Chapter 27.

"I"m going to check out the Clacker"s new course, see what I can learn from the ship," Cilreth said happily. The Terran part of the team had returned to Clacker while Shiny ascended to orbit to reunite with his ship Telisa had named Thumper.

"Aren"t you annoyed that the Trilisk got away?" Telisa asked. She felt a bit more comfortable since Arakaki had retired to a lavish room they gave her half an hour ago. She trusted Magnus"s a.s.sessment, but it would take time for her to build up her own trust of a stranger.

"Nothing wrong with me my new superhuman body isn"t going to fix right up!" Cilreth said brightly.

"Are we really going to do that? I mean..."

"Why not? We live on the frontier; there"s no enforcement of any kind out here. And even by UNSF rules, we have the right to alter our own physiology. Look, a couple more decades and you"re going to be singing my song, lady," Cilreth said with a bit of an edge.

"Something tells me if the UNSF knew that right was about to include immortal superhuman bodies, they would restrict it," Telisa said. Even as she said it, she felt the old anger again: how dare they dictate to everyone how to live. She had just convinced herself wrong with her own argument.

"All the more reason to resist them, to fight their rules," Cilreth said.

I guess I agree; it"s my choice. But the question is, what if everyone got that choice? What would the repercussions be?

"I say go for it," Magnus chimed in. "You"ll have forever to think over the ethical consequences of your act." He smiled.

"Guys, we have a major problem! Shiny"s ship just blew up!" Cilreth reported.

"What!?" Telisa sent back.

"His ship exploded."

The Trilisk must have done something.

She traded astonished looks with Magnus. Before they could think through how bad the news was, Cilreth delivered an update.

"Shiny"s not dead! He"s coming to the Clacker on a small ship. I have no idea what"s up. I"m sending you a pointer to the bay he"s headed for. Maybe go meet him in person?"

"Okay," Telisa said. "We"ll meet him and hope he"s not a Trilisk."

"Weapons!" Magnus snapped. Telisa checked hers. His rifle was out.

Telisa and Magnus ran through the Terranized sections of the Clacker. The ship was so large it still had areas for Vovokans, with natural-looking interiors and a sandy floor.

They arrived at a ma.s.sive airlock with a large circular iris door. The arriving ship wasn"t mated with the Clacker yet, but Telisa saw she could connect to Shiny.

"What"s going on, Shiny?" Telisa transmitted.

"Joining Clacker," the buzzing voice replied. "Bringing UED personnel. Did not apprise them of nature of vessel or host."

"What happened to the Thumper, I mean?"

"Destroyed ship to increase chances Trilisk neutralized."

Arakaki walked up behind Telisa and Magnus. When she saw their weapons, she drew her laser.

"What are you doing here?" Magnus said out loud.

"Cilreth told me the other UED survivors from the ship may have blown up."

"They should be here in a few minutes," Magnus said. "As far as I know they"re all coming. Maybe you can help get them settled in. I don"t think they"ve met Shiny, but I get the feeling you are about to."

Arakaki nodded.

"Shiny says he destroyed his ship hoping to destroy the Trilisk!" Telisa said. "I don"t believe it. Does that make sense to you?"

"Not really," Magnus said.

"That"s a pretty extreme step," Arakaki said. "It may have worked, though. Suppose the Trilisk has the equivalent of a stealth suit. It may have been anywhere. And it"s sharp. Advanced. It could accomplish anything given time."

"So he pulls a fast escape and blows his own ship up to kill it. All on a hunch?" Telisa said.

"To Shiny, that ship is expendable," Magnus thought out loud. "I guess I could see him sacrificing it if he thought there was a 10 percent chance he"d catch the Trilisk by surprise."

"I thought we were going to capture it," Arakaki said. "Not that I"m complaining. I hope the d.a.m.n thing blew up."

No one fielded any more theories before the ship connected to Clacker. The Vovokan airlocks were huge and circular. The iris before them opened soon after the arrival of the Thumper"s escape vessel.

Shiny emerged, pattering in on dozens of legs. Arakaki visibly recoiled.

"d.a.m.n. That thing makes Cthulhu look cuddly!" Arakaki exclaimed. Her laser pistol hand wavered, but she didn"t point it at Shiny. "Uh, no offense," she added.

"It"s Shiny, of course," Telisa said. "You get used to it."

"Right." Arakaki didn"t sound any happier.

"You could have checked with us. That was...unexpected," Telisa said to Shiny.

"Unexpected, surprise, unpredictable action intended as strategy to catch Trilisk unprepared," Shiny said. "Intend, attempt, hope the extreme maneuver succeeded."

"Succeeded in killing what we hunted?" Arakaki said.

"Trilisk disappearance requires, needs, depends upon advanced means. Trilisk with advanced means more dangerous, deadly, capable."

Arakaki nodded. "It may have been toying with us all along."

"For what reason? s.a.d.i.s.tic pleasure?" asked Telisa.

Arakaki shrugged. "It"s an alien. I have no idea. But it liked to hunt us."

Let"s hope it isn"t one of us, Telisa said to Magnus on a private channel.

Shiny will detect it if that"s happened.

What if he already has but hasn"t said anything? Keeping his hand secret.

You can invent horrible scenarios like that all day long if you want. I haven"t slept in forever.

Right.

Telisa and Magnus retired to the opulent lodgings of the Clacker while Arakaki ushered in a small group of UED survivors. After a long sleep and an hour of fooling around to make up for lack of intimate opportunities on the job, they lay together in a huge sleep web.

"What are we going to do about the UED guys?" Telisa asked.

"We can drop them off on the frontier, at a small outpost or something."

"We should recruit from among them."

"Probably," Magnus said.

"I"m surprised you don"t sound enthusiastic. The others must not be as cute as Arakaki."

"The others are used to being in a unit. One that went through a lot. Their loyalty to each other will be stronger than any loyalty they could feel to Parker Interstellar Travels. If we hire them, they"ll have to be on their own ship or part of some other team."

I wonder if he feels they must hate him for being ex UNSF.

"You"re right," she said. "They"ll stay tight with each other, and if we found more valuable stuff they would always be tempted to strike off on their own. They might even leave us stranded on a planet somewhere. But what about Arakaki?"

"She"s had enough of it. Ready to move on."

He sure knows a lot about her already.

"What if the Trilisk is in one of them?" Telisa asked. Or one of us. She knew he had dismissed the idea earlier, but it kept creeping back up on her.

"Shiny doesn"t think so."

"He doesn"t know. He admits not knowing what happened to the Trilisk. Destroying his own ship was a move of desperation, I think. He could be the Trilisk."

"Maybe. There"s not much we can do to prepare for that possibility. There"s another aspect of the UED folks we should consider, though. They must hate the Earth government," he said.

"That helps, since we"re basically criminals to the UNSF."

"Yes. That could make this work. They can be the frontier part of the PIT team. But they could also be a part of something larger."

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"I mean if you don"t like the UNSF then this is your chance to do something about it. Build an organization to replace them. With alien technology and superhuman immortals on your side, you"d have a shot at bringing them down."

"Five Ent.i.ties, I suppose you"re right. I never got into this for war, though, just for the artifacts."

"Accomplishing it without bloodshed would probably be an unrealistic goal. But it wouldn"t have to be like the last war. We might be able to pull off a coup. For instance, maybe we could put ourselves into the bodies of the Earth government leaders, then stand down."

Telisa opened her mouth in astonishment. Such an application hadn"t even crossed her mind.

"What if we cause an ongoing conflict? What if aliens do attack while things are confused at home?"

Magnus nodded. "Those are both real risks we would face."

I don"t even know what I want anymore.

"We need time to think about this," she said.

end.