He touched his thumbs together for emphasis. "Which meant the Mrachani spacecraft was all alone when it reached Base World Twelve. Which means that if Thrr-gilag's Human-Conqueror prisoner had succeeded in getting it off the ground, there would have been no Zhirrzh warships anywhere nearby that could have stopped him."

"Interesting," Klnn-vavgi murmured. "Come to think of it, it occurs to me that those Copperhead warriors didn't show up until the prisoner had failed to lift the spacecraft. Almost as if they knew he'd failed."

"Right," Thrr-mezaz nodded. "And the fact that they were there at all either means they were flooding the whole region with warriors looking for him—in which case we should be seeing a lot more Human-Conqueror warcraft than we have so far—or else they knew exactly where to look. Put it all together, and it starts sounding suspiciously like a coordinated effort."

"Could be," Klnn-vavgi said. "That would mean the Mrachanis would have had to transmit the Base World Twelve vector to the humans before they left Cataloged World Five Ninety-two. And transmitted it in some way the Cakk'rr couldn't detect."

"An X-ray laser, perhaps," Thrr-mezaz said. "Or something simpler: a visual flash-code at an angle where the Cakk'rr warships and Elders couldn't see it."

"There's one other possibility," Klnn-vavgi said slowly. "It could be that the Human-Conquerors have managed to crack the age-old problem of tracking spacecraft in the tunnel-line."

Thrr-mezaz looked at the image on the monitor, an eerie tingling running through him. Thrr-gilag had half-jokingly suggested the same thing, just after the attack on Base World 12. The concept was impossible, and provably so, and he'd said so at the time.

But the Human-Conquerors had already demonstrated that their technology was different from that of the Zhirrzh. If they had found a way to do the impossible...

"Commander?" one of the warriors called. "Message from Supreme Ship Commander Dkll-kumvit. He requests your presence immediately aboard the Imperative for a full-force commanders' meeting. A transport will pick you up in fifteen hunbeats."

"Acknowledge the order," Thrr-mezaz told him, the eerie feeling growing stronger. Something was up with this, all right. "Better get a couple of Stingbirds in the air, Second."

"Right," Klnn-vavgi said, gesturing the order to the warrior at the appropriate monitor.

"And keep a sharp watch on the mountain," Thrr-mezaz added quietly. "If the Mrachanis and Human-Conquerors are working together, this might be a good time for them to attack."

"The device they dropped is still drifting slowly toward us," the commander of the Requisite said, jabbing his tongue at one of the monitors in the Imperative's strategy room. "Still apparently attached to the Mrachani spacecraft itself via a long cable. The searchers and Elders on the scene report that it appears to be a slightly different version of the recorder device found in the wreckage of the Human-Conqueror warcraft after that first battle. The message visible on the monitor is in the Human-Conqueror language. We've set up a direct-link back to the Requisites interpreter and should have something shortly."

"A Human-Conqueror recorder," one of the other ship commanders commented. "Odd way to communicate."

"Not all that odd," Supreme Ship Commander Dkll-kumvit rumbled, stroking the side of his face. "Rather inventive, in fact. Don't forget, they have no way of knowing what frequencies our direct-link lasers use."

"Unless they were able to learn that from the escaped Human-Conqueror prisoner," one of the other ship commanders said tartly, throwing a meaningful look at Thrr-mezaz.

Thrr-mezaz ignored the gibe. "The question is, Supreme Commander, can we believe whatever it is they have to say?"

"That is indeed the question," Dkll-kumvit agreed. "Fortunately, I suppose, it won't be up to us to decide. Warrior Command and the Overclan Seating will be in that particular hot seat. Have the Elders been able to learn anything?"

"Nothing useful," the Requisites commander said. "Most of the spacecraft's outer hull is metal, and those sections made of other materials usually have metal behind them." The console in front of him twittered—"We have a translation of the Mrachani message," he announced. "Coming through now."

Thrr-mezaz looked at his monitor. The message that scrolled across was very brief.

We are the Mrachanis. We are not your enemies. Please do not attack us. Please allow us to speak directly with you.

"Not much there that we're going to have to worry about believing or not believing," one of the ship commanders remarked. "Pretty straightforward."

"True," Dkll-kumvit agreed, rubbing the side of his face again. "Communicator?"

The Elder hovering overhead dropped closer. "Yes, Supreme Commander?"

"Message to Warrior Command. Advise them of the situation and request instructions."

"I obey," the Elder said, and vanished.

"We should have their response in a few hunbeats," Dkll-kumvit said, looking around the strategy room. "Until then I suggest you all adjourn to the war room, where you can monitor events more closely." His gaze stopped on Thrr-mezaz. "Commander Thrr-mezaz, you might as well return to your encampment. I'll keep you company here until your transport is ready."

"I obey, Supreme Commander," Thrr-mezaz said.

The rest of the ship commanders collected their datalists and equipment and left. "Interesting turn of events," Dkll-kumvit said when he and Thrr-mezaz were alone. "Why do you suppose the Mrachanis came here, instead of to one of the other beachheads we've established?"

Thrr-mezaz shrugged. "Convenience, perhaps. Or maybe privacy."

"What do you mean, privacy?"

"Well, except for that one brief raid and the survey ship visits that led up to it, the Human-Conquerors have left Dorcas pretty much alone," Thrr-mezaz pointed out. "If the Mrachanis are the conquered race they claim to be, this would be a logical place to contact us without running into their conquerors."

"You say that as if you don't really believe it," Dkll-kumvit commented. "Do you think the Mrachanis are lying?"

"I think it's a definite possibility," Thrr-mezaz said. "The apparent abandonment of Dorcas by the Human-Conquerors could be a ruse, with the Mrachanis being sent in to try it a different way."

"That's certainly possible," Dkll-kumvit said. "There's another possibility, of course. From Warrior Command's analysis of the data in the captured recorder we've been assuming that the Human-Conquerors are dominated by a single clan, the NorCoord. But there's no reason why the Mrachanis have to be so monolithic."

"So what we could have here might be two different clans at work," Thrr-mezaz said, nodding thoughtfully. "One working for the Human-Conquerors, the other not."

"Or else they're both working against the Human-Conquerors but also against each other," Dkll-kumvit said. "All you have to do is study Zhirrzh history to see how complicated this sort of thing can get."

Thrr-mezaz looked at the monitor and the Mrachani message still displayed there. "I'd recommend, Supreme Commander, that you make sure all these possibilities are passed on to the Overclan before the Mrachani mission leaves Oaccanv."

"I intend to." Dkll-kumvit looked up as the Elder reappeared. "Yes?"

"Message for you, Supreme Commander," the Elder said. " 'Warrior Command to Supreme Ship Commander Dkll-kumvit. Mrachani prisoners are to be held at Dorcas until suitable arrangements can be made for their interrogation. Under no circumstances are they to be brought aboard any of the encirclement warships or sent on to other Zhirrzh worlds.' "

"Understood," Dkll-kumvit said. "How long are these arrangements likely to take?"