A Talent for War

XXII.

THE TARGET STAR was a dull red type-M dwarf. It floated benignly in one of the dustier regions of the nebula, about one thousand three hundred light years from Saraglia. We had no idea how many worlds circled it, nor have I ever learned.

Chase brought us out into linear space at a sharp angle to the plane of the planetary system, within about ten days travel time. It was a piece of extraordinary good fortune (or good navigating) to get so close.

We held a party in the cockpit that night, toasting the red star and congratulating one another. For the first time since I’d known her, Chase drank too much. And for several hours, the Centaur lacked a pilot. She was passionate and sleepy by turns, and several times I looked away from her at the myriad stars, wondering which was the general direction from which we’d come. Odd that the vast political entity of several hundred worlds and a thousand billion human beings could disappear so utterly.

Two planets floated within the biozone. One seemed to be in a primitive stage of development: its nitrogen atmosphere was filled with dust thrown up by global rings of volcanoes. Its surface was ripped by continual quakes and convulsions. But the other: it was a blue and white globe of unsurpassing loveliness, like Rimway and Toxicon and Earth, like all the terrestrial worlds on which life is able to take hold. It was a place of vast oceans and bright sunlight and countless island chains. A single continent sprawled atop the north pole. "I suspect it’s cold down there," said Chase, peering through the scopes at the land mass. "Most of it’s covered with glaciers. No lights on the dark side, so I don’t think anyone lives here."

"I’d be surprised," I said, "if anyone did."

"It looks comfortable in the temperate zones. In fact, downright balmy. What say we get out the capsule, and go down for a swim? Get away from walls for a while?" She stretched, enticingly, and I was about to reply when her expression changed.

"What’s the matter?"

She passed her hand across the search control, and a blip sounded. "There’s what we came for," she said.

It rose out of the dark, above the terminator, indistinguishable from the blazing stars.

"It’s in orbit," whispered Chase.

"Maybe it’s a natural satellite."

"Maybe." She keyed analyses onto the screens. "It’s reflection index is pretty high for a rock."

"How big is it?"

"Can’t tell yet."

"Or it could be something the Tenandrome left behind," I said.

"Like what?"

"I don’t know. A monitor of some kind."

She shielded her eyes and peered into the scope. "We’re getting some resolution," she said. "Hold on." She put the starfield on the pilot’s monitor, filtered out most of the glare, and reduced the contrast. A single point of white light remained.

Over the next hour we watched it take shape, expanding gradually into a cylinder, thick through the middle, rounded at one end, flared at the other. There was no mistaking the forward battle bridge, or the snouts of weapons, or the classic lines of Resistance Era design. "We were right," I breathed. "Son of a bitch, we were right!" And I clapped her on the shoulder. It was a good feeling. I wished Gabe could have been with us.

By the standards of modern warships, it was minuscule. (I could imagine it dwarfed beside the enormous girth of the Tenandrome.)

But it had a hell of a history. It was the kind of ship that had leaped the stars during the early days of the Armstrong drive, that had carried Desiret and Taniyama and Bible Bill to the worlds that would eventually become the Confederacy. It had waged the endless internecine wars. And it had fought off the Ashiyyur.

"I have its orbit," said Chase, with satisfaction. "I’m going to lay us in right alongside her. Right under her port bow."

"Good," I said. "How long will it take?"

Her fingers danced across the instruments. "Twenty-two hours, eleven minutes. We’ll have a close pass in about an hour and a half, maybe a hundred kilometers. But it’ll take a few orbits before we can match course and speed."

"Okay." I watched the image in the monitor. They were lovely ships. We’ve had nothing like them, before or since. We were in sunlight, and this one was a rich silver and blue. Her lines curved gently: there was about her a sense of the ornate that one does not see in the cold gray vessels of the modern age. The parabolic prow with its sunburst, the flared tubes, the swept-back bridge, the cradled pods—all would have been of practical use only to an atmospheric flyer. But she possessed an aura that was gently moving: whether it might have been the sheer familiarity of a type of vessel that symbolized the last great heroic age; or whether it was some sense of innocence and defiance designed into her geometry; or the menacing thrust of her weapons, I could not say. It reminded me of a time when I’d been very young.

"There’s the harridan," said Chase, centering our long-range telescope on the bow. I could almost make it out, the dark avian form caught in furious flight against the burnished metal, as though it would draw the ship itself hurtling down its track. She tried to increase magnification, but the image grew indistinct; so we waited, while the range between the two ships shortened.

Chase’s attention was diverted by a blinking light on one of the panels. She listened to an earphone, looked puzzled, and threw a switch. "We’re getting a signal!" she said. Her eyes had widened.

It got very quiet in the cabin. "From the derelict?" I whispered.

She was holding the phone against her ear, but shaking her head. "No. I don’t think so." She hit a switch, and an electronic whine fluttered through the sound system.

"What is it?"

"It seems to be coming from the surface. There are a couple of them, in fact. But no visual."

"They’re beacons," I said. "Left by the Tenandrome."

"Why are they still running? Does it mean they cleared out in a hurry?"

"Not really. They could be any number of things. Most likely geological sites. Survey uses transmitters to send different types of pulses through the planet over extended periods of time. The devices make a record, which gives you a pretty good picture of its internal dynamics. Anytime a ship enters the area, the record is automatically broadcast. There are probably other signals too if you can find them." She smiled, embarrassed by her tendency to jump to nervous conclusions.

"How do you know so much about these missions?" she asked.

"I’ve done a lot of reading about them over the past couple of months." I was about to say more when Chase’s complexion went bone white.

The antique ship had been drawling closer, growing larger in the overhead monitor. I followed her gaze toward its image, but saw nothing. "What’s wrong?" I asked.

"Look at the sigil," she whispered. "The harridan."

I looked, and I saw nothing unusual, just the prow, with its feathered symbol—

—Enclosed by a curving slice of light—

—A silver crescent.

—So the enemy can find me.

"My God," I said. "It’s the Corsarius."

"Impossible." Chase was scrolling through old accounts of the final battle, stopping periodically to point out specifics:… Destroyed while Tarien looked on helplessly… Sim’s operational staff and his brother watched from the Kudasai while the Corsarius made its desperate run, and vanished in nuclear flame… Et cetera.

"Maybe," I said, "the Ashiyyur were right: there was more than one."

She surveyed her instruments. "Axial tilt’s about eleven degrees. And it’s rolling. I think the orbit is showing signs of decay." She shook her head. "You’d think they would have corrected that, at least. The Tenandrome, I mean."

"Maybe they couldn’t," I said. "Maybe there’s no power after all this time."

"Maybe."

Images flickered across the command screen, tail sections and communication assemblies and lines of stress factors. The ship itself was beginning to pull away again. "If it can’t move on its own, they’d have no way to get it home. I mean, even if they could get it into a cargo bay, which I doubt, how the hell could they secure it? And the goddam thing could blow up at any time. Remember the Regal?

"Chase," I said, "that’s why Gabe wanted the extra pilot. And had Khyber along. To try to take it back!"

She looked doubtful. "Even if the drive’s okay, you’d be taking a hell of a risk. If something came loose somewhere, say during the jump—" She shook her head.

The quality of light was changing: we were moving into the early evening, the Corsarius dwindling quickly, falling through the dusk, plunging toward the terminator. It glowed against the encroaching dark. I watched it during those last moments before it lost the sunlight, waiting, wondering perhaps whether it wasn’t some phantasm of the night which, with the morning, would leave no trace of its passing.

The object dropped into the planetary shadow. It grew dimmer, but—

"I can still see it," said Chase, tensely. "It’s glowing." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Where the hell is the reflection coming from? There aren’t any moons."

It shone with a steady, pale luminescence. A cool damp hand groped its way up my spine. "Running lights," I said. "It’s running lights are on."

Chase nodded. "The Tenandrome people must have done it. I wonder why?"

I couldn’t believe that. I knew enough about the way professionals with technological artifacts: if possible, until studies are complete, they get left the way they’re found. I wondered briefly whether the people from Tenandrome had boarded the ship at all.

An hour or so later, we followed the Corsarius down the nightside. By then it was only a dull star. "That’s enough for me," Chase said, getting up. "Maybe we should take Scott’s advice and go home. Barring that, I think it would be a good idea if one of us remains in the cockpit at all times. I know that’s a little paranoid, but I’ll feel a lot better. You agree?"

"Okay." I tried to look amused, but I favored the proposal.

"Since this is your expedition, Alex, you draw the first watch. I’m going back and try to get some sleep. If you decide to drop this whole business, you’ll get no argument from me. And while you’re thinking about it, keep an eye on the goddam thing." She let herself out through the cockpit hatch. I listened to her moving around back there, running the dispenser, closing doors, and finally turning on the shower. I was glad she was there. Had she not been, I doubt I’d have gone any further.

I depressed the back of my seat, adjusted my cushions, and closed my eyes. But I kept thinking about the derelict, and periodically I raised myself on an elbow to look out at the night sky, to make sure something wasn’t sneaking up on us.

After an hour or so of that, I gave up trying to sleep, and switched on a comic monologue from the library. I didn’t much care about the humor, which was weak and obvious. But the delivery was casual, energetic, studded with one-liners and awash with audience laughter. It was a good sound, reassuring, soothing, encouraging. There is this about comedy: even when it’s bad, it provides a sense of a secure existence, in which things are under control.

Eventually the cockpit drifted away from me. I was vaguely aware of the absolute stillness in the after living quarters—which meant Chase was asleep, and that I was, in a sense, alone—of the smooth liquid rhythm of a cinco band, and of the occasional flicker of instrument lights against my eyelids. When I came out of it, it was still dark. Chase was back in the pilot’s chair, not moving, but I knew she was awake.

She’d tossed a spread over me.

"How are we doing?" I asked.

"Okay."

"What are you thinking?"

The instrument lights caught in her eyes. Her breathing was audible; it was part of the pulse of the ship, one with the muted bleeps and whistles of the computers, and the occasional creek of metal walls protesting some minor adjustment of velocity or course, and the thousand other seconds which one hears between the stars. "I keep thinking," she said, "about the old legend that Sim will come back in the Confederacy’s supreme hour of need." She was looking through the viewpoint.

"Where is it?" I asked.

"Around the curve of the planet. The scanners won’t pick it up again for several hours. We’ll have dawn in about twenty minutes, by the way."

"You said last night we should leave it alone. Did you really mean that?"

"To be honest with you, Alex, yes. I’m queasy about all this. That damned thing shouldn’t be out here. The people on the Tenandrome must have reacted to it the same way we have. Which means they rendezvoused and went aboard, and then they pulled out and went home and swore everyone who know anything about it to keep quiet. Why? Why in God’s name would they do that?"

"Leave now," I said, "and sleep no more."

"It might be a no-win situation. From what you’ve told me about Scott, he’s become a driven man. Is that what’s going to happen to us after we board her tomorrow?" She shifted her weight, and stretched her long legs (lovely in the pale green glow of the instruments!). "If I could arrange to forget this thing, erase the record, go somewhere else, and never come back, I believe I’d opt for it. That thing out there, I don’t know what it is, nor how it could be what it seems; but it doesn’t belong in this sky, or any sky. I don’t want anything to do with it."

She tapped the keyboard, and a stored image of the stranger ship unfolded on the monitor. She homed in on the bridge. It was dark, of course. But it looked as alert and deadly as it had in the simulations of the raid on the Spinners, and the action at Rigel. "I was reading his book during the night," she said.

"Man and Olympian?"

"Yes. He was a complex man. I can’t say I always agree with him, but he has a forceful way of stating his position. He comes down rather hard, for example, on Socrates."

"I know. Socrates is not one of his favorite people."

Her lips formed a half-smile. "Man had no respect for anybody."

"His critics agreed. But of course Sim blasted them, too, in a second book that he didn’t live to finish." Critics have all the advantage, he’d once said, because they wait until you 've died, and then they get the last word.

"It’s a pity." She sat back and locked her hands behind her head.

"They never present this side of him in the schools. The Christopher Sim that the kids get to see comes off as perfect, preachy, and unapproachable." Her brow furrowed. "I wonder what he’d have made of that thing out there?"

"He’d have boarded. Or, if he couldn’t board, he’d have waited for more information, and found something else to think about in the meantime."

Her hull was seared and blistered and pocked. It had a patchwork quality imposed by the periodic replacement of plates. Navigational and communication pods were scored, shields toward the after section of the ship appeared to have buckled, and the drive housing was missing. "Nevertheless," said Chase, "I don’t see any major damage. There is one strange thing, though." We were approaching from above and behind in the Centaur’s capsule. We were wedged in pretty tight. The capsule itself isn’t much more than a plexibubble with a set of magnetics. "The drive housing wasn’t blown off. It was removed. And I’m not sure, but it looks as if the drive units themselves are missing." She pointed toward two pod-shaped objects that I’d assumed were the Armstrongs. "No," she said. "They’re only the outer shells. I can’t see any cores. But they should be visible."

"They have to be there," I said. "Unless someone deliberately disabled the ship after it arrived."

She shrugged. "Who knows? The rest of it doesn’t look too good either. I’d bet there’s a lot of jury-rigging down there."

"Unfinished repairs," I said.

"Yes. Repairs made in a hurry. Not the way I’d want to take a ship into combat. But, except for the Armstrongs, it looks serviceable enough." The aguan solenoids, through which Corsarius had hurled the lightning, protruded stiff and cold from an array of mounts. "So do they," she added.

But the chill of age was on the vessel.

Chase sat in the pilot’s seat, perplexed, and perhaps apprehensive. The multichannel was open, sweeping frequencies that would have been available to Corsarius, as though we expected a transmission. But we heard only the clear hiss of the stars. "The histories must be wrong," I said. "Obviously, it wasn’t destroyed off Rigel."

"Obviously." She adjusted the image on the monitors, which needed no adjusting. The Centaur’s computers were matching schematics of the derelict with ancient naval records of Corsarius, again and again, in endless detail. "It makes me wonder what else they might have been wrong about."

"Does this mean Sim might have survived Rigel?"

Chase shook her head. "I’m damned if I know what it means."

I pursued the thought. "If he did, if he lived through it, why would he come out here? Hell, this was a long way from the war zone anyhow: could Corsarius even have made this kind of flight?"

"Oh, yes," Chase said. "The range of any of these vessels is only limited by the quantity of supplies they can get on board. No: they could have done it. The question is why they would want to."

Maybe it wasn’t voluntary. Maybe Sim and his ship somehow fell into the hands of the Ashiyyur. Was it possible that he lived through the Rigel action, but that he was injured in some way, and wandered off afterward, not knowing who he was? Ridiculous. Even if there was something to the notion of the duplicate ships, what would any of them be doing here? Who would have had time, in the worst days of the Resistance, to come so far with a warship that must have been desperately needed at home?

We drifted out over the bow, past the fierce eyes and beak of the harridan, past the weapons clusters bristling in the ship’s snout. Chase turned us in a narrow loop. The hull fell sharply away, and the blue sun-splashed planetary surface swam across the viewports. Then it too dropped off, giving way to the broad sweep of black sky.

We talked a lot. Chattered really. About how well Chase’s leg had healed, about how good it would be to get home, about how much money we would probably make from all this. Neither of us seemed to have any inclination to let the conversation die. And meanwhile we drew alongside the derelict. Chase took us the length of the hull, and stopped by the main entry port. "In case you had any doubts," she said, raising her voice to indicate there was something significant to say, "she’s blind and dead. Her scopes have made no effort to track us."

We put on the helmets to the pressure suits we were wearing, and Chase drew the air from the cockpit. When the green lights went on, she pushed up the canopy, and we drifted out. Chase moved to the entry port, while I paused to look at a set of Cerullian characters stencilled on the hull. They were the ship’s designation, and they matched the characters on the Corsarius of the simulations.

The hatch rotated open, and a yellow light blinked on inside. We stumbled clumsily into the airlock. Red lamps glowed on a status board set into the bulkhead.

"Ship’s on limited power," said Chase, her voice subdued over the commlink. "There’s no gravity. I would guess that it’s in some sort of maintenance mode. Just enough to keep things from freezing."

We activated our boot magnets. The closing cycle for the outer hatch didn’t work. The stud lit up when I touched it, but nothing happened. Worse, the lamps blinked to orange, and air began to hiss into the compartment. Chase tugged on the outer door, pulling it shut. We locked it tight.

Air pressure built up quickly, the bolts on the inner assembly slid out of their wells, the warning lights went to white, and the door into the ship swung noiselessly on oiled hinges.

We looked out into a dimly lit chamber. The interior of the most celebrated warship in history! Chase held out one gloved hand, took mine, and squeezed. Then she stood aside to let me pass.

I ducked my head and stepped through.

The room was filled with cabinets, computer consoles, and large storage enclosures loaded with gauges and meters and electronic wrenches. Pressure suits hung near the airlock, and a computer diagram of the vessel covered one wall. At each end of the room, we could see a sealed hatch of the same design as the one through which we had entered.

Chase glanced at the gauge she wore on her wrist. "Oxygen content is okay," she said. "It’s a bit low, but it’s breathable. The temperature’s not quite three degrees. A trifle cool." She released the studs that secured her helmet, lifted the headpiece, and cautiously inhaled.

"They turned down the heat," I said, removing my own.

"Yes," she agreed. "That’s precisely what it is. Somebody expected to come back." I was having a hard time keeping my eyes off the hatches, as though either of them might swing open at any moment. She advanced on the row of pressure suits, one cautious step at a time, the way someone enters a cold ocean from a beach. When she reached them, she stood counting and then announced there were eight. "They’re all there," she added.

"You didn’t expect that?"

"It was possible that survivors of whatever disaster overtook this ship went outside to make repairs, and were swept away."

"We need to look at the bridge," I said. "That’s where we’ll get some answers."

"In a minute, Alex." She released the after hatch, pulled it open, and passed through. "I’ll be right back," her voice said on the commlink.

"Keep a channel open," I said. "I want to hear what’s happening."

I listened to her footsteps for several minutes thereafter, and then the heavy clank of more hatch bolts sliding back. Considerations of what my position would be were something to happen to Chase left me listening anxiously for her return, wondering whether I should go after her, and trying to recall the steps necessary to pilot the Centaur. My God, I suddenly realized I didn’t even know which way the Confederacy was.

I wandered among the assorted black boxes and cable and God knows what else, stuff I couldn’t even begin to identify, circuit boards, glass rods, and long poles with a greenish viscous liquid in them.

Some of the cabinets seemed to belong to individual crew members. Names were stenciled on them: VanHorn, Ekklinde, Matsumoto, Pornok, Talino, Collander, Smyslov. My God: the seven deserters!

Nothing was locked. I opened the cabinets one by one, and found oscillators, meters, wire, generators, and coveralls. Not much else. Lisa Pornok (whose photo I had seen in the records somewhere, and who was a tiny, dark-skinned woman with huge luminous eyes) had left an antique commlink that would have had to be carried in a pocket, and a comb. Tom Matsumoto had hung a brightly colored period hat on a hook. Manda Collander had owned a few books, written Cerullian. I approached Talino with awe, but there were only a half-dozen journals, filled with fuel usage and shield efficiency reports, a workshirt (he was apparently considerably smaller than I’d been led to believe), and several data clips that turned out to be concerts.

I found only one photo. It was of a woman and a child, left by Tor Smyslov. The child was probably a boy. I couldn’t be sure.

Everything was secured in bands, clamps, or compartments. Nothing to rattle around loose. Equipment was clean and polished. It might have been stowed the day before.

I heard Chase approaching long before she stepped through the hatch. "Well," she said, "there’s one theory blown."

"What was that?"

"I thought maybe they’d gone down to the surface, and there’d been an accident of some sort. Or maybe the lander just quit on them and they couldn’t get back."

"Hell, Chase," I said, dismissing the idea, "they wouldn’t all have left the ship."

"No. Not if there were a full crew on board. But maybe there were only a couple of survivors." She threw up her hands. "Damn, I guess that doesn’t make any sense either. It seems to me they must have come here to hide. The war was lost, and the mutes were probably taking no prisoners. And then the drive quit on them. Battle damage maybe. They couldn’t get home. If the radio was knocked out, it could have happened in a way that no one would have known. In fact, in this kind of ship, the radio’s probably not capable of extreme long-range communications anyhow. So if they got into trouble, they couldn’t get help. At least not from any human world.

"Something else, too: I was right the Armstrong units. They’re missing. There’s nothing here but housings. This goddam thing has no stardrive. It’s got magnetics for linear propulsion, but you wouldn’t want to do any long distance traveling in it. The thing that’s really strange is that they had to patch the overhead when the units came out. That’s heavy duty work. It couldn’t have happened here."

"Then how’d the ship get here?"

"I have no idea," she said. "By the way, the lander’s still in its bay. Pressure suits are all accounted for. How’d the crew get off?"

"There might have been a second ship," I said.

"Or they’re still here. Somewhere."

Most of the luminous panels had failed. The corridors were filled with shadows which retreated before the beams cast by our handheld lamps. None of the elevators worked, and there was a trace of ozone in the air, suggesting that one of the compressors was overheating. One compartment was full of drifting water-globes; another was scorched where an electrical fire had burned itself out. From somewhere deep in the ship came a slow, ponderous heartbeat. "It’s a hatch opening and closing," Chase said. "Another malfunction."

Progress was slow. Getting around in null gravity is cumbersome, and we had trouble with most of the hatches. All were shut. Some responded to their controls; others had to be winched open. Chase tried twice to establish normal power from auxiliary boards, but had no luck on either occasion. Both times the green lamps went on, indicating that the functions had been executed, but nothing happened. So we continued to clump about in the semi-dark. One hatch resisted our efforts so fiercely that we wondered whether there wasn’t a vacuum behind it, although the gauges read normal. In the end, we went down one level and bypassed it.

We talked little, and we kept our voices down.

"Chow hall."

"This looks like an operations center. Computers seem to be working."

"Private quarters."

"No clothes or personal gear."

"There wasn’t much back in the storage units either. They must have taken everything with them when they left."

It’s been a good many years now since Chase and I took that walk through the belly of the ship. The chill that lay heavy in Corsarius on that occasion pervades my nights still.

"Showers."

"Damn, look at this, Alex. It’s an armory."

Lasers, disrupters, beam generators, needlepoints. Nukes. There were a dozen or so fist-sized nukes.

We stopped in front of another closed hatch. "This should be it," she said.

And I wondered also whether, like Scott, I was about to become a driven man.

The door responded to the controls and opened.

Stars were visible in a wraparound plexiglass viewport, and lamps blinked in the dark.

"Christopher Sim’s bridge," one of us whispered.

"Hold on a second," said Chase. The lights came on.

I recognized its type immediately from the simuls: the three stations; the overhead bubble like the one in which I’d sat during the raid on Hrinwhar; the banks of navigation, communications, and fire control equipment.

"Primitive stuff," said Chase, standing near the helmsman’s position. Her voice bounced off the walls. I walked over and stood behind the command chair, the seat from which Sim had directed engagements that had become legendary.

Chase thoughtfully inspected the consoles, and the brightened when she found what she wanted. "One gee coming, Alex." She tapped in a sequence, and frowned when there was no response. She tried again: this time something in the walls whined, sputtered, and took hold. I felt blood, organs, hair, everything settle toward the deck. "I’ve turned the heat up too," she announced.

"Chase," I said, "I think it’s time to hear what Captain Sim has to say for himself."

She nodded vigorously. "Yes. By all means, let’s find out what happened." She experimented with one of the control boards. The lights dipped, the ship’s monitors glowed, and external views of the vessel appeared. One tracked to the Centaur, and stayed with it: another showed us the capsule which had brought us over. "Battle control, probably," she said. "Don’t touch anything. I’m not sure about the condition of the weapons, but everything looks operational. It might not take much to vaporize our ride home."

I put my hands in my pockets.

I tried to visualize the bridge as I’d seen it on the Stein: quiet, efficient, illumination spotted only where it was needed. But things had been happening too quickly for me to observe procedures. I had no idea who did what. "Can you bring up the log?" I asked.

"I’m still looking for it. I don’t know any of these symbols. Bear with me." The ship’s general communication system snapped on, snapped off.

"They might have taken it," I said, thinking of a Tenandrome boarding party.

"Computer says it’s all here. Just a matter of finding it."

While she looked, I diverted myself with an examination of a command center designed by a people who clearly possessed a deep and abiding love for the arc, the loop, and the parabola. The geometry was of the same order as the exterior of the ship: one would have been hard-pressed to find a straight line anywhere. It was also clear that the Dellacondans had never worshipped the utilitarian gods who dominate our own time. The interior of the ship possessed a richness and luxuriance that suggested an inclination to go to war in style. It seemed an odd affectation for a people traditionally thought of as having their roots in tough frontier mountain country.

"Okay, Alex, I’ve got it. These are final entries." She paused momentarily to heighten the tension, or perhaps to allow me to entertain second thoughts. "The next voice you hear—"

—Was certainly not that of Christopher Sim. Zero six fourteen twenty-two, it said. Abonai Four. Repair categories one and two completed this date. Repair category three as shown on inventory. Weapons systems fully restored. Corsarius returned to service this date. Devereaux, Technical Support.

"That’s probably the chief of a maintenance crew," I said.

"If they’re returning command of the ship to its captain, there should be more."

There was. Christopher Sim had delivered few speeches, had never spoken to parliaments, and had not lived long enough to make a farewell address. Unlike Tarien’s, his voice had never become familiar to the schoolchildren of the Confederacy. Nevertheless, I knew it at once. And I was impressed at how cleverly it had been reproduced by actors.

Zero six fourteen thirty-seven, it said in a rich baritone. Corsarius received per work order two two three kappa. Note that forward transformers check out at nine six point three seven, which is not an acceptable level for combat. Command understands that the port facility is under pressure just now. Nevertheless, if Maintenance is unable to effect repairs, they should at least be aware of the deficiency. Corsarius is hereby returned to port. Christopher Sim, Commanding.

Another round of entries announced restoration of transformer power, and Sim’s crisp voice accepted without comment. But even over the space of two centuries, one could read the satisfaction in his tone. He loved having the last word, I thought, amused.

"This would be the completion of repairs at Abonai," I said. "Just shortly before the crew mutinied."

"Yes. The dates check."

"My God," I said. "The mutiny, the Seven, we’ve got everything. Run the rest of it!"

She turned slowly toward me, with a pale smile. "That’s the last entry," she said. "There is nothing after it." Her voice was hollow, and beads of sweat had appeared on her upper lip, despite the fact that the air was still cool.

"Then the Tenandrome people did take it!" I said, a little too loudly.

"This is a ship’s log, Alex. It can’t be erased, can’t be doctored, can’t be removed, can’t be changed in any way without leaving a trail. The computer says it’s intact." She bent over it, stabbed at the keyboard, looked at the results, and shrugged. "It’s all here."

"But Corsarius went into battle shortly after that! There must have been log entries! Right?"

"Yes," she said. "I can’t imagine a naval service trying to function with arbitrary log-keeping. For whatever reason, Christopher Sim took a volunteer crew into the climactic battle of his life, and neglected to enter any of it into his log."

"Maybe he was too busy," I suggested.

"Alex," she said, "it could not have happened."

She settled herself with some diffidence into the captain’s chair, and punched fresh instructions into the computer. "Let’s see what we get if we back up."

Christopher Sim’s voice returned. —I have no doubt that the destruction of the two battle cruisers will focus enemy attention on the small naval bases at Dimonides II, and at Chippewa. It can hardly do otherwise. Those sites will be perceived by the enemy as a bone in their throat, and will be attacked as soon as they can concentrate sufficient power. The Ashiyyur will probably divert their main battle group to the task—

"I think this is early in the war," I said.

"Yes. It’s good to know at least that he uses his log."

We listened while Sim described the composition and strength of the force he expected, and launched into a detailed description of enemy psychology, and their probable attack strategy. I was impressed that he seemed to have got most of it right. Chase listened a while. Then she got up, and announced that she wanted to explore the rest of the ship. "Want to come along?"

"I’ll stay here," I said. "I’d like to hear more of it."

Maybe that was a mistake.

After she left, I sat in the half-light listening to projections of energy requirements and commentary on enemy technology and occasional crisp battle reports, describing Sim’s hit-and-run tactics against the big enemy fleets.

No wonder Gabe had been excited! I wondered whether he had known precisely what he was stalking.

Gradually, I was drawn into the drama of that long-ago struggle, and I saw the monster Ashiyyur formations through the eyes of a commander who consistently succeeded in scattering, or at least diverting, them with a handful of light warships. I began to understand the importance of his intelligence-gathering capabilities, the listening stations along enemy lines, fleet movement analysis, even his awareness of the psychology of individual enemy commanders. It appeared they could not void themselves without Sim’s knowledge.

The individual accounts were riveting.

Off Sanusar, the Dellacondans, assisted by a few allied vessels, ambushed and destroyed two heavy cruisers at the cost of a single frigate. I listened to Sim reporting his coup in the Spinners. There were other actions, many of which I had never heard. But always, despite the long line of victories, the result was the same: withdraw, count losses, regroup. The Dellacondans could never stand and fight: time and again, Sim was forced to pull back because he lacked the sheer force to exploit victory.

And then came Ilyanda.

We think we can beat them here, he announces cryptically. If not here, then I fear it will be nowhere. In that moment, I understood that Kindrel Lee’s story was true.

He names, but does not describe, the instrument of execution.

Helios.

The sun weapon.

He pauses, almost uncertain. As surely as I sit in this chair, history will judge harshly what I am about to do. But, God help me, I can see no other course.

At Ilyanda, the evacuation goes slower than anticipated. Some people are resisting, demanding their right to stay behind. I cannot permit it and, where necessary, we are resorting to force. And later: It’s unlikely that we will succeed in getting everyone off. We will do what we can. But whatever our circumstances when the mutes arrive, we will detonate on schedule!

Tension mounts, and units of the Ashiyyurean armada appear among the outer worlds. We must have everything away from here and all unusual movement stopped before they get within scanner range. There’s talk of sacrificing some frigates to delay matters, but Sim concludes that he cannot allow the Ashiyyur to guess that their presence has been detected. Meantime, some of the hoped-for transports have not arrived. The Dellacondans respond by padding the freight compartments of the shuttles (which are, of course, capable only of interplanetary travel) with blankets and mounds of clothing. Then they load the final evacuees, and clear out.

With luck they won’t be seen. They’ll get hungry, and a few of them may get blistered. But they have a chance.

With five hours remaining to his escape deadline, Sim withdraws the operations teams that have been coordinating the evacuation and salvaging as much of the art and literature of Ilyanda as possible. Tarien says no price is too high to stop the mutes. I suppose he is right.

At the last minute, more people are found at Point Edward. They are hustled up on the remaining two shuttles. Sim’s small fighting force has been leaving in single units, in an effort to create the smallest possible scan target. Finally, only Corsarius remains. Most of the late arrivals are packed on board, and they are quickly underway.

I hurried through the next few entries. Corsarius withdraws to a distance of about a half parsec, where they pause to watch. The Ashiyyurean fleet closes in, transmits warnings to the Dellacondans, and offers Sim a chance to surrender.

Sim captures the recording for his log: Resistance is useless, the voice of the enemy says. It is mechanical, matter-of-fact, eminently reasonable. There is no hint of exultation. Save the lives of your crews.

I looked around the bridge. Hard to realize it had all happened here. Outside, the planetary rim, hazy in bright sunlight, was coming into view. Where would Talino have been while they waited?

The station has opened fire on the enemy ships with its meagre batteries. The weapons are taken out quickly, and Sim reports that several destroyers have accomplished a forced docking.

Now, he adds. And there is an unspoken question in his tone.

Now.

It is a bad moment, and I can read his anguish.

And I thought: Matt Olander is sitting in a bar at the spaceport. He has taken the trigger off automatic, and his attention has been distracted.

The Corsarius debarked its passengers on Millennium four days later. I checked the tables. A modern liner, traveling between Ilyanda and Millennium, would spend about eight and a half standard days in Armstrong space alone. How had he done it?

There was something else, another log entry following a series of maintenance reports: We have to find out what happened. The thing might still go off. It has to be disarmed and made safe.

After that, the record garbles. I was trying to read it when Chase came back. "There are no remains anywhere," she said.

I told her what I’d found. She listened, made an effort of her own to clear the transmission, and shook her head. "It’s a security code of some sort. He didn’t want just anybody to read it."

"The phrasing bothers me," I said. " Disarmed and made safe. It’s a redundancy. Sim is usually very precise. What does one do after disarming a sun weapon to make it safe?"

We looked at one another, and I think it struck us both at the same instant. "He’s talking about security," Chase said. "No one is to know they have the weapon."

"Which means they have to explain the evacuation." I sat down in Sim’s command chair. It was a bit tight for me.

"Wasn’t it fortunate," she said quietly, "that the mutes acted so untypically at Point Edward. It saved Sim from having to answer so many questions."

She looked at me a long time. And I understood, finally, why there had been an attack against the empty city. And who had conducted it.

I found more log entries further on. Sim and the Corsarius were plunged again into engagements in a dozen different places across the Frontier. But he had changed now, and I began to read, first in his tone, and then in his comments, a despair that grew in proportion with each success, and each subsequent retreat. And I heard his reactions to the defeat at Grand Salinas, and the loss, one by one, of the allied worlds. It must have seemed as though there was no end to the black ships. And eventually, there came the news that Dellaconda, too, had fallen. He responded only by breathing Maurina’s name.

Through all this, there was no further mention of the sun weapon.

He railed against the short-sightedness of Rimway, of Toxicon, of Earth, who thought themselves safe by distance, who feared to rouse to wrath of the conquering horde, who perceived each other with deeper-rooted jealousies and suspicions than those with which they regarded the invader. And when he paid for his victory at Chapparal with the loss of five frigates and a light cruiser manned by volunteers from Toxicon, he commented that We are losing our finest and bravest. And to what point? The remark was followed by a long silence, and then he said the unthinkable!: If they will not come, then it is time to make our own peace!

His mood grew darker as the long retreat continued. And when two more ships from his diminished squadron were lost at Como Des, his anger flared: There will be a Confederacy one day, he says wearily, but they mil not construct it on the bodies of my men! It is the same voice that indicted the Spartans.