Stiggur's prediction of the opposition's tactical methods took only a few days to be borne out; and as he had when the Qasaman story first broke weeks earlier, Corwin abruptly found himself in the middle of the whole public debate.
But with a difference. Before, Qasama had been seen as little more than a mathematical equation: an abstract challenge on one hand, with the very concrete hope of more than doubling the Cobra Worlds' land holdings on the other. Now the comfortable fog was gone. As details of Qasama's people and dangers were released, a growing emotional fire began to simmer within even the most logical and rational arguments, both pro and anti. Most of the antis Corwin talked to were only marginally mollified by the assurance that Jonny was also against a massive war with other humans, their attitude usually being that he should be doing more to bring the Council over to that point of view. The pros tended simply to ignore such sticky ethical questions while claiming that the Cobra Worlds' own safety should be Jonny's first priority. It made for a verbal no-win situation, and within three days Corwin was heartily sick of it.
But it wasn't until he got a call from Joshua that he realized just how much the phone and public information net had again taken over his life.
"Have you had a chance to see Justin lately?" Joshua asked after the amenities were out of the way.
"Not since the evening after your debriefing." Corwin winced at that sudden revelation. Four days, it had been now, without talking to anyone in his family except his father. He wasn't used to getting so far out of touch. "I haven't had much time lately."
"Well, I think you'd better find the time for this. Soon."
Corwin frowned. "Why? Something wrong?"
Joshua's phone screen image hesitated, shook its head minutely. "I don't know. It's nothing I can put my finger on, but . . . well, he hasn't come back from the Academy yet, you know."
Corwin didn't. "Medical observation?"
"No, but he's spending almost all his time alone in the room they've given him out there. And he's doing a lot of computer library searches."
Corwin thought back to Justin's report, which he'd hurriedly skimmed and filed away two days ago. His brother had gone through hell's own porch out there . . . "Maybe he's just killing time while the emotional wounds heal over a bit," he suggested. But even as he said them the words rang false in his ears. Justin simply wasn't the type to lick his wounds in private.
Joshua might have been reading his mind. "Then those wounds must be a lot deeper than he's letting on, because he's never holed up like this before. And the library search stuff bothers me, too. Any way for you to get a list of what he's been researching?"
"Possibly." Corwin scratched his cheek. "Well . . . did you remind him we're having a Moreau Family war council this evening?"
"Yes," the other nodded. "He said he'd try to make it."
"Okay," Corwin said slowly. "Okay. I haven't talked to you, so of course I don't know he's been reminded. I'll call him up like a good big brother should, and while I'm at it I'll see what else I can get out of him. All right?"
"Fine. Thanks, Corwin—this has been driving me just barely south of frantic."
"No problem. See you tonight."
Joshua disappeared from the screen. Scowling, Corwin punched up the Cobra Academy and asked for Justin. A moment later his brother's face came on. "Hello?—oh, hi, Corwin. What can I do for you?"
It took Corwin a second to find his tongue. Seldom if ever had he known Justin to be so coolly polite, so—the term businesslike leapt to mind. "Uh, I was just calling to see if you'd be coming to the family round table tonight," he said at last. "I presume Dad told you about it?"
"Yes, a couple days ago, and Joshua again today. I understand Aunt Gwen's going to be there too."
Nuts, Corwin thought with a mental grimace. He'd been planning to drop that tidbit on Justin himself as a surprise bonus incentive to attend. Aunt Gwen—Jonny's younger sister—had been Justin's favorite relative since childhood, but her visits had been few and far between since her move to Palatine six years earlier. "That's right," he told Justin. "She's one of the geologists working on the Qasama data."
Justin's lip might have twitched at the name Qasama; Corwin wasn't sure. "Yes, Dad mentioned that. Well, as I told Joshua, I'll try to make it."
"What's to keep you away?" Corwin asked, studiously casual. "You're still off-duty, aren't you?"
"Officially, yes. But there's something I've been working on lately that I'm trying to finish up."
"What sort of something?"
Justin's face didn't change. "You'll find out when it's done. Until then I'd rather not say."
Corwin exhaled quietly and admitted defeat. "All right, be mysterious; see if I care. But let me know if you need transport and I'll send a car for you."
"Thanks. Talk to you later."
"'Bye." The screen blanked, and Corwin leaned back in his seat. The trip to Qasama had definitely changed his younger brother—and not necessarily for the better. Still, as he'd told Joshua, some things simply took time to work out.
His intercom buzzed: Yutu with something new on the public net that needed an official response. Sighing, Corwin turned on the net and, pushing his worries about Justin into the background, got back to work.
For Pyre, it was just like old times. Almost.
An invitation to the Moreau family dinners had always ranked at the very top of his list, not only because he enjoyed their company but also because their tacit acceptance of him as part of the family was an honor bestowed on few other outsiders. Over the years he'd had the privilege of watching the three boys move from high chairs to boosters to full adult participation; had learned by osmosis some of the intricacies of Cobra World politics; had even gotten to know Gwen Moreau, barely three years his senior, well enough to seriously consider marriage to her. Tonight as he looked around the table, listening and contributing to the chitchat, he felt the memories of those happier times drifting like the scent of good cahve through his mind.
But tonight the warmth was chilled, and all their efforts could not dispel the cloud that Justin's empty chair cast over the proceedings. Jonny had assured them that Justin would be there in time for the discussion, but as dinner wore down to dessert and then cahve Pyre began to doubt it.
And worse than Justin's voluntary exile was the cold certainty in Pyre's gut that ultimately it was his fault.
Not just the fact that he'd been Justin's Cobra trainer, the one responsible for making sure the boy was ready for the mission. Pyre had trained Cobras before, and if Justin had failed to develop that touch of defensive paranoia a man in danger needed, that was simply the other's basic personality. Too, he could have forbidden Justin's participation on the mission; but the Council wanted the twins aboard and there was nothing Pyre could have pointed to to justify dropping them out.
But if he'd followed the armored bus when Moff had taken Justin from Sollas to Purma. . . .
It was a scenario Pyre had played over and over in infinite variation on the trip back to Aventine, and it still haunted the quiet times of his day. If he'd followed the bus he could have broken Justin out at that first stop, the two of them then freeing Cerenkov and Rynstadt. Or even have waited until the high-security building and then backtracked to the others' rescue. Justin would never have had to face the situation of being deep in enemy territory, abandoned by the outside assistance he'd counted on.
And he wouldn't have had to learn quite so hard the fact that even Cobras were allowed to be afraid. Allowed to panic.
Allowed to remain human.
Dinner ended, and the group moved into the living room. But Jonny had barely begun when there was a quiet knock on the door and Justin let himself in.
There was a brief, awkward moment as everyone tried for the right balance of greeting, interest, casualness, and solicitude. But then Joshua managed to break the ice. "About time," he growled, mock-seriously. "You were supposed to be bringing the main course."
Justin smiled, and the tension eased. "Sorry I'm late," he apologized, also mock-seriously, to his brother. "The gantua steaks will be along in a minute—and as partial compensation for the delay, the meat is exceptionally fresh."
He sat down beside Joshua, nodded to the others, and then turned his eyes expectantly to his father. "How much have I missed?"
"As a matter of fact, we were just starting." Jonny hesitated. "What I'm about to say—about to suggest—is going to sound pretty strange," he said, glancing around at the others. "What's worse is that I haven't got any solid evidence whatsoever for it. That's the main reason you're all here: to help me decide whether I'm actually on to something or just hallucinating." His eyes shifted to Chrys, seated on the couch between Corwin and Gwen, and stayed there as if seeking strength. "I asked you to read the report on the planet Tacta that the Menssana brought back, in particular the section on the bird we've nicknamed the spookie. What was in there wasn't much—mainly just a brief encounter we had with one near the ship's perimeter. What wasn't there was the strong suspicion I've had ever since then that the spookie is in some degree telepathic."
The word seemed to hang like smoke in the air. Pyre flicked his eyes around the room: at Chrys, who looked troubled; Corwin, Gwen, and Joshua, whose faces appeared to register astonished skepticism; at Justin, whose expression was closed but . . . interested.
"All my evidence is subjective," Jonny continued, "but let me describe exactly what happened and see what you think."
Carefully, almost as if giving evidence in court, he went on to tell of the spookie watching him from the low bushes; of its agitation when he called others over to see; of its deftly timed, deftly executed break for freedom; and of the mission's failure to locate any more of the species. When he finished there was a long silence.
"Anyone else come to this conclusion?" Gwen asked at last.
"Two or three others are wondering about it," Jonny told her. "Understandably, none of us put it in our official reports, but Chrys and I weren't imagining things out there."
"Um. Doesn't have to be a complete, mind-reading telepathy, does it?" Gwen mused. "With a spookie's brain capacity it shouldn't have the intelligence to handle input like that."
"Dr. Hanford made a similar comment at the time," Chrys said. "We've talked about the possibility the spookies might form some kind of group mind, or that the sense boils down more to a feeling for danger than actual mind-reading."
"I'd vote for the latter," Corwin put in. "A group mind, even if such a thing could exist, shouldn't worry too much about losing one of its cells. In fact, it might deliberately sacrifice a spookie or two to get a look at your weaponry in action."
"Good point," Jonny nodded. "I lean toward the danger-recognition theory myself, though it requires a pretty fine scale to have timed things that well."
"The fine-tuning, at least, could have been coincidental," Corwin suggested.
"Or the whole thing could have been coincidence," Joshua said hesitantly. "Sorry, Dad, but I don't see anything here that can't be explained away."
"Oh, I agree," Jonny said without rancor. "And if I hadn't been there I'd be treating it with the same healthy skepticism. As a matter of fact, I hope you're right. But one way or the other, we've got to pin this down, and we've got to pin it down fast."
"Why?" Pyre asked. "It seems to me Tacta's fauna is pretty far down the priority stack. What's the big rush for?"
Jonny opened his mouth—but it was Justin who spoke. "Because the Council's about to make a decision on war with Qasama," he said evenly, "and the mojos are related to these spookies. Aren't they."
Jonny nodded, and Pyre felt the blood draining out of his face. "You mean to say we were fighting telepathic birds down there?"
"I don't know," Jonny said. "You were there. You tell me."
Pyre licked his lips briefly, eyes shifting to Justin. The immediate shock was fading and he was able to think. . . . "No," he said after a minute. "No, they weren't strictly telepathic. They never recognized that we were Cobras, for one thing—never reacted as if I was armed until I started shooting."
"Did you ever see how they reacted to a conventional weapon, though?" Gwen asked.
Pyre nodded, "Outside the ship, the first contact. The team had to leave their lasers in the airlock."
"And Decker," Joshua murmured.
"And Decker," Pyre acknowledged, swallowing with the memory of York's sacrifice. "In fact, I'd go so far as to say the mojos don't even sense the presence of danger, at least not the way you claim your spookie does. When I climbed up a building at the edge of Sollas that last night I surprised both a Qasaman sentry and his mojo. The bird should at least have been in the air if it felt me coming." He cocked an eyebrow at Justin. "You notice anything, one way or the other?"
The young Cobra shrugged. "Only that the group mind thing goes out the window with at least the mojos—none of them learned anything about us no matter how many of their friends we slaughtered." He paused, and a haze of emotional pain seemed to settle over his face. "And . . . there may be one other thing."
The others sensed it as well, and a silence rich in sympathy descended on the room. It took Justin a couple of tries to get started, but when he finally spoke his voice was steady and flat with suppressed emotion. "You've all read my report, I expect. You know I—well, I panicked while I was being taken underground in Purma. I killed all the mojos and some of the Qasamans in the elevator, and a few minutes later I killed another group in the hallway upstairs. What . . . what some of you don't know is that I didn't just panic. I literally lost my head when each set of mojos attacked. I don't even remember fighting them off, just sort of coming to with them dead around me."
He stopped, fighting for control . . . and it was Joshua who spotted the key first. "It was only when the mojos were attacking you?" he asked. "The Qasamans themselves didn't bother you?"
Justin shook his head. "Not to the same extent. At least not those in the elevator. The others . . . well, I don't remember killing them, either, I guess. I don't know—maybe I'm just rationalizing for my failure."
"Or maybe you're not," Jonny said grimly. "Almo, did you experience anything like that when you were fighting the mojos?"
Pyre hesitated, thinking back. He wished he could admit to such a thing, for the sake of Justin's self-esteem. If the mojos actually had been fueling the younger man's reaction. . . .
But he had to shake his head. "Sorry, but I'm afraid not," he told Jonny. "On the other hand, I never faced mojos who'd already seen I was dangerous, either. I was always in a position to target and eliminate them in the first salvo. Perhaps we could talk to Michael Winward, see what he went through."
Joshua was gazing into space. "The cities. They're designed for the mojos' benefit. You suppose there's more significance to that than we thought?"
Gwen stirred. "I have to admit I don't understand this 'designed city' bit, especially the lunacy of letting herds of bololins charge up your streets. Wouldn't it have been simpler to just go out on hunting trips when you wanted to let your mojo breed?"
"Or else set up tarbine aviaries in the cities," Chrys suggested. "I would think it harder to go out and trap wild mojos than to breed tame ones, anyway."
"That would certainly make the most sense," Pyre said.
"Assuming," Corwin said quietly, "that the Qasamans were the ones making those decisions."
And there it is, Pyre thought. What all the rest of us are skating around, out in the open at last. He looked around the circle, but superimposed on the view was an unsettling image: a Qasaman as marionette, its strings in the beak of its mojo. . . .
It was Justin who eventually broke the silence. "It's not as simple as the mojos being able to take control of people," he said. "We had mojos all around us that last night and still were able to escape."
Pyre thought back. "Yes," he agreed slowly. "Both outside of Purma and in Kimmeron's office in Sollas the mojos should have been able to influence me. If they could."
"Maybe they need a longer association with a person," Corwin said. "Or there's a distance or stress factor that inhibits them."
"You're talking degrees now," Chrys spoke up, her voice low. "Does that mean we're all agreed that somehow, on some level, the mojos are influencing events on Qasama?"
There was a brief silence; and, one by one, they nodded. "The cities," Joshua said. "That's the key indicator. They've gone to enormous trouble to duplicate the mojos' natural breeding patterns, even when simpler ways exist. Funny none of us picked up on that before."
"Maybe not," Pyre told him grimly. "Maybe the mojos were able to dampen our curiosity that much, at least."
"Or maybe not," Joshua retorted. "Let's not start giving these birds too many superhuman abilities, all right? They're not even intelligent, remember. I think we humans are all perfectly capable of missing the obvious without any outside help."
The discussion went back and forth for a while before turning to other matters . . . and so engrossed did they all become that Pyre alone noticed Justin's quiet departure.
The desk in his temporary Cobra Academy room was small and several centimeters shorter than he liked; but it was equipped with a computer terminal, and that was all Justin really cared about. He'd just punched in a new search command and was waiting for the results when there was a tap at the door. "Come in," he said absently. Probably someone here to complain about his late hours again—
"No one ever tell you it was impolite to leave without saying good-bye?"
Justin spun his chair around, surprise and chagrin flooding his face with heat. "Oh . . . hi, Aunt Gwen," he managed to say without stuttering. "Uh—well, you were all busy discussing the mojos, and I had work to do here. . . ."
He trailed off under her steady, no-nonsense gaze, the look that since childhood had been more effective on him than any amount of brimstone or lecture. "Uh-huh," she said. "Well, it's too bad you took off when you did. You missed my report."
"The one on the Qasaman strategic material situation?"
"That's the one. And the surprise bonus: the Qasamans' long-range communication method."
Justin blinked, his heartbeat speeding up. "You've figured it out? Well, come on—how do they do it?"
"I'll trade you," she said, waving at the desk and its scattering of papers and maps. "You tell me your secret first."
He felt his mouth twist into a grimace . . . but he'd have to tell someone soon, anyway. Aunt Gwen he could at least hope to be sympathetic. "All right," he sighed. "I'm trying to work up a tactical plan for the next intelligence raid on Qasama."
Gwen's eyes remained steady on his. "What makes you think there'll be another mission?"
"There has to be," he said. "The first mission ended with too many critical facts still unknown. Those underground manufacturing centers, at the very least, and if Dad's right the mojos as well."
"Uh-huh. I presume you plan on leading this expedition?"
Justin's lip quirked. "Of course not . . . but I will be one of the team."
"Um." Gwen glanced around the room, snared a chair from beside the door and pulled it over to face her nephew's. "You know, Justin," she said, sitting down, "if I didn't know better, I'd think you were running away from something."
He snorted. "Heading to Qasama hardly qualifies as running away, in my opinion."
"Depends on what you have here to face. Staying put when you feel real or imagined public animosity isn't easy. But sometimes any other option is the coward's way out."
Justin took a deep breath. "Aunt Gwen . . . you can't possibly know what this situation is like. I failed on Qasama—pure and simple—and it's my job now to make up for it if I can."
"You're not listening. Failure or not isn't the issue. Rushing ahead with a premature course of action qualifies as running away, period. And yes, I do know what you're facing. When your father came back from the war he—" She stopped, lips compressed, then quietly continued. "There was an accident in town one night, and he . . . killed a couple of teenagers."
Justin felt his mouth go dry. "I've never heard this," he said carefully.
"It's nothing we're anxious to talk about," she sighed. "Basically, the kids pretended they were going to run him over with their car and his Cobra reflexes countered in a way that wound up indirectly killing them. But the details don't matter. He wanted to run away afterwards—had a whole bunch of off-world university applications filled out and ready to go. But he stayed. He stayed, and along with helping the rest of us cope with the ostracism, he just happened incidentally to save a few men from a fire."
"So he stayed . . . until he left for good and came here to Aventine?"
Gwen blinked. "Well . . . yes, but that's not the same. The Dominion government wanted the Cobras to come help open up the colony—"
"Could he have refused?"
"I—can't say. But he wouldn't have, because his skills and abilities were needed out here."
Justin spread his hands. "But don't you see?—you're giving my own argument back at me. Dad's Cobra abilities were needed, so he came; my Cobra abilities are needed on Qasama, so I'm going. It's the exact same thing."
"But it's not," Gwen said, her voice and eyes almost pleading. "You don't have the training and experience to be a warrior. You're just trying to cleanse your conscience through an act of revenge."
Justin sighed and shook his head. "I'm not out for revenge, really I'm not. Between the ride back and my time here I've had two weeks to work through my emotions on the matter, and . . . I think I understand myself and my motives. Qasama has to be stopped, we need more information to do that—" he took a deep breath—"and if I'm not a real warrior, I'm probably the closest thing to one left on Aventine."
"Jonny has worked hard to make the Cobras a force for peace and development in the Worlds."
"But he had to go through his war first," Justin told her quietly. "And I have to go through mine."
For a long minute the room was silent. Then Justin gave his aunt a passable attempt at a smile. "Your turn now. What's your secret?"
Gwen sighed, a long hissing sound of defeat. "If you look at a topographical map of Qasama, you'll see that all the cities and villages are scattered along a low, roughly boomerang-shaped ridge four thousand kilometers or so in total length and maybe six hundred at its largest diameter. There's evidence that it was caused by an upwelling of basaltic magma in the fairly recent geological past."
"That's a lot of magma," Justin murmured.
"Granted, though there are even larger examples of this sort of thing back on some of the Dominion worlds. Anyway, I've done some computer modeling, and it looks very possible that the basalt intruded into some highly metallic rock layers. If that's the case the Qasamans have a ready-made waveguide for low-frequency radio waves a hundred meters below them, ready to dig antennas into. That sort of system's been used before, but with the metallic ore around it the basalt would keep nearly all of the signal inside it, leaking very little of it out for anyone to pick up."
Justin whistled under his breath. "Cute. Very cute. A planet already wired for sound." And if true, it would eliminate the last lingering doubts he had about mojo long-distance telepathic abilities. That was worth a lot right there. "When will you know for sure if you're right?"
She sighed again. "I suppose it won't be certain until your intelligence raid finds the antennas." She gazed at him another moment, then got to her feet. "I'd better be going," she said, backing toward the door. "Almo's waiting to take me back to my hotel. I'll . . . talk to you later."
"Thanks for coming by," Justin said. "Don't worry—this'll be done in a day or two, and after it's submitted I'll have more time to spend with the family."
"Sure. Well . . . good night."
"'Night, Aunt Gwen."
For a long minute after she left he stayed where he was, eyes on the closed door. A hundred meters down to the Qasamans' basaltic waveguide. Thirty stories, more or less . . . approximately the depth of the Purma building he'd escaped from. Had that been all the place was?—the local communications center, not the industrial complex that he'd thought? If so—
If so, he'd missed little of truly vital importance by his premature break for freedom.
He was, perhaps, not a failure, after all. Or at least not as much of one as he'd thought.
It was nice to know. But, ultimately, it made little practical difference. There was still the job on Qasama to do, and he and his fellow Cobras the only ones who could do it.
Turning to his desk once more, he got back to work.