Doomsday minus 544 Earth days.
“I wonder what a shame-faced Nandrian looks like,” Ruby said.
“You’re never going to see one,” Holchuk told her. “The Nandrians are the most feared warriors in the galaxy. I doubt whether their emotional repertoire even includes such things as embarrassment. Right and wrong, honor and dishonor, these they understand. And they never act without a reason.” He turned to Townsend and continued, “If you want the whole story, then I recommend you meet Agnosk alone, boss man, one on one. Call off the Security detail. Your status as Hak’kor will be protection enough.”
“Says the man who refuses to become involved,” muttered Ruby.
“Listen, we hated having to leave Drew alone with Karlov when he arrived,” Lydia pointed out. “What makes you think it’s any safer for him to have a tête à tête with a rogue Nandrian warrior?”
“He’s not a rogue,” Holchuk replied. “He knows he’s crossed the line, and he’s prepared to give you an explanation. But I strongly suspect that it involves information not usually shared with off-worlders, and that he’ll talk more freely if there aren’t any witnesses around.”
In other words, more secrets. The realization caused something cold and hard to land in the pit of Townsend’s stomach. He was already keeping more secrets than he wanted. Far more than anyone should have to. They were piling up around him, hemming him in. Worse, they were making him paranoid, undermining his trust in people he cared about. People he depended on, and who were depending on him, for all their lives.
This had to stop. If he couldn’t trust the three who were standing with him on AdComm right now to help him protect Daisy Hub, then Drew Townsend was just as alone as he’d been on the day that his twelve-year-old self had been thrown out of Clearwater Enclave, onto the streets of New Chicago. And that was more alone than he ever wanted to be again.
“All right, then, we’ll compromise,” he decided. “I’ll meet with Agnosk on A Deck, with the three of you, and no one else, monitoring the proceedings live from here. No recordings are to be made, and nothing that you see or hear during the meeting is to be discussed outside this group without my knowledge and consent. That’s an order,” he added, capturing Lydia’s gaze and holding it until she nodded agreement. “And since two of you at least are concerned for my safety, Hagman and his team can be waiting out of sight in the tube cars in case they’re needed. Does that meet with everyone’s approval?”
Holchuk shrugged. “You’re the Hak’kor. It’s your call, boss man.”
“You keep saying that, a second before you muddy the waters,” Ruby observed tartly. “Stop it, already.”
He just gave her a knowing smile.
—— «» ——
As Agnosk lumbered through the portal onto A Deck, Drew took an involuntary step backward. All Nandrians resembled evolved carnosaurs, and not one of them was less than two meters in height. However, Townsend had forgotten just how large and powerful this particular Chief Officer was.
The alien paused and looked around. He tilted his massive head and grunted, evidently satisfied that they were alone. Then he bowed from the shoulders and said, “Greetings, Hak’kor. I am honored that you deemed my requests worthy of being granted.”
Standing as tall as he could and expanding his ribcage, Townsend replied, “Greetings, Agnosk ban Sitgaram. I granted your requests out of curiosity. Please honor me by explaining your reason for destroying an unarmed vessel so close to my station.”
“With respect, Hak’kor, the vessel was not unarmed. As you must know, words can be as lethal as disintegrator beams. I fired on the Corvou ship because its pilot was transmitting a message to its hive on the Corvou home world, declaring war on the Human race.”
Hope swelling within him, Townsend had to force his voice to remain calm. “Were you in time to stop the transmission?”
“Apologies, Hak’kor, but we were not. We were too far away to halt or disperse the signal. That is why I had to warn you. The Corvou may be small in stature, but they are many, and they act as one. This makes them a formidable foe. Each Corvou speaks for all of them. Any Corvou can declare war, and every one of them will take up weapons without hesitation.”
“And there are how many of them?”
“At least ten million adults in the hive.”
Sounding a lot more confident than he felt at that moment, Townsend pointed out, “Humanity numbers in the billions, all willing to fight to protect Earth from invasion.”
“With respect, Hak’kor, we are not discussing an invasion, or even a battle. The Corvou do not engage an enemy. They annihilate it from afar. They will enter Earth space aboard thousands of vessels, each armed with weapons against which you have no defense. They will attack your home world from orbit, burning and bombarding it relentlessly until every Human on it is dead. Then they will maraud. They will seek out Earth’s colonies and space stations and destroy them the same way, killing every Human they find, and they will continue hunting and killing Humans until every Corvou in the swarm is dead.”
“How — How do you know this?”
Agnosk’s large orange eyes locked unblinkingly with his. “Because it is what they did to us,” he replied, spitting out each word with equal force. “Nandor is not our first home world — Serrussha was. Many centuries ago, a nameless Serrusshan made a mistake. Nandor was one of a small number of colonies to survive the genocide that followed. In our language, nandor means ‘stronghold’. This was where we gathered afterward, to rebuild our society. We had been caught unprepared, and it had cost us everything, even our name. From that time forward, there have been no Serrusshans, only Nandrians. As a race, we swore that we would never again be caught unprepared for battle.”
This had to be the privileged information Holchuk had referred to. Townsend swallowed hard around the sudden lump in his throat. “You became the most feared warriors in the galaxy.”
“Yes. And then we swore a second oath, never to stand idle and let any other race be caught as unprepared as we were.
“We became traders. For more than a thousand years, Nandrians have traveled the galaxy, observing, listening, helping where needed. We received an order from the Great Council not to tell Humans about the Corvou. Nandor had signed a treaty pledging to honor the laws of the Council. Disobedience would have meant dishonoring our House and our world. But we knew that other races had had dealings with some of your outlying colonies, and we suspected what the result might be. We began visiting Earth space as well. Whenever we found something that appeared Corvou-made, we traded for it.”
Now things were making sense. “You couldn’t warn us, so you were protecting us instead by trying to remove all traces of the Corvou from our settlements.”
“You understand.”
“And yet, Nagor’s crew traded us that shuttle. Why?”
“They did not wish it, but your engineer was insistent. He offered more and more until they gave in. They warned him that the ship could not be completed. He did not understand.”
Knowing Soaring Hawk, Townsend wasn’t surprised. “He took their warning as a challenge. This is not uncommon among Humans. Agnosk, I am curious. How did the Corvou pilot know that we had the shuttle?”
“The Corvou have a sense that most other races lack. Each builder places a unique mark on every piece it makes and can detect it from a distance, within a certain range. When the Mother of All finishes the universe, each builder is responsible for finding and completing its own work. However, pieces are often traded, and may be taken far away from Coravon. In that case, their builder must leave the home world and travel in search of them. Sometimes the journey takes many years.”
“Is that why this Corvou was so impatient? Because it was looking for multiple pieces and couldn’t afford any delays?”
The massive head tilted to one side. “The Corvou queen is very long-lived. She will normally lay eggs for a thousand years or more. The current queen is dying after only a fraction of that time.”
According to Holchuk, Nandrians spoke to one another in riddles as a form of mental exercise. That was apparently what Agnosk was doing now. Unfortunately, after eight sleepless nights, thinking wasn’t exactly Townsend’s strong suit.
The moment stretched out. The big alien was staring expectantly at him. He had to say something. A Hak’kor could not remain silent. In desperation, Drew blurted out the first thing that came into his mind: “And you suspect foul play?” Then he went cold all over.
It couldn’t possibly be the right answer. It was a knee-jerk response by a former field investigator. And yet, to Townsend’s astonished relief, the Nandrian was baring his lower fangs in approval. “You understand,” he said, giving weight to each syllable. “We suspect, but do not know, so cannot act.”
Oka-ay. Drew arranged his features in what he hoped would be interpreted as a sympathetic expression.
The Nandrian tilted his head once more. “The Corvou queen does more than lay eggs. She also produces nechtarah, a substance that gives her offspring long life. The more eggs she lays, the more abundantly her body produces nechtarah. As long as she lives, they all do.”
Now Townsend was beginning to see some logic. “So, each new clutch of eggs adds to the population,” he said, thinking aloud. “But this queen is dying young, meaning that her offspring are still relatively small in numbers.” His voice slowed in wonder as the realization finally sank in. “You’re telling me we might actually have a fighting chance in this war.”
“The queen has stopped laying eggs and will soon be dead. Normally, her attendants have a thousand years to extract and store a reserve of nechtarah. After her death, it sustains the Corvou population for up to fifty standard years while they protect the unhatched eggs and finish their work for inspection by the Mother of All.”
“Normally fifty years,” Drew repeated. “And how many do you figure they have this time, Agnosk ban Sitgaram?”
“I cannot be specific, Hak’kor, but a queen this young is centuries away from producing nechtarah at full capacity. I suspect the hive can last only a handful of years after her death.”
And that explained the urgency of the Corvou’s mission.
“Now that the Corvou have decided they’re all doomed, I imagine a lot of their pieces will remain unfinished,” Drew commented.
“Or will be completed by others as the Corvou all return to their home world to prepare for war. The galactic treaty forbids them to design or build any weapons. They will be starting, as you Humans say, from the first square. As a result, even with the entire population dedicated to the task, it will take the hive at least a standard year to assemble their armada.”
A standard year was forty-eight intervals long. That worked out to a year and a half in Earth time, roughly five hundred and forty days. Drew’s heart dropped. Humanity would need more time than that to ready its defenses against an enemy like the Corvou. And yet… “The Corvou will be living on nechtarah during that year?”
“For nearly all of it, yes.”
If the big nasty could be said to have a silver lining, Townsend decided, this was it. Anything that shortened the hive’s supply of life-giving substance before the fighting began was a break for Daisy Hub.
“Once you have completed ssalssit essendi,” Agnosk continued, “we will be formally allied, and every Nandrian House will stand with your own forces in battle. House Daisy Hub is where war was declared. That place has always been the Corvou’s first target. So, we will engage the swarm here. We will not be able to stop it, but if we can slow its progress long enough, the Corvou will run out of nechtarah and will die off before all of Humanity is annihilated.”
Agnosk was evidently assuming that the swarm would contain all ten million Corvou. Perhaps that was what had happened the last time. However, these cockroaches were intelligent, meaning that they were also capable of modifying their combat strategy to compensate for a shortage of resources. If they believed their entire race was doomed, it wouldn’t matter to them when individual members died. And if the early death of some bought more time for the rest, then… No. It would probably haunt him later, but none of that bore thinking about right now. Townsend gave himself a hard mental shake, then turned his attention to the question that had been gradually rising to the surface of his mind.
“So, you figure they’ll keep attacking us until every one of them is dead. And what happens after that, to the final clutch of eggs on Coravon?”
The Nandrian paused, blinking slowly. “They will hatch, of course. One of them will produce a queen, and the Corvou life cycle will repeat itself. You suspect that we would destroy them, to avenge the loss of Serrussha?”
Just in time, Townsend remembered that the slaughter of noncombatants was considered by the Nandrians to be a criminal act. “If I did, I would hope to be mistaken, Agnosk ban Sitgaram,” he replied stiffly.
The big alien bared his lower fangs. “With respect, Hak’kor, our high speakers teach that every living race is a vital part of the universe. The loss of even one cannot be tolerated, for it throws all the rest out of balance.”
—— «» ——
As he stepped off the tube car onto AdComm, Townsend knew what he had to do. Ignoring the curious eyes trained on his face, he strode directly to Lydia’s station, where the blip representing the Nannssi was slowly sliding toward the edge of her tracking screen.
Meanwhile, Ruby sat staring at the air above her console. “Now we know why the tseritsa is so important to them,” she murmured, so softly that she might have been talking to herself.
“The living staff isn’t just a stick of wood anymore, is it?” said Holchuk, referring to a comment she’d once made in the moments before a Nandrian welcoming ceremony. “Serrussha was a charred ruin when the survivors returned to it,” he went on. “All that was left of their largest city was the sacred tree in the courtyard of one of their worship halls. According to their predominant religion, that tree was the living soul of Serrussha, and simply transplanting it somewhere else wasn’t an option. Instead, each Hak’kor very respectfully took a cutting to symbolize the spiritual connection of the House to the ancestral home world. And ever since then, miracle of miracles, those cuttings have remained alive, behaving as though they were still attached to the original tree.”
Ruby gave him a long look. “But you don’t believe that.”
“I don’t believe in miracles,” he told her. “What I do believe is that there is now a full-grown sacred tree secretly kept inside the worship hall of every House on Nandor. And once we’ve exchanged tseritsao with Trokerk, finalizing our alliance, there will most likely be one planted on Daisy Hub as well.”
“Well, true or not, it’s a very moving story. I get shivery just thinking about it,” said Ruby.
Townsend was experiencing cold shivers as well, but for quite a different reason. The odds would be dauntingly, perhaps overwhelmingly, against Humanity in the coming war. They could be facing ten million Corvou, each with a couple of years to live, or ten thousand with a couple of decades of killing in them. In either case, the enemy would be attacking with weapons of alien design and unknowable power. It was not a pleasant prospect to consider.
Still, for the sake of his crew, there had to be hope. If the Humans aboard the Hub thought for one minute that preparation for this conflict was an exercise in futility, they would be lost before the battle had even begun.
“Cheer up, people,” he told them, pinning on a smile. “However they got that way, the Nandrians are the fiercest warriors in the galaxy, and they’ll be fighting on our side. Even the Corvou should think twice before taking them on. And we’ll have Earth’s Fleet backing us up as well. Slim though it may be, we’ve got a chance, and we’re going to make the most of it. Lydia, I need to make an all-station announcement.”
She toggled a couple of switches, then gave him a thumbs-up signal.
He took a steadying breath, performed a quick mental rehearsal, and said, “Attention, all crew and guests of Daisy Hub. Please stop whatever you’re doing and listen up, because this is important. You’re probably wondering about the ‘code yellow’ earlier today. Because vital information was withheld from Humanity by order of the Galactic Great Council, we’ve had a botched first contact, resulting in a declaration of war by the Corvou. We’re safe for the moment, but as of right now, Daisy Hub is Earth’s first line of defense against an invasion that we know for a fact will be coming in about one standard year’s time.
“There will be a strategy meeting in AdComm in half an hour. All department heads will be expected to attend. Townsend out.”
Handing the mic back to Lydia, he turned to Ruby and added, “Send Soaring Hawk a separate invitation. We’ll need his input. And I’ll want to talk to Karlov right afterward, to see whether the Stragori will come onside. They’re part of the Nandrian alliance, after all.”
“Sure thing, Chief.”
Meanwhile, a calculating expression was playing across Holchuk’s features. “I’ve been turning something over in my mind, boss man,” he said. “This may not be the best time to mention it, but… You once asked me how the Nandrians could possibly benefit from entering into a defensive alliance with a race that’s physically weaker than they are and has inferior weapons technology. I think Agnosk has given you your first clue. The Nandrians obviously don’t need our help in a physical confrontation. However, we may have an advantage over them in other kinds of encounters, especially if a direct attack on our ‘enemies in common’ would violate the Nandrian code of honor.”
Those enemies would have to be unarmed and noncombatant. Waging war without weapons? Townsend could think of only one battlefield that fit that description — a negotiating table. Representatives of Earth’s five political unions were constantly squaring off against one another on matters of trade and security. Tension between Americas and Indo-Asia had reached alarming levels more than once during his lifetime. And the alien equivalent to that would be—
No.
The lump in Drew’s throat was back. He swallowed hard, but it refused to budge. “Holchuk, are you suggesting what I think you are?” Lowering his voice, he continued tightly, “Is that why they’ve been testing our worthiness? To see whether we have the right stuff to help them take down the Galactic Great Council?”
The other man’s face morphed into a wide-eyed portrait of shock. “Why, boss man, that would be treason! How could you even think such a thing of a race so obsessed with ritual and tradition?”
It was easy to do, actually, if Drew had read Agnosk correctly and the Nandrians suspected the Great Council of somehow arranging for the untimely death of the Corvou queen. Right and wrong, honor and dishonor, these the huge warriors understood. And now Townsend understood as well, and the realization was sending a mortal chill right through him.
The big nasty was even bigger and nastier than he had imagined. It involved guile and deception, two things that the Nandrians abhorred, but that they evidently believed were right up Daisy Hub’s alley. In many ways, they were right. But just considering what would be needed to run a con on the Great Council, exposing them as criminals, was making Drew feel light in the head and wobbly in the knees.
Earth’s High Council would never agree to sanction or participate in such a risky venture, no matter how just the cause might be. Neither would the Earth Intelligence Service. It would fall completely to House Daisy Hub, the loyal ally of House Trokerk. That was assuming, of course, that anyone on the Hub survived the coming battle with the Corvou. Apparently, fighting an interstellar war was going to be the simplest item on Townsend’s agenda for at least the next couple of years.
Wonderful. First Olivia, then the Stragori, now the Nandrians. Was anyone he knew not plotting to overthrow a government?
“Drew?” Lydia’s voice snapped him back to the moment. “Karlov is on the comm. He says Odysseus became agitated during your announcement and pushed past him into the corridor, insisting that he needed to go back to alien space. Our Mitradean guest is in a tube car right now, on his way to the landing deck. Do you want me to stall him?”
“No, let him go,” Townsend replied. “I can’t really blame the little fellow, considering what’s coming down the pipe. Once he’s left the system, reopen the channel to Zulu so I can set up a face-to-face with Rodrigues. We need to warn Earth about the declaration of war, and the High Council thinks we’re all troublemakers out here, so no one’s going to put much credence in my report unless he corroborates it. Bottom line is, whether we like it or not, we’re going to be working together with the Rangers on this.”
“Peachy,” she muttered glumly.
He couldn’t have agreed more.