“We don't want you here,” the Tecran hissed at him, eyes narrowed.
Dray shrugged. “I'm sure you don't. The alternative is war. If you don't like the decision your politicians have made, vote in a different government.” He let the impatience he was feeling shine through.
“Why are you here, really?” Someone near the Tecran who'd challenged him called out.
“I was assigned to come here. And you know why we're here. You know.” He looked each person in the circle around him in the eye.
“Dray. Let's go.” Chep tapped his shoulder. He must have turned back, and worked his way through the crowd.
The sight of the Fitalian, with his slender neck and massive eyes, so very different from the Tecran--from every other group in the UC, Dray had to admit--broke whatever mood had settled over them all, and most turned away, muttering.
Dray sent him a quick look of thanks, and Chep's thin mouth quirked.
“Cossi wanted to do it, but I told her she was too short to have the same impact.”
It was hard to read the Fitali's facial expressions, but Dray had the feeling Chep knew it wasn't his height that had diffused the situation, and was amused by it.
He grinned. “I'm surprised you're not limping like the Tecran who shoved her earlier.”
“I only maim people I don't like,” Cossi said, suddenly on his other side. She smiled, and Dray's gaze caught on those sharp teeth again.
Just as amused as Chep, her smile widened. “I managed to get a comm connection to Ambassador Dimitara. She's . . .” Cossi shook her head, suddenly serious. “She's incandescent that this might be true. That they've been keeping another Earth woman here all this time in secret.”
“I assume she's happy for us to follow Bane's lead?” Chep asked as they pushed through the crowd. It seemed as dense on the outskirts of the square as in the center.
Cossi nodded. “She's friends with Rose McKenzie. She was on the Grihan explorer the Barrist as a UC liaison when the Grih found Rose. She saw where the Tecran had kept Rose prisoner.” Cossi shrugged. “She has strong feelings about it.”
“There are two military teams trying to intercept you.” Bane's voice was deadly calm. “One moving along the north side of the square, the other coming from the east. You'll walk straight into them if you keep going the way I directed you.”
Dray glanced at Chep and Cossi, saw Bane had included them in the warning. They had both gripped the stocks of their shockguns, strapped, like his own, to their thigh.
“How many in each team?”
“Four in each. They're dressed as civilians, though. I only know who they are because I'm monitoring the chatter in the square,” Bane answered.
“So there could be more moving in without talking?” Cossi asked.
There was a moment of silence. “Yes,” Bane said. “I didn't think of that.”
“We won't be able to spot the ones you've identified in this crowd, let alone those who you haven't.” Dray tapped his shockgun, and it whined as it charged to readiness.
There were two massive screens on each side of the square, and they showed an aerial view of the crowds. Suddenly, the feed changed, and each one showed a different part of the square, with a circle around four Tecran on each screen.
“You doing that?” Chep asked.
“Yes.” Bane zoomed in a little more. “Now you can see them.”
It took the Tecran standing near the covert military teams a few moments to work out they had been singled out and were on the screens, and they began to point up at the images. Then they turned to look at the people beside them who were circled.
“Move. While they're distracted.” Dray sped up, weaving through the crowd, and when he glanced at the screen again, he caught a glimpse of himself moving toward the four officers Bane had warned him about. They were blocked from view by the milling crowds, which suited him just fine.
“You go ahead. Draw them off.” He gripped Chep's shoulder. “Following you is all they can do, especially if you stay in the square. Lead them around the perimeter for half an hour or so, and then go back inside headquarters.”
“And what'll you do?” Cossi had turned back, so they stood in a huddle, not unlike many others around them.
“I'm going to steal a hooded cloak and find Lucy Harris.”
Chep nodded. Then shared a look with Cossi.
They both moved off, striding confidently through the crowd, which parted in their wake and then swallowed them up.
Dray bent, as if to fiddle with his boot. “See any spare cloaks lying around?”
“Give me a few minutes.” Bane's tone didn't convey approval for his decision to split from the other two, but Dray decided he'd have made his displeasure known if he hadn't agreed.
Unable to keep crouching down without drawing attention, he rose up, and went still when someone tapped his shoulder.
“You the one who wants a cloak?” The Tecran who asked was young, perhaps just into adulthood. He was holding a cloak out to Dray.
“Yes.” Dray took it, confused.
“Good deal.” The Tecran looked down at his handheld, grunted in appreciation, and then with a final glance at Dray, turned and disappeared into the crowd.
“What was that?” Dray pulled the cloak on, lifted the hood, and immediately relaxed a little as he suddenly became just one more body in the square.
“I sent him an offer through his handheld for more money than the cloak was worth.”
Dray could hear the dismissive shrug in Bane's voice.
He began to edge out of the crowd, making for the right-hand side of the square. There was chanting near the center, although another group was obviously trying to drown the chanting out with shouts of their own. Most, however, said nothing. Instead, they watched the massive screens, where the debate about the UC's arrival played out with various opinion leaders, and kept an uneasy eye on the more vocal and committed protesters, of all persuasions.
They were invested, but weren't sure of the correct course, Dray realized. They knew they were in the wrong with the UC, but they didn't like having their sovereignty taken from them, even for a set period of time.
It was a hard place to be caught in.
So they stood watch, waiting to be persuaded over to one side or the other.
Most of them balanced on the middle line. He could see it in the way they put some distance between themselves and those who had picked a side and waged a war of opposing views in the center of the square. They huddled together in smallish groups, jostled at times by the sheer number of citizens in the square, but their presence kept things just the right side of nonviolent.
Dray reached the pavement and then eased into a narrow alleyway that had almost no one in it.
“Keep going until the next intersection, then turn left.” Bane's voice in his ear was louder now he had a little distance from the shouting and noise.
He turned when he reached the corner, and almost stopped dead when he noticed two Tecran standing close together outside the door of one of the soaring Fa'allen buildings.
He checked his reaction, forcing himself to continue walking, head down, hands in the deep pockets of the cloak.
There was no response from Bane, and Dray realized he couldn't see the Tecran. In this environment he wasn't all knowing, as he'd been when he'd flown side by side with the Urna.