“What band? Microwave? IR?”
Her sunburned face tightened with suspicion. “Family business.”
“You a Niner?”
“Naysay. Families keep their tech stuff to selves, though.”
“Your Family does?”
“Sure. I’m Cap’n of the Sebens. Believe me, we got reasons.”
“Like?” Killeen persisted.
“Old ways, from back in the days when the Families didn’t have so much trouble from mechs.”
“I thought we were all united under the Supremacy.”
“His Supremacy.”
“Yeasay, yeasay. Look, how the Sebens fit in w’all the other Families? I can’t follow all the Family names and—”
“Old sayin’, Seben Come Elebben. Only there aren’t many Elebbens left now. Mechs cut ’em up somethin’ awful. What was left the Cybers pretty well mashed.”
The woman’s voice was like gravel poured down a pipe. Killeen could hear the edge of authority in it that Fanny had possessed. He said carefully, “Still, we united, why not share tech?”
“Wont be secret then.”
“It’d help if we knew each other’s weapons.”
“Howcome?”
“Things get tight, more’n one Family can use ’em.”
The woman shook her head. “You don’t keep a craft to yourself, you lose it.”
“But—” The woman’s exasperated shake of her head told Killeen this was useless territory to explore. He changed tack and said casually, “Must be hard, carryin’ ’quipment big as all that ’round on your backs.”
“Seen worse.”
“Okay for holdin’ someplace, like a Citadel, but—”
“Your people had a Citadel?”
This was the first sign of interest in his origins anyone had shown. Killeen wondered how concerned he would have been when he was running from mechs on Snowglade; probably not much. “Yeasay, a great one. Good air defenses.”
“We kept some our big weapons. Held off the mechs long enough so’s we could break ’em down, pack out the parts on carryslings.”
Killeen could guess the price paid in such a holding action, caught in the wild, unreckonable swirl of battle, crossed by deviant slants of deadly fortune. He said respectfully, “That stuff must slow you down when you hit and move, though.”
“That’s true ’gainst mechs. Up ’gainst Cybers, though, you have the heavy stuff or they’ll squash you. Cybers’re harder.”
“Howcome?”
“They can read your tech straight out. Feel a ticklin’ in your head and then it’s gone.”
“You mean invade your sensorium, take your knowhow? But that’d kill you.”
“Don’t hafta.” She hawked roughly and spat a brown wad a hand’s length in front of her right boot, all without breaking stride.
Killeen said, “Where I come from, mech bothers to do all that much, it just kills you suredead long as it’s taken the trouble.”
She nodded and coughed. Fifteen men came struggling up the path carrying a piece of mechtech that Killeen could not identify and the three of them stepped aside to let the party pass.
She said, “I ’member when mechs did that. But they stopped when we started gettin’ the better of ’em.”
“His Supremacy says you had ’em beat.”
Grudgingly she said, “For a while.”
“How?”
“We cooperated a li’l with some mech cities. Helped ’em take out their competition.”
Killeen was puzzled. “Other mechs?”
“Yeasay. His Supremacy worked it out with ’em.”
“Where I come from, we had some Families try that. Dangerous, though. The deals never lasted long.”
