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species who had somehow routed his legions.
He had been obliged to recall more troops from the outer marches of his
crumbling realm to insure that nearby worlds under his dominion remained that
way. The Regent rasped angrily at the thought that perhaps his task force had
met with some reversal. At the worst possible time!
And then there was the thought that chilled him as much as any. What if
the Robotech Masters should return to wage bloody war, and catch him in this
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disorganized state? He rumbled with displeasure, kicking out at a pillar that
resembled a neural axon.
He cursed his mate again, for taking half his race from him. What could
she need them for? She wasn't even engaged in conquest! Wasn't even pretending
to help him maintain sway over the realm. It wasn't fair; this was all her
fault.
Something had to be done.
The Regent paused, turned, started off in another direction. When he got
to the vast egg chamber, he was pleased to find that nothing was amiss, and
the Special Children of the Regis were all there, unmoving and unaware in
then-gelatinous suspension. Row by row, rank on rank.
"Special Children." Typical of her, she hadn't even deigned to tell him
what the phrase meant. The Regis had merely made it clear that these were to
be some ultimate manifestation of the Invid genetic heritage, and that theirs
would be some higher destiny.
"Indeed?" the Regent snorted to himself. When the empire was crumbling
and the enemies of the Invid might be at the very Home Hive soon? What higher
destiny could such Special Children have than to defend their Regent and
conquer, conquer for the glory of the Invid?
Yet-he must proceed carefully. He wasn't even sure what he was dealing
with. It wouldn't do to unleash some new and even worse danger-perhaps a
generation of Invid who would know no loyalty to him, or even be infected with
aspirations of their own.
No, best to go cautiously. In the interim, he could reassign his forces,
maintain the status quo for the time being. He had already managed to scrape
up some frontier troops and dispatch them to reinforce the depleted Karbarran
garrison. Perhaps he could even use the Special Children as a bargaining
chip-get the Regis to trade him the loyal fighters he required in return for
these quiescent eggs.
And Tesla! With his mystical talk about the Fruit of the Rower and his
promises to bring a menagerie of defeated enemies for the Regent's
entertainment! What of him?
Seething, the Regent went off to dispatch another message to Haydon IV
and demand immediate word of Tesla, on pain of horrible punishment to those
all along the line who might fail to provide it.
"I simply have a feeling she'll listen to you," Vince Grant told his
wife. "You just have that way with people, darling."
She put down the medical report she had been filling out, preliminary
evaluations of the vast array of salves, preparations, pills, and powders from
every Sentinel's homeworld; she was trying to understand them and the
physiologies of the patients she would be expected to minister to.
"Vince, why don't you talk to Crysta. I mean, you're more her size."
That got a grudging chuckle out of him. "I don't think this has anything
to do with size. I'm just a jumped-up engineer who got a commission 'cause he
knows what makes the GMU tick. But you understand people, and Crysta's just
big furry people. Besides, you're a mother."
Jean looked him over. "What's that got to do with it?"
"I'm not sure. I was showing her around the GMU and, you know, there's
that picture of Bowie on my desk. When I explained about him, it made her clam
up, and she cut the tour short."
Jean felt a mixture of curiosity and professional obligation now; he had
seen her get interested in a case, just like this, so many times before. "We
really don't know much about the Karabarran children, do we? Oh, the
reproductive cycle's right there in the data banks, nothing unusual-especially
when you compare them to those Spherians! But I mean, what's happening to them
right this second?"
"That occurred to me, too," Vince said soberly.
She rose and kissed her husband, standing on tiptoe to do it. "You're
pretty smart for a jumped-up engineer, y'know that?"
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