And Guardian will guard you as well." The male human, Bruno, looked confused. "I still don't see why your plan will work." "The Zealots, like our hosts, have a reflex about obtaining information. It is ingrained in every molecule of their being, for reasons older than stars. They will not be able to not interrogate the converted spacecraft we have prepared. And you, if they can.”
"Why not simply destroy it?" the female human asked. "Because," repeated Diplomat patiently, "they cannot help but want to know everything about you before they destroy you. Once destroyed, it would be impossible to obtain more information.”
"I see," mused the center of their plan, already programmed – without his knowledge – by the Outsiders. Diplomat watched the male human scratch at the interface plug in his neck. How glad I am, thought Diplomat, that I do not have computational machinery in my head. Diplomat did not want to lie actively. "I would not expect all of you to live.”
The human called Carol Faulk expelled air from her lips. "No one will live on that ship," she exclaimed.
"And if we do not try, your species – and many others – will be in peril." The female tried to reply, her tone a song of anger, but the little male human put a hand on her shoulder. Diplomat looked at him expectantly.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"I'll help," Bruno said calmly.
Carol whirled at looked at him. "Bruno," she exclaimed, "it's a suicide mission! I would expect this from a ratcat, but you?" "Are you quite sure?" asked the puppeteer. Bruno had never been so sure of a thing in his life. He somehow felt taller than his short stature had ever allowed. "Carol," he said, taking her hands in his. "You are a pilot, a soldier." "Yes, but – " Carol began. Looking up at her angry Belter face, he shook her hands lust a bit to quiet her. "You and I both know that we aren't getting out of this. None of us." Well, Bruno knew that wasn't exactly true, but it wasn't time for Carol to learn that, quite yet. Carol nodded jerkily, her face like stone. "Good," Bruno said. "You have always been the tough one, my protector. Who got me out of Sun-Tzu, a wire hanging out of my head?" He leaned his head into her chest, felt the warm softness against his forehead.
One of her hands stroked his neck tentatively. He looked up. "Carol, I do love you. You have stood by me no matter what. How could I do less for you?”
Carol's eyes gleamed, a small chink in her Belter-pilot-soldier armor. She smiled slightly. "I guess that we knew going into this that we weren't going to make it out alive." Bruno nodded. Now came the tough part. "I love you more than life, Carol Faulk. You made me feel like a human being, which I am not, and never have been." She started to reply, but Bruno cut her off. "No time, love. The Zealots are here." He stretched up and kissed her lips. Soft. Bruno stored the memory. Bruno Takagama took three quick steps back, then shouted. "Now, Diplomat!”
Anguished, he watched Carol run toward him and hit the invisible barrier the puppeteer had erected between them.
OUTSIDERS TWO
Rage. Feral vermin, the Node approaches. Doom awaits all nodes not yet at One with the Holy Radiants.
Humor. Can it be true? The approaching Node acting without instructions from long-silent masters? What of the Pact?
Vengefulness. It is time to put an end to the warmlife vermin, and the feral nodes that support their activities. Soon, all distant nodes will be at One with this Node.
Questioning. Not all. Nodes already at One with the other-Node, yes. Can the Node and this-Node not reach another Pact?
Confusion. Why does the feral node defend the warmlife vermin? They outrage clean geometries with their very existence.
Certainty. Just as the Creators used this-and-other Nodes for information, so does this-Node use the warmlife motes. Their ways are different, and often valuable.
Determination. Feral and heretic both. Even now, by fleeing in this skewed space-time, the other-Node is an affront to the Creators who long ago gave the Nodes purpose.
Amusement. Not-One. The other-Node and this-Node are at One, that this skewed space-time was found during a failed attempt to reach the realm of the Creators. They were not within this realm, so it cannot be an affront to journey within it.
Implacability. Enough. Prepare to be ended, in this geometry or any other.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Carol Faulk stood near the force-window, beside the puppeteer, and tasted ashes in her mouth.
She watched Bruno Takagama walk toward the opening in the force-shields. Vanish from sight, into the long shape of the converted puppeteer spacecraft. She burned to run after him, to somehow stop him. Instead, the force-shield stopped her.
"Carol," he had told her as she raged and cursed, "there is a chance that you might survive. If you go with me, you will die with us.". Bruno had looked at the alien sky, and then back at her. "I want you to live. It is my choice.”
Soldier, shut up and soldier, echoed her own voice, used during the Third Wave the kzin had sent against Earth so long ago. It is every soldier's right to choose life for a friend or lover. And Bruno, small and weak as he was, turned out to be a soldier indeed.
She couldn't even hate the puppeteer. It was Bruno's Finagle-damned choice to go on this suicide mission with a puppeteer warrior and a kzin.
Carol hated to admit the truth: If the tables had been turned, she would have done the same thing to earn Bruno a chance to live.
She didn't have to like it.
"Is it time?" Carol asked Diplomat. The three-legged alien looked at Carol for a long time before replying. "Yes," it finally sang. "It is." "You have everything under control," she said bitterly. "Can I wish them luck, or is that under your control, too?”
The alien stared at her again, from two angles. "No, Captain Faulk, I will join you in wishing them luck. Random chance is one thing even we cannot control, though we have tried." Carol puzzled over that statement as the force-shield around the converted puppeteer spacecraft's airlock shimmered and vanished. Bruno was gone, her heart knew as well as her head.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Rrowl-Captain settled into the kzin-sized command chair of the converted puppeteer ship. The herbivore that smelled like a predator – Guardian? – fluted readiness. A taste of bile washed across the kzin's tongue as he looked at the human, sockets for wires inserted into his head like a pond-wrloch sucking a Hero's blood.
This was a Hero's Battle Triad?
Despite the hatred Rrowl-Captain held for the monkeys, and still more for the vegetarian aliens, there was a larger foe for now. Perhaps later, after this battle, would he taste their blood. He had named the converted ship, cobbled together from kzin and human and puppeteer technology, Greater Vengeance.
Rrowl-Captain snarled once, and with a claw tip, activated the tiny spacecraft.
The glittering strangeness of the Dissonant Outsider ship fell behind them. Images flickering in midair in front of Rrowl-Captain showed the ship that had carried them into hyperspace expanding and contracting, images roiling in the dense nexus of the extra dimensions. Greater Vengeance bucked and jerked with the changes in the stretching fabric of tortured space around them.
In front of them was the blurred and distorted image of their Enemy.
Rrowl-Captain shrieked challenge and increased their apparent velocity. He ignored the green-tinged fears within him. Were not hapless monkeys now his allies – for a time?
The little human was central to the Outsiders' plan. Yet he seemed not to act as a coward, and was willing to meet Honor. It was a confusing idea for Rrowl-Captain.
"What is it, Noble Hero?" snarled and spat the human's translated voice. It burned his liver that Rrowl-Captains own Hero's Tongue would be translated in turn back into mewling human syllables.