An Ancient Peace (17 page)

The ends of his hair traced short lines against her cheek as he grinned. “Not those kind of relationships. Political ones. The Trun are one of the Elder Races, right?”

“Yes.”

“And they live in the Core.”

“Obviously.”

“And they don't seem to like us Younger Race types very much.”

She thought about telling him to get to the point, but even without the frequent stops, it was a long enough trip she was happy to have the diversion. “Also obviously.”

“But there were Niln and Rakva and Katrien all over the place, just like they're all over the place in the MidSectors and OutSectors. I mean, we found three Katrien-only bars last night and we weren't even looking that hard. None of them are Elder Race species, are they?”

“No.”

“So why are the Trun willing to be all buddy buddy with the Niln and the Rakva and the Katrien when we're getting an escort back to the tether?” He leaned around her and languidly waved a pale hand at the three facilitators—who managed to simultaneously ignore him and record the gesture.

“The Niln, Rakva, and Katrien all joined the Confederation after it was formed. Some people call them the Mid Races, most don't bother. Their homeworlds are on the edge of the Core so if they want to expand, they have to head out, that's why we see so much of them.” Had she been talking with Craig or Werst, she'd have added that they saw more than they needed to of some Katrien. “The Trun want nothing to do with us . . .” She raised her voice enough to carry to the far end of the link. “. . . because the Younger Races were brought into the Confederation to fight a war. The war got us in before we overcame the societal impulse toward violence . . . Societal,” she repeated raising a hand and cutting off Alamber's protest about the gang who'd jumped Werst and Ressk. “There's assholes in every species. But a
societal
impulse toward violence makes us at best uncivilized.”

Alamber nodded. “And at worst, murderers. That got shouted at us last night,” he continued in response to Torin's raised brow. “Binti dealt with it; no one died. The shouter, though, didn't even care that not all of us fought.”

“Why should they?” Werst growled without opening his eyes. “They don't care that if we hadn't fought they'd have died under a Primacy bombardment, blown to bleeding bits. Weeping and wailing and not enough left living to take care of the dead who'd begin to rot and bloat and stink and . . .”

“Enough.” Torin could see the tip of a tale lashing in the aisle. A fight would be in no one's best interest. Confident in Werst's compliance, she turned her attention back to Alamber. “Abalae is designed for off-worlders and its commercial sectors need a variety of goods, so why not allow the Mid Races access to a Core market. Of course, Commerce Three, Sector Eighteen wasn't exactly high end, and I have to wonder how many Mid Races you'd find in the pricier sectors.”

“Harsh, Boss.”

“Those Trun bars you and Binti went drinking in last night, any Katrien drinking in them?”

“No, but . . .”

“Any Trun drinking in the Katrien bars you found?”

“No, but . . .” Alamber's hair flipped up.

Torin swept it away from her eye. “People work together because of the demands of the job, but they socialize because they want to. Question becomes, why don't they want to?”

After a moment, Alamber nudged her with a pointy elbow. “Well, Boss? Why don't they?”

“How the hell should I know? We were only here for . . .” She glanced at her slate. “. . . just over thirty-one hours. I can't work out the problems with an entire species in . . .”

“Less than three days,” Craig said on her other side.

“Oh.” She felt Alamber nod against her shoulder, accepting the comment at face value. “That's fair.”

They were the only passengers on the tether's rise. The rest was freight.

Station security met them as they exited and escorted them to the docking arm. Which would have been incredibly stupid had they actually wanted to cause problems since, had it come to a fight, Craig and Alamber could have taken them.

From the way their fur had puffed out, doubling the size of their tails, it seemed they knew that.

“Your supplies will be transferred from the freight compartment the instant the drones are available, Visitors.” Zi didn't sound happy about the delay. Gesturing zir companion to the left, zi stood at the right of the pressure hatch, counting the six of them off as they stepped into the docking arm. “You will be detaching immediately after?” It was only just barely a question.

“We will.”

“Thank you, Visitors.”

Visitor, Torin realized following her team down the dockway, was not an honorific. It meant,
you don't belong here
. She caught Binti's eye and realized the other woman had realized the same thing.

And they
didn't
belong here.

Not when here had never been touched by war.

But they could. They could shop or learn or look at trees.

Would the Trun give them the chance, now the war was over?

Fukking Colonel Hurrs . . .

“Major Sujuno?” Verr stuck her head into the tomb, air filter glistening over her mouth and nostril ridges. “Pirate says he's through any minute now.”

“He's sure this time?”

Verr shrugged, Krai muscles and joints warping the motion just enough to be annoying. “He says he is, but I don't know—maybe he just wants out of the air lock.”

That was likely, Sujuno admitted, following Verr out into the catacombs' broad, central corridor. Most di'Taykan, di'Berinango Nadayki among them, didn't do well without physical contact. Unfortunately for him, it had been more important to keep the omnipresent dust out of the control panel than to cater to his needs. Personally, she'd have been thrilled to have been behind plastic for a few days, locked away from expectations.

A raised hand held Verr in place for the moment it took for her vision to adjust to the lower light levels. Because the Krai, with their long, spreading toes, hadn't quite caught on to the half glide, half stride that allowed the air to flow from the front of the boot to the back, creating eddies of fine particulate and throwing a minimal amount of dust up into the air, they walked a half a dozen paces behind both Humans and di'Taykan. As she led the way down the corridor, Sujuno wondered why Sergeant Toporov had sent Verr with the message. It had been a truism in the Corps that an officer was only as good as their NCO and with Toporov, she was operating at a disadvantage. He was solid and dependable, but there were days when she'd give her right arm—or possibly his—for solid, dependable, and
clever.

The faint hum of the compressors sounded louder than usual in the absolute silence waiting at the corridor's end. The security system the H'san had left behind reacted to noise above 45 decibels and a di'Taykan spice mix carried to make field rations palatable, and the
zones it covered appeared entirely random. She doubted they were, but hadn't the time to waste on deriving an alien pattern from limited data. Quiet and bland had become the order of the day.

Toporov nodded as she arrived and stepped aside.

She moved up close to the wall they needed to breach, turned, and peered through into the air lock. Nadayki's lime-green hair lay flat against his head and he had so many light receptors open his eyes were nearly black, lid to lid. Smears on the clear plastic sheeting suggested he'd been rubbing against the barrier. Hopefully, only his hands and face. “Well?”

He leaned toward her, licked his lips, and that might have been because they were chapped although the odds were higher he was flaunting his lack of personal filter. “I'm sure this time.”

“Good. Put on the glasses. I don't want to lose you again if the H'san set up another flash bang.” Cracking the control panel had taken longer than any of them had anticipated although she assumed sharing the air lock with a bucket of his own waste had kept Nadayki's wandering attention on the job. Although, given the nine letters in his family name, he'd likely spent a good part of his life in filth. Being alone and untouched for those same days had probably provided a greater incentive.

“It won't happen this time, I know what I did wrong.” Slender fingers sketched abstract lines in the air. “I know why the flash bang went off.”

“Don't make me repeat myself.” She'd allow him a little leeway in response to the cramped quarters he'd been living in for the last few days, but only a little. The three days she'd lost to temporary blindness at the second panel were not to be repeated.

He licked his lips again and put the glasses on, ears twitching through his hair as he settled the arms.

“Start a ten count,” she told him. “Then open it up.”

Toporov fell into step beside her as they walked back to the nearest tomb. “Pirate's looking a little twitchy, sir.”

“. . . nine, eight . . .”

“He has a name, Sergeant.”

“Nadayki's looking a little twitchy, sir.”

“. . . seven, six . . .”

“Then let's hope this works.” She glanced into the tomb, the spaces around the huge sarcophagus filled with the remaining eight of her ten-person crew.

Keo and Broadbent stood ready to rush the door when it opened, the stone they'd use to block it already in place by the air lock. A nod of her head moved them both a step to the left, and she slipped past without contact, the sergeant a solid barrier at her heels. She'd know soon enough if Nadayki was successful; she didn't need to put herself at risk watching it happen.

“. . . two, one.”

The silence extended. Then . . .

“It's opening.”

The two ex-Marines raced for the door. Toporov moved just far enough forward to be able to lean out into the corridor and report, his left arm still wrapped, skin red and inflamed, from the unexpected blowback during the last attempt. The scorch marks on the stone walls continued down the corridor for another three tombs.

“Block's in, Major.”

Broadbent was big and strong, and almost stereotypically stupid. Fortunately, his years in the Corps had taught him to follow orders.

“Keo's moving forward; she's over the threshold.”

Keo was fearless. Which also made her stupid as far as Sujuno was concerned, but she could work with that. The heavy gunner carried the best black market exoskeleton money could buy along with a KC-12 and an obscene amount of ammunition. Her willingness to leap before she looked had saved their lives once already—where the definition of leap included firing impact boomers into irreplaceable H'san antiquities, destroying the weapons built into the wall behind them.

Toporov walked toward the door so he could pass on Keo's report to Broadbent without the volume of their voices setting off the security system.

“Spiral stairs, made of stone, descending only.” His voice was a low, bass rumble. “The lights have come up in the stairwell . . .”

Most of the necropolis had automatic lighting, glass ovals set into
the walls that they could only assume continued to work as designed, the power source as unknown as the reason for matching the days and nights on the planet above. The ancient H'san, Sujuno had concluded pretty much immediately after landing, were more than a little strange.

“. . . and Keo's descending. Five steps. Ten. Fifteen. Halt!” Toporov's last word had been a command, not a repetition. “Major, we have to extend.”

She sent Verr out into the corridor, allowing Toporov to move closer to the stairs, then she stepped into the corridor herself. Verr five feet away, Toporov five feet from him, Broadbent through the door and down the stairs, the top of his very blond head just visible at floor level. In the end, she had to add Wen, Nadayki, and Dion to the line—although Dion bitched and complained about how he was an expert and this was beneath him the whole time. He'd become skilled at keeping his voice just under the level that set off the sensors. If she'd given some serious thought to shooting him when he was no longer needed, it was his own fault.

The team descended the stairs as a unit until she stood alone in the catacombs.

The stairs went down sixty feet and ended in an enormous cave.

“A natural cave?”

“No idea, Major. I've never been in a cave before, natural or otherwise. But it's got plenty of ambient lighting. Pink stone, like the first hall. It's pretty.”

“Less opinion, Keo.”

In the center of the cave was a small lake, surrounded by stone benches and short pillars . . .

“Plinths,” Dion sniffed.

“Seriously? That's a word?”

“Focus, people!”

Toporov's bark froze Sujuno in place. The energy beams fired by the noise sensors hadn't been fatal yet, but they hurt. If Toporov was going to be hit, best only he was hit.