Cobra - Cobra Strike Part 11

"Second city's the same way," Cerenkov grunted. "The streets are only skewed twenty-three point eight degrees, but the same wide/narrow pattern's there."

"Doesn't look like they're ringed, either, the way the villages are." Justin spoke up, leafing through the ultra-camera's other shots.

There was a short pause from the other end. "What do you mean, "ringed"?" Nnamdi asked.

"There's a dark ring around each of the villages," Justin told him, backtracking a few photos. "I a.s.sumed it was shadow from the surrounding trees, but now I'm not so sure."

"Interesting," Telek grunted. "What's the number on that photo?"

"While you're doing that," Christopher put in, "we've got the neutrino spectrum identified now. Looks like they're using a tandem fission/fusion reactor system for their power supply."

Someone in the lounge gave a low whistle. "That's pretty advanced, isn't it?" another voice-Marck Rynstadt's, Joshua tentatively identified it-came in on the intercom hook-up.

"Yes and no," Christopher said. "They obviously haven't got anything as reliable as our fission plant design or they wouldn't be fiddling with a tandem system.

On the other hand, fission alone ought to be hundreds of years beyond a village society's capabilities."

"Dual cultures, then?" Joshua hazarded. "Cities and villages on separate development tracks?"

"More likely the cities are run by invading aliens," Nnamdi said bluntly, "while the villages are home to the original natives. I concede the technology issue-and it therefore becomes rather clear what the Trofts are worried about."

"That Qasama is the leading edge of someone else moving toward Troft territory,"

Telek said grimly. "Moreau-whichever of you asked-we've got an ID on those ring shadows now. They're walls, about a meter thick and two to three meters high."

The twins exchanged glances. "Primitive defenses," Justin said.

"Looks that way," Cerenkov said. "Governor, I think we'd do well to cut this part of the run to one or at most two more orbits. They're almost certainly aware by now that we're up here, and the longer we wait before landing, the less forthright and honest we look. Remember that we aren't going to be able to pretend we didn't know Qasama was here."

"At least not if we intend to use the Troft translator," Telek agreed-reluctantly, Joshua thought. Stealing a glance back at the intercom screen, he studied her face... but if she were feeling any fear at ordering them down into the snake pit, it wasn't visible. Two of them, he thought morosely, turning back to his brother and the viewport.-Or else it's me who's the odd one.

Maybe I'm just overcautious... or even an out-and-out coward.

Oddly enough, the possibility carried no sense of shame along with it. Justin and Telek, after all, wouldn't be leaving the relative safety of the Dewdrop the minute they landed; Joshua and the rest of the contact team would. An extra helping of native caution would likely be more an a.s.set than a liability out there.

They came down on the next orbit over what Nnamdi had dubbed the "city belt," aiming for a set of runways at the north end of the northernmost of the five cities in the chain. There had been some excitement when the runways had first been noticed, Nnamdi pouncing on them as evidence that Qasama was indeed the forward base of a star-going people. Christopher, though, had suggested their width and length were more suitable for aircraft than robot glide-shuttles, and for a while a tension-sharpened argument had raged in the lounge. It was Decker

York who eventually pointed out that the runway directions seemed oriented more along prevailing wind directions than along the most likely orbital launch/land vectors. Further study had failed to come up with anything else that could possibly be a starfield, and Telek had elected to use the airport as the next best site.

For Pyre, it was the most unnerving part of the mission thus far. Strapped into an emergency crash chair near the main exit hatchway, far from any viewports or intercom displays, he felt more helpless than a Cobra had any business feeling.

If the Qasamans had any interest in shooting the Dewdrop down, the approach glide would be the ideal time to do so. More so than the aliens might think, in fact; they presumably had no way of knowing that the Dewdrop was a gravity-lift,

VTOL craft and that her crew had little experience with the emergency runway landing procedure Telek had insisted they use.

But no one opened fire, and with only the mildest of lurches the ship touched down. Heaving an unabashed sigh of relief, Pyre nevertheless kept one eye firmly on the hatch's inner door as he unstrapped and got once more to his feet. The plan was to wait a few minutes and then send Cerenkov outside to wait for whatever reception committee the Qasamans might send. Through all of that Pyre and one of his Cobras would be the Dewdrop's, only real defense.

His auditory enhancers, still set on high power from the landing, picked up

Nnamdi's gasp from down the hall in the lounge. "My G.o.d, Governor. Look!

It's-oh, my G.o.d!"

"Almo!" Cerenkov's voice boomed from the other direction an instant later. "Get up here!"

Pyre was already moving, his hands automatically curving into fingertip laser firing position as he sprinted for the bridge, where Cerenkov had been for the landing.

The small gray-tone room was alive with color when he arrived, as virtually every screen displayed views of the city and surrounding forest outside the ship. Pyre hadn't realized before then just how colorful the city itself actually was, its buildings painted with the same wide range of shades as the forest, as if in deliberate mimicry. But for the moment the "Qasamans" decorative sense was the last thing on his mind.

"What's up?" he snapped.

Cerenkov, standing behind F'ahl's command chair, pointed a none too steady finger at a telescopic view of the nearest buildings a couple of hundred meters away. "The Qasamans," he said simply.

Pyre stared at the screen. Six figures were indeed heading in the Dewdrop's direction, each with the bulge of a sidearm at one side and something that seemed to be a small bird perched on the opposite shoulder. Six figures-

As human as anyone aboard the Dewdrop.

Chapter 8.

For a long minute Pyre just stood there, brain struggling mightily to reconcile what his eyes showed him with the sheer impossibility of it all. Humans here?-over a hundred and fifty light-years from the nearest world of the

Dominion of Man? And past the Troft a.s.semblage, to boot?

Back in the lounge, someone cleared his throat, a raspy sound in the bridge intercom speaker. "So you say we've all been thinking too anthropomorphically,

Governor?" Nnamdi said with exaggerated casualness.

For once, it seemed, Telek was at a loss for words. A moment later Nnamdi continued, "At least now we know for sure the Baliu demesne didn't have much to do with the Troft-Dominion War. They could hardly have failed to mention that the Qasamans were the same species as we were."

"This is impossible," York growled. "Humans can't be here. They just can't."

"All right, they can't," Christopher spoke up. "Shall we go out and tell them that?"

"Maybe they're an illusion of some kind," Joshua suggested from the twins' room.

"Controlled psychic hallucination or something."

"I don't believe in that sort of thing, either," York snapped.

"Besides," F'ahl added, touching some controls, "if they're an illusion they're a mighty substantial one. Short-radar's picking them up with no trouble and confirms shape."

"Maybe they're the slaves of the real Qasamans," Cerenkov suggested.

"Descendents of people kidnapped from Earth centuries ago. Regardless, Governor, we've got to go out there and meet them."

Telek hissed between her teeth, finally seeming to find her voice. "Captain, what's the a.n.a.lyzer showing?"