Dirge - Alan Dean Foster [118]
“Hive ships need not enter this system. A mutual rendezvous point elsewhere could be agreed upon.” Asperveden refused to acknowledge the impossibility of his hypothetical proposal. “The humans would be grateful. It would advance our relationship and improve our mutual prospects immeasurably.”
Swallowing, Wirmbatusek began to hunt in his pouch for the spiral-spouted drink bottle. “If we are victorious. If the Pitar should win, we would have acquired their enmity for nothing.”
“Not true,” Asperveden argued. “We would still have gained the gratitude of the humans.”
“Would we?” Slipping the decorated drinking tube between his jaws, the larger worker began to sip sugary, nutritious liquid. “You ascribe to humans a quality of gratefulness I have yet to see demonstrated.” He passed the bottle over. “First I would like to see one invite me into its home without an expression of disgust on its face. Then I might consider rendering it some assistance. If we remain neutral we are detached in the eyes of Pitar and human alike. We risk nothing. That is what the Quillp, and the Unop-Patha, and even the AAnn are doing. Why should we do any differently?”
Asperveden contemplated the tranquil lake, the intriguingly different indigenous wildlife, the warm, clear, morning air, and felt himself troubled. “I do not know. Perhaps because we are better than they?”
Wirmbatusek chose to comment via a sequence of circumspect clicks. “Anything else?”
“Nothing that could be construed as conclusive. Only that, unlike many who count themselves true progeny of the First Queen, I happen to like humans.”
“So do I,” Wirmbatusek confessed freely. “But that does not mean I am ready to march out of the hive to sacrifice limb and life alongside them.”
18
The armada was unlike anything that humankind, or for that matter any of the other species that happened to dwell in that same portion of the Arm, had seen before. Less what was necessary to protect and defend Earth and its other colonies, every armed vessel propelled by a KK-drive was assigned a position and time to rendezvous on the outskirts of the Dominion. It was believed that the Pitar would meet them there, somewhere in the vicinity of their system’s twelfth and outermost world. It was also conceded that Pitarian vessels ranging far and wide would at least make an attempt to assault one or more of the human populated worlds, if only to divert attention from their own.
Neither threat materialized. Human strategists were perplexed. The xenologists who had studied the Pitar were not.
Levi was one of those who was not. Others like him had been assigned to the armada, one to a ship so that in the event of catastrophe all the members of his group and the valuable knowledge they represented could not be lost in a single blow. If not the fleetest of mind or the most experienced member of the team that had studied the Pitar since first contact, he was acknowledged the senior member of the group. His opinion was solicited and respected. He found himself on the Wellington, seconded to the general staff.
It was subsequent to a meeting where the plan of first attack was being finalized that he found himself, thoroughly preoccupied with the critical matters at hand, strolling aimlessly through the great ship. As big as anything mobile that mankind had yet put in space, the Wellington was an impressive achievement. Four rings of armaments located in evenly spaced weapons blisters girdled the main body of the dreadnought. The KK-drive generating fan that spread out before it and pulled it through space-plus was the size of a small town. Between fan, hydrogen spark plug, and the main body of the ship were five defensive-screen generators. No more powerful or fearsome ship cruised the cosmos. It was a supreme example of contemporary human technology, an other-than-light vessel representing a confluence of all that human civilization had thus far accomplished.
That it was designed expressly to blow things up placed it squarely in the mainstream of human technological