“But those are not my troops.” I tried to make it understand. “My troops are still with the Skorpis.”
“Yes, frozen, I know.” The tongue flicked out again; then it asked, “So who are the humans with you?”
“Scientists,” I said.
“I was told you would be with an assault team, not a pack of scientists.”
I hesitated. If I revealed to the reptilian that these humans were enemies, what would it do?
It saw through my silence. “Scientists of the Hegemony, is that it?”
“They were studying the planet, trying to make contact with intelligent creatures in the sea. They are not soldiers,” I said.
“But they serve the enemy.”
“The Skorpis were there to protect them.”
The captain hissed in a way that almost sounded like laughter. “Some protectors! We snatched them right from between their claws!”
“But my troop is still there,” I repeated. “They’re the ones you were supposed to rescue. You must go back—”
“Go back!” it snapped. “By now the Hegemony has a whole battle fleet swarming around Lunga. I have only four ships, two of them badly damaged by the Skorpis ground defenses. My mission was to sneak in and rescue you, not to take on a Hegemony battle fleet. We don’t go back. We run away as fast as we can.”
“But my troopers—”
“Can’t be helped. Not now. This is war, human. Losses are to be expected.”
Not my troopers, I said to myself. Not Frede and Jerron and the rest of them. They’ve suffered enough. They’ve been through battle and done everything we asked of them. I’m not going to leave them to feed the Skorpis.
“Tell me about these scientists,” the captain was saying to me. “They must have valuable information in their heads, no?”
“They’re not military scientists,” I said, warily. “They don’t know anything about weapons or strategy.”
“Still, they are a good prize to bring back to headquarters. A bonus. I will be praised.”
“You’d be praised more if you brought back the troopers you were sent to rescue,” I grumbled.
Its red eyes seemed to burn. “Orion, I was sent to rescue you. That I have done. My orders said to bring up any humans with you. That I have done, also.”
I stood my ground and glowered back at it.
It shifted in its chair, then raised one taloned three-fingered hand. “Take the helm,” it said to its second-in-command. Then it curled one of those taloned fingers and said, “Come with me, Orion.”
Mutely I followed it through a hatch that we both had to duck through and into a small, dimly lit compartment. I saw a wide bunk built into one bulkhead, a desk with a blank display screen above it. The captain’s quarters, I guessed, spare and spartan.
“Sit,” it commanded. There was only one chair, a stool, actually, in front of the desk. The captain eased its bulk onto the bed. It reached to a panel at the head of its bunk and a section of the bulkhead turned transparent.
I gasped. We were out in deep space, nothing to see but stars that were stretching into elongated streaks of light because of our ship’s relativistic speed.
“We run with our tails between our legs, Orion,” the captain said good-naturedly. “Soon we reach lightspeed and then there is nothing out there to see.”
I looked back at it and saw that it was holding a metal drinking cup out to me.
“Alcoholic beverage made from grain,” it said. “I keep this for human guests.”
“Thank you.” I accepted the cup.
It reached into the compartment in its bunk again and poured something else into another cup. “Tsihn prefer drinks with blood in them.”
We touched cups and drank. The liquor was smooth and warming.
“Many intelligent species have rituals of sharing food or drink to show friendship,” said the captain. “I want you to know that even though I cannot rescue your assault team, I wish to be friendly with you.”
“I understand,” I said.
“War is never pretty. But maybe for your troops this is a better fate than they might have expected. They are frozen now. They feel nothing.”
“But they must have known what the Skorpis intended when they were put into the freezer cells,” I said. “Their last thoughts must have been hell.”