“We’re going to take up a tight orbit. Out beyond us will be five transports full of I-A marines and a Class IX Monitor with one planet-buster. You’re calling the shots, God help you! First, we want to know if they have the Delphinus ... and if so, where it is. Next, we want to know just how warlike these goons are. Can we control them if they’re bloodthirsty. What’s their potential?”
“In five days?”
“Not a second more.”
“What do we know about them?”
“Not much. They look something like an ancient Terran chimpanzee ... only with blue fur. Face is hairless, pink-skinned.” Stetson snapped a switch. The translite map became a screen with a figure frozen on it. “Like that. This is life size.”
“Looks like the missing link they’re always hunting for,” said Orne. “Yeah, but you’ve got a different kind of a missing link.”
“Vertical-slit pupils in their eyes,” said Orne. He studied the figure. It had been caught from the front by a mini-sneaker camera. About five feet tall. The stance was slightly bent forward, long arms. Two vertical nose slits. A flat, lipless mouth. Receding chin. Four-fingered hands. It wore a wide belt from which dangled neat pouches and what looked like tools, although their use was obscure. There appeared to be the tip of a tail protruding from behind one of the squat legs. Behind the creature towered the faery spires of the city they’d observed from the air.
“Tails?” asked Orne.
“Yeah. They’re arboreal. Not a road on the whole planet that we can find. But there are lots of vine lanes through the jungles.” Stetson’s face hardened. “Match that with a city as advanced as that one.”
“Slave culture?”