with gold and blue reticulated markings and by the Agletsch equivalent of tattoos—swirls and curlicues picked out in gold and silver. The four stalked eyes were gorgeous—black Y-shaped pupils set in rich gold.
Both of the Agletsch speaking with Koenig were female, of course. The males of the species were small, brainless tadpoles attached like leeches to the female’s face.
And somewhere within those flat, ovoid bodies, Koenig knew, were minute electronic implants that stored the Agletsch’s sensory impressions, and beamed them to a receiver when the range was short enough—probably a few hundred thousand kilometers. Sh’daar Seeds, as these poorly understood devices were called, also apparently allowed the Sh’daar to talk with their minions—and served as the glue that bound the Sh’daar Collective together, making the whole vast, sprawling thing work.
“As we have stated in times past,” Dra’ethde pointed out, “the Seeds do not work in the manner in which you seem to believe. Some of us work within the Collective, yes-no? Others do not . . . even if we by chance carry within our bodies the Masters’ . . . the Sh’daar Seeds.”
“If no Sh’daar are nearby,” Gru’mulkisch added, “the Seeds are useless to them.”
Koenig considered a sharp reply, but decided to drop the issue. Humans tended to think in terms more black and white than did the Agletsch, who traded in information among hundreds of galactic species and seemed able to at least comprehend the psychologies of myriad alien worldviews. They seemed friendly and agreeable . . . but sometimes it was obvious that they simply didn’t think the same way as humans. The fact that they referred to the Sh’daar as Masters tended to make humans suspicious, and the various human intelligence agencies looked at them with something approaching xenophobic paranoia.
“Many of us believe,” Koenig said carefully, “that those Seeds are what tie together the Sh’daar Empire.”
He was being deliberately provocative. For years, in fact, Alexander Koenig had argued against the popular notion of a Sh’daar empire, holding that the word suggested far more cohesion and organization than was apparent through scattered encounters with Sh’daar clients over the past few decades. Koenig understood the Sh’daar threat, understood it quite possibly better than any other human alive. He’d been the admiral in command of the battlegroup that threatened the Sh’daar homeworlds in 2405. And he believed that he understood their one fundamental, crippling weakness, the flaw that had let human forces beat their forces time after time.
The Sh’daar Collective was, to be blunt, just too freaking big. That was the secret.
“The Sh’daar do collect information . . . what you call military intelligence through their Seeds,” Dra’ethde admitted. “But . . . your ambassadors and diplomatic staffs, they do the same within the nation-states in which they are stationed, yes-no?”
“Any intelligence which the Seeds provide the Sh’daar,” Gru’mulkisch said, “is quite minor. After all, the Agletsch charge for major pieces of data.”
Koenig realized that the spidery alien had just made a joke . . . and quite a human one at that. He was impressed. Humor was quite a difficult concept for many nonhuman species to understand, much less master.
“What then have you discovered?” Dra’ethde asked. “What about the together act of the Sh’daar?”
“Quid pro quo?” Koenig asked. It was a term that the Agletsch loved, and which fit well with their trade in information. This for that.
“Of course. What do you want to know?”
Koenig had been giving a lot of thought to what question he could ask. It had to be relatively low level in terms of import . . . what they called first-level compensation. More critical information—eighth level, say—could be quite expensive.
“Will the Sh’daar use you or another client species as their representatives when they come to Earth? Or will they come to Earth themselves?”
“Almost certainly they will send servant representatives,” Dra’ethde told him. “The Sh’daar have not been seen . . . in the flesh, I believe is your term, for many tens of thousands of your years. However, those representatives will no doubt have a direct communications link with their Masters.”
“That’s good, because if they came themselves, we’d need to lock up our friend Gru’mulkisch, here, to keep her Seed from dumping.”
It had happened once before, when the star carrier America had passed close to a va Sh’daar base at Alchameth, a gas giant in the Arcturan system, and data stored in Gru’mulkisch’s Seed had been transmitted to the enemy. That was the reason human intelligence services were so cautious when it came to Agletsch in human space.
Dra’ethde and Gru’mulkisch both had been carefully scanned, and their Sh’daar technoparasites identified. A scrambler had been designed and placed into the translator units they wore to block the receipt and transmission of any state secrets. In general, however, it was wiser simply not to discuss state secrets in their presence.
In any case, it was possible that a hotline to the Sh’daar might someday be useful.
“And your information in exchange?” Gru’mulkisch asked him.
“The Sh’daar have trouble dominating the galaxy,” Koenig said, “because the galaxy is far too large. Too many worlds, too many sapient species. Interstellar empires, as such, simply can’t exist . . . not when the amount of information needed to manage them is so vast. And that’s where we humans have an advantage. Interior lines of communication.”
“I do not understand your use of interior,” Gru’mulkisch said. “The Sh’daar do not surround you.”
Score, Koenig thought. Until that moment, the Earth Confederation had not been sure how extensive Sh’daar space was. Most contacts with their clients had been in toward the galactic core, in the constellations of Sagittarius, Ophiuchus, Libra, and others in that general direction.
Earth needs allies, Koenig thought to himself. Technic species not yet under the Sh’daar thrall. We just might find them in the opposite direction from the core. Orion, Taurus . . . out toward the rim.
“I meant the word figuratively,” Koenig told the Agletsch. “With a much smaller volume of space to defend, and fewer worlds with which we have to be concerned, we can move from one to another more quickly, react more quickly to a threat than can the Sh’daar, with their much larger domain. When we make a decision, when Fleet HQ gives an order, it can be disseminated among all of our forces and put into effect much more swiftly than is possible for the enemy.”
“Quite true,” Gru’mulkisch said. “Of course, you currently have the singular disadvantage of being . . . I believe one of your politicians called it ‘a house divided.’ ”
“The quote originally was from one of our sacred texts,” Koenig said. He tried to find a way to give a positive response, to turn it around and dismiss the implied threat, but could not. “And . . . no. You’re quite right.”
He looked away from the two aliens, letting his gaze drift across the glittering crowd of humans filling the plaza. Most were in formal attire—evening dress, diplomatic cloaks, designer gowns and dinner jackets. Numerous others were stylishly nude, some with luminous jewelry or skin adornment . . . or wearing holographic projections that flowed and rippled like liquid light. You would never guess, looking at that throng
