Black Star Rising

I

JUPE was out hunting when the great day arrived. He didn't plan it that way. The event caught him by surprise. The Real-Americans weren't due for days yet, he thought. But he was wrong, and so he missed it all, the landing of the Presidential yacht, the welcoming ceremonies by the first-contact party, the whole thing. He'd stopped off to shoot an inkling on the way— he was always fond of inkling roasts, so succulent and sweet once you leached the iron salts out of them. He never enjoyed inkling again. When at last he strolled into his home nest—sweating profusely in the hot, dank air of World, picking up a fuzzy leaf on the way to towel off the sweat—his senior sisters greeted him with jeers and reproaches. "You missed it, Jupe, you fool." "It's just like you to be off killing something when—" "He's really the President, Jupe, and—" "And, oh, Jupe, he's so handsome!"

"Ah, no!" he bawled, making sense at last of what they were telling him. He dropped the inkling on the floor, causing Senior Sister Marcia to boom complaints at him for dirtying her clean mats with inkling blood. He didn't listen. "They camel" he demanded in outrage at the unjust universe. "No one told me?" But of course no one could have, as several of his sisters took pleasure in explaining to him. Other sisters, especially the more pregnant ones, flinched away from his reddening face and flailing arms. Jupiter would never hurt one of them on purpose, that was certain. But sometimes when he windmilled his arms in excitement and rage someone got in the way. That was just temper, and Jupe had a lot of it.

"Please, Jupiter, hold still," one of the junior sisters begged, approaching him from behind. She was a bright ten-year-old named Susify, and she carried the softest of toweling leaves to rub him down and oil away the spatters of inkling blood from his bronzed skin. She edged him gently away from the mess on the floor. Marcia was already kicking a crew of dumb erks toward it, to the task of mopping it up and taking the fresh meat to the kitchen, while Jupiter stomped and swore at the bad news.

No—not bad news! It was all good, really. The only bad part was that Jupe himself had been off adventuring in the woods instead of being in Space City for the glorious moment, or at least clustered around the index-viewers with his sisters. The greatest thrill a lifetime could provide! And he had missed it! Had missed seeing the Han Chinese launch the Presidential yacht, as relayed by the spy-eyes in orbit around Earth's sun. Had missed the yacht's bursting into near-space when the spaceway transporter whirled it out of one universe and into another. Had missed the capture of the yacht, the landing, the first greeting by the bursting hearts of the loyal Yankees of World.

Had missed it all!

His sisters told him about it, of course, one or another chirping her bit to fill out the mosaic for him. The President was alone—malewise he was alone, anyway. Of course, there were two sisters with him—but such funny-looking ones, Jupe, the old one sallow and lined, the young one sallow and angry! Who had met them at Space City? Why, the Governor herself, of course, Big Polly. Yes, she had made a speech. Yes, of course they had recorded it, had recorded every minute of every event; would he like to watch the replay?

No, he would not like to watch the replay! His place was there! He was going there, as soon as possible!

It was not just that Jupe was a blazing patriot (they all were that), or even that he'd taken combat training. They all did that, too; it was their most important social function other than childbearing, from which Jupiter was biologically exempt. But the tiny minority of males were not merely combat-ready; they were combat -prone. Everybody knew that. Sisters were ready to fight because they must. Males were ready to fight because they were warriors. Most of Jupiter's discontent with the universe— and he had plenty of that—arose from the fact that no one was conveniently near to be a warrior against. You couldn't fight the erks, either the dumb ones or the smart, if only because there were too many of them. (Besides, it was their planet, sort of.) You could hunt and kill inklings or wild carry-birds, of course, and that was pretty good, although the foolish creatures never fought back.

But what Jupiter had longed for since he got his first set of pugil sticks at the age of five was an enemy.

There was a guaranteed enemy for every Yank, of course, but they had never been near enough to actually fight.

Until now.

So, "Feed my carry-bird," Jupe ordered the stablehand sisters, and, "Get my uniform!" to the twelve-year-olds detailed to housemaid duty, and, "Fix me a light lunch for the trip!" to the kitchen staff. He threw orders in all directions, in fact, and the nest bustled, as it always bustled, around its one and cherished male.

It is a proud and a scary thing to be an emigre, to spend your whole life knowing that there is a Homeland that has been stolen from you. To want it back. The emigre mentality fueled the aspirations of every Yank on World. It was the same fire in the belly that kept generations of Cubans and Poles and Jews forever consecrated to the lost, the never-seen, the semimythical Home. The more improbable its recapture became, the hotter that fire burned.

Jupiter wanted to fight for that Homeland. He wanted it very badly, and that was not his fault. It was the product of his age and life. And, yes, of his gender; an ancient named Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said that every society gets invaded by its own barbarians once in each generation—those barbarians it generates itself, the young males from seventeen to twenty-three. Jupiter was a large-size, prime-quality barbarian. He was looking for cities to pillage or foes to slay; that was what his glands made him. He was also an emigre, third generation on a planet forty-some light-years from Home, so the combative urge was focused. Recapture! Recover! Revenge! Those were the key words in the litanies he had learned with his first lisped baby words.

Because there was only one human male to every one hundred and seventy human females on World, naturally the invading force could not be exclusively male. The females would fight, too. They were trained for it. They were dedicated to it no less than Jupiter. They could be as deadly as he and would be when the battles began. But they did not have Jupiter's glands. So all the sisters admired and chirped around him, even the ones who were as eager as he for the fray. Dumb erks scuttled around the nest to get out his uniform, sponge off stains, iron in creases sharp as knives. Sisters came running in from all over to praise and admire as he bathed and shaved and practiced fierce military expressions before a glass. Senior Sister Loyola even left the nursery, abandoning the fifteen nestlings not yet old enough to talk; they would be fed by a dumb erk crew under the supervision of a twelve-year-old. "I wish I could go with you, Jupiter," she sighed. "You don't want to wait until I put the nestlings to bed?"

He didn't say no. He only laughed and gave her one of the fierce military expressions because she knew the answer as well as he. Jupiter did not want to wait for anything... except, of course, his mandatory interview with the Mother Sister before departure.

And that he was putting off as long as possible.

When at last Jupiter had the entire nest organized to the task of getting him ready for his trip, he allowed the kitchen sisters to feed him. There was an inkling steak— not from the beast he had brought home to the nest, but one out of the freezer. There were crisp vegetables from the garden and a chilled glass of fruit wine. Jupe's nest was one of the oldest and, all other nestlings thought, one of the best—particularly as to the splendid way it fed its members.

Of course, every nest thought it was special in some way. That wasn't unreasonable of them. There were not so many of them that each could not claim some special distinction; there were not that many humans on World, even after half a century of intensive child breeding.

The places where the Yankees lived on World were usually right outside one of the huge old erk cities. Humans seldom lived in the cities themselves. The cities were too hot and muggy, too much trouble to air-condition against the steamy air of World. The air in the nest was not really any cooler than the ambient outside. The Americans had got used to a steady eighty-some degrees over the generations, and the erks, of course, had been evolved to thrive on it. The big difference was that the inside air was a good deal dryer than out. Little bags of hygroscopic salts in the nest's ventilators sopped a lot of the water vapor out of the air. When the bags were saturated, the dumb erks took them out and dried them in ovens—or in their own body heat, as they clustered in sleep or companionship or sex. None of the erks, dumb or smart, minded being wet.

The other reason the Americans lived in nests rather than in the half-empty cities was that the smart erks didn't want them there. And, after all, it was their planet.

Sort of.

Lunch over, Jupiter squared his military jaw and faced his interview with Mother Sister Nancy-R. He couldn't postpone it any longer. So as soon as his uniform was ready for him to carry out and the handlers reported that his carry-bird, Flash, was eating its dinner nicely, Jupe left the big nest for the pleasant little cottage under the Joe tree that belonged to the Mother Sister and her wife.

Mother Sister Nancy-R was a woman of fifty and some. She was still strikingly beautiful. All of the women of Jupiter's nest were above-average good-looking; when brothers from other nests decided to wander for a time, they often tarried a week or two there, sampling a different sister each night. They were always politely enthusiastic about their beauty when they left. A dozen or more brothers had offered bedding to Nancy-R, age notwithstanding, but she was wholeheartedly les. Monogamous les. She and Suzi had been mated for thirty years, proud parents of fifteen children already and another on the way. And every one of them their own—no implants out of the freezer for the wife of Nancy-R!

Between Jupe and Nancy-R there had always been a jockeying for position. Jupe was The Male. Nancy-R was The Mother Sister.

Nancy-R's own host-mother had been one of the Original Landers. That did not mean one of the original flight crew. Those women had been well past even the age for bringing implanted embryos to term, much less conceiving their own, by the time they landed on World in the year 2047. Not surprisingly, Nancy-R had inherited her mother's life-style. She was a little old-fashioned. Spottily old-fashioned, anyway—her decision not to bear a child elevated a lot of well-shaped eyebrows when she reached menarche-plus-four and all her age-cohorts were starting their first pregnancies. Not Nancy-R. She was radical about that if nothing else. She did not want to become pregnant except through love. Of all things! But you could tell her old-fashioned ways just by looking around her cottage. Item, Old Glory waving on a wall screen. Item, signed pictures on every flat surface, pictures of most of the Original Landers, personally autographed to her. Item, in her dooryard, as a bow to their hosts, a figure of one of the long-necked, tadpole-bodied, two-legged Living Gods of the erks. "So you're here at last," she called to Jupe as he came swinging through the Joe tree archway, his uniform bag over his shoulder.

"I didn't know!" he snapped. He nodded to the Living God and impatiently waited for Nancy-R to get out of the way so he could enter her cottage.

Between the nest's senior female and only male there was a permanent jockeying for position. Jupe won his rounds by staying out of her sight when he was doing things he thought she would disapprove of. Nancy-R won hers by outguessing him when she could. She knew what he was there for. Even the nest's male needed permission to leave the territory. Of course he wanted to go to Space City! Hell, what American didn't want to see her—or his—President? And she knew what storms would follow if she didn't give permission. So her first strategy was to make it her idea: "Why are you still here, Jupe? I want you to greet the President at once!"

Jupe's tentatively sullen expression melted immediately. "Oh, thanks, Nancy," he said, sliding out of his breechclout and beginning to pull on his uniform pants. He had a fine body, Nancy-R thought with aesthetic appreciation. A fine body for a man, of course. He added, "The erks are getting my kit together—I'll be set to leave in ten minutes."

"Good, dear. Are you taking Flash? But she's ready to come into heat. She'll be chasing birds all the way." The smile-corners drooped down, the eyelids went to half-mast. Nancy-R added quickly, "But of course you can handle her if anybody can, Jupe. Would you like to give your report before you go?"

"That's what I came in for," he said. He waited good-humoredly enough while Nancy-R called for her wife, Suzi, and Suzi, belly protruding far before her, waddled in to handle the recorder. Jupe patted her belly amiably. "Lucky Nancy still has a viable ovum at her age," he commented, and Suzi giggled as she dropped the needle in the machine and nodded for them to go ahead.

What Jupe had been doing was scouting a new nest site. (The detour to hunt inklings was an afterthought.) With a hundred and thirty-one sisters over the age of eight in their nest, it was ripe to fission. Everybody wanted a new nest when possible. A new nest meant one of the seniors could become a Mother Sister without waiting for Nancy-R to die. It meant even more that another male could be born, without upsetting the established 170-to-1 ratio. It meant most of all that America was alive and well on World, and growing!

Jupe's report was quick. The lakeside site had good farmland. It was near an erk city in good repair. There were plenty of dumb erks in the vicinity for stoop labor and quite a few smart ones for company. There was water from the lake—samples already delivered for testing— there was drainage, there was even pretty scenery, with soft hills on the horizon and the lake clean and broad. "So we can fiss whenever you like, Nancy-R," he finished, and was startled to see her purse her lips. "What's the matter?" he demanded.

"I'm only wondering if we want to," she said.

"Want to? Of course we'll want to! Why wouldn't we want to?"

Nancy-R winked at Suzi. A point won! Obviously Jupe had not thought the thing through. "Because we might all go back to Earth now instead," she said, and enjoyed the shocked rapture that flooded Jupe's face.

Jupe looked grand in his uniform. He knew it. It was tailored by smart erks, with loving and faithful attention to all the old pictures and the American Senate's new design: trousers, visored cap, jacket with epaulettes, holstered sidearm. The sidearm even worked, although its accuracy was poor and range small. All Americans had uniforms, tailored to them as soon as they were ten. They were for parades on Veterans Day and the Fourth of July; they were for dress-up whenever anybody thought of a good excuse to do it. Jupe's usual costume was no more than a breechclout and a thin coating of oil. But, as he had seen in Nancy-R's mirror, in uniform he did look grand!

Because the carry-bird Flash was near her time, she wasn't in the paddock when he got there. Dumb erks were tumbling over each other in excitement, squealing and gesturing at the sky. That's where she was, aflight, pursuing birds for dessert after her meal, to build up her protein store for her next mating. When at last she settled heavily into the paddock, great thin wings beating majestically, there was black blood on her mouth. But when Jupe stroked her pouch she opened it willingly enough.

"Jupe, man! Hey, Jupe? A ride?"

Jupe turned, one leg already into Flash's soft, warm pouch. It was the smart erk, Ike, loping toward him on his stubby little legs. Ike was uniformed, too—as uniformed as an erk could get—with uniform colors painted on his body and a cap with a visor as shiny as Jupe's own. "Can I come?" he begged. "Have you got room?"

"He's our President, not yours," said Jupe suspiciously.

"No, no!" the erk squealed. "Our President, too, Jupe! Anyway, I want to be in the parade, please, come on, Jupe, please?"

"Oh, well," said Jupe, only it sounded almost as much like "Oh, hell." But the erk got his wish. Jupe liked Ike, as a matter of fact. They had even gone hunting a time or two together, and though Jupe was miles stronger, the erk was miles better at scenting the inklings and freezing still until they came in range. Ike was old for an erk, even a smart erk. He was a good ten years older than even the Mother Sister; he had seen the Original Landers, too.

He was also big for an erk, nearly the size of a collie. Flash grunted in annoyance when she saw that she was going to be expected to carry double, even though one was only an erk. It was only an annoyance. It was not really taxing to her strength. Evolution had designed Flash to carry a whole litter of six or eight juveniles at a time, and in the gentle gravity of World, her muscles were well up to the job.

Quarters were cramped in her pouch, though. She moaned a couple of times as she was jabbed by the hard-soled shoes, the stiff belt, the rigid holster. "Watch it," Jupiter said crossly to the erk, and Ike pulled in his tree-climbing claws apologetically.

Flash grunted and twitched her pouch muscles. Still, when Jupe seized her nipples in a firm grip and tweaked them upward, she launched herself willingly enough into the soggy air.

Like all carry-birds, Flash had been trained along with her rider. Tiny Jupe had squirmed his way into the barely fertile pouch of the young carry-bird when both were very young. They had grown together. Flash followed Jupe's hand with the ease and familiarity of long practice, although there were times when the hand needed to be firm. Flash's hungers were becoming acute, and so when a bird flock passed incautiously near, Jupe had to check her strongly. The rest of the time she flew steadily enough on her own. There was time to relax and chat with the smart erk, Ike, and to gaze out at the countryside below. Mostly to talk. "You haven't seen the index tapes?" Ike demanded, scandalized.

Jupiter helped the erk to peer out over the lip of the pouch. "I haven't had time," he said stiffly, but the erk waggled his jaw reprovingly. In erks, the jaw was about all that could waggle; the head was fixed to the torso, like that of a whale or a bedbug. Ike was indignant.

"You missed the most important thing that ever happened!" he said, and fumbled in his belly pouch for a pocket viewer. The carry-bird squawked glum protest as a corner of it snagged the tender lining of her pouch. Neither Jupe nor the erk paid attention. "Look here," the erk commanded, coding for the reception of the President.

"No, no, earlier," Jupiter pleaded, and the erk compliantly coded back farther still. Jupiter gasped in excitement as he saw the Presidential yacht burst out of the spaceway, right where planned. The yacht offered no resistance. The shuttle's hooks caught it neatly—blur, click, as the erk switched forward to the landing—then he saw Big Polly, the Governor of all American World, ride triumphantly out to greet them. The erk was peering over Jupiter's shoulder. "He's really little, though, isn't he?" Ike asked, and Jupiter stiffened.

"Little? He's quite normal" he said in his stern, military voice—no erk was going to criticize a Real-American in his presence! But it was true that Big Polly towered over her President.

That didn't matter. What mattered was that the President was on World at last. Now things could begin! Even now, the news index said, the President and the two sallow sisters who were with him were in a meeting with the Senators already on hand. More Senators, more Congres-sones, more military officers and leaders like Jupiter himself were trooping into Space City every minute—"So hurry," pleaded Ike. "We don't want to miss the parade."

"Flash is flying as fast as she can," Jupe said sternly, but surreptitiously he gave her guidance nipple another little tweak. She groaned protest again, but did manage to put on a little more speed. As much as was possible, Jupiter knew. He resigned himself to staring out of the pouch beside the erk, daydreaming; and a great slow grin spread over his face and stayed there.

From below, Jupiter and Ike would have looked very strange to, say, Castor or Delilah. The two little heads were a bizarre contrast—Jupiter's dark and stem, but human, under his visored cap; the erk's less human than a star-nosed mole's. Erks were mammals, more or less. At least, they were warm-blooded and generally rather soft-skinned. But more than anything else they looked like insects the size of terriers; and their faces were not like anything earthly at all. Flash was bizarre enough, too, with her stubby body that carried the pouch they rode in under her eight-meter dragonfly wings. Any earthly stranger would have gaped or fled in terror. But there was no stranger below them to see. Field erks glanced up from the farmland, and a few of the dumb ones tumbled over themselves to wave—until nipped and threatened by the smart erk foremen. Jupe kept the carry-bird low to avoid bird flocks, just high enough to clear trees and buildings. They could hear sounds from the ground clearly, especially when a smart erk or occasional human called to cheer them on: "Give honor to your Living God President!" "Free America forever!"

Flash grunted interest, and Jupe saw that they were approaching Space City. Other carry-birds were converging at low altitudes, and more worrying to Flash, aircraft were sailing in from farther places. It seemed that every Yank in the World wanted to be in Space City. There were seventy or eighty nests within a thousand kilometers of the center, and nearly every one of them had sent its own male or senior sister to greet their President. Under the spires of Space City, bright and new—though, really, it had been in just that place, looking just like that, for nearly three thousand years—the ranks of the parade of welcome were beginning to form.

"We're in time, we're in time," the erk screeched, and Jupiter's heart leaped.

What Jupe had expected when he landed he didn't know. Falling to his knees before his President, before a crowd of a million cheering erks? Instant battle-stations to repel a Chicom attack? Something dramatic and martial, surely!

What he got was a quick order from his nest's Senator Martha-W: "Get in the hall, there, Jupe! Clear it out! We need a room to greet the President in!" So what Jupe did for an hour after he landed was kick and cajole giggling dumb erks out of the long-unused auditorium at the base of Space City's tallest spire. The President was somewhere around—so people said. Resting, maybe. Waiting for the parade to form up and the hall to be ready. The hall was a human-built auditorium, added to Space City in the days when every adult man and woman on World could assemble there at once. Dumb erks liked to den in it because it was so peculiar. Getting them out was like herding mice. The dumb erks let themselves be driven, but the minute the Yanks' backs were turned they slipped back in, squealing happily at the fun. It wasn't until a team of hard-bitten old smart erks arrived with electric shock prods that the dumb ones gave in and, still giggling, retreated out onto the broad yellow-green lawn.

There remained the problem of cleaning up after them.

And all the time the rumors flew. The President was being entertained by the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, and the head erks. The President said they were going to liberate America right away and everybody was being issued real weapons. The President had decided that there wasn't enough transport for an invasion; consequences of that unknown.

But nobody had actually seen the President.

And the President of the United-States, Pettyman Castor, had on the other hand seen far too much! He was in shock. He was very nearly in fugue, running away within his head from externals too bizarre and scary to deal with.

His "party" was in no better shape than he. Tsoong Delilah spoke only in monosyllables, her face frozen in an expression that mingled dislike and disdain; Feng Miranda babbled uncontrollably. They sat in a triangular chamber filled with flowers (what strange flowers! what sickly sweet or foul-smelling aromas!), and listened, and hardly heard what was said. There was too much of it! They had a whole world's history to hear, and Governor Polly and the "erk" called Jutch would keep on talking and talking so!

It was, to begin with, the worst kind of shock to find that creatures like the erks could talk at all. There was nothing like that on Earth, nothing to prepare them for the dizzying dislocation of being politely welcomed by an animal—or an insect?—no, a thing!—with more legs than it ought to have and a face that sprouted cat's whiskers out of a body like a bug's. Even the human beings (why were they almost all women, for heaven's sake?) were hardly reassuring. They were so grossly large. They towered over even Castor, and the two genetic-Han women together would not have made one of these giantesses.

Worst of all was what they said. For it seemed that here on this place (they called it "World"—what arrogance!) a colony of lost human beings had been for generations breeding like maggots, arming themselves with weapons more terrible than Castor had ever dreamed possible—allying themselves with these outrageous-looking creatures, the erks—readying themselves to invade the Earth at whatever cost in life or destruction!

There had been human beings on World for fifty-eight years, the Real-Americans were told. They came from an interstellar mission, sent off in those last spectacular days of the space adventure just before the missiles flew and ended space adventures for the foreseeable future. The astronauts had known that was possible; tensions had built steadily from the mid-twentieth century until the hour of their launch. All the same, the actual outbreak of nuclear war caught them unawares.

Then they no longer had a future.

By the time the astronaut crew, fifty-five strong, healthy, smart, young (but aging) men and women, realized there was not going to be a good world to return to, it was far too late to turn back.

They went on as ordered, to Van Maanen's Star.

And there was another shock. Two of them. The first shock was to find that none of Van Maanen's pebbly little planets had either air or water; there was no place to land.

The second shock was both better and worse. Better because it meant their lives might yet be lived to the end— a very big plus, for fifty-five men and women who had faced the probability of whirling around a dim, unfriendly sun in a steel coffin, waiting for the last of themselves to die. But worse because what they found were the erks.

"I don't mean the actual erks," said Big Polly graciously, smiling at Jutch and the other creatures chirping and twitching around the table. "They didn't send manned—I guess you'd say 'erked'—probes out. What they sent out was automated exploration ships. Each one of them had a spaceway. And that's what the Original Landers found." She chuckled fondly. "What a surprise that must have been!" she said.

A great surprise indeed, for the erk spaceway had captured the interstellar spacecraft as unceremoniously as Castor and his crew themselves had been snatched away from Earth's solar system—whirled through the dizzying tunnel between real-spaces—thrust into orbit around World—grappled—tugged down to the surface—caught.

Their interstellar voyage ended on World, and they were greeted by the erks.

Language was a problem; the erks had never heard of English, of course. But they had skills developed all through their racial history for learning to speak with new races, for they had done this thing many times before. In a week the Original Landers were able to speak to their hosts, or captors.

To understand what they heard in return took a great deal longer.

At first the Original Landers did not see that there was a difference between smart erks and dumb erks. They looked identical, after all, except that the smart erks usually wore more clothing or ornamentation, and it was generally of more sensible patterns. (But the dumb erks liked to play dress-up too.) This led to some confusions, especially when they were feasted by the smart erks and the dumb erks kept climbing up from their laps to their tables to lap at their food. The natural conclusion the Original Landers came to was simply that erks had terribly bad manners.

The erks were almost as confused about the Yanks. They found that the Yanks came in two distinct generations, with a third generation already swelling the bellies of all the females. The eldest generation comprised the females from the original flight crew, all clustering close to fifty years in age by then. The erks did not know enough to be surprised at finding swelling bellies on post-menopausal women, but they knew enough to see that something was odd. Then there were the twentyish females—so very many more of them than men in that generation—and all of them pregnant, too.

It took some explanation before the Yanks began to understand the erks and the erks the Yanks—a little bit.

For the Yanks, it was all sensible and understandable, once you understood the basic needs. The trip to Van Maanen's Star took thirty-one years Earth time, twenty-nine relativistic—far too long to expect the fifty-five original crew to arrive in dewy-fresh condition. If they had all paired off and started raising families about the time they passed the orbit of Neptune, their kids would have been of a prime age to explore on arrival—if there had been anything to explore.

But nobody wants dozens of squalling, diaper-dirtying kids cluttering up an already cluttered spaceship. Besides, the psychodynamicists predicted an absolutely appalling divorce rate... if they bothered with marriage.

So they didn't. They enjoyed themselves in such varying ways as each conscience (or pair of consciences—or sometimes larger group of consciences) directed. And once each month each of the women clambered up onto the cot with the stirrups and allowed to be teased out of her private plumbing that month's new ovum. And once each month, in strict rotation, one of the men received somewhat higher kinkier gratification than usual so that he might provide a few cc of spermatozoa to make the ova blossom when wanted. The blossoming was all in vitro. That means, it happened in a Pyrex tube. The bloom was allowed to unfold for only eight days, then the tiny almost-fetus was sexed, typed, classified, and dipped into the liquid nitrogen—until the sixth year of the flight.

Then they selected from the nearly two thousand stored embryos the twenty-eight that tests indicated would be strongest, most agile and adaptable. Four were male. Twenty-four were female; and, with some ceremony, each of the twenty-eight female crew members retired, one after another, to place her feet in the familiar stirrups. This time nothing was taken from her. Something was added.

Nine months later, twenty-five of the twenty-eight delivered healthy babies. Thereafter the collection and the processing and the freezing resumed, and it was nest-building, diaper-changing, child-rearing time on the ark.

The result of this was that when Intrepid slowed in orbit around Van Maanen's star it carried, besides its original crew, more than twelve thousand frozen eight-day embryos and twenty-five robust young adults, and those were the ones the erks greeted.

Erks and Yankees met... and talked... and each found in the other something badly needed.

What the Yanks found was an unexpected ally.

What the erks found was a cause to join.

And back on Earth, the survivors of the nuclear mutual suicide were trying to put together the scorched and shattered pieces of their world and knew nothing of what was being planned far out among the stars.

"Well," cried Big Polly, hoarse from so much uninterrupted oration, "have you had enough to eat? More java? A drop of berry wine?" The visitors looked at their almost untouched plates and faintly shook their heads. "Then we'd better get to the welcoming parade and reception!"

When the auditorium was at last ready, Jupiter's proud uniform was sweated limp and there were stains on the trouser legs. Jupe examined himself in one of the gold-glass frieze mirrors that decorated the entrance to the auditorium—the scene traced on the glass was Valley Forge, he thought, or maybe that other holy place called Okinawa. He swore angrily. But there was no time to do anything about cleaning himself up, for just then came erk squeals and human yells. "They're ready! The parade's going to start! Fall in, everybody, and pass in review!"

Hundreds of erks and scores of Yankees scurried around to find their places. Not all the human beings would be in the parade, of course. Someone had to watch it go by. So Senators and Congressones didn't march. Neither did the Governor and her staff; they were all up on the platform with the three new semidivinities that everyone craned a neck to see.

What's more, there hadn't been time for all the nests to get representatives to Space City. While the State Congress had been in session almost uninterruptedly since the erk transporter ship had reached station in the solar system and the first signals began coming in.

So the reviewers outnumbered the reviewed—or would have, if it hadn't been for Space City's three companies of smart erk volunteer militia.

The human squads sandwiched the companies of erks. By the luck of the draw, Jupiter's squad led the parade.

If Jupe could have seen the review through Tsoong Delilah's eyes, he would have found a lot of comedy in the spectacle. (Up on the reviewing stage, Delilah morosely did.) World's light gravity was wrong for thirty-steps-a-minute march time. The feet did not naturally fall to earth that fast. Muscles had to kick them down. So on World the American army, for the first time in its history, had to do a sort of Prussian goose step. Even funnier were the erk militia. They didn't have the right sort of legs to march or the bodies to wear real uniforms. They had spray-painted their bodies in olive drab and black, and they bounced along to John Philip Sousa tempi. Jupe didn't think it funny. He thought it was grand. When he got the eyes-right command his heart thumped hugely as he first beheld his President.

So young!

And so tiny; and the two sisters with the President were tinier still, with skins so sallow and features so— well—strange that Jupiter wondered if they were ill. Even the President had a haunted, absent air as the colors trooped past and he returned the salute.

And then it was all past, and the Yankee military might, all two hundred and twenty of it, counting erks, column-righted around the edge of the reviewing stand, and halted by squads and were dismissed.

Ike scurried over, chirping with joy. "Oh, Jupiter, that was marvelous! What do we do now?"

Jupe looked at him in a superior way. "What you do," he said, "I don't know, but I have been invited to the reception."

"Oh, sure, the reception, we're all going," bubbled Ike, taking the wind out of Jupiter's sails. "Did you see him? Tell me, Jupe, isn't he small? Somebody told me Real-American males only ran a hundred seventy centimeters or so—is it something to do with the gravity?"

"Everybody knows that much," said Jupiter severely. "Are you just finding that out, Ike?" He observed that the dismissed squads were melting away and was galvanized. "Come on, if you're going to the reception and banquet—if we don't get a move on all the good places will be gone!"

The places weren't gone, because there weren't any places. Everybody milled around in a large room off the dining hall, and to Jupe's surprise there were tables and trays and buffets of inky-meat pates and tree-cheeses and crisp sour-pears and all sorts of good things. Yet tables were set in the hall behind the wide doors; were they going to have two meals?

That didn't matter. What mattered was that all three of the Real-Americans were lined up by the doorway, and one by one all the people at the reception were lining in their turn to pass by and shake their hands. Shake their hands! Jupiter grinned with joy; that was one of the Real-American customs he had learned as a child and never seen practiced on World.

He took his place in line, disappointingly far back, just after an erk whose name was Jutch. They had met before—Jutch was high up in erk council. Jutch was an old erk, with discolored skin and half his nails missing, but his chirp was as lively as Ike's.

Something occurred to Jupiter. "This handshaking," he said. "How are you going to do it?"

The erk's vibrissae wriggled. "Weren't you briefed? They gave us all instructions. We erks get up on our hind members like this"—he raised the first set of limbs off the floor—"and then they'll all stroke our foreknuckles. Then we say, 'Hello, welcome to World; we are all united in the cause of freedom.' Then they go on to the next one in line. Didn't you get these instructions?"

"I was very busy," Jupiter snarled.

"I see," said the erk politely. "Then maybe you don't know what humans are supposed to do—"

"I am a human! Of course I know!"

The erk's vibrissae drooped consideringly as he gazed at Jupiter. "Of course," he agreed, making an effort toward tact. "Then you know that you're supposed to bow before you hold your hand out."

"Certainly I do," said Jupiter, listening intently. "Were there any other instructions for humans?"

"I thought you said you knew what you were supposed to do."

"I do! I was only wondering if they got the instructions right—for people from nests that don't have the same advantages I do, you know."

"I see," said the erk, waving his vibrissae to stimulate thought. Then, "No, nothing about the ceremony, I think. There wasn't much explanation, either."

"What needs explaining?" demanded Jupiter. "Seems simple enough to me. The handshake is a Real-American custom when you greet somebody. Bowing is an expression of respect—of course, you bow to your President!"

"I didn't mean the ceremony itself," the erk explained. "I was thinking of how funny it is that we should be eating out here, and then in a little while we're going into the other hall and eat again."

"We are?" asked Jupiter, wondering. Then he recovered himself. "Of course we are," he said. "You mean you don't understand why we eat twice?"

"Not really," Jutch confessed.

"Then," Jupiter said kindly, "you should have asked me. You see, this is what they call the 'cocktail party.' It's an old Earth custom."

The erk said, "I see that, but why do we eat twice for the same meal?"

Jupiter said regretfully, "I wish I had time to explain that to you, but look, we're almost at the head of the line! Now, don't forget. Get up on your hind members and let them stroke your foreknuckles, all right?"

"Yes, thanks," said the erk with a grateful flick of whisker, and scuttled ahead to make his duty obeisance to the distinguished visitors. Jupiter watched him with a full heart. To touch the hand of the true and real and only President of the United States! A transcendental experience! The most fantastic dream of his childhood, incredibly come true!

Only, you know, once you'd done it it wasn't really all that transcendental. The President of the United States was—well, not a letdown, certainly. Your President couldn't be a disappointment! But it was true, all the same, that Jupiter had not expected President Pettyman to be hardly older than Jupe himself and hardly more practiced in the rites of protocol. All Jupiter could think of to say when he pressed the flesh of his President was "Hello." The President didn't seem even to hear that, being preoccupied at peering down the length of the waiting line and frowning when he saw how long it still was. Nor were the two sisters with the President particularly grand. It was impressive that they were of Cabinet rank, but why did they look so peculiar? Why were their faces so flat and their eyes so black? Had there been something wrong with their implantation? Was it possible that all Real-American sisters were like these? (And if so, what was it like to copulate with them?) As he left the dais, having had a perfunctory handshake with the Governor and one or two other Yanks he hardly noticed, he almost tripped over the erk Jutch. "Oh, sorry," he said, flushing. It wasn't so much that he minded stepping on the erk— the erk should have got out of his way—but he didn't like being caught still staring at the President.

"Have you got a table reservation for dinner?" asked the erk.

"Reservation? No. What's a reservation?"

The erk said considerately, "I guess you got here too late for that. Anyway, you're welcome to sit at my table."

"Thanks," said Jupiter, thinking fast. "I, uh, I think I will use the excretion facilities now."

"Of course," said the erk, backing away. A well-mannered erk, thought Jupiter approvingly. Having invented the excuse, he decided in fact to excrete. He walked to the head of the waiting line without even thinking of the fact that he took it for granted that no one would be using the one stand-up urinal in the excretion chamber. Of course, no one was; everyone else on line was a sister. Struggling with the unfamiliar uniform fly made Jupiter rueful at his own clumsiness, and he bantered back and forth with the sisters waiting for the cubicles. At the very end of the line as he left he found his own Congressone, Mary-May. "I'm surprised to see you have so much difficulty opening your pants," she called jokingly. "You never used to have that trouble in the nest!"

Jupe grinned at her fondly. As nest male the choice of the Congressone was his, as the choice of the nest's Senator was the Mother Sister's, so in a sense Mary-May was his protegee. "It depends on whether there's anything worth taking my pants off for," he explained. "Now, if one of those Real-American sisters were here—" There was a chorus of giggles and hisses from the waiting sisters.

"Ugly things," one young sister exclaimed. "Did you see how kind of spoiled their skins look? And neither one of them has a decent nose... Of course," she added lamely, belatedly remembering whose looks she was criticizing, "they do look very, uh, dignified, don't they?" She looked around for support. There wasn't much to be found. She made another effort. "I was quite close to them for nearly two hours," she said with pride. "I was an usher in the stands when the parade passed in review, so actually I was near enough to touch them. I could even hear what they said to each other, quite a lot of the time."

Well, that made a difference. The sister's gaffe was forgotten as the rest of the line closed in to hear what she had to say. Even Mary-May cocked an ear, for her place on the platform had been a good deal too far away to hear any exchanged confidences between the Earth sisters. Jupiter himself might normally have tarried to hear more, but he was beginning to worry about where he was going to sit in the dining room. Why had no one told him to make a "reservation"?

When he circled the dining hall he discovered that the failure was important. There was a head table, easily recognizable by the huge three-dimensional figure of a Living God holoed on the wall behind it, and of course by the fact that the table was elevated a meter above all the others. There were plenty of tables set around it and nearby, in concentric half circles. But every one of those nearby tables was marked "Reserved." There were place cards (so they were called, the smart erk waiter Jupiter buttonholed patronizingly informed him), and the names on the cards were either important erks or high-ranking humans. For semi-important people like Jupiter, no places were set aside. The semi-important were left to take their chances in the unreserved tables. Furiously Jupiter boiled back to the excretion chamber and caught his Congress-one just as she reached the head of the line. "Mary-May, this is terrible!" he complained. "I can't sit way at the back of the room like that! Can you get me in at your table?"

"Oh, no, Jupe. There's no room."

He glared it her. "Have you forgotten whose Congress-one you are?"

"Of course not, Jupe," she soothed, giving him a peaceable smile. "You picked me, I know that. But I didn't make the seating arrangements—and really, Jupe dear, you're making me hold up this whole line, and they're going to start serving dinner very soon—"

He gave her a black look. At least he had the erk's invitation to fall back on. He started to turn away—then remembered the young sister who had been in the reviewing stand. He waited for her to come out of one of the cubicles, took her arm, led her away. "You can sit with me," he said generously; and when he found the table where the erk Jutch was sitting, far back against the distant wall, he said, "This is my friend. I've invited her to join us." If the erk had any objections, he kept them to himself.

Anyway, the occasion was exciting enough for anyone, even those condemned to sit practically against the far wall. Smart erk waiters were bringing little dishes of cut-up fruit soaked in wine. Dumb erks were trying to steal some of the dishes, amid laughter from all the guests. Gradually Jupiter's temper improved. After all, it was the greatest occasion of his life!

And the company was not bad. The erk Jutch turned out to be rather important in the hierarchy of erk affairs. Why he was not up in a reserved seat, Jupiter could not imagine, but there was much about the way the erks ran their lives that was still mysterious to the Yankees, even after two World-born generations.

Not only that, but the strange sister, whose name turned out to be Emilia, was full of interesting gossip about the Real-Americans. The President was quite shy, she said. He hardly ever spoke to either of his Cabinet members unless they spoke to him first.

But the most startling thing, said Emilia, was the ignorance of the Real-Americans. She gazed around the table. "Do you know," she asked solemnly, "that the Real-Americans never heard of the Living Gods?" All at the table, human and erk alike, automatically turned to gaze at the Living God figure behind the head table.

"How did they think we erks got smart?" asked Jutch in amazement.

"They didn't even know the difference between dumb erks and smart erks!" the sister chuckled. "Didn't you see that old sister, the one they call Delilah? In the receiving line? A couple of dumb erks sneaked in to steal some of the food, and she actually stroked the fore-knuckles of one of them!"

There was more that the sister knew, and that lasted Jupiter through the palm soup and the inkling fricassee, while smart erk waiters came through refilling java cups and reminding everybody to save their admission tickets and picking up the dirty dishes. The sister had a lot to say. She had overheard a lot. She had overheard the Real-American sister Delilah consulting with A-Belinka, the smart erk who was chief matter-transporter operator. Funnily Delilah hadn't seemed to want to talk about sending warships to Earth. (It had been very uncomfortable for Delilah, the sister giggled, because the erk had sat in her lap to talk to her.) The other Real-American sister, Miranda, had been constantly whispering to the Senators and Congressones, trying to find out just how the government of Yankee World worked. A Senator and a Congressone from each nest, yes, but what did they do? When they convened, did they pass laws? How were they elected? The Senator by selection of the Sister Mother alone, the Congressone by choice of the nest male? But didn't anybody vote on anything?

"What do we want 'laws' for?" Jupe demanded.

"She didn't say, Jupiter. And she didn't explain about 'voting.' There's a lot that's funny about the Real-Americans, and especially about the President! Let me just tell you—"

But she never did tell Jupiter the funny thing about the President, because the Governor stood up and tapped her java cup with her heavy glass spork for attention. "Ladies and gentlemen and honored erks," she said, "the President of the United States."

The hall became as still as it could be—no hall with dumb erks tumbling around under the tables could be wholly still. Perhaps it was the constant undermotif of happy or hurt erk squeals that made the President seem uncomfortable. Perhaps it was something else; Jupe noticed that President Castor Pettyman kept looking anxiously at Secretary of State Delilah Tsoong as he spoke.

And what he said was rather peculiar.

"On behalf of the peoples of the United States of America," he began, and stopped as the Governor leaned forward to adjust his lapel mike.

"Thank you," he said, licked his lips, glanced at Delilah Tsoong, and went on. "On behalf of the peoples of the United States of America, we thank you for having us here. This is a most important occasion. It will be written about in the history books for thousands of years to come."

"Why is he telling us that?" Jupe muttered to the room at large.

The erk Jutch said reprovingly, "This is a political speech, Jupiter. You weren't really briefed properly at all, were you? You're supposed to be quiet—except when it is time to cheer."

"When is it time to cheer?" Jupe demanded.

"You'll see. Please listen!"

Jupiter shrugged and paid attention to the speech. "—much time has passed," the President was saying. "Much history has taken place. Many things that were true one hundred years ago are true no longer, isn't that true?"

That seemed to be a time to cheer, because the Delilah sister leaned forward. "True!" she shouted. It was an obvious cue, and the eager erks and Yanks did not fail to seize it. All around the room, every Yank and every English-speaking erk shouted, True, true! Jupe was as loud as any. That was fun! He was in a real patriotic rally, with his real President! It was disconcerting that some of the things the President said were—well—strange. But still!

"So," the President went on, glancing again at the American sister with the strangely shaped face, "we must go cautiously. We must not make mistakes. We must confer and learn to understand each other's needs and problems, isn't that true?"

This time the shouts of True! were a little fainter, as though others in the audience had begun to wonder just what was being said—though this time even the dumb erks under the table yipped and chattered inarticulate somethings, too, enjoying the game.

Jupiter looked around the room. Every human face was showing some degree of puzzlement. Of course, with erk faces you couldn't tell. Still, Jutch leaned over to him. "Why doesn't he say something about the war?" he asked.

"Hush," said Jupiter severely, since it was the same question he had wanted to ask.

The President continued:

"So our first objective here is to learn what you have to tell us so that then we may tell you all we know. I have arranged with your Governor"—he turned and bowed courteously to the sister from Cherry Hill Nest—"to give us a week of briefings, including a tour of, ah, World. We will take ten of you with us, the names chosen at random. We will learn all we can. Then we will address the entire population of World, both human and—ah, uck?—erk— on television."

He paused and beamed around the room. Jupe had the idea that the President's smile was somewhat forced. Then he said, "Thank you," and sat down. The applause was considerable, but it frayed away into silence as everyone waited for something to happen up on the platform. Very little did, and what was happening was not very interesting. The Governor was whispering in the ear of the President, and the Secretary of State was saying something nasty and punishing to the rebellious-looking younger Real-American sister Miranda. Jupiter could hear none of that.

The erk Jutch put his forepaws on Jupiter's shoulder and chirped, "Come on, Jupiter, tell me. Isn't there going to be a war?"

"Of course there's going to be a war," snapped Jupiter. He pushed the erk away and said severely, "Don't you know anything? You can't just have a war any time you want one!"

"We always did," the erk said sadly.

"You're erks! We're Americans! First there has to be a planning session. Then the military people have to make plans. Then there has to be, I don't know, like an exchange of diplomatic notes," he improvised, trying to remember his history lessons, "and then an ultimatum. Then we have the war."

"It sounds like a lot of extra trouble to me," said the erk.

"This is an American war. We'll do it the American way. Erks have nothing to say about it."

"Oh, now, really, Jupe," the erk objected. "Those are all our weapons and ships and things that we're giving you to fight this war with. We ought to have some rights. Not to mention a lot of us will be fighting right alongside you."

Jupe shook his head in irritation. "Erks always fight," he pointed out. "That's what erks are all about, isn't it? So pay attention and learn something. Our human rules of warfare are very sensible and simple—"

But he never got to the very simple rules, because from the tables all around them erks and people were shushing them and calling, "Shut up, you two. You're missing it!"

"Missing what?" Jupiter demanded belligerently and then saw that up at the center stage, where the Governor was standing patiently, the orchestra had just finished another rendition of "Hail to the Chief."

The Governor applauded politely and then called, "Fellow Americans! We are now ready to have the drawing. I hope every one of you has kept the stub of your admission ticket, which you will see is numbered. The numbers will now be drawn at random, and each number called will entitle the erk or Yankee who holds it to form part of the escort party for the President and his staff as they tour World."

The sixth number drawn was Jupiter's.

II

When the party was assembled there were twenty-five of them, the ten escorts who won the lottery, the three high officials from Real America, and about a dozen officials, erk and human, who appointed themselves to the group. Some had a reason to be there, like the Governor herself and the erk A-Belinka, head operator of the matter transporter, who would be an important part of any invasion of Earth—if any invasion of Earth was ever really going to happen. Most were simply just along for the fun. They were too many for carry-birds to deal with, so two hoverplanes were provided. That meant there was plenty of room to carry them all in comfort, but when the Real-American sister Miranda heard that Jupiter was trying to get permission to fly along with them in Flash, she fussed and complained and got on everybody's nerves until they gave Jupe his permission. Then she gave herself permission to fly with him in the carry-bird.

What a thrill that was for Jupe! Alone in a carry-bird pouch with one of the only two Real-American sisters on World!

What a thrill it was for Miranda, too. Nothing like it had ever happened in her life before. Nothing she saw was familiar. Even the farms were not the same as on Earth; Earth had nothing like erks to share a planet with. Everything she saw was exciting, even such silly and familiar things as herds of inklings pouring down a defile on their way to mate or released carry-birds preying on bird flocks. "Have you ever copulated in a carry-bird pouch?" asked Jupiter, generously. "No, of course not; you've never been in a carry-bird before. Here, let me show you what you have to do—"

And what a surprise that was! Because Miranda didn't want to copulate with him. She not only didn't want to do it in the pouch, which Jupiter could understand because although that was interesting it was also not really very comfortable, she didn't want to do it at all. Said she didn't, anyway. Said she was a "virgin," which caused Jupiter a whole incredulous shock of unbelief and almost revulsion; why would any sister want to be a virgin?

What she did want to do was talk. No. Not talk, really; she didn't offer much about Earth, although Jupiter's curiosity was immense. She acted as though she didn't enjoy the subject for some reason, almost as though there was something she didn't want to tell him, though he could not make out what it was. Annoyed, beginning to wish the flight were over, he resigned himself to answering her questions—"Because," she explained, "that's what the protocol is, right? First we all find out everything there is to know about you people and World. Then we confer, and then the President makes his address."

"You could tell me something," he complained.

"No, I couldn't. Won't, anyway. Now tell me: where did all you human beings come from?"

"From the interstellar probe, of course!"

"All of you? But there were only fifty or sixty people on the ship, they said."

"Ah, well," said Jupiter, marshaling his memories of the great story of the Original Landers, "that's true. But, you see, they collected all these fertilized ova and sperm..." He began to cheer up. The opportunity to lecture was rewarding, after all, if not in the way he had more or less decided he would allow her to reward him, and it made a nice break in the boring, long carry-bird ride.

Miranda was full of questions. "And how many of you are there now?"

"Oh, hell, Miranda, who can keep count? Around eighty-five hundred, I think."

"And how many are men?"

He paused while, frowning, he urged Flash's teats a little higher; she had seen a covey of resting birds on the woods ahead and he didn't want her getting ideas. "Fifty or so. Adults, I mean—over fourteen. There's usually only one male to each nest, and that's how many nests we have."

"Fifty men," said Miranda thoughtfully. Fifty men and 8,450 busy wombs. "And all the women are pregnant all the time?"

"Well, no—once a year at most, usually. Sometimes they wait a whole year for a new implant. And there are some, like my Mother Sister, that just don't get pregnant at all. See, she's married, and she wants to be the father, not the mother—"

"Oh, my God," said Miranda, when Jupe had finished explaining to her how the Mother Sister took her own ova, fertilized them in vitro with anonymous sperm from the banks, and implanted them in her "wife."

But by that time they were almost at the first nest on their list.

Mining nests, farming nests, industrial nests, teaching nests—there were fifty nests to be seen, and all fifty wanted their President and his colleagues to see them. Wanted urgently. Damn well demanded. Would not be refused. And of course it was impossible to accommodate them all, and then people like Jupe kept getting messages from friends in other nests, in his own for that matter, begging and demanding and pleading: "Come on, Jupe, you can talk them into it if you want to!" But he didn't want to. He was getting tired, too.

Not as tired as the Real-Americans, of course, not by far. After three days young Miranda was half-hysterical with strain and fatigue and, mostly (to Jupe's permanent astonishment), with fending off the courtesy copulations every male offered her.

Now, why in World would she want to do that?

When away from her, Jupe spent endless hours discussing this oddity with the other males, with senior sisters, with erks, with anyone who would listen. Their bafflement was as great as his: what woman (bar the oddies like his own Mother Sister) wouldn't want a penis inside her from time to time? As often as she could manage it, in fact?

When with her, Jupe spent endless hours on the same subject until, scarlet with rage, she forbade him to ask even one more question on pain of being thrown out of the escort party.

In school biology Jupe had studied the mating habits of the sting-beetles, tiny warm-blooded creatures like scorpions whose mating occurred only once in a lifetime, after which the male crept into the female's womb and lived on there, blind, limbless, brainless, for the rest of his and her life.

The mating habits of the Real-Americans were as strange, as repulsive, as incomprehensible to him. It took him a long time to figure out the pattern, and then he could hardly believe it. Miranda wanted to copulate Castor and nobody else. (Incredible!) Castor was in the habit of copulating Delilah, but was perfectly willing to copulate Miranda or any Yankee sister—or probably a tree-trunk, for that matter. However, Delilah wouldn't let him. Delilah copulated only Castor, and she got quite snappish at Miranda, or the Yankee sisters (or no doubt the tree-trunk) when Castor seemed to show an interest. She was going to lose that test of wills, Jupiter decided, but why bother in the first place?

How very strange it all was!

The strangeness did not end with their peculiar sexual practices—barely began there, to be sure, because what was of most interest to Jupiter was not how Real-Americans made love but how they lived. As to that there was only stubborn silence. The three Real-Americans differed on much, but on that they were united and resolute. They would tell all about what Earth was like—once they had learned what World was like, and not one minute before. The President's prepared statement had said nothing. They said nothing to add to that nothing.

But they asked—everything! Oh, what questions they asked! "Where did you Yankees get those dumb names?" demanded Miranda. How weird that she should not figure that out for herself! Were they not the names of the great male heroes of the past?—not only the Americans but the foreign, the real, and the mythical: Ulysses and Ajax, Robert E. Lee and Pickett, John Wayne, Thor, Brigham Young—and, of course, Jupiter. Why did they pick such names? Why, because they were heroes, for heaven's sake! All male Yanks were heroes! They lacked only the challenge to be heroic about!

And where did the erks get their names? Why, from the same source, naturally—except that the erks, not being really Yankees, were naturally even more patriotic than the native-born. They chose only the greatest of American statesmen. Abe Lincoln. George Washington. Franklin D. Roosevelt—"Damn it, Jupiter," complained Miranda, "why don't they say them right? They speak perfectly good English!"

"They do now," Jupiter agreed loftily, "because we've been teaching them for ages. But they didn't when we first arrived, you know. Didn't speak English at all. They spoke that crazy squeaky stuff they talk to each other, but of course they did want to take our names right away."

Miranda stamped her foot. "Why!" she demanded. "What kind of crazy people are they, that they want to name themselves after strangers like that?"

Jupiter sat back and looked at her thoughtfully. The question was in perfectly clear words and grammar, all right, but what a strange question! Didn't this sister know anything? Patiently he began at the beginning. "Because that is what they do," he explained.

"What is? Why do they?"

"They help the causes of righteousness and justice wherever there is a need, of course. And they do it because the Living Gods made them that way." Idly he gestured toward the figure of the Living God, gleaming in three-D color beyond the entrance to the nest they were visiting.

Miranda frowned uncomprehendingly at the figure. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said at last; and at last illumination came to Jupiter.

"Ah!" he cried, and then stood up and called to the other groups of erks and humans scattered around the nest grounds. "Listen, all of you! They don't understand! They don't know about the Living Gods!"

When two parties are arguing at cross-purposes and suddenly, revelatorily, the basic incomprehension becomes clear to one side, the other side usually reacts with irritation. "Don't be so damn smug!" Miranda raged. "Tell us! Then we'll understand!"

"I will, I will," smiled Jupiter, gesturing to the others to join them. "But let's do it in an orderly way, shall we? It'll save time in the long run." He patted her unresponsive hip, which did nothing to soften her mood. "Come on, all of you," he added, to Delilah and the President and the others. "Sit down. Here. Anywhere. We'll clear this up right away—oh, what's the matter?" he asked in annoyance, as the Mother Sister of the nest began shaking her head.

"We don't have time for this, Jupiter," she said severely. "You've given our nest only thirty-one hours, and now you're scheduled to inspect our district medical center, so the Real-Americans can see how the implants are stored and nurtured and transplanted and—"

"This is more important," Jupiter said boldly, looking to the Governor for support. She thought it over first, but then she gave in with a nod. So they all sprawled out on the mossy banks under the hot red sun. Erks came running up with wine and java and things to munch on, and Jupiter set himself happily to resolve the difficulty. "The erks," he said, enjoying himself, "were not the bosses of World. The Living Gods were."

The Real-American sister Delilah gave him a look of disdain. "Start at the beginning, Jupiter," she ordered. "What are the 'Living Gods'?"

But the Governor was having none of Delilah's disdain. She said authoritatively, "Jupiter will tell this his way or not at all." And then reversed herself by telling it herself: The erks had not been the dominant species on the planet. They were a sort of pet, which the dominant species— the "Living Gods"—kept around as livestock or for companionship.

Because the Living Gods were a technologically gifted race, in all the kinds of technology open to them, they did not leave their pets unchanged. For that matter, neither did humans. Human beings bred dogs into Chihuahuas and Malamutes. The Living Gods moved more swiftly and surely. They reached into the DNA itself and made the erks smart. Dumb erks were about as bright as chimpanzees and as childish. Smart erks were about as smart as humans—

But also still childish, in ways that appealed to the Living Gods, for they liked their pets to be amusing.

The Living Gqfls—the ostrichlike beings in the shrines—were rather like humans in another way, because they had not learned how to avoid war. Weaponry outraced wisdom.

And, in the long run, they killed themselves off. There was a Living God colony on another planet of the system that rebelled against their masters on World; the Living Gods on World annihilated that planet and all that were on it; but not in time to save themselves. Biological weaponry was another of the things the Living Gods were good at, and the viruses the rebels poured into the air and waters of World killed every Living God there was.

The erks survived.

"We don't breed true all the time," explained Jutch, climbing up in Castor's lap to peer into his eyes. "It's been a really long time, you know, and the gene alterations aren't as stable as that. So there are dumb erks as well as smart erks like me."

"All erks are dumb," grinned Jupiter. "Otherwise you wouldn't be trying to get into every war you can find, would you?"

The second day came and went, and the third, and the fourth.

They had covered nearly a quarter of the land area of World's one big continent and even a couple of nearby islands. They had shown the President's party the marvelous old Living God machines and cities that healed themselves when they wore and rebuilt themselves when they aged; they showed how the machines could be redirected to build new things and even new cities. Or nests.

Or weapons.

They were nearly at the end of the tour, and Jupiter saw with astonishment that the Real-Americans did not really seem all that clarified. They had learned a lot, but what they learned did not seem to make them wiser. It certainly did not make them easier to get along with. More and more they chose to wander off together, a closed group of three, to whisper and hiss and snarl at each other. They weren't getting along with each other any better than with their hosts, but what was the matter? Clearly they were troubled—

And then everyone was troubled; and the most troublesome thing yet happened at Ancient Nest.

They came to Ancient Nest on the sixth day of their tour, hot and tired and snappish with each other. The food at Rosy Nest had been poor, because the kitchen sisters had tried to please their visitors with a special Earthside treat of tamales and pizza, and the result had been horrid for everyone. The long flight had been through bumpy air, and half of the party were airsick. When Jupiter tried to cheer Miranda up by explaining the historic uniqueness of Ancient Nest she only said sulkily, "It's one more damn nest, and the hell with it."

Jupiter exchanged resigned looks with the erk Jutch. What a way to talk about Ancient Nest! It was the first colony the Yankees had ever had on World. It was nearly a shrine, and so was the erk city it was built beside—in fact, the city was even more of a shrine to the erks than Ancient Nest to the Yankees, because it was hardly an erk city at all. It had never been rebuilt for erk use. It remained exactly as the Living Gods had left it, millennia before; the erks visited it, for it was their Mecca and Lourdes and Independence Hall all in one, but no erk lived there. "Uh-huh," said Miranda as they stepped out of the hoverplane. She wasn't really listening to him. She was watching Delilah whisper angrily into Castor's ear as the two of them stood by the other plane, and her expression showed that she wasn't any happier than they.

"You haven't heard the most interesting part," said Jupiter.

"That's good, because honestly, Jupe, I haven't been all that thrilled with what you've told me so far." Miranda grinned sardonically as she observed Delilah carefully wiping Castor's sweaty brow with a fuzzy leaf as she scolded him—Castor had been more airsick than most on the flight—and turned her attention to Jupiter. "Well? So what's so interesting?"

"An Original Lander," said Jupiter proudly. "That's what's so interesting!"

At least this time he got her full attention—not only attention, but demands for explanation; not only that, but a quick consultation with the other Real-Americans. "Why didn't you tell us there were survivors?" demanded Delilah, and Jupiter only smiled.

"It was a surprise," he explained. "Besides—"

Besides, he thought, it was only sort of true that Major General Morton T. Marxman had survived. He didn't have to explain that. It was easier to show them; and as soon as Ancient Nest's Mother Sister Erica waddled out to welcome them they all went to take a peek at this last living survivor of Earth in the half-hospital, half-museum display where he lived. Or "lived," since what kept the old general alive was only the pipes and potions and plumbing of the erk biologists. Marxman was not really incredibly old—he was not much over a century, Jupiter explained, counting up for the Real-Americans—and of course other human beings had sometimes lived longer than that, hadn't they? But General Marxman had had a hard life. Especially since the stroke. After that he was really out of it, nearly all the time. The medics did, however, give him a trickle of stimulant now and then for special occasions.

"And this," smiled Mother Sister Erica proudly, "is certainly a special occasion! Do it, Lucille," she ordered, and one of the nursing sisters turned a valve and admitted a trickle of something extra into the constantly flowing liquids that had long since replaced most of the blood in Marxman's old veins.

The Real-Americans peered down at the shrunken old figure. "Nothing's happening," said Castor.

"It will take a while," said the Mother Sister and glanced at the nurse. "About half an hour? All right. Let me show you some of the interesting sights of Ancient Nest while we wait."

"Do we have to?" groaned Miranda, but the answer was yes, they did. Jupiter led the way proudly. He'd been to Ancient Nest before—well, just about every male Yank had, and a lot of the sisters, too, because visiting General Marxman was a pretty standard sort of class trip for the little ones. And when you were in Ancient Nest, naturally you visited the erk shrine. It was called the Hall of the Living Gods, and what was most interesting about it was that it wasn't just the Living Gods. "What are those damned things?" cried Miranda, her face wrinkled up in revulsion as she stared at the images ranked around the central stylized Living God.

Jupe smiled patronizingly. "Our predecessors," he said simply. "The erks have been sending out scout ships for many thousands of years, looking for survivors of the Living Gods."

"But those aren't Living Gods," Castor objected.

"No, of course not. Those are other clients. Just like us."

Castor looked indignant at that. He was staring at the niche with the tiny pale walruses, the next one with feathery-fronded sea anemones, the next one still with spiny squirrels the size of a horse, the next one still— "They're awful," said Castor. "What do you mean, our predecessors?"

"Just that they are the other races the erks have helped," Jupe explained. "That's what they do, you remember? The erks have never failed to give aid to the oppressed, in all their history. Of course, it hasn't always worked out the way you'd want it, but still—"

"But still," said the Mother Sister, getting a message from the door of the hospital, "we're ready for the general now! Oh, sisters, oh, Mr. President, what a noble experience you will have now!"

Well, it didn't seem that way. If the Real-Americans felt themselves honored, they didn't show it. They seemed if anything glummer than usual as they followed Jupe and the Governor back to the tidy green-decorated room where General Morton T. Marxman was being drawn back to the world of the living for their amusement. They didn't seem amused. "You know," Jupe whispered fiercely to the Governor, "these people aren't doing the right thing at all!"

The Governor gave him a bad look. Part of it was anger and part reprimand for daring to criticize his President ... but there was also a part that was agreement; for indeed things were not working out well. She said, "Be still for a while, Jupe. Let's get through this damned ceremonial anyway."

General Marxman had been taken out of his cocoon bed where monitors tested his blood and feces and urine and sweat and thoughtfully filtered out the bad parts from the blood and added the good parts he needed to keep what was left of his metabolism functioning, more or less. He had been reattached to the little shock-machine that reminded his heart when to beat and the gas-pipes that metered out what went into his lungs. He was reclining on his ceremonial couch, the one that propped him nearly half-sitting up and guarded him against falling.

He actually looked quite alive.

He could even talk, and he knew his lines. "Welcome," he rumbled. Some old men's voices get cracked and shrill— that's hardening collagen in their vocal cords. Some get deep and glottal, and that's better, so the medics in charge of General Marxman had selected for deep and impressive. His eyes were even open, though it was hard to tell what they were seeing, if anything. Taken all in all, he looked about as much as a living general should as any museum reconstruction of an extinct species.

He even impressed the President, thought Jupiter proudly. At least Castor was clearly fumbling about for some appropriate statement. He glanced at Delilah for help, got none, took a deep breath, and improvised:

"Ah, General Marxman," he said, "we, uh, have come here to pay our respects to a great American hero. You," he added, to clarify the matter.

He paused for a response. He got none. The general appeared to be thinking that over.

That was normal enough, of course. Stimulants or none, since his stroke, the general did not move very rapidly, but Jupe knew that the best medical opinion believed that inside that head a brain still frequently functioned. He wondered what it was like to be trapped and helpless in a dying old body. He looked on the recumbent figure with pity and contempt; how could anybody let himself get old? Was it really possible that the general had once been a boy, a youth, a second lieutenant desperate to be admired, an astronaut, a colonel? (The general's rank Marxman had finally bestowed on himself—reasonably enough, as the only commissioned member of the United States Armed Forces within nearly forty light-years.)

Belatedly Jupe heard a suppressed gasp from the Governor, and then he saw what she had seen.

There was a light in the general's eyes. He was looking as though he was seeing, and what he was looking at was not the President.

He was staring, with mounting emotion, at Tsoong Delilah and Feng Miranda, and the emotion was neither awe nor joy.

It was rage!

The nursing sisters saw what Castor saw. They understood as little as he, but they knew that something bad was happening inside the paralyzed head of General Morton Marxman. They came quickly forward to check pulse and breathing and vital signs, but the general squawked and croaked inarticulate sounds to warn them away. The eyes still glittered fiercely at Delilah and Miranda. He tried to move a wasted arm to pull the breathing tube out of the corner of his mouth; the arm would not move. He tried to push himself erect, but there were no muscles left in his wasted body that were capable of so Herculean a task. Indomitable, he did not surrender to the limitations of the corpse he lived in. He coughed. He gagged. He squawked and dribbled. And finally he spat the tube out, into the hands of the helplessly fluttering nursing sisters. "Treason!" he bawled, eyes flaming, glaring the sisters away. "Treachery! We've been betrayed! Arrest those two women at once—they're Chinks!"

III

So for the second time in a matter of days Jupiter's world turned upside down, but this one was no happy occasion. The hideous opposite of a happy one, it was an occasion for outrage and confusion. Chinks? The President had brought the enemy with him? How could such things be?

And nothing the President said helped to explain. Nothing the two women said was of any importance, of course: They were enemy. Enemies lied. They had to be arrested, just as the fierce old dying general had ordered— and that itself was a problem, because how did you arrest two members of the Cabinet of the real and true President of the United States?—especially when the President himself was petulantly demanding their release?

Something was terribly wrong!

It was not only wrong; it was just about incomprehensible. The rescue of the United States should not be complicated by this sort of madness! It made no sense— worse than that, the President only added to the confusion by trying to clear it up. Well, yes, he admitted, the Chink woman Delilah Tsoong was in fact Han Chinese—well, sort of Han Chinese. Well, she'd been born in the United States, all right, so she was legally American, too—if one could fit the words "legal" and "American" into the same sentence, when there had not been any American government to make anything legal or otherwise for a hundred years. And to make his incomprehensible explanations less comprehensible still, there was the woman Tsoong herself. She was uncompromising, even defiant. "All right," she sneered, "arrest me if you like! But you are fools! There is no America! It destroyed itself a century ago!" That was confusing, yes, but it simplified things a little, too, for anyone who could say such seditious things definitely needed to be restrained. They bound her arms behind her back, kept her quiet by threatening a gag if she didn't shut up, put her in the custody of the Governor and three smart erks with electric shock prods to see that she tried no tricks. (Whatever tricks she possibly could try, almost alone on a planet of beings who found her horrible.) She let them. She sulked.

The President was another matter. How could you arrest your own President? Even when he said such shocking things? "I'm not a real President," he said and "The election was a farce, really," he said and "We haven't been altogether honest with you, you know," he said, and then they simply wouldn't let him say any more. Even General Marxman, the fading breaths rattling in his throat, could only nod agreement when Big Polly pointed out that farce or not, that Presidential election was the only Presidential election they had and Castor Pettyman therefore the only President. So Castor was not arrested. He was put into the copilot's seat of his own hoverplane for the trip back to Space City, staring out in displeasure at the landscape of World fleeing by beneath. The armed erks behind him were, in his case, an honor guard.

And then there was Feng Miranda, altogether the most confusing of all. "Of course I am genetically Chinese," she cried furiously, "but what does that have to do with anything? My ancestors were American. For two hundred years they were American. They were patriots, and so am I! Loyal to America! You idiots, I'm the only American you've got! I'm far more of a true-blue American than that turncoat lackey Castor, who will lick the feet of the Han for a chance to ride in a spaceship every day of his life!"

What a puzzlement! Big Polly glanced around at the Real-Americans and the Yankees and the erks, looking for comprehension, for advice. There wasn't any. So they all bundled back into their hoverplanes for the trip back to Space City. The Congress might be able to decide what to do. It was beyond the capacities of even Big Polly.

As to Miranda, they compromised on her loyalty. They gave her only one armed guard, and that was Jupiter. The erk Jutch piloted their ship, and Jupiter left him to it as soon as they were at floating level.

There was a pallet at the back of the hoverplane. Miranda had thrown herself down on it, raging silently in anger and frustration. Jupe made his way back and stood over her for a moment, thinking. Then he touched her arm. "I believe you," he said, and added kindly, "If it would ease you any, we could copulate now."

She replied to him most unpleasantly, using a term for "copulate" that he had never heard before. It seemed almost obscene to him—imagine making copulation an obscenity!

Jupiter was a kindly person, for a male. Under normal circumstances he would have tried to jolly her out of it, perhaps even going to the trouble of stroking or patting her in spite of her nasty, hyperactive ways. This time, though, there seemed to be something going on up front. The erk pilot was chittering excitedly and twitching his vibrissae at Jupiter. Something was up, though Jupiter could not tell what. "I order you to stay right here," he warned the Chinese woman, who gave him a deadly look in return. Discomfitted, keeping one eye on her to make sure she was obeying (though what else, after all, could she do?), Jupe moved forward to the pilots' seats.

And even before he got there, as soon as the erk's reedy voice could reach him, he got the word: "Jupiter, Jupiter! You'll never believe it!" cried the erk.

"Believe what?" Jupe demanded, sliding into the seat next to him.

"They've launched another ship!" the erk babbled excitedly. "Look at the index screen! It's a big one, Jupe!"

Astonished, Jupiter leaned forward to activate his own screen. The right index was easy to find; the development was on a dozen theme channels at once, for it was big news in many ways. A new launch from Hainan Island! And, just as the erk had said, a big one!

The index screens in the hoverplane were not the same as those in the nest. It took Jupiter a moment to figure out how to do what he wanted to do. The erk tried to help him, but Jupe impatiently waved him off as he stabbed at the keyboard until he found the right setting. The blown-up still of the Han ship shivered and dissected itself into its parts. They weren't real; no erk or Yankee eye had seen inside the skin of the Han ship. What they were was the best erk specialist translation of the tracking data, optical scans, analogues with the Presidential yacht, and deductions from what was known of Han Chinese weaponry.

The ship was heavily armed. There was no doubt of that.

Its launching was, in fact, very nearly an act of war, and Jupiter's glands flowed in joyful torrents.

Miranda did not obey orders. She was hanging over Jupiter's shoulder all the way back to Space City. But Jupe did not reprimand, hardly even noticed, her flagrant disobedience, because she was by all appearances as thrilled as he. "They're going to attack!" she cried. "Oh, boy, Jupe, we're really going to fight them!"

"We're going to beat them," he corrected with the gruff kindness of a father whose child has responded in exactly the right way. "You'll see! The erks have been getting ready for this for a long time."

"Me, too!" she cried. "Oh, Jupe! You don't know how long my comrades and I have waited! You don't know what it's cost us—my own brother's life, a hundred years of slavery, all that hopeless time—and now—oh, Jupe," she repeated, flinging her arms around his neck. Well, thought Jupiter with some satisfaction, at last the sister was coming to her senses! Wrong again. To his surprise, when he reached back (somewhat awkwardly, twisting his arm to reach) to pat her bottom in response, she tightened up again. "God, is that all you think about?" she snapped, and drew away.

Jupiter gave up in exasperation. "Do you want to see what else is happening?" he asked coldly.

"Certainly I do. Just keep your hands to yourself."

He shrugged morosely and indexed the planning channels. It wasn't necessary. What needed to be seen was already in plain sight. They were coming into the Space City landing places, and just ahead of them, hovering over the city gates, there was a rainbow light-sign. It said:

Welcome to the President and the Plenipotentiary Congress

"What's a plenipotentiary congress?" Miranda demanded, staring over Jupiter's shoulder.

"It's what it says," he told her. "It's a congress of everybody important on World. It's just been called. As soon as they spotted the Chinese ship, Big Polly got on the communications channels. See, now we can do it!"

"Do what?"

"Why, declare war," Jupiter said gleefully, and was pleased, if a little astonished, to see that her breath came a little faster again. Her dour expression melted into almost a smile. He debated, then decided against, patting her again and instead said, "We're all going to be in session right away."

"Who's 'we all'?" she asked suspiciously.

"Oh, you too, I guess," he said. "Maybe even Tsoong Delilah. I don't know. Everybody!"

And everybody it turned out to be. Not merely the Congress. Most of them were already there, for every nest on World had been getting its Senators and Congress-ones there as rapidly as they could, ready for the return of the Real-American party and the President's expected address. That wasn't all, because the nests had also sent as many senior sisters as there was room for, and all the adult males. Nothing like it had ever happened on World before—at least not during the Yankee tenancy of World— and the mood was festive.

It was also serious, because there were serious decisions to be made. Big Polly had outlined the two main areas of decision making on the communications channels: to decide what to do about the surprising ethnicity of two of the President's party; and to prepare to meet and overmatch the threat from the Han Chinese on Earth. They were two quite different subjects, to be decided in quite different forums. The war plans would be made by the joint Yank and erk military council ; as a serving officer Jupiter could attend that, his right beyond question. He had no right to sit in on the sessions of the Congress of the United States (in Exile), however, and was thrilled to find out that as Miranda's jailer, with Miranda's presence essential, he was allowed to go along. There were no erks in Congress sessions, which were held in one of the old city assembly rooms. The trouble with that was that dumb erks didn't realize they were excluded, and so they were underfoot and being shooed out all through the half hour when Senators and Congressones drifted in to take their places. At the last there was a small procession: Miranda with her guard Jupiter; followed by Tsoong Delilah and her two erk guards, to take their places in the front of the room, but off to one side; then, walking together, Big Polly and the President to mount the dais, sitting on paired inkling-leather armchairs, to call the session to order. It didn't take long. The verdict of the Congress was simple: The President was the President. His executive authority, however, would not come into force until Real America was recaptured. Feng Miranda was a true and loyal American. Tsoong Delilah—

Well, Tsoong Delilah did not help her own cause a bit. Yes, she said, she was the only legitimate Secretary of State, but on the other hand the nation of "America" didn't really exist; and she held to that in spite of questioning and pleading. The questions came from Feng Miranda, and they were pointed and cruel. The pleading came from President Pettyman, who seemed to regard her intransigence as one of those silly womanly notions that were, most likely, associated with a premenstrual biochemistry. She would not recant. The Congress decided, after all, to leave that question open.

The Congress recessed itself, and all of its members moved joyfully to the larger chamber where the erks of the War Council waited for them. Had not really waited, exactly. The erks tolerated Yankee political rituals, even found them quaintly endearing, but while the Congress was in session the erks had been taking the practical steps necessary to make war planning mean something.

The session lasted five minutes. The smart erk named A-Belinka reported that the Han ship was being tracked and soon would be captured. Big Polly proposed a state of war. It was passed unanimously, with one abstention. But as the abstention was only the sulking Secretary of State, chin on hand, staring angrily out the window, it was not even recorded.

A-Belinka and Big Polly between them quickly appointed a Committee for the Conduct of the War. Jupiter wasn't on it, but Feng Miranda was. And that, he told himself, was almost as good, because although Jupiter the cocky young male from a minor nest had no claim to such exalted rank, he had now risen above that station. He was now Jupe-the-Jailer. He was the keeper of the sworn (but possibly deceitful) ally Feng Miranda; and whither she went there would go Jupe.

It was almost as good as being on the committee in his own right, he told himself and tried to make himself believe it was so.

She still did not wish to copulate. She insisted on sleeping alone that night. She had been given a room actually inside the old erk city, and although Jupiter would normally have had no difficulty in inviting some sister or other to his bed, the layout of the rooms made it awkward. Annoyed, he slept that night rolled up in blankets just outside Miranda's door. Alone.

The next morning, though, he was all cheer and pleasure ; they were to go to the vehicle-assembly sheds and discuss armaments and strategies. He hurried her through breakfast and commandeered a hoverplatform to carry them, spraying clouds of dust in all directions, to the hangar where the ship she had come in was housed. "What have they done?" Miranda demanded, staring around as they entered the huge shed. It was a rhetorical question. What they had done lay spread out before her. The ship she and the others had flown from Earth had been carefully, cautiously taken into its component parts. All the weapons that Tchai Howard and Manyface had concealed in its hull and drive systems and storage spaces had been dissected out. They stood alone now, a battery of murderous machines. Lasers of ionizing radiation. Missile projectors like the 75-millimeter cannon of bygone wars. Rocket launchers, both chemical and nuke. Even Miranda had not realized how lethal the spaceship had been. "They could have wiped you out!" she exclaimed, and the smart erk A-Belinka, scurrying over the spread-out pieces of a fire-control radar, wiggled his vibrissae at her in agreement.

"They could have destroyed our ships, yes," he chirped. "They could even have destroyed the spaceway—not by attacking the transportation field itself, of course, for that is not material, but by destroying the scout ship that generated it. But sooner or later, Miranda, our numbers would prevail. Once they were on this side of the spaceway they would have had no choice but to surrender—as they will have no choice again!"

Miranda looked at him doubtfully. "How can you be sure of that? What if they do shoot up the scout ship? Then you can't reach them at all, isn't that true? Not until you send another ship at slower-than-light speed with a new, what do you call it, spaceway?"

The erk's vibrissae flailed wildly. "They won't!" he shrilled. "They mustn't! What a terrible thing that would be! Jupiter, we must keep them from doing that!"

Miranda looked wonderingly from the little creature to her official guard. She shook her head incredulously. "I can't believe you people," she said. "God! Well, I see there's no help for it—I'm going to have to tell you how to run this war. Start by telling me all about this 'space-way' thing, and we'll figure out how to handle the Chinese as we go along."

A-Belinka wasn't offended. He was entirely happy to explain whatever Miranda wanted to know. Communication by means of the spaceway, he told her, was circumscribed by the laws of physics and by the distances involved. Right, the spaceway could be generated only by material means—its generator was among the apparatus the scout ship carried. Right, in order to get a space-way to any point in the Galaxy at all, it had to be carried there—and if there was no other spaceway already in place, it could be carried only by a conventionally propelled slower-than-light vessel. Right, if the scout ship was destroyed, all the erk and Yank plans would be set back by nearly half a century, because that was how long it had taken to get their spaceway-bearing ship into orbit around Earth's sun—and how long it would take to replace it if lost.

But, he said, vibrissae twitching happily, Jupiter nodding glad agreement beside him, they were not such fools as Miranda seemed to think! Having dissected her ship, they now had a good idea of what weapons the next one might carry. They could not prevent the Han from using those weapons—not, at least, until they were on the World side of the spaceway. But they could make sure they used them unprofitably.

A-Belinka turned to an index screen and called up pictures of what they had already done. Long since, they had supplemented the scout ship with small drone eyes. These were tiny, remote-controlled spacecraft that had been flashed through the spaceway toward Earth over the past weeks. The scout ship would hang back, out of range, and covered by a screen of drones. If the Chinese fired their weapons they would surely fire first at the nearer, more worrisome drones. They would be diverted, at least for a short time—and once the Han vessel was within range of the spaceway, a hundred thousand kilometers or so, it would take only moments to generate the field and swallow the ship up.

"And," finished the erk, twittering with excitement, "they are almost within range now, Secretary Miranda! Let us waste no more time. Our fleets are ready to deploy for the invasion—once we deal with this Chinese ship, which is already approaching the spaceway."

"And how do we do that?" demanded Miranda, bristling. "Are we going to do something or just sit around talking?"

A-Belinka said humbly, "We're going to do something, Secretary Miranda. Here. Let us look at what we have to deal with." He chirped quick commands to his erk assistants and then pointed with his vibrissae to an index screen.

The Han Chinese ship appeared before them, boosting itself out of low-Earth orbit toward the waiting scout ship. "We have fed into the data storage everything we know about your ship and its weaponry," said A-Belinka, "and also everything that any of you have told us or that we observed from our spy-eye drones."

"Yes, yes," said Miranda impatiently, studying the image on the screen. She listened with half an ear while the erk droned on about the biases that had been placed on the machines, the conjectures that had been fed in, the data from a score of other wars—other wars? Her ears pricked up, but A-Belinka was rattling on. The machines, he said, took all that in and appraised it. They considered the facts, the guesses, the theories. They studied the optical image of the Chinese ship, as well as what their other remote sensors could tell them about its radiations and its physical structure. Then Miranda saw something on the screen that had not been there before.

"Look at those ridges along the hull," she cut in. "They weren't there when they moved the ship to the gantry! And I think there are more antennae than there were—"

"Ah, very good, Secretary Miranda," said A-Belinka, chittering an aside to his helpers. The uncorrected optical blurred and was replaced by a stripped schematic. A-Belinka peered at the screen and said, "Missile weapons! And, oh, what big ones!"

"How did you do that?" Miranda demanded, staring at the index screen. Under the former bulges lay slim cylinders with bright tips.

"It is a most probable case, Miranda," the erk explained. "The machines have taken all the data and produced a best estimate. Usually they are quite reliable. Now the antennae—" And the smart erk assistants did something else with the controls, and the blisters that marred the smooth surface melted away. Underneath were parabolic dishes, great and small. "Why," said the erk with pleasure, "I think those are radiation weapons! You didn't tell us that the Chinese had radiation weapons."

"I don't know what you're talking about," snapped Miranda.

"Oh, it doesn't matter," said the erk dreamily, "but the machines have deduced that the Chinese understand that the spaceway is immaterial—energy, rather than matter—and so they intend to try to jam it. It will not work, of course—but how interesting, to find that the enemy is cleverer than we hoped!"

Miranda cast a doubtful look at Jupiter and a worried one at the erk. "'Hoped'?" she repeated. "That doesn't worry you?"

The erk bounced up and down happily. "It makes the game more fun!" he declared. "Where is the pleasure in shooting inklings on the nest? No, it is good that they should offer real opposition—for then, when we triumph, the satisfaction will be much greater!" He hopped off his perch and scuttled toward the door. "Come along, everyone," he sang. "Let's capture this dangerous enemy before he makes real trouble. The game is about to begin!"

And Miranda, tugged along by the firm, joyous hand of Jupe, followed slowly and thoughtfully. The liberation of America had been a hopeless dream for most of her life— only in the last few days a real and thrilling prospect. It had been something she was willing to die for, even to kill for.

She had never once considered it as a "game."