helpful, are they?” Koenig asked the others.
“Actually, they seem to be very cooperative,” George told him. “We just don’t have enough background yet to make sense of their answers.”
“They mentioned something … what? Mind Below?”
“Mind Here, Mind Below,” Brandt said. “We’ve also heard them reference something called ‘Mind Above.’”
“Might that be like the human subconscious?”
“Since we’re not even sure we can define what the human subconscious is,” Wilkerson told him, “I’d say it’s a bit early to speculate about that.”
“Point.”
Both of the Turusch were thrashing about now, and he heard the buzzing once again. This time, he could understand the computer-generated audio, because the two were in perfect synch. “Threat!” they said in unison. “Kill!”
Abruptly, shockingly, the heads of both Turusch split open, the tripartite armored covering separating in thirds and yawning wide. Instead of a mouth or teeth, however, Koenig saw that the openings were blocked with dark-pink tissue, glistening and moist. Something like a slender harpoon, black and a meter long, was stabbing out from the center of the tissue mass, however, together with a shorter but wider fleshy tube growing from beside the harpoon’s base.
If it was a mouth, it was like no mouth Koenig had ever seen or heard of.
The humans withdrew into the virtual recreation of the outer research lab, not because they were in danger—the NTE robots were pretty much invulnerable—but because conversation had become impossible.
“So that’s the enemy, eh?” Koenig said, shaking his head. “How’d we get them?”
“We recovered one of their Toad fighters,” George explained. “It crashed near the perimeter, and we sent a SAR and a weapons squad out to pick it up.”
“So you don’t think they were trying to surrender deliberately … or infiltrate our lines, or anything like that.”
“No, sir,” George told him. “It certainly didn’t look deliberate, anyway. General Gorman was wondering the same thing. He was wondering if they were berserkers. Suicide troops.”
Until their psychology was better understood, every move the two made, everything they said, was going to be the subject of long and careful analyses.
“My orders,” Koenig told them, “are to get them both to Port Phobos. The xeno department there will want full reports from all of you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And … I’d appreciate it if you would keep me in the loop, let me know if anything else happens with our … guests, or if you learn anything new.”
“Absolutely, Admiral.”
The Senate Military Directorate, he knew, was extremely anxious to have these two aliens safely secured and under Directorate supervision. They were already assembling a high-powered xeno contact team to keep working on the language, the culture, and the psychology, in hopes of finally learning something useful about humankind’s interstellar enemies.
“Admiral?” Nahan Cleary’s familiar voice spoke in his head. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but the Political Liaison wants to talk to you. He says it’s most urgent.”
Koenig sighed. Since ordering Quintanilla off the CIC deck, he’d been trying to handle the man more tactfully. Diplomacy and tact, however, did not seem to be helping matters.
“Very well. Have him wait in my office. I’ll be back in a moment.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
He looked at the icon-images of the three psychs. “We’re twenty hours from Deimos,” he told them. “You have that long to get them ready for transport again.”
He ended the in-head conversation and pulled back out of the virtual research lab, opening his eyes to see Cleary and Quintanilla standing in front of his office desk.
“Excuse the wait, Mr. Quintanilla,” he said. “I was checking on our two special passengers.”
“They are safe?”
“Seem to be. It’s tough to tell when they’re screaming ‘kill’ at you.”
“That’s something, at any rate,” Quintanilla said, frowning. “It at least partly makes up for your mishandling of the battle at Eta Boötis.”
“Mr. Cleary … out,” Koenig said.
“Yes, sir.”
When the aide had left, Koenig stood up behind the desk. “I will thank you not to criticize me in front of my subordinates, sir.” His voice was hard, sharp-edged. “My decisions at Eta Boötis will be judged by a court of inquiry once we’re back at Mars, not by you.”
“Had you accelerated in toward the target planet sooner,” Quintanilla pointed out, “we could have retrieved Gorman’s Marines more quickly. There’s also the matter of delaying your withdrawal in order to take on board all of those refugees. That, I remind you, was not part of your original—”
“This is not a topic for discussion, Mr. Quintanilla. Now back off!”
“Your failure to cooperate with a duly appointed representative of the Senate Military Directorate is noted.”
“Note whatever the hell you want, Quintanilla. Get out of my office.”
Quintanilla scowled, but withdrew.
“God save us from political micromanagement,” Koenig said, staring at the door after it irised shut behind him. Throwing the bastard out made Koenig feel a little better; whatever he thought of political liaisons like Quintanilla, he had to agree that the battle in Haris space had not gone as well as it might have. They’d carried out their orders—gotten in and out, picking up the MEF and their prisoners along the way, but they’d lost too many ships doing it … especially the Spirit of the Confederation. Battleships were expensive, both in money and in the huge crews they carried, and there would be wolf packs both in the Senate military and budgetary directorates and within the senior military leadership who would be howling for blood. Assigning blame and finding scapegoats both were time-honored traditions for the brass and for politicians alike.
Koenig had made the decisions.
It was his head that would roll.
Flight Officers’ Head
TC/USNA CVS America
Inbound, Sol System
1027 hours, TFT
Gray stepped naked out of the shower and nearly collided with Jen Collins. “Well, well,” she said, her voice acid. “Look here, boys. Our Prim coward.”
There was no sexual
