made peace with the Shrakken. And later the Shrakken were attacked, from farther down the Galactic arm, by the Tsa. A different kind of attack, for Tsa strike the mind, causing pain, madness, even death. And Earth owed the Shrakken two great debts: star Drive itself, and UET's murderous treachery in the stealing of it. (Note to myself: if I hope to sell this account, back home, I need to put in more background detail. Research all these things. Describe tall, toe-walking Shrakken, partly exoskeletal, ochre-colored, with the pair of stubby tendrils above each triangular eye. Also squat, weighty Tsa: the dark brown skin, movable snout hiding the mouth below, etc. Get more pictures!)
The mission, to aid the Shrakken, was too important to be left to underlings. No less than three members of Earth's Board of Trustees rode Inconnu Deux here to Shaarbant, where the Shrakken maintain two settlements (this one, Sassden, is the lesser). Rissa Kerguelen chairs that Board. Bran Tregare's authority exceeds that of any admiral. Rissa's late brother, Ivan Marchant, also held a Board seat. Yet for this task Tregare was a mere ship's captain, Rissa his First Hat, and Marchant their gunnery officer. (Note to me: that's good!)
The Deux with its first-generation Hoyfarul Drive brought them here in approx one year of ship time, perhaps two-point-five years by Earth's clocks. (Note: on the Hare we experienced three months of travel while possibly six passed on Earth.)
I don't have all the story straight yet, but seven Tsa ships were near this planet. As a result of Tsa mind-attacks, Tregare and Rissa, along with two Shrakken and three other humans including their nine-year-old daughter Liesel Selene (usually called Lisele) were marooned on a crashed scoutship in the middle of swamp country, and eventually walked their way back here. It took them something like four or five years; personally I shudder to think of such an ordeal.
Meanwhile, although Inconnu Deux is of course faster-than-light and the Tsa ships weren't, the Deux was caught groundside. Ivan Marchant got the ship away destroying two Tsa ships in the process, but the Tsa attack did something to his visual centers; the man was blinded. Also his Hoyfarul Drive failed; the ship was left, light-years from Shaarbant, with only STL capabilities. And there simply wasn't enough food aboard, for that mode of travel. So most
of the crew rode back to Shaarbant in the ship's freeze chambers.
What happened then isn't wholly clear to me. The girl Lisele somehow attained rapport with the Tsa commander Elzh, and set up the basis for a possible truce. But only hours before that development, Ivan Marchant, in Inconnu Deux, reached this planet. And when Tsa ships rose to meet the Deux, Marchant with a crew of two women bailed out in a scoutship. Not much later, with his blindness apparently in remission though I'm not sure how, he rammed that scout into a Tsa ship, destroying both craft. "He did it to save the Deux," Lisele says. "He thought he had to; he didn't know, you see, that the Tsa can't lie."
I like that kid; she reminds me of myself at her age. Except that I'm a little nervy, considering the load of responsibility for anyone with such important connections, I'm glad she's going to be riding back to Earth with us.
II
"I still don't see why I have to go." Keeping her voice down, because showing anger at her parents was no way to win any kind of argument, still Lisele Selene Moray couldn't restrain a certain glowering.
Everything had been set up fine. With peace agreed, Elzh of the Tsa had waited while his two remaining ships were converted for FTL capability, then sent one ship after the two that had gone ahead, to turn them from the grim task of attacking other "Mindbeast" worlds. Lisele wasn't sure whether Elzh was still male; the Tsa had three sexes and rotated between them. But Elzh hadn't said anything about change, so Lisele still thought of the alien as "he."
Elzh planned to take the last Tsa ship to the home world of that species, to confront its governing body, the Tsa-Drin- and, if necessary, force that group to reconsider its Draconian policy against "Mindbeasts." The humans would follow in Inconnu Deux, lagging enough to give Elzh a chance to
4
announce their peaceful intent, but sufficiently close behind if the Tsa-Drin turned nasty and Elzh needed any help.
Lisele looked to Rissa, then to Bran Tregare. "We had everything all worked out. I was looking forward to it. And now this March Hare ship comes, arid all of a sudden- nobody asking me-you have me booked to ride it back to Earth. Why?"
Rissa Kerguelen shook her head. Her dark hair, now regrown to fall well past her shoulders, swirled with the motion. "We have discussed these matters, but it seems you have not listened. Last week we celebrated your fifteenth birthday; remember?"
Lisele nodded. "Sure. Great party, and I thanked you at the time." It had been nice: first the all-human part, then a time when Stonzai and a few other Shrakken joined the group. And finally the aircar ride over to Elzh's ship, taking along only humans who could control their emotions and deal safely with Tsa. So that Lisele could take pieces of birthday cake to Cveet, the young Tsa who had first communicated with Lisele without pain, and to Elzh and Tserln and Idsath, Cveet's parents. "But what does that have to do with it?"
Bran Tregare cleared his throat. To Lisele's eyes, the long trek-almost a quarter of the way around Shaarbant- hadn't aged her father much. The dark, curly hair above his high forehead showed only hints of grey; long-term exposure to weather had reddened his normally sallow complexion. Possibly, she thought, all that exercise had done him good!
Now he said, "Look, princess. Fifteen last week means less than a year 'til you hit legal age. Eligible to be nominated to the Board."
"Me? But that's silly. I don't know enough."
"Which is precisely the point," said Rissa. "So now would you please pay attention to what your father is saying?"
As he spoke, Tregare's frown showed concentration, not anger. "Don't fool yourself, Lisele. March Hare brought word that your great-aunt Erika died. Which I was sorry to hear-I came to like that old tiger-but she lived to about ninety-two, bio, which beats par a lot." Lisele's interruption didn't make it; Tregare continued, "My own mother, your grandmother Liesel Hulzein, has to be past eighty by now-maybe eighty-five, by the time you could get home. And your uncle Ivan's gone."
"I still don't understand. What-?"
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Rissa spoke. "On Earth's Board of Trustees, our family provides stability, and our representation is badly depleted. Of course you will be elected as soon as you are eligible."
"But I-"
"And for the past seven years, almost, you have been separated from any kind of formal education. This lack must be remedied."
"Why?" Lisele heard her voice pitched higher than she'd intended. "Why formal, I mean? I studied on the Deux, coming here, and on the scout when we were stuck in the swamp. I have every bit of math a ship's officer needs, and I know all the history that really applies-up to when we left Earth, anyway." Rissa tried to speak, but Lisele actually glared at her mother. "Political science, maybe? But you've said, yourself, these days we're making that up as we go along!"
She turned her gaze to her father. "I don't want to sit at a desk. You said, someday I'd have a ship to command; that's what I want. And going with you, following Elzh, is how I can learn what I need. So-"
Tregare shook his head. "You can do both, princess. But Rissa thinks, and I agree, that you've been out of the mainstream too long. Stuck here in the boondocks with just a few of us, not learning how to deal with people you don't know. We-"
Interrupting wasn't polite, but the young woman couldn't help doing it. "How to deal with people I don't know? Like the Tsa, for instance? Who got the truce for us, anyway?"
Tregare's stern expression broke; laughter erupted. "Good point; you shot me down. But-"
"But that achievement," said Rissa Kerguelen, "is not the same as learning the ins and outs of relationships with humans who know, by experience that becomes almost instinct, how to get along with each other and to persuade others. The term, I believe, is 'socialization.' And you, Lisele, simply are not socialized to your age-level, with regards to life as it is lived groundside, on Earth." She shrugged. "None of this is any fault of your own. But the lack needs correcting. So you will, aboard March Hare, return to Earth."
"And now," Tregare put in, "what say we bring you up to date on what else is going on? The personnel-switching, and all. So s you know who you'll be riding with, and why."
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Lisele already knew the why of it all. The Tsa were telepaths who could control their sending but had no control over what they received. Whereas humans and Shrakken sent, without knowledge or intention. When the sending carried painful emotion, reception hurt the Tsa, who by reflex struck back with pain. Damage to both sides was great, and constituted the basis for the original Tsa-Shrakken conflict.
Some humans, Lisele for one, could control their send-ings by means of alpha-wave techniques. Others didn't have that ability, and could not meet safely with Tsa. Tregare had originally made do with tranquilizers, light hypnosis, and "key words" he could subvocalize to head off dangerous sendings; now he'd worked with Lisele's biofeedback machine until he could skip the tranks.
With the Shrakken, none of those techniques worked. The species didn't have alpha waves; their brain functions were divided or assigned, by their unique biology, so differently that the humans could find no points of reference. For the time being, Tsa and Shrakken could not meet; all communication would have to go through human intermediaries.
Still, some humans weren't suitable and never would be; due to one reason or another they couldn't manage the necessary degree of control. And of the twenty adult human survivors aboard Inconnu Deux, eight were in that category.
"Since we're going to a Tsa world," said Tregare, "putting forty percent of our crew in freeze would leave us pretty much shorthanded when we got there. So we tested everybody on March Hare, too, and are taking on seven of their people. Here's the rundown. ..."
From the Deux, five of the crew were being transferred. Second Hat Anders Kobolak could never deal with Tsa because he couldn't forget that his sister Dacia had died with Ivan Marchant; his wife Alina Rostadt would go with him. Jenise Rorvik, her smashed wrist now regaining function after surgery, had come through the cross-continental trek in better spirits than when it began, but her horror of the Tsa yielded to no restorative attempts. The blond woman's mate, Chief Engineer Hagen Trent, was staying with the Deux; maybe they'd be reunited on Earth someday, or maybe not.
Melaine Holmbach, a Drive Tech, hadn't suffered much in the way of Tsa attacks, but couldn't control her reactions to the species. And-
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"But why are you sending Arlen?" Lisele asked. "The Tsa don't bother him one bit; he was in freeze when Uncle Ivan took the Deux up and fought them."
Tregare sighed. "The Hare needs Arlen as Third Hat. That's the only trade I could make, to get a Gunnery Officer along with a replacement for Anders. Thing was, you see: they didn't need any changes, and we did."
"Also," Rissa said, "Captain Delarov brought word from Derek and Felcie. A request that if at all possible, they would like their son to return at the first opportunity."
Lisele pondered the matter. Was somebody sick, back home? Her feelings toward Arlen Limmer were mixed. Both born on the fortress world Stronghold, after Bran Tregare wrested it from UET, the two children were originally almost the same age, and the dearest of friends. But Lisele went to Earth with Tregare's fleet, riding so close to c that only six shipboard months passed while planets' clocks registered ten years. While Derek Limmer and his wife Felcie Parager brought their children home later, in a Hoyfarul FTL ship that avoided time-dilation almost entirely. So that when Arlen and Lisele next met, her bio and chrono ages were nearly a decade apart, and his weren't.
The whole thing had embarrassed her: she'd had a crush on Arlen, but here he was almost grownup and she was still a little kid. Later, when he'd spent years in freeze on the Deux while Lisele shared the perils of Shaarbant with her parents and others, covering several thousand kilometers on foot, they met again. Now Lisele was fifteen and Arlen a bit short of nineteen, bio-ages. But because of what she'd lived through and he hadn't, now she felt that he was the kid.
Certainly, going by looks, no one would judge him to be much the elder: he stood less than a decimeter taller than her own seventeen; her figure might be slim, but hardly immature; and with her dark, waving hair trimmed neatly to chin-length she knew she gave an adult impression.
