To the question, what shall we do to be saved in this World? there is no other answer but this, Look to your Moat.
George Sevile, Marquis of Halifax
The foolish will now ask and say:
“What has made the faithful turn away from the qiblah toward which they used to pray?”
Say: “To God belong the East and the West.
He guides who so wills to the path that is straight.”
al-Qur’an
Hyperspace links only specific points. The time required to travel from one Alderson point to another is immeasurably short; but once that Jump has been made, the ship must proceed through normal space to the next Alderson point. This can take weeks to months depending on the Alderson geometry, ship speed, and logistics.
Sinbad was faster than most passenger liners, and Bury had arranged to be met by other ships of his fleet carrying supplies and fuel, so that Sinbad could go by the most direct route possible; and even so the trip lasted long enough to put everyone on edge. They remained polite; but everyone was glad that Sinbad’s size allowed some privacy
Yet Renner observed that the odd friendship between Bury and Buckman remained as strong as ever; and if the new Viceroy was tiring of being told stories of Imperial trade on the one hand, and the follies of Imperial science policy on the other, he showed no signs of it. Renner had long since taken to excusing himself quickly after the evening formal dinner
He was glad to be able to announce the last Jump. “It’ll be about midnight ship’s time,” he said. “Take your sleeping pills and you may sleep through it.”
“I wish I could,” Ruth Cohen said. “And I don’t think I’ll ever get used to Jump shock.”
“You can sleep through it, but you won’t get used to it,” Renner said. “It’s not something you can get used to. Anyway, this is the last for a while.”
“One of my ships should be waiting,” Bury said,
Renner nodded. “Yes, sir. They’ll have been waiting awhile. We had a message saying it passed through three weeks ago.”
Bury grimaced. “A costly rendezvous. Ah, well. Thank you, Kevin.”
A thin, reedy voice rang through the ship, first in Arabic, then in Anglic. “Prayer is better than sleep! Come to prayer! I witness that the Lord our God is One God. I bear witness that there is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is the Prophet of Allah. Come to prayer. God is great! Prayer is better than sleep!”
Ruth Cohen sat bolt upright. “What in the world . . .”
The ship was in free-fall. The Velcro covers had held her snugly in the bed, and she’d got so used to gravity changes in the past few weeks that taking the spin off the ship hadn’t awakened her. Must have been done smoothly. She realized she was alone in the bed. And I really did sleep through the Jump, too.
Kevin Renner floated in from the adjoining cabin as the thin singsong finally ceased.
“Shh.”
“But-“
“Horace has visitors. Partners, or relatives, both maybe, from Levant on the supply ship. Bury has Nabil play muezzin when he wants to look like a conventional Moslem. Sorry I couldn’t warn you, we only found out when we docked ships, and I was busy then.”
“But-“
Renner grinned. “They wouldn’t appreciate that Sinbad’s pilot sleeps with a concubine.”
“I am not-“
“Well, I know that, and you know that, but they won’t know that. Anyway, I take it back. They won’t be shocked that I have a concubine. They might not be thrilled by your name.”
“Name.”
“You’re from Dyan.”
“I’m not from Dyan, I’m from New Washington.”
“I know.”
“And I am a Navy officer, on assignment.” She looked down at her translucent harem set and tried to grin. “Well, not on duty just at the moment-Kevin, this is not funny.”
“Well, maybe not. At least it wasn’t hard to figure the direction.”
“Kevin-“
“Point toward Earth and you’re facing Jerusalem and Mecca both. No difference from here. Same qiblah.”
“What has this got to do with anything?”
“I read up on it once,” Renner said. “When Mohammed first went to Medina, he preached that the Jews and the Believers were one people, all descended from Abraham, and they’d all have one Messiah. Maybe himself, but that wasn’t established. One God, Allah, who was the same as the Jewish Jehovah. Mohammed venerated the Torah. Prayed toward Jerusalem.”
“Jerusalem? Kevin, why are we discussing this?”
“So you won’t brood about being insulted.”
“I still don’t like it.’
“Of course not. Neither does Bury. You’re a guest. If you insist on acting like one, Bury will cooperate. God knows what it would cost him, though.”
“Oh.” Ruth pulled a sheet up to her chin and wriggled farther down into the covers holding her to the mattress. “All right. Tell me more. Are you making all this up?”
Renner smiled. “Nope. I’m told that in Medina there’s a famous mosque, called the mosque of the Two Qiblahs-“
“Qiblah. Direction?’
“Yeah, aspect. Direction the mosque faces. Mohammed sent letters to the Jewish leaders inviting them to join him. They wouldn’t. They said you had to be a son of Jacob to inherit the kingdom and get all the benefits of the prophecies, and Arabs didn’t qualify since they were only sons of Abraham.”
“And nobody cared about the daughters.”
“Not a bit. But for a couple of years they faced Jerusalem, not Mecca, to do their prayers. But when the Jews rejected his offer, Mohammed brooded about it. One morning, Mohammed was in the middle of his prayers, facing Jerusalem, and all of a sudden he swung round to face Mecca. Everybody else did, too, of course. And that’s why Arabs and Jews fight.”
“I never heard that.”
“True, though.” Renner looked thoughtful. “Good thing, too. Can you imagine what would have happened to Europe if the Jews and the Moslems had been on the same side? Anyway that’s the story of the Two Qiblahs. Now for the fun part.”
“Fun part?”
“For the next two weeks we have this ship pretty well to ourselves. The supply ship isn’t the only one Bury had meet him here. He’s got a hospital ship that would make the Navy’s doctors drool kittens. In about three hours, Horace and the Viceroy and Buckman are going to board Mercy of Allah, and by the time we get to New Ireland they’ll be new men.”
“Wow. Aren’t you included?”
Renner grinned. “What’s the matter, don’t like the old one?”
“Well, my opinion’s on record, but it doesn’t seem hardly fair.”
“But who’d keep you company? Actually, I got rebuilt just before we went to the Purchase. Time enough for touch-ups when we’re in orbit and I don’t have piloting duties. But we’ll be pretty much alone with the staff most of the way into New Ireland.”
“I suppose it’s just as well. I’m not sure I want to be around a Kevin Renner with more energy than you’ve already got.”
NEW CALEDONIA: Star system behind the Coal Sack with P8 primary star cataloged as Murcheson A. The distant binary, Murcheson B, Is not pail of the New Caledonia system. Murcheson A has six planets in five orbits, with four inner planets, a relatively wide gap containing the debris of an unformed planet, and two outer planets in a Trojan relationship. The four inner planets are named Conchobar, New Ireland, New Scotland, and Fomor, in their order from the sun, which is known locally as Cal, or Old Cal, or the Sun. The two middle planets are inhabited, both terraformed by First Empire scientists after Jasper Murcheson, who was related to Alexander IV, persuaded the Council that the New Caledonian system would be the proper place to establish an Imperial university. It is now known that Murcheson was primarily interested in having an inhabited planet near the red supergiant known as Murcheson’s Eye. and as he was not satisfied with the climate of New Ireland, he demanded the terraforming of New Scotland as well.
Fomor is a relatively small planet with almost no atmosphere and few interesting features, It does, however, possess several fungi that are biologically related to other fungi found in the Trans-Coal Sack sector.
The two outer planets occupy the same orbit and are named Dagda and Mider in keeping with the system’s Celtic mythological nomenclature. Dagda is a gas giant, and the empire maintains fuel stations on the planet’s two moons, Angus and Brigit. Merchant ships are cautioned that Brigit is a Navy base and may not be approached without permission.
“Which we won’t need to do, thanks to Bury’s supply ship,” Renner said, wiping the screen. “We’re good all the way to New Ireland.”
NEW IRELAND: Second planet of the New Caledonia system. New Ireland was terraformed by First Empire scientists under the influence of Jasper Murcheson and was the original site of the Trans-Coal Sack branch of the Imperial University until the campus was moved to New Scotland.
The inhabitable areas of New Ireland are comparatively small and confined to the temperate-zone areas adjacent to the single major sea. Climate in the inhabitable zone is warm and pleasant. The soil is fertile and there are few insects or other predators. Crop yields are high.
New Ireland joined the Secessionists and continued the war long after both New Ireland and New Scotland had become isolated from their respective allies.
Little industry has been rebuilt since the destruction sustained during the Secession Wars. This was originally due to opposition from New Scotland, but is now apparently the choice of the New Irish Parliament. Consequently New Ireland remains a backwater with tourism as the major source of hard currency
New Ireland and particularly the region known as Deny, is fiercely sought by Imperial Navy crews as a place for shore leave,
Sinbad’s B lounge was an add-on pod the shape of a lima bean. Ruth Cohen had set the wall transparent. Andrew Mercer found her reading at a viewscreen, with stars blazing around her and the Coal Sack behind her. The blackness in the other direction was New Ireland’s night side.
He’d been watching the Coal Sack on and off ever since Sinbud arrived iii New Cal system. He preferred not to let himself know that the view made him uneasy. The vast black blot stretched across thirty degrees of sky, in the shape of a hooded man with one glowing red eye. Murcheson’s Eye, the red supergiant, had a yellow fleck in it: the MOte. And Ruth was a child in the arms of the Hooded Man, her face eerily lit from underneath by the computer screen.
Mercer moved around her to see over her shoulder.
“Greetings, Your Highness.” Ruth said.
“Not for two more hours. I don’t become Viceroy until we land.”
“But you’ve been in the New Cal system for three weeks. And know you’ve been reading reports and sending instructions.”
Mercer shrugged. “Two weeks of that was in the hands of Bury’s djinni.” He stretched. “Do I look different?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. Not much, but I can tell. I wonder how long Bury will keep Mercy here?”
“A while, I gather. He plans on some touch-ups. Thinking of taking a turn in the tank?”
“I just might once we settle in. It’s not an opportunity I’ll get very often. So tomorrow’s the big day. Why New Ireland instead of New Scotland?”
“Actually, Sir Kevin suggested it. After I thought it over, it did seem a good idea to have the formal installation on New Ireland. Patch up the old wounds. Let the New Irish know they’re accepted. Even if I can’t begin work until we get to New Scotland.”
“Well, Trujillo got here first.”
Ruth scrolled back to the beginning of the news squib. Mercer read over her shoulder
Dateline Montenth 32, 3047. Derry, New Ireland. Mel-Ling Trujillo. His Highness arrives tomorrow. Not only is this the first official visit of an Imperial Viceroy to New Ireland since the wars ended, but Arthur Calvin Mercer will be formally installed as Viceroy for His Majesty’s Domains Beyond the Coal Sack in the New Ireland Parliament building.
The Government clearly expects this to be a big deal and has gone all out to bring in official guests to witness the event. There will be three days of official holiday. The New Cal branch of the Imperial Traders Association has arranged for fireworks and is paying for an all-day banquet.
There’s no question that among the best people of New Ireland the installation will be the biggest show since INSS Terrible bombarded Derry and ended New Ireland’s secession eighty years ago.
At tomorrow’s ceremony the Fleet will be represented by three ships, the largest a light cruiser, It seems none of the others in the New Scotland naval yards is spaceworthy. When His Highness has had enough pomp and ceremony and wants to get to work, he might start by looking into the Yardmaster’s records.
Meanwhile, for most of New Ireland it’s business as usual, and an unusual business it is.
For fifty-six years the province of Derry has been visited by the Navy on leave. They were not always welcome; but they have always been the source of money, and money heals many wounds. Today Derry is famous for its welcome.
The scars from Terrible’s visit have long disappeared. Elsewhere on the planet, much of Murcheson’s careful terratorming has also disappeared, leaving vast desert regions. But from the top of Romance Crag. Derry still looks like farmland, miles of it in all directions. The town is not one clump; it stretches arms along the crests of the hills, with farmland below.
In the streets it is quite different.
The whores have a wholesome look, I questioned several, and I always had the feeling that they were laughing at me. Uncorrupted. Part of the answer is that I was never able to find one twice. “We come for a little day trip, and maybe we make some money. Then it’s back to work with the pigs and the corn,” Deirdre told me.
She knows who her father is. Jaynisse doesn’t, both thought it an odd question.
If you walk the streets of Derry, you’ll find there aren’t any brothels, but there are whole blocks of hotels that will provide rooms by the night or by the hour. Most of them have splendid room service.
It is estimated that the average Able Spacer will leave three months’ pay on Derry. It you count in the petty officers, the average Navy man spends nearly eighteen hundred crowns here. It is, by the way, very much an average. The Navy people save for their visit here, but they also gamble heavily.
Navy men-I haven’t found any women spacers who’ll admit being interested in Derry-tend to spend heavily, but it isn’t all wine and women. “I always go to the Dream Palace,” the midshipman I’ll call Carlos Meredith told me. “You can bring your own game cassettes and interface them and play the locals. Anything new from Sparta, the locals love it. I usually win for the first day.”
Then he finds a girl and goes off to sleep and comes back the next day and loses what he has left, “The locals are pretty quick with a new game.”
Ruth glanced up at Mercer. “There’s more, but here’s the tag.” She skipped to the end of the file.
They find a lot to worry about in Government House, but in the Fleet there’s only one topic of conversation. Will the new Viceroy close down Derry?
“Humpf,” Mercer said.
“Sir?” Ruth asked.
“She can’t mean that. No columnist could be dumb enough to think my first act would be to close the one thing that makes blockade duty tolerable.”
“Not much work for you here,” Mercer said. “No Outies anywhere, and I can’t see how the Secret Service could learn more about the Mote. Maybe you’ll find a plot on New Ireland.”
“It may not be that funny. There aren’t many active anymore, but the Rebel Alliance still exists, you know.”
“They threw a bomb at Governor Smelev. But that was years ago. I think the worst we have to worry about on New would be getting too far behind on our shots.”
The intercom saved Ruth from having to answer. “They finally called,” said Renner’s voice. “All personnel, strap in. Ruth, come forward. You don’t know how to steal a spacecraft until you can land it.”
The inauguration ceremonies had begun at noon and lasted six hours. The celebrities had gone their own ways. Now trucks were moving between the barricades that lined Skid Street. The sun was still well up.
Kevin and Ruth strolled along the main drag. Here was the Falling Ship, a hotel made up of two-story buildings laid in squares, flowerbeds between, aerial ramps linking the roofs. Kevin wondered what they were charging for rooms with a view of Skid Street. A taller hotel could have made considerably better profits on a day like this...but nothing stood tall on New Ireland, not even the Palace.
The trucks were opening like flowers. Ruth and Kevin stopped to watch one unfold. In minutes it had become a bakery, and merrymakers were swarming to buy fresh bread. Kevin bought a loaf, tore off two pieces, and handed one to Ruth.
They ate. “All right. You don’t get this on shipboard,” Ruth said. “Let’s find some fruit.”
“Crudités’?” Renner dropped what remained of the loaf and guided her to a vegetable stand. The trucks had all looked alike; now all the suddenly blooming stands were different, and the trucks within had vanished. They munched carrots and a head sized radish as they walked.
“I smell meat,” Kevin said. “That way.”
“It’s not all sex here,” Ruth said.
The sudden market already swarmed with women, young and middle-aged, varying between comely and beautiful, but generally good-looking. Men in Navy uniforms stopped to talk and found ready companionship. “I never did get shore leave on New Ireland,” Kevin said. “We all knew it was what we wanted. Family cooking, fresh food, and wholesome sex. Hard to say which a Navy man wants more, after a year eating bioplast and yeast steaks. And marijuana. Even a little borloi. They told me you can get drunk, too, but you have to go looking for liquor, and it isn’t in the rituals, if you follow me. No bars.”
“And you’re finally in Derry, but there’s a woman hanging on your arm,”
“I’ll tough it out somehow. And there’s dinner. What the blazes is it? Or was it?”
A carcass roughly the size of an ox was roasting over a fire. Right here in the street? Yes, but the fire was sitting on ribbed metal, the fold-down side of another truck. New Irish kept things neat. The burly proprietor cut them two slices and sealed them in plastic. They walked on.
“Speaking of sex,” Kevin said, “what did you think of Trujillo?”
“I guess that look never goes out of style.”
“No makeup. You probably thought she was careless. Look like a mouse, but wear a thin dress and no underwear. It turns men on. Worked on you, didn’t it?”
“Point taken.”
Ruth sighed. “It only works when you’re young. Maybe I will take Bury up on his offer. Look, jugglers.”
“Did you like her?”
“Trujillo? I’m not supposed to like her. She’s no friend to the Navy. But the real answer is I didn’t get much chance to talk to her.”
“You will,”
“Kevin?”
“Weeks ago she requested passage to the Crazy Eddie Squadron. We all decided she could ride aboard Sinbad.”
“Oh.”
“Bury’s idea. He wants to convert her into a Motie hater.” Renner chuckled. “Fresh blood for His Excellency. Mercer heard Horace’s spiel so often he was ready to scream if anyone mentioned the Moties. He already sent a letter of invitation.”
“Hmm. And you won’t say whether she turns you on. I think I’d better do some shopping. Or should I bother?”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning we both know this doesn’t last forever. Getting tired of me?”
“Not yet. Want out?”
“Not yet.” She nodded thoughtfully, then smiled. “We’ll leave it that way, then.”
Renner took out his pocket computer. “According to Ms. Trujillo’s article, the Brick Moon serves artichokes eighteen different ways. Room service in the hotel next door. Interested?”
“Mmm. Dammit, you’ve got me thinking like you.”
“How so?”
“I want to see how the clerk acts when he sees you walk in with off-planet competition.”
The art of putting the right man in the right places is first in the science of government; but that of finding places for the discontented is the most difficult.
Talleyrand
NEW SCOTLAND: Third planet of the New Caledonia system. Originally lifeless with extensive atmosphere of methane and water vapor, New Scotland was terraformed by massive infusions of genetically engineered microbes.
The original colonists lived under domes...
New Scotland’s major city was dominated by the Viceregal Palace. It stood in the center of a series of concentric rings; much like medieval cities on Earth, New Scotland’s growth was controlled by the city’s defense technologies.
Renner sent the small landing craft in a wide circle to dissipate its speed. “There are some changes.” He pointed to smaller built up complexes out beyond the final ring. “All that’s new since I was here. They must think the war’s finally over, to build outside the Field protection.”
“The Moties have done that much good,” Ruth Cohen said. “They’ve got New Scotland and New Ireland thinking ‘us’ about each other. Except at football games.”
“They do get a bit rough, don’t they? Better than throwing bombs at each other . . . well, some better anyway.” But Moties wouldn’t build like that, he thought. Wouldn’t build what they couldn’t defend.
The flier completed its circuit of the city. Renner brought it to the landing area outside the black granite complex of Government House. Bored Marine guards noted Ruth Cohen’s Navy uniform and Renner’s expensive business clothes, perfunctorily took their identity cards and inserted them into computer readers, glanced at the screen, and waved them through into the courtyard. They got inside through an unlocked French door leading into a maze of corridors. Renner tried to lead the way to the Commission meeting rooms, but soon became lost. Finally he stopped looking. “Ah. Here’s a guard.”
They were directed to a different part of the building. Ruth Cohen giggled.
“The last time I was here it was for a meeting in the Council Chamber,” Kevin said. “The big hail with a dome. Anybody could find that. How was I to know they’d put the Commission off here in the Annex?”
In contrast to the Grand Council Chamber, the Commission’s meeting room was strictly functional. There was no throne. The Viceroy’s place was merely an armchair at the center of the big table. The council table was massive. It might have been wood, but Kevin didn’t think so. Chairs for advisers stood behind the table. In front there were seats for an audience of fifty or so. Large view screens, now blank, dominated both side walls.
They had barely got into the room when a tall, balding man dressed in dark, conservative business clothes thrust forward and held out his hand. “Kevin. By God, you look good.” He paused to look at Renner. “Colorful, too.”
Renner frowned for a moment, then grinned. “Jack Cargill. Good to see you.” He turned to Ruth. “Commander-I guess it’s ‘admiral,’ now, isn’t it?”
Cargill nodded.
“Ruth Cohen, meet Admiral Cargill. Jack was Exec in MacArthur,” Kevin explained. “Are you still with the Crazy Eddie Squadron?”
“No, I’m on the High Commission.”
“Gosh. You’re important. And to think we shared a cabin once.”
‘”Here’s another Commissioner you know,” Cargill said. “David.” He indicated a heavyset, balding man in clerical attire.
“Father Hardy,” Renner said. “Hey, it’s good to see you again. What have they done, loaded the Commission down with MacArthur crew?”
“No, we’re the only ones,” David Hardy said. “And I’m not sure in what capacity I’m here.”
Renner noted the large pectoral cross on Hardy’s cassock. “Everybody’s been promoted. Bishop, eh? Do I kiss your ring, my Lord?”
Hardy grinned. “Well, you’re welcome to, but you’re certainly not part of my flock.”
“Sir?”
“I’m missionary bishop to Mote Prime. Of course we don’t have any converts.”
“Sure of that?” Renner asked.
“As a matter of fact, no,” Hardy said. “I never did learn what happened to my Fyunch(click), Not that he was a convert, exactly. Anyway, I might be here as the Church’s representative, or as the only semanticist ever to visit Mote Prime-ah.” He turned toward the door as it opened. “Here’s someone you need to meet again. I’m sure you recognize him.”
A tall naval officer in uniform. He looked young to be a full lieutenant, but then Kevin Christian Blaine’s father had been a lieutenant commander when only a couple of years older, and captain of MacArthur a year after that. The aristocracy got promotions, but they were also weeded out of the service if they couldn’t keep up. Or used to be, Renner thought.
“Your godson, I believe,” Hardy was saying.
“Well, not that I exercised many of the duties of the office,” Renner said. Blaine’s handshake was firm. “And this is Ruth Cohen. How are you, Kevin?”
“Very good, sir. And I really appreciated the things you sent for my birthdays. Some of the oddest stuff-holos, too. You sure got around, Sir Kevin.”
“Kevin Renner, galactic tourist.” Renner reached into a sleeve pocket and took out a message cube. “On that score, your sister sent this. She’s on her way, in case you didn’t know.”
“Thought she might be. I wondered if she might be coming with you.”
“It would have been a bit crowded, and she had a lift. The Honorable Frederick Townsend decided to visit New Caledonia.”
“He probably thinks it was his idea,” Renner guessed.
“You’ve met Glenda Ruth, but not Freddy,” Kevin Blaine observed. It took Renner a moment to realize that he wasn’t asking.
The room began to fill. A half dozen Navy officers in uniform, led by a commander who wore a ship’s miniature badge indicating he was master of a medium cruiser. They waved to Blaine, but stayed to themselves on the other side of the room. A group of civilians sat in adviser chairs and put their pocket computers on the arm-desks. Another knot of Navy officers came in. They had white shoulder boards indicating administrative branch and sat near but not with the combat officers.
“The accountants,” Cargill said. “Here to convince the world that not one cent has ever been wasted.”
“Can they do that, sir?” Ruth asked.
No.” She seemed to expect more, so Cargill said, “No matter how you slice it, blockade duty is long stretches of utter boredom. Spiced up with random moments of sheer terror, of course, but that doesn’t make up for the boredom. Of course the men are going to misbehave. Officers, too. We’re just damned lucky to have troops who’ll do it at all.”
The large double doors at the end of the room opened wide to admit Bury in his travel chair. Renner clucked in disapproval:
Bury’s doctors wanted him to spend more time exercising. Bury was accompanied by Jacob Buckman and Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo.
“She’s wearing underwear today,” Renner said. Ruth made a face at him. If Blaine and Hardy heard the remark, they didn’t comment.
Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo was in fact quite well dressed, in a thin silk afternoon dress that would have been fashionable on Sparta. She carried a pocket computer large enough that she needed a bag for it. Ruth Cohen sniffed. “Doesn’t trust the central computer system to keep records for her.”
“I’ve found journalists are often like that,” Kevin Christian Blaine said.
“Experience?” Renner asked.
“Quite a lot. The Navy likes me to do their talking.” Bury, Buckman, and Trujillo took places in the first row of the audience seats. Blaine glanced at his watch. “I’d best be getting to my post.”
“Me, too,” Cargill said. “Dinner tonight, Kevin?”
“Yes, please. Anyplace special, or shall I ask Bury to invite you up to Sinbad?”
“Sinbad, if you can swing it.”
The double doors were thrown open again, and a palace functionary came in. “My lords, ladies, and gentlefolk, His Highness the Viceroy.”
Everyone stood. There was no other ceremony, but Mercer looked a bit self-conscious as he took his place at the center of the big table. He was joined at the table by Cargill and Hardy, and two others Renner hadn’t met. Their place cards named them as Dr. Arthur MacDonald and Sir Richard Geary, Bart. Renner took a seat near Bury and scribbled on his pocket computer.
Arthur MacDonald, PhD. Professor New Scotland. Holds Blaine Institute Chair of Xenobiology.
Richard Geary, baronet. Investor. Member of Board of Regents, University of New Scotland.
There was more, but Mercer was tapping on the table with his gavel. “I call this meeting of the Imperial Commission to order. Let the record state that this is a public meeting. If there is no objection, we will record the names of attendees.
There were various chirps like a hundred crickets as the palace central computer queried everyone’s pocket computer to get the meeting attendance list. Renner’s computer beeped twice and then rattled. Heads turned. Renner grinned.
Mercer turned to the Commission secretary. “Mr. Armstrong.”
“Thank you, Your Highness,” Armstrong said. His voice was thick with the accent of New Caledonia. In deference to our guests, His Highness has changed the meeting agenda to omit the opening formalities and routine business. We therefore proceed directly to Item Four, the report from the blockade squadron. His Highness has requested that the fleet prepare a summary report covering the principal activities of the squadron through the years, as well as a more detailed report of current actions. The report will be presented by Lieutenant the Honorable Kevin Christian Blaine, executive officer of INSS Agamemnon.”
Chris Blaine stood near the large screen that dominated one wall of the room. “Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Your Highness.”
“The blockade force is formally known as the Eleventh Fleet, or Battle Fleet Murcheson’s Eye. The mission of Battle Fleet Murcheson’s Eye is to intercept any and all ships entering the Empire from the Mote-to enforce the blockade decreed by this Commission. Blockade duty is hard duty, and the officers and men of the Blockade Fleet are proud of our record of one hundred percent success. We have achieved that success in spite of many very real difficulties.”
Renner’s thoughts chased each other:
I wonder who wrote that for him?
Still, the Crazy Eddie Squadron would have driven me nuts.
Heyyy . . . He dared not speak his next thought. Chris doesn’t sound that bloody convincing, does he? Why not? Raised by Mediators- He doesn’t believe what he’s saying.
Blaine gestured, and the wall screen lit up to show a wide-angle view of a dozen blobs ranging in color from black to dull red in a bright red glowing background. “The Alderson point from the Mote lies within the supergiant star. Ships can’t stay on station very long, so there’s a continual circulation of ships from outside the star to the blockade station. They stay until they’re too hot, then they go outside to cool off.
“Motie breakout attempts can happen at any time.”
Four new blobs, all dead black, popped into existence on the screen. Imperial ships became floodlight beams as fusion drives lit within the red-hot murk. The screen showed the beginnings of a space battle. Bright threads sprang between the ships. Torpedoes raced out.
“You’re shooting with no warning!” someone said. Renner looked around to see Joyce Mei-Ling looking embarrassed, clearly not having meant to speak aloud.
Blaine said, “We wouldn’t be telling them anything they don’t know, Ms. Trujillo. The best time to hit the Motie ships is during Jump shock, when their automated systems are shut down. If we wait until they’ve recovered enough to communicate, we might not be able to catch them at all. The rules of engagement acknowledge that.”
“A question, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, Your Highness?”
“Suppose they wanted to negotiate. To surrender?”
“They may well try to,” Blaine said. “But how could we know? They cannot come through with no Field. The star would cook them. We can’t wait until they get out of the eye, or we’d lose them entirely. This was debated in the first meeting of the Commission, and the rules of engagement were adopted then. They haven’t been changed because there’s no way to change them, Your Highness. The way to surrender is not to come through.”
Mercer nodded thoughtfully. “Proceed, Lieutenant.”
Renner glanced over at Bury. He was watching, fascinated, but seemed calm. Probably tranquilized to the eyes.
“Motie breakout attempts have ranged from the simple to ingenious,” Blaine said.
The screen showed a kaleidoscope of actions. Single ships; armadas of ships; cluster ships that came apart like grenades and scattered; ships that came out at enormous velocity, tearing meteor trails through orange-hot gas.
“Now, this one was a beauty,” Chris Blaine said with what had to be pride. They watched an iceball two kilometers across emerge from the invisible Alderson point. “Four days after I joined the Crazy Eddie Squadron, at the noon watch. The squadron chased after it. The comet-head left a comet-trail of itself as it plunged through the rarefied star-stuff. It dwindled, evaporated, exposing black beads: ships in Langston Field bubbles that raced off in random directions to be chased down by squadron ships.
“Of course we can’t send all our ships against any single attempt,” Blaine said. “There always has to be a reserve. Since there’s no possible way the information could get back to the Mote, I suppose it’s safe to say that sometimes that reserve has gotten critically thin.”
Chris sounds better, surer. This part he knows, Renner thought; it’s the cover-up he doesn’t like. “He’s pretty good,” he said to Ruth Cohen.
“Given his training, he damned well ought to be,” Ruth replied. The presentation continued. There were clips of the men amusing themselves on long watches. Then more battle scenes.
“Lately the Moties have a new trick,” Blaine said. “They’re sending what we’ve termed ‘token ships.’ These are unmanned ships, really only the framework of a ship, just an Alderson Drive and two tanks and a fusion motor. With this one, the sixth, we held off to see if it would do anything.”
It didn’t. They saw an absurd stick-figure of a ship pop into existence at low velocity and immediately begin to melt.
Mercer cleared his throat. “Commander, do you have any theories on why they would send such things?”
“No, Your Highness. They come one at a time; no Field, they’re easy to shoot down. No attempt to send messages. If they wanted us off guard, why send anything at all? It’s as if they want us to be alert. We’ve speculated that they may want to locate the Alderson point more precisely-at their end, in Mote system-but they know that well enough to send ships through at point one percent of lightspeed. We can’t do that.”
“Hah,” Renner said. Everyone looked in his direction. “I think I know-“
“Yes, of course,” Buckman said. He stood up. “Sir Kevin is right.”
“Jacob-“ Bury said. His voice was surprisingly strong.
“Oh. Um. Yes, of course. Cal-Your Highness, should I explain?”
Mercer was nodding gloomily. No surprises here. “Please do, Dr. Buckman.”
“They’re not trying to locate the Alderson point, they’re proving that it’s still there.”
“Still there?” Jack Cargill sounded shocked. “Excuse me, Dr. Buckman, but why the devil shouldn’t it be there?’
“Because it will move when the protostar collapses,” Buckman said. “Renner, you seem to be good at talking to amateurs. Maybe you ought to tell them.”
They listened as Kevin Renner talked. Kevin watched their eyes for bewilderment or comprehension, watching-he didn’t realize it at first-for Kevin Christian Blaine’s surprise or disbelief. But Blaine’s eyes widened in a slap-my-head Eureka! reaction: old knowledge falling into place. Oh, Lord, he believes it.
“I see,” Bishop Hardy said. “I think I understand. But as the least technical person on the Commission, perhaps I should summarize and the experts can tell me if I’ve left anything out.”
“Please,” Mercer said.
“We are now convinced that the Moties deceived us about their stellar observations, particularly regarding the protostar. They convinced Dr. Buckman that the protostar will not ignite for from centuries to millennia. It now appears that it may collapse and ignite at any time. Might even have done so already.”
“Yes,” Buckman said. His voice was grim. “I have to give young Arnoff credit. He was right.”
“When it ignites,” Hardy said, “the Eleventh Fleet will be guarding an entry point that no longer exists.”
“Well, may not, and will have moved a considerable distance in any case,” Buckman said. “I’ve been working on the geometry, but with much of the data suspect it’s hard to be exact. Everything depends on the violence of the collapse and the brightness of the new star.”
“Yes,” Hardy said. “In any event, their first warning would be when the Jump point in Murcheson’s Eye moves. Meanwhile, we expect at least one more unguarded Alderson point leading from the Mote into normal space rather than to the inside of a star. And since Alderson Path events happen nearly instantaneously, all this will happen before any light from the protostar reaches us-or reaches the Mote. And therefore you have concluded that the Moties are hurling these cheap probes, these tokens, through periodically to see if the old Point has moved.”
“Precisely,” Buckman said.
There was a long, low whistle from the skipper of Agamemnon.
“Your pardon, Highness.”
“Not at all, Commander Balasingham, I nearly did the same myself,” Mercer said. “The situation appears serious indeed. One question. The Navy has ways to determine the location, and thus presumably the existence, of Alderson points without sending ships through them. Don’t we?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Commander Balasingham said. He nervously stroked his thick mustache.
“So why the tokens?”
“Disturbances?” Renner said.
“Sir Kevin?”
“Back when I was a navigator, finding an Alderson point was one of the trickiest things we could do. It’s never easy, and it’s impossible during heavy sunspot activity or during a battle, because Alderson events are very responsive to thermonuclear fluxes.”
“You think there may be thermonuclear bombs going off in the Mote system?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me, sir.”
“Nor me,” Bishop Hardy said.
Joyce Mel-Ling Trujillo had sat quietly during all this. Now she came to her feet. “May I ask...”
“Please,” Mercer said.
“You’re suggesting that the Moties are about to get out.”
Renner said, “Right.”
“But that’s-“ She looked at Bury, who was staring ahead with unseeing eyes, his breathing carefully controlled. “Shouldn’t we do something?”
Everyone spoke at once. And Bury’s eyes flicked up at her. Rage and despair, and a sudden twitch of a mad smile.
Mercer tapped on the table with his gavel. “Of course Ms. Trujillo is correct,” he said. “We should do something. The question is what? And I’m not certain that subject needs debate in a public meeting.”
“Why not? Who doesn’t belong here?” Trujillo demanded.
“Well, you for one,” Commissioner MacDonald said. “I dinna believe we need the press here. Your Highness, I move that we adjourn this public meeting and go into executive session.”
“I expected something like this,” Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo said.
Commissioner MacDonald seemed astonished. “That’s more than I did.”
“Cover-up all the way. Corruption in the fleet, so hide it with something else. Mr. Bury, your reputation precedes you.”
Bury glared. Mercer said, “Madame, I was well aware that the Moties had lied to us. That was a secondary purpose for this meeting. I . . . would have thought we’d have more time. These ‘tokens’-“
“Your Highness, I’ve found enough evidence of corruption that they can smell the stench on Sparta. In a sense I’ve caused this commission, and in the first meeting you want to go into executive session! So far as I am concerned, the council has evaded the question of corruption in the Crazy Eddie Fleet. Do you really expect me to go along with this massive sense of urgency?”
In the moment before anyone could explode, Kevin Blaine caught Mercer’s eye. “Excuse me, my Lord, but she does have a point.”
Looks of fury turned on Blaine, but MacDonald said, “In what fashion, Lieutenant?”
“Urgency. Let us look at this as a gambling situation. What’s the expected return here, the pot odds? The Moties persuaded Dr. Buckman that Mote system could be bottled up for between five hundred and two thousand years. If they thought that lie was worth telling, the expected date must be conspicuously sooner. It can’t be much more than a hundred years, could it? That gap wouldn’t be worth hiding.
“Call it thirty to seventy years. We’ve eaten thirty. Twenty years left, with a fat margin of error. Why the rush?” Blaine turned to Trujillo. “Right?”
“And we know it hasn’t gone off yet!”
“Well, not last month. There’d be some delay before we heard from the Crazy Eddie Fleet. The Jump point from the Eye to here would move. But the urgency is because of these token ships. They indicate that the Moties are ready now. The margin of error could still be large, of course,” Blaine was talking directly to Trujillo now, “but we’re in a maniacal rush so we can get something into place. Anything. Ultimately we’ll move some ships from the Crazy Eddie Squadron so they can sit on their asses for twenty years. Or forty, fifty-“
“Or twenty days,” Bury muttered.
“And why shouldn’t the press be watching that?” Mei-Ling demanded. “Nothing said here can get back to the Moties. You’re only keeping secrets from the public!”
“What’s said here can get back to Outies,” MacDonald said. “And to traitors who might well like to see harm come to the Empire while our strength is massed against the Moties. It’s no been so long since the New Irish threw bombs at the Governor General, you know. Madam, I’ve no doubt of your loyalty, but I do believe you have heard aye more than is safe already. I would no care to see any of this on the tri-vee. Were it left to me-“
“Commissioner MacDonald has a point,” Mercer said. “Miss Trujillo, I must ask you to hold what you have heard here in strict confidence.”
“Suppress a good story?” She smiled thinly. “I wonder if you can make me do that?”
Commissioner MacDonald said, “Your Highness, the law is very clear regarding threats to the Empire. Is this no a state of emergency? You have but to declare one.”
“Even that can’t stop me from writing about corruption and this council’s evasions,” Trujillo said. She paused to let that sink in. “But I’m willing to cooperate. Of course there’s a condition.”
“What is your condition?” Mercer asked.
“Let me find out the rest of the story.”
“What?” MacDonald was outraged.
“Let me finish,” she said. “I’ll take whatever oath you like- oath of the privy council, isn’t it?-and promise not to publish anything, including what I’ve already heard, until you agree it’s safe. But I want to know. I want to be in on the whole story, Moties, corruption in the fleet, all of it.”
“Hmm.” Mercer looked around the room, then down at the screen set discreetly into the table in front of him. “It would appear that you are the only problem guest, Ms. Trujillo. Everyone else here is already under one or another obligation to keep the secrets of the Empire.”
“Him?” Trujillo pointed at Horace Bury.
“As a condition of my accompanying him on his journey to this system, His Excellency and all his crew consented to the conditions of the privy council,” Mercer said. It would have made for an uncomfortable trip without that.”
“I see. All right. Anyway, I’ve said I’ll take your oath.”
“Commander Cohen?” Mercer said. “I make no doubt the Navy has already done a thorough investigation of Miss Trujillo. Has your service any objections?”
“I don’t think so. Joyce, you do understand what you’re doing? You are voluntarily placing yourself under the restrictions of the Official Secrets Acts. The penalties can include exile for life on any world of His Majesty’s choosing.”
“Yes, I know. Thank you for the warning. But this is the only way I’ll ever find out, isn’t it? And if the Moties really are coming out, that will be the biggest story ever.”
“If the Moties really are coming out, it will mean war,” MacDonald said. “And you’ll be under wartime restrictions.”
“Are you objecting to including Ms. Trujillo in our official family of advisers?” Mercer asked.
“No, my Lord. Not really.”
“All right,” Mercer said. “Let’s get on with it. Mr. Armstrong, if you’ll do the honors.”
The Commission secretary fingered his own computer controls. “Miss Trujillo, if you will face His Highness. Raise your right hand and read from the screen in front of you.”
“First things first,” Mercer said. “Admiral Cargill, I presume you’ve sent a standby signal to every ship in the system? Thank you. So just what ships have we?”
“It’s bad timing,” Cargill said. “We’ve got three frigates in transit from the Crazy Eddie Squadron to New Cal-“
“God is good,” Bury muttered. The other three turned to him, and he grinned like a death’s head. “They came through. The Jump point hasn’t moved since ... two weeks ago?”
“Yes, but the ships themselves are all in need of repair. Not a lot of use. Then, a sovereign-class battleship with three general class battle cruisers and assorted light escort ships jumped out to the Eye three hundred hours ago. There’s no way to recall them except to send a messenger ship after them. Nothing else closer than the Crazy Eddie Squadron. Doctor, do we have any damn idea where we’d want to put a second fleet?”
“This is only a first cut,” Buckman said.
After a moment Cargill said, “Cut away.”
Jacob Buckman tapped at keys. A string of numbers appeared on all the consoles. “There. And maybe there.”
“Uh.” Renner looked at the screen. “Right. We’ll almost certainly get a Jump point at MGC-R-31. That’s a smallish star eleven light-years toward the hem of the Hooded Man figure. Eight light years from the Mote. Then we might get one at MGC-R-60, a brighter star a little nearer the Mote, but that one would lead into Murcheson’s Eye. Beyond that .. . Jacob? Something in the Coal Sack itself?”
“Probably not, but even so, Murcheson’s Eye dominates.”
“So it’s just this . . . red dwarf,” Mercer said. “Well, we’ve got to put something there, and I prefer it be now. So what do we have?”
“There’s Balasingham’s Agomemnon,” Cargill said. “A Menulaus-class cruiser. Good ship. I presume you’re ready, Balasingham?”
“Admiral, we can boost out as soon as I’m aboard,” Commander Balasingham said. “I sent up orders to round up the crew and refuel as soon as I understood what Dr. Buckman was saying.”
“Then there’s the Atropos frigate,” Cargill said.
“Sir, I took the liberty of asking her skipper to put that ship on full alert, too,” Balasingham said.
“Good,” Cargill said. ‘Unfortunately, Your Highness, except for some messenger boats and merchantmen, there isn’t anything else. The battle cruiser Marlborough is in the Yards, but it will take a minor miracle to get her out in under a month.”
“Nothing coming in?”
“Not for a month,” Cargill said. “We’ll send messengers out to scrape up what we can find, but-“
“The upshot is that we’ve little enough to send to watch the new Alderson point,” Mercer said. “Two ships.”
“Three, Your Highness,” Bury said.
Mercer looked at him sharply. “Horace, are you all right?”
Bury tried to laugh. The sound that came out was more ghastly than humorous. “Why should I not be? Highness, the worst has happened. The Moties are loose.”
“We don’t know that,” someone said.
“Know?” Bury demanded. “Of course we don’t know. But it is easier to think that way. Highness, there is no time to waste. Let us take whatever we have to the new Alderson point. Kevin, I presume you and Jacob know where it will appear?”
“Close enough for government work. It isn’t a point, it’s an arc four light-minutes long,” Renner said.
“We go, then. Agamemnon, Atropos, and Sinbad.”
“Why Sinbad?” Commander Balasingham asked. “She’s not even armed!”
“You might be surprised,” Mercer said. “Jacob, will you go with them?”
Buckman nodded. “I expected to. And I’d much prefer to work aboard Sinbad than a Navy ship. I remember trying to work aboard MacArthur. Everyone felt entitled to get in my way, block my sightings, move my equipment-“
“Renner, you can’t keep up with us,” Balasingham said.
Renner shrugged. “We won’t be all that far behind. At worst, we’re witnesses, we can report back. Your destruction will make prime-time news.”
Bury scowled. “I suppose the Trujillo woman . . . yes, of course. She would have gone with us to the Eye, after all. We should be on our way now. Now. Allah is merciful. We may yet be there before the Moties. We must be there before the Moties.”
In the name of Allah, most benevolent, ever merciful.
Say: I seek refuge with the Lord of men,
The King of men,
From the evil of him who breathes temptations into the
minds of men,
Who suggests evil thoughts to the hearts of men-
From among the djinns and men.
al-Qur’an
On their last night together, Kevin told Ruth, “I’d take you with me if I could find any kind of excuse. Good or bad.”
“Would you?”
“Yeah. We’re crowded as hell, you know. We’ve dropped part of the kitchen, we’re carrying a drop tank . . .”
She wasn’t buying it. “Love, when we get back into the Empire, it’ll make the news. Contact me then? You’ve got my work number.”
“I gave you mine.”
She looked down at her sleeves. The three rings of a full commander had just been sewn on. “Of course we’re likely to be in different solar systems.”
And it really felt like good-bye.
From New Scotland to the Jump would take nearly two weeks. Agamemnon and Atropos started later, but were moving at two gravities of thrust; they would Jump just ahead of Sinbad. Sinbad could beat them there with the drop tank’s extra fuel, but Kevin refused to subject Bury to more than one gee. He would have preferred less.
This trip wasn’t like the voyage from Sparta. Sinbad felt like a different ship. Attitudes had changed.
With Mercer gone, the kitchen storage region could carry cargo more appropriate to their mission. It didn’t matter much. Sinbad’s kitchen was styled to feed Horace Bury: to create small, healthful meals rich in flavor for a man whose taste buds were almost dead of old age. Now that program served Renner, too. Renner could diet between suns, when fresh food was unavailable anyway. Blaine, a lord’s son but also Navy, expected no better. Buckman never noticed what he ate, and as for Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo . . .
“Ms. Trujillo, are you getting fed all right?”
“Lieutenant Blaine asked me that, too. I eat whatever’s where the story is, Mr. Renner. I’d say you set a fine table, but-have you ever eaten streaker rat? By the way, you’ll be calling me Joyce eventually, won’t you? Start now.”
Perhaps Bury derived some satisfaction from what Joyce didn’t know she was missing. He made no great effort to avoid her; he wasn’t agile enough. In her presence he could be affable, but he called her Trujillo.
And so the ship was settling down, and Kevin Renner was enjoying his freedom.
Freedom. Ridiculous. He was surrounded by people, by walls, by obligations . . . and yet this was his place of power. Horace Bury’s ship; but then, he was Bury’s superior officer in the Secret Service. Sinbad went where he willed . . . except that with the Empire of Man at stake, his will had best take Sinbad straight through to MGC-R-31.
Over the past quarter of a century Kevin Renner and Horace Hussein Bury had evolved routines and rituals. One was coffee after dinner.
“She is attractive enough,” Bury said. He sipped at the thick, sweet brew. “I know planets where she could be sold at a high price.” He chuckled softly. “Not as many as there once were, thanks to our efforts. Perhaps we could arrange to use her as bait.”
“She’d be good at that. For a good enough story she’d volunteer,” Renner said.
Bury fingered his beard and waited.
“Only guessing,” Renner said. “I really haven’t spent much time with her at all.”
“So I noticed.”
“Yeah. Well, put it down to complications. We’ve got all the time in the world just now, but that could change. Or not. Most likely thing is we spend a boring six months in an empty solar system until an Imperial fleet comes in and chases us out.”
“If so, Miss Trujillo will be desperate for distractions,” Bury said. “I would presume from anyone willing to provide them.”
“Hmpf. Truth is, Horace, it feels good to be-unencumbered.”
“The Devil he blew an outward breath, for his heart was free from care.”
Renner grinned. “Something like that.” And maybe she wants something I can’t deliver.
“I cannot say Allah has not been merciful. It would not do to presume too much on His mercy,” Bury said.
“And that’s the truth. We’ll be to the I-point soon enough. What’s happening there could tear everybody’s leisure all to hell.”
“I still don’t understand,” the Honorable Frederick Townsend said. “And I don’t think I ever will.”
“I’m sorry,” Glenda Ruth said. She looked around the ship’s lounge. I think I know every rivet and seam. Hecate was not much larger than a messenger ship. She was fast, but not overly comfortable. Freddy Townsend had bought her for racing, not for long distance cruising. Compartments had been added for ship’s stores and one servant, but everything was cramped. “I should have gone with Kevin-“
“You needn’t start that again, either,” Freddy said. “I suppose you could have gone with them, but why? I’m glad to do you the favor. I like doing things for you. As you must know. But-“ Freddy looked up in irritation as Jennifer Banda came into the lounge. “Dinner in half an hour,” he said. “Guess I’ll get washed up.”
Frederick Townsend insisted on dressing for dinner. It had seemed a bit silly at first, but at least it broke up the monotony. The ship was mostly automated, with only the ship’s engineer, Terry Kakumi, as crew. The only servant was George, a retired Navy coxswain who served as cook, butler, valet, and sometimes piloted the ship as well. Having one nearly formal meal each day gave everyone something to do.
Jennifer waited until Freddy had left the lounge before she spoke. “I walk into something heavy?”
Glenda Ruth shrugged. “No heavier than usual. Glad you came in, though.”
“You’re driving that boy crazy,” Jennifer said. “Sure you want to do that?”
“No, I’m not sure I want to do that.”
“Want to tell me about it?”
“Not really. Yes. What Freddy is too polite to say is, ‘You went to bed with me when we took the trip after graduation, so why won’t you sleep with me now?’”
“Oh. I didn’t know. I mean, I know what’s happened since we left Sparta. Or what hasn’t happened. Glenda Ruth, no wonder he’s going nuts! I mean-“ Jennifer stopped.
“I know what he had every right to expect.”
“All right, so why? Bad experience the first time?”
“No.” Glenda Ruth’s voice was very low and small. “Not a bad experience.” Silence; then, “You’ve studied Moties.”
Jennifer smiled. “But I was raised by an all-human orchestra.”
“Right. I picked up attitudes from the Moties. Consider that I can refuse to mate. From twelve to seventeen years of age I just plain enjoyed that. Then, consider that I can refuse to get pregnant.”
“Freddy?”
“Yes. Sure. I’ve known him since we shared a crib. And we had just under a month . . . which was just about right for both of us to get to know our bodies. Something I wasn’t likely to learn from Moties. Jennifer, I wish to hell I could tell him all this.”
Jennifer was folded up like a stick figure into her web chair. “Ruth, I haven’t heard a problem yet.”
“Sometimes it takes a while before I feel the vibes. Particularly with vague, murky attitudes. You know?” Glenda Ruth was turned away, looking at the universe in a picture-window display. “My parents don’t think it’s right to take a bed partner before I’m married, or at least engaged, but they’re not sure, so I can live with that. Freddy’s parents are sure, but I can live with that, too.”
Glenda Ruth turned around. “But Freddy’s maybe half sure his parents are right, and it was two months after the trip before I realized it, while I was dancing with him, and what it amounts to is this. By the way, I really appreciate you listening.”
“Okay.”
“And understanding. Only a damn Motie expert could listen to this and not try to send me to a confessor. Okay. If I sleep with Freddy, it’s because we’re going to get married or it’s because I’m a slut. I’m not sure I want to marry him, and I’m not sure I don’t. Either way would be okay, but I’m hung up, so . . .”
“No man would understand that line of argument, counselor.”
“Freddy’s not stupid. He’d know, he’d understand, if I could say it right. So I’m still thinking. Damn.”
“He’d marry you-“
Glenda Ruth grinned. “Like a shot. But-look, all my life-“
“All eighteen years.”
“Well, it’s a lifetime to me.” Poor Charlie didn’t last much longer, Glenda Ruth thought. “All my life I’ve had someone who could tell me what to do. Had the right to tell me. Now I don’t. Now I’ve got my own money, and I’m legally an adult. Freedom! It’s wonderful. The last thing I need is a husband.”
“Maybe it’s better this way. You sure keep the Honorable Freddy attentive!”
“Oh, damn, it does look that way, doesn’t it? He hasn’t seen it, but-“
“It’ll be all right. Last jump tonight. We’ll be on New Scotland in three weeks. Freddy can find another girl.” Jennifer grinned. “Don’t like that either? Honey, you are in what the Navy calls an untenable position.”
Her cabin was small, like all the cabins on Hecate. The only spacious cabin belonged to Freddy. Of course he’d expected her to share it.
Why don’t I? she wondered. I lie awake thinking about it. It’s not like I don’t have my pills, or Freddy has some kind of disease. It’s not like I didn’t-all I’d have to do is go tap on his door.
Maybe I’d lose him. Can’t he be replaced? I can pick any stranger out of a crowd and know if he’s sane, trustworthy, intelligent, horny, crosswired, docile. I hear women say they don’t understand men, and I want to snicker- There was a sharp wrenching sensation, and she felt sick and confused. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew the ship had made an Alderson Jump, and she was in the grip of the disorientation that always followed. Her father had told her there were a dozen explanations of Jump shock, all inconsistent with each other, but no one had ever been able to disprove any of them.
Gradually control returned. She moved her fingers, then her hands and arms, until they did what she wanted them to. Freddy always recovered faster than she did. She resented that. Not fair.
And now they were in New Caledonia system. Maybe Freddy would drop her off and go on to New Ireland. . . . She had just settled in to try to sleep when her intercom chirped
“Glenda Ruth.”
It was Freddy, of course. What in the world did he want? Hah. Well, why not? If he could stand her in this condition. It wouldn’t take long to get cleaned up. She tapped the intercom button.
“Hi. Look, I hate to disturb you, but we’ve got a message for you.”
“What?”
“There’s a trader ship here, the New Baghdad Lion.”
“Here?”
“Here. Waiting at the Jump point. They say they have a message for the Honorable Glenda Ruth Fowler Blaine. They need your identification code.”
“Oh. All right, I’ll be right there. You’re on the bridge?”
“Yep.”
“Be right up. And-Freddy, thanks.”
“No problem. Bring your computer.”
This sounded urgent, but she took the time to get dressed, the baggy trousers gathered at the ankles that were standard for low gravity. She also took time to put on an Angora sweater, comb her hair, and dab on lipstick. The ship was under slight acceleration, just enough to bold her slippers to the carpet. She made her way forward. Freddy was alone on the bridge.
He indicated the copilot chair. “They’re standing by for your code.”
She plugged her personal computer into the ship’s system.
“Clementine.”
Yes, dear. The words scrawled across her computer screen.
“We’re supposed to identify ourselves,” Glenda Ruth said. “This is me. Now prove it to them.”
Password.
“Damn it all, you know it’s me. All right.” She sketched rapidly with the stylus; not words, but a cartoon.
Right you are. There was no sound, but she knew the computer was sending an encrypted message that could be decoded using her public key. It hardly mattered what the message was, since only messages encrypted with her secret key could be decoded with her public key. The public/secret key system made for positive identifications as well as secure communication.
“Acknowledged,” a voice said on the ship’s speakers. It was a voice thick with Levantine accent. “Greetings to Miss Glenda Ruth Fowler Blaine. Please prepare to record an encoded message from Lieutenant Kevin Christian Blaine.”
Ah,” Freddy said. “Standing by. Ready. Got it. Thank you, New Baghdad Lion.”
“You are welcome. We have been instructed to offer you fuel.”
“Fuel. Why would we want more fuel?” Freddy asked.
The Levantine voice was unperturbed. “Effendi, His Excellency told us to offer you fuel. We offer it. It will not take long to transfer. Shall we do so?”
Freddy looked to Glenda Ruth. “Now what?”
She shrugged. “They’re bigger than we are, and if they wanted to do us any harm they’d have done it. Why not let them top off your tanks?”
“Lot more than topping off,” Freddy said. “All right. New Baghdad Lion, we accept your offer with gratitude.” He punched an intercom button. “Terry, that merchantman’s going to pump us some hydrogen. Give them a hand, will you? You have the con.”
“Aye, aye. I relieve you,” the engineer said.
Freddy shook his head. “But just what is all this in aid of?”
“Maybe this will tell us,” Glenda Ruth said.
The message had been encrypted using her public key. She set Clementine to decoding it.
Kevin Christian Blaine to Glenda Ruth Fowler Blaine. The rest does not break in clear, the computer informed her.
“Hah. Use Kevin’s special code.”
Willco. She adjusted her earphones and waited. Everyone was assured that the public-key/private-key system was secure against everything. Maybe we’re just paranoid.
She heard, “Sis, we have a problem. The Moties could be loose by the time you get this.”
Freddy was watching her. “Ruth, what’s wrong?”
“Nobody’s dead. Shh.” In the boredom and the interpersonal dominance games, she’d had weeks to forget that she was frightened for the Moties. Now- her brother’s voice said, “We’re taking three ships to the incipient Alderson point, the I-point, at MGC-R-31. Two Navy ships, and Bury’s Sinbad. I’ve been put aboard Sinbad as liaison. I’m the senior Navy officer aboard, but I catch vibes from Renner. He can show he ranks me if he wants to. Maybe by a lot. The other Navy officer who came out here with Sinbad, an Intelligence lieutenant commander, decided she was needed back on New Scotland.
“I don’t think of a lot we can do there by ourselves. The Moties have had a quarter century to prepare for this, and we’re just now realizing we have a problem. I can’t think three ships will have any surprises for them.
“The pot odds say we’ll get there with ten to twenty years leeway, but there are complications. Odd things happening. It might be a lot sooner. There’s even a chance it happened already.
“Sis, I sure wish we had the latest the Institute has developed. So does Mr. Bury. If you can get that to us, it might change things. I’ve attached our best-guess coordinates for the I-point. We thought about waiting for you, but we don’t know just how long we have before everything happens. Bury arranged for the ship that gave you this message to refuel yours. Let them, if you haven’t done that already. Try to get to the I-point before the Moties do.
“Sinbad’s crowded. Bury’s got Nabil and three women including Cynthia, no change in the relationships. There’s me, Dr. Jacob Buckman, and Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo, the newscaster. She’s interesting. Intelligent and wants to prove it, female and doesn’t have to. Commander Cohen decided she was needed on New Scotland just after Trujillo was invited aboard, and that leaves Renner loose. Interesting patterns here.
“You may get here and find nothing’s happening at all. Some of the blockade fleet may be en route already, but of course it’ll take them months. If things last that long, maybe there won’t be a problem, or maybe Mom’s Crazy Eddie project will work just fine and we can think on how to use it.
“Or it may be all over before you get here. If they send through a big fleet with Warriors.” If they do that, you’ll talk to the Master in charge. If we have the symbiote, maybe she’ll listen. If you live long enough to talk, Glenda Ruth thought. If.
And her brother’s voice ran on: “Anyway, we’re going for a look. It will probably help if you can get here pretty quick, but you do what you think best.
Love, Chris.”
She reset and heard the message through again. “Freddy?”
“Yes, my love?”
She let it pass. “Freddy, we’re being given fuel so that we can go direct to”-she punched in the coordinates from Kevin Blaine’s message, and the navigation screen lit up-“here, instead of going to New Scotland first.”
Freddy studied the display. “That’s a wretched red dwarf system. There’s nothing there.”
“There will be.”
“Glenda Ruth, do you know what you’re doing?”
“I think so. It’s no trivial thing, Freddy-“
“All right.” He turned to the computer.
“No trivial thing at all. I don’t exaggerate, do I? So. The fate of the Empire and the fate of the Motie species” -he hadn’t paused- “it’s all on our shoulders. I didn’t even bother to ask Jennifer, she’s worked up to this her whole life, but you-“
He’d finished typing in the course change. A warning note sounded, then they felt gentle acceleration. Hecate was now on route to MGC-R-31. Freddy relaxed in his chair, tired, not looking at her.
Didn’t wait. Didn’t need to think it over. Just trusted me and moved.
And she saw that it would break him. He would heal, over the years, almost; but his view of women of his class would be colored by a period of terrible frustration while his life was bent to one powerful woman’s missionary urge.
She made a bet with herself, no trivial thing at all, and said, “I’ll be moving into your cabin, if your offer’s still open.”
He looked up, and searched among possible answers while hiding his surprise. She held her expression solemn, a bit uneasy. Freddy nodded and smiled and took her hand, and still feared to speak.
Chris Blaine reminded Kevin of someone. Of Captain Roderick Blaine, of course, but of someone else, too . .. and he finally got it as Chris paused at a window. Kevin had seen Midshipman Horst Staley looking out at Murcheson’s Eye blazing against the Coal Sack, like a single coal red eye within a monk’s hood, just before MacArthur jumped to Murcheson’s Eye itself.
And Chris took his fill of the Hooded Man, then moved on aft to get breakfast, while Kevin mused at his station.
Why Horst? Horst Staley, who had learned too much on Mote Prime and died for it, twenty-eight years ago. They could never have met. They certainly weren’t related. Chris Blaine looked like his father, square face, fine blond hair, tiny Irish nose . . . his father’s was broken, of course . . . whereas Horst Staley had been enlistment-poster handsome, triangular face, long, heavy muscles, and sloping shoulders.
Horace Bury looked up. “What?’
Chris Blaine was just coming into earshot; Renner could hear his voice. He said, “Just a vagrant thought.”
As they approached their stations, Renner heard Trujillo’s voice, cheerful and musical and not quite audible; then Blaine’s voice raised above the hum of the ship’s systems. “If you hadn’t been digging for scandal, the high brass wouldn’t have heard about the token ships for years. They look so harmless!”
“I can’t take credit for that. It was the scandal I was after.”
They were both finishing breakfast bars. Joyce Trujillo’s assigned chair was out of the way, with a view of several screens but no controls. Blaine took his place as copilot. Renner waited a few minutes, then asked, “Chris, how’re we doing?”
“Seventy hours en route and up to speed. I’ll wind down the thrust”-tap-“now. Then we can drop the external tank and coast till we’re approaching the Jump to the red dwarf. Two hundred seventy hours, unless the Jump point’s moved, in which case all Hell lets out for lunch.”
“I’m inclined to keep the tank and refill it. Better safe.” Blaine nodded.
During the next five minutes the thrust dropped from a standard gravity to .05 gee, just enough to pull spilled liquid out of the air. Renner waited it out, then said, “Lieutenant, you have the con.” And he went aft for coffee.
He was unsurprised to find that Bury had floated after him. He asked, “Turkish?”
“Please. You have left-left Blaine in charge of my ship. Is that wise?”
“We’re barely beyond Dagda’s orbit in New Cal system in free fall, near as dammit. What could happen? Outies? Helium flash in the motor? He’s Navy trained, you know.”
“Yes.”
“Like me.”
“Yes. Kevin, what was it you didn’t want him to overhear? Or was it the Trujillo woman?”
“Oh. . . something was nagging at me, irritating me, and I finally got it. You wouldn’t remember Midshipman Horst Staley. He was an idealized Navy officer, handsome, imposing, the kind you put on posters. So’s Blaine, but he’s doing it consciously, like a signal.”
‘”Yes, after all, he was raised by Moties. What think you now of Trujillo?”
“All sex and all business, generally not at the same time. She can turn it on and off. What are the rules this trip, Horace? Sex or no sex?”
“Blind eyes, I think. Poor old Trader Bury notices nothing. But she is staying to business?”
“Yeah. Projects availability, but. I like it, actually. I like flirting.” Bury did not smile.
Renner said, “Give her a break, Horace. Her dad told her about Traders, merchant princes, but she doesn’t know any. She’ll learn about Traders from you.”
“’Your reputation precedes you,’” Bury quoted.
“I doubt she meant that as viciously as it sounded.” Renner sighed. “It’s going to be a fun trip. Trujillo offended you first chance she got, you hate Blaine, and if everything goes right, we’ll get there in time to find a Motie armada coming out at us.”
In the pause that followed, Renner finished brewing two bulbs of Turkish. Bury took his and asked, “How can you say that I hate Kevin Christian Blaine? He is your godson. He is my guest.”
“Horace, you haven’t been overtly rude, but I know you. And look, if I had to ...
“Igor! Tonight we will make something quite different, quite.
“Yes, Doctor Frankenstein! Yes! Yes!”
“Tonight we will create the infidel least likely to be welcome aboard a teeny tiny spacecraft with Trader Horace Bury. We will give him the following characteristics, hnpf hnpf hnpf! AngloSaxon. Christian. An Empire Navy man. Related to the same Roderick Blaine who once held Bury prisoner aboard a Navy warship. And lastly, hnpf hnpf hnpf! He will be raised by Motie Mediators!”
Horace dropped the accent, “Lastly, he is a manipulative son of a dog.”
“I’d say that goes with the Motie training.
“Yes, Kevin, but he tried to manipulate me. Does he think me a fool? It was not Joyce Trujillo who discovered the significance of the token ships!”
“I’ll be dipped. Horace, he’s chasing her.”
“Eh?”
“I didn’t see it. She’s a career woman six years older than he is! Even so, that’s it. He let her see him manipulating you for her benefit. I wonder if she’ll buy it?”
Renner hadn’t even decided if he liked her. That was not always the most interesting question. Perhaps, somewhere in the back of his brain, he had considered Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo to be his by default. Blaine was too young, Buckman and Bury were too old, and Kevin Renner was captain of Sinbad.
The problem lay in what she might want. Not money, nor entrée into certain levels of society; he could do that. But secrets . . . she loved secrets, and Kevin Renner’s were not his to give away.
Blaine was too young, and he was a classic model of a Navy man-but Kevin Christian Blaine had been raised by Motie Mediators. Why was that so easy to forget? Renner began to watch him.
Sinbad in free fall could not be spun up. Chris Blaine was used to a bigger Navy ship. He was clumsy for the first couple of days. So was Joyce; she had not spent much time in space. Then they got oriented more or less together. Simultaneously, in fact.
You had to concentrate to see it, how often they occupied the same space. In any of the narrow passages they might pass without brushing. Joyce was still a bit clumsy, but Chris could eel gracefully past her, close enough to link magnetic fields, but without touching her at all. Like dancing.
The morning before Sinbad began deceleration, Joyce Trujillo looked different, and so did Chris Elaine. They both seemed a bit embarrassed about it, and they couldn’t seem to avoid body contact.
Two centuries ago, Jasper Murcheson had cataloged most of the stars this side of the Coal Sack. He had numbered them in some haste for his Murcheson General Catalog, then filled in details at leisure.
Half those stars were red dwarves, such as this orange-white dot called MGC-R-31. Murcheson had collected more detail on the hotter yellow dwarves, those that might have habitable planets and particularly those that did. MGC-R-31 had a brown dwarf star companion at half a light-year’s distance; Murcheson hadn’t even known that much.
Kevin Renner knew it the moment he popped into the system. He knew because some unseen nearby mass had skewed his Jump point by several million miles.
It should be located, fast. It would move the I-point, too! Buckman and Renner set to work at once.
It was good to be in MGC-R-31 system, good to have something to do, to have an excuse to lock that door.
A week of Bury’s strained good manners and Blaine’s and Trujillo’s body-contact formality had been getting on everyone’s nerves .. . or maybe only on Kevin Renner’s. Buckman’s needs gave him an excuse to do something about it. Renner had a section of Sinbad’s lounge partitioned off to become Jacob Buckman’s laboratory.
It was cramped for Buckman, very cramped for Buckman and Renner; visitors were impossible. They preferred using it that way to everyone’s popping in and out of the small bridge compartment. The others tried not to interfere.
Search for a brown dwarf. First observe the red dwarf, find its plane of rotation. By then Buckman had calculated a series of distances and masses that might account for the shift in the Alderson point. Look at one locus of points, observe again, calculate again.
Dinner appeared from somewhere. Renner would have ignored it, but Buckman hadn’t even looked up. Better to eat, and make Buckman eat too.
And breakfast . . . but by then they were done. Renner sighed in relief. He opened the door to the lounge and announced, “Nothing. We’re here first.”
“Allah is merciful,” Bury said.
“How sure are you?” Joyce Trujillo asked.
Chris Blaine said, “Good question. You can’t know where the Alderson point is going to be.”
“I do know that there is no new Alderson point in this region,” Buckman said. “As to where the incipient point will be, I’ve had to change the locus because of the companion. Not much. Brown dwarf stars don’t radiate much. It’s still an arc along here, still about a million klicks long. I moved it by a couple of light minutes. And it isn’t there.”
The arc Buckman’s cursor made across the screen stretched away from the orange-white glare of MGC-R-31, toward the Coal Sack and an off-centered red peephole into Hell: Murcheson’s Eye.
Renner touched a button on the console. “Agamemnon, this is Sinbad. We get a clean sweep. Do you? Over.”
Agamemnon had popped out a few minutes ahead of Sinbad, separated by no more than the gap between Earth and Earth’s moon. Now they were a few tens of thousands of miles apart, while Atropos moved ahead toward the hypothetical I-point. Agamemnon’s response came immediately
“Sinbad this is Agamemnon. Affirmative. I say again, affirmative, there are no signs of any ships in this system. We are definitely here first. Is Lieutenant Blaine available?”
“Right here.”
“Please stand by for the skipper.”
“Right.”
“So that’s that,” Joyce Trujillo said. She was all business now, as Blaine was all officer.
“For the moment,” Bury said. “They will come. But now-now I believe Allah has given us this chance. We may yet lose it, but we have the opportunity.”
“God is merciful,” Joyce said. “He will not do everything and thus take away our free will and that share of glory that belongs to us.”
“Biblical?” Renner asked.
She laughed. “Niccolo Machiavelli.”
“Arrgh! Joyce, you have done it to me again.”
Buckman said, “Horace? I’ve listed it as Bury’s Infrastar. Your ship, your crew, your discovery.”
Seconds late, Bury reacted. He smiled with effort and said, “Thank you, Jacob.”
“Here’s the skipper,” the comm set announced.
“Blaine?”
“Yes, sir. We’re all here.”
“Some of my officers are suggesting this is a wild-goose chase.”
“I would like nothing better, Commander,” Horace Bury said. “But I do not believe that.”
“Don’t guess I do either. We’re wondering what to do next. I don’t mind admitting this isn’t a situation I was trained to deal with,” Balasingham said.
“Nothing complicated about it,” Buckinan said. “Renner has us on a course to coast along the arc over the next...”
“Fifteen days.”
“Fifteen days. Your other ships have our data.”
Chris Blaine took over. “Sir, we’ve sent the data to Atropos, so he’ll take up station ahead of us. The I-point will be in this region. I suggest that Agamemnon stay behind, that is, between us and the path back to New Caledonia. Maybe they can intercept. As for us, we make repeated passes until the I-point appears.”
“All right,” Balasingham said. “For now, anyway. The Viceroy’s sending more ships.” Short pause. “What if a Motie fleet comes through shooting?”
“Then we do what we can,” Bury said.
“And maybe the horse will sing,” Renner muttered.
Bury shrugged. He seemed amazingly calm. “The Moties have no control over the protostar. This will be as Allah wills, and Allah is merciful.”
If Buckman turned off his intercom, as he frequently did, the only way to find out what he was doing was to bang on his door and risk his acerbic comments about disturbing his work.
He had left the compartment door open this morning. Buckman had been constantly in his laboratory or the adjacent lounge for over thirty hours. Kevin Renner and Chris Blaine had alternated waiting just outside the lab door, and it was Chris’s turn. He’d been there an hour, with nothing to do. Then he heard a shout.
“By God!”
Chris went to the compartment door. Buckman was hunched over a console. His grin was wide
“What is it?” Chris asked.
“It’s happening.”
Chris didn’t ask what. “How far away?’
“I’m only getting a flux reading. It’s not stable yet, but it will be. It’s tremendous! By God! Blaine, this is the best record of a new Alderson event anyone has ever got! Now we can set up for the visuals.’
“How far away, Doctor Buckman?”
Buckman shook his head vigorously. “It’s wobbling back and forth! The new star must be pulsing. It’s traversing the arc. Half a million kilometers of sweep. More. We could conceivably Jump while it passes us, if it was anything like stable yet.”
“I’ll tell the other ships.”
“It’s strong enough that even Navy instruments should pick up, but go ahead.” Buckman went back to his console.
Blaine used the lounge intercom. “Kevin. Buckman says this it. I’ll alert Agamemnon.”
“Agamemnon this is Sinbad. Alderson event detected in our vicinity. Buckman data attached to this message. Suggest you converge on probable Alderson point location. I am also sending this message to Atropos. Blaine.”
They waited. Two minutes later the answer came. “Sinbad this is Agamemnon. We are under way at three gee, I say again, three standard gravities. We’ll move toward you, but I will remain between the I-point and the exit to New Cal.”
“Doesn’t take him long to make decisions,” Renner said. “He’s about twenty light-seconds behind us, but he’s not going where we are. He can get to the New Cal Jump point in”-he typed rapidly-about five hours, starting now. And Atropos is ahead of us. I don’t know the best tactics.”
“Depends too much on what comes through,” Chris Blaine said crisply.
“What is it? What’s happening?” Joyce eeled out of her cabin, hurriedly adjusting her clothing. “Moties? They’ve come through?”
“Not yet,” Blaine said. “They will.”
“Yeah,” Renner said. “Dr. Buckman, have things stabilized at all?”
“Beginning to, yes, Kevin. Do you see how the I-point comes fast toward us along the arc and slow going back? I expect we’re seeing irregular pulses on the protostar.”
“Yeah. Boom and it settles down, boom and it settles down, boom. When the protostar stops flaring...”
“Well, for the next hundred thousand years it won’t quite.”
“Eases off, then. The I-point will be ahead of us, won’t it? Closer to Atropos than us, and still wobbling a bit.”
“At a guess, Kevin. This is a first in every way. The collapse of Buckman’s Protostar into Buckman’s Star.”
“It’s all guesses, but give Atropos about four and a half hours. At one gee we’ll take about eight.”
“But you and Buckman don’t think we have four hours,” Blaine said.
Renner said, “I know, can’t push much more than a gee without killing Bury.”
“Do not worry about me,” Bury said from behind him. “I will be in my water bed. Nabil is bringing it to the lounge now.”
“One and a half, then. No more,” Renner said. “Okay, as soon as you get in it-
“Stabilized!” Buckman shouted.
“How do you know?”
“A ship came through. There’s another! A light-second or two apart.”
Renner brought the images up on his screen. “About three light-seconds ahead of us. Closer to us than Atropos-three ships.” Renner’s fingers were dancing. An alarm wheeped; Renner slapped the volume down. Secure for acceleration. “Four ships. Five.”
Sinbad’s motor lit. Objects drifted aft.
“They’re well separated. The star must be still flaring, the I-point’s still drifting.”
“Mercy of Allah,” Bury muttered. “Quickly, Nabil, get me into my water bed.”
“I must secure it to the deck,” Nabil said calmly. The little old assassin moved easily under what had become half a gee of pull.
“Six. Seven,” Renner said. “Seven so far. Blaine, you’d better get Atropos on line.”
“Roger. Doing it.”
“What’s happening?” Joyce Mei-Ling demanded from the lounge
“Secure for acceleration, dammit!” Renner shouted. “All hands, secure. Nabil, let me know when it’s safe!’
“The bed is secured. If you do not turn too much, I can put him in it when we are under way.”
“I’ll hold it at one gee until you’ve got him set. Everyone secure? Buckman, you holding on to something? Here we go.”
Sinbad eased up to one gee. “They’re scattering,” Renner said.
“Must have come through with different velocities,” Blaine said. “It’s just drift so far.”
“Sure.”
“They will scatter,” Bury said. “Of course they will. Seven ships. They have been preparing for this for years. Kevin, can we intercept them all?”
“Not likely. Moties can’t take as much gee stress as we can, but there’s no way three ships can chase down seven. Not given that much head start.”
“Sinbad this is Agamemnon. What’s happening, Blaine?”
“Seven Motie ships so far,” Blaine said. “Beyond us, and drifting in seven directions. I’ll squirt up the data we have.” He pressed keys, and the computer sent out what it had. Data twenty plus seconds out-of-date would be better than nothing.
Nearly a minute went by. “Blaine, they’ll have plenty of time to recover from Jump shock before we get there,” Balasingham’s voice said. “Assuming each one accelerates along its present course, and giving them anything like the performance Motie ships had at the blockade point, we aren’t going to catch more than four. Five tops, and that assumes we can cripple them without too much of a fight, which is assuming a lot. Damnation-“
Pause; then Balasingham said, “I think it’s time to change tactics. I’m ordering Atropos to move toward the I-point and prepare to chase Motie ships. That gets him close to you. I’m taking Agomemnon back to block the way out of this system. Our entry point won’t have changed enough to matter. We’ll never catch them all, but maybe we can bottle them up in here.”
“Not bloody likely,” Blaine muttered. “But I suppose it’s the best thing to try.”
“Captain Renner,” Balasingham continued. “You were given sealed orders when you left New Scotland. To be opened on my instructions. My orders said to have you do that when the situation got beyond my control. I hereby instruct you to open those orders.
“You’ll find that your Reserve commission as Captain is activated, and you’re in command of this expedition with the titular rank of commodore. I don’t know what you can do, but I sure can’t think of anything. I’m ordering Commander Rawlins in Atropos to put himself under your direction.
“Sir, I am now changing course to guard the Alderson point to New Caledonia. If you want me to do something else, tell me what it is. Agamemnon out.’
“God’s navel,” Renner said
“Kevin, have I heard correctly?” Bury demanded.
“Apparently,” Renner said. “I heard it too.”
“Moties,” Joyce said from somewhere aft. “Chris-“
“Later.”
“Yes, but-Chris, they’re Moties!’
“Joyce, it’s a great story, but there’s no time!” Chris shouted.
“Captain, the first two Motie ships are under acceleration. They must be automated; Moties wouldn’t have recovered yet.”
“Wonder what kind of computer they trust to work that soon after a Jump?” Buckman muttered.
Chris Blaine examined the computer screen. “Continuing in their original directions. My guess is they’ll all do that.”
Renner said, “Scatter and lose us. Only seven ships, and I don’t see any more . . . in fact I’ve lost one. I’d have thought they would send more.”
“Me, too,” Blaine said. “Maybe they couldn’t.”
“Spacecraft are expensive,” Bury said. He sounded comfortable enough under 1.5 gravities. “Many resources, of different kinds. A complex society.”
“Which may mean they’ve got problems,” Renner said. “Jacob, where in the Mote system will their end of the tramline be?”
“Fairly far out. Well beyond the orbit of their gas giant, Mote Beta.”
“We never looked at the Trojan civilizations,” Renner said. “Maybe we should have.”
Half an hour later it was clear enough. Chris Blaine went back to explain to Joyce and Bury: “There are seven Motie ships. Five are under full acceleration in five different directions. One of them is lost, to us and Agamemnon and everyone else. Maybe we’ll find it. Maybe not.”
“Mercy of Allah,” Bury muttered. “And the seventh?”
“The seventh is headed directly toward us, Excellency.”
Bury fingered his beard. “They will want to talk, then.”
Joyce Mei-Ling was staring at the viewscreen. Suddenly she pointed at the Motie ship. As they watched, a laser beam blinked on and off.
“As you said, Excellency. If you’ll excuse me...” Blaine went back to his duty station and turned to Renner. “Apparently they want to talk.”
“So do we,” Renner said. “We’ll never catch any of the others. Atropos may, but we won’t.”
“One of the others looks to be heading for the Jump point to New Cal,” Blaine said. “Agamemnon will be there first, though.”
“Meanwhile, that ship is coming to us,” Renner said. “Hah. They’re modulating that beam. Let’s see if any of it makes sense-“
“Imperial ship, this is Motie vessel Phidippides,” the speaker said.
“I’ve heard that name,” Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo said.
“We come in peace. We seek His Excellency Horace Bury. Is he aboard?”
Joyce said, “Phidippides was the first Marathon runner. Delivered his message and died.”
Renner and Blaine looked at each other, then at Bury flat in his water bed with a screen above his face. Renner looked at the sensors before he spoke. Bury’s heartbeat was steady, brain waves indicating he was fully awake. Okay.
“Horace? It’s for you.”