“H-” Early cleared his throat. “This information . . . would it be about an, er, artifact found in an asteroid? Certain behavioral peculiarities?”
Shigehero nodded and touched the controls. A blurred holo sprang up on the wall; from a helmet-cam, Jonah decided. Asteroidal mining equipment on the surface of a medium-sized rock, one kilometer by two. A docked ship in the background; he recognized Markham’s Nietzsche, and others distant enough to be drifting lights, and suited figures putting up bubble-habitats. Then panic, and a hole appeared where the laser-driller had been a moment before. Milling confusion, and an . . . yes, it must be an alien, came floating up out of the hole.
The young Sol-Belter felt the pulse hammer in his ears. He was watching the first living non-kzin alien discovered in all the centuries of human spaceflight. It couldn’t be a kzin, the proportions were all wrong. About 1.5 meters, judging by the background shots of humans. Difficult to say in vacuum armor, but it looked almost as thick as it was wide, with an enormous round head and stubby limbs, hands like three-fingered mechanical grabs. There was a weapon or tool gripped in one fist; as they watched the other hand came over to touch it and it changed shape, writhing. Jonah opened his mouth to question and—
“Stop!” The general’s bull bellow wrenched their attention around. “Stop that display immediately, that’s an order!”
Shigehero touched the control panel and the holo froze. “You are not in a position to give orders here, gaijin,” he said. The two guards along the wall put hands inside their lapover jackets and glided closer, soundless as kzin.
Early wrenched open his collar and waved a hand. “Please, oyabun, if we could speak alone? Completely alone, under the rose, just for a moment. Upon your blood, more is at stake here than you realize!”
Silence stretched. At last, fractionally, Shigehero nodded. The others stood and filed out into the outer room, almost as graciously appointed as the inner. The other members of Early’s team awaited them there; half a dozen of assorted ages and skills. There were no guards, on this side of the wall at least, and the oyabun’s men had provided refreshments and courteously ignored the quick, thorough sweep for listening devices. Watsuji headed for the sideboard, poured himself a double vodka and knocked it back.
“Tanj it,” he wheezed, under his breath. Jonah keyed himself coffee and a handmeal; it had been a rough day.
“Problems?” the Belter asked.
“I can’t even get to an autodoc until we’re out of this Finagle-forsaken bughouse,” the Earther replied. “I knew they were conservative here, but this bleeping farce!” He made a gesture with his mutilated hand. “Nobody at home’s done that for a hundred years! I felt like I was in a holoplay. Namida Amitsu, we’re legal, these days. Well, somewhat. Gotten out of the organ trade, at least. This—!”
Jonah nodded in impersonal sympathy. For a flatlander, the man had dealt with the pain extremely well; Earthsiders were seldom far from automated medical attention. Even before the War, Belters had had to be more self-sufficient.
“What really bothers me,” Jonah said quietly, settling into a chair, “is what’s going on in there.” He nodded to the door. “Just like the ARM, to go all around Murphy’s Hall to keep us in the dark.”
“Exactly,” Watsuji said gloomily, nursing his hand. “Those crazy bastards think they own the world.”
“Run the world,” Jonah echoed. “Well they do, don’t they? The ARM—”
“Naw, not the UN. This is older than that.”
Jonah shrugged.
“A lot older. Bunch of mumbo jumbo. At least—”
“Eh?”
“I think it’s just mumbo jumbo. God, this thing hurts.”
Jonah settled down, motionless. He would not be bored; Belters got a good deal of practice in sitting still and doing nothing without losing alertness, and his training had increased it. The curiosity was the itch he could not scratch.
Could be worse, he thought, taking another bite of the fishy-tasting handmeal. The consistency was rather odd, but it was tasty. The flatlander could have told me to cut my finger off.
“Explain yourself,” Shigehero said.
Instead, Early moved closer and dipped his finger in his rice wine. With that, he drew a figure on the table before the oyabun. A stylized rose, overlain by a cross; he omitted the pyramid. The fragment of the Order which had accompanied the migrations to Alpha Centauri had not included anyone past the Third Inner Circle, after all . . .
Shigehero’s eyes went wide. He picked up a cloth and quickly wiped the figure away, but his gaze stayed locked on the blank surface of the table for a moment. Then he swallowed and touched the control panel again.
“We are entirely private,” he said, then continued formally: “You bring Light.”
“Illumination is the key, to open the Way,” Early replied.
“The Eastern Path?”
Early shook his head. “East and West are one, to the servants of the Hidden Temple.”
Shigehero started, impressed still more, then made a deep bow, smiling. “Your authority is undisputed, Master. Although not that of the ARM!”
Early relaxed, joining in the chuckle. “Well, the ARM is no more than a finger of the Hidden Way and the Rule that is to Come, eh? As is your Association, oyabun. And many another.” Including many you know nothing of. ” ‘As above, so below’; power and knowledge, wheel within wheel. Until Holy Blood—”
“—fills Holy Grail.”
Early nodded, and his face became stark. “Now, let me tell you what has been hidden in the vaults of the ARM. The Brotherhood saw to it that the knowledge was suppressed, back three centuries ago, along with much else. The ARM has been invaluable for that . . . Long ago, there was a species that called themselves the thrint—”
* * *
Jonah looked up as Early left the oyabun’s sanctum.
“How did it go?” he murmured.
“Well enough. We’ve got an alliance of sorts. And a very serious problem, not just with the kzin. Staff conference, gentlemen.”
The Belter fell into line with the others as they left the Association’s headquarters. I wonder, he thought, looking up at the rock above. I wonder what really is going on out there. At the least, it might get him Catskinner back.
Chapter 13
STOP THAT, Dnivtopun said angrily, alerted by the smell of blood and a wet ripping sound.
His son looked up guiltily and tried to resist. The thrint willed obedience, feeling the adolescent’s half-formed shield resisting his Power like thick mud around a foot. Then it gave way, and the child released the human’s arm. That was chewed to the bone; the young thrint had blood all down its front, and bits of matter and gristle stuck between its needle teeth. The slave swayed, smiling dreamily.
“How many times do I have to tell you, do not eat the servants!” Dnivtopun shrieked, and used the Power again: SHAME. GUILT. PAIN. ANGUISH. REMORSE. SHOOTING PAINS. BURNING FEET. UNIVERSAL SCRATCHLESS ITCH. GUILT.
The slave was going into shock. “Go and get medical treatment,” he said. And: FEEL NO PAIN. DO NOT BLEED. This one had been on the Ruling Mind for some time; he had picked it for sensitivity to Power, and its mind fit his mental grip like a glove. The veinous spurting from its forelimb slowed, then sank to a trickle as the muscles clamped down on the blood vessels with hysterical strength.
Dnivtopun turned back to his offspring. The young thrint was rolling on the soft blue synthetic of the cabin floor; he had beshat himself and vomited up the human’s arm—thrint used the same mouth-orifice for both—and his eating tendrils were writhing into his mouth, trying to clean it and pick the teeth free of foreign matter. The filth was sinking rapidly into the floor, absorbed by the ship’s recycling system, and the stink was fading as well. The vents replaced it with nostalgic odors of hot wet jungle, spicy and rank, the smell of thrintun. Dnivtopun shut his mind to the youngster’s suffering for a full minute; his eldest son was eight, well into puberty. At that age, controls imposed by the Power did not sink in well. An infant could be permanently conditioned, that was the way baby thrint were toilet trained—but by this stage they were growing rebellious.
CEASE HURTING, he said at last. Then: “Why did you attack the servant?”
“It was boring me,” his son said, still with a trace of sulkiness. “All that stuff you said I had to learn. Why can’t we go home, father? Or to Uncle Tzinlpun’s?”
With an intense effort, Dnivtopun controlled himself. “This is home! We are the last thrint left alive.”
Powerloss take persuasion, he decided. BELIEVE.
The fingers of mind could feel the child-intellect accepting the order. Barriers of denial crumbled, and his son’s eye squeezed shut while all six fingers squeezed painfully into palms. The young thrint threw back his head and howled desolately, a sound like glass and sheet metal inside a tumbling crusher.