The Bouganshi, sitting with his knees drawn up against his chest, shook his head. "Fine." He stared at the dark stains on his knife, then glanced at the dead monster, and nodded to himself. "Tastes foul."

Sara swallowed a comment about how she would have thought it would have tasted like chicken, uncertain if Bragb's command of Terran would have let him follow the joke. She retreated to her carbine, picked it up and turned to face back toward the woods. "Nothing from the jungle."

"Good. Last thing I'm wanting to be hearing is Zsytzu laughter." Kell rolled onto his belly and came up on his elbows. "My helmet must still be in there. Be a good lad and fetch it for me, will you, Bragb?"

"Fetched you. On your own for equipment."

Kell sighed. "Guess I won't smell any worse for digging around in there, eh?" He heaved himself up and knelt for a moment, swaying slightly. "And thanks to the both of you for saving me. When it bit, it crushed my armor down, costing me my wind. Not that there was much to breathe in there anyway."

He crawled over to the creature and reached a hand into the slit through which he had emerged. He felt around, then smiled and pulled out a thirty-centimeter-long, finned thing. "See, they do have trout here."

Bragb snorted a laugh, then leaned away as Kell flung the fish out into the lake. "Bolts food whole, lets it digest. Such creatures exist on Bougan."

"On Terra they're known as crocodiles." Sara smiled as one of the b.u.t.terflies landed by the barrel of her weapon. "Stories tell of their stomachs being full of undigested junk."

"I'm thinking I'll ignore that insult, thank you." Kell winked at her, then pulled his helmet free with a wet sucking sound. He turned it over and a slime soup of fish, his combat gla.s.ses, and a tangled clump of fibers drained down into a puddle. He looked down at it and his smile abruptly died. "This isn't good, not at all."

She frowned. "What's the matter?"

"I'll be able to tell for sure, back at camp, but I'm thinking this knot of wires here, it's Zsytzu in nature."

He spat to the side. "Seems I wasn't the only Xeno this beastie welcomed to Lyrptod. Unless I miss my guess, the last was the Primary leading our little team of Zeez."

The hike back to their base camp was remarkable in only one way. While Bragb and Sara were both quite content to have Kell at the back of their formation because of his stench, the b.u.t.terflies must have thought the crocslime was pure ambrosia. They fluttered and flickered at him, trailing in his wake like ion exhaust from a fighter. With each fern frond that brushed him, a few of the insects would stop and feast on the transferred slime. Kell wiped off as much of it as he could, casting leaves aside to distract them.

Even so, by the time they had reached the camp, two dozen still orbited him like little moons.

Their base camp was nothing worthy of holoing home about. They'd established it on a little wooded knoll, stringing a tarp between trees to make a shelter. They'd set up a couple of small camp tables, their perimeter warning gear, a radio and some simple scientific gear. All of it was very compact, and any serious a.n.a.lysis would require liaising with the scientific teams to the north. Still, the camp was dry and had access to a nearby stream for water, so it suited their needs very well.

While Kell stripped naked and cleaned himself up as best he could, Bragb studied the wire harness taken from the beast, as well as the device sliced from the Zsytzu junior they'd killed. As best he could determine, the two devices seemed to be of similar manufacture, apparently confirming Kell's guess as tothe source of the wire from the monster's gullet.

Sara established contact with the xen.o.biological survey team to see if they'd had any more Zsytzu sightings in their area. She pa.s.sed on the story of their encounter with the lake croc, as well as the attraction of the b.u.t.terflies to the slime. The person at the other end of the radio link seemed less than impressed with the reportage, noted they'd seen no Zeez, and that they'd taken enough samples of the lake monsters and b.u.t.terflies to last scholars several lifetimes.

Sara switched off the radio as Kell emerged from the camp shower they'd set up. "The n.o.bel Committee says it didn't see anything z-ish today, They weren't interested by our adventures either."

He shrugged and pulled a dark jumpsuit from his rucksack, then tossed his towel at the flock of b.u.t.terflies on his armor. "I'm thinking it's a pity the Primary didn't make it out of the belly of the beast.

We'd just have to follow the b.u.t.terflies to the Zeez lair."

"Yeah, well, about that, to hear the scientists talk, the 'bluewings' are not true b.u.t.terflies, but just gaudy maggot-flies. If we go back to the Zee body or the lake monster, it'll be flyblown and alive with larvae."

Sitting back, she wove a flechette end over end from index finger to pinkie and back again easily. "I could hear the disgust pouring through the airwaves when I called them b.u.t.terflies. They have to think we're just ambulatory laser-artillery."

"They're a.s.suming ignorance because of our calling."

"I know, and I don't like it. Don't like being judged because of what folks a.s.sume I am."

"Being a graft, you get a fair amount of that, do you?" Kell pulled on the fresh jumpsuit, then batted at one persistent bluewing. "Look at this one, would you? Go on with you. I'm not dead."

With a fluid economy Sara came up and out of the chair. She stabbed out with the flechette, piercing the bluewing through the thorax. The insect's wings,flapped a couple more times, slowing down, then froze in place. Its feet clutched at the needle and its antennae curled in.

Kell had jerked back, but well after she'd stabbed the bug. "d.a.m.n, you are fast."

"Part of being a graft." She smiled slightly and returned to her seat, holding the bluewing up to study.

"When I was a little girl, I used to collect bugs. Always dreamed about discovering some new species or something and having it named after me. All of us in the Rota program knew what we were being made into, but we all had other interests. The company tolerated it and even encouraged it in case war wasn't a 'growth market sector.' '

Kell laughed and the Bouganshi smiled. "Little chance of that, I'm thinking. If you're wanting to add that one to your collection, we might be able to smuggle it off-world for you."

She frowned. "If I still had the collection, it would be very tempting. It would be interesting to have something unique in my collection. Problem is I'd have to Mona Lisa it."

Bragb scratched the side of his domed head. "That expression is unknown."

Kell raked fingers back through his brown hair. "Famous painting on Earth. It was stolen back a century ago, never recovered. It's a.s.sumed to be in the hands of a private collector. He can't be showing it to anyone, or letting anyone know he has it, since the reward for its recovery is huge now."

Sara nodded. "Worse yet, and you know it will happen since the skulls are pulling samples from here, a black market for these things will grow among collectors. There will be bluewing poachers coming down.Next time we come back, we'll be fighting folks who did what I just did."

"Reflexes like yours applied to the problem, and I'm thinking Bragb and I will just sit back and keep score."

The Bouganshi smiled coldly. "Might hunt lake monsters. Know the bait they like."

Kell arched an eyebrow at him. "And I'd be thinking, were I you, about what eat them beasts, since you're just a pair of legs shy of being taken as one."

Bragb paled slightly. He frowned and narrowed his dark eyes. "Worth consideration."

"It is, but I'm thinking we'd all be better served if we turn our minds loose on the problem of finding the Zeez." Kell folded his arms across his chest. "We did okay today, but they could get lucky in a series of running ambushes."

The Bouganshi pressed fingers together deliberately. "They are not protecting the Primary. What else do they need to hide? Their camp? A recovery craft?"

"Could be one and the same, it could." Kell smiled slowly. "And recovering one of them would put us in possession of something as unique as your bluewing. I think, tomorrow, we head out on the same patrol, starting at the lake and working backward. See where we run into them, and see if our contact points can let us triangulate back to their base."

"Sounds like a plan, sir." Sara stabbed the flechette into the tree to which they'd tied the tarp. "Plots on the other sightings don't have a pattern, but the Primary probably saw to that. If they'll come out and play, we can probably follow them home."

"Good enough." Kell picked up his towel again and shooed bluewings away from his armor. "I'll take first watch so I can clean up this armor and patch it. Bragb, you'll go next, and you're the anchor, Sara.

We'll see sunrise over that lake."

The Bouganshi smiled. "You just wish to see if trout will be hitting at insects."

"She has her hobby, I have mine." The man laughed. "Rack out now, morning will come much too soon."

Dawn broke over the lake, and Kell's trout were hitting the surface hard. Bluewings, in swiftly diminishing numbers, lay on the water and were scattered around in the marsh. Sara knelt on one knee to get a closer look and found dozens of them mashed into the mud by little feet. A few discarded flechettes likewise had been worked into the mud. Of the lake croc there was no clear sign, though lots of crushed gra.s.ses and more footprints suggested it had been dragged off into the jungle.

Sara frowned. "Wonder what the bluewings did to offend the juniors?"

Kell, crouched well away from the sh.o.r.e, shook his head as he scanned the Zsytzu backtrail. "No lasers used. Wasn't war against them, I'm thinking. Something else."

"Captain, take a look at this." Bragb stood next to the dead tree and pointed at a splash of blue. Sara and Kell both approached. Two bluewings had been stabbed through the thorax, one on top of the other, then pinned to the tree with a flechette. "The junior had to be moving that needle very fast."

Kell tipped his helmet back on his head. "Faster than even Sara here. Don't be jealous, la.s.s."

She glanced over at him, but before she could snap off a retort, a throbbing pulsed from the rain forest.The three of them came around, weapons raised, and watched a small, disk-shaped ship rise from the jungle. The rate of climb could best be described as slow, but the ship remained stable in flight and moved upward at a steady pace.

Kell immediately keyed his radio. "Ground Lead to Chzrin, we have a Zsytzu craft coming up."

"Chzrin copies ground report. Zsytzu warship has just appeared in the solar system, headed this way.

Tschai Mriap says we can burn your upcoming ship, but then will be destroyed by the warship." The Qian communications officer delivered the information flatly, with no inflection and no indication of personal involvement in the unfolding events. "He says five minutes go/no-go on the burn. Your mission, your choice."

Kell closed his eyes. "Stand by, Chzrin." He pointed his carbine at the Zeez ship and triggered the laser.

The red beam tagged the ship, but did nothing to it. "They're leaving, so do we a.s.sume they are retreating and let them go, saving the Qian ship, or have they accomplished their mission, in which case we can't let them go? Input?"

The Bouganshi growled for a second or two. "Have to a.s.sume they accomplished their mission, whatever it was. The Zeez will burn Chzrin, then come down. Has to be done."

"Sara?"

Something odd here. She glanced at the bluewings pinned to the tree. This is the key, I know it.

"Sara?"

A smile blossomed on her face. "Of course, yes, they accomplished their mission."

"That's what I'm thinking, too." Kell shrugged uneasily. "Gotta burn them."

"No, no, no, you don't. Let them go." Sara turned away from the tree. "Let them go. It will do more harm than good."

Kell frowned. "You've got two minutes to explain."

"It's all right here, the dead bluewings, the flechettes, the two pinned to the tree." She opened her arms.

"You're thinking about stuff from an adult point of view, but the juniors, they aren't adults. They are treating this like a game, and they've won. Think about it. They scouted our scientific teams. They saw them taking samples, but the Primary probably recognized what was going on and was able to put those things in proper perspective.

"The juniors, though, once he died, only had orders to avoid detection and to study us. The Zsytzu mission here was the same as ours, to see what the enemy was doing on this planet. Face it, it has no obvious value, yet is quarantined. They suspect we're hiding something here."

Kell narrowed his blue eyes. "You're saying they think we're here to harvest bluewings?"

"Makes no sense to an adult, but to a child? We killed one of them, then killed the monster that killed their Primary. That got their attention, made us important in their eyes." She pointed at the two bluewings pinned together. "One saw me stab one out of the air. They got two, just to show who was better. The other needles here show other attempts. It was a kid's game, and just as we scored against them yesterday, getting two with one needle, that beats us today."

Bragb squatted on his heels. "So juniors are carrying a lake monster and bluewings. They think we camefor them."

Kell smiled. "And the Zeez will spend time and resources trying to figure out why we want them."

"And when they can't, they'll be back with another survey team, or something more, and we'll know they're coming." Sara smiled. "The Zeez may not be trout, but chances are they'll be swallowing that bait whole, and be back to be caught."

"Ground lead to Chzrin. You'll be wanting to move our ride home out of the way. Let the warship get its little craft."

"Copy ground." The barest hint of relief threaded through the Qian's voice. "Running now. We will return, with help."

"Copy, Chzrin." Kell slowly smiled. "We'll have to check the Zeez camp, see what they left, then wait for our lift home."

"If taskforce comes back, could take days to organize." The Bouganshi squatted, resting a hand on the hilt of his knife. "Perhaps the Zeez will land more teams and give us something to do."

"I think I'd prefer they didn't." Sara smiled at Bragb. "Not that I'd want to ruin your fun."

"I'm agreeing with Sara there." Kell dropped to one knee and fingered a bluewing out of the muck.

"Having been swallowed by a monster, I'd be content with some peace. And given as how them trout seem to be liking these blue-wings, we won't be lacking for something to do."

"Fishing never struck me as the sort of thing Qian Star Guards would do." Sara arched an eyebrow at Kell. "Won't our commander take a dim view of our spending our time that way?"

"He will indeed, la.s.s." Kell laughed. "And that will make it even that much more fun."

ALLIANCES

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

In 1999, Kristine Kathryn Rusch won three Reader's Choice Awards for three different stories in three different magazines in two different genres: mystery and science fiction. That same year, her short fiction was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards. Since she had just returned to writing short fiction after quitting her short fiction editing job at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, she was quite encouraged by this welcome back to writing. She never quit writing novels, and has sold more than forty-five of them, some under pseudonyms, in mystery, science fiction, fantasy, horror, and romance. Her most recent mystery novel is. .h.i.tler's Angel. Her most recent fantasy novel is The Black King.

"TT'orgive me, sir." Captain Roz Sheehan could barely hide r her disgust, even if she was speaking to a superior officer. "I don't believe we should trust the word of a Cra-tiv'n, two Dulacs, and a Hacrim."

Admiral Allen Galland reached across his wide oak desk and handed her an information pad. She did not look at it, instead studying the office around her.

Roz had been here a dozen times-and each time Gal-land had proposed some half-a.s.sed scheme.

Most of them she'd been able to get out of, but lately that had gotten harder and harder.

She had a reputation for being the most creative captain in the fleet, and that had brought her to Galland's attention.That, and the loss of her ship in the Cactus Corridor. She kept her command-after all, her crew got back alive and she had managed to defeat an entire squadron of Ba-am-as-but Galaxy Patrol rules were hard and fast. Any captain who lost her ship had to go through retraining and rea.s.signment.

Galland had prevented that, but he hadn't let her forget that favor. And so far, it had cost her eleven unsavory missions. Eleven missions that had fattened Galland's private purse and had left her with the feeling that she should never have taken his deal, even though it helped her retain her command.

The office wasn't making things any better. Oak desk, real Earth plants-spiders (which were hardy) and violets (which were not)-paintings older than the Galactic Alliance, and leather furniture that had antique stamped all over it. Every time she came here, she saw some new treasure, and she wondered how much of her sweat had gone into paying for it.

Not to mention the fact that Galland kept his office too d.a.m.n hot. Hot and humid, filled with "real"

sunlight. Good for the plants, he said.

Bad for her. Especially when she was trying to look cool and calm, unruffled by his latest stupid plan.

If only the Alliance had stricter rules for its base commanders. But they were military governors who operated without much oversight-and were as good, or as bad, as they chose to be. And Galland certainly wasn't choosing to be good.

"I could download the information to your personal account," Galland said, capturing her attention just like he wanted.