Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [101]
The insectoids began stridulating their stalk-like limbs and exoskeletal plates, producing shrieks of outrage. Guruk, his neck scales standing almost on end in outrage, opened his mouth to add some additional vitriol to the rising din.
“It is unquestionably a setback,” Narsanyala Jannar said, speaking in a voice loud enough to be heard over the din, yet in tones controlled and modulated enough to shame the insectoids and reptilians into recovering at least some of their composure.
The great fur-covered Xindi marsupial moved and spoke with his people’s characteristically deceptive slowness, though he scanned the group with eyes brimming with both intelligence and wisdom. “Yes, it is indeed a setback,” Narsanyala continued. “But it is by no means an insuperable one.”
Though he remained outwardly impassive, Degra heaved a great internal sigh of relief. Narsanyala and his people were great exemplars of patience; unless Degra did or said something to test that patience beyond its limits, they would remain on his side, allowing the engineering teams the time they required to complete and test the Weapon before the inevitable confrontation with Earth took place.
“Really?” Guruk said, his deep, gravel-studded voice dripping with sarcasm; he had clearly not been mollified in the least by Narsanyala’s observation. “Added to the loss of the armored platform in the same sector, the loss of the kemacite facility could well compromise the Weapon Project entirely—thereby placing all of our species in jeopardy.”
Narsanyala waved one of his huge hands, possibly in a casual gesture of dismissal—or perhaps to display his heavy, razor-sharp black claws as a polite reminder that Xindi marsupials were neither to be trifled with nor to be underestimated. Those talons clearly had uses other than anchoring their torpid-looking owners to trees for lengthy, inverted, leaf-chewing naps; they were more than capable of eviscerating a Xindi humanoid, and might conceivably make short work of even a leather-skinned reptilian.
Whatever rejoinder Guruk was planning to hurl Narsanyala’s way was interrupted by the keening, musical voice of Qoh Kiaphet Amman’Sor, one of the two Xindi aquatics who drifted aimlessly in the Inner Sanctum’s huge aquarium tank. “The destroyed weapons-manufacturing platform was already outmoded many revolutions ago, Commander Guruk,” Qoh said in a language that was as slow and stately as the speech of the insectoids was quick and urgent.
“Quite so,” said Qam, the other aquatic. “Since the platform was soon to be decommissioned and demolished anyway, it is hardly fair to penalize Degra for sacrificing it in an attempt to trap, interrogate, and kill as many of the human crew as possible.”
Guruk bared his many ranks of sharp, serrated teeth toward the great seawater tank in a gesture of evident exasperation. “All right. I will grant you that. But we still must deal with the loss of the kemacite facility. That loss has inflicted a serious blow upon our resource base. The Weapon requires vast amounts of fuel—much of which that very depot probably would have supplied.” Leaning forward across the table, he turned his vertical pupils squarely back upon Degra. “How many additional moonturns will your engineers now require to properly deploy the Weapon, Degra—all because of your monumentally poor judgment?”
Degra closed his eyes momentarily, refusing to allow himself to be bated by the angry reptilian, who was no doubt enraged enough to be seeking a handy pretext for killing him, or perhaps for doing something even more dreadful. And as often happened during most of those brief intervals when he examined the inside of his eyelids, he saw the faces of Naara, his wife, and his grown children Piral and Jaina, who looked as they had during their earliest schooling intervals, frozen in time as carefree young children.
He was not going to allow any of them to come to harm, be it from the violence of the humans, from the increasing disunity