“That’d be handy,” Emile said as he set off again down the tunnel. “And while you’re enjoying our hospitality you can teach us your new trick.”

  “New trick?”

  “You and your buddies were throwing your mudballs way too accurately,” Emile said. “Even for country boys who don’t have anything to do in their off-hours except throw rocks at trees.”

  “Oh—that trick,” Lorne said, nodding. “Nothing mysterious there. Turns out to be some nanocomputer programming that everyone’s forgotten about.”

  “Figured that,” Emile said with a grunt. “Should come in handy.”

  “More than you know,” Lorne assured him. “And while we work on that, we can discuss how to make those shrapnel bombs of yours safer for any civilians in the area.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Emile said, picking up his pace. “Sounds like a really long night, too. Let’s get to it.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  For the entire trip from Caelian Paul had hoped that Santores had been bluffing about Captain Moreau having already found Qasama. He’d hoped this was some elaborate ploy to trick him into giving the Dominion that information.

  But it wasn’t. There was Qasama, just as Paul remembered it from his last trip here, filling the Megalith’s main CoNCH display.

  “Congratulations,” he said, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. So it was true. He’d been crippled for nothing. “Now what?”

  “I don’t know,” Santores said, an odd tension in his voice. “What do you see? Or rather, what don’t you see?”

  Paul frowned at the display. What didn’t he see?

  And then he got it. Moreau’s ship, the Dorian, was nowhere to be seen. “Maybe it’s on the other side of the planet.”

  “No,” Santores said. “Standard orbit would have brought it into view at some point during our approach. Captain Moreau would also have routinely put comm-sensor satellites in place to cover his blind spots. They’re not there.”

  “He must have decided to go somewhere else.”

  “Or he didn’t have a choice in the matter,” Santores said. “I’m going to hail the Qasaman leadership now. I’d like you to open the conversation.”

  Paul nodded. He’d wondered why he’d been so abruptly summoned to CoNCH. Not that he really felt like doing the Dominion any favors. “And you think I’ll be willing to do that why?”

  “Because these are your friends,” Santores said. “I imagine you’d prefer that the conversation remains cordial.”

  Paul raised his eyebrows. “Is that a threat?”

  “Not at all,” Santores said. “I’m simply suggesting that they may be more willing to tell you—politely—what’s happened to the Dorian than they would me.”

  Paul sighed. No, he wasn’t interested in helping Santores.

  But the Qasamans had already been through hell. If he could keep the Dominion from delivering another helping, he needed to try. “Fine,” he said, holding out his hand. It still felt leaden without his servos, but he was starting to get used to it. “Microphone?”

  “Just speak toward here.” Santores pointed to a spot on the control panel and tapped a key. “Go ahead.”

  “This is Paul Broom of the Cobra Worlds,” he said. “I’d like to speak to Shani Moffren Omnathi. At his convenience, of course.”

  Given that the Megalith had been visible from the planet for a solid hour, he expected that Omnathi would be right on top of it. He was right. “I greet you in the name of the Qasaman people, Cobra Paul Broom,” Omnathi’s voice came from the CoNCH speaker. “Welcome back. Who, may I ask, is your traveling companion?”

  Paul gestured to the panel. “I think he means you.”

  “Commodore?” one of the nearby officers murmured as a flashing circle appeared on Santores’s landscape display.

  A circle that was nearly five hundred kilometers west of Azras, the southwest-most city of Qasama’s Fertile Crescent region. “What’s that?” Paul murmured.

  Santores tapped the mute key. “It’s the transmission’s location.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be much civilization there,” the officer pointed out.

  “There doesn’t, does there?” Santores agreed. “Broom?”

  Paul frowned. As far as he knew, none of Qasama’s towns or villages were nearly that far away from the main Crescent settlements. Had the war damaged the area so much that Omnathi had decided to move some of the populace elsewhere? “Sorry. No idea.”

  “I suppose we’ll just have to ask.” Santores tapped the key again. “This is Commodore Rubo Santores, commanding the Dominion War Cruiser Megalith. I understand that Captain Barrington Moreau and the Dorian preceded me here. Were they here?”

  “They were,” Omnathi said. “We spent several days healing their wounded, and then they left.”

  “When?”

  “Four days ago.”

  “Bound for where?”

  “The answer to that question is somewhat complicated,” Omnathi said. “I believe your Lieutenant Commander Kusari would be best equipped to offer the explanation.”

  The CoNCH officer sent Santores a startled look. Santores himself, as far as Paul could tell, didn’t react at all. “Are you speaking of the Dorian’s Second Officer and chief engineer Lieutenant Commander Eliser Kusari?” he asked.

  “Yes, Commodore, this is Commander Kusari,” a new voice came briskly on the speaker. “Welcome to Qasama, sir. Captain Moreau’s compliments, and his apologies that he couldn’t be here to greet you in person.”

  “Thank you, Commander,” Santores said, his voice cool. “May I ask why Captain Moreau was unable to be here?”

  “He felt it would be most useful to follow the Squire to its destination,” Kusari said. “I have his report here, whenever you’re ready to receive it.”

  Again, Santores touched the mute key. “Atchkinson, do we have a secure transmission?”

  “No, sir,” one of the crew reported. “Directed signal, but easy enough to tap into.”

  “And not encrypted, I assume.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Santores again tapped the key. “We’ll hold off on that for the moment, Commander,” he said. “A more important question right now is why he left you behind.”

  “I was still undergoing treatment when Captain Moreau left, sir,” Kusari said. “As were ten other officers and crewmen still with me. As of now, though—”

  “Are you saying Captain Moreau left eleven of his men behind?” Santores cut in harshly.

  “We were injured, sir—”

  “Were the Dorian’s medical facilities destroyed?” Santores demanded. “All the medics killed by violence or plague?”

  “No, sir, not at all,” Kusari said. For a man clearly at the focus of official displeasure, Paul thought, he was taking this all very calmly. “Partly, as I said, Captain Moreau deemed the local doctors and facilities more capable of bringing us to full health. More importantly to the captain, he thought we could assist the Qasamans in preparing a proper decoy for the Trofts. Shahni Omnathi—”

  “Silence!” Santores snapped. “You’re speaking of classified material on an open channel.”

  “And with Omnathi standing right there,” Paul murmured.

  Santores threw him an ice-edged glare. “What?”

  “The transmission circle didn’t change position when Kusari came on,” Paul explained, pointing to the landscape display. “I assume that means the two of them are together?”

  For a moment Santores held the glare. Then he turned back to the board. “Commander Kusari,” he said, his voice under rigid control. “Is Shahni Omnathi with you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Kusari said. “Sorry, Commodore, I should have mentioned that earlier. The Shahni and his top people have been fully informed about the Dominion decoy plan.”

  Paul felt a tingle up his back. “What decoy plan?”

  “Whose decision was that?” Santores asked, ignoring Paul’s question.

  “Mine, sir,” Kusari said without hesitation. “After the Dorian left, it seemed to me that the Qasamans’ record of resourcefulness and courage made it logical to bring them into our confidence so that we could more effectively combine forces.”

  “Did it, now,” Santores said. His tone was still under control, but it was becoming progressively darker. “Logical, you say.”

  “Logical and productive both,” Kusari said. “Shahni Omnathi has come up with a plan to draw the Trofts to their destruction while still minimizing civilian casualties.”

  For a moment Santores was silent. Watching him out of the corner of his eye, Paul could see a battle of emotions going on there. “I see,” he said at last. “That will be all for now. A shuttle will pick you up within the hour and bring you aboard for a full debriefing.”

  “Understood, sir,” Kusari said. “If I may suggest, though, you might find it more instructive to come down here for the debriefing. That way you could see the terrain and the Qasamans’ plan for yourself.”

  “I’ll rely on you to apprise me of that information,” Santores said. “One hour, Commander. Santores out.”

  He touched the switch again. “Commander Darrow? Do we have anything more on the terrain around that transmitter?”

  “Putting it in the stream now, Commodore.”

  “And?” Paul prompted.

  “And what?” Santores asked.

  “And what’s there?”

  Santores glanced at him, perhaps belatedly remembering that he couldn’t tap into the data stream like everyone else aboard. “It’s mostly forest,” he said. “Relatively flat, with a few low hills. No major rivers; a couple of small streams. Some large rock formations that might be useful for cover or as the core for defense emplacements.” He shook his head. “Only it’s too far away from the main population centers. The Trofts will never believe that’s where—” He broke off, glancing at Paul again.

  “That’s where what?” Paul prompted.

  “Though there seem to be enough people there at the moment, sir,” Darrow spoke up. “I’m reading heat signatures of…must be a good five thousand people there right now.”

  “In the middle of a forest?” Santores asked, frowning. “What are they all doing there?”

  “Looks like they’re clearing ground,” Darrow said. “We’ve got some heavy machinery—small but well powered. We’ve also picked up—there’s another one.”

  “Yes, I see it,” Santores said, nodding.

  “What was it?” Paul asked.

  “Laser flash,” Santores said. “Horizontal.”

  “They’re cutting down trees,” Darrow said. “Clearing land for us to lay out our factories.”

  Paul blinked. Their factories?

  “Ah—there’s where they all came from,” Darrow continued. “We’ve got a tent village under the trees about half a klick to the south. Plus…looks like mess tent and sanitary facilities, as well.”

  “Unbelievable,” Santores murmured. “And all this in only four days?”

  “Sir?” Darrow said, his voice suddenly odd. “I’ve tagged something you might want to look at.”

  “The mountain due west of the encampment?”

  “Yes, sir,” Darrow said. “Only if the deep-radar scan is accurate…”

  “Damn,” Santores breathed. “It’s a volcano?”

  “Yes, sir,” Darrow said grimly. “It’s not dormant, either—you can see steam tendrils at the edges.”

  “How close is it to the workers?” Paul asked.

  “Too close,” Santores said grimly. “About ninety klicks away. And upwind.”

  Paul’s stomach tightened. “So if it blew…?”

  “Smoke and ash over the whole place,” Santores said, his voice suddenly thoughtful. “I wonder if that’s what Omnathi and Kusari have in mind. Darrow, what would it take to punch a hole in that crater?”

  “It would take a good tap, sir,” Darrow said. “But it sure looks primed and ready to go. And there’s a massive amount of magma underneath the rock crust on top. We’ll need to do more detailed scans before we know the full parameters.”

  “Get busy,” Santores ordered. “While you’re doing that, get with Crivkovich and see what it’ll take to blast out the plug and bring it full active.”

  “Wait a second,” Paul said, staring at the spot on the landscape display. “You want to set off a volcano? With all those people in the way?”

  “Hopefully not,” Santores said. “The idea would be to wait until the Trofts had invaded.” He looked sideways at Paul. “Don’t worry, we should have enough warning to get most of the civilians out of the way first.”

  “Most of them?”

  “And hopefully evacuate the population centers further east,” Santores added. “We’ll certainly do our best.”

  An eerie sense of unreality seeped into Paul’s heart. So that was what Kusari had been talking about. The plan was to draw some of the Dominion’s enemies here, bait them into attacking the planet, and then destroy them. Had that been the plan all along?

  But it couldn’t have been. It wasn’t until Santores and the Dominion ships arrived at Aventine that they knew Qasama even existed.

  Which meant that if the bait-and-kill had been the plan, it must have been the Cobra Worlds that were the planned decoy.

  The decoy. The killing ground.

  Slowly, Paul looked around CoNCH. How many of these men, he wondered, knew what the Dominion of Man had sent them here to do to their distant cousins? Was it something only the senior officers were privy to?

  Or did everyone know and simply not care? Was the Dominion of Man in such a desperate situation that they would try anything to survive?

  It was a chilling and terrible thought. And yet, Paul had to admit that if their positions were switched the people of the Cobra Worlds might be capable of doing exactly the same thing.

  In fact, from some of the things he’d heard after the Troft invasion, a sizeable percentage of Aventine’s populace had been perfectly willing to throw Qasama to the wolves if it would get the aliens off the Cobra Worlds. “And if your best isn’t good enough?” he challenged.

  “You’re angry, of course,” Santores said. “I can’t say I blame you. The Qasamans have been good to you and your family. You naturally don’t want to see them caught in the middle of a war, especially one that’s not of their making.”

  “They’re not being caught in a war,” Paul bit out. “They’re being put there. By you. Fellow humans, and you’re cold-bloodedly setting them up to be invaded. That doesn’t bother you?”

  “What bothers me is that the Dominion of Man is facing destruction,” Santores said bluntly. “If there was any other way, I’d be happy to consider it. But I have my orders. My people—my worlds—my oath—those are my first priority. Would you behave any differently?”

  “I would at least look for an alternative.”

  “Would you?” Santores gestured to the map screen. “Because I see the evidence of great destruction down there. Far more than I saw on Aventine or Caelian.”

  “It was the Trofts’ decision to focus their attention here.”

  “Was it?” Santores countered. “Because I’ve read the reports. You didn’t take the Isis Cobra factory to Aventine or any of the other Cobra Worlds. You brought it here.”

  “Because the Qasamans had the best chance of defeating the invaders and thereby persuading the local Troft demesnes to come in on our side.”

  “Was that the only reason? Or were you also thinking that, win or lose, this way Qasama would take the brunt of the war damage, not Aventine.”

  “The Qasamans accepted Isis gladly and enthusiastically,” Paul insisted. “They were the ones making the plans and leading the resistance.”

  “As it would appear they’re doing again.”

  “Because you gave them no choice.”

  “They wanted their world free of Troft threats,” Santores said. “You helped them accomplish that. Now they want that same freedom, and it’s the Dominion of Man who’s giving them the necessary assistance.”

  Paul glared across CoNCH. Except that Qasama wouldn’t be in danger if it hadn’t been for the Dominion ships. Santores was completely mislabeling cause and effect.

  But there was nothing to be gained by pointing that out. Even if Santores recognized his hypocrisy—and Paul wasn’t convinced he would—it was clear the commodore was uninterested in hearing anything that landed outside the narrow parameters of his orders.

  And if Santores decided that blowing a volcano was the best way to carry out those orders, the devastation could end up being worse than a dozen Troft invasions.

  Paul had to come up with an alternative. Somehow, he had to come up with an alternative. “You need to tell me everything,” he said. “The whole plan. All of it.”

  “Of course,” Santores said, a faintly condescending smile on his face. “Dominion officers are quite casual about violating Standing Orders.”

  “You don’t know this world or its people,” Paul said. “I do. That’s why you brought me up here to talk to them. You can’t trust Commander Kusari or Shahni Omnathi or anyone else to give you a straight answer.”

  “And I can trust you why?”

  Paul lifted his arm. “Because I’m totally dependent on you,” he said. “I can’t move quickly or for any great distance. My hearing and sight are severely limited.”

  He watched Santores’s face carefully on that one. But if the commodore spotted Paul’s half-truth, there was no sign of it in his expression. “My fate is tied to you and the Megalith,” Paul went on. “Not to belabor the point, but I’m literally the only one in a million-kilometer radius you can trust.”

  For a long moment Santores studied him. Then, his eyebrow twitched. “Very well,” he said. “The corpsman will return you to your cabin. The general plan will be on your computer by the time you arrive.”

  “Thank you,” Paul said. “After I’ve read it, I’ll start thinking of how the Qasamans can help.” He raised his eyebrows. “And how, if they choose, they can hinder.”

  * * *

  The Troft cordon around Svipall had been designed to keep people out of the village and, more importantly, out of their research and manufacturing facility. In theory, such a cordon should be equally effective at keeping people in.