He went on doggedly, despite the curious stares. “Recent events have bumped you people to the number one defensive priority on Thule. That’s why I’m here with my Bolo, rather than mounting defense over the mines at Seta Point.”
“Recent events?” Herve Sinclair echoed. “What can possibly have happened to make us so important?”
John’s blue eyes were chips of ice. “I hope to hell your biochemists and their lab equipment have survived, because the Tersae have stockpiled a very nasty chemical—or maybe biological—weapon. They released it during a battle near Rustenberg. The town’s been evacuated.”
A dreadful silence crashed down. Every gaze, including Bessany’s, swung toward Chilaili. The tall katori was watching John Weyman, head tipped sideways and swinging slightly in that maddening head motion so typical of the Tersae.
John said harshly, “I’m hoping you people can find a way to protect the colonists against this stuff, because it’s deadly. It acts like a hemorrhagic neurotoxin and it kills within minutes. It was released during an attack on one of the Tersae’s underground camps. The stuff wiped out the whole population within three minutes. And it killed a whole flock of those birdlike things that resemble them, in the forest nearby.”
Bessany blanched. A whole nest, wiped out? And a flock of their genetic ancestors? How could the Tersae’s creators have given something like that to creatures who barely understood the most basic items of advanced technology? It was one thing to give them rifles and bombs, which only warriors would be put at risk, trying to use. But to give them something like a biochemical weapon that would destroy a whole clan, if accidentally released . . .
She glanced at Chilaili—then stared, while the hair on the nape of her neck stood starkly erect. John’s words had clearly baffled the tall katori. Bessany had seen enough of the Tersae’s facial expressions during the past three months to read that look with utter certainty. Chilaili had not the slightest idea what John was talking about. They don’t know they have it, Bessany realized with a ragged pounding of her pulse. My God, they’ve stockpiled a deadly biochemical weapon and they don’t even know they have it.
Even as that realization sank in, Chilaili turned a puzzled eye on Bessany, begging the question with a silent look. Bessany drew a deep breath, trying to gather her scattered wits. She had to say something and she didn’t want to blurt out her suspicions. Not yet. She needed time to think about this, to see all the ramifications. A few minutes, at least. She finally latched onto a way to break the awkward silence. “To begin this properly, Chilaili, I must first tell you that John Weyman is the brother, the nestmate, of my life-mate, who is now dead.” There, she’d managed to say that in an almost normal tone of voice.
The Tersae’s pupils dilated slightly with surprise. She swung her head back toward John.
“I am honored to know you, John Weyman. I have deep respect for Bessany Weyman. Your nestmate chose wisely, to seek her as life-mate.” She hesitated, while John’s eyes widened at hearing Terran standard coming from the tall alien’s oddly shaped beak, then Chilaili asked, “The great ogre responds to your commands?” One clawed hand gestured cautiously toward the temporary wall and the Bolo beyond it.
“What do you know about Bolos?” John asked harshly.
Chilaili blinked. “This is how the ogres are called? We know very little of them. The Ones Above warned us against the humans’ metal ogres, but I had not believed such a thing could be so large.”
John narrowed his eyes. Drew a breath. Paused, glancing at Bessany, then said carefully, “Tell me about the Ones Above.”
“They created us,” Chilaili said at once. “And now they are trying to destroy us.”
John opened his mouth, then stopped. A peculiar expression flickered through his eyes and halted whatever he’d been about to say. “They’re what?”
“They are trying to destroy us. It is why I came through the snow and the wind to Bessany Weyman’s nest. I am desperate to halt this war before it destroys my clan and the other clans, the whole of my people. Without the help of humans like Bessany Weyman, we are doomed. Either you will win this war and destroy us, or we will drive you back to the stars—which I do not think likely—and the Ones Above will destroy us. In all the wide world, there is only one human we could turn to. So I came, to beg her help. And also,” she added with forthright simplicity, “to pay the life-debt I owe her for saving my only daughter’s life. If I cannot stop this war, I have at least brought the warning there will be an attack.”
John stared at Chilaili for a full ten seconds without making any sound at all, while his eyes reflected the sudden reordering of long-held assumptions about the nature—and identity—of their enemy. “I think,” he finally said, swinging his gaze toward Bessany, “you had better tell me the whole story of what’s happened here.”
She let go her breath in a long, silent sigh, unaware until that moment that she’d been holding it so rigidly. Speaking very quietly, she told him. He listened intently as each person in the room told their own parts of the story, in turn. Surprise dawned in his eyes and continued to grow, like the sun rising above a glacier. And as he continued to listen, some of the ice began to melt from those chilly blue eyes. His gaze drifted again and again to Chilaili, expression baffled as the researchers and technicians talked of Chilaili digging them out of the rubble, teaching them how to keep campfires going while they looked for enough spare parts to hook the various labs back into the power plant, how to cook food over a bed of hot coals, how the Tersae had set broken bones, treated injuries and shock, changed wound dressings, and brought in snow to melt for drinking and cooking and wash water for the injured.
By the time the last of them had spoken, the worst of the harsh suspicion had gone from his eyes. Caution remained, clearly visible in his expression, but he no longer looked at Chilaili like something he’d have preferred to shoot out of hand and question later—if she survived the first salvo. When the last technician had finished speaking, he frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t think I have to tell you how surprising all of this is. Given the ferocity of Tersae attacks elsewhere, I’d have bet money this wasn’t even possible. Frankly, it’s giving me some fairly weird ideas.”
He roused himself from his distracting thoughts with obvious difficulty. “If I might suggest it, this med lab isn’t large enough for all of us and the patients in here need quiet and rest. I’d like a brief tour of the facilities that survived the tornado, please. Then I need a meeting with Bessany, Herve Sinclair, Dr. Ivanov, and anybody with a biochemistry background. And Chilaili,” he added with a glance toward the Tersae. “We have a great deal to thrash through, yet.”
Sinclair nodded. “Of course, Colonel.”
“All right, let me get my cold-weather gear. I’ll meet you back here in five.”
Bessany watched him hurry through the snow and vanish up the side of his Bolo. As she turned back into the room to retrieve her own coat, she wondered what, exactly, his weird ideas might be. Was it possible that Alexander Weyman’s brother actually saw the potential for alliance that Bessany had already seen? Had seen, in fact, as early as that first wild night in the thunderstorm? An alliance she had begged various ministries and military agencies to consider in her reports? She glanced at Chilaili, who stood carefully out of the way as people left the med lab. Then stared, while shock like icewater raced through her veins.
John had left Chilaili unguarded.
Just to get a coat.
Her heart thumped in a sudden heavy rhythm of hope, so unexpected it caused a physical pain. Maybe he’d done so only because he knew the Bolo could take out the whole building if Chilaili tried anything. But maybe—just maybe—he really had decided to give Chilaili a chance? Bessany closed her eyes for a long moment. She knew what was at stake here, possibly better than John did, because she had already deduced things about Chilaili’s makers that he couldn’t possibly know yet, if he’d had her reports for only twenty minutes.
Given what she already knew, that news about the biochemical weapon had shaken her. Badly. The fact that Chilaili had no idea the stuff existed had shaken her even worse. She knew John didn’t believe yet, in Chilaili’s ignorance, but Bessany was absolutely certain. Nor could she imagine a clan katori being kept totally unaware of it, if anyone at all in the clan knew it existed. Not with the survival of the whole clan at stake, once the genie was out of the bottle. And if the Tersae genuinely didn’t know they possessed such a thing . . .