The Fleet 01

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Authors: David Drake (ed), Bill Fawcett (ed)
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he could groom himself to show appropriate pride, but he was wearing armour, just in case. “That’s my clan, you know.”
    “I do,” said the Over-commander dryly. “Congratulations to your kin. This junior has earned an adult name, that’s definite. Send a snatch-group to retrieve him.”
    “And if the alien emerges—?”
    “Snatch it too, of course! The ones we captured off the unarmed ship were in too bad a state to endure more than a superficial physical examination. We need a specimen in good shape so we can analyse their weaknesses.”
    As though pre-empting all objection, the Over-commander added brusquely, “Yes, I know you don’t approve of that kind of thing! But, like it or not, you have to accept that our prey here at home evolved on the same planet as we did, so we learned their vulnerable points in the course of nature. Now, though, we’re up against unnatural opposition, so what our forebears did by trial and error we must do by trial without the error. Granted?”
    “Granted, Over-commander,” said the officer, and issued the necessary orders.

    Among the greatest skills of the Khalia was that of stalking.
    What little they had learned from the wreckage of Chrysanthemum sufficed for them to be able to steal up on Yuriko’s capsule without triggering any of its alarms until they were within a few metres. When that happened the suit jolted her awake and she opened her eyes to see on the outside view-screens—
    Nothing. Except the same bare ground, and the same bushes that were not bushes and the same trees that were not trees. The injured alien was gone.
    So what had set off the alarm?
    After a long wait she decided optimistically that it must have been a wild animal. Certainly there was nothing to suggest a threat discernible out there now. But it was light, and she had much work to do if she hoped to survive. After the usual obligatory necessities she checked her food converter and discovered that it was indeed capable of turning at least some of the local growths into palatable victuals. She made a list of the most suitable, and set off in search of further supplies.
    However ...
    As she rounded the flat-topped rock she found herself encircled, this time not by savages with no more equipment than a baldric and a couple of field canteens, but bearing what were very obviously weapons. Appalled, she raised her arms. Reflex made her think of that gesture as a sign of unwillingness to fight.
    Reflex betrayed her, just as it had Tschweeit. For to a Khalian it betokened grappling to the death.
    But, of course, since they were extremely well trained, and moreover the challenger was the wrong shape, they were able to overrule their instinctual response to her posture. Instead of hurling themselves at her, they merely snared her in a tough and sticky web, and left her to fight in vain against its grip until the powerpack of her suit ran out. After that, they sprayed its air filter with an anaesthetic vapour—based on their study of the captives from Chrysanthemum—and bore her away to their main centre for the analysis of alien weakness. It went without saying that, to them, any alien must be weak. For only the Khalia were strong.
    Only the Khalia were allowed to be strong.
    When Tschweeit recovered his senses, it was to hear a paean of praise for his achievement. He was told his new—adult!—name; he was informed that henceforth he might exercise the mating privilege, or at least as soon as his bodily development caught up sufficiently with his mental, so that he could exude the proper odour of authority. There were means to accelerate the Change in that regard, which would be applied to his body if he so desired. Most important of all, he learned that no fewer than nine ship’s captains had requested he be assigned to them on their next voyage. His dream of faring forth among the stars was to be fulfilled.
    Even as he fended off wave after wave of fawning compliments, however, even as he

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