Half a sky away from it, lurking near the horizon, lay Gargantua, beginning its own dive toward the furnace of Mandel. It was still no more than a rosy point, but it was brighter than all the stars. In another week the gas-giant would show its own circular disk, barred with stripes of umber and pale yellow.
Rebka headed across the starport to one of the four main buildings. Graves was still tagging along beside him.
“You are heading to meet with Louis Nenda?” the councilor asked.
“I hope so. How much do you know about him?” If Rebka was stuck with Graves, he might as well try to use his superior knowledge.
“Only what the request told you,” Graves said. “Plus our own knowledge of members of the Zardalu Communion — which is less than we would like. The Communion worlds are not noted for their cooperation.”
Which might qualify as the best understatement yet, Rebka thought.
Twelve thousand years earlier, long before humans had begun the Expansion, the land-cephalopods of Zardalu had tried to create something that neither humans nor Cecropians had ever been foolish enough to attempt: the Zardalu Communion, a genuine empire, a thousand planets ruled ruthlessly from Genizee, the homeworld of the Zardalu clade. It had failed disastrously. But that failure might have been the object lesson saving humans and Cecropians from the same mistake.
“Louis Nenda is basically human,” Graves went on, “but with some Zardalu augmentation.”
“Mental or physical?”
“I do not know. But whatever was done, it must be fairly minor. There’s no mention of rear-skull or fingertip eyes, no hermaphroditism, no deboning or quadrimanuals or quadripedals. No gigantism or compaction — he’s male, and standard size and weight according to the manifest. Of course, there are hundreds of modifications that don’t appear on any standard list.
“As for the pet that he brings with him, I can tell you even less. It is a Hymenopt, and needless to say, it is another arthropod — though similar to Earth’s Hymenoptera only by analogy. But whether it is a plaything, or a sexual partner, or even a food supply for Nenda — that we will have to wait and see.”
And not wait long, Rebka thought. The newly arrived ship sat in the middle of Starside Port, its occupants already in screening for organisms at the arrival building. Since tests for endo- and ecto-parasites took only a few minutes, the newcomers had to be in the final stages of entry.
Rebka and Graves moved to where Max Perry and three officials from Port Entry were already waiting.
“How much longer?” Rebka asked.
Instead of replying, Perry gestured to the sealed double doors of Decontamination. They were beginning to open.
After Graves’s suggestions and Rebka’s imaginings, Louis Nenda looked surprisingly normal. Short, swarthy, and muscular, he could have passed for an inhabitant of one of the denser worlds of the Phemus Circle. He was a little unsteady on his feet, probably the result of half a dozen changes of gravity in the past few hours, but he had plenty of pep, and his self-confidence showed in his walk. He glared arrogantly around with bloodshot eyes as he strutted out of the exobiology test unit; trotting by his side, mimicking his head movements, came a chubby little alien. It halted when it saw the group of waiting humans.
“Kallik!” Louis Nenda tugged on the harness that passed around the Hymenopt’s thorax and encased the abdomen. “Heel.”
Then, without a look at anyone except Perry, he said, “Good morning Commander. I think you’ll find I test negative. Kallik also. Here’s my access request.”
The other men were still staring at the Hymenopt. Julius Graves had seen one in travels through the Zardalu territories, but the rest of them knew only pictures and stuffed specimens.
The alien was hard to match to the Hymenopt’s fierce reputation. It was less than half the height of Louis Nenda, with a small, smooth head dominated by powerful traplike mandibles and by multiple pairs of bright black eyes set in a ring around the perimeter. They were in constant motion, independently tracking different objects around it.
The Hymenopt’s body was rotund and barrel-shaped and covered with short black fur, a centimeter or two long. That was the prized Hymantel, a tough, water-resistant, and insulating coat.
What was not visible was the gleaming yellow sting, retracted into the end of the blunt abdomen. The hollow needle delivered squirts of neurotoxins, whose strength and composition the Hymenopt could vary at will. No standard serum could be effective as an antidote. Also invisible was the nervous system that provided a Hymenopt with a reaction speed ten times as fast as any human’s. Eight wiry legs could carry it a hundred meters in a couple of seconds, or fifteen meters into the air under standard gravity. The Hymantel had been a seldom-seen item of human clothing, even before the Hymenopts had been declared a protected species.
“Welcome to the Dobelle system.” Perry’s voice said the opposite of his words. He took the access requests from Louis Nenda and glanced through them. “Your original request said little about the reason why you wish to visit Quake. Do you have more details here?”
“Sure do.” Nenda’s manner was as cocky as his walk. “I want to look at big land tides, and that means Quake. At Summertide. No problem in that, is there?”
“Quake is dangerous at Summertide. More dangerous than ever, with Amaranth coming so close.”
“Hell, I don’t care about danger.” Nenda stuck out his chest. “Me and Kallik, we eat danger. We were down on Jellyroll when they had the hyperflare. Spent nine days in an aircar, chasing round in Jellyroll’s shadow to avoid being roasted, got out without even a tan. Before that we were on the next-to-last ship out of Castlemaine.” He laughed. “Lucky for us. Last ship out had no supplies and a forty-day crawl to a Bose Node. They had to eat each other. But for a real experience let me tell you what happened on Mousehole—”
“As soon as we’ve had a chance to review your request.” Perry gave Nenda an angry glance. Even on one minute’s exposure it was clear that the newcomer would not take it well if his application were rejected. “We’ll show you to temporary accommodation, then some of us need to have a meeting. Is there anything special that he” — he gestured at the Hymenopt — “needs to eat?”
“She. Kallik is female. No, she’s an omnivore. Like me.” Nenda laughed with no trace of humor. “Hey, I hope I’m not hearing what I think I’m hearing. What’s all this ‘need to have a meeting’ stuff? I’ve come a damned long way for this. Too far to get the runaround now.”
“We’ll see what we can do.” Perry glanced down at Kallik. At the fury in Louis Nenda’s voice a couple of inches of yellow sting had slid from its sheath. “I’m sure we agree on one thing: You don’t want to go to Quake and be killed there.”
“Don’t you worry your head about us. We don’t kill easy. Just approve that access request and let me get over there. It’ll take more than Quake to do me in.”
Maybe it would. Rebka watched as Perry led the newcomer away. Quake was dangerous, no doubt about it; but if self-confidence were any protection, Louis Nenda would be safe anywhere. Maybe it was Quake that needed the protection.
“I would like to hear your recommendation, Commander.”
But Perry won’t look at me, Rebka thought. He thinks he knows my decision. But he’s wrong — because I don’t know it myself.
“I oppose Summertide access, as you know.” Perry’s voice was barely audible, and his face was pale.
“Oppose access for anyone?”
“That’s right.”
“You know that Graves will simply overrule whatever we decide? He has the authority to hunt for the Carmel twins on Quake, anytime he wants to.”
“He has that authority, and we both assume that he will go. But authority won’t protect him. Quake at Summertide is a killer.” Perry’s voice rose on the final word.