Lyon's Pride (33 page)

“It is so possible to miss the obvious,” Flavia said soothingly.

Hope for the revivification of Talavera improved considerably when it was found that the waters—seas, rivers, lakes, streams—were by no means as ecologically reduced as the land, though poor in quantity and quality.
Mordmann pronounced that the planet's balance could be restored and they would immediately initiate several combinations that might suit. Whatever creatures had lived here before had had different basic requirements for there were significant basic constituents lacking in the soil: chitin, selenium, most of the rare earths and a paucity of calcium, though quantities of that would have been available from sea creatures. Lack of chitin alone would have been a problem for Hivers, since the captive queen ate substances rich with that compound.

Mordmann delayed departure from Talavera as long as he could, to be sure at least one of the domes showed some signs that seeds were prospering in the revived soil.

“One undeniable fact we have learned,” Mordmann said at his most pontifical as his group settled into the shuttle carrying them back to the ship.

“And what is that?” Captain Soligen asked, knowing what she might be letting them all in for.

“That the Hiver policy of fumigation of all life forms from the planets they wish to colonize often results in benefits that are more short-term than they anticipate. I suspect they lose half the planets they find to just such a Pyrrhic program.” Then, looking excessively pleased with himself, he folded his hands on his incipient paunch and said nothing more on the short voyage back to the
Columbia
.

*   *   *

The installations on the second former colony, Marengo, were more numerous, extending in all directions towards the mountain ranges. The fields had been assiduously cultivated for a substantial number of decades. Analysis of the dirt once again showed the lack of certain rare earths and minerals: chitin, Vitamins A and E, most of the rare earths and selenium, although sulphur was present in
quantity. Whatever indigenous life forms had lived in Marengo had disappeared without trace though its vegetation, lush and vigorous on the highlands the Hivers had not yet tamed, suggested that perhaps no land creatures had as yet evolved in this almost Pleistocene era.

Rhodri reported to Captain Soligen that the Mrdini ship was unlikely to follow the rest of the Squadron tamely to the next M-5.

“There's a Hive ship orbiting Waterloo and I shan't want it attacking ours,” Vestapia said, frowning.

“Ma'am?” When Captain Soligen gestured for Flavia to continue, she said, “I think we might be able to pull the same trick here as we did with Xh-33.”

“Trick? Blow the orbiting ship up?” The captain snorted.

“No, steal it,” Flavia said. “We don't, of course, know if the ship is occupied. The one at Xh-33 certainly wasn't. If it is, we can also use Hiver tactics and gas the maintenance crew.”

“As I remember the report,” Vestapia said in what Rhodri now privately termed her “captain's tone,” “the gas was so corrosive, it took the entire voyage back to Phobos Moon Base to clear the stuff.”

“There are other gases available…”

“You know that Klml's out for Hiver blood…”

“What would be on the ship would be the specialist types, maintaining cables and conduits and suchlike. Only queens control the ship. It's a queen Klml wants to fight, not her workers.”

“I doubt we can supply Klml a queen,” Vestapia said sourly, “but I sure wish we could end that problem. I didn't realize…No matter,” and she broke off what she'd started to say with a dismissing wave.

Rhodri “heard” what Vestapia didn't say because her
mind had been vivid with it: “…how blood-thirsty Mrdinis really are.” Quick contact with Flavia told him she'd caught that, too.

“Klml,” Vestapia continued, “will get another first, the chance to invade a Hiver ship, and that ought to give its color some sort of glory, shouldn't it?”

“It'll help,” Rhodri agreed. He was seated on the edge of her desk, hoping to get this planning session over with so he could enjoy another sort of planning. He caught Flavia's look at his informal position and decided discretion should reign. He took to a meditative pacing.

“Certainly,” Flavia said, “we know the inside of the sphere well enough to know where to 'port Captain Klml's crew aboard to secure the ship. Klml can do whatever it likes to what might be on board and that'd be another coup. Then we steal it. The Waterloo Hivers will be stuck on that planet and we can take care of them when…when it's been decided what's to be done with Hiver colonies.”

Vestapia spent one more moment looking at Flavia's elegant features before she started to laugh.

“Think of the honor Klml's color would gain by bringing back a Hiver ship under its own power.”

“Could they do that?”

“If there's enough fuel on board and with a little instruction from us on how to manipulate the instrument panel, yes,” Rhodri said, beaming because he found Flavia's idea as outrageous as the captain did. “Only we'd better have a chance to splash 'Dini insignia all over the ship, if we don't want it fired on during its way back. If you wish, ma'am, I'll explain all this to Captain Hptml on the
KMTM.
It's most anxious that the
KVS
does not go off half-cocked.
KMTM
would have to rescue it…if it could.
And the Captain's mortally afraid of putting us, as well as its color, in jeopardy over Klml's dreams of bravura.”

“So, we take a page out of the
Genesee's
log?”

“It worked.”

The captain considered again. “Only this time, I think we permit the
KVS
to use its speed and skill and bombard the planet's defenses. That is, of course”—and she held up her hand—“if we find they have the same capabilities discovered at Xh-33.”

“Why should the Hivers alter their time-soldered habits?” Rhodri asked.

“This time,” Flavia said,
“we
will clear
our
actions with Earth Prime.”

“Of course,” Vestapia Soligen agreed suavely, her light eyes as green as Rhodri'd ever seen them.

“That'll be great,” he remarked later in their quarters, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

“I'll get Jeff Raven's permission,” Flavia said, and left the two together. Which was exactly what both Rhodri and the captain wanted at that moment. Impending action had the fringe benefit of arousing other basic instincts as well.

*   *   *

Flavia's contact with Jeff received the necessary permission to duplicate—with the exercise of all due caution as far as the Talents were concerned—the successful tactics of the
Genesee
.

“That's no fun,” Zara complained. “We'll be observers—as always.”

“Yes, but I'll beat cousin Clancy into action,” Rhodri said, delighted with that fact.

“Action?”

“All right, close encounter because, brat, we're much closer to our objective…”

“We're weeks away,” she corrected him.

“But mere weeks instead of more months like the main attack units.”

“We may have received permission,” Flavia said, “but who knows if Klml'll buy the plan? It's one frustrated Mrdini and all of us remember what happened to Rojer.”

“That's exactly why nothing remotely similar will be allowed to happen this time,” said Zara in a hard, icy, vindictive tone that startled those who heard it.

Jes broke the silence with his question. “Is the main Fleet closing on the Hiver at all?”

“Earth Prime wouldn't say, precisely,” Flavia answered him, a slight frown creasing her usually smooth brow, “but I sensed something…”

“Then Grandfather wanted you to,” Zara said quickly. “So what did you sense?”

Flavia considered this for a long moment. “Triumph, I think.”

“Damn!” Rhodri said. “They may be moving in for the kill before we can get to Waterloo.”

“Unlikely, because I've already located the Waterloo beacon Kincaid so kindly set in place.” She smiled as her team reacted with jubilation. Except for Asia.

“I don't see why everyone is so happy to be pulling primary-school tricks on the Hivers. Especially you, Zara.”

Zara flushed. “I'll never live that moment down, will I? But you saw what Hivers did to Talavera—ruined a perfectly good planet. And damned near ruined Marengo the same way. They don't
deserve
to colonize their backyards.”

“Which went nova!” Asia said but her expression was less vehement. “They must be good for something. Everyone and everything I know is.”

“Try as I will,” Flavia said after a long pause, “I cannot
find ‘good' in a life form that deliberately annihilates all other life forms so that it can dominate a world for the sole purpose of multiplying itself to the point where it must find yet another world to fumigate and repeat the process.”

Asia was so quiet and exuded such a depression that Zara approached her, delicately smoothing the fine hair back from her face.

“They're great farmers,” she said softly.

“If that ability could be directed into proper channels…” Flavia began.

“No one else would ever have to crop-farm,” Jesper finished.

“If only there was a way to get that across to them…” Mallen added.

“However, we have other plans to make now,” Flavia said, “based on the information we have managed to gather about this enigmatic species and their modus operandi. It does seem a pity, though, that we can't communicate and form a collaborative effort.”

“That'll be the day!” Zara managed the last words.

T
HE weeks had moved into months as the main fleet continued to follow the increasingly strong ion trail of the Hiver 2. Squadron D plodded on along after Hiver 1 which had diverted spatially down and towards the “arm” of the Milky Way.

Clancy Sparrow proved to have many inventive ways to keep boredom at bay, such as a lottery to guess the particle strength of the trail at the end of each week. The lottery also gave him and Rojer the chance to meet most of the other Talents, covert and open, on the
Washington
.

“We've got quite a few T-3s on board,” they told Thian and ran down their mental lists, with descriptions.

“All'll answer to the code word now,” said Rojer, who had done most of the implanting.

“One way or another,” and Clancy grinned.

Another notion was to give names to the G-type systems which the Hivers ignored. An official name was drawn later from those that had been sent in from the
squadron-wide competition. Kloo joined Clancy and Rojer 'porting over to other ships to explain the procedure and, in that way, managed to meet more Talents and pick up a few new ones.

“I don't know how much help I'd be to you,” a T-4 chef said to Rojer in the captain's galley of the
Genesee.
“To my knowledge, the only things I have any control over are professional problems.”

“What, for instance?” Rojer had asked, propping one hip on the corner of a worktop and eyeing cakes the chef was icing with deft movements of his spatula.

“I never cut myself,” and he paused to regard his handiwork. “Fat never spatters on me. I've never dropped a hot pan or baking tray—and I've handled plenty without so much as a burn blister. That's why they call me Lucky Louie.”

Amused and intrigued, Rojer leaned back against the counter behind him. “Anything else?”

“Well, I've never broken a bone,” and the round-faced man grinned, “lost a fight or a card game. I don't play them no more. Didn't think it was fair if I always won.”

Rojer took that opportunity to grip the man's shoulder in an expression of approval for such probity, and caught the unmistakable touch of Lucky Louie's mind so that he could bring him to a merge should that be necessary.

“His soufflés and cakes never fall either,” muttered another galley crewman as Rojer left, but the tone was good-naturedly envious.

On the destroyer
Athene
, Semirame Kloo “discovered” an unexpected Talent in one of the electricians who had an extraordinary record of avoiding accidents in a somewhat dangerous job. Chief Petty Officer Lea Day had always chalked that up to the fact that she was careful and never attempted a repair unless she'd thoroughly looked over
any schematics. She was vastly surprised to test out as a T-4 kinetic.

“But I've never
heard
anything in my skull,” CPO Day told Kloo, her expression perplexed.

Thian
, Kloo said,
I've just found us another T-4 kinetic. CPO Lea Day
says
she's never heard anything in her skull
.

Chief Day
, Thian promptly said,
just nod your head to Commander Kloo if you're hearing me?