Page 48 of Alien Peacock

I’ve never found any aliens attractive at all. But then Maeve comes along and turns everything upside down.

I yawn and make myself comfortable. I will have to make a decision about this. But not right now.

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“Igot the feeling Archmagus Yomeran was being serious,” I state. “He wanted me to go to Sprenk. What do we know about that place?”

I left Maeve in the tent, wanting her to get her rest. The other few people who are at Gigori are gathered in the common room, among many crates and military equipment we’ve made ready for the struggle ahead. Virlu stands solidly on the floor, Peroena sits in a chair and makes it look graceful, Cerak is his usual, cylindrical self, and Sponz is probably somewhere in the room, although he’s hard to spot.

Peroena frowns. “Sprenk? I’ve heard of it, but that’s all. A mine, I think? Didn’t Colonel Creomoa beat a force of Druptis in that solar system centuries ago?”

“Sprenk is a mining colony,” Virlu says. “The miners are slaves who work in the mines until they die. They live for less than a year on average after they arrive in the mines. The owners of the mines are called the Bululg. They are a species of alien that invades other planets and enslaves the population?—”

“Wait,” I interrupt. Virlu possesses an astonishing amount of knowledge about the strangest things, but once he gets going on a topic he doesn’t know when to stop. “The Bululg are the aliens that have invaded Maeve’s planet. Why would the archmagus want me to go to another planet owned bythem?”

“Only he knows,” Peroena says. “The Fire Mages are unpredictable. Their reasons are often impossible to understand.”

Sponz spreads a specter on the wall, just to show us he’s there. “The Bululg are a plague on the galaxy,”his voice comes as a ghostly whisper from nowhere in particular. “Any effort to destroy them is good. Whether on Sprenk or elsewhere.”

Sponz almost never speaks, but that was almost exactly what I was going to say next.

“I say forget the archmagus and his nonsense,” Cerak chimes in. “Send a small team to kill Buroteo. Problem solved. I’ll do it myself. Or send Sponz. Nobody will know what hit him.”

The room goes very quiet.

“Cerak, where exactly do you come from?” Peroena asks sweetly, which is always a sign of danger. “It would be interesting to know. Because what you suggested would not work on Eo. I mean, of course wecouldassassinate Buroteo. But that would ruin any of Arelion’s claims to legitimacy. Our kind really abhors underhand methods. We prefer things to be done openly and proudly.”

“Where I’m from?” Cerak asks, his voice more metallic than ever. “I was manufactured on a spaceship owned by the Mestoruran Confederacy. I hold no particular loyalty to them, though. Mostly because they tried to crush me as a reject. I wastoo smart to be a good trash can, you see. They installed the wrong chips in me. I escaped and wandered the galaxy until Arelion gave me a ride, and then he allowed me to travel with him, in his ship. I have tried to be useful to him. I might even call him a friend, if friendship were possible between an organic and a synthetic.”

“Cerak has been a good help in certain situations,” I tell them. “His ways may be effective, but sometimes they don’t match the Eoan ways. Very well, we’ll go to Sprenk. And the archmagus will hopefully be as good as his word and acknowledge my claim to the Supremacy of Eo. We’ll avoid a terrible, illegal war, and we can start rebuilding our planet after Buroteo’s rule. But in case we don’t get the support of Archmagus Yomeran, we have to plan for the worst. How many soldiers do we have now, Peroena?”

“Off Eo, we have six thousand, four hundred and forty. Most of them are just waiting for your order to go. We can equip about eight hundred more, but we don’t think we can find more of our kind out in space. Buroteo has made it impossible to leave the planet. When we land on Eo, we can recruit all the soldiers we want in a matter of seconds.”

We discuss army matters for a while. It’s obvious to us all that we’ll win any war with Buroteo, but he and his aliens will resist to the last. If we don’t get the archmagus to support my claim, the near future for Eo looks bleak.

Finally I get up. “I think we’re mostly ready. There’s no reason to keep waiting to attack.”

“Something has been bothering me since you came here,”Sponz says, sounding like a breeze blowing through the room. “You say you were attacked by the Bululg, dragged out of hyperspace.That should not be possible. Certainly they have the technology to do it, but they would have to know exactly where you were. To the very fraction of anell. If not, it wouldn’t have worked.”

I try to focus on the small rainbow between me and the wall, finding it an exercise in frustration. “What are you saying, Sponz?”

“Must I spell it out? Someone told them.”

“Yes, and it was the Fus gang who own Maranar Labs,” I patiently repeat. “They alerted the Bululg, who happened to have a ship nearby.”

“And then? That gang couldn’t possibly know exactly where in hyperspace your ship could be found. Not with the precision needed. The Bululg ship would need constant updates from your ship itself.”

“It was an old garbage hauler,” Cerak says, sounding exasperated. “You can bet it was leaking radiation signature from here to the galactic center. Let’s not see ghosts and specters where none exist. No offense meant, Sponz.”

There’s no reply.

“And anyway,” Cerak goes on, “it didn’t exactly end well for the Bululg. They lost that saucer.”

Sponz remains silent, and the room is tense as we all look thoughtfully at Cerak.

Peroena looks past me. “Hi, Maeve.”

I turn, already smiling because there’s nobody else I’d rather see.

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