Seated beside Governor-General Zhu at the conference room table, Committé Vanis D'arl could at first glance have passed for any other Aventine citizen. Middle-aged and reasonably fit, his dark hair cut in a conservative pattern, he gave no immediate sense of his awesome power. But his name labeled his home planet as Asgard, and to Jonny's eyes there were disturbing similarities between him and the failed rebel Cobra Simmon L'est. There was a quiet hardness about his face, the feeling that he would stop at nothing to get his own way. And underlying it all was an odd sense of urgency.
Zhu's introduction was a subtle underscoring to the latter, lasting only a fraction of the time the occasion should have dictated. "Thank you, Governor-General Zhu," D'arl said, rising to his feet as Zhu reseated himself. His voice was heavy with the subtle accents of Asgard. "I would first of all like to congratulate you on behalf of the Central Committee on your truly outstanding accomplishment in the development of this new Dominion world. In barely fifteen years, you've achieved a solid foothold on Aventine and are even looking ahead to the future colonization of Caelian and Palatine. The natural resources for these endeavors are, of course, readily available, and it is obvious as well that you are not lacking in spirit. As the Committee has studied your progress, in fact, it has become apparent that the limiting factor in your expansion has been—and continues to be—the lack of Cobras to spearhead your efforts."
Jonny felt his breath catch. D'arl's eyes, sweeping the table, shifted to him, and for an instant the two men locked gazes. "Your reports," D'arl continued coolly, "have from almost the beginning contained requests for more Cobras, and the Committee has done its best to accommodate you. We've encouraged Cobra transfers to this colony, to the point where the Army has barely two companies left for general Dominion defense. Obviously, this drain cannot continue indefinitely; and the Committee has therefore come up with the following solution."
Here it comes, Jonny thought, his stomach tensing. A steady stream of Cobras through the Corridor, maybe forever.
But even he was unprepared for D'arl's next words. "Since it seems inefficient for the Dominion to equip and train Cobras only to send them here, we've decided to shift the entire operation to Aventine instead."
Jonny's jaw dropped. No! he shouted... though the word never made it past his frozen tongue. But D'arl nevertheless noticed, and his eyes were steady on Jonny's face as he continued. "Aboard my ship is all the necessary surgical and implant equipment, as well as specialists trained in its use. The procedure takes from two to six weeks, depending on how much discomfort you deem acceptable, and training by your own Cobras will probably take no more than four weeks more. This is far better than the seven to nine month response time for getting new Cobras from Asgard, and will in addition put the operation entirely under your control. I could continue... but I sense there is a comment waiting impatiently to be made, so I'd like to pause now for at least a brief discussion."
Jonny was on his feet almost before the last word was out of D'arl's mouth. "With all due respect and gratitude, Committé D'arl," he said carefully, "I feel that perpetuating the line of Cobras would be detrimental to the social and political development of Aventine."
D'arl's eyebrows rose politely. "How so, Syndic Moreau? It seems to me your government has adapted remarkably well to the presence of a disproportionate number of Cobras among its citizens. Your own position here would seem evidence of that."
"If you're referring to the Challinor rebellion, yes, we've managed to avoid a repeat of that," Jonny said. "But the cost has been an unnatural distortion of basic Dominion political theory."
"You speak, I presume, of the fact that at all levels of government Cobras have more than the single vote given to ordinary citizens." D'arl's face was expressionless, his voice giving no hint as to his opinion of that practice. "I believe a study of history will show, Syndic, that numerous adjustments of ideal theory have been made when circumstances required it."
Across the table, Brom Stiggur of Maro District rose slowly to his feet. "Perhaps then, Committé, a more concrete objection should be raised," he said. "You speak of perpetuating the Cobra presence on Aventine, and of putting the selection of Cobra candidates under our control. Under whose control, though, would it be? The governor-general's? A syndic majority's? Direct vote of the citizens? How do we guarantee, for obvious example, that this Cobra factory doesn't come under the influence of another Challinor?"
"You seem to have a pretty low opinion of the sort of man who'd volunteer to be a Cobra in the first place," Tamis Dyon said stiffly from a few seats down. "You'll notice that the psychological screening methods were perfectly successful with most of us—and as to Challinor, you might remember it was Syndic Moreau and his companions who defeated him, not official paranoia." He shifted his eyes to D'arl. "I, for one, would be delighted to have another dozen Cobras available to station in my outlying villages."
"You're oversolving the problem," Jonny spoke up as murmurs of both agreement and disagreement rippled across the table. "We simply don't need full-fledged Cobras for most of the work that's being done. Fitting the lasers Committé D'arl has brought into hand weapons would do perfectly well against falx or wheat snakes. Spine leopards are trickier, I'll admit, but they're a problem only on the very edges of human territory, and the Cobras we have now can control them well enough."
"And how about the spine leopard killers?" Jor Hemner spoke up quietly. "Can you handle them, as well?"
All eyes turned to him. "What are you talking about?" Zhu demanded.
"My office put the bulletin on the net late last night," Hemner said. "We found a spine leopard dead yesterday near Paleen, mauled by something as big as a gantua but obviously far more aggressive. The leopard's foreleg spines, incidentally, were rigored into their extended, defensive, position."
From the shocked looks around the table Jonny gathered the report was news to nearly all the other syndics. "We certainly don't want to make any decisions on the basis of a single unexplained event," he said quickly, hoping to diminish the shock effect of the incident. "For all we know, the spine leopard might have been poisoned by some kind of snake and killed by extra-bold scavengers."
"The evidence—" Hemner broke off suddenly, and Jonny turned to see D'arl standing with hand raised for silence.
"I must point out that Syndic Moreau is perfectly correct in warning against a hasty decision," the Committé said. "I've given you some of the reasons the Committee is offering you this equipment; there are others which are listed in the complete report I've brought. But the decision is yours, and I expect you to give this issue the careful consideration the Dominion expects from its leaders. I will be here for another few weeks, and you will have that long, if necessary, to determine what course to take." Looking down, he murmured something to Zhu, who nodded and got to his feet.
"I'm declaring a short recess so that we can all have time to examine the information Committé D'arl mentioned," the governor-general announced. "The relevant magcards are down the hall in your offices. Please take some time to study them, and we'll continue this discussion in two hours."
Jonny joined the general exodus to the building's office wing, but unlike the other syndics, he didn't stay there long. Picking up his copy of D'arl's magcard, he made two quick calls and then left.
Twenty minutes later he and Cally Halloran were on an aircar, heading southeast for Dawa District.
The last page flicked from the screen of Jonny's comboard, and with a snort he flicked off the instrument and tossed it onto the next seat. Across from him, Halloran looked up from his own comboard. "Well?"
"Not a single argument that could hold vacuum in space," Jonny growled. "We can answer all the problems D'arl raises without resorting to a Cobra assembly line."
"But your solutions come from an Aventine syndic, while his come from a Dominion Committé?"
"You got it." Sighing, Jonny gazed out the aircar window at the lush Aventine landscape below. "I don't think I've got a hope in hell of pushing a no-vote through unless we can identify this spine leopard killer fast."
"I'm not sure what that'll accomplish, actually," Halloran said, tapping his comboard. "If the stuff in here on spine leopards isn't exaggerated, you may well need a Cobra assembly line to fight its killer."
Jonny remained silent a long moment, wondering whether he should give Halloran the rest of it. At best his suspicions were slanderous; at worst they could possibly be construed as treason. "Has it occurred to you," he said at last, "how remarkably handy the timing has worked out for D'arl? Here he is, pushing us to accept a permanent Cobra presence here, and he's barely landed when this mysterious super-predator suddenly decides to pop up. He couldn't have found a better argument for his side if he'd manufactured it himself."
Halloran's eyebrows rose. "Are you implying he did manufacture it?"
Jonny shook his head slowly. "No, of course not. Probably not. But I still can't get over the timing."
Halloran shrugged. "That part of Dawa District's undergoing a pretty severe drought right now, with the Kaskia branch of the Ojaante River dried up and all. Could that have hurt the gantuas' food supply to the point where they'd risk taking on a spine leopard?"
"Not a chance. Gantuas are pure herbivores, with no meat-eating capability at all. There are a couple of that type of pseudo-omnivore here, but they're far too small to bother even a sick spine leopard."
"Then maybe the drought drove some other creature down from the mountains," Halloran persisted. "I'm keying on the drought, you see, because that's also an unusual occurrence, at least in the occupied areas of Aventine."
"And you think D'arl's visit just happened to coincide with our first drought?" Jonny said almost reluctantly. "Well... maybe. But I still don't like it."
Again Halloran shrugged. "I'll be happy to keep the possibility of foul play in mind," he said. "But until and unless we come up with something approaching hard evidence, we ought to keep such thoughts to ourselves."
In other words, he thought Jonny was making a dangerously big deal out of nothing. And he was probably right. Still...
Fifteen minutes later, they landed at the village of Paleen.
A visiting syndic generally called for a minor official fuss, or at the very least the welcoming presence of the local mayor. But Jonny had called ahead with explicit instructions to the contrary, and as he and Halloran left the aircar they found a lone man waiting. "Syndic Moreau?" he said. "I'm Niles Kier, resident Cobra."
Jonny nodded acknowledgment and indicated Halloran. "This is Cally Halloran, your soon-to-be teammate here. What have you got on the dead spine leopard?"
"Not much more than we had yesterday," Kier admitted, leading them toward an open car parked at the edge of the field. "The experts are still studying it up at Niparin, but haven't come to any conclusions yet."
"You're the one who found it, right?"
Kier nodded. "I was out doing a water survey when I spotted the carcass lying in a small hollow."
"Water survey?" Halloran put in. "You were hauling a sounder around by yourself?"
"Here you just measure the diameters of the gluevines that climb around some of the trees," Jonny explained absently. "It gives you a direct reading of the soil moisture and an indirect indication of where the water table is. Any tracks around it?"
"The ground was pretty badly torn up," Kier said as they got into the car. "I spotted some marks nearby that looked like gantua tracks, but if they were the thing was either huge or running faster than any I've ever heard of."
"From the tapes I've seen I can't see any reason a gantua should ever bother to run," Halloran commented.
Jonny nodded. As big as elephants, their bodies armored with snake-patterned horny plates, gantuas were the closest thing to living tanks he'd ever seen. "A dignified trot is about as close as they get," he told Halloran uneasily. "If this thing scared a gantua enough to make it run, we are in trouble. Let's go to the spot, Niles, and poke around a little. I gather you didn't do much exploring at the time."
"No," Kier said as he turned the car and headed west. His tone sounded more than a little defensive. "I thought my immediate duty lay in sounding the alarm... and in not leaving Paleen defenseless."
Jonny nodded grimly. It was a rationale he well remembered—and logical though it was, he knew how cowardly it could make a Cobra feel. Perhaps Kier would get the chance later to redeem himself.