Afterburn

“I know it’s not a ’Zangian.” Shon handed over copies of the scans he had performed. “DNA samples on every SEAL in the pilots’ pod, except one.”

“I’ve been swimming with them every day for the last week.” Shon showed him one of the palm slides he had used. “It’s easy enough to make casual contact underwater and scrape off a few cells without making anyone suspicious.”

Shon had done his best, but somehow Saree had evaded every attempt he’d made at physical contact. It bothered him that she had treated him underwater as she might a floating corpse, until he saw it was how she treated everyone. He had obtained a sample of her DNA from a few tissue cells she had left on the flight-control console of the Sandpearl, but that was not enough to clear her. Cells could be planted; DNA had to be taken directly from the body.

“You’ll have to clear her another time.” Norash copied the scans and handed Shon a new set of orders. “Quadrant wants you to replace Bataran as the Skartesh delegate at the summit.”

“The other delegates won’t accept me speaking on behalf of the Skartesh,” Shon warned him. “They’ll know I’m a plant.”

“Not when you have the blessing of the Skartesh people. They have always wanted you as their chosen leader, and they’ve been very vocal about having you replace Bataran.”

“Intel wouldn’t put me in merely to have eyes and ears at the negotiation table,” Shon guessed. “Am I going in to scrape cells?”

“This information is not to be repeated and released to anyone,” Norash warned him as he switched on a wall screen. The image of a humanoid in a critical-care medical berth came into view. “This is Lep Falsma, one of the mercenaries who attacked the Ylydii ship. He was found hiding in one of the derelicts.”

“They were. Lep, it seems, didn’t like shipboard fare and brought his own food and water stores with him when he signed on. He’s the only one who didn’t get poisoned, although he was badly injured in the battle.” Norash enabled the vid to play.

“We were hired to attack the delegate’s ship, and two others,” Lep told the security officer standing by his berth. “We don’t take many jobs like this—too much exposure—but someone musta waved a lot of credits under the captain’s nose. He ferried out five other jobs to do this one.”

“Unknown. He used Bartermen intermediates to buy us, but word went around. Captain wouldn’t say which delegate ship we weren’t supposed to touch, but everybody said that was the backer, ’cause he’d be the only one left alive after we were through.”

Norash paused the playback. “Bataran and the Skartesh have been cleared, as the cult’s assets were seized after the invasion of Ninra. That leaves you three suspects.”

“Carada survived the attack when she should have been the first person killed on that vessel. Until you can clear her, I’m going to consider her a suspect.”

“What about the daughter? She’s known to be in opposition to her mother, and she’s going to be the ruler of that world once the present Matriarch dies. Maybe killing Carada would remove one more obstacle to the throne.”

“Check out the particulars and, if she has a motive, add her to the list.” Norash thought for a moment. “You’ll need someone to carry secured messages back and forth to the planet; I’m not trusting any space-to-ground communications until this is over. Draft one of the pilots to work with you.”

Shon thought of what the ’Zangian had said to him about serving the greater good. “I’ll get the DNA sample.”

Dair left the FreeClinic and went immediately to the coast with Onkar. A week in the immersion tank was enough to drive anyone sand-belly, but she was more concerned about the breakup of her father’s relationship with Teresa.

Nearly every member of the coastal pod was waiting for them at the seamount ridge. Dair’s first hour underwater was spent exchanging greetings and assuring the pod that she was well, until she came face-to-face with Burn’s dam.

The older female had never in Dair’s memory addressed her by name. Onkar made an aggressive move forward, but Dair caught his fin.

Only long enough to rejuvenate himself, and then he goes right back. Znora swam a little closer. He listens to you. Tell him to come home before one of those mouth-breathers harms him.

Dair understood how Znora felt. She had spent the last week in silent terror, waiting to feel any sign of cramping or pain that Teresa had warned her would herald the loss of her own child. Burn is smart and strong. Whatever happens up there, he will come out of it alive.

He is not like you, Znora said bitterly. You are not there to protect him. He will do something foolish, and die, and it will be your fault. She suddenly turned and swam away as if she couldn’t bear looking at Dair another second.

Dair watched her go. Onkar, I need to find my father. Dairatha had not been present to greet them, and that was also something that had never happened in Dair’s memory.

The coastal pod’s feeding grounds were extensive, stretching along a twenty-kim region of the reef, and were rich with all manner of life. Onkar led Dair into the strong boundary current that took them past the grounds and into one of the older areas, where ancient volcanoes had formed a lattice of rock and sunken caves.

Your father does, her mate assured her, and cruised to a stop to taste the water before pointing to a run through the rock. He’s down there.

Dair peered and saw the faint outline of a large ’Zangian male resting under a natural arc in the stone. Or was he hiding? Surely Dairatha had heard her pulse when she’d returned to the water. You’d better let me talk to him by myself.

Dair approached her father slowly, and released a pulse of greeting so that he would know it was her. His eyes moved up as he caught the sound, but he didn’t look very welcoming.

Dairatha slowly emerged from the rock niche. I am glad to see you are well, Jadaira. Now go back to the home waters and leave me alone.

I am upset and angry. It is best no one is around me now. Dairatha eyed her belly. You still have my grandchild in there?

He came over and rested a fin against the moving bulge. It will be a male. Or did that Terran idiot female confirm the gender?

My stepmother, Teresa, who saved my life in the event that you’ve forgotten, wanted to tell me. I wouldn’t let her. Dair flipped so she could be on eye level with her father. Why are you doing this to each other? You love Teresa. She adores you. If you went at each other with your teeth until the water turned scarlet, it would not hurt this much.

I hope not. Onkar and I are going to help her. Dair cringed a little as she saw his hide blacken. Father, someone must, and we have dealt with the ’shrikes before. We could use your help, though. No one has seen more ’shrikes than you.

Don’t you try to flatter me. You are not content to involve yourself in this madness, no, you must drag me into it? Never, Jadaira. I will never help her bring one of those monsters into our water.

No. She cannot. Dairatha surged forward. She has no inkling of what she faces, and neither do you. Have you ever seen a ’shrike kill a ’Zangian, Jadaira?

Then you don’t know what horror is. I will not be a party to bringing that horror into our waters, and I will never acknowledge you as my child again if you do. Her father looked up and released a warning pulse as Onkar came hurtling down toward them. Don’t interfere in this, rogue. You may be my daughter’s mate, but she is still child of my body. He turned his eyes back to Dair. You will not assist Teresa in this capture. Do you hear me? If you do, you are no child of mine.

You want me to choose, is that it? Choose between you and the only mother I have ever known? Dair was outraged. I’ll tell you who I choose, Father. I choose the life of my child. I want this pup to live in waters that are safe. I never want to see the rest of the pod fighting to protect it from something that could gulp it down in one swallow. That is my choice.

Neither will Teresa. Dair’s heart constricted as her father’s flukes gave a final lash before he disappeared from sight. How can this be the thing that divides them? They stayed together after my birth, after the pod rejected me, even after my father could no longer leave the water. Why aren’t their feelings for each other strong enough to overcome this?

Although her nest-mother was a prodigious breeder, T’Kafanitana had never personally considered consuming a male. First, it was not T’Kaf’s place to eat males of her species, or any other, for she was sterile. Only a fertile female like her nest-mother had the right to devour a male’s body and use its nutrients to manufacture shells for the unborn hatchlings with which he impregnated her.

Devouring another being seemed so uncivilized, too. Granted, it was classified as a criminal act almost everywhere outside the N-jui homeworld, and that attached quite a stigma to off-world male-consumption. And while T’Kaf didn’t care very much for the gender as a whole, she had been persuaded to view some males as a viable part of a multispecies community. Certainly some could be trained to function as usefully and normally as females, and males of other species—with the exception of Rilkens—did not scurry about trying to hump the nearest erect-standing being.

Besides, if males were, as her mother claimed, very good eating, surely other species would have adopted the practice by now.

Those were not T’Kaf’s thoughts as she watched Captain Noel Argate using his persuasive charm on Dr. Selmar. No, thanks to the Terran male, T’Kaf was debating the matter all over again.

“The expedition vessels will be delivered within the week,” Argate was telling Teresa. He had a hand on her shoulder and was pressing his fingers to that portion of the Terran female’s body with rhythmic intent. “There is no reason to wait any longer.”

His neck is not so wide, T’Kaf thought, a little saliva pooling in her inner mouth. One snip of my mandibles would take his head off easily. I could probably swallow it whole.

More would be lost than the Terran male’s head if T’Kaf did that, however, and that was all that restrained her. Had there been no other consideration, nothing would have kept her from snatching him up in her strong arms and cracking his skull open to suck out his brains.

The brains and the tongue, her mother had told her. Raw, with just a tiny bit of rey-was spice sprinkled on top. Absolutely delicious.

She had been detailing the condition of the latest wrill samples harvested from their deep-sea probes, not that the doctor had been paying attention. No, from the moment Noel Argate opened his ridiculously bare slit of a mouth, Teresa seemed to hear only his voice.

“I will speak to you later, Doctor.” She took a final look at Argate’s neck before she left the Terrans and returned to the lab.

The wrill samples used to be important to Teresa, before she had joined Argate in his quest to capture a live mogshrike. Now, like T’Kaf, the tiny crustaceans sat waiting, unwanted and ignored. The fact that the probes that had captured the wrill might not do so again for another decade didn’t seem to trouble Teresa.

“The wrill population is fine,” she had assured T’Kaf during one of their recent debates on the value of continuing the experiment. “Set the probes to monitor and transmit bloom densities and randomly collect samples, and leave it at that.”

T’Kaf could not leave it at that. She still kept records, careful records, for the future. For the not-very-distant future.

An alarm went off, and the N-jui went to one of the tanks containing specimens from the farthest reaches of the monitored currents. Among the tiny wrill was a single, much larger, specimen floating upside down. Its death had triggered the alarm, but she scanned it a second time to assure that it was dead before she removed it from the sample and placed it under a scope.

The dead wrill was one of the millions Teresa had augmented and released during the opening of the URD. Bioengineered to be three times larger than natural wrill, the dead crustacean had been created to live much longer and breed five times more often, to provide more food for the aquatic species who made it their main food.

T’Kaf began a series of standard dissection scans. The wrill, a male, was in the mid-adult stage of its life cycle, well fed on algaeplankton and quite healthy. The specimen’s pin-sized brain, on the other hand, appeared under the scope to be both enlarged and internally damaged. The wrill’s condition was consistent with a compression injury, obviously acquired during the collection process.

T’Kaf moved back from the scope and looked around for a specimen dish in which she could destroy the specimen. Only then did she see the scan flags scrolling up the screen of the analysis console, which she had left running on auto while she went to make her status report to Teresa.

The readings were already being stored in the analysis console’s database, and the only way to remove all traces of them required a reinitialization of the entire system. Teresa had redundant storage systems feeding off the analyzer as well, and while T’Kaf could wipe out the lab console’s memory, she could not get to all the other systems and do the same before someone would raise an alarm.

She had not asked to be placed in this predicament, and she bitterly resented the fact that the twin burdens of knowledge and deception had fallen on her. Until she did secure a release from this unwanted obligation, she had no alternative but to continue on.

There was a possibility of concealing the truth in another manner. The N-jui stared at the display of her scanner before moving to the console. She could not erase the scan flags, but she could refine some of their parameters.

It took less than an hour to make the necessary adjustments, and then it was time to stage the accident that would destroy the evidence. A small measure of acid in a cracked beaker did the latter quite sufficiently.

“I’m sorry, Doctor, but there’s been a slight accident in the lab.” T’Kaf stepped aside so that her supervisor could see the smoking ruins left by the beaker. “One of the outer current specimens was destroyed.”

The Terran woman sighed. “Par for the course today, my friend. Don’t try to deal with that yourself; have one of the housekeeping drones come in and clean it up.”

“I will, of course,” T’Kaf said, and looked past Teresa into Noel Argate’s interested gaze. “Before I do, would you mind coming over here? There’s something that I believe you should see.”

“Could you be a little more specific?” Teresa gestured at the worktable she was sharing with Argate, which was covered with datapads and sea stream map scans. “We’re rather busy right now.”

“The specimen that was destroyed was one of the bioengineered wrill you released. It was recaptured by our probe, but it died in the tank.” T’Kaf looked into Noel Argate’s interested gaze. “It was also apparently contaminated with a new strain of microparasites.”

Burn had nothing but problems. From the day he had prevented Liana from causing an interspecies incident, everything had gone sand-belly in a hurry. First the summit talks were suspended until the injured Skartesh delegate could be replaced, which was taking forever. Then Security had sent a request for voluntary DNA testing of everyone on the vessel, which had created a complete uproar among the remaining delegates and their entourages.

“No one is taking pieces of my body,” Urloy-ka told Burn after he threw the medical team out of his quarters. Even when it was explained that only a few cells were required, the desert-dweller had flatly refused to cooperate. “If you doubt who I am, contact my planet.”

Because the Ninrana delegate refused DNA testing, the rest of the delegates followed suit. The medical team was sent back to K-2 empty-handed.

That had only been the beginning of the trouble. Since then, Burn and his detachment hadn’t enjoyed a single rotation without some sort of problem on board the Ylydii vessel.

Three days before, the liquid atmosphere temperature regulators failed, and ice crystals had begun forming inside the tanks. A blue-lipped Miglan had come to inform Burn that the Ylydii were in danger of freezing, and then it had taken another hour to find the envirocontrol component that had failed. On the heels of that incident, the ’Zangian delegate had nearly been electrocuted by a dangerous short in the communication console in his quarters. Nathaka had returned to the surface, ostensibly to rejuvenate, but Burn had the feeling they’d be lucky if he returned at all.

Now the ship’s captain, a sensible and hard-to-excite Gondian, looked ready to abandon ship. “Is it a matter of life and death, Captain?”

“I don’t know. We were contracted to crew this ship, Sublieutenant, and while I understand the design and how to operate it, this . . . this is something outside my experience.”

“My propulsion crew performed a routine inspection on the propulsion deck a few hours ago, and reported finding an unauthorized device attached to the cell feed lines. It wasn’t there during the last inspection, so I went to have a look.” The captain handed him a photoscan of the cell feed panel. “I thought it was some sort of regulator, until I checked the ship’s schematic, and it’s not listed anywhere.”

Burn glanced at the photoscan and then went still as he recognized the device. “What did you do to it? Did you touch it?” No, of course he hadn’t; the ship would be a pile of rubble if he had.

“No.” Burn used his console to issue rapid orders to the detachment. “Evacuate the propulsion deck and seal all the access hatches. I want everyone on board moved to the starboard wheel. Now, Ensign.” He terminated the signal and looked at the captain. “Have you ever separated an Ylydii vessel?”

“No. It’s a detonator. It turns the ship into a bomb.” Burn came from around the console and picked up his weapon harness. “Take me to it.”

Burn stopped long enough to brief the guards evacuating the portside wheel. “Be alert and keep your weapons ready. Two men on every delegate until we’re clear. This could be some kind of diversion tactic to draw our attention away from them.”

“Do you think all the accidents we’ve been having were veiled attempts to harm the delegates, Sublieutenant?” the captain asked as they continued on to the propulsion deck.

“That means the saboteur is on board with us, and he, she, or it will die with us.” The Gondian shook his shaggy head.

As soon as Burn saw the device, his blood ran cold. Displacer detonators weren’t unknown to League militia, as the Hsktskt had used them extensively throughout the war, but whoever planted it had hooked it into the coolant and power cell feed lines. The small charge would mix the two chemicals and destroy the entire deck before the ruptured coolant lines allowed the stardrive to go critical.

“All right, I’ll take it from here,” Burn told the captain before he yanked open a tool storage unit and started pulling what he needed from the shelves. “Get over to command and prepare to separate the ship.”

Burn checked the display on the front of the detonator. “Not enough time. You’ll want to engage the emergency buffers and take cover behind one of the moons. I need a headset that will give me a channel to the surface.”

The captain found and brought him a hands-free transponder. “Stay in communication with the helm if you can, Sublieutenant. Good luck.” He left the deck at a fast trot.

Burn slipped on the headset and signaled Norash on the surface. “Chief, I have a displacer detonator hooked into the stardrive coolant and fuel power feed. It’s active, counting down, and set to fire in three minutes.”

“Expert course, which means I have one chance in three of defusing this bitch without killing everyone within a hundred kim.”

“One in two,” the chief said. “I worked armament division retrieval when I was in uniform, and displacer tech was my specialty.”

Burn chuffed out some air. “All right, here’s what I’m looking at.” He described the detonator, peering around all sides of it without touching the casing. “I see thermal and motion sensors, so I can’t detach. The hookups are alloy-cased and multiheaded; pulling the lines is out. I’m not seeing a power core.”

Burn placed the edge of one fin just above the third line siphoning into the center of the detonator. “It has to be coolant. The line is frigid.”

“Two, and a reg valve set to full flow. Sensors on the valve, so that’s out.” Burn peered under the detonator and saw an isolated feed head. “I think I’ve got a back door.”

“An accessible tap into the works.” Which would allow him to get at the internal workings of the detonator. “Or maybe I’m hallucinating.”

“It has to be a decoy. If it isn’t, you’ll still need something to keep the conductors from firing. Stand by.” The sound of Norash arguing with someone else came over the headset. “Scan to verify the tap isn’t rigged.”

“Scanned and verified. It’s completely open.” Which certified the bomb planter as an idiot or an incompetent. “What would keep the conductors iced? Ice.” Burn backed away from the device and looked around the deck. “I’ve got three possibilities. Liquid oxygen, liquid methane, and liquid nitro.”

“Establishing connection to open port.” Burn carefully ran a supply line from the barrel of liquid nitrogen to the center, unused port of the detonator. Because touching the device would have triggered it, he used the detonator’s weak magnetic field and a buffer connection to secure the end of the line. Before he initiated the flow, he tapped into the ship’s com. “Captain, I’m preparing to disarm the device. Tell me you’re on the other side of the moon.”

“Acknowledged.” Burn picked up one of the flow regulators—which also did not need to touch the device—and opened the supply line on the barrel. The display fluttered as the liquid nitrogen entered the detonator casing. “It doesn’t like the taste.”

Burn saw the sequence indicator lights flash and stopped thinking. He yanked the liquid nitro line without a shutoff, spraying the entire device with the subzero liquid. The layer of ice that encased it was instantaneous, and scalded Burn’s fin as he tore the detonator off the lines and threw it across the level at some storage bins. By the time he hit the deck the detonator had exploded, showering him with icy shrapnel.

Moments passed by as the dust and debris cloud settled. The atmosphere remained intact, and nothing sucked Burn out into space.

Cautiously he lifted his head and looked over at the blast site, which had vaporized three bins and melted a dozen others. His frost-covered fin shook as he reached up and enabled both channels on his headset.

“Device disabled.” He saw frozen blood on the floor, and darkness crowded in on his vision field. “I’m going to need a medic down here.”

“That’s a nice addition to your scar collection,” Shon said as he inspected the wide gash being sutured shut on the side of Burn’s neck.

“I offered the sublieutenant a follow-up appointment for next week so that we could remove the scar tissue,” the nurse working on the ’Zangian told Shon, “but he refused.”

“I told you, scars are attractive.” Burn lifted one of his fins, the ends of which were smeared with a colorless dermal gel. “Frostbite, in contrast, just hurts.”

“You wouldn’t accept any painkillers, either,” the nurse reminded him. It took another minute for her to finish the suture and apply a light dressing. “Stay out of the water for twelve hours, please, and come back if there is any significant bleeding or further loss of consciousness.”

“That’s why you shouldn’t be alone for the next twelve hours.” The nurse smiled at Shon before leaving the treatment room.

“Let them fuss.” Shon secured the door panel and leaned back against it. “You’re a hero to every person on this ship.”

The console beside the berth flickered on, and black eyes in a black-and-green-striped aquatic face looked out. Burn? What happened? They made us go over to the other side of the ship. They won’t tell me anything.

Burn exchanged a look with Shon before enabling the com panel. “I’m fine, Lady Liana. There was a problem in engineering. It’s fixed now.”

You’re bandaged. What is wrong with your fin? The Ylydii female swam closer to the screen, and the fins on the sides of her body unfurled. Who did this to you?

“Liana, it’s nothing. I’m fine. You’ll be briefed later.” Burn reached over and shut off the console before he rubbed his brow. “Females.”

“It doesn’t matter. The Ylydii don’t crossbreed, and, even if they did, Liana will be returning to her homeworld in a few weeks. She’ll rule it someday, and have plenty of meek little males eager to suck on her flukes.” Burn used his uninjured fin to scratch around the base of his gillets. “Twelve hours until I can get wet.”

“One being an incompetent bomb maker.” Burn swung awkwardly off the berth and tested his legs. “If he really was so stupid.”

“If you wanted to blow up a ship, would you build a device that could be disarmed by a pup?” Burn shook his head. “The tech is all wrong, too.”

“Which is why every League soldier is extensively trained on how to handle it.” Burn wobbled on his flukes and clutched the berth rail. “You’d also plant the detonator in an area that isn’t inspected daily by the crew, right? Not slap it on out in the open.” Burn decided he could stand and released the berth rail.

“That, or he’s telling us that he can destroy the ship whenever he wants.” Burn began fastening up the front of his flightsuit. “I wish I knew what was really going on here. I can’t guard against a theoretical motive.”

“I wish I was.” Shon looked out through the viewport at the stars. “The other delegates are refusing to continue the talks until we’ve changed locations. Representative Nathaka has suggested we move the summit on-planet and hold it in the coastal waters.”

“A surface meeting place would be harder to arrange, as the Ylydii have to remain submerged. Urloy-ka and I can stay at the URD for the duration.”

Burn regarded him. “I don’t like this, Shon. All that open water provides a lot more exposure than this ship. This smells like rotflesh.”