Warhorse Read Free

to a dark burgundy to a surprisingly bright yellow to an utterly dead black.
    â€œGetting an absorption readout now,” Trent reported into Roman’s thoughts. His voice, still disapproving, was nevertheless beginning to show some grudging interest. “The skin seems to be soaking up about 96 percent of the sunlight hitting it, holding to that same percentage over the complete electromagnetic spectrum.”
    Roman nodded. Space horses were supposed to be able to absorb radiation of virtually any wavelength—one of the power sources that kept the huge beasts going. “Any idea what that shimmer effect is?” he asked the other.
    â€œProbably a diffraction effect caused by the dust sweat,” Trent said. “Or so goes the theory, anyway. Let me see if I can get some kind of direct reading on that.”
    He was reaching for his console when the Dryden ’s alarms suddenly began to trill.
    â€œAnomalous motion, Captain,” Nussmeyer snapped. Unbidden, the main screen shifted to a tactical display, the laser targeting crosshairs swinging up over and past the bulk of the space horse.
    â€œEasy, gentlemen,” Roman said, flicking over to the indicated screen even as his muscles tensed with anticipation. The anomalous-motion program had originally been designed to detect slow-moving ambush missiles; but this close to a space horse… “I doubt we’re being threatened here.”
    â€œIt’s a meteor, sir,” Trent identified it even as the telescope screen locked and focused on the object.
    â€œAs I said,” Roman nodded. “Nothing to do with us.”
    â€œMaybe, maybe not,” Trent countered darkly. “It occurs to me that the Tampies could just as easily have something besides space horse fodder in mind for that rock. Like having the space horse telekene it through our hull.”
    Roman frowned at him, a vaguely unpleasant sensation creeping into the pit of his stomach. Unthinking prejudice against the Tampies had been growing steadily across the Cordonale in the past few years, and he’d long since resigned himself to its existence. But to find it here on his own bridge…
    â€œLieutenant Nussmeyer,” he said quietly, “do you have a vector on that meteor yet?”
    â€œBearing toward the space horse, sir,” the helmer reported, sounding a little uneasy himself. “Projected intersect somewhere in the front-end sensory ring.”
    Trent’s lip twisted. “Means nothing,” he said, stubbornly defiant. “Sir. The Tampies could be planning to throw it at us at the last second, once our guard is down.”
    Roman cocked his head slightly to the side. “In that case, Commander, make sure our guard doesn’t go down.”
    Trent held his gaze a second longer, then turned back to his displays without another word. Reaching again to his own controls, Roman turned one of the telescope cameras onto the space horse, keying it to track with the meteor’s projected intercept point. Trent’s paranoia aside, he had no doubt as to what the space horse wanted the rock for…and like the space horse itself, it was something he very much wanted to see. The display shifted slightly as the intercept vector was updated, came to rest on one of the sensory clusters: eight impressively colored organs, each a few square meters in area, grouped around a large expanse of otherwise unremarkable gray skin.
    For a moment nothing happened…and then, without warning, all the organs darkened in color and the blank central region abruptly split open, its edges ridging upward in an odd puckering sort of motion. From off-camera the meteor appeared, to drop neatly into the opening. The edges smoothed down, the split vanished, and the organs resumed their original colors.
    â€œSecure from alert,” Roman ordered, and as the trilling was silenced he looked over at Trent. The other’s back was stiff, angry looking.