User Guide

A whisper of sound from the shadow-shrouded figure seated at the end of the room. “Can he be
trusted, Commander?”
Ralgha nar Hhallas stiffened to attention, the hair of his ruff and spine rising despite his efforts to
make it lie flat, uncertain whether he was going to survive the next few moments. He had seen this
shadowy room before, and had walked through the carved stone corridors of Imperial Intelligence
Headquarters on Ghorah Khar many times, but always as Lord Ralgha nar Hhallas, Captain of the Ras
Nik’hra, a Fralthi-class cruiser that had fought in many battles for the glory of the Emperor of Kilrah.
Now, for the first time, he saw these walls through other eyes…as a prisoner. An interesting experi-
ence — if he lived through it.
Ralgha had stood in the center of this room for over five hours now, answering every question placed
to him, patiently managing to keep his temper despite the taunts of the interrogators. That was their
job, after all; to make him lose his temper, to prove that he was a traitor by angry word or action. They
dared not lay paw to him; he was too high of rank for lerkrath, interrogation by drugs, or kalkrath, inter-
rogation by torture. Only the Emperor himself could decree questioning a Thrakh’ra lord by needle or
knife. But they could deliberately try to provoke him, to invoke the killing-rage that lay close to the sur-
face of every Kilrathi’s mind — and if he lost control even for an instant, if he neglected to remain in
the military-submissive posture, if he forgot that he was, temporarily, the lowest-ranked Kilrathi in the
room, he would prove that he was a traitor. Even now, the two burly Imperial guards watched him care-
fully, in case he should try to make any kind of movement — either to escape or harm Jahkai, the com-
mander of Imperial Security, or to make an attempt on the life of the other, even more important
Kilrathi in this room, the one seated in the shadows.
Jahkai was watching him with eyes narrowed to slits with his concentration. As well he might. There
was more to this than the questioning of a possible traitor; more than a conflict between two male
Kilrathi. Ralgha had hated Jahkai since they had first met years ago.
The lowborn brute had pretended to noble airs at a troop review, bringing shame on the highborn
present, that he had dared to imitate his betters. And there was no hiding the fact that Jahkai was low-
born; one merely had to look at him, and see the mottled, mingled colours of his coarse fur marking
him as Kilra’hra, a commoner. So very unlike Ralgha’s own sleek pelt, bright with the colours and
sharply distinct patterns of one of the highest-born families in the Empire. Even the blunt shape of
Jahkai’s muzzle, the flatness of his head, and the blunted teeth of one who was not a hunter showed his
lowborn breeding.
Ralgha had repaid that shame by shaming Jahkai in his turn, making a mockery of him, then laugh-
ing in his face, not realizing then that Jahkai was the commander of Imperial Security for the entire
planetary system of Ghorah Khar....
Now the situation was very different. A word from Jahkai could condemn Ralgha to death, lowborn
or not, if the other Kilrathi in this room decided that the word was justified. It had all come down to
this; the word of an enemy, the record of his achievements, and the judgement of a superior.
This was the most dangerous moment of his life. Nothing else had ever put him into such peril, not
even during the battle against the humans for the Vega Sector.
He remembered that conflict with a small warmth of pride, pride he cherished against the anger that
sought to consume him. He concentrated on his memories of the hours of maneuvering against the
Terran ship, waves of fighter assaults, culminating in the glorious explosion of the Waterloo-class ship,
the blossoming fireball and drifting debris. The ship had been named the Leningrad, he had learned
later, and over five hundred humans had died when it had been destroyed. Five hundred enemies. Five
hundred gifts to Sivar, the War God.
He remembered one moment of fear in that battle, seeing a tiny Terran fighter diving toward his
ship, knowing that half of their forward cannons were disabled and there was nothing he or his crew
could do to stop it…
…then the wing of Imperial Jalthi fighters had banked in sharply and destroyed the human ship
with a well-aimed volley.
25