Dirge - Alan Dean Foster [106]
“I didn’t mean to make light of it.” Tse had lost weight during the past weeks, Nadurovina noticed, while Mallory had put it back on. Diet, concern, or fear? “I know Alwyn’s sanity has survived a terrible shock.” She smiled hesitantly over the rim of her cup. “He likes to say that the hinges of his mind are intact, but rusty.”
“Has he said anything more about the location of this recording he claims to have made?”
Around them, crew shuffled back and forth from the food wall to tables, chattering in small groups or eating in solitude. The crew of the dreadnought knew only that they were making a visit to Treetrunk. Rumor had it that the stop was intended as a grisly object lesson, to emphasize that those who staffed the giant military KK-drive starships must never stray from alertness. This erroneous scuttlebutt was encouraged.
Not ‘claims to,’” Tse countered primly. “Made. It’s real. All we have to do is find it.”
Nadurovina sipped at her coffee. She had taken quite a liking to the younger woman, motherly concern she kept well hidden. Nothing could be allowed to affect their professional relationship.
“I wish I had your confidence. This is a very expensive little excursion. We have no choice, of course, but to follow up on the only clue that has bequeathed itself to us. The world council realizes that. Even so, they were reluctant to authorize the escort force that Rothenburg insisted on. For his part, he refused to take your Mr. Mallory off-world without it.”
“Major Rothenburg is afraid that the Pitar might try something, isn’t he?”
“He just wants to be prepared. That’s his nature. A consummate alpha personality.”
“I want Alwyn to find the mollysphere, of course,” Tse murmured, “but more to prove that he’s been telling the truth all along than for any other reason.”
Nadurovina was slightly taken aback. “What about bringing the butchers of the six hundred thousand to justice?”
Tse hesitated momentarily. “If Alwyn’s right and the Pitar were responsible, if they did all the terrible things he says they did and he can bring forth proof of it, it will mean war, won’t it?”
The psychiatrist nodded slowly. “One does not need an advanced degree in human psychology to envision the explosion of rage that would result. Personally, I cannot see anything less than all-out hostilities satisfying the atavistic revenge response that would ensue. The limits of such a conflict would remain to be defined, of course.”
Tse looked unhappy. “There are interstellar wars with limits?”
“We have no experience in such matters, but if the thranx are to be believed, they have been engaged in just such a contest with the AAnn for more than two hundred and fifty years. I do not see anything that time-consuming happening in this case.” She looked thoughtful. “We do not have the patience or the forbearance of the thranx. Or so the relevant literature insists. Myself, I have never met one of the bugs. Someday I think I would like to do so.”
“Not me.” Tse spoke with conviction. “I don’t care how intelligent they are. Every time I see one I’m reminded of the time I snuck into my mother’s pantry looking for candy and a bunch of cockroaches fell out on me. I was washing my hair for days afterwards.”
“They do not look like cockroaches. Haven’t you seen the tridees? More like mantids.”
“I don’t like them either.” Tse pushed back from the table. “I don’t like anything that eats with multiple mouthparts, or has honeycombed eyes, or walks on more than four legs.”
“You are phobic. I am surprised. A woman with scientific training like yourself.”
“I’m not perfect,” Tse contended. “Everybody’s afraid of something. Major Rothenburg is afraid of not having everything sufficiently organized. Dr. Chimbu is afraid of losing a patient. You are afraid of Alwyn losing his mind again.”
“And Alwyn Mallory is afraid of the Pitar,” the psychiatrist concluded.
“No. You’re wrong there.” There wasn’t a hint of doubt in the