Zara. She had also had no further empathetic contact with the queen. No one had. The queen had ignored any visitor, even a Mrdini: even the very large Mrdini which towered above her not inconsiderable form.

  That she could see and hear had been established by adroit remote testing. Various frequencies and combinations had elicited no more response from her than a twitch of discomfort. Those settings were kept on record.

  It must be an amazing mind-set, Afra thought, to consider one’s self the only being of worth in the galaxy. There had been Humans who had had such delusions. They had generally died because of them and remained as small paragraphs in the greater history of Humankind.

  In an oblique fashion, it followed that, in the Hiver extermination of all life forms on any planet they had chosen to colonize, they were totally unaware that they were eradicating entities which might feel they had the inalienable right to live.