Chapter Fifty-One
We have been taught from birth to never trust any member of another race, not even those who profess to be our greatest, most virtuous friends.
—Hibbil Instruction
He knew he must be a comical sight this morning, a furry little Hibbil in the saddle of an immense tigerhorse, but Pimyt didn’t care.
Far ahead, at the edge of a clearing, the Royal Attaché heard barking hounds and the shouts of other riders, who were barely visible to him as they hunted an elusive ivix. Pimyt sat sidesaddle on a magnificent bay steed at the rear of the pack, thinking about how much he hated having to get up so early, without time for a civilized breakfast. Hunger pangs gnawed at his stomach.
He tried to put such thoughts aside, knowing that his opportunity to get even for such discomforts would come. Very soon.
An ivix? Who cared about running one of those tiny horned creatures to ground and taking it home to stuff as a trophy? Pimyt had much more important prey in mind.
Purportedly, his own people were to Humans what Adurians were to Mutatis—allies, advisers, and legitimate business associates. But none of that was really true. It was all a deadly ruse. The extent of the treachery was immense and so cleverly fabricated that it spanned an entire galaxy.
The web of deceit permeated both Human and Mutati society at the highest levels.
As the Doge Lorenzo del Velli’s most trusted associate, Pimyt exerted a great deal of influence over affairs of the realm. In the past, the furry, innocent-looking little fellow had even been appointed temporary Regent of the entire Merchant Prince Alliance, until the princes decided upon a new leader.
But Hibbils had never been loyal to Humans, nor had Adurians ever been allegiant to Mutatis. The Hibbils and Adurians were, in fact, secretly allied with one another in what they called the HibAdu Coalition, and for centuries had developed a diabolical scheme to overthrow both the Merchant Prince Alliance and the Mutati Kingdom.
Lorenzo was somewhere up ahead with most of the other riders, on the heels of the barking hounds and the little ivix that they all sought. It hardly seemed worth the effort to Pimyt. But he participated anyway, as he was expected to do. Not being of noble blood himself, some of the riders resented his presence, but he didn’t care about any of that, the petty politics of Human society.
To his credit, Doge Lorenzo didn’t care much about the pedigree of noble blood, even though it coursed through his own veins. Rather, he preferred to promote people on the basis of merit, regardless of the circumstances of birth. But that was not enough to redeem himself in the eyes of Pimyt or his Hibbil brethren. No Human could ever do that, and especially not the leader of their damnable kind.
In his years as a trusted confidant of Doge Lorenzo, Pimyt had accomplished a great deal, and in the process he had learned not to trust anyone. The downside of a lapse or oversight was too great. Better not to rely on anyone except his own people. Promises made between races were notoriously unreliable. Even the alliance between the Hibbils and the Adurians had its dangers, which his people were monitoring carefully.
Abruptly, Pimyt noticed that the hounds were running toward him, barking loudly, and the rest of the hunters were following them. Then he noticed something running low to the ground just ahead of the daggs, a little horned creature with fur that glinted gold when morning sunlight hit it.
Concealing himself and his mount in a thicket of leyland maples, he waited until the ivix ran by, then fired a shot from his vest-pocket gun at it, hitting the animal square in the side of its body. This was not a proper thing to do, so he quickly rode away through the trees, to avoid detection. Coming around behind the hunters again, he sat atop his tigerhorse, looking down at the fallen ivex.
“Looks like it’s been shot,” said a fop from the royal court.
“Who would do such an unsportsmanlike thing?” Lorenzo asked, looking from face to face. Since he trusted Pimyt explicitly, however, his gaze hardly touched the Hibbil.
No one seemed to know the answer.
As they rode back to the stables together, Pimyt felt very pleased. Now that this consummate waste of time was over, he could sit down for a decent meal. Despite his small stature, he had a voracious appetite. All of his people were this way, so it was a wonder that they didn’t grow any larger.
* * * * *
That evening at his private apartment in the capital city, Pimyt received a coded message chip, containing very interesting information from his Adurian co-conspirators. With information from an unlikely source—Jacopo Nehr’s own brother Giovanni—the Mutatis now had the secret of the nehrcom cross-space communication system. This was highly useful information to Pimyt. Not for the technology, but for the lack of it … and the leverage this gave him. Jacopo Nehr had always been so secretive about the workings of the device, and now it turned out that it was not so complicated after all. With the message, Pimyt received a holo replica of the entire nehrcom transceiver, showing its simple inner workings.
* * * * *
The following afternoon, Pimyt plodded into Jacopo Nehr’s private offices for an appointment he had requested, ostensibly to discuss details of their new working relationship. Behind his gleaming sirikan teak desk, Nehr looked more rested than usual, perhaps reflecting his contentment at having been selected as the top military officer in the Alliance.
“Congratulations on your appointment, General Nehr.”
“Thank you.”
“I would have thought you’d be out drilling your officers on your new programs,” Pimyt said, as he climbed onto a chair that was too large for him and plopped himself down.
Nehr beamed. “As a businessman, I’ve learned how to delegate.”
“I see. And how to manage crises, I presume?”
The man’s eyes narrowed, just a little. “Of course. That comes with the territory.”
“We’ll see how good you are at it, then.”
Leaning forward nervously, Nehr asked, “What do you mean?”
At a snap of his fingers, Pimyt produced a holo-image of the nehrcom transceiver, showing all of its inner workings. Like a bubble, it floated in front of the startled inventor, whose eyes looked more like an owl’s now than those of a Human. The Hibbil suppressed a smile.
“W-where did you g-get this?” he stammered.
Ignoring the question, Pimyt said, “So, your famous transceiver is only a box of piezoelectric emeralds cut precisely and then arranged and linked in a specific way to open up the cross-galactic transmission lines. Interesting, isn’t it, how the most important ideas are often so simple?”
“But h-how?.… w-where did you … ?” Undoubtedly envisioning his galactic corporation crumbling around him, Nehr could hardly complete a sentence.
“I have my sources, shall we say? Let me caution you, before we go any farther, that I have given copies of this holo to certain key … associates for safekeeping. And if anything were to happen to me … “ He smiled. “I need not go into detail, do I?”
Astounded, Nehr stared at the holo of precisely-arranged gems inside its box.
The Royal Attaché smiled, and said, “Great inventor! What a joke that is. As a Hibbil, with a long tradition of innovative manufacturing and development techniques, I know the difference.”
“I’ve had my suspicions about you for a long time,” Nehr muttered.
“And you consider yourself a fine judge of character, I presume?”
“What are you driving at?”
Rubbing his furry chin, Pimyt decided not to reveal what was on the verge of passing over his lips, that Nehr’s own brother had betrayed him. No need to reveal that yet. There might be an opportunity to gain an advantage over the brother, too.
“Well?”
Delaying his response, Pimyt studied his new captive, considering how best to leash him and prevent him from biting. Nehr was red-faced. Perspiration trickled down his brow, into his eyes.
“If you don’t cooperate with me,” Pimyt said, “I’m in a position to ruin you. If I reveal your nehrcom secrets, you will no longer have a monopoly on instantaneous communication across the galaxy. There’s also the little matter of your machine-manufacturing plants on Hibbil worlds. They could easily be nationalized, taken away from you.”
“Get to the point. What is it you want?”
“Not so much. Just a little arrangement.” Again, he hesitated, this time for dramatic effect. Nehr was getting more red-faced, sweating more.
“Here is what you will do,” Pimyt finally said. “Periodically, I will give you communiqués, which you are to transmit to all planets in the Merchant Prince Alliance.”
“Concerning what?”
“You are in no position to ask questions. And do not discuss this with anyone but me, in private. Not even Doge Lorenzo. Understood?”
The inventor nodded, reluctantly. He looked displeased and trapped.
Pimyt smiled. Unrevealed to Jacopo or any other Human, the Hibbils and Adurians had a military agenda of their own, and were now in a position to influence the placement and strength of Human forces. Some of the messages, in the midst of innocuous ones, would involve military matters.…