“You doubt their story?” asks Broadtail.
“I merely suggest that we do not assume everything they say is correct. Even if there is no deliberate deception, they may not understand us perfectly, or may claim knowledge they do not really have,” says Sharpfrill.
“That is possible,” admits Broadtail.
After two days of interacting with the Ilmatarans, the four of them ate food bars and made plans inside the Coquille.
“Six weeks,” said Rob. “Maybe as much as ten. Then the food runs out and we have to give up.”
“Impossible!” said Dickie. “We’re making breakthroughs every day with the Ilmatarans. We simply cannot let the Sholen pack us off back to Earth now.”
“Well, if the alternative is starving to death, what choice do we have?”
“Fight them. Drive the Sholen off Ilmatar.”
Rob was too boggled to say anything.
“Tactical plans,” said Josef. “How do you propose to retake Hitode?”
“I’ve got it all figured. We trick them. You take the submarine around to the north and make a very noisy approach, maybe even signaling by hydrophone. The Sholen send out a party to investigate. Then the three of us approach from the south, and as soon as they’re outside the station, we slip in through the moon pool.”
“That’s it?” Rob asked. “What if there are guards inside?”
“What if there are? I think I’ve demonstrated that a human can kill a Sholen in a fight.”
“You got lucky.”
“Luck is an illusion. I was willing to use deadly force when Gishora wasn’t.”
“And what about when they killed Isabel?”
“They had the advantage of numbers, and we all were handcuffed and unarmed. I don’t think the Sholen will stand up as well against enemies who are ready and able to fight back. Remember, it’s been ages since they’ve had a war among themselves. They don’t know how to do it anymore.”
“That’s not enough,” said Rob. “We don’t have any weapons but our knives. Unless they—”
“Pistol,” said Josef. He got up and went for his equipment case. Inside it, locked in a scratched, dented box with a flaking Russian Navy insignia on the cover, was an odd-looking doublebarreled pistol, like a black plastic derringer.
“Four-point-five-millimeter caseless four-shot Spetsnaz underwater pistol,” said Josef. “Each barrel holds two rounds, ignition is electrical. No reloading on this planet.”
“Why do you have a gun?” asked Alicia. Rob was too busy admiring the mechanism.
“Usual reasons,” Josef said with a shrug.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone about this before?” Dickie demanded.
“Told Dr. Sen when I arrived. He said keep hidden.”
“And you listened to him?” asked Graves.
“Sen is mission commander.”
“You could have used it! When the Sholen first arrived—”
“Four shots. Six Sholen. Also did not want to draw first blood.”
“This changes everything,” said Dickie. “That thing evens the odds.” Graves was as excited about the gun as Rob was, that much anyone could see.
“Dickie,” said Rob, “I’m not trying to start a fight here, but—I think you’re starting to enjoy this too much.”
Graves just laughed. “And you’re not?”
“Of course not! I’m—”
“You’re getting the chance to play the hero, Freeman. No more fetching and carrying for the scientists, no more scrubbing the mildew, and you’ve got a woman in your sleeping bag every night.” Rob started to interrupt but Dickie drowned him out. “Look at your damned coverall!” He thumped Rob’s chest. “The UNICA symbol’s as close to the Star Trek logo as they could get without paying a royalty! We’re all here because of all those old space adventure stories. But it wasn’t like that, was it? Just a lot of hard work and rules and bad food. Now, though—now you’re having a real outer-space adventure and you’re enjoying it just as much as I am.”
“It is not the adventure he means, Dickie, it is the killing,” said Alicia. “You are proud of stabbing Gishora.”
“Absolutely. He was a sanctimonious shit and I’m not a bit sorry he’s dead. We’re in a war now—you can’t go apologizing every time you win a fight.”
“Correct,” said Josef. “But only fools and madmen fight for thrills.”
“This has nothing to do with thrills. I’m talking about maybe winning this instead of just sitting here waiting for them to find us.”
“Okay,” said Rob, trying to drag things back on topic. “We’ll hit them again. But I want to make sure we have a goal—a realistic goal—and a plan. Something more concrete than just ‘go shoot a couple of Sholen.’ That’s just murder for the sake of murder. No way are we doing that.”
“Do something to degrade their ability to fight,” said Josef.
“Exactly!” said Dickie. “I’ve been doing a bit of reading—T. E. Lawrence on guerrilla warfare. His Arabs used to strike at the Turkish railways and telegraph lines. Infrastructure attacks, we’d call it.”
“But we cannot attack Hitode itself,” said Alicia. “All of us depend on it to stay alive.”
“If we just creep about sabotaging hydrophones it won’t accomplish much,” said Dickie.
“They have guns,” said Josef. “Microtorp launchers for underwater. Also some kind of pistol.”
“All right, then,” said Dickie, “turn it around. They can’t go blowing things up inside Hitode, either. So that’s the logical place for us to attack.”
“You want to get inside?”
“That’s right. Storm the moon pool and get in. Maybe grab their suits, or sabotage them. That would be a pretty serious blow right there. No way to search for us if they can’t leave Hitode.”
Rob thought it was a terrible idea, but he didn’t have anything better to suggest. He did ask, “Can we do it? There are only three of us.”
“I’ve been thinking,” said Dickie. “What about the Ilmatarans?”
“What about them?”
“Would they be willing to help us?”
“Richard, you cannot involve them in our quarrel,” said Alicia.
“No, think about it! Native allies! There’s heaps of examples from history—French and British recruiting Indian tribes in America, T. E. Lawrence and the Arabs—”
“Will you cut it out about freaking Lawrence of Arabia? This isn’t Syria in 1915!” asked Rob angrily.
“Why shouldn’t we involve them?” Graves demanded. “You’ve already gone ahead and made contact. We’ve tossed out all the rules. High time, too.”
“We have not tossed out all the rules,” said Alicia. “We chose to stop obeying the contact restrictions, but that does not mean we can go completely wild.”
“The Sholen think so,” said Graves.
“Do they?” asked Rob. “Dickie, they could be unleashing a dozen different kinds of shit on us if they really thought we were out of control. Remember what happened to Lawrence’s Arab buddies a century or so later, when they started getting all jihad on everyone.”
“That was different,” said Graves, but he sounded uncertain.
“So is this whole situation, which is why trying to be Lawrence of fucking Arabia in an ocean full of aliens is completely stupid. We aren’t going to involve the Ilmatarans, period.”
“We aren’t?” asked Graves. “How can you stop me, Freeman? I’ve got all the language data, and I actually know something about alien communication. I don’t need your permission.”
Rob fumed silently for a moment, then brightened. “Okay, Mr. Language Genius, let’s hear it. Explain what you want to do in Ilmataran number code. You don’t have to tap it out, just give me the numbers.”