could think combining the groups a good idea. The Centaurians had never known physical contact with other races except in war, and these humans knew nothing of how they fought on a battlefield. Hahnson had known humans to have nervous breakdowns just from seeing the Holconcom fight. Stern had never seen them in combat. Perhaps that helped explain his odd lack of concern for his men.
Madeline was watching a group of Centaurians and humans at another table with growing concern. The “accidental” elbowing by the humans was all too conspicuous, and the chiding tones were unmistakable despite the language barrier that even the rudimentary translators were working valiantly to correct.
“He might have left us segregated,” Madeline said angrily. “This forced integration is going to cause a riot before we ever reach Benaski Port.”
“Forced?” Hahnson eyed her. “Did Dtimun give orders to integrate at mess? I can’t believe he’d risk it.” He frowned as he studied the other diners. “This could result in a slaughter. Are you sure it was the C.O.?”
Madeline scowled. “Well, no. But if not him, then, who…?”
“I integrated our ship’s complement with the Centaurians,” Stern said carelessly. “They’ll have to learn to get along one way or the other, and the sooner the better.”
“Are you nuts?” Hahnson exclaimed. “Don’t you know what’s going to happen if one of our men lays hands on one of the Holconcom?”
“The Holconcom will sit there and take it, of course,” Stern replied smugly. “You yourself,” he added to Hahnson, “told me that the commander threatened to kill the first one of his men who fought back if there were any confrontations.”
“The commander still doesn’t realize just how physical humans are,” Hahnson protested. “I’m the only one he’s spent much time around, and we never came to blows!”
“Try the green jell,” Stern said casually, lifting a spoonful to his lips. “It tastes like anything you imagine it to be. It’s ingenious.”
“Holt…”
Hahnson never finished the sentence. Before he could, an ominous clatter of hyperplastic hitting the deck cut him off. A brief, stunned silence followed the commotion.
A Bellatrix crewman shot to his feet, glaring down at a Holconcom noncom beside him. “That’s it, you damned cat-eyes!” he roared, red in the face. “I’ve taken all the insults and all the sarcasm I’m goin’ to take from you!”
The Holconcom pointedly ignored the outburst and kept eating.
Confident now, the human grew bolder. “No guts,” he spat at the alien. “You guys are all talk. Come on, stand up and let’s see if you bleed!”
Hahnson gaped at the crewman. He knew the man. It was one of the engineers, Declan Muldoon, and he was one of the most levelheaded humans he’d ever known. It wasn’t like Muldoon to actually start a fight.
Just as Hahnson started to relay that opinion to his colleagues, Muldoon laid a heavy hand on the Centaurian he was baiting and, deftly turning him, threw a heavy-handed right cross to the alien’s jaw.
The Holconcom sat and stared at the human, unmoved by the blow, which would have felled any crewman at Stern’s table.
“Tough guy, huh?” Muldoon persisted, grinning. “Try this on for size!” He threw another punch, putting everything he had into it. The Holconcom absorbed it as easily as he had the first. But his eyes began to dilate. As he turned toward the human, Madeline saw the elongated cat-eyes slowly turn brown.
“Stern, do something while there’s still time,” Madeline said quickly.
But the Bellatrix’s captain only sat watching the byplay with oddly blank, dark eyes.
Suddenly a low, soft growl began to grow in the silence that followed the human engineer’s next deliberate blow. The sound built on itself, like a low roar that quickly took on the ferocity of a jungle cat’s warning cry. It exploded abruptly in a high-pitched inhuman scream that froze Stern’s heart in his chest with a terror that bordered on panic. The blank look left his eyes as his jaw dropped. He’d never heard such a nightmarish sound in his life, even in combat.
“My God!” Hahnson whispered. “The decaliphe!”
Before the soft words died on the air, the Holconcom regular was on his feet. He began to crouch, his eyes darker by the second, his hands slowly assuming the shape of a cat’s open paw. They flexed. Beneath the tips of the fingers, steel claws began to extend in gleaming sharp points. It was a form of bionic engineering that none of the humans had yet seen.
Madeline pushed Stern, but he didn’t react. He was frozen in place by the low growl that built again in the Centaurian’s throat.
Madeline grabbed for Stern’s Gresham and fired it at point-blank range, into the back of the Holconcom, with the setting on maximum burn. It should have killed the alien. It should have dropped him to his knees at least. It did neither. She fired again, cursing under her breath, with the same result.
“What in the seven netherworlds…!” Madeline exclaimed huskily.
The Holconcom group had risen in unison. They were standing, watching the other Holconcom who crouched in front of Muldoon.
Hahnson got to his feet. “Twenty Greshams wouldn’t stop him now!” he told Madeline. “He gave the decaliphe—the death cry. Only Dtimun can bring him down! Hold the other men back, no matter what the Holconcom do, if you can. I’ll get the C.O.”
He was out the door at a dead run. Madeline moved forward with the Gresham leveled, ignoring Stern, who still sat as if in a trance.
“Hold it!” Madeline barked at two human noncoms who were in the process of rising from their seats. “Move and I’ll drop both of you,” she added, her green eyes backing up the threat. They sat down.
But Lieutenant Higgins, the Bellatrix’s exec, rose from his chair despite the threat of Madeline’s Gresham. Across from her, the Holconcom regular was moving with a catlike stalking gait toward Muldoon, who had by now realized his peril and had begun to back away, his face mirroring his fear.
“He’ll kill Muldoon, if we don’t do something,” Higgins pleaded huskily. “He’s my friend. If we could just get Muldoon out of here…! You don’t know what they’ll do if the alien actually attacks Muldoon.” He nodded toward the Holconcom. “You haven’t seen them fight. I have.” He swallowed, hard. “There won’t be enough of Muldoon left to bury, and then they’ll go for the other humans in a solid mass. They can’t help it, Doctor, it’s the way they fight…!”
Another sharp, catlike cry from the Holconcom interrupted him.
The hairs on the back of Madeline’s neck stood up, but she held her ground. She had, after all, been an officer in the Amazon regiment, long before she became a doctor. “Move toward him again,” Madeline told Higgins, “and he’ll have company. It’s Hahnson’s show. He knows what he’s doing.”
The rest of the Holconcom were still standing, and when the humans began to stand, as well, the Centaurians’ eyes began to grow darker and the pupils dilate.
Hurry, Strick, she thought silently. She
