“Then what, I ask, are we to do?” The male’s frustration threatened to overwhelm the heart-hammering efforts of his overworked circulatory system.
It was an honest, and a good, question, Matthias knew. The radicals were being very clever. Instead of perpetrating a massacre that could bring Commonwealth intervention, they were apparently making a conscious effort to avoid casualties. Deyzara were being beaten, their properties looted and destroyed, but except in a few isolated instances, killing was being avoided. The two-trunks were not being slaughtered—they were being herded. Into towns, where pressure was growing on her own people as well as on private enterprises to house and feed them. One way to alleviate such pressure would be to move refugees off-world, where adequate facilities existed to care for them.
Which, she reflected, was precisely what the extremist groups among the Sakuntala wanted. Once the Deyzara were off-world, she doubted that even the moderate elements among the Sakuntala would allow any to return.
Who had advised them on such a plan of action? Knowing the Sakuntala as she did, she found it hard to credit the fanatics among them with such cunning. The radicals were known for their audacity, not their restraint. Someone was helping them with advice as well as with advanced arms. But who? A few elements among the Deyzara themselves might benefit from seeing a large number of their colleagues ejected from Fluva. That was a hard possibility to countenance. What of her own kind? Could she trust every human on Fluva? Take the inventorying of weapons, for example. Without seeing for herself, how did she know if the report that had been hastily compiled and sent to her was wholly accurate?