Footfall

“Your—” Predecessor? But Dawson and Alice were gaping past the Herdmaster’s shoulder. The Herdmaster turned. Four screens showed four views of the engine room. The floor was awash in blood. The air itself was pink with spray. Nine corpses lay chewed as if by predators: eight fithp warriors and the legless Soviet in his curious legless suit. The remaining three humans were tearing the place apart.

Wes was in agony.

It was Coffey’s department — Coffey’s thuktun, and the Stud Bull had him dead to rights there. But Coffey would take the offer. Coffey would give away the solar system!

Or Dawson was about to give away the Earth. Could that weird device smash Message Bearer? Or was it only coming close enough to die? Would the fithp honor a conditional surrender? We taught them conditional surrender. Have we also taught them to break their parole?

“Wes, look!”

Not now, dammit died in his throat.

He’d never seen this room before, but it had that look. Machinery took its orders from here. Screens, dials, keyboards with keys the size of a child’s fist; and flthp corpses, and blood, amazingly red, hemoglobin for sure, like some madman had bombed a Red Cross blood bank. Nikolai was dead, suit and man shredded by the huge fithp bullets.

Arvid was in a pressure suit. His faceplate was open, showing a Cossack’s grin that would have frightened children. He had braced a fithp rifle against a console and was firing bullets into randi controls.

Dmitri wandered about, examining the paraphernalia that made the ship go, shying minimally when Arvid blasted something, as if Arvid were a child at play, and Dmitri, the adult, were trying to learn something. He stopped, examined a console; pried the cover off with a piece of steel bar. He began tearing at wiring.

Arvid’s rifle ran empty. Arvid grimaced, then smiled toothily into the camera.

Jeri Wilson studied the scene judiciously. Wes wondered if she was in shock. She climbed onto a console to bring her face close to a camera. She shouted soundlessly.

“Put the sound on,” the Defensemaster commanded.

“Negative,” said the Herdmaster. “Dawson, your response?”

What was the Herdmaster afraid of hearing?… Afraid that Dawson might hear? It didn’t matter. Wes grinned at the fi’. “They were in the ducts, weren’t they? And they’ll be there again, wandering through your air supply. There’s a great gaping hole in Thuktun Flishithy, isn’t there? Maybe they can open more locks. Random death in the life support system!”

The ship hummed like a smashed banjo, twice in quick succesion.

The Herdmaster said, “Dawson. We will leave Africa, we will leave your Earth. You will have your solar system. We will go another star.”

“You can’t.”

“With time and your aid, of course we can. We will repair Message Bearer and build a new siskyissputh. You will assist. When we depart your system, you will have your own.”

“That word …?”

“The siskyissputh is the device we used to cross from Homeworld to Saturn. It takes energy from the main drive and uses that energy to push against interstellar matter. The siskyissputh is the door, not to your own planets, but to the worlds of other stars. Dawson, why did you think we discarded it?”

Dawson, staring, got his lips working. “Too massive. You could not have reached Saturn.”

“No. Dawson, we came knowing that you might be more powerful than the Traveler Fithp. We came to conquer or to surrender. If we came to surrender, we had the siskyissputh to offer our new fithp. We let the siskyissputh hurl itself at the stars so that you cannot examine it.”

“I had it wrong. That never, never crossed my mind. But you have tapes of thuktunthp—”

“We have the Podo Thuktun itself, rogue! That is the siskyissputh, and the Podo Thuktun’s supports are explosive. But if we are to leave your star, we must have another siskyissputh, and you must build it with us. When we leave, you will know how to make another. Dawson, I know that you want more than the planets. Take our negotiated loss of status or you will never leave your star.”

“Wes, he’s crazy! We’ll have it in ten years! Wes, once we know something is possible — like the atomic bomb, as soon as they knew it was possible, everyone started working on how to build one.”

The screens flickered. Dmitri jerked backward. One foot was missing. There were holes in the walls. The humans moved to one corner. Jeri Wilson continued to shout soundlessly at the cameras.

Irrelevant. We’re all irrelevant. The Herdmaster said, “The Predecessors developed the siskyissputh. It took more than eight-cubed years. Dawson, humans are a herd under siege by their own rogues! You will not survive sixty-four years! And we might yet win this battle.”

Alice was strangling his arm. “Wes, it’s the same thing all over again! They’ll come back!”

I wanted to be President! Why? “Alice, if they win — can they win?”

Her grip slowly relaxed. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t either.” I can’t decide this. “Give me your microphone. I’ll speak to the President.”

45. TERMS OF SURRENDER