camps, want to bring all humans into the trees with us, go for a long, long
walk. Need good water, good food.”
“Hisa find,” Bounder grinned, the suspicion of a great joke shared by hisa and
humans. “Not hide good you food.”
They could not hold an idea for long… so some insisted. Perhaps the game would
pall when humans had no more gifts to give. Perhaps they would lose their awe of
humans and drift their own ways. Perhaps not. The hisa were not the same as they
had been when humans came.
Neither were humans, on Downbelow.
Chapter Four
« ^ »
Merchanter Hammer: deep space; 1900 hrs.
Vittorio poured a drink, his second since space around them had suddenly become
filled with a battle-worn fleet. Things had not gone as they should. A silence
had fallen over Hammer, the bitter silence of a crew who felt an enemy among
them, a witness to their national humiliation. He met no eyes, offered no
opinions… had only the desire to anesthetize himself with all due speed, so that
he could not be blamed for any matters of policy. He did not want to give advice
or opinions.
He was plainly a hostage; his father had set things up that way. And it occurred
to him inevitably that his father might have double-crossed them all, that he
might now be worse than a useless hostage… that he might be one whose card was
due to be played.
My father hates me, he had tried to tell them; but they had strugged it off as
irrelevant. They did not make the decisions. The man Jessad had done that. And
where was Jessad now?
There was supposed to be some visitor on his way to the ship, some person of
importance.
Jessad himself, to report failure, and to dispose of a useless bit of human
baggage?
He had time to finish the second drink before the activity of the crew and
eventual nudge at the hull reported a contact. There was a great deal of
machinery slamming and the noise of the lift going into function, a crash as the
cage synched with the rotation cylinder. Someone was coming up. He sat still
with the glass before him and wished that he were a degree drunker than he was.
The upward curve of the deck curtained the lift exit, beyond the bridge. He
could not see what happened, only noted the absence of some of Hammer’s crew
from their posts. He looked up in sudden dismay as he heard them coming round
the other way, from his back, into the main room through crew quarters.
Blass of Hammer. Two crew. A number of military strangers and some not in
uniform, behind them. Vittorio gathered himself shakily to his feet and stared
at them. A gray-haired officer in rejuv, resplendent with silver and rank. And
Dayin. Dayin Jacoby.
“Vittorio Lukas,” Blass identified him. “Captain Seb Azov, over the fleet; Mr.
Jacoby of your own station; and Mr. Segust Ayres of Earth Company.”
“Security council,” that one corrected.
Azov sat down at the table, and the others found place on the benches round
about. Vittorio settled again, his fingers numb on the table surface. He was
surrounded by an alcoholic gulf that kept coming and going. He tried to sit
naturally. They had come to see him… him… and there was no possible help he
could be to them or to anyone.
“The operation has begun, Mr. Lukas,” Azov said. “We’ve eliminated two of
Mazian’s ships. They won’t be easy to get out; they’re hanging close to station.
We’ve sent for additional ships; but we’ve driven the merchanters out, all the
long-haulers. The ones left are Pell short-haulers, serving as camouflage.”
“What do you want with me?” Vittorio asked.
“Mr. Lukas, you’re acquainted with the merchanters based out of station—you’ve
run Lukas Company, at least to some extent—and you know the ships.”
He nodded apprehensively.
“Your ship Hammer, Mr. Lukas, is going back within hail of Pell, and where it
regards merchanters, you’ll be Hammer’s com operator… not under your real name,
no, you’ll be given a file on the Hammer family, which you’ll study very