"Yessir," Menges said. "Radio silence. Are you coming back now, sir?"
"Hell no! We've got hornets to catch! Now remember: don't send again till I tell you. Stoorvol out."
He looked toward Olavsdottir moving slowly across the burn, and clicked his helmet mike. "Doctor, a bogey may have spotted the Mei-Li. I'm moving both scooters under the trees. Continue as you are. If I trigger my alarm, crouch down and make yourselves as small as possible. And don't-repeat don't-flatten yourself on the ground."
"Thank you, Captain," she answered.
Thank you, Captain? For what? Doing my job? Stoorvol powered up his gravdrive. Don't knock courtesy, he chided himself. Sergeant Haynes started his scooter, too, and they headed for the burn's nearest edge. There, back beneath the trees, they set down about a hundred feet apart. From the burn came a pleased shout: an entomologist had found a hornet's nest. Stoorvol hoped to hell they'd get what they needed quickly. He wanted to get back to the Mei-Li and off the planet as soon as possible. The collection order called for six nests-for statistical reasons, he supposed. It could keep them out there till dark, which meant till morning. A disturbing possibility.
Achmed Menges found a suitable location, unloaded his marines again, and had two of them guide him between the trees until he saw a glade ahead. He stopped sixty or eighty feet short of it, with a clear shot to scram if he needed to. By that time the gorge was a hundred yards behind him, and marine lookouts at the rim could no longer see the boat. Menges shut down all systems except shipsmind, to reduce detection risks, then waited while the Mei-Li grew slowly hot and stuffy.
On being relieved, Tech 1 Gortha turned his log over to the new watch officer. The Wyzhnyny ensign glanced at it. "What is this?" he asked.
Gortha didn't need to look. He'd logged just one item that wasn't routine. "It's a call from the courier bringing Colonel Dorthut from Grasslands, sir. While crossing High Falls Gorge, the pilot spotted a wrecked alien craft in the bottom."
The ensign's hackles rose. "Wrecked alien craft? How did he know?"
"I suppose, sir, because none of ours is reported missing. And because there are no aliens left on the planet."
"You suppose?" The ensign's jaw muscles bulged like melon rinds along his cranial keel. The observation had been radioed in nearly five hours earlier. Such a lapse was intolerable. Reaching to the work station keyboard, he tapped three keys.
A voice issued from the desk speaker. "Dispatcher's station, Tech 1 Rrunch."
"Rrunch, this is the officer of the watch. The dispatcher you relieved-is he still there?"
"No, sir. He just left, sir."
"Get him! Now!"
"Yessir!"
The ensign heard the quick soft thudding of feet, and waited scowling, fists clenching and unclenching. There were more footfalls, then a voice. "Tech 3 Agthok, sir. How can I help you?"
"Who piloted the courier from Grasslands?"
"Tech 2 Kroliss, sir."
"How can he be found? Promptly?"
"Sir, I saw him enter the messroom about… forty minutes ago."
"Thank you." The ensign bit the words out and disconnected, then with an angry finger stabbed more keys. "This is the officer of the watch. I must speak to Tech 2 Kroliss at once."
"He just left, sir, carrying a mug of something."
"Go and get him! Tell him the watch officer wants him at the watch office NOW! And call me when you've done it!"
"Yessir!"
An unpleasant rumble issued from the watch officer's throat as he disconnected. A mug of something! he thought. As if I had any interest in that!
Tech 1 Gortha was glad Ensign Rrishnex wasn't on his watch. But he didn't ask permission to leave. He'd slip away after Kroliss arrived. He wondered why the ensign didn't just order someone else out to investigate. Probably, he decided, because Kroliss could find the place more surely.
Gosthodar Qishkur, Governor of the Okaldei, lay on his AG couch with his torso upright. His eyes were obscured by their nictitating membranes, and his upper torso rocked back and forth like a dodderer's. Not a reassuring sight, thought General Gransatt.
"If it was mine to decide?" Gransatt asked. He was tempted to answer falsely, for it seemed to him the gosthodar would order the opposite of whatever he recommended. But he would not lie; not so blatantly.
"Lordship," he said, "I would order all scouts and all fighter craft to muster here. Then search the plateau between the Broken Hills and Long Inlet on the west, and the Green River on the east. Search it so that nothing living avoids detection. All attack squadrons to be on two-hour stepped alert, ready to destroy any aliens sighted. Until we find the alien and wipe him out, or are very very sure he does not exist."
The gosthodar's rocking increased, the sight transfixing his general. After a long moment the gosthodar spoke, his voice reflecting his age. "I thought we did all that a cycle ago," he said. "Was that not you in charge?"
Gransatt's hide heated; it required effort to avoid bristling. "That was not comparable. Then we needed to search the entire planet. A single region can be searched far more thoroughly."
The gosthodar ignored the general's omission of the honorific. "Mmmm. But that first scouring-did it not begin with an intensive search first of this very region, then that of Grasslands and Basin? And despite all that, was an alien not found reconnoitering this very settlement some weeks later?" Qishkur had stopped rocking, and his eyes had cleared. "You say you would make very very sure he is wiped out. That he ceases to exist. But what does such certainty mean? You were very sure before, and I accepted that. Until suddenly, there came the alien who had hidden under the hill. Then he died, and you were very very sure. But I was no longer so sure anymore. Eh?"
The general's hide felt hot as fire. He did not reply.
"And now this. How can you have so much certainty about what you will accomplish this time, and so little in what you accomplished before?" Briefly his head swayed from side to side in rejection. "I, on the other hand, believe you did well before, you and your fliers. Not perfectly it seems, but well. This was an alien outpost world, nothing more. There were no towers. No ghats. Not even towns. There were never more than a few sophonts here, and your fighters killed most of them. The few survivors, those who did not succeed in fleeing the planet, scattered to different regions, where they have hidden. In caverns no doubt. It seems they have an affinity for caverns.
"But they cannot hide forever. They must surface, walk beneath the sky, bath in the streams"-his words slowed for emphasis-"and grow food. And when they do, our surveillance buoys will find them. The aliens know this. They are not ignorant primitives. This appearance today-if it is real; if the report is not an aberration-this appearance is an act of desperation, perhaps to collect supplies from some old cache."
The gosthodar repeated himself, as if savoring the aptness of the phrase. "An act of desperation." He paused thoughtfully. "There may be caverns behind the cliffs of the High Falls Gorge, as there were behind the lesser. You must seek them, and destroy any you find."
He straightened, his old voice sounding fuller, less aged. "You will not gather the squadrons from Grasslands and Basin. You will do your searching with what you have here. If your fears reflect fact, and the aliens retain some little potency, to gather the other squadrons here would expose Grasslands and Basin to destructive raids."