She shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “It is possible the pod broke free -while we were discussing how to destroy the Khieevi ship. Thariinye and Maati could have escaped then.”
The three of them climbed onto the robolift. RK had stayed aboard the ship during the salvage operation. “Our new guest better hope they escaped, or be prepared to tell us where they are. Aari, I’ve got a few questions I want you to translate into their kilck-klacL”
“Certainly, Joh. I can ask questions, but I do not think the Khieevi will answer. They have never answered questions. The Linyaari sent ambassadors to them and the only answers we ever received to our questions were vids of the ambassadors being tortured as I was. But those ambassadors never escaped. Our people met their deaths in those vids.”
“Nasty stuff. Well, maybe your people asked the Khieevi right questions, but didn’t ask in the right way. You Linyaari have got a few scruples that don’t particularly apply to me. Aari, I want you to give Mac a little language lesson. He learned how to ask questions when he worked for Kisia Manjari. I’m betting our guest will be real happy to tell us anything we want to know before Mac is done with him. But we’re still going to need you to translate. You folks are pacifists, I know. Is this going to bother you?”
Aari bared his teeth until they -were -whiter than his skin in the light of the two moons. “No, Joh. It will not bother me.”
The sole Khieevi still alive and free on this planet cut a swath through the fernlike trees. At first it was a low swath. The creature was a bit stunned from his emergency departure from the shuttle, but it managed to properly decimate the undergrowth in the approved style. The Khieevi scoutship crew had expected that the strange craft that destroyed theirs would come for them on this planet, trying to protect the fragile little onehorns in the decorated space-borne food container. But the strange ship hadn’t been fast enough. The Khieevi had made short work of the onehorn ship, and would have done the same to the strange ship had it not taken them by surprise and used unfair and totally uncalled for tactics to wreck them and cause the deaths of all of the other swarm members but the navigator and the self of the Khieevi who now ate Jits way through the forest floor.
That self-the inquisitor-had heard the klickmgs of the navigator for miles and miles, but the inquisitor -was not about to go back. The navigator had been half squashed -when the shuttle fell on him. The navigator would be recycled into food soon. The inquisitor -would see to it.
10S
The inquisitor had a communications device. It would be difficult to activate without the ship’s power to fuel it, but organic activation could be implemented in an emergency such as the current one. It had only to reach a high point on the planet, arrange indigenous ingredients in a certain proportion, and chew, and the resulting chemical reaction would provide carrying power for the message the Khieevi wished to transmit.
The mission would not fail. The Khieevi swarm would come to this planet and find plenty and prosperity for another short time, and then all of the neighboring worlds and all their viable foodstuffs would also fall to his race’s relentless mandibles.
Meanwhile, the other scout ships would search out other areas. But the inquisitor’s sole purpose now was to notify its swarm of its own location, the location of the food, and the loss of the ship.
That, at least, was its sole intended purpose until, after eating its way through the undergrowth, it found at its very jaws a onehorn device, small and compact and shaped like a food container. To the inquisitor’s regret it was empty, but the onehorns who had occupied it had left a trail of broken plant matter, scent, and vibrations. The inquisitor chomped its way after them up a steep hill and down it.
At the top of the steep hill, it looked at the seashore below it and saw the navigator being lugged down the beach by two hornless two-leggeds into the strange ship. The navigator was still alive and klicking. Not for long, the inquisitor was certain. mat information would be noted when the inquisitor broadcast the next report to the swarm. It continued eating, tracking the missing onehorns.