THEY HAD PASSED the first sentry and were well on the way to raising the second, moving along the paths and wooded ways like the shades of dead soldiers. Not a leaf rustled, nor stone turned, not a branch broke by reason of their passing.
Nelirikk's heart soared with pride, that he walked at the head of such a group, equal, among peers. Swift and silent, that was how an explorer walked.
It was also, of course, how Liaden scouts walked, which his three companions were. They were an oddly matched trio, more gaggle than Troop, and very easy with banter among themselves—which reminded him forcefully of the manner often kept between the captain and the scout to whom he was sworn.
"How much farther to this house of yours, Explorer Nelirikk?" That was the shorter of the two elder scouts, called Clonak ter'Meulen, who wore a Terran-like mustache beneath his snub nose.
"We must be passed by one more sentry," Nelirikk told him. "Shortly after, the wood will surrender to field. From there, if we continue at the current pace, we will raise Erob's house in approximately twenty-five Standard minutes."
Clonak sighed gustily. "So far? Shadia, my delight, run ahead and beg the house to send a car. I am far too frail for all this traipsing about in gravity."
The youngest scout laughed. "Yes, of course. I can see the wobble in your gait. Poor old Clonak."
"Well, I don't know that I like that theme," the mustached scout commented. "I was thinking more along the lines of 'dear, delicate Clonak,' myself."
"I'm certain you were," Shadia said cordially, deftly ducking beneath a wickedly taloned branch.
"I don't see you running ahead to the house," Clonak pointed out.
"Nor will you," Shadia returned with spirit. "Send a car, indeed! Come, Clonak, it's a lovely day for a stroll. Even with the gravity."
He sighed. "What a desperate failure of discipline we see among the ranks of our juniors, eh, Daav?"
Daav yos'Phelium, he who bore the Tree-and-Dragon device that proved him in service to Clan Korval, raised an eyebrow. "Now, I'm puzzled. It seems to me that Shadia merely displays a—naturally regrettable!—lack of respect for an elder. How do you find a failure of discipline?"
"I outrank her," Clonak began—and between one step and the next fell both silent and still, the others doing the same, until they might have been three leather-clad boulders scattered along the pathway.
Likewise frozen, Nelirikk craned his ears, hearing the small sounds made by the sentry standing his post, just 'round the next bend in the trail. Nelirikk's regard for Clonak increased, even as he relaxed.
"It is well," he said, keeping his voice low. "Only the guard at his—"
"Halt!" the sentry shouted. "Who goes there?"
The brush to Nelirikk's left and slightly in advance of his position erupted into noise, as if some large animal was crashing back and forth, perhaps trying to free itself from one of the plentiful thorny bushes.
"Halt!" the sentry shouted again. "Give me the word or I shoot!"
The brush grew silent, then rustled more courteously, branches shivering as a large figure pushed through to stand in the very center of the path. He was holding a Soldiers General Duty Long-arm in two hands, aimed up into the blameless sky. Slowly, he bent and placed the weapon on the ground. He straightened with even more care, went back two steps, and held his hands, palm out, at belt-level.
"Capan Meery Roberzun," he said, and Nelirikk felt the hairs on the back of his neck lift.
"Captain Miri Robertson," Daav yos'Phelium said in a stage whisper, loud enough to be heard ahead.
"Identify yourselves!" The sentry snapped, wisely remaining at cover. Nelirikk stepped forward, hands visible and very empty, one eye on the Yxtrang soldier who stood, patient and open-handed, in the path.
"Lieutenant Nelirikk Explorer, Lytaxin Irregulars." The soldier in the road did not react to the Terran words, as of course he would not. Troop were not taught Terran. Only squad leaders were given Trade.
"Aide," Nelirikk finished, for the benefit of the hidden sentry, "to Captain Miri Robertson. The word is sardonyx. I escort three scouts to my captain."
Out of the edge of his vision, he saw the soldier's lips move, saw his eyes go wide.
"Capan Meery Roberzun!" he repeated, voice too loud with excitement. He pointed at the rifle on the ground, and his next words were in Common Troop. "Sir, we have come to offer the Hero Captain our weapons and our lives." He swallowed as Nelirikk faced him squarely, possibly unnerved by the lack of vingtai on a face so plainly of the Troop.
"Have I the—the honor to address the Hero Nelirikk Explorer?" He stammered.
"What's that guy want, Lieutenant?" the sentry asked, but before Nelirikk could reply, Daav yos'Phelium stepped forward, claiming the soldier's attention with a hand-wave.
"We?" he snapped in the tongue of the Troop, his accent only slightly more rancid than Val Con yos'Phelium's. "Produce this we! Immediately!"
"Sir!" The soldier's fist hit his shoulder with a will and he spun on his heel to address the bushes, from which there issued no immediate reply.
"Dammit!" the sentry abruptly shouted. "Where did you come from?"
"The airfield, most recently," Clonak ter'Meulen replied in cheery Terran. "Before that—well, you'll appreciate that I can't tell you everything, even though you are carrying some very impressive firepower. I'm one of the scouts being escorted to Captain Robertson by the Lieutenant over yonder."
"He really is," Nelirikk called over his shoulder, anticipating the sentry's next question.
"Yessir. But what is he doing here?" wailed the sentry.
Clonak tsk'ed. "Why, only making certain you don't decide that it would be best for all to shoot the charming young person asking after Captain Robertson's health. It happens that the scout standing next to dear Lieutenant Nelirikk is kin to Captain Robertson, and very tender of her possessions."
"Possessions!" the sentry sputtered.
On the path, Daav yos'Phelium moved.
"Well?" He snapped at the bushes, crossing his arms over his chest. "Am I blind? Am I a fool?"
The bushes offered up no reply.
The scout snorted.
"Hero Captain Miri Robertson has no use for cowards. Lieutenant?"
Nelirikk came to attention and glared into the soldier's stoic face. "Captain Miri Robertson accepts only the bravest and most skilled into her troop," he snarled, taking up his cue with a will. "This is the captain who attaches a scout to her troop! This is the captain who keeps an explorer as her aide! The captain who broke the back of the Fourteenth!"
"Show yourselves," Daav ordered the bushes, and swept forward in a graceful lunge. He came up holding the long arm at ready. "Or die."
Still the bushes were silent, the branches melting away from the one who came forward, hands out and empty.
"There is one who is wounded," she said and looked over the scout's head to Nelirikk. He read the mark of an explorer on her cheek with a feeling of inevitability. Of course: A mere Rifle infiltrate the first line of guard, intent on giving his battle oath to Captain Miri Robertson? Common Troop did not behave—could not behave—in a manner so contrary to command. An explorer, however, like a scout, was required to think beyond the boundaries of the common. An explorer, like a scout, could easily claim the service of a Rifle, who would no more question her commands than he would the commands of any other officer.
"Hold!" he snapped at Daav, but the scout had already lain the rifle down.
"I do not shoot scouts," he said in calm Liaden. "Unless they give me cause."
The explorer looked down at him. "No cause," she returned, her Liaden halting and modeless. "Wounded, one's senior. Wounded—" She moved her hands in frustration and looked again to Nelirikk. "He is at glory's gate," she finished, in Troop tongue.
"Shadia?" Daav said quietly to the bushes.
"Here, Captain Daav," the youngest scout's voice came from the bushes at the explorer's back, a bit breathless in the Liaden mode called 'Comrade'. "He doesn't look the picture of health, truth told." There was a pause and a low groan. The explorer twitched, and stilled, her eyes down turned.
"Tell the sentry to send for a field 'doc," Shadia said flatly. "This man's dying."
"We need a 'doc, quicktime," Nelirikk heard Clonak tell the sentry. "There's a man down and critical."
"Mister, those're 'trang soldiers and all the 'trang I've seen lately want to die," the sentry argued.
"Yet you will observe that these particular Yxtrang soldiers appear to wish to live. They're behaving appropriately, aren't they? They've put down their guns like good children and they're being very seemly, by my standards, at least," Clonak's voice hardened. "Call for an emergency team. Now. You really don't want the scout over there on the pathway angry with you."
"Embroider my legend, do," Daav called, over the sound of a comm unit being engaged.
Nelirikk watched the explorer, seeing her eyebrows pull tight as she strained to follow the conversation.
"Medical assistance is being called for your senior," he told her in the language of the Troop.
"Yes." She shot him a look of challenge. "You are Nelirikk Explorer, lieutenant in the troop captained by Miri Robertson. Will you take our oaths and receive us into the Troop in the captain's stead?"
Certain as he was that the captain—and most certainly the scout—would welcome explorers into their service, and as well as he understood the dilemma behind the question, it was beyond the scope of his duty to stand as oathtaker in the captain's place.
"I will not," he said, wishing the Common Tongue possessed even so minor a word as "alas".
"What's amiss?" That was Daav yos'Phelium, speaking yet in the mode used between comrades, his bright black eyes darting from the explorer's face to Nelirikk's.
Nelirikk sighed. "She—they—came to give an oath and be . . . welcomed . . . into a troop, with a proper captain, to give their lives form and, and duty. We—the 'doc . . . " He stammered to a halt. Both of Daav's eyebrows were well up, but he waited with explorer-like patience for the matter to be made plain.
"It is cultural," Nelirikk achieved at last. "A matter of—appropriate behavior. They wish to—they must—offer their oath only to the captain or one who stands oathtaker in her stead. I—I cannot take oaths in keeping for the captain. And they cannot accept anything from the enemy."
"Ah." The black eyes gleamed. "And your own oath—to Line yos'Phelium, was it?"
"Yes."
"Yes. I believe we may contrive." He stepped toward the watchful explorer.
"I will have your name," he snapped in his awful Yxtrang.
She lifted her chin, "Hazenthull Explorer."
"So." The language shifted to Trade. "Hazenthull Explorer, I offer you compromise. I am kin to the Hero Captain Robertson—blood ties, eh?"
Her mouth tightened, but she gave a short jerk of the head. "I understand."
"Good. Understand that Captain Robertson's duties are manifold, including a position of command over the kin unit of which I am a genetic member. The name of the kin unit is Line yos'Phelium. Captain Robertson accepted the oath of Nelirikk Explorer in the name of this kin unit." He tipped his head. "Do you understand this? I do not wish to trick you."
Once again, she jerked her head. "I understand."
"Excellent. Attend me closely, now: The customs of kin allow me to take from you an interim oath."
Hazenthull frowned. "Inter—a temporary oath?"
"Just so. In the service of your senior's life. The 'doc which has been called for is his only immediate chance of survival—Shadia does not use the word 'dying' lightly. I do not willingly watch scouts perish, as I believe I said. I require of you an oath that you and yours will serve Line yos'Phelium, in the person of Daav yos'Phelium—that is myself. In turn, I will give you my oath to bring you to Captain Robertson herself, so that she may make what judgment that a captain must, for the good of her troop." He paused, perhaps awaiting a question. Hazenthull remained silent.
"The term of our oaths," Daav continued, "shall be concluded when the captain has given her judgment. Can you agree to this?"
There was a long silence. Nelirikk saw the explorer's eyes narrow, as if she were turning the proposed oaths round in her mind, seeking the trap that she knew must be there.
Nelirikk could have pointed out the ambiguity attending the precise expiration of term, but it was to the Troop's benefit to acquire the services of other explorers, if it could be managed, and so he held his tongue.
Finally, Hazenthull Explorer gave another of her terse nods. "We are free to offer and to honor these oaths."
"Splendid." Daav waved at the patient soldier. "Explain the matter to him." He flicked a look to Nelirikk. "Assist her, please, Lieutenant."
"Scout." Nelirikk bowed slightly and stepped to Hazenthull Explorer's side.
Some distance up-trail, he heard the sound of a jitney engine, growing rapidly louder.