Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [4]
Shresht’s mandibles clacked with unconcealed impatience. “Six turnings. A great deal can happen during that span of time.”
“However resourceful these humans may be, they would need far longer than that for their purely random search to lead them to our world,” Mallora said. “We mustn’t allow their continued presence in the vicinity to panic us. Remember, they have but a single ship—and a primitive one at that.”
“I find I must agree with Degra and Mallora,” Narsanyala Jannar said slowly, leaning forward very deliberately in his chair as he scratched at the thick mane of white fur that ringed his prognathic face. One of the Xindi homeworld’s arboreal/marsupial sentients, Narsanyala displayed languorous mannerisms that concealed an intense and astonishingly quick intellect. “If the humans really did have the slightest inkling of the location of either our homeworld or the primary Weapon Project facility, would they not now be heading directly toward one or the other of those locations?”
“That the humans have at least an ‘inkling’ as to our homeworld’s whereabouts is abundantly clear,” Commander Guruk Dolim said, speaking in a scorn-tinged rumble that always reminded Degra of the unpredictably shifting crustal plates of the homeworld’s primary volcanic zone. The hulking Xindi military leader belonged to the highly aggressive Xindi reptilian species, a fact now even more in evidence than usual because of the raised posture of the scales around his leathery, muscular neck.
“Why does that worry you so?” Narsanyala said. “Because a single human vessel continues blindly searching amid the Orassin distortion fields?”
“Of course!” Guruk said, growling. His aide, an equally fearsome green-skinned reptilian seated at his side, muttered in guttural agreement.
The chamber suddenly reverberated with a mournful, keening sound that was equal parts song and speech. All eyes, single and compound, turned at once toward the clear aquarium wall that occupied one entire side of the Xindi Inner Sanctum.
“The sector containing the Orassin fields contains many thousands of star systems,” sang Qoh Kiaphet Amman’Sor, whose long, gray, streamlined body swam slowly and sinuously toward the table, stopping at the limits of the vast, seawater-filled tank. Degra silently congratulated himself that his ability to tell the two nearly identical-looking Xindi aquatics apart seemed to be improving.
Qoh’s companion, Qam, descended from the top of the tank, body inverted; belonging to a species that had adapted millions of cycles ago to an aquatic environment, both Qam and Qoh were essentially heedless of the gravity that ruled the Xindi homeworld’s large landmasses. “The human vessel might search for hundreds of cycles before happening upon either our homeworld or the Weapon,” Qam said, warbling a mournful undersea aria in the process.
“These humans are devious creatures,” Guruk said, addressing the Xindi aquatics. “If we leave any avenue of attack unblocked, they will find it.”
Though he often found himself at odds with Guruk—reptilians tended to settle most problems with violence even when circumstances called for finesse—Degra could not disagree with the commander’s assessment of the severity of the very real and looming human threat. The humans could be permitted to find neither the homeworld nor the Weapon that was being built to protect it; the results would be catastrophic. Though the humans’ chances of success on both fronts were already small, the odds could never be remote enough to satisfy the entire Council, particularly the reptilians and the insectoids. And Degra knew that if he was honest with himself, he had to admit that Naara, Piral, and Jaina could never be safe enough to suit him either.
Perhaps the time has finally come to expend some of the assets Mallora and I have been holding in reserve, Degra thought. He knew all too well that doing so might delay the final deployment of the Weapon by one or two moonturns; but if the tactic also increased the chance of ultimate success until it became a virtual certainty, the trade-off