“Kestejoo, these are the humans who saved our clan. This is Bessany Weyman and the nestmate of her life-mate, John Weyman. The humans’ metal ogre, their Bolo, answers the commands of John Weyman.”
Kestejoo trembled more violently.
“Bessany Weyman,” Chilaili switched to Terran standard, “John Weyman, this is Kestejoo, akule to Icewing Clan.”
Bessany had long since learned the proper Tersae greeting from Chilaili. She had worked hard during the last several hours on pronunciation. She took one step forward, holding out her hands, and murmured the ritual greeting. “May the ancestors smile upon you, Kestejoo.”
His pupils dilated with shock. He darted a swift, terrified glance at Chilaili, who made a little head-bobbing motion, then he took a slow step forward and stretched out his own hands. They shook like leaves in a high wind. Behind her, Bessany sensed more than saw the sudden tension coiling through her brother-in-law, but Kestejoo merely touched her outstretched palms with his own and whispered the greeting in return. His voice was deep, pleasant to the ear, and the pads on his palms and fingertips were surprisingly soft. Far softer, in fact, than Chilaili’s, which belonged, after all, to a seasoned huntress.
“I am sorry,” Bessany said carefully. “I do not speak your words well. I will ask Chilaili to speak our words to you.”
She had to listen closely to catch the answer, due in part, she suspected, to slight dialectic differences that gave Kestejoo a different accent. “I will honor your words and listen carefully.”
Rapier’s translation in her ear helped.
Kestejoo spoke again, more rapidly, and Chilaili translated. “We must stop our clan’s war party, but they have traveled more than a day’s march ahead. It will be difficult to catch them.”
John stepped forward, causing Kestejoo to flinch slightly, despite nearly a meter difference in their heights. “We have a machine that can take us to them much faster than any of us can run through snow. We will take you close, then let you walk ahead, to meet them alone.”
Chilaili translated and Kestejoo nodded. “Yes. That would be best. Where is this machine?” he added, glancing toward the forest.
John pulled out his comm link. “Rapier, how close are you now?”
“Within three kilometers, Commander, due south.”
Kestejoo rolled one worried eye toward the voice emerging from the comm link.
“You’re the xeno-ecologist,” John glanced at Bessany. “Do we hike out to meet Rapier or bring him in close enough to terrify the entire clan?”
“Let’s bring him in. It’s one thing for Chilaili to tell the clan that we’re willing to form an alliance; it’s another thing entirely to see a Bolo up close and personal and not have it shoot at you.”
Her brother-in-law gave her a wan smile. “Mmm, yes, I see your point. All right, Rapier, join us, please.”
“At once, Commander.”
“Perhaps we should go to a small clearing near here?” Chilaili suggested. “I would not want the little ones to panic and run off the lip of the ravine when the Bolo comes.”
“Why don’t you just have them come up after Rapier gets here?”
Chilaili nodded gravely. “Yes. We will do this.” She turned to Kestejoo and translated.
A few moments later, a distant rumble and a sound like popcorn in a kettle reached them, rising rapidly in volume as the immense Bolo came crashing through the forest. The sound of splintering trees rose to a wild crescendo. The earth shook under Rapier’s mighty treads, then the top of his war turret appeared above the trees. Powerful muscles in Chilaili’s arm, hardened by years of hunting, bulged as she gripped Kestejoo’s wrist, preventing him from bolting.
The akule was trembling wildly, pupils dilated in terror as Rapier ground down trees like kindling. His prow emerged through a white spray as snow-covered trees went down in front of him like a weirdly reversed wake behind an oceangoing ship. Rapier’s guns bristled ominously against the dazzling, sunlit sky.
The Bolo came to a halt five meters away, a beached battleship on moveable treads.
“May the ancestors smile on you, Kestejoo, Chilaili,” the machine boomed—in Tersae.
Kestejoo let go a strangled, wildly terrified sound, then stared at Chilaili when she returned the greeting. “May the ancestors smile on you, Bolo Rapier.” She turned to Kestejoo then and spoke too rapidly for Bessany to follow the words. Rapier translated into her earpiece.
“The machine has acted with great honor since the day I first saw it, Kestejoo,” she was saying in a low, urgent voice. “It could have destroyed our war party at any time after they left the nest, without even showing itself, but it has not done so. You see, it does not fire upon us.”
“It—it is so—I had not dreamed so vast a thing could—” Kestejoo paused, panting visibly. “And the Evil One Above wanted us to fight such a thing?”
“Yes,” Chilaili said gently. “He did. Come, Kestejoo. Come and meet the Bolo machine.”
She drew him forward on trembling legs. Bessany stayed back, giving John the high sign, as well. They watched in silence as Chilaili led the akule toward the Bolo’s treads, which towered above even the Tersae. As Chilaili touched the Bolo and coaxed Kestejoo to do the same, John murmured, “Now there is a brave man.”
Bessany nodded. “Extremely.”
It took them ten minutes, but Chilaili coaxed the rest of the clan out into the snow, to meet the Bolo. Cries of terror lifted and some of the little ones clung to their mothers, but Chilaili got them all to the top of the bluff. The Bolo greeted them softly, speaking Terran standard and allowing Chilaili to translate, which surprised Bessany until she realized Rapier was taking no chances that anyone would recognize his voice as the same one which had come through the Oracle.
Touching the Bolo’s treads became a weirdly poignant ritual, enacted again and again as the clan came forward in faltering groups of two and three. Sooleawa walked past Bessany at one point, leading two little ones by the hand. She dipped her head infinitesimally in greeting as they passed, meeting Bessany’s eye with a long look of wonder. By the time the last of the clan had completed the ritual, even Kestejoo had begun to lose the worst of his fear. Bessany was actually starting to feel good about this—
“Commander,” the Bolo said urgently, startling cries of fear from the watching crowd. “I am receiving transmissions from Units of the Line across Thule. Oracle signals have been traced from fifteen locations, responding to some sort of coded burst from a far-orbit source. Explosions on one of the smaller moons were detected seconds after the transmission. There has been a massive, planetwide neurotoxin release. The nearest neurotoxin release will put Icewing Clan’s war party in the wind dispersal pattern within forty-five minutes.”
Blood drained from Bessany’s face. “Oh, my God.” She felt like somebody had just punched her. Then the full implications of Rapier’s words hit home. “John!” She clutched his arm in both hands. “That war party has the only adult male Tersae left on this whole goddamned world! Without them, the gene pool is too small to sustain the species!”
John was snarling into his comm link, “This is Lieutenant Colonel Weyman! Emergency priority! We need an airdrop of neurotoxin analog as fast as you can rendezvous! Carter, scramble your butt now!”
He was already running toward Rapier, shouting over one shoulder, “Bessany, get Chilaili and Kestejoo into the command compartment with us. It’s gonna be one hell of a jolting ride. They’d be bashed to death in that cargo hold.”
Chilaili was staring at Bessany in deep shock. “Tell me it is not true?” she whispered, voice breaking with agony. At her shoulder, Sooleawa was gulping in visible distress, having understood the Bolo’s words perfectly.
“It’s true,” Bessany said roughly. Tears stung. “There’s no time, Chilaili! If you and Kestejoo can’t persuade those males to lay down their weapons and let us give them the analog . . .”
The katori whirled and gasped out the dire news. Screams and wails rose on the frozen wind. Several older Tersae actually collapsed in the snow, moaning and tearing at their head-fur. Sooleawa broke from the group and ran, vanishing down the path that led to the living cavern. Above them, Rapier’s voice boomed into the icy air, speaking in urgent Tersae.
“Icewing Clan, if it can be done, we will save them. Chilaili, you must come now.”
Chilaili dragged the stunned Kestejoo forward, shoving him bodily onto the ladder. Sooleawa reappeared, screaming, “Mother! Wait!” The girl was running through the shocked clan, carrying something that looked like oddly shaped snowshoes. She had brought two sets. “You will need them, Mother, to move quickly through deep snow! And you’ll have to go on foot, partway, or the war party will fire on the ogre!”
Chilaili hugged her daughter hard as Bessany shoved Kestejoo up the ladder rungs; then they were all climbing toward the command compartment. Both Tersae had to suck in their bellies and scrunch their shoulders to fit through the command hatch, but they made it. John pushed them hurriedly toward the observation couches as they tumbled down the ladder. There were, thank God, three of those couches. Bessany’s half-swallowed her slight frame. The Tersae barely fit, wedged in like ticks in a narrow crack. John snapped restraints in place on all three couches and shouted at Rapier, “Go! Go!”