Cobra - Cobra Strike Part 18

"Nothing that makes sense," F'ahl replied. "You don't have to skew your whole city to use the field for navigation, and the field strength is far too weak to produce any effect on power lines or the like."

"Unless it periodically surges," Christopher mused. "No, even then the design doesn't make any sense."

"Maybe it has to do with their long-range communication system," Telek suggested. "Sending modulations along the lines of force or something."

From a corner of the lounge Nnamdi looked up in irritation. "I wish you'd all get off this idea that the Qasamans have to have broadcast communications," he growled. "We've already seen that Sollas is wired for both power and data transmission-that's really all they need."

"With nothing between the cities?-not to mention all those little villages out there?" Telek retorted. "Come on, Hersh-the isolated city-state concept may appeal to your sense of the exotic, but as a practicing politician I tell you it isn't stable. These people have calculators or even computers, as well as cars, machined weapons, and presumably something to use the runway we're sitting on.

They cannot simply have forgotten the basics of electromagnetic waves or unified government."

"Oh? Then how do you explain the village walls?"

"How do you explain the cities' lack of them?" Telek shook her head irritably.

"We can't a.s.sume the villages are primitive and fight among themselves and at the same time say the cities are advanced and don't."

"We can if there's no communication between city and village," Nnamdi said doggedly. "Or if the villagers are a different species altogether. I notice neither Moff nor Kimmeron has mentioned the villages at all."

Pyre caught Telek's eye. "It might be good to clear up that point."

She sighed. "Oh, all right." Picking up the translator-link mike, she dictated a short message to the contact team. Pyre switched his attention back to the displays and waited for Cerenkov to raise the subject with Moff.

The wait wasn't long. The car was approaching one of the narrower cross streets, and as they reached the corner Joshua's implanted cameras showed the street was lined on both sides by permanent-looking booths, each displaying the seller's goods on a waist-high ledge beneath an open window. Dozens of people were already milling about, inspecting the merchandise or engaged in animated conversation with the sellers. "This is the main marketplace for this part of

Sollas," Moff said as the car pulled up behind others parked along the wide avenue. "There are eight others like it elsewhere in the city."

"Seems an inefficient way of marketing," Rynstadt commented as they left the car and walked toward the bazaar. "Not to mention uncomfortable in the winter or on rainy days."

"The street can be sealed in bad weather," Moff said, pointing upwards. Joshua looked, and Pyre saw that at the third-floor level on the flanking buildings were two long roof sections, folded drawbridge-fas.h.i.+on against the walls. "As to inefficiency, we prefer to think of it as an expression of individual liberty and freedom. Lack of those qualities was the reason our ancestors came here originally. You've not said why your ancestors left the rule of the dynasties."

"Oh, h.e.l.l," Telek growled, grabbing for the microphone. "Keep it non-political,

Yuri," she instructed him. "Sense of adventure or something."

"We went to Aventine for various reasons," Cerenkov told the Qasaman. "The desire for adventure or to see a new world, dissatisfaction with our lives-that sort of thing."

"Not political pressure?"

"Perhaps some came for that reason, but if so I'm not aware of it," Cerenkov answered cautiously.

"Tell that to the First Cobras," Pyre murmured.

"Quiet," Telek shushed him.

The contact team and its Qasaman escort was walking among the other shoppers now. A mojo on one of the buyers squawked, causing Rynstadt to jerk to the side.

Pyre jumped in sympathetic response; he'd almost stopped noticing the ubiquitous d.a.m.n birds. "Are all your goods from Sollas and the immediate area?" Cerenkov asked Moff as they pa.s.sed a stand featuring neatly packaged loaves of bread.

"No, our commerce extends to the other cities and villages as well," the other told him. "Most of the fresh fruit and meat comes from the villages east of here."

"Ah," Cerenkov nodded, and continued walking.

"Satisfied?" Christopher asked Nnamdi.

The other glowered back. "Still doesn't prove the villagers are human," he pointed out stiffly. "Or are on an equal plane with the cities-"

"Almo?"

Pyre turned to the couch where Justin was lying. "What is it?"

"I... hear something... low rumble... from Joshua." The boy stopped, strain evident on his face as he fought to split enough of his attention from Joshua's sensors to speak. "Getting closer... I think."

Christopher was already at the controls, trying to find the sound Justin's Cobra enhancers had already gleaned form Joshua's signal. "Captain, we may have aircraft approaching," Pyre snapped toward the intercom.

"I'm on it," F'ahl replied calmly. "No sign of anything yet."

An instant later Pyre nearly went through the lounge's ceiling as a bellow erupted from the display speakers. "Yolp!" Christopher exclaimed, grabbing the volume control he'd just turned up. The roar subsided to a hooting sound... and as he looked at the screen, Pyre saw the Qasamans had abandoned their shopping and were beginning to move toward the wide avenues at each end of the bazaar.

"What's going on?" Cerenkov asked Moff as the escort, too, joined the general flow. A second set of rumbles added to the first, and Pyre got a glimpse of cars being hurriedly moved off the avenue, presumably to the narrower cross streets.

"A bololin herd has entered Sollas," Moff told Cerenkov briefly. "Stay back-you're not armed."

Telek grabbed the mike. "Never mind that. Joshua-move up at least close enough to see what's going on. Decker, better go with him."

The two men began to move in Moff's wake. None of the Qasamans seemed particularly disturbed by whatever was about to happen... but as Pyre looked closer, he realized the same wasn't true of the mojos. Every bird in sight was fluffing its feathers, half opening its wings, and generally showing signs of agitation.

The rumble was clearly audible now as Joshua and York squeezed their way to the third rank of watchers. "Clear," a voice came faintly over Joshua's sensors, and someone off to the right in the front row drew his pistol, holding it muzzle upward in a ready position. A dozen more calls and the entire front row had followed suit. Across the avenue. Pyre could just see that another group of people waited in the street there, weapons similarly drawn. "Crossfire situation, Decker," he called toward the mike Telek was still holding, drowning out whatever instructions she was giving the team. "Watch for trouble with that."

The rumble became a roar... and the animals appeared.

To Pyre it was instantly obvious why the Qasamans considered it worthwhile to walk around armed. The fact that there was an entire herd of beasts stampeding through their city was bad enough; but even one of these would have been cause for serious alarm. Each a good two meters long, the bololins were heavily muscled, with sets of hooves that looked as if they could break rock by running impact alone. A pair of wicked-looking horns sprouted from the ma.s.sive heads, and running down the back was a dorsal strip of thirty-centimeter quills that even an Aventinian spine leopard would have been proud to possess. There were at least a hundred of the creatures in sight already, running shoulder to shoulder and head to tail, with more pouring in behind them... and as Pyre tensed in automatic combat reaction, the Qasamans opened fire.

Christopher spat something startled sounding, and even Pyre-who'd had an idea what to expect-jerked at the sound. The Dominion had given up simple explosive firearms long ago in favor of lasers and more sophisticated rocket cartridges, but such progress had apparently pa.s.sed Qasama by. The guns ahead of Joshua roared like miniature grenades going off... and some of the bololins in the herd abruptly faltered and fell.

Pyre happened to be looking directly at one of the quadrupeds as it was. .h.i.t; and he was thus the first one in the lounge to see the tan-colored bird that shot upward from the carca.s.s.

It was at least half again as large as a mojo, that quick glance showed him as the bird arrowed off the screen, but seemed built along the same predacious lines. Its hiding place, as near as he could tell, had been the bololin's dorsal quill forest... an instant later Joshua reacted and the view s.h.i.+fted upward, and

Pyre saw more of the birds already in the air, presumably having similarly deserted dying bololins.

Closing rapidly on them was a flock of mojos.

"They're crazy," Christopher said, barely audible over the gunfire. "Those birds are bigger than they are-"

"And they seem to be predators, too," Telek growled. "Something's wrong here-predators don't usually pick on other predators. Joshua!-keep tracking the birds."

The display steadied, and Pyre watched in morbid fascination as a mojo came in from above and behind one of the larger birds, swooping down with talons ready.