Here's a thought. If you're brain-chemistry is being monitored and will potentially kill you, but it's not the actual act of killing per se that triggers the killing...why not genetically engineer your brain chemistry to something that they aren't monitoring for? If Tal is the problem, why not get rid of it?

Ummm, the Tchpth could literally raise the dead - See Hell's Faire and the Sub-Urb segment with Shari, and Mike Sr.'s revivification after the antimatter carpet bombing. That implies a pretty sophisticated level of genetic and/or cellular manipulation. And that doesn't even touch what a Sohon adept could do.

[speculation]Maybe the Darhel aren't sophisticated enough in biology or sohon to alter their brain chemistry, and maybe their slave species don't want to help the Elves.[/speculation]

The PA sank his head into his palm. "Let me repeat, the Tchpth do not think in terms of deals and arrangements and agreements. The Tchpth think in terms of relationships and favors." He paused, and Papa could see that he was going to have to listen to another run of xenopsych, only this time he had more incentive to pay close attention.

"Okay, what kind of relationship should I be negotiating for?"

"Let me try to explain things another way," Allan said, clearly meaning one more out of umpty-jillion he'd already tried. "Humans look at the Galactics and see the Darhel in charge, because the Darhel control the contracts, and the shipping, and the money."

"And life and death over the Indowy masses," Papa growled. "And attempting it over humans, and damn near—"

"Let's not get sidetracked. The Tchpth look at the Galactic organization and see a web of relationships. The Darhel do tasks the Tchpth agree need doing by somebody, but don't want to do themselves. The Tchpth control what amounts to the money supply, control the technology level available to the Darhel, the Indowy, and us. They see allowing the Darhel to play their contract games as humoring them. It's an easy favor that, from the Tchpth point of view, they're getting a lot of favors back for. The Darhel may appear to control what looks to humans like all the political power, but the Darhel's ability to step outside the Tchpth relationship format and favor economy is exactly zero. The Tchpth own the money supply. Um . . . picture it as if in the twentieth century, oil were actually money and some government had the power to make an unlimited supply of it effortlessly, and was militarily unassailable. See why the Darhel are stuck?"

"The fucking Elves can and do do a lot to the Indowy, and us."

"Yes, they do. But their relationship with the Tchpth is entirely on the Tchpth's terms as to definitions. The Darhel do have a lot of maneuvering room as to the trading of favors, and they understand, and use, that.

"The Tchpth relationship with the Indowy clans are what ultimately allows the Bane Sidhe to function. The Tchpth have more genuine philosophical thought in common with the Indowy than with the Darhel. The Indowy actually get this 'Path' thing. The Darhel don't. Realize that the Tchpth can bypass the Darhel by delivering nanogenerator code keys to the Indowy any time they damned well please. And they sometimes do. The Bane Sidhe is a case in point. The Bane Sidhe nannite pool is entirely off the Darhel books. Maybe it will help for a moment if you think of the Bane Sidhe less as a resistance movement aimed at overthrowing the Darhel than a labor union. That's not accurate, either, but figure this—the Indowy are lousy at management, economics, logistics, firm and formalized agreements. The Indowy need the Darhel. They don't want to make the Darhel go extinct, or go stay on their own worlds. The Indowy just want better terms. The Tchpth relationship with the Indowy is to provide enough support to the labor union to keep the balance between the Galactics the way they think it should be. The Indowy also operate on the basis of a favor economy with the Tchpth. Think of this as another form of currency that's completely off the Darhel books. Relationships."

"The Himmit? Nobody's really got a great handle on the Himmit's story economy, but there are things they can do, and favors can be traded with them, so the Tchpth have their relationship with the Himmit somehow slotted into their scheme of things. We humans don't actually have any understanding, at all, of the workings between the Himmit and the Tchpth. Are you following me so far?" The PA ran both hands through his hair, thinking so hard he was sweating.

Papa O'Neal was actually kind of impressed. "Yeah, I think so. You're saying we've been mistaken about the Darhel and the Crabs are in control of the whole ball of wax—which tells me that maybe we should be pissed off at them."

"No. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying the Tchpth have the power to control the whole ball of wax but don't have the time, inclination, or aptitude for doing so. I'm saying the Darhel don't mess with the Tchpth because they know the Tchpth can upset the applecart at any point. We are not negotiating with the Indowy. We are not negotiating with the Darhel. We are negotiating with the Tchpth. If the Tchpth see Galactic civilization in terms of relationships and favors, then we—and you—had better be able to see it that way, too. Or at least fake it real well." He sighed. "Does that make sense?"

"Yeah. I reckon that makes sense. They could help us, they could help the Indowy, they could jerk a knot in the Darhel, but they really don't have any percentage in it and don't give a shit. Is that about the size of it?" Papa O'Neal patted down his shirt pocket before realizing he'd run out of tobacco.

"Closer. They do give a shit. They just think of it differently. Alien minds. Humanity's opportunity, and our curse right at the moment, is that the Tchpth haven't decided where we fit in. They haven't decided where, over the mid-range time scale of the next thousand years or so, we 'work' as part of a stable relationship pattern between the races. It is almost as much false as it is true, but think of human involvement in the Bane Sidhe, for a moment, as the Indowy doing a favor for the Tchpth by developing xenopsychological data on the humans as part of the process of evaluating our place in the scheme of things. All this is hampered by all the Galactic races having extreme prejudices against us for all the reasons you already know, and probably a couple more we haven't figured out yet."

A code key is basically a portable cash generator, with the highest level being more valuable to the Darhel than the entire planet earth.

So concerning the hardware, especially the ACS. The RoF for grav-guns dropped a zero in this book and is now 3,000 rpm. I presume that's an attempted retcon instead of a typo, in which case I have to say that while losing a single zero makes the guns much saner, that does not make them sane or plausible. Just less ridiculous.

The suits can apparently take a hit from their own weapons, even as many as 5 in about the same area. Someone should have told this to Mike in Hymn, he was worried about a grav-pistol richochet killing him.

Costa Rica went under first. After half a century of conscious, deliberate and nearly universal demilitarization it had never been able to mount much of an armed force. Instead of spending its nominal wealth on a military, relying on the firmly fixed notion that if all else failed the United States could always be counted on to come to the rescue, this very civilized and reasonably prosperous state had concentrated for fifty years on education and health care.

All that meant in the end was that the Posleen had several million very healthy and literate cattle to add to their larder.

Nicaragua did better. Even before news had come of the imminent Posleen invasion the previous rulers of the country, the Marxist-Leninist Sandinistas, had returned to power. The hold on the reins of government by the liberal democratic regime had never been very strong in any case.

Give the Sandinistas their due; a totalitarian movement at least ought to know how to subordinate the individual to the state. This the Sandinistas knew and this they did to good effect. Moreover, with several tens of thousands of combat experienced veterans, most of them fairly young still, of the long civil war between Sandinistas and Somocistas, also known as "Contras," Nicaragua was able to mount a large and reasonably well trained and disciplined mostly infantry force to contest the alien landings.

But, sad to say, no purely infantry force, using human designed and built weapons of the early twenty-first century, could hope to stand up to the technology and number of the aliens. To stand up to the Posleen human infantry forces needed the backing of masses of artillery. Artillery took wealth, either your own or that of someone who wished you well; that, or thought it needed you alive. Nicaragua, standing alone, lacked wealth and lacked the artillery that wealth could buy.

Moreover, the one really useful source of military aid, the United States, had a long memory and tended to hold a grudge. Even after Nicaragua's dictator, the Sandinista Daniel Ormiga, swallowed his pride and went hat in hand to ask the gringos for help, the United States turned a deaf ear. Perhaps this was because, as they claimed, they had none to give. Perhaps it was because while aid was possible there were higher priorities. Perhaps, too, it was because, as Ormiga surmised, the United States would weep no tears at seeing an avowed enemy eaten to extinction.

As it happened though, the deadliest weapon in Nicaragua's arsenal turned out to be a timely earthquake that killed about fifteen thousand of the invaders. It was later, much later, calculated that this slowed down the final digestion of the country and its people by approximately thirty-five minutes.

The only effective barrier to the Posleen advance had turned out to be Lake Nicaragua and its remarkably ferocious sharks.

Sharks, earthquake, and rifle fire notwithstanding, Nicaragua and its people ceased to exist within eight days of the enemy landing.

Small and densely populated El Salvador did receive aid from the United States, mostly in the form of small arms, mortars and light artillery. They, like the Nicaraguans, had a strong base of militarily experienced men who had fought in their lengthy and bloody civil war. The Salvadoran Army was manned, in the main, by Indians who took considerable pride in the knowledge that while the powerful Aztec had fallen quickly to the Conquistadors of Spain their ancestors had never truly been conquered.

Like those ancestors—fierce and brave to a fault, and this had contributed mightily to the bloodiness and duration of the civil war—the soldiers of El Salvador had stood and fought like madmen. From the frontier, to the Rio Lempa, to the very steps of the cathedral of San Salvador, the landscape was littered with the denuded bones of countless thousands of Posleen and Salvadoreños.

In the end, for all their patriotism, courage and ferocity, Salvadoran humanity was wiped from the surface of the Earth.

Honduras held out longer, but only because it was bigger. The Posleen moved as they would, bled and died as they needed. Speed was rarely a consideration except in the great battles of maneuver and attrition waged in North America and Central Europe.

Guatemala and Belize went under as quickly as had El Salvador and Honduras.

A Mexican dictator, Porfirio Diaz, had once observed, "Alas, pity poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States." The generations who lived during the Posleen war, especially those who managed to live through it, found cause to turn that around to "Lucky Mexico, so close to the devils but even closer to the United States."

This was so for at least two reasons. The first was that, being next door, Mexico held the southern entrance into the United States proper and so was given massive military aid. The second, and far fewer Mexicans ever had cause to know this, was that when defense failed despite the aid and despite the brave show put on by the Mexican Army, the United States became a safe refuge for more than ten million who found shelter under the wings of the 11th Mobile Infantry Division (ACS).

That division died, for the most part, in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, but not before that ten million could be evacuated to shelter. Curiously, no one north of the border found cause to complain about illegal immigration. Ten million Mexican immigrants meant another million or more men and women for the United States Army.

A small group of relatively poor Posleen set down in Colombia between the mountains and the sea. The Colombian army folded quickly. The various private armies, paramilitaries of the right, the left and the narcotraffickers, succeeded for the nonce in holding substantial parts of the undeveloped part of the country, as well as the mountain fringed capital, Bogotá.

The invaders also touched down on both sides of the Rio de la Plata in the vicinity of Buenas Aires, Argentina and Montevideo, Uruguay. Pastoral and open, ideal ground for the Posleen "cavalry," both countries quickly succumbed.

From their base in southeastern South America the Posleen spread out to the north and west. For the nonce Brazil was able to hold them out, though at terrible cost. To the west Chile, with strong natural defenses through the Andes passes held by well trained, tough and disciplined mountain troops, and aided by a company of 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry (ACS) stopped the Posleen cold . . . literally cold.

"In the beginning—as the Scroll of Tenusaniar tells us—the People were few, and weak, and powerless . . . and easily impressed. So it came to be that when the Aldenat' came upon them, the people worshiped them nearly as gods.

"And godlike were the powers of the Aldenat'. They healed the sick. They brought new ways to farm, to feed ourselves. They brought a message of peace and love and the People heard their words and became as their children. The Aldenat' brought wonders beyond imagining."

"Beyond imagining," intoned the crowd in response.

"And the people flourished," continued Bin'ar'rastemon. "Their numbers grew and grew and they were content in the service of their gods, the Aldenat'.

"Yet, in time, some of the people questioned. They questioned everything. And always the answer of the Aldenat' was the same: 'We know, and you know not.'

"The people who asked, the Knowers, complained, 'The planets you have given to us cannot support our growing population.' The Aldenat' answered, 'We know, and you know not.'

"The Knowers asked, 'Is there not a better way to move from star to star?' The Aldenat' answered, 'We know, and you know not.'

"The Knowers observed, 'All of life is a struggle. And yet you have forbidden us to join in that struggle. Are we then, even alive?' The Aldenat' answered, 'We know, and you know not.'"

Again the assembly recited, "They said they knew, and they knew not."

Bin'ar'rastemon rejoined, "They knew not."

"And those of the People called the 'Knowers' rebelled in time. And there was war between and among the People. And the Aldenat' knew it not. And there was slaughter. And the Aldenat' admitted it not. And there was fire and death. And the Aldenat' turned their faces from it, seeing it not . . ."

And the Aldenat' chose themselves to be the rulers over the People and the People rejoiced at being the servants of the Aldenat', who were as gods. And happy were the People to guard their gods. Happy, too, were the People to serve in other capacities, for the People were permitted to assist with the magical arts of science, to advance the plastic arts for the greater glory of the Aldenat', to ponder the great questions of life and of the universe, to conduct trade on behalf of their gods. And though they were not the equal of the Aldenat', yet the People rejoiced that they were no less than second.

And then the Aldenat' discovered the Tchpth and the Tchpth were raised above the People by the Aldenat'. Many of the People's leaders then said that it was right for the People to be cast low. Yet many were resentful.

Some of those who were displeased rebelled at the affront to their pride and were crushed by those who remained true to the Aldenat'.

Time passed and those of the People who remained true sought to regain their prior status by pleasing the Lords. Yet were they rebuffed.

The People sought to make automatic defensive devices, the better to guard the persons of the Aldenat'. Yet the Aldenat' said, "No. It is wrong to make weapons that do not need a sentience to perform their function. This displeases us."

At these words of displeasure, the People were much ashamed. Then sought they the favor of their Lords by seeking out lurking dangers. Yet the Aldenat' said, "No. It is wrong to attack what has not yet attacked, even if such attack seems certain. That way lies the path of war and death."

Many were those of the People who fell beneath the claws and fangs of creatures they were not allowed to attack, until attacked. Yet the Aldenat' remained firm, saying, "It is better that a few should fall, than that the principles be violated."

Too, the People made vapors to render dangers harmless, saying, "See, Lords, that there will be no shedding of blood this way."

And the Aldenat' grew wrathful, saying, "It is unclean and unholy in our sight to contaminate the very air. Cease this, and strive no further to improve the ways of death."
And the People withdrew, sore confused.

"And the People, fleeing their destroyed home on the new ships, came upon a new world, rich and teeming with life. And the ships were tired, and nearly out of fuel. And the leader of the People, called Rongasintas the Philosopher, led the people to a barren part of the land, that was uninhabited. And there they tried to settle and grow food.

"But the People had little food, and the inhabitants would not share, demanding, 'Go forth from us. This is our world, not yours. Return once again to the darkness whence you came.' And the heart of Rongasintas was heavy.

"Yet the People cried out, saying, 'Lord, feed us, for we hunger.' And Rongasintas answered, 'Eat of the pre-sentient young.'

"And, weeping, the People ate of their children, but it was not enough. Once again they cried out, 'Lord, feed us, for we hunger.' "

"We hunger," repeated the assembly.

Nodding his great crocodilian head with infinite dignity, the Rememberer continued, "And the Lord Rongasintas the Philosopher answered, 'Choose one in twenty from among the normals, and eat of these.' Weeping still, the People chose from among their number one in twenty, that the host might live and not perish. And for a little time the People did not hunger. Yet, still, did they weep, for it was not yet the way of the People to eat of their own."

"At length, the Lord of the People went to the inhabitants of the place and begged, 'We have done what we can. We have eaten of our own. Give us sustenance, that our people not perish.' And the inhabitants of the place heaped scorn upon Rongasintas, saying, 'Leave this place or eat of yourselves until there are none of you left. It is all the same to us.'

"And the Lord and Philosopher went to a high place to meditate and upon his return he announced, 'The Aldenat' made us as we are; we had no choice in the matter. They raised us from the lowly animals and gave us sentience. They left us with the need to reproduce. They gave us of medicine and knowledge, that we did not die young. Under their rule, the People prospered and grew. All praise was to the Aldenat'. ' "

"And we gave praise to the Aldenat', " chanted the assembly, in response.

The Rememberer continued, "And Rongasintas told the People, 'We must live. To live we must eat. Go forth then, and eat of the inhabitants of this place. As was all praise, upon the Aldenat' be all the blame.' "

As one, the massed Kessentai echoed, and their echo made the stone walls of the great Hall of Remembrance shudder, "Upon them be the blame."

"Once, long ago, long before the People were first driven forth and long before the idiots whose names we do not speak brought our clan low, one of your ancestors and mine, Stinghal the Knower, devised a stratagem.

"Surrounded in the city of Joolon by forces loyal to the old masters, with no hope of relief, with the enemy's plasma cannon raking his fortress, Stinghal hid his Kessentai and normals deep under buildings. He then piled the rooftops with flammables and set them aflame. The enemy, thinking he saw victory, charged in through every gate and over every wall, heedless of hidden dangers.

"At the right moment, when the enemy was in greatest confusion, Stinghal ordered his followers to come forth. There was a great slaughter."

When are you going to get to the part about Posleen Jesus?

You can see how this might grate on people, especialy if 'we know, you know not' was their literal reply to everything.

Not actually a Rememberer piece, but a God-king telling his children of their fallen clan's ancient glories. Shows the Posleen did once use clever strategems to win.

Actually the more I htink of it, the more... Homeric the Posleen seem. For the most part they are concerned only with strength and individual glory and spoils, but sprinkled among the host are the alien equivalents of Nestor and Odysseyus who are willing and able to pull any trick to win.

"That sounds good to me, Mr. Ambassador, but can the United States deliver? Half—more than half—of the modern arms you promised us are going elsewhere." Panama's president wagged a scolding finger.

Embarrassed, the ambassador from the United States swept a hand through immaculately coiffed, silver-gray hair. "Presidente Mercedes, I can't begin to tell you how much that upsets me. But . . . we had no choice. When the other Rio Pact countries invoked the aid of the United States, we had to deliver substantial quantities of up-to-date weapons to them."

General Taylor, as big and black and fierce as ever, scowled from his chair next to the ambassador. He knew that the impetus for the diversion of those arms had begun with State. He just couldn't identify his source. At the ambassador's raised eyebrow the general subsided.

Maybe Brazil, Argentina, and Chile—all of them at United States' Department of State prodding—had suddenly become aware, once again, of the Rio Pact military aid gravy train. Maybe they were siphoning off conventional equipment that could have been used to defend Panama. But the PDBs, which would be gringo manned, were also invaluable for the defense of North America and useful for the defense of South. These were not being slighted.

"The law," said the Darhel's AID in an artificial voice, "stands above sentient creatures, above their political and commercial systems, above the perceived needs of the present crisis or of any crisis. Before there were men, there was law."

Mercedes nodded his most profound agreement. Without the law, I could never take as much as I do.

"It has come to our attention that the Republic of Panama, at the instigation of the United States, has decided to adopt certain defensive measures prohibited by your own laws of war. I refer specifically to the planned use of antipersonnel landmines."

Mercedes' brow furrowed in puzzlement. He recalled being briefed on some such but the details . . . ? Well, military details hardly interested him absent the opportunity for graft.
"I am somewhat surprised, I confess," Mercedes said, "that Galactic law even addresses landmines."

"It does not, not specifically," the alien shyster-AID answered. "What it does do is require that member states and planets of the confederation follow their own laws in such matters. Panama is a signatory to what the people of your world sometimes call the 'Ottawa Anti-Personnel Landmine Ban Treaty.' As such, Panama is expected to abide by the terms of that treaty, to refrain from the manufacture, stockpiling, or use of antipersonnel mines."

A detail, previously forgotten, suddenly popped into Mercedes head. "But we are manufacturing, stockpiling, or emplacing no mines. They all come from the gringos."

The undersecretary sighed wistfully at the wickedness of a depraved mankind. "Despite the earnest recommendations of the United States Department of State, the United States has never ratified the Ottawa Accord."

"As such," the shyster-AID continued, "the United States is free to use them at will. This is not the case for Panama, however, which has a duty—so we of the legal bureau believe—to prevent them from being manufactured, used or stored not only by its forces but on its soil."

"We wish to remind you," stated the elven-faced Darhel in a flat-toned hiss through needle-sharp teeth, "how long thisss department of your government hasss been a client of oursss."

"The Department of State is fully aware of the close and cordial relations we have enjoyed since 1932," the undersecretary answered, noncommittally.

Lindemann rubbed a hand wearily across his jaw. "Yes, one would have thought so. Blame your State Department, actually."

"Huh?"

"They brokered a deal between us, the United States, the Galactic Federation and Argentina under which substantial U.S. and some Galactic aid would be given in return for the creation of a combined command. Not building fortifications in the passes was supposed to be . . . hmmm . . . let me see if I can remember the words exactly. Oh, yes, I recall. The absence of fortification was 'symbolic of the determination of our two countries, with the help of the United States and the Galactic Federation, to stand and fight together as one.'

The Rinn Fain had already done everything he knew to do with the humans. He had sabotaged and misdirected their plans, split their efforts, and aided their president in every way a Darhel knew how to, to rob his own people.

It was nearly time to stop doing things with the humans and start to do things to them.
To this end the Rinn Fain, and all his underlings—Darhel, Indowy, and artificial, all three—manned stations that, in human terms, could only be thought of as electronic warfare nodes.
For now the Darhel avoided interference, for the most part. Except in a few cases they were content merely to analyze human radio patterns, intercepting and synthesizing the codes that the barbarians used to hop from one frequency to another.

Certainly they didn't want to tip the humans off to what they were up to in time for the clever beasts to think of something new.

There were, however, certain of the humans who were physically out of touch enough to risk playing games with their communications. The glider pilots were a case in point. The Rinn Fain had taken considerable pleasure in remotely reprogramming their radios to make sure that anything they saw went unreported.

It was almost as pleasurable as taking control of the human's warships would be.

Eyes still downcast the Indowy responded, "Lord, about the human anti-spacecraft vessel, the Texas, we can do nothing much. It is not on our Net and is shielded and compartmentalized from the human 'Internet.' The one they call the Salem we have penetrated, but we have not been able to take it over. There is something odd going on there. It will not fire on the humans. It has been the best I could do—forgive me, lord!—to keep it from firing on the Posleen. I do not understand it.

"The last vessel, the Des Moines, is firing on the Posleen and, worse lord, I am unable to penetrate it. When I try, it counterattacks. I think the AID aboard that ship must be . . ." The Indowy inhaled deeply. He really didn't want to be ordered to suicide.

"Must be what, insect?"

"Lord . . . I think the AID aboard has gone . . . insane."

Though his elvish face remained a stoic mask, the Rinn Fain found the thing dangerously frustrating. Every type of attack and attempt at takeover that he commanded the Indowy to try was foiled.

Lintatai . . . lintatai. I must avoid lintatai. But I must also stop those ships. Their fire is decimating the Posleen.

"Can you leak the location and nature of the ships to the Net?" he asked the always obsequious Indowy.

"Yes, lord, though the ships may move. It would have to be a continuous leak."

"Then make it continuous, wretch. The Posleen are stupid." the Darhel hissed. "Make it obvious."

Smiling through needle sharp teeth at the slave, the Rinn Fain answered, "I am not hesitating, insect. I am savoring the moment. So much perfect destruction to be unleashed, and no violence inherent in it to trigger lintatai. Moments like this are rare, wretch, and must be appreciated to the fullest."

Even so, the Rinn Fain pressed the button, which went from blinking green to solid red.

Without fanfare, filling its role as the Darhel's mouthpiece for unpleasantries, the AID began, "Your country is accused of war crimes beyond number, Señor Presidente. You have employed forbidden weapons. You have used the under-aged as combatants. You have damaged ancient, historical properties. Your forces have slaughtered the wounded. The Galactic Federation has no choice but to sever all diplomatic and commercial relations with the Republic of Panama. This includes, but is not limited to, technology transfers, arms provisions, energy supplies and all space-borne trade and personal and commercial travel."

Presidente Mercedes blanched for a moment. Even his greasy face seemed to congeal. Indeed, he was sufficiently shocked that he did not object when the human withdrew a Gaulois from a package and lit up the nasty thing without so much as a by-your-leave.
"What the fuck is this chingadera machine talking about?" the president asked of the Rinn Fain.

The AID continued to speak, though a slightly huffy tone crept into its artificial voice. "You recently decorated and promoted a woman, one Digna Miranda, formerly a lieutenant and now a lieutenant colonel. Were you unaware that she used children as young as twelve in her battles? Did you not know she had wounded Posleen massacred rather than treating them with medical care equal to that given your own?"

"Your chief logistics officer, Major General Boyd, provided casings, detonators and explosives for your soldiers to turn into forbidden self-activating weapons; 'antipersonnel landmines' is your term. Your forces have used frangible projectiles on the Posleen. Several historical sites, to include ancient churches, have been damaged and still others completely leveled by your illegal use of artillery. Ancient sites of the aboriginals of these areas have been left unguarded."

The specially programmed shyster-AID projected a chart of the existing chain of command of the forces of the Republic of Panama, with a similar chart of United States' forces next to it. The Rinn Fain was pleased to see the number of blocks crossed with an X, indicating that the chief of those sections was firmly in custody. Still others were highlighted, indicating that the heads of those were on the list to be picked up. Others, particularly at the very top, were outlined in purple, indicating they were already working for the Darhel and could be expected to continue to do so.

"What is the projection of recovery time, once the local barbarians have filled those holes?" the Darhel enquired of his AID.

"Analysis of personnel records and nepotistic connections indicates that few of those positions can be filled," the AID answered. "Rather, they will be filled, to a certainty, by humans who will use the powers for their own gain. Once these other people are safely in the hands of the humans' International Criminal Court the collapse of the defenses of this area will follow at the first push from the Posleen."

"Any rumblings from the United States about the two of their people the government of Panama has taken in?"

"The local United States embassy is ignoring the entire issue, except that their ambassador has enquired again about off-world travel. Their Southern Command seems to be trying to reach their president but our humans in Washington are deflecting the inquiries, so far."

"And when is the Himmit transport scheduled to arrive?"

"Three of the local days, milord," the AID answered.

"The prosecutor at their International Criminal Court is ready to receive the prisoners?"
"She claims to be, but she too seems frantic to travel off-world with her family."

And there was a new thought, too. Though he didn't know where it had come from, the Net had what appeared to be an open offer from the thresh of the continent of Europe. Perhaps the offer had been uploaded by a Darhel AID. Binastarion put nothing past the Elves.
In any case, the thresh of Europe or their Darhel patrons seemed to be suggesting that, should Binastarion and his clan succeed in taking control of the broad ditch that connected the two major bodies of water on this miserable world, trade—a human and Darhel form of mutual edas—might be possible, if the ditch could be kept functioning to allow European water vessels through.

"In any case, sir, the Darhel were behind everything. They fed the locations for myself, Sally and the Texas to the Posleen. That's why we lost the Texas. They oversaw the misdirecting of vital supplies and equipment away from Panama. They bribed key individuals of the government of Panama to sell out their own people. They brought in the Europeans and the International Criminal Court to have all the most effective leaders of Panama's forces arrested, along with yourself and Salem's captain, for spurious war crimes."

"But . . . why?"

"The Darhel are terrified of what will happen to their species if humans win the war. They know what will happen if the Posleen win, and that is even worse, of course. But they're unable to defend themselves from either. So they want your side, our side, to win in the worst way possible . . . literally. They want us to win but to do so with so few humans left, and those left to be so corrupt and demoralized, that the Darhel can continue to run the Federation. And Captain, while this AID has no names outside of Panama, they've infiltrated everything here and in the United States, Asia, Europe, Africa. Even Australia has human cells working for the Darhel."

The hold of the ship was dark and infinitely cold. It could have been heated. Moreover, it would have been, had it held a cargo to which heat or cold mattered. Indeed, on the Profitable Merger's last voyage it had been heated, minimally, as the ship had carried some fifteen thousand Indowy. These had been sold by their clan into Darhel bondage for no more than the price of their passage away from the Posleen onslaught. Both sides had considered the deal a bargain.

For the Darhel it was even more of a bargain. While the hold had been heated, just barely enough to support life, the provision of light had been considered an unjustifiable, even frivolous, waste. The Indowy made their long voyage to servitude in complete blackness.

"There is, strictly speaking, no military profession among the Darhel. Nonetheless, they raised a sort of suicide corps from among their kind early on in the Posleen War. They have always had strong capabilities in intelligence, though it was normally of the industrial and mercantile espionage variety."

Himmit were preternaturally clever and effective scouts. That they were also remarkably successful smugglers went almost without saying, though the Galactics avoided saying it, even so. The ability of these creatures to avoid taxation and control was an infuriation to the Darhel, an annoying chink in an otherwise very tight system, the futile machinations of the Bane Sidhe notwithstanding.