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while one of the policefolk held a flashlight. "Wiftim is," Zeeleepull said at
last. "Wiftim of Hive Seeliwon."
"Wiftim" meant "ever-prepared" and Seeliwon was a pretty little lake district
where Verity had kept a manor house. That might have been why Wiftim's hive
adopted the name because of its connection with the long-lost high queen.
I wanted to explain that to the policewoman who recorded Zeeleepull's
statement. Someone should have told her the names meant something: not just
empty facts about some dead stranger. But I was afraid she'd just look at me,
the way they always do, blankly puzzled about what was going on inside my
head what was wrong with me, that I thought such things were important?
I should have told her anyway. I should have.
16
MEETING THE BALROG
The police got busy with murder-scene stuff: putting up big bright lights,
taking VR snaps, all that. Captain Tekkahawnee edged us noncops off to the
side, then started making calls on a portacomm. I don't know who all he talked
to he went to the far end of the clearing so we couldn't hear what he said but
sometimes he hunched over, almost shouting into the vidscreen, and sometimes
he leaned way back with a very neutral expression on his face... like he was
contacting lower-downs and higher-ups, telling all kinds of people about
Wiftim's death.
"Fuss and nothing," Zeeleepull grumbled. "Care they not of recruiters before.
Bet I, still nothing but show."
Admiral Ramos shook her head. "There's one big difference tonight,
Zeeleepull. This time the recruiters killed someone."
The warrior's whiskers twitched. "Stealing Mandasars, killing as good as."
"No," Festina told him. "Kidnapping and brainwashing are ugly, but the damage
is reversible bring everyone back into mixed-caste hives and they'll return to
more balanced personalities. Even if that weren't true, murder is still more
serious than anything else the recruiters have done. Murder catches the
attention of the League of Peoples."
"The League!" Zeeleepull's voice was full of bitterness. "Nothing, nothing,
nothing they do."
Festina shook her head again. "They do one thing, and they do it
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flawlessly they stop dangerous non-sentient lifeforms who try to travel from
one star system to another. To the most advanced races of the League, humans
and Mandasars are no more than bacteria; ignorable unless we start turning
nasty, like a disease. Even then, the League doesn't bother to exterminate
us... they just don't let us spread."
Zeeleepull looked like he was going to argue some more, but I put my finger
to his snout and shushed him. I didn't want him raising a ruckus in front of
the police; the cops already thought Mandasars were whiny troublemakers, and
we didn't want to show them they were right.
"Trust me," Festina told Zeeleepull in a low voice, "the League doesn't give
a damn if lesser species kidnap, brainwash, and enslave each other. The upper
echelons of the League are too lofty, and too damned alien in their thought
patterns, to care about such minor mischief. But murder is something
different. Deliberately killing a sentient being automatically brands you as
non-sentient... and if a government is negligent in controlling dangerous
non-sentient creatures, the government gets declared non-sentient too."
She waved her hands toward the police, dutifully picking up bloody flechettes
from the dirt. "The Celestian authorities might have looked the other way when
recruiters just took slaves, but no government can ignore intentional
homicide. The League won't let them. If the police don't make a sincere effort
to catch that glass-chest guy, all of Celestia may be declared non-sentient...
which means no traffic in or out till the civil system is cleaned up. And I'm
not talking about a pissy little blockade by the Outward Fleet, where ships
are simply impounded; this will be the League flexing its muscles, killing
whole crews till everyone gets the message."
I nodded. "The way they killed everyone onWillow."
"They didwhat?" Festina said, spinning to face me. "Something happened
toWillow?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]