Gallen shook his head. “Too low.”
“It’s a generous offer,” Felph argued. “I could hire five men for the price.”
“It’s not money I want,” Gallen said.
“What then?”
“A fair trial,” Gallen offered. “I want a fair trial for the Qualeewooh.”
Felph’s eyes blazed, and he thrust his jaw forward. He was beside himself with rage at Herm’s death, and Maggie could see that he was in no mood to be generous. Yet he reconsidered. “Define fair.”
“A download. We will download the Qualeewooh’s memories into both you and me, then we can judge the creature based upon its thoughts and intents. No sentence will be handed down unless we both concur that the sentence is fair.”
Felph shook with anger. He could hardly refuse such an offer, not without seeming churlish. Indeed, perhaps he sensed that if he did not concede, if he merely took vengeance, he would damage his own soul. Yet by the hardness in his eyes, Maggie could tell that he did not trust Gallen. He feared Gallen would not agree to a sentence, regardless of the crime.
“You will agree to death?” Felph said. “If you find it justified?”
Gallen whispered coldly, “I’ve killed men before, dozens of them. A Qualeewooh is the same.”
Felph sighed deeply, as if his anger suddenly abated. “Very well, then.”
Gallen turned to Maggie. “I want to be certain we get the right Qualeewooh. I won’t slaughter innocents. Maggie, can you rig up a scent detector on an antigrav sled-like the Seekers the dronon send after us? It should be able to match the scent on that feather, tell us if we find the right Qualeewooh.”
Maggie hesitated, thinking. “I’d need some sophisticated olfactory sensors.”
Felph said, “The perfumery in Hera’s sleeping chamber. It has a scent detector subtle enough to do what you require. I can provide everything.” Felph turned to address the droids, commanding them to bring the provisions.
“What else will we need?” Maggie asked.
“Nothing,” Gallen said. “It shouldn’t take more than a day. I’ve still got food and weapons on ship.”
“And Zeus,” Felph added, addressing Gallen. “Take Zeus with you. He should be there to help avenge his brother. Otherwise, he’ll always regret this.” The hesitation in Felph’s voice said more than words. He still didn’t trust Gallen. He wanted to make certain Gallen returned with his prize. So Felph would send his son to ensure that Galle returned.
“Do you think it wise?” Gallen asked. “He’s pretty torn up.”
“All the more reason for him to go,” Felph said. “The deeper the pain, the greater the need for action. I insist on this.”
Gallen nodded, none too quickly. “All right. Zeus comes, too. Is it likely the Qualeewooh will be flying at night?”
“Not hardly,” Felph said. “It will sleep after such a heavy meal.”
Gallen stood, thoughtful. “Maggie will need some time to put together a Seeker.” He addressed her, “Can I leave at dawn?”
Maggie considered. Even she wasn’t certain of Gallen’s intent. Perhaps he wanted them all on the ship together, the easier to leave this world once and for all. “I can throw a Seeker together, but I think I should come in case it needs adjusting or if it falls apart.”
Chapter 24
Cooharah could not sleep, though his full belly weighed on him, making his thoughts sluggish. He and Aaw slept in the open, on a small pile of rocks. It was not dangerous to sleep so, this far from the tangle. His only fear in the desert was that thin, translucent glass snakes might crawl from their sandy burrows and slip quietly up to drink some blood as Cooharah slept. The snakes drank little, but Cooharah and Aaw might be days from water. They couldn’t afford the blood loss.
Yet fear of glass snakes is not what kept Cooharah awake, gazing at stars that burned so steadily tonight, blazing in the heavens. No, not glass snakes. It was voices whispering in his head, the reproach of his ancestors. “Blood debt,” they whispered. “You owe the oomas a blood debt.”
Cooharah envisioned a Qualeewooh composed of light, beating its wings among the stars. It stared at Cooharah accusingly.
The voice of his ancestor came clear tonight, of all nights, when it bore a message Cooharah didn’t want to hear. The onus of a blood debt was heavy. If Cooharah had stolen food from another Qualeewooh, he owed food. Twice the amount taken.
With a creature as large as the one they’d killed, Cooharah could not pay the debt with less than six skogs. Probably eight. Of course the skogs could not be killed on the oomas’ territory. They must come from land near Cooharah’s own aerie.
But Cooharah and Aaw had no aerie, no territory to hunt. Their oasis had gone dry. The Qualeewoohs lived only on hope, thin as it was. Rain would come soon. The oases would be watered anew. Rivers would flow-a few months from now. But presently Cooharah and Aaw had no hunting territory.
“Even if we owe the oomas,” Cooharah said to his ancestor, “we cannot pay now. Their oasis is far from others. If I kill a skog, I won’t be able to take it to them. I will die.”
“Blood debt. You owe a blood debt,” the ancestor whispered. “Double payment. Food for food, chick for chick. Turn back.”
“Negative to the third degree,” Cooharah trilled. “I owe no blood debt. I-how do I know it was an animal the oomas owned? It could have been a predator the humans are well rid of!”
The green ancestor flapped its wings. Its eyes blazed like twin suns. “Blood debt,” it whispered. “You owe a debt.”
Cooharah knew he owed a blood debt. He’d never heard of any predators brought by the humans that used projectile weapons. This beast must have been a pet, perhaps a guardian. The humans had given it a weapon.
Cooharah could not bear the accusation in the ancestor’s voice. If he could have removed his spirit mask, he would have. He would have clawed it from his face with his tiny paws; pried it, tearing flesh from bone. Yet to do so was suicide. Cooharah could not deprive Aaw of a mate, someone to hunt for her and her chick in the new land. No, the spirit mask was part of him. His parents had painted it to his face at adulthood, and it would remain a part of him till he died and his own chicks used it to line the walls of some aerie.
Cooharah closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind, trying to deny the voice. commanding him to return to human lands. “Not now,” he screamed silently, prying at his mask with the thin fingers at the apex of his wings, clawing till blood ran down his jaws, soaking his feathers. “Not now. Someday. Someday I will pay!”
Chapter 25
Late into the night, Maggie built her Seeker. With her mantle of technology, it did not seem an onerous chore. Her first task was to disconnect the olfactory sensors from Lord Felph’s perfumery, a gaudy piece of equipment that took up a quarter of Hera and Zeus’s bedroom. The tremendously complex machine had olfactory sensors coupled to an artificial intelligence, along with synthesizers for creating scents. It could offer thousands of base perfumes, alter them at request.
She removed the faceplate from the perfumery and studied the machine, considering which tools she needed to remove the olfactors. She wondered how sensitive the equipment might be. She’d seen dronon olfactors used on Seekers, but they might be more sensitive than this. She didn’t know if this would work.
“Perfumer,” she asked, “can you smell me?”
“Yes,” the perfumer answered.
“Can you differentiate my smell from that of other humans?”
“Each human scent is unique, though it varies from day to day depending on the amounts of oil secreted by the skin; the colony types and growth rates of microbes growing on the skin; secretion of hormones; and the presence of chemical modifiers-such as perfumes or soap residues.’
Maggie wondered. The dronon had only begun sending Seekers after her a few weeks earlier. She’d been forced to run so fast, so far, she hadn’t considered options other than running. She suspected the dronon had only her scent. The nanoscrubbers in Gallen’s robe would make him difficult to track. On Manogian II, while Gallen, Orick, and Tallea were busy in a market a kilometer distant, a Seeker had found her. But the Seeker found only her, Maggie recalled. So perhaps the machines targeted only her. She was the Golden Queen. She was the one the dronon wanted.