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briefing book.
They saw many demonstrations of what Mochida warned them against as they
traveled along and just above the reefs that seemed to stretch out forever in
front of them. Nasty heads of very large creatures full of teeth emerged from
con-cealed holes in the reef and gobbled up fish as they swam past. Even
schools of big fish weren't immune; things that looked like the gently waving
but at least permanently planted coral suddenly moved, showing themselves
instead to be all poisonous tentacles, grasping and paralyzing and then
draw-ing in fish half their size.
The beauty was not merely skin deep, it was a deliberate trap for the unwary.
Still, thousands of fish and crustaceans and creatures they couldn't classify
darted in and out of the coral, used it for protection, or even fed off the
smaller creatures, down to plankton-sized levels, and off some of the coral
itself in a few cases.
The coral was set up in colonies, with relatively barren gaps of lower rock
and sand between, but it was more con-tinuous than a set of islands. The gaps
were brief, and it seemed only the larger fish and good-sized predators left
one to go to the next.
Nor were any two beds exactly alike; some creatures were found only in one
area and not in another,
while the colors and even the types and shapes of coral changed as well.
It was easy to be mesmerized by the beauty and com-plexity of it all, but so
much kill or be killed was going on that it kept jolting you back to reality.
So which are the Sanafeans?
Ari wondered, and received a mental shrug from Ming.
Ahead, the commando squads fanned out, forming a nearly V-shaped formation
with top officers inside the V. It was clear from the lack of serious
attention they were paying to the pageant unfolding below them that the
natives were not these pretty carnivores or concealed sea snakes.
"What do the natives do here that requires thinking at all, on more than the
survival level?" Ming wondered aloud. "It doesn't seem like there are any
built structures, no roads, no signs of what we think of as civilization at
all."
"They manage the place, more or less," the General re-plied. "Oh, they
cultivate their own reefs and try and outdo each other in artistic skills,
something that is certainly lost on me, and they herd and cross-breed to
ensure species survival and balance, and the rest of the time they fight each
other, ex-cept when they're meditating upon and worshiping their gods. They
don't quite make sense to the likes of us, but I've learned to accept that as
just the way things are between many species. I doubt if we make any sense to
them, for example."
"So why do you have to fight them? Respect, by their rules?"
"Something like that. In fact, one of their trophies for beat-ing another clan
in a fight is something we require. They don't know the significance of it
beyond the trophy stage, but we do."
"Ah! I see! So you beat them and they give you the thing, huh?"
"Something like that. Ho! Stay back and be careful! We're about to be
challenged!"
He broke off and darted back to his position just behind the colonels in the
V, which had now come to a sudden, tense halt and was clearly waiting for
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something to happen.
I don't see anybody. Do you?
Ming was amused.
Like I can see what you don't? I

uh-oh! Wait a minute. . .
The Sanafeans were not coming from the riot of coral be-low, but from the near
surface above. Big black shapes that seemed to be huge oval mouths with wings
on them.
"Send up the buoy!" the General ordered, and immediately one of the colonels
removed something from his pack and pulled a tab. It inflated with compressed
air and rose to the surface, trailing a long thin line which the colonel now
ham-mered into the nonliving coral base below with just one blow.
"Sweet Jesus! How many of those things are there?" Ari wondered aloud. The
Sanafeans seemed to suddenly fill the field of view above and in front of
them. Ten, twenty . . . maybe a hundred or more of the things.
They could now see that they resembled not winged mouths, but giant manta
rays. The mouths, though, protruded and had vicious-looking fangs on both
sides, leaving little to the imag-ination as to what else might be hidden
inside. They also had long, very thin prehensile tails the equal of their body
length, and at the end of each tail was a spread of what might be called three
"fingers," with an extended and controllable op-posite "lip" that worked like
an ultrawide thumb.
"Stop and turn back, invaders, or we will destroy you!" the huge, leading
Sanafean thundered. Through the translator, he sounded supernatural and
authoritarian; the voice of the underwater god.
One of the junior officers at the point of the V responded: "Who speaks like
this to the forces of mighty
Chalidang, Em-pire of the Overdark, lords of all they wish to rule?"
The kid was pretty good at this, they had to admit. Re-hearsed or not, it was
the proper response.
"I am Kobilo, High Lord of the Tusarch, invader. These are our lands and no
other, not Sanafean nor foreign. We kept to our lands and demanded nothing of
you or yours. You are the invader here. You must turn back or we must destroy
you."
"We have no fight with the Tusarch," the lieutenant re-sponded. "We regret
that we must pass through and disturb their lands. It is necessary, but only
to reach the Paugoth. We know of no other way to get there. Will you permit us
passage over your lands to theirs?"
"Paugoth?
Paugoth
?" The clan leader seemed insulted. "What would you want with the likes of
them
!"
"We wish to challenge for the Trophy. They have it, you do not."
That forced the old ray to think a moment. "What makes you think you could
beat them?
We couldn't, last games, nor could anybody else. And you'll need more than
that fancy ar-mor and smart parading to take them, too. Why, I don't even
believe you can take us
."
"We will fight you if we must, for there is no honorable way to do otherwise,
but we do not wish to do it, and it might harm our strength even if we do
prevail here, so that the Pau-goth may well win because of the demands of the
Tusarch. This is your choice. We fight here, now, and the survivors ei-ther
press on, if it is
us, or turn back, if it is you who prevails. But you must be told that the
Chalidang can neither give nor accept quarter. Even if you win, how long will
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it be before there are enough Tusarch again to seriously challenge other
clans? Let us pass and, win or lose, it will be the Paugoth who will have this
problem."
That was a wrinkle the old boy hadn't thought of. In a no-quarter fight, he [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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