"You will probably be welcome, but call ahead for reservations." Velmeran paused a moment, and reached into his belt pocket to pull out a wallet. "Give this to Javarns with my compliments. He will probably want it back."
Dveyella frowned and drew a watch from her own belt pocket. "He will probably want this back as well."
11
"This has been a strange night, and no doubt about it," Dveyella remarked. "Still, I would not have missed it."
Their tram glided silently atop its elevated rail across the width of the city. It was near the middle of the night; the walks and avenues were nearly deserted, and the city lighting had been reduced to a gentle, velvety twilight. By this time there was hardly anyone about but Starwolves, and they had the city mostly to themselves.
When Velmeran did not comment in turn, Dveyella glanced over at him. He sat alone and, for the moment, seemingly unaware of her presence, so lost he was in his own thoughts. She walked over and sat down close beside him. "Meran, do you know what to make of it all?"
Velmeran frowned and shook his head helplessly. "I feel like we are living out that chess game. Councilor Lake has explained the rules, and now he has turned over his seat to the Sector Commander for us to play out the game. I only hope we do as well in life as we did in practice."
"We?" Dveyella asked, and shook her head. "You, Meran. This game is yours. Do you accept what he told you?"
He shrugged. "I do not yet know what to think. The good Councilor Lake might have been in his cups for all I know, considering how well he likes his wine. There is some investigating I mean to do, and I intend to check his theories with a higher authority."
"Who?"
"Valthyrra Methryn, of course. But, beyond that, it is not my concern. I am only a pack leader, and I can do nothing but pass on the warning. Still, it does explain one thing."
"What?"
"Lately I have seen Union officers and Commanders try things that were incomprehensible except for the excuse of rank stupidity, and I have always found that hard to believe. Perhaps that is exactly the case after all."
"Well, I want you to explain one thing to me," Dveyella said firmly. "What was all that business about Valtrytians? I know that the Aldessan are not one of our grand secrets, but we generally do not talk about them either."
"I know," Velmeran agreed. "But it did have its desired effect."
"What effect?" she demanded.
"Councilors and Sector Commanders through the years have dreamed of defeating the Starwolves," he explained. "I just thought that it should be understood that, should the Union ever manage to get rid of the Starwolves, it would still have the Valtrytians to face."
"Oh, I see," Dveyella replied thoughtfully, and smiled. "Meran, you are diabolical."
Velmeran nodded. "It runs in the family."
"So what are we going to do about it?"
"About what?" Velmeran asked, but she quickly signaled him to silence. The tram glided up to its boarding platform, and the door snapped open. Dveyella took him by each of his left arms and all but pulled him out of the car. He did not even have a chance to protest until she had him outside and halfway down the boarding ramp.
"Surveillance," she explained. "Starwolves are under constant surveillance — so is just about everyone else, for that matter. And what I am going to tell you is the last thing that I would have overheard. They cannot listen in if we are in the open."
"How is that?" Velmeran asked. "They would have sonic scanners."
"But I have a drone," she said, indicating the small device at her belt. "It broadcasts both a high-frequency tone and a jamming wave at matching frequencies, producing a pulsing vibration that blocks both conventional microphones and the crystal receivers of sonic scanners. All they can pick up is a droning sound."
"How did you come by such a thing?"
"Special tactics. We like to make a personal reconnaissance, when we can. And we do not want our plans overheard. And be careful to speak only Tresdyland. As far as we can tell, it is an unknown language to the Union."
They came to the edge of the underground lake and Dveyella paused to look over the edge of the thick cement rail into the dark water far below. The lake was not a natural feature of the cavern; rectangular in shape, two hundred meters wide by three hundred long and smoothly cemented all around, it looked more like an immense swimming pool. The back end ran up against the cavern wall, while the inner end, where they now stood, cut well into the city. The south side was dominated by the port hotel, while the north side, steeply terraced and overgrown with carefully tended gardens, harbored the very best of the city's shops and outdoor restaurants.
"It happened when I was here about thirty-five years ago," she explained. "I was just a new pilot in the pack then, so it was that I was poking about the city alone. I was standing at this very place when I saw a large, dark shape moving toward me underwater. The thing was nearly twenty meters in length and it passed beneath the street directly below me, and as it did I could see clearly that it was a machine.
"After that I did a little investigating. First, I discovered that the lake is seawater. Then I found that it has a tide; the entire level rises five centimeters for noon tide. The lake is down in this hole so that its level is that of the sea. And there is a tunnel directly across from here, in the outer wall; the sea is seven kilometers in that direction. This, my friend, is a secret way into the city, a bolt hole for high officials should Vannkarn ever come under attack."
Velmeran leaned well out over the rail to peer down into the water, although the only thing he could see was his own wavering reflection. He glanced back at Dveyella. "This is how you propose to get into the city?"
"Of course."
"Do you also propose to swim?"
"No, we fly in," she replied, obviously pleased with herself. "Seawater is hardly more dense than some of the mediums we can fly in, such as deep into the outer layers of the gas giants."
"Water has no compressibility," Velmeran pointed out, although hesitantly. Already he could see a way around that.
"Atmospheric shields can be adapted to handle that," Dveyella provided the answer for him. "Compressibility is no problem when you are flying inside a column of water moving at graduated speeds. I have worked out the modifications that permit it, and the computer promises that it will work. And what works for a fighter will work for our modified transport — which we will need to carry the memory cell out of here."
Velmeran glanced at her sharply. "This is not Bineck; you know that. Surveillance is too tight."
She only shook her head. "We can always get down undetected through the magnetic corridor, and Vinthra's magnetism is proportionally strong enough to offset its more advanced scanners. And we will fly underwater from the core of the magnetic corridor to the sea entrance. It will take a couple of hours' travel time due to reduced speed, but it will work."
Velmeran paused a moment to consider that. If they could just get fighters into the cavern undetected, then they could get what they wanted and be away with little trouble through the dome — by shutting down the protective shields from the inside.
"The first thing is to prove that a fighter actually can fly underwater," he said. "We are going to need a lot of help, and a little proof can break through quite a lot of resistance."
"Of course," Dveyella said. "What do you think I want you for?"
"Me? You want me to test the theory?"
"It is no theory. The computer says that you can take a fighter up to nearly four thousand kilometers per hour underwater."
"Then I will do it," Velmeran reluctantly agreed. "But I want to see your computations."
"Of course!" she laughed. "Come along. In spite of Councilor Lake's generosity, I am still hungry. Besides, I do not want us to be seen standing here too long."