"Zahn, Timothy - Conquerors 03 - Conquerors' Legacy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

"Interesting thought," Klnn-vavgi agreed. "Maybe we ought to go have a little talk with him."

For a handful of beats Thrr-mezaz was tempted to agree. As a Zhirrzh commander in the war zone, it seemed only right that he should know everything Warrior Command did about enemy weapons his warriors might be facing.

But the Human-Conqueror prisoner, Srgent-janovetz, was under continual monitoring by the beachhead's Elders. If they asked him about CIRCE, Warrior Command would know about it within ten beats. Cvv-panav, the Speaker for Dhaa'rr in the Overclan Seating, had already tried once to have Thrr-mezaz ousted as commander of the Dorcas ground warriors. Pressing to learn something Warrior Command obviously wanted kept secret would be all the excuse he would need to finish the job.

Thrr-mezaz looked sideways at Klnn-vavgi, a sudden doubt oozing beneath his tongue. Could that in fact be the outcome his second in command was trying for here? To goad Thrr-mezaz into doing something that would get him removed from command? Klnn-vavgi was also Dhaa'rr, after all; perhaps his oft-stated contempt for clan politics was a lie designed to lull Thrr-mezaz into complacency.

His tongue flicked in self-disgust. An absurd thought, and he was ashamed with himself for having even entertained it. Lahettilas and all that talk about distrust must have gotten deeper under his tongue than he'd realized. "Let's try something else first," he told Klnn-vavgi, changing direction toward the eastern edge of the landing field. "Come on."

The warriors and techs had long since finished their examination of the storehouse building where the two Mrachanis had come under Human-Conqueror attack a fullarc ago. Outside the eastern wall where the doors had once stood, the ground was covered with wooden splinters, and Thrr-mezaz found himself wincing as he and Klnn-vavgi crunched their way through them. There, crushed beneath those doors when the explosion blew them off their hinges, two Zhirrzh warriors had been abruptly and prematurely raised to Eldership.

And were still suffering the consequences of that raising. Yanked instantly back across the three-hundred-plus light-cyclics separating Dorcas and their preservedfsss organs on Oaccanv, both of the new Elders were twisted in the temporary insanity of anchoring shock.

As were the warriors who had been raised to Eldership during their initial invasion of Dorcas. Now, seventeen fullarcs later, that group was still showing no signs of coming out of the madness.

There were, Thrr-mezaz knew, whispered rumors of searcher and healer theories that had supposedly proved that a Zhirrzh who was too far from hisfsss organ at the time of his raising would be forever locked into anchoring shock. The clan and family leaders uniformly denied that such theories had ever even been formally proposed, let alone tested or proved. But that didn't stop the rumors. Thrr-mezaz could only hope that, if such an outer limit existed, Dorcas was still inside it.

Three more jagged holes had been ripped in the north wall by the Human-Conqueror explosives after the blast that had destroyed the doors, showering more splinters and wood fragments outside the building. "What are we doing here?" Klnn-vavgi asked as Thrr-mezaz led the way to the middle of the room.

"I have a special arrangement with one of our communicators," Thrr-mezaz told him. "He's supposed to look in here a couple times per tentharc to see if I want him."

"Really," Klnn-vavgi said, eyeing his commander. "A special arrangement, you say."

"Yes," Thrr-mezaz said, starting to have second thoughts about this idea. The secure pathway which the Dhaa'rr Elder Prr't-casst-a had set up two fullarcs ago between Thrr-mezaz and his brother Thrr-gilag had been for one purpose only: to discuss the suspected capture of Prr't-casst-a's husband, Prr't-zevisti, by the Human-Conquerors. Trying to use the pathway for any other purpose might well meet with resistance from the Elders involved in carrying the messages back and forth, particularly if the discussion turned to Dhaa'rr political moves. Perhaps he should just forget about this and hope that the Mrachanis were overstating their case on this CIRCE threat.

Abruptly, the Elder appeared. "Commander Thrr-mezaz," he said. "You have a message for Prr't-casst-a?"

"Not for Prr't-casst-a, no," Thrr-mezaz said. "But I'd like to use the secure pathway she set up to contact my brother, Searcher Thrr-gilag. Can you do it?"

"I can try," the Elder said, sounding a bit doubtful. "I thought Thrr-gilag had returned to Oaccanv."

"He has," Thrr-mezaz confirmed. "He should be at either the Overclan Seating complex in Unity City, the Thrr-family shrine near Cliffside Dales, or at the Frr-family town of Reeds Village."

"I obey, Commander," the Elder said, and vanished.

"You think Thrr-gilag knows something about this CIRCE weapon?" Klnn-vavgi asked.

"He spent nineteen fullarcs on Base World Twelve interrogating the Human-Conqueror prisoner Pheylan Cavanagh," Thrr-mezaz reminded him. "If CIRCE is as dangerous as Lahettilas seems to think, there's a good chance it would have come up in conversation."

"Maybe." Klnn-vavgi looked around the damaged building. "While you're at it, you might ask him if he knows anything about Human-Conqueror explosive weapons."

The beats went by, adding up until they'd reached a hunbeat. Then two hunbeats, then three, then four. Thrr-mezaz looked around, feeling his tail gradually speeding up its spinning movement and wondering what could have gone wrong. Anchored at both his preservedfsss organ and at the smallfsss cutting just east of the Dorcas beachhead, the Elder could transfer instantly back and forth across the light-cyclics between Dorcas and the Dhaa'rr homeworld of Dharanv. Passing the message on to an Elder on Dharanv who was also double-anchored to a cutting in the appropriate region of Oaccanv should likewise have been no problem. Could the Overclan Seating have moved up the departure time of the diplomatic mission to the Mrachani homeworld? Thrr-gilag was supposed to go on that mission, Thrr-mezaz knew; a changed departure schedule might account for no one's being able to find him.

And then, just as he'd decided that that was probably the case, the Elder reappeared. " 'This is Thrr-gilag,' " he quoted. " 'Hello, my brother. Is anything wrong?' "

"I was about to ask you the same thing," Thrr-mezaz said to the Elder, his tail slowing down slightly. "Where are you, anyway?"

The Elder nodded and vanished. This time he was back in less than half a hunbeat. " 'As it happens, I'm aboard a ship heading your way. I should be there in about five fullarcs.' "