The Space Between (49 page)

There was a moment of
silence. "
No. That does not mean this is
not a trick. Or a trap of some kind.
"

The alien ships now
completely surrounded the
Hakahei
. It would all be over very
quickly if Cuto failed to convince Mother Konu.

"If that was the case, Cuto would have used
the proper codes."

Another stretch of
silence.
"Are these hakans important? Can
the hakans be ransomed?"

"No."

"Then where is this profit Cuto speaks
of?"

"The profit would come
with the end of the war.
"

Other hurgon, mothers and fathers from other
kil'ini, joined the conversation. Meledrin listened as they
discussed contract law and other subjects she did not understand.
She did not translate all that was said, explaining to her
companions that much of the detail was irrelevant.

"Do you think it worked?" Kim asked. "Have
we stopped the war?"

Meledrin was unsure and said as much. "None
of the hurgon here can make such a decision, but they can speak to
their superiors. They can make recommendations." She paused to
listen to Cuto. "Mother Kuno wishes to speak with the Mother on our
ship. I believe that would be you, Kim. It is akin to a
captain."

Kim suddenly looked very nervous. "Are you
sure?" She took a deep breath but did not look any calmer when she
was done. "Of course you are. Okay then. Pass on my greetings and
thank what's-her-name for listening."

Meledrin raised an eyebrow.
"What's-her-name?"

"You know who I mean. Kuno."

Meledrin shook her head in disgust. "Some
respect would not be out of place."

"I respect them, I just can't pronounce
their names properly."

Meledrin sighed and waved her hands in the
ini rituals. Cuto translated into the microphone then paused to
listen to the reply.

"
Mother Konu says the F'nago Family are pleased to have the
opportunity to speak with the hakans about a possible end to the
war. Konu says if agreements can be reached it will bring much
esteem and wealth to the F'nago and to Cuto's T'loop Family.
Furthermore, lasting peace would —
"

Meledrin paused in her translation as Konu
commenced speaking again. She could not understand all the words,
but it was immediately obvious that the alien was not pleased. Cuto
interrupted Konu's interruption. Neither raised their voice or
seemed overly agitated at all.

Meledrin was unable to
believe what she was hearing. She realized her mouth was hanging
open and snapped it closed. She gathered her thoughts and wove
a
Changing
. "Konu
says Cuto's deception has bought dishonor upon all the
T'loop."

"What?" Kim said, almost shouting. "No. Come
on, damn it."

Meledrin almost felt like
shouting herself. She cleared her throat. "
The F'nago and the other families holding Target World 1 will
not let the action go unpunished. The Greater Council will hear of
the deception. Sanctions will be enforced. Matters will
—
"

Four missiles struck the ship in quick
succession, and Meledrin lost the thread of the conversation.
Possibly the details didn't matter all that much in any case.

"What's going on?" Kim shouted.

It seemed obvious enough to Meledrin. She
closed her eyes and hung on as the ship tumbled under a barrage of
missiles. "Konu has ceased trusting us for some reason," she said
into a moment of silence as she attempted to loosen her grip on the
arms of her chair. "Cuto is currently discussing the matter with
Konu."

"No shit?" Kim was staring at Cuto as if
force of will could change the outcome of the conversation.

Meledrin did not understand the term, so
made no reply.

"How many moons were there before?" Keeble
asked.

She turned to examine the image in the dome
overhead, which now also included the world they had fled.
Something was different, though she could not quite grasp what it
was.

"I'm not sure," Kim replied vaguely,
glancing at the three-dimensional image located in the center of
the room. "As long as I wasn't going to run into it, I didn't
really care."

Meledrin had not taken particular notice,
either. She had never considered the fact that there might be other
than two.

"There was only one," Tuki said quietly.

Meledrin watched as well as
the smaller of the two moons moved. She shifted nervously on her
chair, weaving a
Greater Beginning
with shaking hands. It was an unseemly display but
appeared to go unnoticed.

Meanwhile, Kim gasped and Keeble muttered
under his breath.

"It is a ship," Tuki added hesitantly. He
zoomed in but could not get close enough to see it clearly. "It is
a cylinder, twenty point four kilometers long and two point three
in diameter."

"Jesus."

Meledrin shifted again. She examined the
ship but could not truly grasp the implications of the dimensions
Tuki was listing.

"It's killing the aliens," Keeble said.

The small yellow dots of the aliens were
disappearing from the view overhead. Those closest to the strange
ship went first. The others were scattering.

"Are you sure they're being killed?" Kim
asked, almost as quietly as Tuki. She was leaning forward in her
chair as if wishing to go to help the hurgon. "Or are they just
disappearing?"

"Some were shot," Tuki confirmed.

"Are you sure?"

Tuki suddenly looked as if
he was
not
sure.
He glanced at Kim for a moment, then back at his screens. "Some are
leaving of their own accord now. Others are dying."

Meledrin was unsure if a young saveigni such
as Tuki could be trusted to make such a judgment but was not about
to argue. The yellow dots were disappearing by the handful. Those
that chose to remain were moving randomly, dodging towards the
newcomer as they fired their weapons, if she was interpreting all
the dots correctly. But all their maneuvering seemed to do nothing
more than delay the inevitable for scant seconds.

"Mother Konu obviously believes this recent
arrival fights at our behest," Meledrin said. She sat back in her
seat and smoothed down her dress to disguise the shaking of her
hands. The rapid beating of her heart could not be controlled so
easily.

To have come so far to fail now.

Cuto was the first to notice that the image
on the back wall had changed. Shifting away, the alien pointed and
Meledrin turned to look. Where previously there had been a view of
the stars outside, now there was a perfectly white, reflective,
humanoid face. It was perfectly symmetrical, perfectly formed. Too
perfect to be real.

The cold, dark eyes flickered. The mouth
moved rapidly as if the androgynous being were mumbling. Symbols
came and went at the bottom of the screen. They slowed. Slowed.
Slowed. Stopped. Meledrin could read the word. It said 'Rongo', the
language of Kiva.

"
Where are you running?
" the creature
inquired a moment later. Its voice, like its face, was
expressionless. It was a dull monotone. "
Like ninth level beings leaving a stricken vessel, you scurry
for safety. You cannot run fast enough.
"

On the screen, the creature
smiled, but merely as if it had seen a smile somewhere else and
wanted to see how the gesture tasted. "
Multeese will kill these hurgon,
" it
said, "
and then chase you at our
leisure.
"

Meledrin could understand
passion, any type of passion, but the face of the creature did not
suggest it would gain anything at all from killing them. Thinking
of its vessel, she did not doubt that it
would
kill them. In an instant. The
ease with which it was destroying the kil'ini suggested it would be
no effort at all.

"
Run all you like. It makes no difference to us. Multeese
superiority is unchallenged, though even fifth and six level
creatures, all claiming some form of intelligence, never admit that
before their deaths.
"

Kim nodded, a cold look in her eyes. "Well,
let us get to our running then."

The figure on the screen
paused, as if attempting to drag another expression from its memory
and failing. "
We
will
kill you.
"

"We'll be expecting you."

"
You will not escape.
"

"Not much of a conversationalist, are you,"
Kim said. She turned to Meledrin. "Switch that damn thing off,
would you."

Meledrin had not turned the image on in the
first instance, but the expression on Kim's face made her withhold
any comments. After a moment of hesitation as she attempted to
remember, Meledrin selected a button and pressed. The screen did
not go blank, but the cold, white face froze.

Tuki looked terrified.

Keeble was shaking his head. "So, you were
trying to get us killed?" he said to Kim. "There are easier ways of
committing suicide."

Kim shrugged.

Keeble was hitting buttons. "We have to get
back to the planet."

"We aren't going down there."

"It's our only chance, woman."

Kim was staring at the
screen, as if trying to memories the face of the alien. "Us going
down there will kill
everyone
, one way or the other. Even
if that guy doesn't kill us, then the hurgon will."

"You don't want to be friends with this new
alien?" Keeble asked with a sneer.

"There was always a spark of compassion in
the hurgon."

Meledrin slowly sat back in
her seat. She felt the need to wave a ceremony but was unsure which
might be most suitable.
Greater Beginning?
Greater Ending? Greater Changing?
Perhaps
an 'ini ritual would be better. In the end, she did none. "Then
what is it you are proposing?" She did not wish to admit to
agreeing with Keeble.

"We run."

"Why?" Tuki asked quietly. "It was killing
the kil'ini easily."

Kim sighed. "I haven't come all this way to
give up now. I haven't come all this way to die without a
fight."

Meledrin had seen Kim like
this on one another occasion. At Sherwood Forest, her determination
had been partially obscured by her uncertainty, but here it was
burning fiercely.
Greater
Beginning.

"So, that's your plan then? We run?"

"Part of it. Meledrin has to get on her
radio and warn the Americans, give them time to prepare for an
attack as well. And we have to run faster, because the longer we
last, the longer they have. Right?"

Keeble depressed some
buttons and checked his console. He still read slowly, but seemed
to be improving remarkably quickly for a dwarf. "We
were
going two kilometers
a second under our own power. The hurgon bombs gave us a push along
though, so now we're doing double that."

"Good." Kim appeared slightly stunned by the
figures. She checked her safety belt. "Meledrin, you're just
sitting there? Find the Americans for me. I need to talk to
them."

Meledrin did not like Kim's tone but was
accustomed to it by now. She sighed and turned to do as she had
been asked.

"They appeared out of nowhere," the dwarf
pointed out. "Can we really outrun them?"

Kim shrugged. "Who knows? But leading them
to the hangar down there will be a very bad idea. Those ships are
the only real hope we have at the moment. So, we have to warn the
Americans and draw the bad guy away."

"We don't even know how to fly this thing
properly," Keeble added. "And we're running on one engine."

"Well then, we'd better all learn and get
things working." Kim examined her controls. "I'd better start by
stopping all this spinning."

Meledrin studied her companions.

Keeble shook his head but turned his
attention to his screens. Tuki strapped himself in and examined the
skyglass, as if answers to all their problems lay within. Cuto was
crouching adjacent to the center of the bridge, gripping the back
of a chair. The strangest group of allies an elf had ever known.
Was this truly the group that could save all the hakan people? Or
would they merely be the first to go?

Probably they would be killed, but perhaps
Kim was correct. Perhaps their own deaths were insignificant
compared to the thousands of deaths that might well occur. Delfrana
had scorned her desire to help Keeble because he was merely a
dwarf. Meledrin had done it anyway. And she felt the same
obligation now. Neither her companions nor their peoples deserved
to die, no matter that they were not elves.

The frozen image of the alien looked down
from the screen on the rear wall with cold dark eyes. Meledrin felt
a shiver run down her spine. She was afraid. More afraid than she
had ever been.

With a glance around to be sure nobody was
looking, Meledrin licked her lips and turned her attention to the
controls.

There was work to do and only herself to do
it.

<<< >>>

END PART 1

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