And in this case, the time-lag turned out to be significant indeed. “There has been change,” Ccist-paa said with what sounded like a wheezing sigh. “Some of the humans of the Arachne settlement have attacked the Tamplissta of the Tyari.”

Pankau clucked his tongue gently. “Any fatalities?”

“No humans were injured. Two Tamplissta have died.”

Roman grimaced. It was a pattern that was repeating itself more and more frequently these days on the half-dozen worlds that the Cordonale shared with the Tampies: simmering confrontations boiling over into sharp episodes of violence…

and always the Tampies who got the short end.

“I’m sorry,” Pankau said. “We’ll reach your ship in approximately ninety minutes.

I’d be honored if you would allow me to transport you to the surface.”

“The honor is mine,” Ccist-paa said. “However, there is no need. My lander is capable of providing me with transport.”

“Ah,” Pankau murmured. “In that event… perhaps you’d be kind enough to give me transport.”

There was a short silence from the Tampy end. “We have no filter masks aboard,”

Ccist-paa said.

“I have one of my own.” Pankau hesitated, glanced down at Roman. “It seems to me that, in the light of recent events, it might be good for us to discuss this matter in private before we talk to the settlers themselves.”

Another pause. “You are welcome to ride in my lander,” Ccist-paa said, without any trace of emotion Roman could detect. “If you will come alongside, my lander will join with your ship.”

“Thank you,” Pankau said. “I’ll look forward to seeing you.”

“Farewell,” Ccist-paa said, and a moment later the aliens’ radio carrier cut off.

Roman keyed off the Dryden’s own radio. Behind him, the rising drone of the ship’s main fusion drive became a dull roar, and weight began to return. “Drive activated, Captain,” Nussmeyer confirmed unnecessarily.

“Very good,” Roman nodded. “Start calculating the intercept vector to the Tampy ship whenever we’re close enough.” He looked up at Pankau. The other’s face suddenly looked older; but then, it might have been merely the effect of returning weight. “I hope you were prepared to deal with an outbreak of violence,” he commented quietly.

Pankau made a face, his eyes still on the main display. “What else is there when humans and Tampies get together?” he said sourly. He looked down at Roman, his gaze intensely thoughtful. “It doesn’t bother you to be moving your ship in close to a space horse?” he asked, his tone oddly challenging.

Roman cocked an eyebrow up at him. “Not really. Should it?”

The searchlight gaze continued for a moment, then seemed to flicker out. “There’s a lot of misinformation floating around concerning space horses,” Pankau said obliquely. “False and embellished stories, general paranoia—that sort of thing.”

Straightening his shoulders, he stepped off the velgrip. “I’ll be down in my quarters, preparing my pack. Let me know when we reach the Tampy ship.” He hesitated. “Or if anything… unexpected… happens.”

Roman glanced at Trent, saw the exec looking steadily back at him. “I’ll do that, Mr. Ambassador.”

“Tampy lander away,” Trent reported. “Trajectory… right on the money.”

“Acknowledged,” Roman nodded. “Stay on it, Commander—make sure it stays that way.”

The other threw Roman a glance before turning back to his displays. “You think Pankau knows something we don’t?” he asked over his shoulder.

Roman shrugged. “I’d guess he’s just being cautious. On the other hand, there has been at least one incidence of violence down there already.”

Trent snorted. “And since Pankau’s instructions are probably to give the Tampies whatever they want…?”

Roman shrugged again. Ours is not to reason why, he quoted silently to himself.

Though that didn’t mean any of them had to like it.

Ten kilometers away, their orbit just below the Drydens, the Tampy ship was pulling slowly away. “Keep us with him, Lieutenant,” Roman instructed Nussmeyer, studying the velocity readouts on his tactical display. A kilometer ahead of the alien ship floated the dark mass of their space horse… “On second thought, let’s do more than just catch up,” he corrected himself suddenly. “I want a closer look at that space horse. Slow approach, parallel course, and keep us about two kilometers away.”

The background hum of quiet conversation abruptly cut off. Nussmeyer looked at Trent, and Trent looked at Roman. “Something, Commander?” Roman asked mildly.

Trent’s lip twitched. “The Tampies aren’t going to be pleased if we spook their space horse.”

“That’s why we’re staying two kilometers away,” Roman told him.

“What if that’s not far enough?”

Roman cocked an eyebrow and glanced around the bridge. “We’re not exactly going to be sneaking up on it, gentlemen. The Tampy Handlers should certainly be able to hold onto it, or at the very least figure out that they can’t in time to warn us off. Besides, space horses aren’t that skittish.”

Trent’s expression was stony, but he turned back to his work without further argument. Roman watched his back for a moment, then shifted his attention to the helm. “Lieutenant?”

“Maneuver plotted and fed in,” Nussmeyer reported, his voice a little strained. Like Trent, he clearly wasn’t happy about this; unlike the executive officer, he wasn’t in a position to argue about it.

“Very good,” Roman said. “Execute.”

Through the hull plates the whisper of the drive on minimal power could be felt, bringing with it an equally faint echo of returning weight. Slowly, the Dryden moved forward and planetward, passing the Tampy ship and the kilometer of nearly invisible webbing.

And within a few minutes, they were paralleling the space horse itself.

It was something of a cliche—a twenty-year-old cliche, at that—that no camera or holo could truly capture the awesome majesty of a space horse. Roman had heard it probably a hundred times since joining the Starforce; but it was only now that he finally understood why everyone who’d seen one close up seemed so insistent on repeating the standard line.

The creature was huge, for starters. Nine hundred twenty meters long, built roughly like a cylinder with rounded ends and a slight taper from front to rear, the space horse totally dwarfed the small Tampy ship trailing it. The delicate webbing linking the two was essentially invisible, even on the telescope screen, but as the fibers caught the sunlight there were occasional glints from it that added a fairy tale sparkle to the scene.

It was the things that didn’t show up on long-range scans, though, that Roman found most fascinating. The space horse’s skin, for one: though in holos it invariably turned out a flat gray, it was in fact strangely iridescent, in a way that reminded him of silk. The sensory clusters, located in axial rings at either end of the cylinder, were likewise far more delicately colored than holos could adequately capture, with colors ranging from a pale blue to a dark burgundy to a surprisingly bright yellow to an utterly dead black.

“Getting an absorption readout now,” Trent reported into Roman’s thoughts. His voice, still disapproving, was nevertheless beginning to show some grudging interest. “The skin seems to be soaking up about 96 percent of the sunlight hitting it, holding to that same percentage over the complete electromagnetic spectrum.”

Roman nodded. Space horses were supposed to be able to absorb radiation of virtually any wavelength—one of the power sources that kept the huge beasts going. “Any idea what that shimmer effect is?” he asked the other.

“Probably a diffraction effect caused by the dust sweat,” Trent said. “Or so goes the theory, anyway. Let me see if I can get some kind of direct reading on that.”

He was reaching for his console when the Dryden’s alarms suddenly began to trill.