The Gha were a heavy-planet species. Due in large part to that gravity, theirs was the most inhospitable world that had ever produced an intelligent race. The Gha were few in numbers, but all the great trading Guilds and Combines favored them as bodyguards for their strength and physical prowess.
The native’s gabbles reached a crescendo, but they still expressed nothing more than pain—and curses.
“Again,” commanded the Guild Investigator. The Gha twisted; the native howled.
Guild Voivode Agayan ceased his finger-flexing. He transformed his mid-limbs into legs and stalked off in disgust. While the native continued to screech, the Voivode stared out at the landscape.
The scene was as barren as their investigation had thus far proven to be. The sun—a green-colored dot in the sky—cast a sickly hue over the gravelly terrain. The land was almost flat, broken only by a scattering of squat gray-skinned plants with long, trailing leaves.
And the bones. Gha bones, and the skeletal remains of the huge carnivores which served as mounts for the sepoys. The bones were picked clean, now, and bleached white by the sun. Every other relic of the battle which had raged across this plain was gone. The natives had buried their own dead, and scavenged all the discarded weapons and armor.
Behind him, Agayan heard a cracking noise. The native shrieked and fell suddenly silent. The Voivode twisted his body, caterpillarlike, and examined the situation. As he had expected, the Gha had finally broken the native’s arm. And, still, without the Investigator learning anything they didn’t already know.
“Are you quite finished?” he demanded.
Again, Yuaw Khta ignored him. But, after a moment, the Investigator made a gesture to the Gha. The sepoy released its grip. The native, now unconscious, collapsed to the ground.
Satisfied that the charade was at an end, Agayan transformed his forelimbs into arms and reached for his communicator. After summoning the shuttle, he amused himself by watching the Investigator scampering about the area, looking for some last-minute clue.
As always, the Voivode found Yuaw Khta’s movements both comical and unsettling. The Investigator, like all members of his species, was a tall and gangling creature. Its long, ungainly head hung forward from its neck like certain draft animals Agayan had observed on various primitive planets. That much was amusing. Yet there was a quick, jerky nature to the Investigator’s movements which created a certain sense of anxiety in Agayan’s mind. His own species, supple but slow-moving, retained a primordial fear of predators.
He shook the uneasiness off. Ridiculous, really. Even a bit embarrassing. Such atavistic fears had no basis in reality. Agayan’s race—like that of the Investigator—was counted among the Doge Species which dominated both the Federation and the great trading Guilds and Combines.
The Doge Species numbered only twenty-three. All other races were subordinate, to one degree or another. Some, like the species which provided the Pilots and Medics for the great trading ships, were ranked Class One. Class One species were privy to the highest technology of galactic civilization, and enjoyed many privileges. But they were still subordinates. Others, specialized laborers like the Gha, were ranked Class Two. Below Class Two species came nothing but indentured servant races, like the quasi-reptilian Ossa whose flexible phenotypes made them useful, or outright slaves like—
The shuttle swept in for a landing. The Investigator joined Agayan as they marched up the ramp.
“I told you the humans did it,” he hissed, knotting the finger-clusters of his forelimbs in satisfaction.
II
After their ship left the planet, Agayan pressed the advantage.
“It is the only possibility,” he announced firmly. “Ridiculous to think those natives were responsible!”
He and the Investigator were in that chamber of the vessel which combined the functions of a lounge and a meeting room. In deference to its multispecies use, the room was bathed with soft indirect light and bare of any furnishings beyond those of use to its current occupants. Each of those two occupants, in his or its own way, was relaxing. For Agayan, that involved nothing more elaborate than draping his body over a sawhorse-shaped piece of furniture and enjoying a tumbler of a mildly intoxicating liquor.
For the Investigator, relaxation was more intense. Yuaw Khta was also positioned on its preferred furniture, in that posture which almost all bipeds adopted when resting. (In their different languages, it was called sitting. As always, it seemed peculiar to Agayan—as if a person would deliberately choose to break his body in half.) Yuaw Khta was also sipping at a beverage. A different one, of course. The liquor in Agayan’s tumbler would poison the Investigator; and, while Agayan would survive drinking the blue liquid in Yuaw Khta’s cup, he would certainly not enjoy the experience.