Footfall

“Da, tovarishch. Jeri, we must prevent those repairs. Nikolai will lead us to the engine room control center. We will attempt to destroy that.” Rogachev took out his own pistol and inspected it. Satisfied, he thrust it into his belt.

Nikolai was already in the air duct. Dmitri waved frantically. Arvid moved to the shaft.

“Jeri, you will follow me,” Arvid said. “Let us go.”

Right. Jeri Wilson, famous Amazon, all hundred and twenty pounds of her. The Russians had pressure suits. She did not. Maybe I ought to think this over?

Fithp soldiers reeled across the bridge. Wes Dawson flailed to save himself, and wound up clutching a fi’s harness.

The fi’ responded by wrapping digits around him. The grip constricted. The fi’ said, “You saw the weapon. Was it an automatic device?”

Wes had seen it on half the screens and through the window too, in that last minute before impact. “My fithp have come knocking,” he said.

“I am Defensemaster Tantarent-fid and I assert my right to know! Are your automatics so agile? It escaped our guns!”

Dawson grinned into eyes the size of oranges. “It was an ordinary Space Shuttle. Men! We’ve rammed you.”

“Man, they died! Are you all rogues?”

“Why ask me? Ask your Breaker.”

The fi’ hurled him away. He picked himself up and moved toward a wall, reeling in the dwindling gravity, seeking a handhold. No warning this time! We actually did them some damage!

The hive was broken and the bees were in turmoil.

One warrior had rolled shrieking across the room, denting a monitor console with his body, damaging himself more. He was getting medical attention. The other had Dawson back in restraint.

“Herdmaster, I have our thrust up to five eighths gravity, but a 512-breath of this will ruin the drive. We must make repairs.”

“We have no more time than that?”

Tantarent-fid spoke into his microphone and listened to replies. “Herdmaster, I can guarantee no more time.”

After crossing from the Homeworld it has come to this. The alien vessel was aimed directly at them. It flared continuously, and with each flare gamma-ray lasers shone through hull and walls and flesh and bone. Tiny spacecraft had spread from the enemy, and now they hurled missiles to trample him. Tinier missiles leaped from Message Bearer to intercept. That ship comes closer.

“Dawson! Will they trample us as the Shuttle did?”

“Herdmaster, my people will do what they can to make you extinct. This is the cost of the Foot.”

That is no surprise. He would say that in any case, for strength in negotiation. “Defensemaster.”

“Lead me.”

“Maintain maximum thrust.”

For a moment Tantarent-fid hesitated. “As you will.”

“Takpusseh-yamp.”

“Lead me.”

“You will assist. We must send messages to…” he struggled with the alien name, “to the United States. Dawson will assist.”

Humans in Africa had given them six possible loci for 1 surviving government of that fithp. They would all be the target of tightbeams. Now I must know what to say.

The Herdmaster changed channels. He could have leaned out the corridor and spoken to Takpusseh-yamp, but he didn’t want Dawson to hear. The rogue human’s thoughts had begun to matter.

“Breaker-Two, do you now have a… what you called—”

“I have prepared two versions of a negotiated loss of status Herdmaster, though I’m sorry to hear you ask. Here, channel 4.”

The Herdmaster read. I must. That thing will catch us. We might destroy it when it comes near, but it will send fire and gamma rays regardless. Our mates and our children are at ransom here and what Breaker-Two suggests is acceptable. The dissidents should be joyful. “Maintain this channel.” He motioned to the warn who led the human forward.

“Wes Dawson, I wish to negotiate a loss of status.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Takpusseh-yamp?”

“The Herdmaster wishes to offer conditional surrender.”

The air went out of Dawson. In full thrust he might have collapsed. He said, “Speak more.”

“You shall have Winterhome — Earth. We shall have the solar system.”

“Why do you offer this now?”

“You see the screens. Your ship approaches. It can harm us. I would avoid that harm — but, Dawson, your fithp have no other ship, for if they had, they would have sent it. That ship can’t destroy us. It can only harm us, kill females and children. I want to avoid that.”

“I wish to think of this.”

Dawson’s eyes strayed to the screens. Message Bearer had been ripped; the edges of the hole still glowed red and orange. Sun-hot plasma must have roared down the corridors. Against the dark back of Winterhome, a light pulsed. Smaller flames came near, and flared green.

The ship rang to the tune of another explosion. Missiles exploding against the hull made a muffled thump you could hardly hear. But when a missile went off in the scar the Shuttle had left, it was different. Vibrations came from everywhere, with a sound like — that of a smashed banjo.

“Dawson, you act now or not at all.”

“I won’t send your message.”