Footfall

30. FOOTPRINTS

The contorted moonlet dropped away, dwindled, vanished. Earth grew huge. A flashbulb popped above the Indian Ocean, and was replaced at once by a swelling, darkening fireball. Ring-shaped shadows formed and faded in and around it. Far from the central explosion, new lights blinked confusingly in points and radial streaks.

The Earth’s face streamed past, terrifyingly close but receding now. A wave in the cloud cover above the Indian Ocean raced outward, losing its circular shape as it traveled. Northward, it took on a triangular indentation, as if the edge of a blanket had snagged on a nail.

“India,” Dawson said. “How fast are you running this tape?”

“Thirty-two times normal,” Tashayamp answered.

“What is … that?” Alice asked.

“Land masses. The tsunami distorts the clouds,” Arvid said.

“So does the ocean floor,” Dawson amplified, “but not as much. That’s India going under. Those flashes would have been secondary meteors, debris, even water from the explosion thrown out to space and reentering the atmosphere.”

That’s India going under. Good-bye, Krishna, and Vishnu the elephant god. Jeri shuddered. “Dave took me to India once. So many people. Half a billion.”

Arvid stood near. She felt his warmth and wanted to be closer to him.

Tashayamp said, “Number?”

Arvid said, “Eight to the eighth times eight times three.”

“Human fithp in India? Where the wave goes now?”

“Yes.”

Dmitri spoke rapidly in Russian.

“Stalin thought that way,” Arvid snapped.

Dmitri shrugged expressively.

What was that about? Jeri wondered. Arvid didn’t like it at all. Stalin? He would have been pleased to have a simple answer to the India “problem.” It’s easier to deal with “problems” than people.

The distortion in the clouds swept against Africa, then south. Here was clear air, and a ripple barely visible in the ocean… but the outline of the continent was changing, bowing inward.

“Cape of Good Hope,” Jeri muttered. She watched the waves spread into the Atlantic. Recorded hours must be passing. She found herself gasping and suspected she had been holding her breath. The waves were marching across the Atlantic, moving on Argentina and Brazil with deceptive slowness and a terrible inevitability.

Cloud cover followed, boiling across the oceans, reaching toward the land masses. “My God,” Jeri said. “How could you do this?”

“It is not our choice,” Raztupisp-minz said. “We would gladly have sent the Foot safely beyond your atmosphere, but your fithp would not have it so.”

“Look what you made me do,” Alice said in a thick, selfpitying whine. Her voice became a lash. “All the sickies say that — the rogues say that when they’ve done something they’re ashamed of. It was somebody else’s fault.”

“They can say all they like,” Carrie Woodward said. “We know. They came all the way from the stars to ruin the land.”

“You should not say such things,” said Takpusseh. “You do not want this to happen again. You will help us.”

“Help? How?” Dawson demanded.

“You, Wes Dawson, you tell them. More come.”

Dmitri spoke again in Russian. Arvid shuddered.

The screen changed again. Clouds moved so unnaturally fast that Jeri thought they were still watching a tape until Takpusseh said. “That is now. Winterhome.”

Earth was white. The cloud cover was unbroken.

“Rain. Everywhere,” Nikolai said. “The dams are gone. There will be floods.”

The Earth was distant now, and no longer turning beneath them “Synchronous orbit,” Nikolai said. “Above Africa. Look!”

White streaks blazed across Earth’s night. That was Africa, and the digit ships were going down.

“Go now. Tashayamp, take them,” the Bull Elephant said. “Dawson, Raztupisp-minz, stay.”

The Herdmaster waited until the rest had left the theater. Then, before he could speak, Dawson said, “I will not tell my fithp to surrender.”

If Dawson made to grip his eyelid, the Herdmaster would simply slap him across the room. He said, “You will. Raztupispminz, tell him details, but later. Wes Dawson, did you speak with Fathisteh-tulk?”

“Name not known.” Dawson’s eyes flicked sideways, at Raztupisp-minz. “Wait. Second in leader status? Advisor?”

“Yes.”

“He came to me.”

“Raztupisp-minz, you permitted this?”

Breaker-One Raztupisp-minz hesitated, then gestured affirmation. “The Advisor thought he might find an unusual angle of approach. I thought it worth a try.”

Takpusseh’s thuktun at the time had been the Soviets. Raztupisp-minz had been studying Dawson alone. Balked by Takpusseh, Fathisteh-tulk would have had to go to Raztupisp-minz. “Dawson, what was said?”

The human still lacked skill in the speech of the thuktunthp. Questioning him took more time than the Herdmaster liked, but he persisted.

According to Dawscon’s tale, when he reached his room after his first foray into the ducts, there was a piece of cloth over his night light, and a fi’ was waiting for him. A pressure suit helmet and glove covered its face and digits.

“Then how can you know you spoke to Fathisteh-tulk?” the Herdmaster demanded.

“I make him take it off.”

“Did you. How?”

“Reason he was in my room, he will not tell. He asked questions. ‘We take Winterhome. Query: is this wrong? We use moons and circling rocks, not want planets. Query: is it true? Tell why. Tell if humans took wealth from space.’ ”

The rogue human shrugged. “I tell fi’, Wes Dawson. Congressman. 514-55-2316.”

“I don’t understand,” said the Herdmaster.

“Warrior under foot of enemy give his name, standing, and number, and not else.”

“Wrong. Tell more.”

“He said, ‘Dawson, you gave your surrender.’ I said, ‘I not surrendered to you. Who are you? If I talk to you, who is enraged?’ ”

The arrogant creature actually had a point. “Very proper.”

“He take his helmet off. I take the cloth off the light. He said, ‘I am the Herdmaster’s Advisor. Query: war with Earth is wrong? We want Space, not Earth?’

“I said, ‘Yes.’”

“Of course you did. Go on.”

“What is …” Dawson tried to wrap his mouth around an unfamiliar fithp word “… fufisthengalss?”

Dissident. “You have no need to know. Speak further.”

“He said he is fufisthengalss. Fufisthengalss are many. Fufisthengalss want to go away from Winterhome. I say, ‘It sound pretty to me. Query: I can help?’

“He said, ‘Give me reasons if Thuktun Flishithy leave Winterhome.’

“I tell him about loot of Moon and Mars and asteroids. Metals. Oxygen bound in rocks and dust. Things to make in free-fall, cannot do under thrust. Power from sunlight, not thinned by Winterhome air, not blocked by Winterhome storms and Winterhome night. We only begin to take the loot of space when you come to take the loot of Winterhome. Let us alone and we move all dirty industry to space, turn Winterhome into… into Garden.”

“Fathisteh-tulk would have enjoyed hearing that.”

“He enjoy. He is hurrying. He leave before I finish. I not see him after.” Dawson’s digits flicked toward the screen that showed Fathisteh-tulk’s corpse. “Some fithp disagree with fufisthengalssthp?”

“Did you have more to tell?”

“Yes. One time we have foolish entertainment given by television. Imaginary fithp from another star come to Winterhome, rob oceans of water for their own planet. No sense. Why not go to Saturn, the ringed gas giant for water, where it is already frozen to be moved with ease, where are no human fithp to shoot back?

“The tale sounds foolish enough, but—”

“Traveler Fithp are no smarter. Message Bearer is fithp home for eight-squared years or more. Supplied again at Saturn. Could last forever. Why you need to smash Winterhome?”

“That is in my thuktun, not yours. Do you know or guess who killed my Advisor?”

“Many fithp, not one. No fi’ does things alone.”

This insight was hardly worth the mentioning, save for one thing. The Herdmaster had asked around. Dissidents, warriors returned from Winterhome, mated and unmated females, juveniles: nobody knew anything. It seemed impossible… and even Dawson thought so. “You speak well. More?”

The human’s shoulders moved. “Not fufisthengalssthp, for Fathisteh-tulk must have been of that fithp. Not human, for he wanted to leave Winterhome unhurt. Did he offend Fistarteh-thuktun? Do fithp kill for what they believe?”

“We do. Why do you suspect Fistarteh-thuktun?”

“I do not. The warmakers, they killed the Herdmaster’s Advisor. Are they many? Can you choose one who is nearest to becoming rogue? Smashing Winterhome is a rogue’s act. You must have many possible rogues.”

The Herdmaster bristled. His urge was to kill the creature on the spot… yet he had never even considered the priest. “You have thought this through in detail. Why?”

“We love puzzles like this.” Dawson reverted to English, “Detective stories. I have read many. Tell me all you know of the Advisor’s death. It may be I can help.”

“Another time. Raztupisp-minz, you should not have concealed the Advisor’s activities. Did it never strike you that they might have caused his death?”

“No, Herdmaster. How could they?”

Pastempeh-keph splayed his digits. “I can’t know that yet. Tell Dawson what to say to his fithp on Winterhome. Afterward I will send you to Winterhome. The African fithp must have one who understands human behavior, and the Breaker fithp must learn more.”

Raztupisp-minz gasped, covered his scalp, and said nothing. The Herdmaster turned away. He would never have sent the leaders of the Breaker team into action except as punishment, and the Breaker knew it. Yet he was probably the best choice…

In a few 64-breaths there would be spin. The Herdmaster’s family mudroom would be available again.

Jenny had never seen the President look so tired. He wore a faded flowered robe, and his feet were thrust into slippers without socks. He took the cup of coffee Jack Clybourne brought without thanking him, and listened impassively as Jenny and Admiral Carrell delivered their report.

“In South Africa,” the President said. “Dr. Curtis was right, then. How do we know?”

“The cable through Dakar is still working,” Admiral Carrell said. “We have reports from their government in Pretoria. I wouldn’t count on that lasting. Understand, Mr. President, we know very little.”

“Is there anything we can do?” the President asked.

Carrell nodded to Jenny.

“We can’t think of anything, sir. We could try to send ships, but—”

“But they still have lasers and flying crowbars,” President Coffey said. “Tell me, Major, is there anything to oppose them?”

“South African Commandos,” Jenny said. “Their National Guard.”

“Don’t they have a regular army?”

“Yes, sir. They’ve always had the largest army on the continent. Most of it was on the seacoast.”

David Coffey ran both hands through his thinning hair, then carefully smoothed it down. “We can assume they destroyed the rest from orbit. What else?”

“Sir, there is — or at least there was, when we still had communications — a Soviet army about three thousand miles north of their landing zone, but we don’t even know if they’ve heard about the invasion.”

And when we call Moscow, nobody answers. We can’t count on the Russians.

The President nodded wearily. “They’ll see something weird happening in the sky. Can you get a message to them?”

“I don’t know. Or if they’d believe anything we said.”

“Try, Admiral. So. There’s nothing we have that can drive them out?”

Admiral Carrell shrugged. “Nothing I know of. We have a few missile subs. We could order them to attack — except that we can not know the precise areas to strike, and we can be certain they have placed their laser battle stations to protect their troops.”

“It took everything we had — everything we and the Russians had — to burn them out of Kansas,” the President said. “I guess it’s obvious. We won’t throw them out of South Africa.”

Jesus. Is he giving up?

“So long as they control space they can do as they will, Admiral Carrell said. “Suppose we throw them out of Africa. There are millions of asteroids in the solar system. Perhaps the will drop the next one on Colorado Springs. Or perhaps they bring in a series of smaller ones to land in San Francisco Bay, Lake Michigan, Chesapeake Bay …”

“Admiral, must we surrender?”

Carrell snorted. “You’re in command, Mr. President. I’m from Annapolis. For two years my table was just under the banner, ‘Don’t give up the ship.’ Certainly I won’t.”

“But—”

“Archangel,” Admiral Carrell said.

Coffey snorted. “Do you really believe in a spacecraft powered by atomic bombs?”

“It has to work,” Carrel! said.

“You’re saying that’s our only hope.”

“I know of no other.”

“I see.” The President looked thoughtful. “So everything depends on keeping secrets. If they learn, if they so much as get a hint that—” He frowned. “I’ve forgotten. Bellingham?”

“Yes.”

“They blast Bellingham, and we’re finished. All right. If that’s our best hope, let’s protect it. I want a personal progress report. Jenny.”

“Sir?”

“Send Jenny, Admiral. Promote her and send her up there.” He looked around the room and saw Jack Clybourne.

“Jack?”

“Yes, sir?”

“You must feel useless here.”

“Yes, sir. Hell, most of the time the only person who’s armed who can get within a mile of you is me.”

“You know security procedures. Go with Colonel Crichton and look into what they’ve set up at Bellingham.” The President ruined his hair again. “I should put on a swimsuit and go talk to the Dreamer Fithp.”

Jenny thought, What?

He grinned at her fleetingly. “The sci-fi writers, they cheer me up. They don’t tell me horrible things aren’t happening, I don’t mean that. But it doesn’t seem to bother them. They think bigger than that. Like an interstellar war is a great way to build up to the real story. And that tame snout of theirs — It helps to know that they will surrender if we can just hit them with something hard!”

Dawson appeared in the cell something more than an hour after the rest arrived. He was shaking. He looked about at several sets of more or less questioning eyes, and he said, “They want me to tell the Earth to surrender.”

The Russians’ eyes met. Arvid grinned and Dmitri shrugged and Nikolai’s expression went quite blank.

“I won’t do it,” Wes Dawson said. “Vidkun Quisling, Pierre Laval, Benedict Arnold, I’d be remembered longer than any of them!”

Dmitri asked, “Why would you consider it?”

Wes flopped on his back on the padded aft wall. Looking at the featureless ceiling, he said, “There’s a symbol. It looks like a fi’ on its back. It means ‘Don’t bomb me.’ People can paint it on greenhouses and hospitals and trucks carrying food… like a Red Cross. But if they use it wrong, it’ll be rocks from the sky again.”

“If you do not speak, you cannot make food shipments safe?” Dmitri demanded.

“Yeah. There was some other stuff. Threats, mostly. Another Foot.” Wes shuddered. “I won’t tell them that.”

“We have no evidence that they have other asteroids ready to drop,” Arvid said.

“They don’t need them. There are plenty more where they got that one,” Jeri said. “Or in the asteroid belt. It might take a few years, but they’ve got years. They’ve already spent, what…?”

“Fifteen years just since they reached the solar system. Sure they can bring another, and another. But it’s worse than that.”

Alice demanded, “What could be worse than another Foot?”

“They’ll go to the Moon,” Wes said. “They don’t need to to Saturn, or the asteroids! They’ve wiped us off the Moon. The gravity’s low, and they can get as much Moon rock as they want.”

No. God, why? Jeri wanted to curl into a tiny ball. “Wes, what will you do?”

“You tell me. I need help.”

And all the time they’re listening, watching, while we talk about it.

“Perhaps,” Arvid said, “just perhaps it would be better if you make this speech. It would have to be carefully done. We could help you prepare.” He looked significantly at Wes.

“They want me to talk the human race into surrendering! They’ll tell me what to say. If I say something else, they’ll cut me off. What’s the good of that?”

Arvid glanced casually at the watching camera. “One must paraphrase.”

A long moment passed. Then Wes mused, “Of course, the fithp will need help with their phrasing. Their English isn’t that good…”

“But yours is.”

The rest were asleep. Alice curled in a protective ball, one arm thrown across her face, the other reaching to clutch the wall rung. They had never been given blankets; they slept in the clothes they wore. Thuktun Flishithy had gone over to spin gravity, and Alice could feel an eccentricity, a wobble. Dmitri snored with a sound like complaint. Alice uncurled. The hell with it.

Congressman Dawson slept a few feet from the rest, on his side, with his head pillowed on one arm. Alice watched him, Sleeping, he looked quite harmless. Yet he frowned in his sleep “Foot,” he muttered. “Feet. Giant mee… meteoroid imp. .”

Everybody in Menninger’s had nightmares. It wasn’t rare for Alice to wake in the middle of the night. Then she would watch and listen… and the others weren’t any better off than she was. She used to wonder about that. If she’d spent any amount of time in a dorm, she thought, she would have known she wasn’t unusual.

And if she hadn’t been sent to a girls’ high school, she might have grown used to… persons of the male persuasion. She’d have known how to handle them, like other women did. If her parents — “Dinosaurs. Oh, God, like the dinosaurs…” Dawson said in a breathy moan. Alice had never seen a man whimper.

Poor bastard. He could tell the world how to safeguard their food and hospitals, but what would they remember? Wes Dawson urging them to surrender to the horrors. Wes Dawson, traitor. Unfair! Learning what the horrors had planned, Wes Dawson had tried to tear the nose and eyelid off Teacher Takpusseh. He’d told Mrs. Woodward about it in Alice’s hearing. Alice tried to picture that. It must have been a short fight.

So safe, so harmless, asleep; but he was the only one who had fought back.

Greatly daring, Alice reached out and touched Wes Dawson’s wrist. Too little pressure would tickle him, too much would wake him.

He stopped breathing, and so did Alice. Then, “I can kill them. They can die,” Wes said. His face relaxed; his lips parted slightly and he was deep asleep.

After a moment Alice curled up beside him.

31. MAXIMUM SECURITY

The helicopter settled onto the parking lot behind an odd gray building, granite base, brick towers at each corner. An elderly man waited with two others, all in tan uniforms. They held umbrellas against the drizzling rain. Jenny and Jack followed them inside.

“I’m Ben Lafferty. Sheriff. This is Deputy Young and Deputy Hargman. Anything you want, just ask them.”

“Actually, we’d expected to see the military intelligence people,” Jenny said.

Lafferty screwed his face into an exaggerated squint and eyed Jenny’s bright new silver oak leaf. “Well, Lieutenant Colonel, I’m a colonel in military intelligence myself. Matter of fact, I’m the senior one here.” His grin faded, and his face lost all traces joviality. “This is my town, lady. The state of Washington never had much need for Washington, D.C., and Bellingham never got much out of the state. We had a nice little university town he until you federal people came.”

Jack Clybourne reached into his pocket. Jenny laid her hand on his arm. “I can sympathize, Sheriff,” she said. “We’re just doing our job.”

“And what’s that? What the hell are you people building down in that harbor? And don’t give me crap about greenhouses. Green houses don’t need big iron things brought in hung under barges.”

“There is a war,” Jack Clybourne said.

“So they tell us.”

“Tell you! If you’d seen that crashed ship—” In a moment Jack Clybourne had calmed himself, but the sheriff had backed away a step. “I brought some films and I can get more. I believe I can persuade you that there’s a war. We’re losing it. We need all the cooperation we can get.”

“Yeah, sure you do.” The sheriff glanced at his watch. “Okay. Hargman and Young will take care of you. I got to go.” He left the office without looking back.

“What was that all about?” Jack Clybourne asked.

Deputy Young looked thoughtful, then lowered his voice. “He has a point. We got along fine until all of a sudden they announced this big greenhouse project. Only it isn’t a greenhouse, is it? I never heard of a greenhouse needing an astronaut general to run it.”

“Air Force,” Jenny said. “He happens to be my brother-in-law.”

“That so? You still didn’t tell me why we need the Air Force to raise groceries. Or why all the security stuff.”

“There is a reason.”

Deputy Hargman snorted. “Sure there is. One good enough to get this town and everybody in it killed by a meteor.”

“Not if they think it’s a greenhouse,” Jenny said. “They’ve never bombed a food storage place.”

“How will they know that’s what this is?”

“Maybe you take your chances,” Jack said. “Just like the rest of the world. Look, one hint gets to the snouts that Bellingham has a secret, and—” He spread his hands.

“No more Bellingham,” Young said. “How would they find out?”

“TV. More likely radio. Police radio. Even CB.”

“Jeez,” Hargman said. “Look, just what is this secret we’re protecting?”

“What do you care?” Jack demanded.

Jenny remembered the gray face of the President. “Hey, look, we’re all on the same side, remember? What’s important is not to let them get the idea there is any secret about Bellingham. Let’s work on that.”

“Round up the CBs,” Hargman muttered. “Won’t be easy — hey, won’t that make the snouts suspicious? No CB chatter here at all?”

Jack’s chin bobbed up and down. “We’ll set up fakes. Lots of chatter, but it will be our people doing it. Thanks.”

“Sure,” Deputy Young said. “But — dammit, I don’t like not knowing what I’m protecting.”

“You don’t want to know,” Jenny said.

General Edmund Gillespie closed the door, and the sound of hammers and riveting guns died away. Jenny could still hear them but they no longer tore at her eardrums. The office was cluttered. Plans and blueprints covered every desk and table, and more hung on the walls.

Jack Clybourne removed his ear protectors with a look of relief.

“Max,” General Gillespie said, “you remember my wife’s kid sister. They promoted her. Lieutenant Colonel.”

A wide grin split Max Rohrs’ face. “Hey, Jenny. Good to see you. That’s great…”

“And this is Jack Clybourne,” Gillespie said. “Max is the chief construction foreman on this job. Max, Jenny and Jack are here as — let me put it right — as personal representatives of the President. They’ll go back and report to him.”

“Okay,” Rohrs said. “I knew we were important…”

“Max, you’re all we have,” Jenny blurted.

“Yeah, I knew that.”

Gillespie waved them to chairs. “Drinks? We have a good local beer. I recommend it.” He opened a refrigerator and produce several bottles. They had no labels, and the bottles were not a alike.

“Sure,” Jenny said.

Jack frowned but accepted a bottle.

“So how are we doing?” Jenny asked.

“Not bad,” Max Rohrs said. “Matter of fact, we’re way ahead of schedule.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, we got that nuclear sub hid out in the harbor. Plenty of electricity. And we’ve got every computer design system on the West Coast. That all helps. Mostly, though, it’s just there’s no paperwork,” Max said. “No telephone lines to Washington. The engineers plan something, the computer people check it out, E and I agree, and it goes in, no conferences and change-approval meetings. We just do it.”

“It helps that everybody busts ass,” Gillespie said.

“That’s for sure. We’re here to get this done, not make money and take coffee breaks.”

It shows, too, Jenny thought. Max doesn’t look as if he’s had a night’s sleep in a month, and Ed looks worse. “So, when can I report she’ll fly?”

Max looked thoughtful. “Supposed to take a year more, but I’ll be surprised if we can’t launch in nine months. Maybe sooner.” He unrolled a sheath of drawings. “Look, the heavy work is the base plate. The barges bring that in pieces, and we have to put it together. Heavy work, but it’s still just welding and riveting. Then there’s the gun that puts the bombs behind the butt plate. If that fouls… well, we’re putting in two separate TBGs.”

“What?”

“Thrust bomb guns.”

“Oh. But there’s all the electronics, and life support, and — don’t I remember they needed nine months just to change toilets on the Shuttle?”

“Sure, NASA style,” Gillespie said. “We just install the damn thing. Of course it helps that we’re not shaving off ounces. We’ve got plenty of lifting power.”

You sure do. “Is everything coming in on schedule?”

“No, but we’re dealing with it,” Gillespie said. “Maybe you’ve noticed, there aren’t many of my Air Police here, just enough to guard the inner fences. I sent the rest over with Colonel Taylor to the Bremerton Navy Yard to put the fear of God into those bastards…”

“Which sped up deliveries something wonderful,” Rohrs said. “Here, let’s have another round.” He fished out more beer bottles.

“We’ve learned a lot of security tricks,” Gillespie said. “From Vietnamese, mostly.”

“Refugees?” Jenny asked.

“Some refugees, but mostly former Viet Cong. They know a lot. Ways to hide convoys. Hollow out logs to transport steel. Tunneling. All the things they did to us.”

“Maybe you should have kept your security troops here,” Jack Clybourne said. “I don’t think your local sheriff is enthusiastic about your project.”

“Yeah, I know,” Gillespie said. “I thought of telling him what we’re doing. Maybe that would get him working.”

“Why not?” Jenny asked.

“No. No telling what those people will do if they know what’s going to power this beast.” Gillespie shook his head. “The only safe place for miles around will be in the ship. Everything else will go. Somebody may think it’s better that the snouts drop rock on the harbor than have fifty atom bombs go off here.”

“It’s hard to believe anyone would deliberately inform,” Jenny said. “But it’s better to be safe. All right. What we need, then, is cover stories. What are you building if it’s not greenhouses?”

“We thought about that a lot,” Gillespie said. “How do you like a prison?”

“Prison?”

“Secret, for political prisoners. Explains why there are so many soldiers. If anybody gets too suspicious, we let them think we’ve got political prisoners from Kansas. Collaborators we couldn keep in Kansas because they’d be torn apart by mobs. Deserters.”

“It might work,” Jack said. “And if they don’t believe that what do you fall back on?”

“That’s as far as we’ve—”

“Nested cover stories. Like an onion.” Jack began drawing concentric circles on a notepad. “Penetrate one and you come to the next, and you still don’t have the real secret. So what’s the next one?”

“Bathyscape?” Gillespie asked. “Underwater research facility under construction?”

“No. Why keep that a secret? Hell, we’ll come up with something. Let’s keep talking.”

Jenny leaned over to look. Outside the circles Jack had printed GREENHOUSE. Inside the first, COLLABORATORS.

They drank.

“Snouts,” Jenny said.

“Eh?”

“Captives. A big research facility, to study captive snouts. The aliens wouldn’t bomb that, but we’d have good reason to keep it secret from our people.”

“That’ll work.”

“In fact, that’s why we house the collaborators here, to talk to the snouts!”

Clybourne smiled. “So. Who do we have who can design prisons?”

“We have the skeleton of a good story. Now we put flesh on it. What would you import? Whatever it is, we have to bring it in and show it. We’re supposed to be growing food. Ships would take food out. We’ll bring them in full and send them out empty.” Next to GREENHOUSE he wrote FOOD and an inward-pointing arrow. Next to COLLABORATORS he wrote JAIL, JAILERS. Within the second circle, SNOUTS. GET SNOUTS. “We’ve got snout prisoners, but they’re crazy. They go where they’re pushed. They don’t talk even to each other. But we can show them to people.” Jenny grinned. It’s the first time I’ve seen Jack get really turned on about something. Other than me. “Circles,” Jack said. “Layers. The security system is in rings, just like the cover stories. They look like they’re set up to keep you out, and they will if you’re not too determined, but the real purpose is to keep you in if you do manage to penetrate — heck, we’ll have a prison, not too large, maybe, but big enough to take care of anyone who learns too much.”

“It all sounds wonderful, but aren’t you forgetting something?” Rohrs asked. “Sheriff Lafferty isn’t going to help you do any of this.”

“We do it ourselves.”

“Yeah.” Rohrs scratched his head. “But, Mr. Clybourne—”

“Jack.”

“Jack, I don’t have anybody to spare.”

Jack chuckled. “Now, how did I guess that? It’s okay. First thing, we get some Army troops in here.”

“Intelligence types,” Rohrs said. “Sure.”

“MPs, too. Construction engineers to build prisons. And combat troops, just in case,” Jack said. “The next time we talk to Sheriff Lafferty, I want him to know he’s talking uphill.”

“Did I just hear something tear?” General Gillespie asked. “It sounded like the Constitution.”

Jenny caught the look on Max’s face. Interesting. He looked disgusted. A liberal general? We’re fighting snouts here!

“No.” Jack Clybourne was positive. “What you hear is the sound of Bellingham being put outside the boundaries of the United States.” He opened his brief case and removed a document. “I hold here a presidential order suspending the rules of habeas corpus in the Bellingham area. It’s quite constitutional. I play by the rules, General.”

“Yeah, but when word of that gets out …”

“It won’t. The first thing we do when the troops get here is seal off Bellingham. No one leaves.”

“What about people from the highway?”

“There isn’t much traffic now,” Rohrs said.

“You can’t see the harbor area from the highway,” Jack said. “The big hill with the university on it is in the way. So we leave service stations alongside the highway, and all’s well for people who go to them, but anybody who goes further into town, to the other side of the hill — they don’t leave, that’s all.”

“But what about—”

There was a knock at the door. Rohrs shouted, but no one heard. He went to the door. A flood of sound washed into the room. The workman at the door shouted. “Max, turn on the radio. There’s something important—”

“Okay. Thanks!” Rohrs closed the door and the hammers and rivet guns became tolerable again.

“What station?” Clybourne asked.

“There’s only one.” Rohrs went to the radio that perched above a file cabinet.

A voice boomed out. It sounded familiar, like a professional orator.

“They will take the surrender of all humans — and they will incorporate them into their herd. Those of their race who surrender become the property of the herd. Eventually they or their descendants may find status therein …”

“Son of a bitch!” General Gillespie said. “That’s Wes Dawson!”

They all stood when the President came in. He gestured impatiently for them to be seated. Reynolds stood with the rest of them. With its haphazard furniture and refreshments the room looked like the Green Room at an underfunded science-fiction convention, but it felt weirdly like the White House. Most of the Dreamer Fithp were present. Harpanet was not.

“Commander, I understand that you have a tape?”

The naval officer looked young for his rank. “Yes, Mr. President. It’s just as we received it. We’ve put it through filters to clean out the noise, but nothing else.”

“Play it, then.”

“Yes, sir.” The navy commander gestured.

There was a short hissing sound, and then a voice from outer space.

“My fellow Americans, I’m Wesley Dawson, formerly a congressman from California. I’m now a member of the Chtaptisl Fithp — which is to say the Traveler Herd. I am alive and well and I send my regards to my family. We have been well treated by their standards.”

By their standards. The words stood out; Dawson must have intended them to.

“The human fithp aboard Message Bearer have been brought together. There are three Russians. Commander Rogachev, Lieutenant Colonel Dmitri Grushin, and Commander Rogachev’s sergeant. There are six Americans in addition to me. Mrs. Geraldine Wilson and her daughter Melissa. Gary Capehart, aged nine. John and Carrie Woodward of Lawton, Kansas; and Alice McLennon, who was formerly resident in Topeka. We’re all alive, in reasonable health, due largely to Alice’s forethought in bringing us dietary supplements.

“The fithp complain that their warriors have not been well treated, and that many were killed as they attempted to surrender. The fithp regard this as barbaric.” Dawson’s voice registered bitter amusement.

“The surrender gesture is easily seen. They lie on their backs, rendering themselves helpless. This gesture is deeply embedded into their psychology. One might say it is deep within their very souls. They do not surrender lightly, and when they do, the submission is total. You may believe this. It is true.

“Their leader or Admiral-the word translates to herdmaster as closely as anything else-has asked me to speak to you in order to save slaughter. He says that he can deliver many asteroids, and drop them precisely where he wishes. They do not need to go to the asteroid belt. They can use lunar rocks. Their command of space is complete and they have begun construction of a lunar base.

“When they first approached Earth we all wondered what they wanted. We know now. They intend to live on the Earth. They intend that all humans submit. They have come to stay. They mean to be the dominant but not the only intelligent species on Earth. They have assured me-and I believe them-that they will take the surrender of all humans, and they will incorporate them into their herd.

“Those of their race who surrender become the property of the herd. Eventually they or their descendants may find status therein. For biological reasons humans will never be able to integrate as fithp have traditionally done, but our descendants will be their partners. The human herd will be allowed to live under man-made rules. They will study us to know what those rules shall be.

“We will be allowed to choose our own rules so long as they do not conflict with fithp dominance, but they insist that we must live by the rules we choose. They do not tolerate rogues. We will achieve mankind’s oldest dream, to be one people, with one philosophy, one set of rules for all of us. They do nothing alone. A individual’s acts are taken to be the responsibility of his grout In particular, the fithp mating practices are entirely instinctual going by mating seasons, and they mate for life.”

Good-bye to individualism. Reynolds shuddered. A moment later, Hello, monogamy. Interesting.

Dawson went on. “They intend to do what they must to rule the Earth. They regret the great loss of life from the Foot, but this will not stop them from sending another, and another, until humans understand the great power of the fithp.

“Until you do understand, they have no wish to kill noncombatants. There is a symbol—”

Dawson was describing a fithp on its back, Oh? We use a red cross—

“—urge you not to misuse the symbol. They will be watching. Using the ‘harmless’ symbol for military equipment or installation will result in bombardment of all the places so marked. They se more than you believe they can see. Their radars and lasers are efficient and powerful

They would be.

“Do understand,” Dawson’s recorded voice said. “The Chtap tisk Fithp mean what they say. They have crossed light-years a space to come here. They will not go home. They will be here for centauries.

“They are a collective people who live by strict rules in herds Evolution has eliminated all the rogues from the fithp. They will give humans good treatment by their standards. They would prefer to take the Earth in good condition, but take it they must. Their large spacecraft is their world until they do.”

“Very good,” Wade Curtis said. His voice was loud in the quiet.

Fuck him, he’s staring at the walls. “Centauries. Alpha Centauries.”

Joe Ransom said, “They let him get away with a lot. You caught that, at the end? There’s no backup. What they’ve got, we’ve seen. And they can’t go home, I was right there—”

“-Uses his tone of voice like a fine working tool. ‘By their standards.” Sherry mused, “I wonder if they’ll want us to follow their mating seasons? And of course the fithp won’t catch any of that.”

The President and the Navy men watched in evident surprise. The Dreamer Fithp were all over that speech like dogs on a stag.

“Monogamy, anyway, Sherry. He made quite a point of it. I wonder if they saw some X-rated movie.”

“Whatever,” Curtis said. “Dawson is one smart son of a bitch. Can we hear that again?”

The air-duct pipes narrowed. Alice felt trapped, and for a moment she thought of turning back. Then she set her jaw, hard, and went on.

She rounded a turn. He was there.

Wes Dawson was curled into a small ball. Fetal position. The really sick ones do that. In the movies they always go violent. The therapists would love it if they could get that much action on the closed wards.

Dawson didn’t move as she came closer to him.

He didn’t answer.

“Wes, it’s Alice—”

“I ate shit for the sake of that Don’t-Bomb-Me symbol.”

She said nothing. Didn’t I used to do that? Try to blow the therapist’s mind by using dirty words? And Mrs. Fitzpatrick caught me at it.

“Well, I’m going to be famous.”

“You were wonderful! You told them all about the horrors— God, the way you used your voice! And the snouts didn’t even suspect—”

He started to uncoil. Alice moved away slightly.

“But you already know what I was trying to do,” Wes said. Half uncoiled, he still wouldn’t look at her. “They won’t. Wes Dawson. Now they can forget Quisling.”

“We all agreed,” Alice said. “We all thought you should do it.”

“Yeah. Just like fithp. Everybody does everything together. Look, it’s all right, Alice, I’ll be all right.” He faced her at last “Thanks for finding me. I’ll be okay.” He smiled, and damn, I looked real, but she’d seen so many phony smiles. “See? I’m fine.”

Maybe he is. He didn’t look helpless now. Alice took a deep breath. I am not a freemartin! She moved closer to Dawson.

Abruptly he launched himself at her. She couldn’t move fast enough to get away, and he wrapped his arms around her and drove her against him. She felt panic. If I fight him now, he’ll never get over this. She felt him draw her closer still. She felt smothered and wanted to flee. She tucked her head down, nose below his armpit, to breathe. She didn’t struggle.

He curled against her and was still, except for his jerky breathing. He held her, but he wasn’t moving. Slowly she relaxed the tension in her muscles as she’d been taught, beginning with her toes, ankles, then calves…

His tears soaked through her hair and wet her scalp. Almost without volition her arms went around him, and she held him, “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s all right.”

“I needed a hug. My God, I needed to be hugged. Alice. thanks.”

“It’s all right.”

32. MUD BATH

Nat was measuring ingredients into a blender. He moved briskly. Lime juice, sugar, rum, scoop out half a Crenshaw melon, add ice. Low setting. The blades tended to break on the ice at higher settings. In defense against the godawful noise he moved up alongside Harpanet’s head and raised his voice.

“You’re used to long wars.”

“There are records from the homeworld. The Shape Wars lasted five generations. There were others.” Harpanet paused for thought, then: “I cannot comment from the loser’s point of view. I never wondered until you taught me. For the winning fithp, wars are long. Losers cease to be a fithp. The Traveler Fithp did not taste war until now.”

“Was the taste to your liking?” Nat hit the button that ended the howl of the blender.

Digits swiped at thin air: How can I know? “I fell from the sky, I lost my fithp, I tried to surrender. No human knew how to take my surrender. You have warriors from Kansas, isn’t it? Ask them.”

“They’re not sane.” Curtis joined the group. “Left alone too long, maybe.”

Harpanet let his digits and lower eyelids droop in the gesture they’d learned to interpret as sadness.

Ransom held his glass out for Reynolds to fill. “I sure feel sorry for Dawson.”

Curtis nodded. “Yeah. Poor bastard risks his arse to give u some information, and a lot of nerds think he’s turned traitor What worries me are the ones who think he meant it and want to take his advice.”

“Maybe we should,” Sherry said. “But it wouldn’t work. There are too many like you and Ransom.”

“You ought to be glad of that.”

“Hey.” Reynolds moved between them. “Have a drink.” Hi poured. “Sherry, you don’t want to surrender.”

“No, but I don’t want to fight, either!”

“Wasn’t you we asked to fight,” Curtis said.

“Enough,” Ransom said. “The question is, what will the President do? He sure didn’t take it very well. Maybe he’d want to quit.”

“Nah,” Curtis said. “He’s not my favorite choice, but he’s go more guts than that.”

“Sure?”

“He damned well better have.”

Harpanet spoke insistently. “What are you leading me to?”

“Eh?”

“You speak of challenging your herdmaster.”

Sherry laid her hand across Harpatiet’s brow. “It’s not what it sounds like,” she said.

“But they said—”

“We are the Dreamer Fithp,” Reynolds said. “We say anything. But we’re not going to challenge the President. Wade wasn’t ever thinking that way.” He put an edge to his voice. “Were you, Wade?”

“No, of course not.” Curtis grinned wolfishly. “Besides, it wouldn’t work.”

Nat filled a sizable mug with what remained in the blender: about half. “Swim?”

“Ssshure.”

“Yeah,” Ransom said. “Only I want a real drink, not that slop. Wade? Sherry?”

“Thank you, yes,” Curtis said. After a moment Sherry Atkinson nodded and followed them out.

Reynolds and Harpanet walked into the mudroom, and into the mud-filled pool, without interrupting their conversation. It faltered when they noticed the near stranger. The President of the United States floated in the warm mud with his eyes closed.

Harpanet dipped his nostril. Nat said, “Not in the face. He looks too tired to play.”

“I heard that,” the President said. “I am.”

Harpanet shimmied. The wall of his flank sent warm, muddy water sloshing gently across President Coffey. The President smiled. “Heating just one end of the pool,” he asked, “who thought that up?”

“Human fithp need it too warm. Too much surface for volume. Shed heat too fast.”

Nat said, “The guy who thought of that was the curator of the San Diego Zoo, George Pournelle. He had some very rare rhinos, and he didn’t know what kind of temperature they liked. So he put a temperature gradient across the cage and let them make their own decisions.”

The President nodded. He was in the hottest part of the pool. He looked very relaxed. He opened one eye and fixed it on Harpanet. “You’ve hit us hard.”

Harpanet asked, “Was it the Foot?”

“It was. You’ve killed a great many people.”

“Not I. I am of the Dreamer Fithp now. Can I help?” It was a rebuke.

The President stirred. “Reynolds, have you seen the tapes?”

“Yeah. This is a melon daiquiri. Have some. I don’t have any mouth diseases.”

“Neither do I, and thanks for not asking. Jesus, you make them big. Were you going to drink all of this?”

“Yeah. I told you, I’ve seen the tapes.”

The President drank. He said, “Nice. Are we going to live through this?”

“The species is. Hell, they can’t conquer us. Some of us will live. We could get down to ‘The Men in the Walls’—”

“’What’s that?”

“William Tenn. Humans living like parasites in the aliens’ environment, and we still win, because we’re small enough to hide in places they can’t get to. But it won’t come to that. This is our planet, and we own every corner. Siberia, the Sahara, Greenland, they can’t come after us there.”

“They don’t have to,” David Coffey said. “They just keep pounding away, killing more and more people, until we can’t stand it any longer. If we have to give up anyway, why prolong it? Let the survivor types go to Siberia. The rest surrender.”

“It is sensible,” Harpanet said.—

“No.” Reynolds wanted his drink, but he was too polite to reach for it. “In the first place, it wouldn’t work. Too many would stay behind. Pretend to surrender, but they’d hide weapons and kill snouts whenever they got a chance. You can’t surrender for everybody—”

“I agree.”

“Well, the fithp think you can. They’ll hold us all responsible. What the fithp call surrender, we don’t know how to do that.”

Coffey said, “But we have to do something.”

“Maybe the fithp lasers only come in a couple of frequencies. We can make reflective paint for those frequencies. Paint them on the bombers.”

“That’ll take a while, won’t it?”

“Sure. Set up a research station.”

Harpanet said, “The lasers can be-changed. The color can be made different.”

Reynolds shrugged. “So maybe that doesn’t work.”

The President let himself sag into the mud. He still had Reynolds’ mug of melon daquiri. “What else should we be doing?”

“Study our friend Harpanet. Find out how to keep him happy.”

“I’m for that,” Harpanet said.

“Why isn’t anyone studying me?” the President asked plaintively.

“Harpanet’s bound to need things. Maybe it’s dietary supplements, things that don’t get into our foods. Settlers in Brazil had a terrible time with vitamin deficiencies. The soil is peculiar. Well, there’s bound to be something missing from African soil. Not for us, we evolved there, but the Traveler Fithp didn’t! What’s missing? How can we stop the fithp from getting to it? Maybe they can’t sleep in total darkness. Keep knocking out their power sources and in a few days they’ll fall over—”

“No,” said Harpanet.

“Okay, no, but you see what I’m getting at. We tried playing baseball with Harpanet. There’s no way to put a glove on him, of course, so we tried tossing a softball around, maybe he could catch it bare-handed. He can’t. He can’t throw it either.”

“This skill was not prized among the Traveler Fithp,” Harpanet said placidly.

“We could probably rig up a glove for him,” Nat said earnestly. “It would look like an umbrella, but he could catch. He still couldn’t throw. He’s hopeless with a football. I thought he would be, but it’s-we’ve got films, and we’ve been showing them to your soldiers, and it gets them rolling around on the floor. Harpanet spreads his trunk like a great fan, and the ball either goes through it or ricochets away. We want to try basketball or volleyball. We think the ball is big enough that he won’t lose it—”

The President was laughing so hard that it looked like he was going to lose the mug, so Nat took it. “This is research?”

“Mr. President, the delicate point I’m trying to pound home is that Harpanet is at his limit. He—”

“Mug.”

Nat drank, then handed across the mug. “He’s at his limit, that’s all. He gets just so good and no better. We still play, of course. We all need exercise, him most of all.

“Sherry’s sure we’re anthropomorphizing. Maybe the fithp have games we’d be awful at. But I think she’s assuming symmetry where there just isn’t any need for it.

“The fithp have bad hands. They’re just bloody clumsy, and no wonder, with no bones in their grasping digits! I think they’re a young race. God knows humanity never finished evolving in any direction, but I think the fithp are even younger than that. They’re too young to have space travel. They didn’t even discover it for themselves! What got them here was those great granite messages left by an extinct species. They shouldn’t be here at all.”

“They’re doing well, considering their handicaps.”

“We need to know their handicaps. Set up a research station. You have other prisoners now. Study them. They’ve got a mating season-Dawson said so too, and emphasized it-and their mating practice is more reflexive than ours. Can we duplicate their pheromones and drive them nuts?”

The President was still laughing. “Somebody told me once that I’m not fit to mold the future because I’m only allowed to think up to the next election. Who is it that plans for the future of the human race?”

“Speaking.” Nat took the mug, drank deeply, passed it back.

“Then why am I in charge?”

“Somebody told you it was your turn in the barrel, and made you believe it.”

Coffey laughed. “That’s one way to look at it. My God, when I think of what I had to do to get this job! Mr.—”

“Reynolds. Nat Reynolds.”

“Nat, I ought to come down here more often, only I don’t suppose I can.”

“Why?”

“Mr. Clybourne. I’ve sent him off on an errand, but he’ll be back.”

“So you ignore him,” Reynolds said.

“I can’t do that. He’s doing his job, the best he can-and maybe one day I really will need him.”

You might at that, Reynolds thought. “If you’re done warming that mug—”

Things got a little hazy thereafter. Nat remembered making another batch of daquiris. Harpanet cut the melon, but he was fairly clumsy at it. He did none of the drinking. The fithp didn’t use alcohol.

“There’s plenty we can do. Elephant guns. We should be producing them as fast as we can. Who makes elephant guns?”

“There are people I can ask,” said the President. “The British? They made a big double-barreled rifle, a ‘Nitro Express’—”

“Round up all you can find,” Reynolds said. “Send ’em to Africa. Somebody there can use them.” He laughed. “It worries me to excess, there may be a young Zulu warrior somewhere who doesn’t have an elephant gun.”

“Are your stories that bloody too? Ah, I’ve got something. Harpanet, are you willing to speak to your ship?”

“I am. They will take it that I am speaking for your fithp.”

“I know, but you can at least tell them that you were allowed to surrender. They may be afraid to try by now.”

“Good,” said Nat. “Now, Dawson’s sign of the friendly fithp the ‘Don’t Bomb Me’—”

“Yeah,” said the President. “Is it possible they want that sign so they’ll know where our food sources are? So they can bomb them?”

Harpanet reared; displaced mud made a godawful sucking sound. “They would not. Bomb the local-surrender sign? They would not!”

“All right,” Coffey said mildly.

“By the same token, we use it only where appropriate.” Reynolds thought, If it isn’t on the Bellingham greenhouse, they’ll notice. If the sign is too big, they’ll notice. I can’t say any of that where Harpanet can hear. At that moment the President winked at him.

Reynolds looked at the foaming glass and shuddered. “What’s that?”

“One of the last Alka-Seltzer in existence, you ungrateful bastard,” Joe Ransom said. “And Wade found you a vitamin B!. Here.”

“Bless you.” Reynolds washed the tablet down. “I think it was worth it. Even at worst, he needed to get drunk. Did I save civilization? I can’t quite remember.”

“Yeah. We watched you from the TV in the lounge. You got him thinking about the long run. We think you put some iron in his spine.”

“I hope so.” Nat moved gingerly down the hall toward his room. Then he stopped. “It shook up Harpanet a bit. He told me he’d never had a conversation with his herdmaster. Much less an argument.”

“He’ll get over it. Now he thinks you’re more important than he thought.” Ransom glanced at his watch. “My turn, I guess. You know something? I hate mud. Why couldn’t they like swimming in something sensible, like lime Jell-O?”

33. ARCHANGEL

“Did you have a good flight?” The President didn’t wait for an answer. “What did you learn?”

“They’re in good shape, sir,” Jenny said. “The scheduled launch date was late next year, but General Gillespie thinks he’ll be ready months before that.”

“Good.” David Coffey rubbed his hands briskly together. “The sooner the better. Jack, how’s the security situation?”

“Better now that I was there,” Clybourne said. “There was a bit of a problem with the local sheriff, but we fixed that. He’ll cooperate now.”

He sure will, Jenny thought.

“We’ve laid it all out,” Jack said. “Like an onion. Highway patrolmen, only they’re Marines. No CB radios except ours, with Army intelligence people simulating CB chatter.”

“I expect you had your work cut out, rounding up all the CBs,” the President said.

“Yes, sir,” Jack said. “There was one place full of survivalists, mostly from Los Angeles of all places—”

“Los Angeles is in pretty good shape,” the President said.

“Yes, sir, but they can’t get back there. Anyway, they had a dozen radios. We got them all. They sure didn’t like giving them up.”

“Sure you got them all?”

“Yes, sir.”

“General Gillespie has put together a weapons team,” Jenny said. “Boeing engineers. Some Navy people. Even a retired science-fiction writer—”

“Good choice. They’ve been useful here.”

“Yes, sir. Anyway, they’ve invented a lot of weapons. Stovepipes. They take one of the main guns off a Navy ship. Wrap a spaceship around it. Not a lot of ship, just enough to steer it. Add an automatic loader and nuclear weapons for shells. Steer it with TV.”

“Jeez. Who’d fly that?”

“They’ve got volunteers.”

The President smiled broadly. “Good. Damn good. What else?”

“Sir, you won’t believe all the stuff they’re putting on that ship. Torpedoes with H-bombs. Cannon. Bundles of gamma-ray lasers that go off when the burst from the drive bomb hits them. Anything that can hurt the alien ship. One of the engineers was trying to get them to truck the old X-15 from the museum at Edwards. ‘It maneuvers in space, doesn’t it’?’ But I don’t think they’ll do that. It’s easier to add another stovepipe.”

“And people really will fly that,” the President said. “Damn all, we’ll beat them yet! All we have to do is hang on until it’s finished.” He glanced at his watch. “Cabinet meeting in an hour. You two have been Outside. I’ll want you there to answer questions. One thing, though, nothing about why you went north or even where you went. Most of the Cabinet doesn’t know about Michael.” The President paused. “I’m thinking about making it a total-restriction. Any who knows about Michael stays Inside. What do you think?”

Jack shrugged. “If you say so, sir—”

“I didn’t necessarily mean you two. I may have to send you up there again. But everybody else, everybody who won’t be going up north-why should they know? There were all these stories about UFOs kidnapping people—”

“That wasn’t the fithp,” Jenny said. “Sir—”

He laughed. “I know that. They’re not that smooth. They shouldn’t even be in space at all!” He sobered. “They evolved too fast. They’re clumsy, they’re bad at toolmaking. There are gaps in their knowledge, and we can exploit those. We’ll win, Colonel. You know, I could even begin to feel sorry for them.”

What’s got into him? Pictures flashed through Jenny’s head. A doll resting on a gingham skirt-I don’t feel sorry for them. But I’d rather see the President like this than ready to give up…

Jenny fidgeted uncomfortably. Cabinet meetings were important, but most of the Cabinet didn’t know the crucial secret. It must be tough trying to run the country without knowing how we plan to win.

“Item Two. The Secretary of Commerce,” Jim Frantz said.

Connie Fuller pushed her chair back as if she were going to stand, but decided against it. “I too will be brief,” she said. “And, I’m afraid my report is almost as gloomy as Admiral Carrell’s was.

“First the good news. A lot of greenhouses are going up. Crops are being planted in backyards, on school playgrounds, golf courses, lawns of public buildings-nearly everywhere. Given any luck at all, we won’t have people starving.

“I wish I had more good news, but I don’t. Most of our dams’ are destroyed. So are most bridges. Some were fired on, others were washed out in the floods that followed the dams. The earthquakes got more. Mr. President, the United States is chopped up into a series of isolated regions, and there’s not much we can do about it.

“The interstate highway system is destroyed. There are secondary roads and old highways, but travel on them has not been safe. Sometimes they let big trucks alone, not always. No train is safe. Ships are-often fired on.”

“Even now?” the President asked. “After using Mr. Dawson’s symbol?”

They all looked at Carlotta Dawson. For a moment she met their gaze with a smile, then she looked down at the table.

She doesn’t know about Archangel. Shouldn’t they tell her? She deserves that much — “I was just coming to that,” Mrs. Fuller said. “So far we have no confirmed report of a vehicle or installation marked with the ‘harmless’ symbol being fired on. We’ve been somewhat careful about where we use it—”

“Good,” the President said. “That’s vital. We must not abuse that symbol. Mr. Speaker?”

“Yes, Mr. President?”

“We need new legislation, making it an act of treason to misuse the snout ‘harmless’ symbol. I would appreciate it if you would get that done immediately.”

The Speaker nodded slowly. “If you think that’s wise—”

“It’s vital, Mr. Speaker. If you insist on knowing why, I’ll tell you at another time—”

“Thank you, no.”

“I want strict enforcement,” President Coffey said. “Any law enforcement agency is authorized to stop attempted abuse of that symbol by any means required, including destruction of the offending installation. That’s important.”

The Chief of Staff wrote in his book. “Yes, sir. I’ll get the executive order out right away.”

“I can understand the need,” General Toland said. “But the troops sure won’t like taking casualties.”

“Tell them to shut up and soldier,” Admiral Carrell said.

We’ve put the fithp symbol on the Archangel dome. And on the ships coming into there. No bigger than anywhere else. We had to. Otherwise we might as well paint Bomb Me on them. But if somebody paints that on an ammunition truck… Connie Fuller shuffled her notes on the plastic tabletop. “We don’t have much electricity. Gas pipelines are working, and some oil lines. They haven’t bothered nuclear power plants. There’s no reliable way to move coal, so we don’t have much electricity.

“We’re able to ship some staple foods, but we can’t move enough foodstuffs.

“In short, Mr. President, there is no national economy.”

There was a long silence. The Speaker cleared his throat.

“Yes, Mr. Dayton?”

“They don’t hit nuclear plants. Seems to me there were a bunch of those stalled by red tape. All across the country. Could we get cracking and complete them?”

“A good question,” the President said. “Jim, look into that, will you?”

“No problem.”

There’s a switch! Of course we can get them completed, if all the anti-nuke idiots stay out of the way. Including you — “We’ll need that electricity,” Mrs. Fuller said. “If we have electric power, we have a civilization. If we don’t—” There wasn’t any point in finishing that statement.

Message Bearer was under spin. The fithp seemed to prefer their gravity low, and Alice was near the axis anyway. The ducts curved more tightly here. She moved in low-angle leaps, against the wind, hurrying. Dust puppies tended to clump where the pipes turned, and she stopped occasionally to clean them away.

She heard something ahead. She called, “Wes?”

“Yeah. How are you doing? I don’t think the ducts were this clean when they were new.”

She rounded the curve. “It’s make-work,” she said.

“Yeah, but it lets us explore. Sooner or later we’ll use what we know.”

“Want to make love?”

He banged his elbow. He turned around clutching it, staring openmouthed. She started to laugh.

He said, “Sure I want to make love. I’ve been chaste for months. Are you aware that I’m a married person?”

“How far away is your wife?”

“Carlotta’s twenty-two thousand three hundred miles away. Wait a minute. That’s geosynchronous orbit, measured from the center of the Earth, and we’re over Africa, so… another two, three thousand miles.”

He was treating this as all too amusing. Alice said, “So she’s not likely to come barging in on us.”

“No. Why me, Alice?”

“I think you killed the Bull’s Advisor.”

Good, the amusement had gone out of him. “Again, why me?”

“Who else-would have the guts?”

“Any cluster of eight or more fithp who didn’t like his politics.”

Alice grinned. She’d been scared to death when she made this decision, but — “Play your games, Congressman, but you wouldn’t be hesitating if you weren’t guilty.”

“Oh, I… don’t… It wasn’t like you think.”

He did it! “How was it then?”

“I didn’t sneak up on the poor fithp and strangle him in his sleep. I—” The violence she knew was buried in Wes Dawson surfaced in his face. For a moment she regretted her decision. You can always find an excuse. If the horrors were listening there’d never be another chance. She moved closer to him.

Rage was in his eyes, and they looked through her. “I thought I had it all fixed! The Herdmaster’s Advisor wanted to leave Earth. What he wanted from me was arguments to use. I by God was willing to give them. He ran out of time, the first time we met, so we set something else up.

“After five days we were still cleaning out the ducts near the hull,” Dawson said. “The Bull probably thinks he’s training us to make repairs in that area. I’d seen the mudroom, I knew how to reach it. Fathisteh-tulk was supposed to be waiting in the mudroom.

“The duct was warmer this time. You saw the door, with a knob the size of a soup bowl? I turned the knob and the door went back on springs. I squeezed through. I left my gear in the duct, just behind me.

“There were warm and cold currents mixing. Grill at the end. I looked through and saw a lot of black mud. The air currents set up ripples in it, but there wasn’t enough thrust to move it. We were still pushing on the Foot then.

“Nobody was there.”

She could feel’ the disappointment. “Nobody? Nothing?”

“Not then. I was very very nervous. I kept wondering what he really wanted. Military information? It was a silly way to get it—

“They’re not that tricky.”

“Yeah. I didn’t know that then. If he tried something I didn’t like, I was going to back down the duct, scream for the warriors, and lay a charge of mutiny on him. But maybe he just wanted me on record, encouraging mutiny myself. I thought I’d better see if there were witnesses.

“So I took the wing nuts off and worked the grill loose. I was going to go in, but I heard something, so I pulled the grill back in place. Fathisteh-tulk came in, walking along the wall on those Velcro shoes they wear.

“He got right to the point, like we’d never ended the last conversation. He told me about the dissidents, the fufisthengalss, mostly spaceborn, who don’t think conquering Earth is worth the bother. It sounded ideal. I was actually wishing I had Dmitri Grushin with me. He said there are a lot of dissidents, and they want to make peace, but they, um, they’re diffident. They don’t want to make waves, they don’t want to be rogues. Stick with the herd. Like voters in the natural state. They need jazzing up, something to get them moving.”

His eyes shone, and he waved his hands excitedly. I can see why they vote for him. Especially women. She felt a tingling in her loins. It was a feeling she’d long since known was dangerous, and for a moment the old fears came back. He won’t like me. He left her no time for more thought.

“I said it would be easy to make peace. I tried to tell Fathistehtalk how often yesterday’s enemies become today’s allies. I think that confused him. For the fithp, yesterday’s enemies are today’s slaves are tomorrow’s citizens. I think he believed me, though.”

He would. I would.

“I told him. If the fithp would mine the asteroids, we could trade their metals for our fertilizer and soil and nitrogen. We’d all get rich! I told him we’d grow fithp plants and animals for them. There’s bound to be somewhere on Earth where any damn thing will grow that grows in water and air. I really don’t think I lied to him at any point.

“Alice, I can’t blame myself. I was being as persuasive as I knew how—”

“They’re different. They’re crazy.” It’s a great story. But get through with it! She’d never felt that way, not since a certain high school dance. The anticipation had been there, but things had gone too far too fast and she panicked and ran from the car… and the next morning everyone knew the tale. For a moment the dread rose in her again. But this was very different. She hadn’t expected to find herself

playing therapist. Should she resent it?

“Oh, but I had Fathisteh-tulk all figured out,” he said. “I talked about how to use space. I’m good at that too, I was doing the research in my teens. Solar power collectors. Free-fall chemistry. Alloys that won’t mix in gravity. Single-crystal fibers stronger than anything you can make in a gravity field. They’d missed a lot of that!”

“Why?”

“It’s not in their granite cubes. Alice, they’re powerful, but they’re stupid!”

“Not stupid. Crazy, maybe.”

“Or something in between. They don’t think for themselves. Maybe they never had to. But I told him. I told him about mass drivers. It’s easy to put stuff in orbit from the Moon. O’Leary’s plan to mine the asteroids, do you know that one? You land a fully equipped mine on a metal asteroid. Put a big bag-around the asteroid. You refine the metal, but you keep the slag-that’s what the bag is for. You make hemispherical mirrors from the metal and use them for solar power. More metal becomes a linear accelerator. It gets longer and longer. Before you quit, the accelerator’s so long that the asteroid looks like the head of a sperm. Now you run slag down the linear accelerator. You get a rocket with arbitrarily high exhaust velocity! You put the rest of the asteroid into orbit around Earth and—”

“You told him all that in fithp?”

Wes Dawion stared, then laughed. “I stuttered a lot and used simple words and waved my hands through the air. I must have got it across. It killed him.”

“How?”

“I told him too much the fithp don’t know. He said, ‘You must be of our fithp when we take the riches of the worlds! You must be swallowed into the Traveler Herd.’ ”

Wes’s chest was heaving. “I think— if I hadn’t known it was my mistake-I wouldn’t have been so mad. I said we could tell them anything they wanted to know. He said, ‘I hear more than you say, Dawson. You want this wealth for your fithp. If we do not fight you for your own planet, we will presently fight you for the others.’

“I threw the grill at him and jumped behind it. The grill bounced off his head. Must have startled him. I was still in the air when I realized I was committing suicide. He turned his head away — he must have remembered how I attacked Takpusseh — and I kicked against his shoulder and was headed back into the duct, just trying to get away, thinking, Damn! I’ve blown it.

“I made the duct and wiggled in, quick like an eel. Something wrapped around my knee. I looked back and the grill aperture was full of a fi’s face, and the other digits were reaching for me.”

Nightmare! Alice found herself gripping his arm, and her nails. She eased off, but didn’t let go.

And he hadn’t noticed. “I must have been crazy. Maybe I couldn’t have pulled loose. I didn’t even try. I snatched my gear and swarmed back down the duct at him. Felt like I was attacking an octopus. I squirted that bag of soapy water in his eyes, pfoosh! He backed away a little, and I jammed my feet into the duct walls and shook the line loose and knotted it around his trunk, above the nostril, and pulled it tight. Then I heaved backward.

“You know, he didn’t have any leverage. I pulled back and he came with me. He had all eight digits around me. It felt like he was tearing my leg off, but he couldn’t get a digit around my neck because I kept my chin tucked down. I pulled that line just as tight as I could and hung on, and after a bit the grip slacked off. I guess the digits weren’t getting any blood. I pulled him farther into the duct, and I clawed that door-on-springs open and hooked the line over the knob.”

Wes looked at her suddenly. “From there on it was murder.”

“So you’re an inhuman murderer. Go on.”

“What?… Yeah. But this inhuman would have blown the dissident movement apart. It was easy. It wasn’t as if I was fighting a fi’ any more. I was fighting a fi’s head. His torso was out there in the mudroom, useless as tits on a boar. I had a tourniquet above his nostril. I crawled down toward his mouth. He said, ‘Dawson, you gave your surrender.’

“I said, ‘I was raped.’ ”

Alice burst out laughing. Wes said, “English, of course. I wish I could have said it in fithp… hell, they don’t have rape. I crawled down until I could get my knees braced under his jaw, and I jammed his mouth closed. His digits were patting at me, and I could hear him thrashing outside. After a while all of that stopped. I held on for… God, I don’t know how long. His eyes weren’t looking at anything and he wasn’t moving.

“I kicked him out into the mudroom. I pulled the grill into place, and then I couldn’t find the goddam wing nuts. It looked like it’d stay, so I just left.

“He’d wrenched my knee and hip. They were hurting when I

got out of the ducts. I hailed a soldier, and he didn’t notice.

Couldn’t read a man’s face, maybe, or a politician’s. By the time I reached my cell, my knee was the size of a football. In gravity I couldn’t have moved. But I had four days to heal before Thu ktun Flishithy disconnected from the Foot.”

“You didn’t push him into the mud?”

“Nope. I don’t know who did that. There are some funny politics going on aboard this ship.”

Alice smiled slowly. “That’s frustrating. Well, Congressman? I’m still here.”

“Yeah.” He studied her for a moment. He was a little afraid of her; she saw. As if she were dangerously fragile? “You’ve had some time to think. Maybe what you need is just a hug? God knows I owe you.”

What Was he waiting for? She hadn’t intended to say — “Do I look to you like a freemartin?”

“A what?”

“Raztupisp-minz thought I might be a—”

“That’s ridiculous. You get a freemartin when a female calf has, a twin brother. It gets too much of the male hormones. Humans can’t be freemartins.”

“Good,” she said, and launched herself at him.

“Down periscope. Surface.” Captain Anton Villars deliberately kept his voice flat and dull. They can’t watch the whole ocean. It’s just too damned big. Isn’t it?

Ethan Allen rose silently to the surface. The lookouts swarmed up into the conning tower. After a moment Villars felt moist cool night air.

“All clear, sir.”

Villars climbed the steel ladder into the moonless overcast night. Topside was a steady westerly wind. He estimated it at nine knots. The sea rolled with large stately swells, some topped by whitecaps. A light rain pattered down onto the submarine’s deck.

The African coast lay dead ahead. Villars studied it with his night glasses. He didn’t dare risk a radar sweep.

“Quiet as the dead,” his exec said.

“Not the most cheerful image,” Villars muttered.

“Sorry, Captain.”

“Bring ’em up,” Villars said at last.

There were twenty-six of them. Fourteen had painted their faces black. The others, including Colonel Carter, their commander, hadn’t needed to.

Carter looked at the sea and grimaced. “More weather than I like.”

“Not much choice,” Villars said.

“Yeah. Okay, Carruthers, get the boats inflated.”

The troopers climbed gingerly to Ethan Allen’s pitching deck. Some of the waves broke just high enough to send spray flying across it. They inflated their boats. “Ready, Colonel,” one called softly.

“Right. Captain, if you can send up our supplies—”

Villars nodded to his exec. The crew passed up a number of boxes, each wrapped in waterproofing materials. They laid them into the boats and helped the soldiers lash them into place.

“You’ve got a long walk,” Villars said. “Sorry I couldn’t get you any closer.”

“It’s okay,” Carter said.

“I didn’t want to ask before,” Villars said. “But I will. How you get this assignment?”

Carter grinned wolfishly. “My grandmother always said we were Zulu. Made me study the language. I hated it. I never real believed her, but what the hell, it made a good story. So when the President wanted to send elephant guns to the Zulu nation who better to send?”

He was still grinning as he climbed into the boat.

The warning bell bonged. Miranda Shakes put down her book as went to the window to see who had opened the gate. “Kevin!”

“Yeah?”

“Get Dad.”

Kevin came in from the kitchen. “Why?”

“Look.”

“Oh, crap. Carnell. Look at all those dogs! Who’s that with him?”

“I don’t know. We’ve seen him before. Look, they’re coming here. Get Dad.”

William Shakes wasn’t happy. “Look, you never paid your share. You sure as hell haven’t done your share of the work.”

“Relax, Bill. Nobody’s pointing a gun at your head, but I do own a piece of the place, and you invited Fox—”

“I didn’t. George did.”

“Hell, if I’m too much trouble,” Fox said, “I can always find a place—”

“Not now,” Miranda said. “Nobody gets out of Bellingham now.”

“Yeah,” Kevin agreed. “You won’t even get close to the high way.”

“We didn’t have any trouble getting in,” Camell said dubiously

“Getting in isn’t the problem,” William Shakes said. “It’s getting out. And what will you do here?”

“Hell, there’s got to be work,” Fox said.

“That’s what we thought,” Kevin said. “All those Army people, Navy too. Trucks. Ships. But it’s like it’s in another country, a long way off. The only jobs are down in the harbor.”

“Doing what?”

“Nobody’s telling,” Kevin said.

“So we go to the harbor—”

“I thought of getting a job down there. Miranda’s friend warned me. It’s like the whole town. People go in, but they never come out.”

“Military staff,” Fox said. “I don’t suppose they need me. It rains all the time. Who needs a desert rat? Anywhere… What do they say they’re doing down there?”

“They say greenhouses,” Kevin said.

“I know greenhouses—”

“But that’s not it.”

“Something important,” Miranda said. “Important enough that the whole town doesn’t exist anymore. You never hear about it on the radio.”

“Something big,” Fox mused. “Something to hurt snouts?”

“Bound to be” Miranda shook her head wistfully. “That’s the only reason Jeananne would do that—”

“Jeananne?”

“Jeananne was a friend of mine. Some big shot from Washington came here and talked to her. Whatever he told her really got to her, because she told the Army about our radios. A whole bunch of soldiers came up to take them, the CBs, ham gear, everything. Not just here. Everywhere in Bellingham. But Jeananne, she brought them here!”

“Some friend,” Kevin said.

“What the hell could he have told her?” Fox demanded. “It must have been important.”

“I never got a chance to ask,” Miranda said. “After they searched the Enclave and took all our radios, they took her with them. I’ve never seen her since. Not that I want to.”

“Yeah, but if it hurts snouts—”

George Tate-Evans came in from the kitchen. He’d obviously been listening. “Okay, Fox, I give up,” George said. “What’s got you so pissed off at snouts?”

Fox’s eyes had a haunted look. “No matter what they did, people never hurt the Earth the way the snouts did. They don’t care. It’s not their planet. I could always get to people’s co sciences. How do I get to the snouts?”

“None of which solves our present problem,” William Shake said. “You can’t stay here. There’s barely enough for us to eat.”

“What do they do with people who come in and don’t have place to go?” Fox asked.

“I don’t know—”

“I don’t think I want to find out.” Fox looked out across the Enclave. “What’s in the greenhouses?”

“Squash. Tomatoes—”

“Know a lot about hydroponics?”

“We have books,” George Tate-Evans said.

“Sure you do. I wrote some of them.”

“I guess you did at that—”

“Let me see your compost heap.”

“Our what?”

“You must have a compost heap,” Fox said. “I taught you that much.”

“Yeah—” Shakes led the way outside.

Fox kicked at the layer of sodden dead grass that lay atop the mound. “You don’t turn it often enough. Not enough dirt mixed in, and you ought to be taking finished compost out from the bottom layer. You’ll have other stuff wrong, too. Like I thought you guys need me. Marty owns part of this place. He’ll work with me. We’ll earn our keep.”

34. THE MINSTRELS

Roger Brooks drank the last of his coffee. It tasted of burnt breadcrumbs. They made coffee with breadcrumbs in the British navy. Or at least the Hornblower novels said they did. Could Mrs. Tinbergen be doing that? She surely could!

Outside his boardinghouse window was pouring rain. It had been that way almost every day in the months since Footfall.

Rain, and everyone too busy to talk to me.

He repressed other memories: of Army guards ordering him away from the gate into Cheyenne Mountain, and one sergeant getting so impatient that he’d drawn his automatic; of the three weeks before he’d found a representative of the Post and got a new credit card so he didn’t have to fish in garbage cans for food…

That memory got too near the surface, and he growled.

“Trouble?” Rosalee asked.

“Nothing much—”

“Like hell.” She came around the table and put her hands on his shoulders. “I know you too well.”

Yeah. Actually it was strange. Rosalee was very nearly the perfect companion. He’d even considered marrying her.

“Can I distract you? I met this Army girl. About nineteen. She said Mrs. Dawson is inside the Hole—”

“I guess that figures—”

“Shut up. Inside the Hole. Came in just before Footfall with a strange character. And a captured snout.”

“A what?”

“Yeah.” Rosalee looked smug. “Still love me?”

“Jesus, Rosalee—”

“This character she came to the Springs every night in a bar across town. Interested?”

The name and the sign outside were new. The sign in particular was a good painting of a fi’ on its back, an oversized man standing with his foot on its torso.

“I like that,” Roger said. They both got off the bicycle.

Rosalee shrugged. “I’ll come get you at dinnertime.” She pedaled off.

To where? She gets money-no, dammit, I don’t want to know

It was still early afternoon. The Friendly Snout was cool inside with a smell of old wood and leather and tobacco smoke. Tin customers were few, and some wore Army uniforms. At the bandstand a small tough-looking Army man was teaching a ballad to a civilian. The big redheaded man was jotting down what he heard repeating each verse by guitar and voice.

That’s him. Roger took a table against the wall. The waitress wasn’t more than sixteen. Owner’s daughter? For damn sure nobody cares any more. Interesting how disasters make people mind their, own goddamn business instead of other people’s. Rum sour.”

“No rum. Whiskey.”

“Whiskey sour.”

“Lemons cost four times as much as whiskey. Still want it?”

Roger produced his gold American Express card. “Sure.” “Yes, sir.”

As he’d expected, the drink was corn whiskey, probably not more than a week old. It needed the lemon juice. And so do I. Vitamin C, and the Post can afford it…

The music and words were sung not quite loud enough to hear, and distracting. Hell, if they’d just sing it straight through and get it over with… The red-bearded man seemed intent on his lesson. Roger decided to wait him out. He took out his notebook and idly flipped through the pages. There was a column due at the end of the week. Somewhere in here is the story I need…

COLORADO SPRINGS: Military intelligence outfit. Interviewing National Guardsmen from the Jayhawk War area. (Goddam, those Kansans think they’re tougher than Texans!) Two turned loose two days before. Didn’t want to talk to me. Security? Probably. That bottle of I. W. Harper Rosalee found took care of that…

RAFAEL ARMANZEITI: Didn’t look like a Kansan. “I was aiming for the head, of course. It was standing broadside to me, and I shot at something and the recoil jerked it back and I thought I’d missed. It whipped around and I was looking right into that huge barrel while it pulled the trigger a dozen times in two seconds. I must have shot out the firing mechanism.

“It must have known I was going to shoot it.” Armanzeiti had laughed. “It did the damnedest thing. It fell over and rolled, just like I’d already shot it. Belly up, legs in the air, just like a dog that’s been trained to play dead.”

“You shot it?”

“Sure. But, my God! How stupid do they think we are?”

JACK CODY: “When that beam started spiraling in on us, Greg Bannerman just pulled the chopper hard left and started us dropping. ‘Jump out,’ he said. No special emphasis, but loud. Me, I jumped. I hit water and there was bubbles all around me. Then the lake lit up with this weird blue-green color. I could see the whole lake even through the bubbles. Fish. Weeds. A car on its back. Bubbles like sapphires.

“Something big splashed in, and then stuff started pattering down, metal, globs of melted helicopter-I’ve got one here, I caught it while it was sinking.

“The light went out and I came up for air-there was a layer of hot water-and then I looked for the big chunk, and it was Chuck, waving his arms, drowning. I pulled him out. When I saw his back I thought he was a deader. Charred from his heels to his head. I started pushing on his back and he coughed out a lot of water and started breathing. I wasn’t sure I’d done right. But the chare was just his clothes. It peeled off him and left him, like, naked and sunburned, except his hands. Black. Crisp. He must have put his hands over his neck.

“But we’d be dead like the rest if we didn’t just damn well trust Greg Bannerman. Here’s to Greg.”

LAS ANIMAS, COLORADO: prosperous man, middle-aged, in good shape. Gymnasium-and-massage look. Good shoes, good clothes, all worn out.

He needed a lift. I didn’t want to stop, but Rosalee made me do it. Said he looked like somebody I ought to know. Damn, that woman has a good head for a story. Good head—

HARLEY JACKSON GORDON.

“I kept passing dead cars. Then burning cars. I tried to pick up some of the people on foot, but they just shook their heads. It was spooky. Finally I just got out and left my Mercedes sitting in the road. I walked away, and then I went back and put my keys in it. Maybe someone can use it, after this is all over, and I couldn’t stand the thought of that Mercedes just rusting in the road. But it felt like bad luck. So I walked. And yes, the snouts came, and yes, l rolled over on my back, but I don’t much like talking about that part, if you don’t mind.”

COLORADO SPRINGS: GENEVIEVE MARSH.

Tall, slender, not skinny. Handsome. Solid bones. No money. Nervous. Sick of talking with military people. Wanted a change. Dinner and candles. Rosalee left me the money to buy her dinner and bugged out.

Goddam. She’d make a hell of a reporter if she could write.

“They had us for two days. We thought they were getting ready to leave, and I guess they were, and they were going to take us with them. We all felt it. But on the last day some of them brought in a steer and some chickens and a duck, or maybe it was a goose. The aliens took us out of the pen, and they looked us over. Then they pulled me out, and I was hanging on to Gwen and Beatrice so tight I’m afraid I hurt them. And that crazy man from Menninger’s who spent all his time curled up with his head in his arms, they pulled on one arm and he had to follow. He never stopped swearing. No sense in it, just a stream of dirty words. They aimed us at the road and one of them s-swatted me on the ass with its-trunk? And I started walking, pulling Gwen along, Beatrice in my arms, and then we ran. Beatrice was like lead. We didn’t wait for the crazy man. When the spaceship took off we were far enough away that we only got a hot wind, and that glare. But they took the rest with them, and the animals took our place.” (Laughter). “Maybe they think the steer will breed!”

NEAR LOGAN.

Whole bunch, all types, digging around in a wrecked Howard Johnson’s. Nobody’s too proud to root for garbage now. Shit.

GINO PIETSCH.

“I knew there’d be a tornado shelter. Every building in Kansas has something, even if it’s a brick closet in a motel room., I broke in, and I found the tornado closet, and I hid. The snouts never even came looking. I guess they didn’t care much, if you were the type to hide. Every so often I came out just long enough to get water. And I was in the closet when the bombs came, and getting pretty hungry, but not hungry enough to come out. How much radiation did I get? Am I going to die?”

LAUREN, KANSAS:

That page was nearly blank. Roger stared at it. I have to write it down some day. Damn. Damnation.

Not just yet…

ROGER BROOKS, NATHANIEL REYNOLDS, ROSALEE PINELLI, CAROL NORTH.

The snouts were all over the city. George Bergson came up with the notion of using Molotov cocktails to wreck a snout tank…

The guitarists put away their instruments at last. Roger got up unsteadily. Three corn-whiskey sours had hit him harder than he’d expected. He moved over to the man with the fading red beard.

“Mr. Reddington?” “Hairy Red, that’s me. And you?”

“Roger Brooks. Washington Post. Capital Post now.”

“Yeah?”

Gotcha! Heroes need publicity. “I hear you have some good stories to tell. I’m collecting war stories. Drink?”

“Sure, but I gotta run. My ride leaves in five minutes.” Reddington turned to the bar. “Watney’s, Millie.”

“Money, Harry.”

“On me,” Roger called. “Things are tough, eh?”

“Toward the end of the month,” Harry admitted. “The Arms gives me a little something, but I had a bad run at poker—”

“Sure—”

“I get gasoline, too,” Harry said. “But I can’t sell that. Use it or lose it.”

Roger let Harry lead him to a table. They sat, and Roger studied Harry while opening his notebook. Beard and hair trimmed. Corn. Patiently but not artistically. Clothes are clean and almost new and don’t quite fit. Supplied by the Army? “Harry, we have a lot to talk about. I’d like to buy you dinner.” He took out the gold Amec card and handed it to the barmaid.

Reddington hesitated a bare instant. “May I bring a friend?”

“Sure. What time do you like?”

“Call it seven-thirty.”

The Friendly Snout was more crowded now, with citizens and Army and Navy personnel.

The civilians had dinner. The service people drank.

“I like it,” Rosalee said. “But where do they get the food?”

“Mess sergeants making a bit on the side,” Roger said. “That’s why the service types won’t eat here.”

“You know that for sure?”

“Don’t have to.”

She drew away from him in mock horror. “But Roger, it’s news, and you’re not digging it out—”

“Now just a damn minute—”

“Gotcha!”

“Yeah, okay. Look, Rosalee, it would only be a little story. No prizes. And I’d get half the Army on my case, and I don’t need—”

“Roger, I’m the one who keeps telling you to relax!”

Roger let thick sarcasm creep into his voice. “By their standard there were no menus. Prices were listed on a blackboard, mostly too high.

“The drinks are dependable,” Roger said.

“Dependable?”

“You can depend on them to take the lining out of your throat. Harry was drinking a brand-name beer, but I noticed there was yeast in the bottom of the bottle… Anyway, they take plastic.”

“Oh, goody. Is that him?” She glanced toward the doorway. “Hairy and red. But he’s with three people.”

“Hardly surprising-Carlotta!” Roger bounded across the room.

Carlotta Dawson grinned widely and came to meet him. “I thought it had to be you from what Harry told me. I saw your column—”

“You knew I was out here and you didn’t come find me?”

“We’re busy in there, Roger.” She lowered her voice so no one else could hear. “They have me sitting in for Wes. Roger, that’s off the record. Really off the record.”

Shit. “Carlotta, I’m glad to see you. Hell, I’ve lost track of everybody. All my girls—”

“Everyone’s all right. I just heard from Linda. She says Evelyn’s fine.”

“Great.” Say what? But Evelyn lives in… later. “Harry, you sure know some famous people.”

“Didn’t know you knew her…”

“Roger and I are old friends,” Carlotta said.

“Carlotta, have you heard anything about Wes?”

“Not since his speech. Roger, what are they saying about him? Do they call him a traitor?”

Roger gestured helplessly. “Not around me—”

“Or me,” Harry said.

“But they do.”

“Some do. Not the doctors. Not the farmers and grocers. Just damn fools.”

“There are always damn fools,” Harry said.

And then there are the ones who say Dawson was insufficiently persuasive, because we ought to give up before they kill us all. “Lots of fools,” Roger said.

“Harpanet-the alien Harry captured-says that Wes told the truth, they do treat captives well—”

Wes did that well, Carlotta. Anybody who knew him would know that.”

“I guess I worry too much.” Her mood changed. “Harry, thanks for inviting me out. I’ve been inside far too long. Time to have a little fun. Roger, it’s really good to see you again.”

“This is Rosalee. I picked her up in Lauren-ah, hell, it sounds wrong. We’ve been together since—”

“Never heard you run out of words.” Carlotta laughed. “Rosalee.”

Good. She doesn’t know she told me something. “Let’s down. Harry’s promised us a song.” Roger led the way to the table. Millie had already pulled up another table to accommodate the extra guests, and brought out a new pitcher of beer.

“What did you get?” Rosalee whispered.

“Mind your own business.”

“You expected that woman.”

“Shhh. I hoped. You told me Harry knew her. Now just listen.” They sat. “Rosalee, I’ve known Carlotta since she was in high school.”

“Pleased to meet you, Rosalee.” Hairy Red bowed as he shook her hand. “This is Tim Lewis… Lucille Battaglia.” Lewis was the man who had been teaching Harry to sing. Lucille was small and dark and pretty, and in uniform.

Spec. 4. Adjutant General corps. Personnel. Probably shuffling papers, when she isn’t mooning over every word Reddington says.

“When does it stop raining?” Roger asked.

“The Colonel says in about six months,” Lucille said. “If we’re lucky.”

“Colonel?”

“Lieutenant Colonel Crichton. I work for her—”

“Jenny?” Roger demanded.

“Right.” Carlotta smiled. “That’s why I brought Lucille. Jenn couldn’t come.”

“Hey. Lieutenant Colonel. She must have done something important…”

Carlotta smiled but she didn’t say anything.

“Yeah. Rosalee, Jenny is well, it’s pretty complicated. I’ve known her family a long time. Six more months of rain?”

“If we’re lucky,” Carlotta said. “Actually, nobody really knows It might be more than that.”

“What do you do Inside, Mrs. Dawson?” Rosalee asked.

“Well, I work for the government.”

“Everybody wonders what it’s like, though,” Roger insisted. “Families. I’ve heard the senior staff have their families with them—”

“Some do,” Carlotta said. “Roger, I hear you were part of a raid on the Invaders—”

Roger laughed. “Okay, I give up. Look, I only witnessed that raid. Mostly it was George’s idea. Who’d you hear it from?”

“Carol.”

Oh, shit. Carol had gone Inside, on the insistence of Nat Reynolds. The goddamn sci-fi people can get their groupies Inside, and I can’t even get past the outside gate.

“Actually, it was George’s idea. I was along to watch.” How much did that woman tell? Reynolds was no more a hero than I was. “Hell, I’m not blowing a month’s expense money to talk about me! Harry, tell your story. .

“Wow,” Lucille said. “That’s really something. I’ve never seen a snout except Harpanet. The one you captured, Harry.”

“Well, it was sufficiently hairy,” Harry said. “If the snout didn’t kill us, the farmers would. We took the motorcycle downhill till we could smell the swamp, and then we walked.

Lucille found Hairy Red awesome. Roger found that amusing.

But— Carlotta laughed, something between a snort and a giggle.

“See if it’ll carry you,” the man says. “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. A snout armed with an assault rifle! I don’t think it ever crossed Harry’s mind that I might chicken out. So I couldn’t. Harry’s just the right kind of crazy. You know what he said when we got to those farmers?”

But Carlotta’s backing him up! He must be a real hero. Aw, come on — Roger moved his now clean dinner plate so he could take notes.

(All of the plates had been cleaned. People didn’t waste-food these days.)

“I never saw action,” Lucille said. “But I’ve seen Harpanet — nuts. Classified.”

“Are there any stories you can tell?”

“I haven’t been told so. Harry has all the good stories.”

Harry has the stories, but Carlotta knows what’s happening. Bellingham Evelyn got pregnant and married that guy, what was his name? Max. Max Rohrs. Has a sick mother in Bellingham Had to live there, and Evelyn went with him. She’ll still be there. What in hell is Linda Gillespie doing in Bellingham?

He watched Corporal Lucille from the corner of his eye when he said, “We didn’t see any sign of snouts after the bombs went off. Now they tell me those were Soviet bombs.” She didn’t react “I wonder how the sub commanders felt. They finally got to bomb us.”

“I never saw a snout,” Tim Lewis said. “I talked to plenty o guys who did. Dave Pfeiffer and I made a song about what happened to him. He joined the Army after we got here. I don’t know where he is now, but I’d guess he’s chasing down refugee snouts.’

“Let’s sing that song,” said Hairy Red.

“Dessert’s coming,” Tim Lewis protested. “-Oh, hell. Sure.’ They moved to the bandstand and opened guitar cases. Customers started to look around.

Bellingham. Linda’s not there to meet a lover. I’m the one lover she’s got. If she’s there, Ed Gillespie is there. Air Force general. On the President’s personal staff. In Bellingham. Why?

“Penny for your thoughts,” Rosalee said.

“Shh. They’re going to sing.”

Ed Gillespie. Air Force general. Fighter pilot, but with administrative and science experience. Can’t fly now. There’s nothing to fly. No airport worth mentioning there anyway. Evelyn told us about Bellingham. Seaport town. Old. Decayed. University. Pacific Northwest, where it rained all the time even before Footfall…

Pacific Northwest. Rains all the time. Cloud cover. Railroad goes there. Old seaport. Goddam, it’s perfect. They’re building something there, something they want hidden under cloud cover. It flies, why else have an astronaut general there? Something that flies into space.

Something they want to hide, too big to hide in a factory building, something BIG that flies into space. God damn!

Carlotta had listened politely. “Harry’s a hero, not a bard.”

“Yeah,” Roger said. “He’s better than the writer, though. It could be improved with an axe… How’s Linda?”

“I haven’t seen her in months.”

“You said—”

“Harry! That was great.” Carlotta stood. “But it’s getting pretty late.”

“Max and Evelyn moved to Bellingham.” I’m pushing it. Maybe too hard. But I have to know. Is Linda with them?”

“Roger, it’s really late. Tim, it’s time-Lucille, you have work to do tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, ma’am-can’t I stay?”

“No. Come along.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Roger watched Carlotta lead Tim and Lucille out of the restaurant. “Hasn’t changed a bit. Still gives the orders.”

“Except to Wes,” Harry said.

“Yeah, guess so. Harry, you look like a man who could use another drink.”

“Reckon I could.”

“Dessert?”

“Roger, there’s only apple pie, and I have had enough of that to last me.”

“Good pie?”

“Not bad, if you don’t eat it every night for a month.”

“Getting tired of the Springs, Harry?”

“Not really-well, maybe.”

“You have gasoline. For what?”

“Motorcycle—”

“Harry, how would you like to be a reporter for the Capital Post?”

“Take you where?” Harry demanded.

“Can’t tell you. Long way,” Roger said. His head reeled. They’d had far too much corn whiskey.

Harry moved unsteadily to the men’s room.

“Where are you going?” Rosalee whispered fiercely. “I’m coming with you!”

“Not on a motorcycle.”

“But—”

“I’ll be back,” Roger said. “Rosie, this is a big one. I can feel it. Big. Maybe the biggest thing I ever got wind of.”

“What are you talking about-that Dawson woman! She told you something.”

“Rosie, do you love me?” “Why ask?”

“I love you. But—” “But you smell a story.” Roger nodded helplessly.

She took his hands in both of hers. “I can’t come?”

“It’s a long way, Rosie. I might get there on a motorcycle. No way in a car. Three on a motorcycle won’t work, even if Harry would try it, which he won’t—”

“What makes you think he’ll take you?”

“Come on. The role of retired hero isn’t a very attractive one. He’s getting fat again, and he hates it, and he doesn’t know what else to do. Too old for the Army. .

“Why him?”

“He probably knows the way. He has a gas ration card. Know anyone else who does?”

“But-Oh, God damn it, Roger. Come back? Please?”

“I will. I promise.”

Sarge Harris pulled out a big bandana and wiped his face. “Thai the last of it.”

“Good,” Ken Dutton said. He went over to the pool edge inspect. Sarge and his crew had shoveled the last of the mud out “Let’s hope the new wall holds.”

Sarge laughed. “It will.”

“But—”

“Come on! It’s a good wall. So was the old one. It just wasn’t designed to live through a giant meteoroid impact.”

Patsy Clevenger looked up from the pool bottom where she been scooping the last of the mud into a bucket. “The dinosaur weren’t either. Ken, we’re lucky the house didn’t slide down the hill.”

“You’re right there.”

Footfall had triggered earthquakes. Houses fell, freeway over passes collapsed. Power lines went down. Ken Dutton had heard it was much worse in San Francisco and through Northern California. In Los Angeles the quakes had merely been annoying compared to the mudslides three months of hard rain had produce Now, maybe, the worst was over, with three swimming pools cleared of mud and ready to fill.

The encampment across the street was growing. Part of the golf course was covered with aluminum-framed plastic greet houses filled with young tomatoes and beans. Chickens clucked in the pens he’d built in what had been his neighbor’s cabana.

Patsy climbed out of the pool where she’d been working. “Lot of all you survey,” she said.

“Something like that,” Ken admitted.

“You love it,” she accused.

“That’s not fair—”

“I don’t mind,” Patsy said. “I didn’t used to like you very much. You tried everything and weren’t very good at anything Now-now it’s like you found what you do best. I’m glad some body can cope.”

“Thanks, but I’m hardly the only one. I hear about people all over the valley. Greenhouses, cornfields-one chap came by the other day hoping to borrow an olive press. I never thought of that one. There are lots of olive trees in Los Angeles.” Ken looked up at the sky. It was partly overcast, but there were patches of blue

Los Angeles was supposed to be a desert. One day it might be again. Nobody really knew. “Anyway, we have another place to store water. Come on in, I’ll spring for coffee.”

“Real coffee?” Sarge asked. “Why not?”

“Damn, I’m for that!”

The sink worked fine, now that Sarge had rigged up pipes. They’d have running water as long as the rains filled the swimming pool up On top of the hill above them. The house that stood there had been one of the first to go. Fortunately it had gone down the other side of the hill…

Ken watched Cora carefully measure out water into the kettle.

“Coffee,” Sarge Harris said wistfully. “I think I miss not having morning coffee more’n anything. Sure wish we could have another Stove Soup Party—”

“I already put out the invitations,” Ken said. “The next time there’s enough sunshine. Or if the gas comes back on.”

Cora carefully lit the bottled gas stove. “Which it won’t. I keep hoping we can save up, get a bottle or two ahead, but we can’t, not with all those kids to cook for.”

“It works out,” Sarge said. “Or has so far.”

“Just barely,” Ken said. Cora was watching the kettle, ready to turn it off the second it was hot enough. She didn’t look up. Ken felt relieved. Cora was the only one who knew how well he’d done by taking in city orphans. It hadn’t been as much trouble as he’d thought, with Sarge and his wife to help. They put the kids into two empty neighboring houses, and Sarge got them organized like a military outfit with their own leaders and everything. Ken hardly saw them.

And it had paid off nicely. Not only were there enough ration coupons and gas bottles to trade for a few luxuries, but everybody knew about the kids and his increased ration tickets, so the local ration wardens didn’t come searching his place. Hoarders weren’t highly regarded…

Ken had known food would be scarce. But who’d have thought that heat to cook it with would be the hardest thing to come by? No sun!

Cora was just beginning to bulge. I suppose I’ll have to marry her. Maybe not. Either way, she’s going to make me send Patsy away. Unless I can get somebody to marry Patsy? Somebody hungry who’ll act jealous?

They took the coffee into the front room. Anthony Graves was in his usual place by the big front windows. They faced southeast and got just enough sun to grow tomatoes in pots if somebody would spend enough time taking care of them. Graves was glad to do it. There wasn’t a lot else for somebody his age.

Randy Conant was there, too.

Sarge gave Anthony Graves a quarter cup of his coffee. Ht liked Graves. He carefully ignored Randy Conant. “Get much written, sir?”

“Some,” Graves said. He grinned. “I never expected to write my magnum opus long after I retired.”

“I think it’s great,” Sarge said.

Randy Conant mumbled something.

“What?” Cora asked.

“I said it was shit.”

“Enough, Sarge,” Ken said. Sarge Harris hadn’t moved, but his face told it all. “Randy, why don’t you go turn over the compost heap?”

“Fuck all, let somebody else do some of the work!”

“Sarge, I said that’ll do! Randy, we all work. Now get going before I forget you’re my sister’s kid—”

“Don’t do me any favors, Uncle Ken.”

“Maybe I’ll take that advice.”

“Whew,” Patsy said. “It gets thick—”

“Hey, I’m sorry,” Randy said. “I get upset, that’s all. All this work, and what for?”

“What for?” Sarge demanded.

“Yeah, what for? We’re gonna lose anyway. Just like that Dawson guy said, they can keep dropping rocks on us until we have to give up. Why don’t we do it while we’ve got something left?”

“Peace in our time.’ Thank you, Neville Chamberlain,” Graves chuckled.

“You’re gonna fight the snouts with quotes?”

“Sure. Have another. ‘Some folks win by winning, some folks win by losing.’ I think you get off on looking stupid, Randy.”

“There’s a lot of people think like I do!”

“Bullshit!”

“Sarge, you won’t hear it,” Patsy said. “But he’s right. I hear them down at the market. Nice people. They just want things the way they were before the war started.”

“That’s what they won’t get,” Graves said. “Whatever else, they won’t have that. Look what happened after World War II. Everything changes after a war. Win or lose.”

“It’ll be worse if we lose,” Sarge insisted.

“Sure. People don’t tame very well.”

“I don’t want us to surrender,” Cora said. “But-well, would it be so awful? That congressman, Dawson, he said they’ll let us live under our own laws, live the way we always said we want to—”

Monogamously. You’d like that. Ken thought.

“That’s what the commies always said!” Sarge shouted.

“True enough,” Graves said.

“I’d rather have them than snouts,” Patsy said.

“What difference does it make, what you’d rather have?” Randy demanded. “Nothing we do makes any difference! They’re up there and we can’t hurt them!”

“The Army’s doing something.” Sarge was positive.

“What? Just what can they do?”

“I don’t know, but they’re doing something. You heard the President! He sounded good, confident—”

“And you really believe in politicians. I mean, you really trust them! Hell, you hate President Coffey!”

“A lot of people hated Roosevelt,” Graves said. “A lot more than you’d think. But he won the war.”

“It’s different now,” Randy said. “Don’t you see, it’s different. If there was something we could do, some way we could fight, but there’s nothing, we just sit here and let them drop rocks on us, nothing we can do, and they’ll get bigger and bigger. They’ll kill us all and we can’t do anything about it.” He laughed. “Shit, we sure can’t do anything. We can’t even surrender.”

“We can hang on,” Graves said. “Stay alive and be ready to

35. THE WASHING OF THE SPEARS

“We are winning.” Attackmaster Koothfektil-rusp’s image blurred slightly, and his voice hissed.

African night lay below Message Bearer. The dark cloud coy flared with chains of wild power surges. The Herdmaster’s nerv screamed at the sight, but he couldn’t look away. Repair the broken lines, lest the ship die! He waited for the atmospheric electric discharges to end. They came less frequently now. When the fithp had landed in the first weeks after the Foot, they had been near constant.—

The image solidified. “We have captured wonderful machine which make electrical power, and transportation devices, machines that make other machines. We have slaves. The land is wide, and it is ours. We eat the native food—”

“We must learn if poisons are present or nutrients are missing. Ship samples to Message Bearer for chemical analysis.”

“We will, on the next launch. Herdmaster, Chintithpit-mar wishes to return for the mating season. We will miss him sorely but he has surely earned the privilege.”

“Yes, I remember your reports.” Yet Chintithpit-mang is a dissident, of the Year Zero Fillip! What have they found, that the look so far? “Can you truly spare your best warriors? You continue to lose fithp.”

“Yes, Herdmaster. We will always lose warriors until we have culled out the rogues from among these humans. Fistarteh-thuktu was correct. This is a race of rogues, rogues everywhere, they may be more rogues than normals. The acolytes are studying this, to see how it could have come about. Herdmaster, we may have come just in time to save these humans. As if it were meant to be. Herdmaster, we gain a new domain, a wide domain. We stand on high places and we cannot see the bounds of our territory!”

“Your domain grows large and the fithp grow fewer. The warriors sicken of slaughter.”

“It will not always be so. The true humans learn. We kill rogues only. It is the, task of warriors to kill rogues.”

The Herdmaster suppressed an urge to trumpet. “How are you sure there are what you call true humans?”

“I will show you.” The Attackmaster gestured and stepped aside. Two stepped into camera view: Breaker-One Raztupispminz, and a dark human male covered with drab cloth, as the important ones always covered themselves. He stood half out of camera view, for fear of standing too close to the Breaker.

“This one is called Botha. He held high rank in the Afrikaans tribe. He knows little of our speech, but I will give you his words. He is eager to end this war.”

The human spoke at length. His voice went up and down, now a mumble, now a whine. Pastempeh-keph heard it as a plea.

“He speaks strangely,” Tashayamp said.

Pastempeh-keph turned to her. “Is it not English?”

“Yes, Herdmaster, but not as I have learned it.”

The Breaker spoke. “He says that the war destroys, and both humans and flthp lose. He says that he would do what he could to end the fighting and let humans and fithp live together. This he calls peace. He says that now he can do nothing. We took his surrender in a ceremony broadcast to all the humans here, and because they have seen my foot on his chest, many will no longer obey him.”

The Herdmaster trumpeted in rage. “Then why seek leaders at all? Must we take surrender from each? We have not enough feet for every human!”

“No, Herdmaster. We allow them to gather. They have gatherings, much as we do, where the eldest speak for all. Their decisions are binding. These humans do nothing without meeting and talking. We will allow these eldest to meet and take their surrender. They will name this Botha as leader. He will then command the human warriors to keep order and enforce our domain.”

Something had changed in the African fithp-it was visible even in the monitor screens-and the Herdmaster began to see why. “Was this peculiar approach your own idea, Breaker?”

“Herdmaster, the human fithp always want to discuss terms before they surrender. From curiosity I began to discuss ‘conditional surrender’ with small human fithp—”

“Over my objection,” Atackmaster Koothfektil-rusp put in. “I was mistaken. When a human fithp surrenders under agreed terms, the members tend to honor their surrender.”

“Not all, surely.”

“Some fight on, Herdmaster, but those are rogues, known to all to be rogues, in defiance of their own leaders. We kill the rogues. The humans will aid us in this. Then we will have one herd again.”

Colonel Julius Carter tried once more. “I’ve got three wounded men. One of them will die if we move him. Man, I’m only asking for shelter!” The Afrikaners turned us away. I hadn’t expected it, but they did. But this one is English!

The farmer spread his hands helplessly. “I can’t.”

“He-he’s a white soldier. Blanqui! Not black like me.”

Brant Chishoim laughed bitterly. “Do you think that matters now? Great God, man, don’t you think I want to help?”

Carter let his voice grow cold with menace. “If you don’t help us, we’ll kill you and burn your place.”

The farmer nodded wearily. “I expected that. Will you kill my wife and children too? And my neighbors, and their women, and all their children?”

“We’re Americans, not monsters!”

“If the jumbos find you here, they’ll kill us all. Do your worst, Colonel. You’re not as bad as them.”

“Ah, shit,” Carter said. “You know damned well I can’t just shoot you.”

“If you’re going to stay here, it would be better if you did. Shoot me and put my body where the jumbos will find it,” Chisholm said, dropping his voice conspiratorily. “Maybe then they’ll blame you and not everyone here.”

“Shit.” Carter couldn’t keep it up. “We won’t hurt you. But man, we need help. We worked our way up from the coast—”

“Bad down there?”

“It’s bad. It’s worse than you can think. Buzzards everywhere.” Buzzards and bugs and everything dead and smashed. Rotting corpses left by the waves. New corpses too. We brought the guns as far as we could. Now we have to find somebody willing to go get them and use them, and there’s nobody left with guts. “All right, we’ll move out. Can I leave Corporal Allington with you?”

“Yes. Take all his equipment. Take his uniform too. What’s wrong with him?”

“We shot up a Snout patrol, and they called in their lasers. He’s burned over almost half his body.”

“Okay. We’ll take care of him as best we can. If they ask, I’ll say he was burned in a motor accident. They probably won’t. As long as we bring in the crops they pretty well leave us alone.”

“I guess it’s pretty rough for you, too,” Carter said.

“Rough? Yes, you could say that. I’d head for the bush, but what would happen to the wife and kids? Let me tell you, Yank, a man with four small children doesn’t have a lot of choices.”

“Sure.” What would I do?

“Brant! Magtig, commandos—” A tall blond woman rushed into the room. She stopped when she saw Carter. “Magtig! Here, in our house!”

Chisholm spoke briefly in Afrikaans. Despite the lessons he’d taken while aboard Ethan Allen, Carter didn’t understand any of it

“My wife, Katje,” Chisholm said. “Colonel Carter of the United States Army.”

“I see that he is. Colonel, do you understand the danger you cause here?”

“Yes, ma’am. I didn’t have a choice. One of my soldiers is hurt—”

“Where is he?”

Carter waved toward the barn.

“And what do you wish to do?”

“Leave him with you, I guess,” Carter said. “Then we’ll go back in the bush.”

“And what will you do there?”

“Whatever we can to hurt the snouts.”

“Och, I could wish to go with you. That is impossible. Let us bring your soldier into the house, and get your commando away into the bush. Three miles north from here you will find a deep ravine, filled with brush. Go into it and wait. I will send Mvub] You must speak with him.”

“Mvubi?”

“Our Zulu headman. He will help you. Go now. Go and hurt them. But in the name of God, go far from here.”

Mvubi was old, and darker than an American ever gets. Carte guessed him to be sixty. He squatted to make drawings in the dirt “Here. Kambula. White soldiers. They do not speak English o Afrikaans. Jantji says they are Russian. They hide. They wish to fight. They ask Zulu to help them. Some go to join them.”

Russians. They must have come south, through Mozambique Hell of a long way to come. “Do you know any Zulu who wan to fight?”

“Yes.”

“Take me to them.”

Mvubi rocked back and forth on his heels. Finally he stood

“I will.”

The airlock door swung ponderously outward, and the smell of Winterhome hit him in the snout. Fookerteh flinched, then sniffed. Mustiness. Alien plants, quite different from the life of Kansas.

A tastelessness: the buildup of biochemical residues in Message Bearer was missing here. Over all, the smell of the funeral pit.

Lesser ranks waited behind him, but Fookerteh paused at the top of the ramp to examine the spaceport. It was large, with hard, paved strips set within other strips of close-cropped green vegetation.

Strange winged craft, man-built and large enough to hold eightsquared fithp, were parked at one end of the field. Humans were loading them. Other machines guided by humans moved across the field to the digit ship, and a human crew began loading boxes and baggage from the digit ship onto their vehicles.

Orderly and proper. Koothfektil-rusp has not stretched his domain with words. The humans work for us.

There were tall thin columns in the distance. Smoke trailed from their tops. Wind blew much harder than comfort demanded. Water fell in fat drops. The sky was a textured, uneasily shifting gray, vast and far.

And everywhere was the faint but unmistakable smell of the funeral pit.

Fookerteh went down the ramp to where Birithart-yamp waited. They clasped digits. “Your presence wets my back.”

“Welcome to my domain, companion of my youth,” Birithartyamp said formally. Then he lifted his digits. “I am truly glad to see you. When they told me you would come down, I arranged to greet you myself. Come, I will take you to the mudrooms.”

“I thank you.” They walked across the hard surface. Gravity pulled at Fookerteh. The sky was so big, stretching distances he had not seen since he left the war in Kansas. “Can you not-is there no way to bury the dead?”

Birithart-yamp sniffed. “I had nearly forgotten. You will not notice the smell after a few days. Perhaps at night, or when you come from the clean air of the mudrooms. Fookerteh, we have buried the dead within our domain. Beyond—” He swept his digits in a wide arc toward that endlessly distant sky. “The waves drowned numbers you cannot hold in your head. When the wind blows from that way or that, it is strongest. Today the smells are faint.”

Fookerteh shuddered.

“It will pass. In a season, in two seasons.” They had left the hard-surfaced spaceport. Soft loam sank under their feet, and a new smell was in the air. Spiral plants stood as tall as their knees. Winterfiowers were just visible as loops of vine above the soil. In a year they would be blooming.

“See, death makes the land fertile. The flying scavengers — they are called aasvogel in the dominant language, vultures in English. They do their work, as do the running creatures, and the worms and insects. They do their work, that the Garden will be green. Is it not always so?”

“You sound like a priest,” Fookerteh said.

Birithart-yamp flailed digits across his friend’s shoulder. “Mocker! Here is the mudroom. My officers await us inside, all but one who will join us presently. You know him. Chintithpitmang.”

“Yes.” Chintithpit-mang was a dissident; Fookerteh had avoided him.

“Before we go in-why.are you here?” Birithart-yamp asked urgently.

“It is as you suspect. My mother’s mate wishes to smell through my nostrils and feel through my digits. He trusts Koothfektil-rusp but he wishes another view. I was sent.”

“Good. It is as I hoped. The Herdmaster will sniff your thoughts and believe. We are winning, Fookerteh. The path is long and twisted, but we can follow it-and the domain is endless!”

The mudroom had a random, primitive look. Of course it lacked the curve of spin gravity; but it was shapeless, a mere hole dug in the dirt, filled with water, churned and heated. It was twice the size of Message Bearer’s communal mudroom. On the far side was an endless cascade of water plummeting into a separate pool.

This was the way a mudroom should be! Fookerteh sagged in the warmth, resting muscles strained by Winterhome gravity, eyes half-closed, his snnfp just above the surface. He was glad to be out of the stinking wind. “We were told of an animal. Large, resembling the fithp—”

“They call it elephant,” Birithart-yamp said. “Imagine a tremendous fi’ with only a single digit. These creatures are truly enormous. I will show you one that masses more than eight times your weight.”

Fookerteh snorted incredulity.

“I agree, but it is true.”

“And these are not the dominant species of this planet?”

“They are not. Many humans believe them to be the most intelligent of all species living on the Earth, save for themselves.”

“Of course. Even a single digit may manipulate tools.”

“Yes, but badly. Their digit is primitive compared to ours, and our digits are—”

“Yes?”

“It is not important. They are large and powerful, but the human called Botha said that unless these elephants were protected, they would all be killed.”

“Killed? By what?”

“By the lesser humans, for food. By those we fight in the wild areas. Fookerteh, we win, but you do not yet know the valor of their warriors, and ours.”

Fookerteh let warm mud flow along his sides. A creature that massive should be unstoppable… yet humans killed them. Technology?

He sensed a mass above him, and reached up to clasp digits with Chintithpit-mang.

“Well met, companion of my youth.” There was a strangeness, a distance in Chintithpit-mang’s voice. The fi’ bore new scars. He was armed, and wore the harness of an eight-cubed leader. Infrared night-seeing goggles, and other equipment Fookerteh did not recognize, hung from his harness. He stood like a wall in the gravity — that had — Fookerteh sagging. His look made Fookerteh uneasy.

“Well met,” Fookerteh responded. “Will you not join us?”

Birithart-yamp said, “Chintithpit-mang is one of the elite jungle warriors. Most of them are sleepers. You’ve seen reports—”

“I have. Chintithpit-mang, have you seen these elephants?”

“I have. They are large.”

“And fearsome?”

“Not so fearsome as the humans, who kill elephants and fithp alike.”

Machines speak with as much warmth as you. “The reports say that we have lost many fithp in the jungles. Many more simply refuse to fight there. Why?”

“Death and madness wait in the jungle,” Chintithpit-mang said. “Winterhome is strange enough to fithp who know only the closed spaces of Message Bearer.”

Two young warriors came to take their leader’s weapons, and aid him in removing his harness. Fookerteh recognized members of the Year Zero — fithp. They looked like each other, but not like the Year Zero dissidents that Fookerteh had just left on Thuktun Flishithy.

Chintithpit-mang might not have seen his subordinates. His eyes looked past the walls of the mudroom. “We are warriors, and our enemies find us all too conspicuous in the open. The jungles — you haven’t seen them, Fookerteh, but you’ve seen the spiral plant in the Garden. Picture that as average size, and eight to the eighths of them growing, and smaller plants swarm at their feet—”

It sounded strange and terrible. But Chintithpit-mang was saying, “At first the jungle felt safe. We couldn’t see that terrible infinity of sky and landscape. We could hide from human rogue snipers among these huge plants.” He snorted, a sound like a gun going off. “In the jungles the humans move where we stand fast, tangled, trapped. There is a strangling creature like a length of rope. The plants hide human snipers far more easily than they hide us. They use arrays of pointed sticks planted butt down, angled, and smeared with poisonous substances. Throw yourself out of the path of a spray of missiles, and you will find yourst impaled on pungi sticks hidden in the low vegetation.

“We learned. There came revolts among warriors who refusd to enter a jungle. We ended with the elite jungle-warrior fithp. But most spaceborn simply cannot find the right mind-set. Fookerteh, you may Inform your father that sleepers will eventual hold the highest ranks among the African warriors.”

“But you adjusted.”

“I did. Do you notice anything strange about me, Fookerteh’, “You have surely changed.” Fookerteh had been avoiding it he thought. Now he could not: Chintithpit-mang behaved like incipient rogue.

“Some warriors hunt alone. We move through the jungles as on the plains, seeking human rogues. When we find them we call down laser fire from the digit ships. An octuple would find the rogues. The best hunters are those who go alone or in pain Without those we must needs cede the jungles to the humans, yet I fear what it does to our minds. Fithp minds are not geared for such wholesale killing. We don’t speak of the numbers of the dead, not among ourselves and not to the lesser warriors. Rumor spreads, and there is always the stink. We are always aware of what our foothold here has cost both humans and ourselves.

“The wholesale killing of whole human tribes due to the rogue behavior of one or two members has been forbidden by your father and the Attackmaster both. It continues nonetheless, for it is effective. Day by day the humans become more submissive. Many now cooperate with us.”

“And so we are winning,” Fookerteh mused.

“We win. There are costs. Many deaths were caused by difficulties in perception. Our lives aboard Message Bearer haven’ prepared us to recognize what we see. Fithp have wandered of cliffs, or broken their legs in holes, or shied from something harmless into real danger. The human enemy finds the simples of hiding places indecently effective. In spotted green clothing they seem to vanish. Many have guns, yet even without guns they kill us. Pointed sticks fly from the greenery—” Chintithpit-mang’s voice trailed off, and his eyes focused on Fookerteh, as if seeing the mudroom for the first time.

“Fookerteh, I have applied to return to Message Bearer for mating season.”

Well you might. “You shall. I was told.”

“Good.” Chintithpit-mang walked into the mud, bringing a bow wave with him. He sank, eyes half-closed, and it seemed he would not speak again. Then, “I fear the paths my mind would walk if I missed mating season. I have already walked too far from the life I knew.”

“I came to learn such things.” The Attackmaster had never spoken of such. “Can you tell me how Pheegorun died? I’m told you were there.”

“I was there.” Chintithpit-mang was deep in the mud, eyes fully closed now, only his head protruding. “We were not even in danger. I cannot think — we behaved stupidly. Nonetheless we did not understand Africa as we do now.

“You must see the jungle. I will show you. We had tamed it when I arrived, though the cost was high. When I stepped off the float-fort I found Pheegorun examining what might have been a primitive digging tool. .

Chintithpit-mang spoke without body language. His voice was almost a monotone. It was as if the emotions raised by his terrible tale had long since been burned away, by time or by worse to come.

Pheegonin said, “Here, Eight-cubed Leader, you can see that there’s a blade moored to one end. The native throws the stick and hopes the blade-end hits one of us hard enough to penetrate skin.”

Were Pheegorün a friend, Chintithpit-mang would have swatted him across the shoulders. Mocker! But this was a subordinate, a sleeper, a stranger — “Are you in fact joking?”

“No. They make it work. They kill us with these. Why doesn’t it turn end for end? How can they throw it so hard?”

Chintithpit-mang considered. A long, thin mass would have the proper moment of inertia if it could be thrown straight. But how? “Perhaps if you hold it properly? At the end, perhaps?”

“Lead me.”—

Chintithpit-mang picked up the long shaft with just the tips of his digits. He raised it into place, above and behind his head, point foremost, and threw it. It traveled some four srupkithp and landed sideways.

Pheegorun tactfully said nothing. Chintithpit-mang said, “Pause. Maybe if I—” He retrieved the spear. This time he carefully wrapped all eight segments of his trunk the same way round. “Now when I let go, it should spin, right?”

“Lead me, Eight-cubed Leader.”

The spear traveled four srupkithp and landed sideways.

“Take it,” said Chintithpit-mang. “Give it to a prisoner and let him demonstrate.”

Chintithpit-mang, who had been seeing nothing at all, was abruptly staring Fookerteh in the eye. “Of course Pheegorun must have tried this already. He had seen the spear kill, and he had studied it longer than I. He must have perceived me as a talkative novice an interloping fool. He was a good fi’, a good officer. He might have been one of the elite.”

“What happened?”

“He followed my orders.”

The man was very black and very tall and nearly naked of clothing and hair. The hair of his head formed a huge puffball. There was paint on his face and patterns and ridges in his skin, carefully applied scars. Of the prisoners he was the only one unwounded. He had stood up from the bush with a spear in his hand, too close to the column. A soldier in the rear had knocked him flat with a swipe of a gun butt, rolled him over, and taken his surrender.

He wore strange harness. Ancient fur pieces encircled his ankles and wrists. Once splendid but now bedraggled feathers hung about his neck. His head was circled by a green furred band. All of his harness was old and brittle, stained with earth and sweat.

They had seen many dressed that way.

The man listened to his orders. He looked about at his audience of a hundred fithp warriors. Then, without answering not so much as nodding, he strode to the spear and picked it up, holding it in the middle.

Chintithpit-mang felt he would never get used to the sight. It made his belly queasy, as while a spacecraft was involved in a finicky docking. Why didn’t the man fall over? He was tall and narrow even by the standards of men, and if he fell he ought to break his neck. But he didn’t fall. He stood almost motionless, weaving slightly, as Pheegorun pointed to the target.

“Put it as close to the dot as possible,” he called. He was standing a safe eight srupkithp away. Would this work as he expected? Pheegorun must know how closely his Eight-cubed Leader was watching.

The man raised the spear, level with the ground, aimed at the target. He raised himself-on his toes, and still didn’t fall. He slapped the spear haft with his free hand; the spear turned ninety degrees, and so did the man, and Pheegorun was looking straight down the halt.

Pheegorun turned to run. Eight srupkithp distant or not, he turned to run, and half his soldiers were raising their weapons. The spear flew.

It thudded deep into Pheegorun’s side. Pheegorun froze. Chintithpit-mang glimpsed the black man standing calmly, arms at his sides, in the instant before the guns tore him apart.

Pheegorun took his surrender. They don’t think like us… never mind. It flew straight. I saw it.

The medic studied Pheegorun without touching him. “I want him to lie down,” he said. “Some of you help. First, brace him while I pull the stick-blade out.”

Two soldiers held him with their mass while the doctor pulled. Pheegorun screamed at the pain. It was deep inside him, tearing its way out-it was out, held bleeding before his face. Chintithpitmang, watching horrified, felt the tearing inside when Pheegorun tried to breath.

“Good. Now brace him. Pheegorun, can you hear me? Lean to the left. You should be lying down.”

Pheegorun couldn’t make himself move. The doctor pushed, and he leaned anyway, and was lowered to his left side. His own weight was forcing his lungs shut. Exhaling was a matter of letting it happen, despite the agony, but inhaling was like lifting a mountain. The doctor said, “This will end the pain. I believe the stickblade punctured a lung. I must cut him open and sew up the wound.”

“Save him if you can,” said Chintithpit-mang.

Pheegorun was dying. He must have known it. He had to speak now or die silent. His eyes found and locked on Chintithpit-mang. “Did you see? The danger—” and he was reduced to gasping. His eyes filmed over. The doctor’s knife was cutting into him. He tried to make his mouth work.

Not loud enough. Chintithpit-mang bent his ear next to Pheegorun’s mouth. Pheegorun gathered his will, forced his rib cage to move, gathered breath like a thousand daggers, and spoke.

“Thumbs,” he said, and died.

“His village.” Chintithpit-mang screamed the demand. “Coordinates!”

Someone answered. Chintithpit-mang shouted into the communications box.

Five eights of makasrupkithp away, green lines laced down tight spirals. When they were done, Chintithpit-mang turned the prisoners.

“Who from his tribe?”

They all were. When the work was finished, Chintithpit-mar sent two captives away to tell others.

“I can guess what he was thinking. Their thumbs are more dexterous than our digits. We were the supreme tool users until we came here. We were ready for the wrong things. We guessed some of the prey’s advantages: his greater numbers, his knowledge his own territory, his grasp of an inferior technology that he ha at least built himself, with no thuktunthp for guidance.

“Pheegorun was dying, and he thought to warn me. I had heard such talk from others since. But it is wrong! What if the thumbs let them make their machines smaller? We have the thultunthp to give us more powerful tools, and they have-only then selves.”

“You violated orders,” Fookerteh remarked. “You destroyed a entire fithp—”

“I did. I did it in rage, and I did it to correct my own mistake Shape your own lessons. We have lost only two more fithp in this region,” Chintithpit-mang said. “The others bring us cattle an milk.”

“Have you done it since?”

“No. Not yet. But it changes me, this war. I need the wisdom of the females. I need my mate.”

36. TREASON

A light drizzling rain kept them zippered and sweating in their waterproofs. Today wasn’t bad. They had huddled through days of rain-laden gales that would have blown Harry’s motorcycle off the road.

The sign read BELLINGHAM city LIMITS. The freeway off-ramp led to what had once been a main road. Now it hardly looked used. They drove past closed service stations, closed motels, a closed Black Angus restaurant. One gas station was open, but there was a sign: NO GAS. NO SERVICES. I DON’T KNOW WHY I’M OPEN EITHER. WANT TEA?

Most of the houses were boarded up.

“Bellingham has an unfriendly look,” Roger shouted in his ear. It seemed to make him happy.

Where the hell was that turnoff? The map showed the main road forked, with one fork going off west around Western Washington University and down to the harbor-there it was. Harry took the other branch. It curved east and went under the freeway, past a shopping center that didn’t look completely closed. After that there were only houses.

The Enclave wasn’t easy to find. It lay at the end of a winding road, and it didn’t look much like the place that had once been described to Harry. It seemed too small, and the tennis court had become a greenhouse. There was a heavy fence, and a gate, with a big J. Arthur Rank kind of gong set up so he’d have to get off the bike and go past a concrete barrier to ring it. “They sure don’t encourage casual visitors. Which figures.

Harry drove slowly past, unsure. There was a small woods at the end from there they had a view of the area in front of the garage.

“John Fox! He’s there!” Roger shouted.—

“Fox? Oh, yeah, I remember him. Never met him,” Harry sal “How do you know?”

“How many pickup trucks have a California personalized license plate that reads ECOFREAK?”

“Oh. That one.” Harry turned the motorcycle around. “So now what?”

“We go in. Before, I just wanted a shower. Now I know I want to meet your friends.”

“Okay.” Harry stopped at the gate. The gong wasn’t as lot as he’d thought it would be.

Jack McCauley’s round face had picked up angles and a closely clipped black beard. Men wore beards these days, all across the country. His shoulders and arms had gained muscle mass; they strained his old shirt. “I’m telling you up front, we’ve got the room,” he said, “but drive on in. George’ll be glad to see you Harry. But what in hell is a newsman doing here?”—

Roger smiled lightly. “We’re planning a feature lifestyle. There’s a lot of interest in Colorado Springs on how the rest the country is doing.”

McCauley eyed Roger closely. “Yeah. Sure. Well, come on in but there’s no story here.”

The house and grounds looked like a construction site, Hart thought. They put the bike next to Fox’s truck. Roger looked it and nodded in satisfaction.

They found George Tate-Evans working on the greenhouse Harry wasn’t surprised to see that George was clean-shaven. H would be. George drove in a nail, straightened, stared at Harry and whistled. “It’s really Hairy Red.” He smiled warmly. “Dam all, Harry, you’re not as clean as you used to be, but somehow you look a lot better. How’s the back?”

“Wonderful. I haven’t had to see a lawyer in months. Mee Roger Brooks, with the Washington Post. We’ve both come out of Kansas.”

“Kansas. Harry, I expect everybody would like to hear some stories about Kansas. You’ve come all the way from Washington?

“Naw, from Colorado Springs,” Harry said.

“Colorado Springs,” George said carefully. “Yes, Harry, I guess you better come to dinner, as long as you understand the situation. There’s no room here, Harry. No spare beds.”

“We have tents—”

“Look around you. The only place you could put a tent would be in the driveway.”

— “We’ll think of something,” Harry said. He grinned. “Look, George, I’m used to telling tales for my supper. Tonight, though think you could throw in a shower?”

It didn’t surprise Roger Brooks that there was plenty of water, because there was water everywhere, too damned much water.

This was different. He showered in warm water; not as much as Roger wanted, because the pipes in the rooftop heat collector didn’t hold that much, but more than Roger had enjoyed for a long time.

I better enjoy it. I’ll pay for it. It had been a long trip. I chose the right guide. We got here. But now Harry will tell his war stories again…

The dining room was large, with a long table in the center. At one end was a lecturn. The whole place reminded Roger of the refectory in the Christian Brothers monastery they’d stopped in on the way up from Colorado Springs. The Brothers had taken in travelers the way monasteries did in medieval times. They’d also put all the local indolents to work in gardens and vineyards.

The room grew crowded. John Fox seemed genuinely glad to see Roger. Roger’s memory held the names as they came: a useful skill for a newsman. Fox’s friend Marty Carnell. George and Vicki Tate-Evans. Harry had called George “super survivor”; his wife was quiet, and it became clear that visitors made her uncomfortable. Isadore and Clara: Roger didn’t get their last names. Clara wanted to know what was happening in the capital. Others: the man at the gate, Jack McCauley. His wife was Harriet, and she was listening a lot while making up her mind about something.

Bill and Gwen Shakes occupied the head of the table. There were a lot of Shakes kids-a lot of kids, for that matter, and Roger let their names slip through his head unclaimed.

Shakes was concerned about Roger’s story. “We don’t need any publicity. Don’t need any, don’t want any. I’d tell you how tough things are if I thought you’d believe me.”

“I won’t be writing much about Bellingham,” Roger said. Or any other specific place. Anyway, if you’re worried about getting lots of new company, forget it. Harry and I could have stopped cold half a dozen times, and that’s on a motorcycle, press credentials and a gas ration card! Nobody’s coming to Bellingham.” And nobody’s printing anything about Bellingham. But before we left the Springs we went through all the files I could. Nothing, nothing at all, since long before the snouts dropped the Dinosaur Killer. I can taste it, a secret a year old, hidden from snouts and citizens alike — “A lot of people have come to Bellingham,” Harriet McCat said.

“Yes. It’s getting crowded,” Clara added. “The markets crowded. Lines, long lines for almost anything except staples dairy products”

“Hah. Most places there are lines for those, too,” Harry “Maybe you have it better than you think.”

Dinner was spaghetti. There wasn’t any meat in the sauce, there was cheese, and fresh stewed tomatoes from the greenhouse. Conversation became local while they ate.

“It’s wet everywhere, isn’t it?” Fox asked.

“Pretty much so,” Roger told him. “We were never able to out except for a couple of days in Utah. You must get more here than I’d have thought.”

Fox snorted. “Heck, Bellingham wasn’t noted for its sunshine before that snout asteroid hit. Not like Death Valley,” and sudden fury surged into his face before he could hide it. “What made you think we get sunlight now?”

“Hot water,” Roger said. “That was heated in those roof collectors, wasn’t it?”

“Sure, but it was warm, not hot,” Fox said.

“It collects diffuse sunlight,” Miranda Shakes said. “We hot water when there’s real sunshine. Three days so far this ye I’d kill for a hot bath.”

When dinner ended, almost everyone left.

“Chores,” Fox said. “Nice to have seen you again, Roger.’

Bill Shakes and George Tate-Evans helped carry dinner dish out, then came back. “We’ll offer you brandy, but it’s getting dark out,” Bill Shakes said. “Maybe you’d rather go make camp where there’s light?”—

“It’s no problem for us,” Roger said.

“We’ve made camp in the dark before,” Harry added.

“Okay. The best place will be up the lane. It runs into the woods. Go up about half a mile, cross the creek, and there’s a clearing. Be careful how much wood you burn, and don’t cut any.”

“Okay.”

Isadore brought in two bottles of California brandy. “Two more cases,” he said to nobody in particular. He took thin glass snifters from a cabinet and brought them around. George Tate-Evans went to help, but poured his own glass half full first. The doses that Isadore poured for guests were considerably smaller.

Bill Shakes waited until they were all seated with their glasses. “Harry, you said you have a gasoline ration card.”

“Yep.” Harry grinned. “Hero’s reward, you know. I captured a snout.”

George Tate-Evans started to say something, but Shakes’ quiet voice was insistent. “We’ve located some fertilizer. A dairy farmer about thirty miles from here will sell us some, but we have to go get it. We’ve got trucks but no gas. What are the chances of buying some gasoline from you?”

“Zero,” Harry said. “The card’s personal.” He took a plastic encased card from an inner pocket. “See, my driving license on one side, gas card on the other, picture on both. Nobody can use it. Unless you want to grow a beard and dye it to look like me.”

“Most amusing,” Shakes said without a smile. His head might have come level to Harry’s shoulder.

“Maybe we can exchange favors,” Roger said. “We go get your fertilizer. You let us use a truck for a couple of days.”

Harry frowned at him. “Why do we need a truck? Especially need one that bad?”

“I’d like to look around, and my tail-bone is tired,” Roger said.

“I’ll buy that one. Okay, Bill. We’ll haul your cow shit.”

“Thank you.”

Harry lifted his glass. “You’ve done pretty well.”

“Not too bad.” It was hard to read Shakes’ smile. “Do you know anything about Los Angeles?”

“They’re coping,” Harry said.

“You didn’t go through there?” George asked. He brought over a bottle of California brandy and poured a generous second drink.

“No,” Harry said. “But they’re coping.”—

“Eh?”

“Just about everywhere,” Harry said. “Things are tough. Tougher than here, mostly. But people are managing, one way or another. Greenhouses. Vegetable gardens. Chicken coops on rooftops.”

“Surprising,” Bill Shakes said.

“Yes, considering there’s not much the government can do Roger said. “Colorado Springs can’t even find out what people are doing, much less help them.”

“That’s why things are working,” George said. He knocking back his brandy and poured more. “Get the goddamn government out of the way and people can cope. You watch, if things get little better, good enough for the government to get active, ever thing will get worse again. Look at us! We’ve got government Boy, do we have government! Government people out the arse.

George was wrong, of course. Roger had seen it: what made it all work was just enough government. Government wasn’t powerful enough to meddle any more, but it could tell those who would listen how to help themselves: how to build greenhouse keep the plumbing working, deal with untrustworthy water supplies, eat all of a steer carcass: the things once printed in its survival manuals. George Tate-Evans must have expected his survivalists to be the government by now. Instead of decently dying away, the government had taken over his territory!

If Roger could say that just right, he’d get himself and Han kicked back into the Street. Instead he said, “Clara said there are lots of new people here. Why?”

Bill Shakes booked edgily at George, but George didn’t notice “Big government project in the harbor,” George said. “New people coming in. Navy people. Computer programmers. Ship fitting plumbers-we have to do all our own plumbing now. Every plumber for a hundred miles seems to work down there at Ui harbor.”

“They don’t moonlight?” Harry asked.

“They don’t even come out for a visit.”

“Hoo-hah.” Harry was on his second brandy. “And you guy came up here to get away from the crowds!” Harry chortled and poured himself another drink without asking.

“There is an amusing aspect to it.” Bill Shakes still wore his enigmatic smile. “I remember a story. There was a guy who knew the Second World War was coming. The news said it all. So he looked around for a quiet spot to sit it out, and he moved his whole life there. He picked an island out in the middle of the Pacific, way the hell away from everything. Called Iwo Jima.”

“We haven’t done that bad,” George said.

“No, but it isn’t the quiet little backwater with the silted-up harbor any more,” Isadore said. “The roads are crowded, the prices have gone up, there are MPs minding everybody’s business—”

“Screw them,” George muttered.

“But what are they doing down there?” Roger asked. “Who knows?” Isadore said. “They say they’ve built greenhouses and they’re growing wheat. You can believe as much of that as you want to.”

“And if I believe none of it?”

“Miranda’s Deputy Sheriff heard rumors that it’s a prison,” Isadore said. “Political prisoners from Kansas. Collaborators. They’ve built greenhouses, all right, but they’re working them with prisoners. Slave camp.”

“Serve the snout lovers right,” Harry said.

“They may not have had much choice,” Roger said.

“They could fight—”

“You captured one, Harry,” Roger said carefully. “But he was alone. I saw what happened to people who tried to fight them all. It wasn’t pretty.”

Bill Shakes leaned forward. “You were in alien occupied country? Tell us about it.”

Roger’s digital watch said 3:00 A.M. Both brandy bottles were empty, and they were better than halfway through a third.

Somewhere during the evening Miranda had brought down Kevin’s guitar for Harry to play, and nearly everybody came to listen while Harry sang his songs, but then the others had gone away, leaving George and Isadore and Bill.

Kevin Shakes was working on the government project-and hadn’t come home since he went down to the harbor. They got letters from him, and word through Miranda’s boyfriend.

Roger felt the tightness in his guts. I shouldn’t have had so much brandy. It’s hard to stay in control.

Something big in the harbor. Big.

George knows something he hasn’t said. What?

“About time to turn in,” Bill Shakes said.

He’s not drunk. I wonder just how much he really drank?

“Let me fmish this drink,” Roger said unsteadily. He knew he was rapidly wearing out his welcome. But I may not get a better shot. He went over to George and lifted his glass. “Death to tyrant Down with the state!”

“Right on!” George grinned and clinked glasses.

“Secrets,” Roger said. “They always have secrets. Like in Vietnam, when they kept it a secret they were bombing in Cambodia. Who was it secret from? The Cambodians knew. The Viet Cong had to know. I bet they even told the Russians. So who didn’t know?”

“Right,” George said. “Right.”

“So now they’ve got more secrets.”

“George,” Bill Shakes said quietly.

George didn’t listen.

“What the hell could they be hiding?” Roger shook his head “Probably something silly—”

George dropped his voice to a conspiratorial mumble. “Snouts They’ve got snouts down there.”

Roger woke on the living room floor. His head pounded. Snouts. No big secret. Nothing but a hideout for captured snouts. That’s ridiculous! Bellingham vanished from the news before anyone captured a snout! And they wouldn’t put General Gillespi in charge of a snout prison camp.

But Bill Shakes believes it. He didn’t want me to find out. If Shakes doesn’t know what’s really going on in the harbor, nobody out here does. We’ll have to go inside.

He heard Harry’s voice from the other room. “Like Sheena Queen of the Jungle. Miz D. hopped on, and out we came. Hey real coffee! Great!” There were other voices, children, and giggles

Coffee! But to get any, he’d have to listen to Harry’s story yet again…

So. We achieve escape velocity, Pastempeh-keph thought. From here we coast. We’ll hold the African continent forever, and if new resistance rises, we’ll trample it from space. Ultimately the dissidents may rule Message Bearer while my descendants trade them metals for food.

The door to the mudroom opened. Pastempeh-keph waved happily from the mud. His fithp’s mating season had come round at last — “I have a guest,” said K’turfookeph.

You what? Pastempeh-keph didn’t say that. He said, “Enter. Soak your tired selves.” This had better be urgent!

K’turfookeph entered with Chowpeentulk. The females eased into the mud, carefully, under the low spin gravity. A few moments of quiet were allowed to pass, during which none of the tension left Chowpeentulk. Then she said, “My mate was murdered, Herdmaster. What have you done to find the rogue?”

He had thought he could postpone this. There was a war on, and a sufficiency of dead fithp. Some fi’ had removed a problem. The Herdmaster had taken steps to learn who, for he might act again, but there had been yet more urgent problems.

He said, “Tell me first, what would you have done?”

Chowpeentulk considered. “A rogue shows. He does not speak to his fithp, he abandons his mate, he does not trouble to hide who he is.”

“We have rogues enough,” the Herdmaster conceded. “Warriors on Winterhome face strange and terrible pressures. But here? So you must have noticed him. Is there a herdless one aboard? A member of the Traveler Herd whom none will associate with? No? Then who could have come and gone so unnoticed?”

Chowpeentulk shook her head. She was terribly tense. Why not? She had invaded the Herdmaster’s private mudroom!

He said, “Not a rogue. Then he did not act alone, and if he did, he must have shared the secret with someone. What would you do now?”

“I would ask! No Ii’ can lie to the Herdmaster.”

“That statement is too sweeping, but it has some truth. I have interviewed the heads of every fithp aboard Message Bearer. The sleepers do not ask that I seek a killer; they demanded only that I choose an Advisor from among them at once. This seemed promising. I set my attention on them. When that failed me, I questioned randomly chosen fithp: Fistarteh-thuktun’s apprentices, Tashayamp, weapons officers aboard, warriors newly come from Winterhome, mothers, newly mated females, unmated females, humans.

“Some spoke of roguish behavior in others. I challenged the alleged rogues; every accusation was unwarranted. None know how Fathisteh-tulk died. Few even know what his interests were, where he might have overturned a secret worth concealing—”

“Few? What have you learned?”

“I learned what you must have known, Chowpeentulk. Your mate was interested in the human prisoners. He questioned one Dawson, while Dawson was isolated.”

“So.” She said, “In the communal mudbath, days before he disappeared … he wouldn’t tell me what he intended, but he thought to learn something. It had to do with whether Winterhom was worth the taking.”

“It would. And where does that leave me? Did he question the Soviet prisoners? Did he learn anything? Humans may lie even to the Herdmaster, for I cannot read their body language. The Breakers were no help. It doesn’t matter. Even if we consider that surrendered human might murder a ranking fi’, another fi’ murder be involved. No frail human could have pushed him into a vertical wall of mud under minuscule thrust. A fi’ must have chilled the mudroom again after Fathisteh-tulk was dead.

“Meanwhile a fithpless killer walks Message Bearer. He killed among the highest rank, yet nothing shows in his stance. He know that he has played the Herdmaster for a fool.”

“We feared you had forgotten,” K’turfookeph said, with a trace of apology in her tone.

“Losing my fithp to thermonuclear bombs and wooden stick and madness, why should I ignore yet another death? But I hay no more footholds here! What should I seek? Some fi’ appeared and killed and went, unnoticed, speaking to none.”

Chowpeentulk sprayed him. The Herdmaster didn’t react at all “A rogue who came and went. So simple. Chowpeentulk, I will produce your mate’s killer within eight days. Leave us.”

Chowpeentulk knew enough to keep silent. She surged from the mud and left, dripping. Pastempeh-keph said, “Was there no another place where you and that other female could confront me?”

“Keph, she persuaded me. There are others who wondered too—”

“Don’t do that again. Now forget it, mother of my immortality The mating season flows always too fast.”

The column made slow progress across the veldt. Movement was impossible at night. The snouts had excellent IR detection equipment. On a good day the commando could travel thirty kilometers on foot.

They had learned that, and more.

Julius Carter wanted time to understand what he had learned: of the strange relationships between the Afrikaner tribe-they could only be thought of as a tribe-and the various black tribes.

Van der Stel, the thin Afrikaner who spoke of “Kaffirs” and expected blacks to call him “Baas” — but who also had genuine respect for the Zulu scouts, and always listened to their advice.

Mvubi, who seemed servile to van der Stel and treated Carter as an equal-but took his orders from Carter.

And the Russians, who understood none of this. Of the dozen who’d joined forces with Carter, only two spoke English, and none spoke any other language relevant to South Africa.

A strange country. It had been strange before the invaders came. Now—Now the whole Earth is strange.

Despite the chill wind, Carter sweated under his heavy pack load. They moved in small groups, slowly and carefully, taking advantage of every patch of cover, every depression in the ground. Up ahead Mvubi and his Zulu scouts were nearly invisible. A steady hiss sounded in Carter’s left ear, showing that his radio receiver was on. Mvubi wouldn’t activate the transmitter except in an emergency. A short, low-power transmission probably couldn’t be heard by the snouts, but why take chances?

“It is not far now,” van der Stel said. “When we reach those trees, you will see their spaceport. The missile can be fired from there.”

“Thank God,” Sergeant Harrison muttered.

Lieutenant Ivan Semeyusov looked disapproval at Harrison. Russian noncoms did not speak to their officers until invited, and good communists would hardly invoke deity. Colonel Carter hid his grin. “Give ’em a ten-minute break, Sarge.”

“Yes sir.” Harrison whistled long and low, knowing that Mvubi’s people would hear. Then he crawled back down the column to pass the word to the Americans and Russians.

Carter hunched in the lee of the best shelter he could find a wished he could smoke his pipe. How good is their sense of smell The wind blew continuously. He looked cautiously around weird landscape. After all these months, there was still the odor of death in the air. What is a black boy from Pruett-Igoe doi way down here? “At least the rain has stopped,” he said.

“It is cold for November,” van der Stel said. “Summer will late.”

If there’s a summer at all, Carter thought. November in South Africa should have roughly the same weather as May in Southern California, warm and dry, not this blustery cold. The Russian officer produced a package of cigarettes. “No,” Carter said.

The Russian officer put the pack away.

“This is a mad scheme,” van der Stel said.

“So? And why are you here?” Lt. Semeyusov asked. His mouth twisted into a deliberate grin.

Learning some manners, anyway, Carter thought.

“It is known that I am mad now,” van der Stôl said. “TI English found that all Afrikaners have the capability. Now v must show the olifants. Tell me, Lieutenant, what brings you far from home to aid me in my madness?”

Semeyusov wasn’t going to touch that one. “You are certain they will launch a large craft today?” the Russian demanded.

“Certain? How can I be certain of anything? Our friends at the spaceport, those who load the craft, say they believe it will be launched today or tonight or tomorrow. I have told you this. You think I deceive you?”

“Naw,” Lieutenant Carruthers said. “None of us think that mynheer. Ivan’s nervous. We all are.”

With good reason. Carter glanced at the sun. “Since we don’t know when they’ll launch, the sooner we’re in position, the better. Let’s get moving.”

“Looks like they’re about to button her up,” Carruthers reported He handed the binoculars back to Carter. “Last-minute loading—”

Julius Carter lay in the grass and turned his binoculars on where had been an airport, eight kilometers away.

The Sunday comics had taught him to call them “rocket ships. This was the first rocket ship he had ever seen. Shuttles didn’t look like this. Its belly was flat. It was the size of a building; made the nearby C-47 cargo transport look like a toy. Take the massive cone off the back and it would look more like an airplane, but not very. Too short, too wide, too little in the way of fins. The only windows were on a canopy the size of a 727 fuselage, and that was underneath the nose. The point of the nose glittered like a lens, but it wouldn’t provide a view. A laser cannon?

Van der Stel had been right, as usual; this was an excellent place to observe the spaceport, high enough to give them a good view, but not conspicuously high.

Carruthers might have been reading too much into what he could see. On the other hand, he might not. In the past hour the snouts had certainly closed two cargo hatches on the big ship. They’d removed the two loading cranes that went with those ports. Most of the other baggage carts had been removed to the other side of the field. “It sure looks like they’re doing something. How’re the Russkis coming?”

“We are coming quite well, Colonel,” a voice said from behind him.

Ooops! “Thank you, Lieutenant. You’ve got your missile set up?”

“Presently.”

“Good. Looks like we have about half an hour.”

“I will encourage the crew to hurry.”

Carter sat in the tall grass and took out his pipe.

“Nice thing about a pipe,” Carruthers said. “Don’t need to light it. Colonel—”

“Spit it out.”

“Will it work? Sir? I mean, they had to carry it a long way, and—”

“Got a better plan?”

“No, sir.”

“It’s worth a try, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir.”

And no, I didn’t answer your question, son. How could I? He grinned, but to himself, as he remembered a story from one of the innumerable Arab-Israeli wars. An Arab president had cabled to Moscow: “Stop sending surface to air missiles. Send surface to aircraft missiles.”

So far it hasn’t cost us anything but some sweat. So far. When they launched that Russian missile that would all change. They’d have to run for it, scatter, and hope they all made it to the rendezvous points. Carter glanced at his watch, then back to the low railed structure the Soviet troops had bolted together. “Okay, Sergeant. Spread ’em out.”

“Sir.”

There was definite activity at the spaceport. All the auxiliary vehicles had been withdrawn. Now the great hulk of the alien spacecraft sat alone.

An enormous concrete structure opened nearby.

“The laser,” Carter said. “Hit that, and we splatter that ship all over the landscape.” He handed his binoculars to Lieutenant Carruthers and turned to the Soviet officer. “All set?”

“Da.” Semeyusov’s eyes glittered expectantly. “It is a good missile. A good missile.”

“I sure hope so.”—

“Colonel!”

“Yeah, Carruthers?”

“They’ve opened a hangar. Something coming out-coming this way. Shit!”

Carter grabbed the binoculars.

More than a dozen of the fast-moving light ground effect vehicles Carter had come to call “skimmers” moved across the spaceport. When they reached the fence they rose over it, then spread out across the veldt. One was coming directly toward their hill.

Behind the skimmers came eight tanks.

Lieutenant Semeyusov’s voice was emotionless. “Your orders, Comrade Colonel?”

“Wait. Maybe they won’t see us.”

The skimmer came on, past the area where Mvubi’s scouts were hidden.

“Still coming,” Carruthers said. “Colonel, if they didn’t see his people, they won’t see us.”—

“And if they go straight past us, they’ll see the damn missile,” Carter said. They’ll be here in a second. Once past us, they’re sure to see the missile. He thumbed the channel control on his helmet radio. “Sergeant Harrison. If that skimmer comes within fifty meters, take it out.”

“Sir.” Harrison was invisible somewhere off to the left.

Lieutenant Carruthers unlimbered a light antitank tube. “Custer’s last stand.”

“Something like that,” Carter said. “Maybe they won’t come.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Semeyusov spoke quickly into his phone. “They are ready—”

The first skimmer reached the bottom of the hill. Another converged toward it.

Carter lifted the transmitter. “Mvubi. uSuthu!”

“Tchaka!” A moment later automatic weapons chattered from the veldt between Carter and the spaceport. The trailing skimmer

wobbled, then fell.

“Launch your bloody missile,” Carter ordered. “It’s too late to get the spaceship. Try for the laser anyway.”

“With respect, Colonel, perhaps they will launch their ship anyway. It is a better target.”

“Why in hell would they launch during an ambush?”

For answer, Semeyusov pointed. Thick white smoke rose from the base platform around the alien spacecraft.

“Son of a bitch! Okay!”

“Only now we got to stop those tanks,” Carruthers said carefully. “I don’t think Mvubi’s people will hold them long.”

“We’ll do the best we can—”

The alien ship rose suddenly. The rocket platform that boosted it fell back, as a brilliant blue-green beam stabbed up from the concrete structure at the center of the spaceport.

“Any time now!” Carter shouted. Lieutenant Semeyusov spoke rapidly.

The leading skimmer was climbing the hill toward them. There was a sharp flash from the bush to their right. A dark shadow moved toward the alien hovercraft, rushed at it, touched it— The skimmer exploded in fire. “Two down! Hoo hah!” Carruthers shouted. “Bring on the motherfucking tanks!”

Tanks hell, where’s that damn missile? Thunder rolled toward them. The spacecraft rose on its beam of green fire. Three smaller beams stabbed downward. They moved in an odd pattern. There was a flash of fire, and the Russian missile tumbled in smoke. It fell into the veldt.

The smaller beams moved up the hill toward Carter, moved past him, curved back toward him.

He was encased in a wide spiral of green. The spiral tightened.

The alien spacecraft vanished in the clouds.

37. THE IRON CRAB

The truck was an older Ford Club Cab with a roomy area behind the backseat. The space back there gave Roger ideas. He brooded

The truck rattled and stank of manure, but the seats were padded and softer than a motorcycle saddle, a difference Roger sorely appreciated.

“Snouts,” Roger said. “Harry, why would they hide snouts al the way up here in Bellingham?”

“Beats me—”

“Me too, but there’s a story in it. One the people are entitled to know.”

“Well, maybe—”

“Maybe a Pulitzer Prize,” Roger mused.

“Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman,” Harry said. “Both with beards. Yeah. Look, though, they’ve got guards on all the gates There’s no way in.”

“Maybe I can think of something.” I see the fine hand of Colorado Springs here. In’s no problem. Out’s something different. “Want to give it a try?”

“I guess so. Sure. Why not? But how do we get in?”

“Harry Reddington. I have a letter from Mrs. Carlotta Dawson for Mrs. Linda Gillespie. In case you haven’t heard, Mrs. Dawson and I captured a snout in the Kansas war.”

“That doesn’t add up to a pass.”

“Nobody in Colorado-Springs knows dick about passes,” Harry said. “Dawson. Did you catch the name? Dawson, as in the poor schmuck up there on the snout ship.”

“I heard the speech,” the guard said. “Whose side does he think he’s on?”

“Ours, by God, and he’s the only spy we’ve got, too!” From the sound of that indignant scream, Harry was about to deck the schmuck! But his next words were almost calm. “And here’s my ID. Gas ration card, even. Presidential commendation. Look, here’s the letter. For Linda Gillespie,” Harry said. “Mrs. General Edmund Gillespie.”

“I heard of her.”

Roger’s heart pounded. If they searched the truck…

If Harry knew how serous this was, he’d never carry it off. Snout prisoners, in Washington State? Bullshit. Not a bad story, because the snouts on the mother ship wouldn’t drop a meteor on their own people. And it would have to be concealed, because the good citizens might rise to violence against snout prisoners. But why confiscate the CBs?

Something was happening here that would bring meteors if the snouts ever learned of it. The CBs had to disappear, Bellingham had to vanish from the news… and what if they found Roger Brooks of the Capital Post hidden in the back of a pickup truck?

There was a long silence, with things happening but no way for Roger to know what they were. Finally he heard the guard again.

“Okay, Mrs. Gillespie says to send you on down with your letter. Her house is downhill from the Officer’s Club. That’s the old university student union building. I’ve marked it on this map. Just before you get to the Officer’s Club, you’ll come to another guarded gate. They’ll be expecting you. Go straight there. Nowhere else. When you’ve gone through that gate, go directly to Mrs. Gillespie’s house. Nowhere else. Here. Take this pass. You’ll need it to get out. Come back through the same way you went in, and end up back here. Nowhere else. Got all that?”

“Yeah-you sure make it complicated.”

“Wasn’t us wanted you in here.”

“Right. Thanks, Sergeant.”

“Sure. Any time.”

The truck started up. After a while it stopped again. “Okay, you can come out for a minute,” Harry said.

They were on a hillside. Off to the left was the harbor. Mist obscured water from water’s edge. There were outlines of ships, like ghosts. Closer in there were big structures, domes, some on land, some apparently floating on water. Further out in the hartx was the dim outline of a really big dome. A rounded metallic shape lay in the dock area — “Look like greenhouses to me,” Harry said.

“Too much activity,” Roger said. “Look. Listen.” Vehicle moved among the domes. Industrial sounds-rivet guns, pounding hammers, the whine of electrical drills-drifted up to them.

A thing like the shell of a huge metal crab covered several of the docks. It was a slice of a sphere-curved, with curved edges — like a section of a nuclear plant containment, before the section were welded together. Curved and wedge-shaped and two yards thick! If they were building a power plant here, it would be the biggest ever.

He said aloud, “There’s lots of work happening, but it’s inside They’re not building those domes. They’re built. So what are they hiding inside the domes? That piece of steel shell, what does that have to do with anything?”

“Not snouts?”

“Well, sure, snouts. But what do they have them working on Slave labor? We better get moving.” Roger ducked back behind the seats.

It wasn’t much of a house for a general to live in. There was moss growing on the roof, and it hadn’t been painted in years.

“What the hell do I do if they catch me?” Harry demanded.

“Catch you what?” Roger asked. “Walking the streets? Harry there’s a whole city here. Look out there, a lot of uniforms, a lot of civvies too. Act natural. Nobody’ll know you don’t belong here.” He glanced at his watch. “Meet you here in an hour.”

“Well, all right.”

Roger waited until Harry was out of sight down the street. Then he went up the steep stairway to the dilapidated wooden porch and knocked.

The door opened. “Yes-Roger! What in the world?”

“Special delivery from Carlotta. She sends her best,” Roger said. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”—

Automatically she stepped aside. Roger closed the door behind him. “Is Ed here?”

“Working. He works all the time. Roger, what are you doing here?”

“Carrying Carlotta’s mail—”

“Roger, that’s silly!”

“Well, we’re touring the country, getting stories on how people are living. It’s not all just news, I’m reporting back to Colorado Springs. When I told Carlotta I was coming to the Northwest, she said I should look you up.” Roger had never felt less horny in his life, but he did his best to leer at her. “You don’t look glad to see me—”

“Ed isn’t in orbit this time, Roger! And security-Roger, I don’t know how hard they watch the housing, but Ed effectively owns this place. Roger, you’d be better off doing espionage for the snouts!”

At four o’clock there were crowds streaming out of the harbor area. Men, women, mostly dressed for work. They spread outward through the gloomy afternoon drizzle. They must live close, Harry thought. They didn’t seem to be making for parking lots.

These weren’t guards for snouts. There were far too many. The men were big, loud, dressed for durability even in their civvies, and many still wore hard hats and coveralls. Heavy construction work types. What in hell is going on?

Half a dozen men, a dozen, more, streamed toward a smallish building. It wasn’t labeled, but Harry suddenly knew. A club, a tavern, a bar.

He contrived to emerge from between two buildings. He strolled toward the bar, trying to look thirsty as opposed to nervous. The noise level was high. A machine-shriek could be heard through a hundred boisterous conversations. That, and a sound like an elephant’s scream, but elaborated, like a maniac’s babbling too. Somewhere there was a snout. Harry ignored it for the moment.

Nobody stopped him at the door.

The bar was two deep in customers and getting deeper. Harry eased into the crowd; His hand came out of his pocket with money in a clip. Think priorities. Drink first, talk second, or I’ll look funny.

The hard hats were being stacked in piles near the door; no problem that Harry didn’t have one. He was dressed rough enough otherwise. At the tables they were already chugging beer. From the corner of his eye Harry watched a big guy finish a pitcher, what am I doing here?

Order another, drink a glass of that, while the big round table was filling up around him. That one would be loose enough already.

Harry ordered a pitcher. The bartender looked curiously a Harry’s money. “New in town, huh?” he said.

“Yeah.”

The change he gave back said “Federal Reserve Note: Northwestern Grain Project.” It was colored dull blue.

Harry took the pitcher to the big table. “Mind if I sit here?”

“All the same with me.” The big man had nearly white blond hair cut very short. He was bigger than Harry, with huge hands that had been through the wars.

The voice was accented. Lots of them are. Southern, southwestern. Not from up here. Why? Harry sat down next to him. He pocketed his clip of Colorado Springs notes, but not before the big man had seen it. He’ll know I’m new here.

“Whitey Lowenstein,” the burly man said. “You?”

“They call me Hairy Red.”

Lowenstein chuckled. “Reckon they might. What crew you with?”

“Well—”

“Yeah.” Lowenstein’s grin was knowing. “You’ll get over that after a while. The security system’s ridiculous. Me, I’m a welder.” He studied Harry carefully. “Bet you a pitcher I can figure out your job.”

“You’re on.” Harry remembered to drink.

Lowenstein reached out suddenly to pat Harry’s breast pocket. “Hmm. No film badge. Maybe you pocketed it, though. Clean clothes. Big guy. You an educated man?”

Harry laughed. “School of hard knocks—”

“Sure. I got a feeling about you, though. All newcomers get the security lecture, but you didn’t say nothing. You’re an atomjack, Harry.”

Atomjack? in a snout prison? “I’ll buy the next pitcher, and let’s leave it at that.” And what in hell is an atomjack?

An hour later he knew. It wasn’t difficult. Everyone in the bar knew.

Somewhere in Bellingham-nobody seemed to know or care exactly where-there were more than a thousand atom bombs. The atomjacks tended them. A thousand fucking atom bombs.

“You’ve got to get out of here, Roger.”

“I never thought I’d see the day when you started checking papers! Linda, what is going on here?”

“Believe me, Roger, you don’t want to know.”

She’s colder than a witch’s tits. Jeez — “Linda, you’re actually scaring me!”

“I hope so.”

He’d never heard her speak in that tone of voice. “What do you think I’ll do, reveal the dark secret of the captured Invaders?

Don’t you think I’ve figured it out?”

She looked thoughtful. “I never thought you were stupid, Roger.”

“Look, Linda, for God’s sake, maybe I should just wait for Ed to come home—”

“You won’t be here that late.”

“Linda, I give up. What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to go away and not come back.”

“You sure made that plain enough!”

“If it’s plain, why haven’t you left?”

“Linda, damn all, I came thousands of miles to see you—”

“Uninvited.”

“Uninvited, but I haven’t always been unwelcome. I know you don’t love me, but you can at least be friendly—”

“That’s all over, Roger.”

“It isn’t what I meant by friendly, either.” Roger sighed. It was coming home to him with an impact he hadn’t expected: It’s over.

But there’s something else here — “Look, I wanted to see you again. But I’ve got a girl back in Colorado Springs. I think I’m going to marry her. I don’t know why I wanted to see you first, but I did. Does that make sense?” That got her!

“I-who is she?”

“Her name is Rosalee. Linda, you won’t believe it, I picked her up in a parking structure in Kansas.”

She laughed. “No, I don’t think I do believe that.”

“It’s true, though, and she’s wonderful.” Goddam, she really is. Roger told her about Kansas. She’s listening, just like the Enclave people listen. Not much news gets to Bellingham. Roger told it long, but paced the story so Linda wouldn’t get bored. “So that’s Rosalee, and I guess I’m in love.”

“Does she see through you, Roger?”

“Better than you do.”

“I think you really should marry the girl,” Linda said. “No, the problem is to get you out of here. I’ll call the gate.”

Roger fingered his beard. With Linda’s call, he could pass if Reddington, seated in a truck, in the dark, with a new shift guards. No. Best wait for Harry. Maybe Harry would be outside already? He glanced at his watch. No. Not time enough. Have stall.

“Tell them Reddington.”

“What?”

“Couldn’t give my right name. And share a drink with me, for old times sake?”—

“Maybe I’m a little ashamed of our old times, Roger.”

“Maybe I am, too. Some of them. But not the real old times Linda. You didn’t know Ed then. Goddam, I wish I’d married you. Would you, if I’d asked?”

“Yes.”

“You say that quickly.”

“I thought about it a lot.”

“Are you sorry I didn’t?”

“Let me get you a drink, Roger.”

“Good night, Linda.”

“Good-bye, Roger.”

“This is final, isn’t it?”

“It is final. Don’t come back, Roger. Next time I’ll call the guards.”

“Speaking of that—”

“Sure. I’ll see they let you out. Reddington.” “One kiss.-Old times.”

“I didn’t give you that much whiskey. Even if I did, I didn’t have that much myself. Good-bye, Roger.”

Roger went down the wooden stairs to the truck. “She sure was glad to see you.”

“Harry. I was hoping you’d be back.”

“Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”

“Sure. Learn anything?” His voice sounds thick. Can he drive? “Naw.”

Damn! He did get something/ What? “Too bad. I hoped you’d be smart enough to pick up a clue. I struck out. She wasn’t glad to see me.”

“Yeah. I saw. Here, you pile in back behind the seat and we’ll get going. Did she call the guards to get us out?”

“Yes. Damn. We’re both too stupid to get anything.”

“Well, maybe I got something,” Harry said. “For one thing, this is no prison.”

“Really?”

“Nope. No guards. — Lots of welders, plumbers, construction people, but no guards. You know what most of those guys are doing? Welding up a big hemispheric steel plate. I mean big. That was a piece of it we saw on the docks. Know something else? There’s a thousand atom bombs in this town.”

“Bullshit.”

“No shit, Roger. A thousand motherfucking atom bombs, all identical. They got special crews to work with them. Call them atomjacks.”

A thousand atom bombs. Why? Atom bombs, welders, big steel plate — Atom bombs. Big hemispheric steel plate. Long-buried memories surfaced. Freeman Dyson and Ted Taylor. Lectures at a meeting of the L-5 Society, that bunch of fanatics who wanted to put colonies into space. Steel plates and atom bombs and a whole moon colony comes down in one piece. Don’t worry about the landing spot because it’ll be flat when you get down. Christ on a crutch.”

“What?” Harry took the keys from his pocket and climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Nothing.” They let people in, but if they search on the way out…

Roger waited until Harry’s attention was fully on the truck. Then he took the big jack handle from the floor of the cab and rose silently.

“Reddington,” the guard said. Roger sighed in relief. As he’d thought, this was a new one, not the one who’d passed Harry into Bellingham. The guard shined his flashlight onto Roger’s face. Roger clenched his eyes against the light. . distorting his face.

“Sorry. Mind moving that blanket?”

“Sure.” Roger turned from the light, twisting to lift the blanket from over the space behind the seat. I’d have been just there…

The guard was thorough. He looked behind the seats and under the truck. He inspected the pass. He looked at his clipboax notes and compared times.

But he was polite enough not to shine the light in Roger’s eye again…

Harry woke in a bare-walled office. He was lying on a cot. Two Air Police sat at a desk across the room. When Harry groaned and opened his eyes, one of the APs went out the door.

“What the hell?” Harry demanded.

He got no answer at all. The AP didn’t smile or get up or d anything at all.

Presently the door opened. The first AP came in with a mat in U.S. Air Force coveralls. Four stars gleamed from the shoulders.

“Thank you, Airman,” the general said. He turned his attention to Harry. “All right, Mr. Reddington, would you care to tell us what’s going on here?”

“Sure-hey! You’re General Gillespie.” Harry had watched TV coverage of the last Shuttle launch, a lifetime ago. Gillespie looked many years older.

He said, “That’s obvious enough. Now who are you?”

“You said my name—”

“Mister, you have about twenty seconds to start explaining.”

Oh, shit! “General, could you make that a minute? I’m just getting used to the idea that Roger whacked me on the head.”

“Roger?”

“Roger Brooks, sir.”

“Roger Brooks.”

Shit fire, that name registered.

“I take it that the man who left this post using your credentials was Roger Brooks, then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you and Brooks came to see Mrs. Gillespie. I take it that was Roger’s idea.”

“Sure. Didn’t do him any good, though.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“She threw him out.”

“I see.”

Shit, what have I got into?

“Your minute is up, Reddington.”

“Yes, sir. Look, it started in Colorado Springs. Actually, it started earlier.” Talk fast! Harry babbled, how Congressman Wes left Harry in charge of his house, how Harry and Carlotta Dawson had captured a snout and Harry got a presidential citation and a gas ration card — “Later,” Gillespie interrupted.

“Dammit, General, I’m telling you the truth!”

“Oddly enough, I believe you. For now, though, I have a different question. Where has Roger Brooks gone?”

The Enclave looked normal, no one near the gate but Miranda Shakes. Roger drove up carefully.

He was tempted to drive on past, take the logging trail and fire roads that led to the Nooksack Valley, and continue east past Mount Baker. Great idea. One problem. Harry knows about those fire roads. He’ll tell.

Even if Harry wouldn’t tell about the route east, the truck would never get to Colorado Springs. The motorcycle would.

Emotions chased their way through Roger’s mind. I’ve got a secret, a big secret, the biggest ever. Wow! No wonder they made Bellingham vanish. Orion!

If they catch me, they’ll lock me up until the war’s over. I need insurance. There’s only one kind of insurance that can work. I have to tell an editor now, quick, so the Post will keep looking for me if they try to hide me somewhere.

Great plan. One problem. No telephones. No radios. Not even a CB. How am I going to tell the Post?

If I can’t tell the Post, who can I tell?

“Hello, Roger,” Miranda Shakes said. “Where’s Harry?”

“Trying to pick up some supplies. I’ll take the bike down to meet him and then we’ll move on. Here’s the truck key.”

“Where to?”

“Back to Colorado Springs.” I have to get moving. Harry can wake up any minute.

“Is something wrong, Roger?”

“Huh? No, it’s just a long ride back. I’m not looking forward to it.” Their packs stood next to the motorcycle. It took only a moment to lift them onto the rack and lash them in place. And now what? If they catch me-they could do anything.

What will I do if I get away? Damn, it’s a big story, the biggest, too big? Like finding out about the atombomb before they dropped it on Japan. Can’t print it, can’t let the snouts find out, but— But people have to know, have to know there’s hope. So man doesn’t give up, think there’s no chance. They have to know then is a chance.

How? How to tell people but not snouts? There has to be way. It won’t happen if they catch me. They’ll lock me up, secrets security, they’ve made this whole town a prison. There’s too good a chance they’ll catch me and just make me vanish, an unperson. I need insurance. Maybe I need something else, too. Maybe I need help getting out of Bellingham. “Is Fox around?” “In the greenhouse.”

John Fox. If there’s anybody who can get out of Bellingham and back to the Springs, it’s Fox. He has friends everywhere. Jus telling him can be good insurance.

There was something reassuring in the smell of the greenhouse. It smelled like life. A green and brown smell, plants and rich dirt, growth and decay.

John Fox didn’t turn as Roger came up behind him. He was even thinner than Roger remembered. The chamois shirt and lederhosen hung from bones and long, hard muscles. He was pulling smaller sprouts from a tray, leaving the largest. “Have to transfer these in a few days,” he said.

“John?”

“Wha— Roger? What’s news?” And he chuckled.

“The Navy’s got a thousand atom bombs in the harbor complex.”

Fox turned, stared into Roger’s face. “You went in?”

“Yeah. A thousand atom bombs all exactly alike, and they’re making an enormous steel hemisphere. Ed Gillespie is running it all. Thousands of workmen, and they’re all welders or atomjacks. What does that mean to you?”

“Orion.” A smile flickered, then died. “They’re building an Orion.”

“Yeah, and launching an Orion, John. A thousand bombs going off one by one under that plate. I seem to remember you like preserving the environment. Can you imagine what that’ll do to Bellingham?”

Fox nodded. His eyes seemed curiously unfocused. “You’re going to publish?”

“Publish? I’m telling you. At least the Enclave can get their heads down when it happens. But what about Bellingham? Shouldn’t they know?”

Fox was still nodding. “And who else?”

That was the sticking point. “John, I’m not totally sure. Maybe there’s no way to tell the people and keep it from the snouts. The Navy’s right about that; the snouts can’t learn. They can’t take their CBs away from the whole country! At the same time—”

“You’ll think of something.” Fox lashed out.

Roger was doubled over. Something huge and heavy had tried to drive itself through his solar plexus and the spine behind it. Through a haze of pain he tried to sense, to orient… Fox had hit him. His bony elbow was crooked around Roger’s neck, squeezing. Roger could barely breathe. They were walking…

The pressure constricted his voice to a whisper. “I only wanted. To tell you. You. I hadn’t decided. Anything else. John, let—”

Fox released a hand to push a door open. Roger thrashed. The elbow tightened. Oh, God, Fox was strong. “I know you,” Fox said. “You want that Pulitzer Prize. You’d publish. You’d tell the aliens yourself if that was the only way to get it out.”

They were bending over, Fox’s weight pushing him down, face down into water. Roger got his hands on a cool, hard surface and pushed up. The porcelain rim of a toilet. He was drowning in a toilet… and he couldn’t get his face high enough… and the strength was leaking out of him while the urge to breathe grew to agony. I hadn’t decided! I hadn’t decided!

38. PRAYERS

Digit Ship Forty-nine carried vitamins for the human fithp, stock of plants and frozen meat for analysis, seeds and small animal and an infant elephant, and three spaceborn warriors returning for the mating season. Chintithpit-mang arrived to find himself summoned to the funeral pit.

Who had died? The airlock guard who gave him his order hadn’t known. He had aborted his time with Shreshleemang, he had gone down to the War of Winterhome ahead of mating season. He had been out of contact… and the scent of mating was in the air, but Chintithpit-mang felt only fear. Who had died while he was gone?

A small delay could hardly matter. Chintithpit-mang passed through the Garden on his way to the funeral pit.

It was not as he had expected.

The Garden was small. Cramped. The single thriving pillar plant seemed a pitiful reminder that once the Traveler Fithp had known jungles. Chintithpit-mang had fought in jungles bigger than Message Bearer! His own reactions shocked him. He hastened through the Garden and into the leave-taking room that half circled the funeral pit. It smelled of Winterhome…

A crowd was waiting, or so it seemed; and one of the crowd was Shreshleemang. He said, “Mang …”

His mate did not respond. There were eyes on him: Herdmaster Pastempeh-keph, K’turfookeph, Fookerteh, a female he didn’t know, Breaker Raztupisp-minz, and a human Chintithpit-mang recognized. He asked, “Who is dead?”

“Fathisteh-tulk,” said the Herdmaster. “I have taken the task of learning how he died. Chintithpit-znang, you returned from the first battle on Winterhome with Digit Ship Six.”

“I did.”

“What did you do then?”

“I turned my cargo and prisoners over to another octuple. Then I went to see my mate.”

“Shreshleemang, when did your mate reach you?”

“Two-eighths of a day after Digit Ship Six coupled aft,” said Shreshleemang. Above the smell of the funeral pit he found her special scent — she was in season — but her voice was cold as winter.

The Herdmaster asked, “What delayed you, Chintithpit-mang?”

“I was interrupted.”

“In what fashion?”

Chintithpit-mang was afraid to speak. The Herdmaster blew softly, vexed. “On your way to see your mate for the first time in eight-squareds of days, what could have interrupted you? A fi’ high in status? Or with an urgent mission? Or allied with your own dissident movement? You were intercepted by Advisor Fathisteh-tulk!”

This was going to be very bad. Chintithpit-mang saw nothing for it but to tell as much of the truth as he must. “We met in the corridors. He demanded that I go with him.”

“Where? Why?”

“Why, he did not say. We went to the mudroom. It had been thawed. He said, ‘Cold, it would be uncomfortable for us. It might freeze my guest. Chintithpit-mang, I insisted that my contact come alone, and he demanded that I do the same, though he is a slave.’

“I said, ’What is he then, a rogue?’ And then I knew. He was to meet a human.

“He said, ‘I want to question him. I think he has much to tell me about the uses of space. He surely has motive to be convincing. When I speak of this meeting to the Year Zero Fithp I don’t want to depend on my unsupported word. You must witness, unseen.’

“I stayed near the far end of the mudroom, hidden from the grill by the curve of the ceiling. The human was behind the grill. I listened. Herdmaster, I hate and fear humans, but this one said things I have always believed. He knew more of the wealth of the spaces between worlds than we have guessed! He spoke of marvelous dreams, of asteroid mines, of towers that would take loot from world to beyond orbit.”

“He told the Advisor that the dissidents were right. I am not amazed,” said the Herdmaster.

“Suddenly the grill came flying out and struck Fathisteh-tulk a stunning blow. The human came after it, kicked at Fathisteh-tulk, and leaped back into the duct.”

“What did the Advisor say?”

“He said nothing. He leapt after the human, to punish—”

“Pause. What upset the human? It had what it wanted. You were there to witness. Exactly what did the Advisor say that so enraged a surrendered human?”

Trapped. After what he had done, lying to the Herdmaster would be a trivial crime; but what did the Herdmaster already know?

The Herdmaster’s accusation rolled forth. “You confronted me in the Garden to tell me that humans are a terrible enemy, that we should turn our backs on them. After one day aboard Message Bearer you volunteered to return to Winterhome. You fought well. Chintithpit-mang, what was here that you feared more than the war? What were you afraid that a fi’ might ask? What did Fathisteh-tulk say to the human?”

It was impossible. “Fathisteh-tulk said that descendants of the human prisoners would serve the Traveler Herd in space, with their smaller food requirements and dexterous digits and their greater knowledge of the worlds of Winterhome-light.”

“Was this what enraged the human?”

“It was.”

“Would you recognize this human again?”

“It was him! That one!”

The Herdmaster turned. “Wes Dawson, did you speak to my Advisor a second time?”

The man said, “Wesley Dawson. Congressman. 514-55-2316.”

“Chintithpit-mang saw you. Did you see him?” The man was silent. “The line you were given for cleaning the ducts, we found its mark deep in Fathisteh-tulk’s snnfp.” Still he was silent. The Herdmaster said, “You must speak.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Chintithpit-mang, why didn’t you help the Advisor?”

“I was stunned.”

“Did it cross your thoughts that the Advisor would say things you didn’t want heard?”

“No! My mind had not moved at all. I knew so little of humans then. A surrendered prisoner attacked a fi’ of the herd!”

“Stunned. Speak further.”

“Fathisteh-tulk went after him. I thought he was reaching for the human, to scoop him out and kill him. But it went on too long, and I tried to think what to do, and then Fathisteh-tulk was pushed out into the mudroom. He was dead.”

“And you?”

“I looked into the duct. I pulled the grill out and looked again. There wasn’t anything. I … put the grill back … I couldn’t find the twist fasteners … I … took the line off Fathisteh-tulk’s snnfp and pushed him into the mud until he was completely covered. Then I left. I went to the emergency control room and set the mudroom to freeze again.”

“Why?”

“What the human said, he might say again if we caught him.”

“Pfoo. You were stunned. From the way the Advisor reacted, don’t you think even a human might learn a lesson? You’ve been on Winterhome, you know they’re bright. Next time he would say, we’ve certainly wondered if there might be things in space worth having, the meteors lead us to think that there are all-metal asteroids and ice strata and air bound loosely in rock, but we have not looked. Well?”

“I didn’t think of it.”

“I think you have lied. You shall be isolated. None shall speak to you henceforth. If you have more to tell me, tell a guard.”

The females’ eyes were fixed on Chintithpit-mang, and he cringed. He tried, “Mang…?” and then Shreshleemang turned away.

The Herdmaster had already forgotten him. “Dawson. We kill rogues.”

The rogue human said, “We kill murderers ourselves, or else we imprison them.”

“When a fithp conspires to murder, we may kill them all, or not. It depends on their grievance. Did you act alone in this?”

“Alone? Of course I was alone. You had kept me isolated for a week.”

“And did you tell others afterward?”

“Wesley Dawson. Congressman. 514-55-2316.”

“You shall be imprisoned alone. None shall speak to you. If you have more to say, tell a guard.”

The Herdmaster watched them being led away. He had toyed with the notion of imprisoning them together — but Chintithpit-ma would surely kill the man. Pastempeh-keph wanted more than that. Why had Dawson done what he did? Was there no strategy that would hold a human’s surrender?

To exterminate an intelligent race really would make the Traveler Fithp equal to the Predecessors. Godlike criminals. For all history the priests had taught the fithp children the words of the Squuff Thuktun. It told the tale of the Homeworld’s ruin. Many mistakes are mapped here, that you may walk around them…

Isolation would break Dawson soon enough. It would take longer with humans. No matter. There was time… and he must be studied. Let him be only a rogue, a rarity! Otherwise…

Chowpeentulk stood proud, victorious; but the victory here was Pastempeh-keph’s. Her mate had died because he rejected the dissident cause. She would talk. The dissidents were broken now. They would never again stand between Winterhome and the Traveler Fithp.

Something had changed in Tashayamp. She visited the human cell less and less frequently. She rarely talked to them. The morning after John Woodward died, she appeared in the spin hatch and looked down without curiosity, and was already backing out when Jeri called up to her.

“Tashayamp! John Woodward is dead; he died in the night. Tashayamp?”

The teacher’s mate peered down at the little group clustered around Carrie Woodward, and John’s body all alone. “I thought he sleeps. He looks like he sleeps. Wait.” Tashayamp disappeared.

Tashayamp was quite wrong. John’s face was slack; his eye were open; he wasn’t breathing. How could anyone have missed the presence of death?

Fithp soldiers descended via the lift platform. Carrie was huddled with her face between her knees. The children hung back. They didn’t know how to help. When the warriors wrapped digits around John’s shoulder and ankles, Carrie surged to her feet… and stood, rigid, while they put him on the platform and sent him up.

The warriors rose after him. Tashayamp looked down. “How did he die?”

There was venom in Carrie’s answer. “Slowly. Weeks, now, he’s been getting sicker and sicker. He couldn’t handle the gravity changes. He couldn’t sleep right. You weren’t giving him the right vitamins. We don’t have a doctor. Being penned like an animal, knowing you’re smashing our world, he couldn’t take it. Now he’s dead.”

“You come,” Tashayamp said. “All.” Tashayamp led them toward the axis via spiral ramps.

By the time they reached the funeral room they were nearly weightless. Above their heads, beyond a glass ceiling, a dark slush was in queasy churning motion. The stink of it permeated the air.

Two fithp awaited them: the Bull and the Priest.

The Russians were quiet; they appeared resigned. Jeri knew that was how they wanted to appear. But what else can we do anyway? We will not escape without outside help, and no one is going to help us.

Here were all of humanity for twenty thousand miles around, save for Wes Dawson. Alice was edgy; her eyes kept straying to the entrances, as if she expected him to appear.

Wes had disappeared over a week ago. None of the fithp would speak of him to the humans. Seeing him absent, Jeri at last believed that he was dead.

She moved to rest a hand on Carrie’s shoulder. “How’re you holding up?”

“I’ll manage.” Carrie laughed: a cracked, joyless sound. “None of us dares go crazy. They’d leave us all together, wouldn’t they? We’d all go off our heads one by one. Don’t look at me like that, Alice. I’m all right.”

Fistarteh-thuktun said something to the Herdmaster, too fast to catch. The Herdmaster nodded at Tashayamp, who said, “Query: does Fistarteh-thuktun speak last words for John Woodward? Query: does one of you speak?”

“There’s no preacher,” Melissa said. “Mom … ?”

“I don’t know …” Jeri began.

Carrie stepped forward jerkily. “I’ll do it. I’ve been to enough funerals to know the words. He was my husband.”

Jeri was close enough to catch the Herdmaster’s words to Tashayamp. “Do not translate, but remember.”

Through the glass she watched two fithp emerge on the lip of the funeral pit, carrying John Woodward like a sack of grain between them.

“ ‘I am the resurrection and the life,’ saith the Lord. ‘He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.’

“I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand the latter day upon the earth, and though after my skin won destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.”

The fithp soldiers launched Woodward toward the center of the vortex of brown muck. He moved slowly, tumbling, stiff with rigor mortis. Carrie stopped. The look on her face was dreadful.

“Remember this good man, Lord. Remember him and bring him to Your peace. Bring him to rest in Your arms. Let him go to Jesus.”

An empty-eyed skull showed through the slowly churning compost heap. It was almost conical, an animal’s skull, with knots where the tendons of the trunk had been anchored. Jeri ground her teeth with the need to get out of here before John Woodward brushed against the glass! Carrie must be hanging on to her sanity by her teeth! Yet she looked and sounded as calm as any early Christian about to face Nero’s lions.

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

“He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of rightousness for his name’s sake.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy stall they comfort me.

“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”

She turned toward the fithp, aging but ageless, a woman of farms and fields. “You can’t hurt him now. He’s in the arms of Jesus.” She raised her hands high. “Deliver me from mine enemies, O God. Defend me from them that rise up against me. Deliver me from the wicked doers. Stand up, arise, awake, O Holy One of Israel, and be not merciful unto them that offend these little ones!

“I say it were better that a millstone were tied about their necks, and they were cast into the sea! Thou, Lord, shall have them in scorn. Consume them in thy wrath, consume them that they may perish, and know that it is God that ruleth unto the ends of the world!”

She fell silent.

What will they do? They can’t be afraid of curses. God, my God, have you forsaken all of us? Are you there? Are you listening? Can you listen?

Tashayamp waited.

God, let us out of here!

“Return to your place,” Tashayamp told them. “Follow the guards.” She herself departed with the Bull and the Priest.

“Eat them. Rage and eat them, that they will die and know that God leads everywhere. That’s as near as I can translate,” Tashayamp finished.

“You see!” Fistarteh-thuktun trumpeted. “Of course we might have learned something by dissecting the creature, but this we would have lost! We have never before witnessed such a ceremony.”

“And what do you think you have learned?”

“I was wrong,” said the priest. “Despite their shape, they are not totally alien. We can lead them. Herdmaster, do you see it? They have no Predecessors. None lead them, they must lead themselves. They have made for themselves the fiction of a Predecessor!”

Pastempeh-keph signaled assent. “It must be a fiction. This God would hardly have tolerated our incursions. I wonder how they see him? Does their God have thumbs? And they give him male gender …”

“I cannot make myself care. They seek a leader greater than themselves! Tashayamp, did you render that phrase accurately? ‘Fear God?’ ”

“I think so. We have a book of words from Kansas. I will examine fear.”

They had reached the bridge. The warrior on duty covered his head. “Herdmaster, a message. Chintithpit-mang wishes to spea to you.”

“I hear.”

“We shall be their Predecessors,” Fistarteh-thuktun said. “I must learn more. I wish I could go down to Africa.”

“You may not. We need you here. Get your data from Takpusseh-yamp. Tashayamp, is your mate—”

“Easily distracted, but at your service,” Tashayamp said, an the mating scent thickened in the air.

The Herdmaster left them there. The bridge was busy; some site in Africa was about to get a consignment of meteors. The Herdmaster settled onto his pad and tapped at the console.

Chintithpit-mang was a brown ball in the center of his cell. The Herdmaster watched him for a bit. Huddled in his misery, he might have been asleep but for his nostril and digits, which moved restlessly, as if they had independent life.

Eight days! Give him credit, that’s a tough-minded fi’. The Herdmaster said softly, “Chintithpit-mang, speak to me.”

The fi’ started convulsively. He looked toward the camera. “Herdmaster, I will speak to the dissidents.”

“You have done so. I recorded our last conversation, and broadcast it. What would you tell them?”

“Fathisteh-tulk said that human help would be beyond price in the conquest of space, with their ambitious plans and their smaller food intake and dexterous digits. Winterhome must be conquered and the humans broken into the Traveler Herd.”

“This is what you said an eight-day past. What have you to add? You should have helped Fathisteh-tulk.”

“Herdmaster, I would have joined the argument against the Advisor. The human attacked first.”

“You let him die.”

“He would have destroyed the dissident cause.”

“He has. You have no other to speak for you. Why did you hide the corpse?”

Chintithpit-mang’s digits were tight across his skull, as if welded. “I was in shock! The Advisor betrayed us! If the human were caught, he might repeat Fathisteh-tulk’s words!”

“Dawson holds his peace better than you have. You weren’t trying to protect Dawson. Must I return you to the silence of your cell?”

“I heard a snoring sound.”

“When?”

“A 64-breaths or so after the human left the Advisor for dead. I still didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing. I heard a snoring sound. I turned and his chest was heaving.”

“Speak further.”

“I knew what he’d say. The dissidents … we would have … I pushed his face in the mud. I pushed mud in his mouth. The snonng stopped. I pushed him the rest of the way.”

It was whas the Herdmaster had expected to hear; yet he had hoped. “What shall I do with you now, Chintithpit-mang? I cannot have you loose in Message Bearer.”

“Kill me. Gather the herd as tradition requires.”

“We are roguish enough these days. I cannot order my fithp to trample you and expect them to stop short of riot! Besides, too many owe you their lives, or their mates’ lives. The Attackmaster regrets your absence. Chintithpit-mang, will you return to Africa to fight?”

“Yes, if I am allowed.”

“You are sent, not allowed. Forever, Chintithpit-mang. I can grasp the pressures that made you rogue, but if such happens again, you will be trampled.” The Herdmaster tapped at keys.

And that is well done. Chintithpit-mang will serve us well. I will send down others of the Year Zero Fithp. Let them make amends in Africa. He tapped more keys. The picture changed.

Wes Dawson was… running nowhere? Pastempeh-keph watched for a bit. Dawson ran, legs pumping, making no progress; forelimbs pumping in rhythm, though they never touched the ground. Was he already mad? Did he dream that he chased a fleeing meat animal, or that something chased him?

“Wes Dawson.”

Dawson turned as he ran, to face the camera. He said nothing. The desperate longing to hear another’s voice… might have been present, but the Herdmaster saw no trace of it.

He said, “Chintithpit-mang tells me that he killed the Advisor. Fathisteh-tulk was still alive when you released him.”

Dawson’s mouth twitched upward at the corners. In fair fithp he said, “I do it better next time.”

Pastempeh-keph turned off the screen. Just whose mind was being broken by this treatment?

Spinward around the curve of the mudroom there were the sounds of splashing and soft-trumpeted gossip. Shreshleemang ignored it. Her status had become uncertain when her mate’s confession was broadcast. This was an embarrassment to her friends. These days they avoided her. Shreshleemang understood this, and resented it nonetheless. She could do nothing about it. She lolled in the mud with eyes half closed.

She grew aware of others gathering around her. They rested in the mud, quiet, but she could feel their eyes. When it became clear that they would not go away, she said, “I remember a time when the mudroom was a refuge from the day’s cares.”

“There was never such a time,” said Chowpeentulk. “The mudroom has forever been a pond of politics.”

Shreshleemang looked up. Chowpeentulk and K’turfookeph seemed to be coolly studying her. K’turfookeph said, “Your mate is not to be trampled. He will be returned to Africa.”

“He told me himself. He has already departed.”

“Shreshleemang, you should join him.”

Shreshleemang surged from the mud. With the greatest effort she managed to curb her bellow. “The Herdmaster may send me where he wills. Have you come as his emissary?”

“No. You are a mated female of the Traveler Herd, with no stain on your character. Will you listen?”

She sank back. “I will.”

“He needs you. Males go rogue far more easily without a mate to steady them. Chintithpit-mang lives close against that barrier.”

“Yes, for he has crossed it.”

“Africa is being conquered, but there remain many human rogues in the pacified territory. Effective warriors are needed. Chintithpit-mang is one of the best, but the jungle hunters live under terrible strain. Often they hunt alone, as if already rogue. Unmated, Chintithpit-mang will be rogue within a 64-days. Mated, he can be an effective leader.”

“Yes, he needs me. He has destroyed the dissident cause, he has humiliated me personally. Do I need him?”

Chowpeentulk said, “Unmated females go rogue too.”

“Nonsense.”

“We show it differently. We do not go on killing sprees. But we often develop a distaste for males and for children. We play dominance games instead of cooperating with our fithp.”

“What are you doing here, Chowpeentulk? What is your interest? Did you want my mate trampled?”

“No… I am widowed. At my age it is certain that I will never mate again. The war kills males, particularly unmated males. My interest now lies with my children and the Traveler Fithp. The Traveler Fithp needs your mate, sane.”

“If you knew how I feel about him, you might send me down in order to punish your mate’s murderer.”

“You were dissident too.”

“I was and am. The Traveler Fithp owned the stars and planets before ever we saw the shape of the prey. We don’t need them.”

K’turfookeph spoke softly. “There is no dissident fithp. The matter has been decided, consented by the new Advisor, accepted by Fistarteh-thuktun. Winterhome will be ours. The danger of leaving it for the humans is too great. Fathisteh-tulk found a true path.”

“Nothing tried to kill us when we circled the gas giant.”

K’turfookeph stood silent. Chowpeentulk spoke in a voice like falling water. “Shreshleemang, did you advise your mate to exercise proper restraint in his efforts for the dissident cause?”

“Proper restraint? We—” She stopped.

“Restraint is the thuktun of females. Males don’t understand restraint. Chintithpit-mang would do anything to advance the dissidents. He proved that. Males need their mates to protect them from such folly.”

“He was fighting in Kansas, far beyond my reach!”

“My mate made a mistake there,” K’turfookeph acknowledged. “The Year Zero Herd were a working fithp. Separating them drove some toward rogue status just when they were facing a madly alien environment. But do you not share blame?”

“You will not drive me from the ship,” said Shreshleemang. Females don’t normally fight, but she was ready.

“We would not drive you,” K’turfookeph said.

“I will not go! To live on Winterhome, forever — what would I do there?”

“There is much to do. We have a world to hold, a new species to bring into the Traveler fithp. Your mate is there. Many of the Year Zero will be sent there.”

Another spoke from behind K’turfookeph. “Once the many fithp was great. Now there are few. If you die childless, there will be fewer still.”

Shreshleemang had not noticed Flarishmang’s approach. Her own great-aunt. Shreshleemang’s anger rose at being reproved as a childless sleeper, but they weren’t giving her time to answer. The females were gathering round her like a wet brown wall.

Chowpeentulk said, “Your mate will go rogue again. It will be remembered that he committed murder while you were present to advise him. You will be blamed. No male will risk your company. You will remain unmated and childless. Your friends will gather to comfort you, of course… won’t they? Perhaps not. And you will grow old, held within the womb of Message Bearer, while others carve our future across the face of Winterhome!”

Chowpeentulk’s voice had risen to a bellow. “Do you really think I seek vengeance? Against whom? If your mate went mad who failed to pull him back? It was known that Digit Ship Six was arriving. Why did you not meet him at the airlock?”

“I will go.”

“Where were you?”

“I was busy. Cease! I will join my mate in Africa. We will conquer the human fithp and bind them to us. History may judge the result.”

39. THE SILVER-TONGUED DEVILS

The eye-searing light died. Harry tipped back the welder’s mask. “Good work.” He ran his hand along the gridwork. “Now they can put the electrical stuff in.”

His companion grunted. “What the hell is this?” Narrow rails ran straight down to an opening in the cylinder within which they worked, and ended above the floor.

“Launching rails,” Harry said. “Look, they got these things they call spurt bombs. I don’t know how they work, but when an atom bomb goes off near one of them, the thing sort of curls up and dies, and when it dies it shoots off a really strong gammaray laser beam. What we have here is a gizmo to throw the spurt bombs out where they can soak up some of the energy from the bombs that move this ship.”

“How do they aim them?”

“Black magic. Hell, I don’t know. All I know is they have to be thrown out, and we’re building the gizmo that does that.”

“Okay.” The welder gestured toward the tangle of wires and pipes surrounding them. “Christ, this whole ship is one big kludge.”

“Yeah.”

“More all the time, too.”

“I guess. Anyway, all we have to do now is get out of here.”

Harry led the way into the empty bay. The spurt bombs were big; the nests for them were ten feet tall and a foot across. Harry climbed a ladder, slid sideways through spurt bomb nests, and emerged through an unwelded hatch onto the hemispherical slop of the Shell.

The shock absorbers rose above them, holding nothing. The Brick, the section that would house men and spacecraft, hadn’t been mounted yet. There were four spurt bomb bays. The pair of drive bomb bays were far larger. Conveyors and a pair of cannon already in place would lead the propulsion bombs under the rim of the Shell and fire them into the focus. It was all welded to the Shell itself, six towers rising around a steel forest of shock absorbers; and it was all as massive as any freighter. Nothing delicate about Michael!

A catwalk took them down the Shell to the concrete floor.

“Beats me how you find your way around.” Whitey Lowenstein took off the welder’s mask and cap. “Ten minutes to quitting time. Beer?”

“I’ll join you if I can.”

The Chuckanut was crowded, but Whitey had saved a corner booth. He had two girls with him. Harry sank into the booth gratefully and waved for a pitcher.

“We’d about given you up,” Lowenstein said. “You remember Pat.” He took Pat’s hand and held it. “And that’s Janet. What kept you?”

“Rohrs wanted to go over some stuff. Hi, Pat. Nice to meet you, Janet. What do you do for the project?”

“Pat’s a clerk,” Janet said. “I’m a welder, like Whitey.”

“Tough job.” She didn’t look big enough, either.

“I can handle it,” Janet said.

Whitey watched Harry chug a large glass, refill it, and chug again. “Okay, Harry, I give up. I’ve seen you carrying General Gillespie’s briefcase. I’ve heard your stories about Kansas, and I even believe them, but then I’ve seen you sweeping floors. I watched you connect up electrical lines. Today you show me where to weld that rail thing, and then you’re in a conference with Rohrs for an hour after quitting time.”

“Harry, just what in hell are you?”

Harry laughed. “You’d never guess in a million years. Whitey, I’m a trusty.”

“A what?”

Pat giggled.

“Remember when we met?”

“Yeah, I thought you were an atomjack.”

“Remember there was a big security flap that day?”

“You remember the big flap, right? Trust me, it was the day you met me. I caused it. I helped smuggle a newspaper reporter into here, right into General Gillespie’s house.”

“Harry, goddammit, I never know when you’re bullshitting me.”

“Not this time. The guy’s name was Roger Brooks. I don’t know how he found out there was a story here, but he hired me to bring him here from Colorado Springs. Turns out he’d known Mrs. Gillespie a long time.”

“Jeez, and you brought him in here?” Janet didn’t sound very friendly.

“Yeah, well, I’d been told you weren’t hiding anything but snouts. And I’d captured a snout—”

“You what?” Janet demanded.

“Captured a snout.”

“He did, too,” Whitey said. “He’ll tell you about it if you ask. Or if you don’t ask.”

“Aw! Anyway, bringing Roger in seemed like a good idea at the time. But Roger figured out what Archangel was before I did, and he clipped me and stole the truck. Next thing I know I wake up in General Gillespie’s front yard with about a zillion Marines and Air Police. Every one of them’s pointing a gun at me, and here comes the General himself. He didn’t look too friendly.”

“I don’t reckon he would have,” Whitey said. “What did you do?”

“Do? I pleaded for mercy.”

“Must have worked …”

“Yeah. I had one thing going for me. I used to work for Congressman Dawson …”

“Right. You told me. The guy the snouts have making speeches for them. It was his wife you had ride the snout.”

Janet laughed. “Harry, you sound like a good man to know.”

“Oh, I am, I am. Anyway, since I knew his friends, it made the General a little more ready to listen. After a while he decided I wasn’t really a bad guy, so he made me an offer. I could go to work as a gofer, or they’d send me off to Port Angeles.”

“Better than Walla Walla,” Whitey said. “Port Angeles is where they send you if you quit.”

“Yeah,” Pat said. “But it’s a drag. I must know ten, twelve guys who went over there and decided they’d rather be back here. It’s not a bad place, but there’s nothing to do except grow vegetables, and they still censor any letters you want to send out.”

“That’s what the General told me,” Harry said. “I thought about it for maybe fifteen seconds. Christ, I was beginning to rust in Colorado Springs. I’d have gone nuts in Port Angeles.

“So they made me a gofer. I do what the General wants. They pay me pretty good, and — I’m in it, I’m where it’s happening. I’ve been all over that ship, I bet I know my way around inside the Brick as good as anybody except maybe Max Rohrs. I’ve worked on the steam lines for the attitude controls, and I helped the Navy guys install those big guns off the New Jersey, Jesus those are big, and the Army guys with their missile launchers.” Harry grinned wolfishly. “Shee-it, if we can get this thing up there, those snouts’ll think Mount Whitney is coming after them next!”

Whitey lifted his glass. “Bigger and better surprises.”

“Right. A willing foe and sea room!”

“What’s that?”

“Nelson. A British admiral—”

“Hell, I know who Nelson was.”

“Okay. It was his toast. And that’s the story.”

“Pretty good story. You fall in the shit and come up smelling like a rose.”

“I thought so. Now I don’t know! These twelve-hour workdays are killing me.”

Whitey nodded agreement. “Won’t last much longer, though.”

“No, I guess not. We still have to mount the Brick on the Shell and the Shuttles on the Brick. I wish there was more than just one way to test those shock absorbers.”

“How are they-?”

“Launch. What else is big enough for them? Christ, the ship’s just full of kludged-up stuff, it’s all we can do to get all the kludges put down on the drawings. I sure feel sorry for anybody who has to fix this sucker.”

“You, maybe.”

Harry laughed sardonically. “Not me.” He broke into song. “You can call out your mother, your sister or your brother, but for Christ’s sakes don’t call me!”

“They won’t call your sister,” Janet said. “No women on the flight crew at all.”

“Yeah, I know,” Harry said. “Matter of fact, I know most of the crew. Nice clean-cut young men—”

“Men’s right,” Janet said. “And it’s not fair.”

“Oh, come on,” Pat said. “Janet, you have to be crazy, why would anybody want to go up with that?”

“Well, they could ask!”

“It’s Gillespie,” Harry said. “He says women aren’t strong enough.”

“Stupid,” Janet said.

“It doesn’t have to be the truth. Look, those idealistic young men are supposed to be fixing what the snouts shoot. Gillespie may not want them rescuing idealistic young women instead, if you follow me. Anyway, they don’t want you. They don’t want me, either. What would either one of us do? I learned to do a lot of things when I hung around with the bikers. Little welding, electrical stuff, this and that. So that’s what I do. This and that. Whitey, you owe me a pitcher.”

The Dreamers’ Workroom was a chaos of tables, blackboards, maps, papers, and personal computers. One of the tables had been cleared of all such junk. A cloth was thrown over it, and an impressive array of bottles, glasses, mixers, and ice stood there.

Jack Clybourne had the bourbon. Jenny held out her glass for a refill.

“It was the ancient Persians. It’s in H-Herodotus.” Sherry Atkinson wanted to talk faster than her memory would serve her, and it caused a stutter. “There have been plenty of cultures that wouldn’t implement a decision they’d taken when drunk until they’d discussed it sober. Only the Persians wouldn’t do anything they’d decided sober until they’d discussed it drunk.” She poured herself another large glass of white wine, and drank half of it.

Her colleagues nodded in sage agreement. “Interesting philosophy,” Reynolds said.

Carol laughed. She was enjoying her role as the only fan in an endless science-fiction convention.

“We can discuss it all to death. The problem is, we don’t have any decisions,” Curtis muttered. “Not a goddam thing we can do but wait.” He was working on his fourth tall drink. His wife had long since gone to bed in disgust.

“Volunteer for Africa if you’re so eager to fight,” Sherry said.

Curtis laughed and poured another drink. “Hah.” He jerked his thumb toward Jenny. “The Colonel there is the only one they let out of here.”

“They don’t let me anywhere near Africa.” Jenny was about to say something else, but the door opened. Admiral Carrell came in. It took Jenny a moment for that to register through the bourbon. Then she jumped to her feet. After a moment Jack Clybourne stood as well.

Curtis looked at Carrell, then pointedly looked at his watch. “Off duty, Admiral, but we could sober up in a hurry. Something we’re needed for, I hope?”

“Not really. This is a social visit. May I come in?”

Curtis looked up and down the table. “I see no objections. Come in. This is Liberty Hall. You can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard. What’ll you drink?”

“Scotch, thank you. And don’t drown it.” Carrell sat heavily at the table, then raised his glass. “Cheers.”

The others responded.

“Hope there’s something to be cheerful about,” Curtis said.

“Very little, I’m afraid. Angola just surrendered, and we’re pretty sure Zaire will when their eight-day ultimatum is up.”

Joe Ransom took a globe from another table and set it on theirs. Idly he spun it. “South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Angola — when Zaire goes they’ll have just about everything to the equator.”

“There was a sizable Cuban mercenary army in Angola,” Curtis mused.

“Yes. They’ll work for the Invaders now,” Admiral Carrell said.

“Divide and rule,” Sherry said.

“Surrender with conditions,” Ransom said. “They do learn.”

“Learn too damn fast,” Curtis agreed.

“I don’t know.” Reynolds poured another drink. “What did you think of the message they sent last week?”

“Not a lot,” Curtis said.

“Wade, if you knew just how alien the whole idea of surrender terms is to them,” Sherry said.

Carol laughed. “Alien,” she chuckled.

“Sure. It shocked Harpanet,” Curtis said. “So they’ve got themselves a Ruth Benedict.”

“Eh?” Clybourne asked.

“Ruth Fulton Benedict,” Sherry explained. “Anthropologist. She tried to explain Japanese culture to the U.S. War Department in World War II.”

“How’d she do?” Jack asked.

“Pretty good.”

“Trouble was, there wasn’t much anybody could do with the information,” Curtis added.

“They’ve done something with theirs,” Sherry said. “Governments surrender, and now they’ve got human diplomats talking to other governments, and some of their tame politicians broadcasting to the rest of the world …”

“Like Lord Haw Haw,” Ransom said.

“What gets me is some of the bastards buy it,” Curtis said.

“Sticks and carrots,” Jenny blurted. Three large bourbons had left her light-headed. “They’ve taken to promising electricity from space. Industrialization powered from space satellites. All you have to do is surrender.”

“A big deal for the undeveloped countries,” Reynolds said.

“It could be a big deal for us one of these days,” Ransom said. “How far are we from being an undeveloped country?”

“And getting closer all the time,” Reynolds agreed.

There had been no more big rocks since the Foot, but innumerable smaller ones still fell. Their targets were carefully chosen, although there was a random element to the bombardment.

Transportation, factories, crossroads, big ocean vessels: you never knew what would be hit or when. America was slowly becoming a loose-knit chain of semi-independent feudalities, and there was nothing you could do about it.

“They hit another one today,” Jenny said. “In Chicago. An eighteen-wheeler truck carrying military uniforms. Moving. About a block from a hospital, two blocks from a big grain elevator. The center of the crater was fifteen feet from the truck. Shredded it, of course.”

“Show-offs,” Reynolds said.

“Impressive, though,” Ransom said.

“Perhaps what we need is another pep talk,” Admiral Carrell said. “The President too. What’s depressing is the stories we get out of Africa. There are people in their puppet governments who like the way things are.”

“Quislings,” Curtis said. “Vidkun Quisling was an ideologic convert to the Nazis.”

“Yeah, but what’s attractive about the snouts? Why would anybody want them in charge?” Clybourne demanded.

“Africa’s so divided you can find a group to cooperate with anything if it will put them on top,” Ransom said.

“Unity,” Sherry said. “They’ll unite us—”

“-even if it kills us,” Reynolds finished.

“Here’s to Unity!” Sherry lifted her glass in a toast.

Curtis raised a clenched fist and sang off-key. “And the Inter-nation-ale unites the hu-man race.”

Reynolds leaped on it. “More than the human race. All the sapient races. Thinkers of the galaxy, unite! You have nothing I lose but your chains.”

“Down with arboreal chauvinism!” Sherry shouted.

“And you want these guys to cheer up the President?” Jack Clybourne’s voice was dull and serious in the general laughter. “They don’t care who wins!”

“Hey!” Ransom protested.

“You didn’t see it,” Clybourne said. “I did. A huge cargo barge stuffed full of people. Just ordinary people from Kansas. Men, women, kids. Dogs. Dolls. All mashed into jelly. If you’d see it, you wouldn’t talk like this!”

“We’ve seen it,” Joe Ransom said.

“They’ve seen your ship,” Carol said. “Your ship, and the bodies in Kansas, they’ve all of them seen all of that.”

“Films? If you’d been there, if you’d smelled it, you’d hate the snouts with your minds and guts!”

“Come off it,” Curtis said.

“Hey, we’re all on the same side,” Carol said. “Come on. Have a drink.”

“Maybe we’ve all had too much,” Sherry said.

“You don’t really think we’ll surrender?” Ransom asked.

“I won’t,” Clybourne said.

“Well, we won’t either. Our problem is that we’re in here. Outside we might have something to do, some way to help rebuild the country. In here we’re useless.”

“They also serve,” Curtis muttered, “who only stand and wait. That’s our problem, Jack. We’re supposed to plan for failure. What can we do if Archangel doesn’t work? And every damn one of us knows that Archangel is it! Damn right all our eggs are in that basket. There isn’t another basket and there won’t be more eggs. So here we sit, waiting …”

“And the longer we wait,” Ransom said, “the longer it takes to finish Archangel, the better the chances the snouts will find out about it. Or drop a rock on Bellingham for the pure hell of it.” He raised his glass. “Here’s to you, Mr. Clybourne. I just hope you got all the CBs.”

“There’s another problem,” Admiral Carrell said.

“Yeah?”

“That message inviting us to discuss surrender terms. It was received here fine.”

“So?—” Ransom prompted.

Jenny felt the beginnings of a chill at the base of her spine.

“It wasn’t heard ten miles away,” Admiral Carrell said.

“Tightbeam!” Reynolds said.

“Tightbeam, direct to here,” Curtis added. “It took you a week to find out?”

“Direct to here?” Clybourne looked puzzled. “A message for the President sent here—”

“And nowhere else,” Ransom said.

“We’ve got to get the President out of here!” Clybourne shouted.

“In due time,” Admiral Carrell said. “However they got their information—”

“Quislings,” Curtis muttered.

“Perhaps. However they learned, they have had a week and more to act on their knowledge. They have not done so.”

“But we’re safe here,” Carol protested. “Aren’t we?”

“Against what?” Curtis demanded. “Nothing’s safe from another Foot.”

“They won’t do that,” Sherry protested.

“How do you know?” Clybourne demanded.

“Harpanet. They don’t attack the top leadership of a herd. If humans surrender …”

“Which we won’t,” Ransom said. He raised his glass. Curtis clinked glasses with him.

“If we did,” Sherry continued. “The President would probably become a high official, an advisor to their herdmaster. It’s the way they work. They won’t kill the President if they can help it. It would be like starting a court trial by shooting the other fellow’s lawyer. They just don’t do things that way.”

“They don’t offer conditional surrender terms, either,” Curtis said. “They’re learning.”

This was the heart of Michael. The bridge looked like an unfinished Star Trek movie set. Around the walls were large viewscreens and control consoles, with acceleration couches made of webbing at each station, and two large command chairs in the center. Scattered through it all were wooden desks, tables, and drafting tables, nearly all covered with blueprints.

Some of the wall screens were split, blueprint at the bottom and camera view of that area at the top. As Harry watched, one of the screens flashed, and a new drawing appeared at its bottom.

“Done, by God!” Max Rohrs stood. “Harry, break out the champagne!”

“Right on!”

General Gillespie rose from his seat at one of the wooden desks. “Are we really done, Max?”

“Well … Ed, we both know this ship won’t ever be finished, we’ll be making changes right up to launch time, but yeah, we’re done. You can tell the President that as of tomorrow noon we can launch on twenty-four hours notice.”

Harry retrieved champagne from a small portable refrigerator. It would have to go, along with the desks and tables and file cabinets. It was good champagne, Mum’s. There were a dozen crystal glasses in the refrigerator too. “How many glasses, General?” Harry asked.

“Three just now,” Gillespie said.

Harry worried the cork out and let it fly to the ceiling. He poured and handed glasses out, then lifted one. “A willing foe, and sea room.”

Gillespie made a face. “I’d as soon the snouts weren’t willing at all. I just want to win.”

Max Rohrs said, “Ed, we’ve just worked a miracle.” He went over to the calendar and drew a ring around the date. “A real live one hundred percent miracle.” He lifted his glass. “So God bless us, there’s none like us. You too, Harry. You were a damn big help.”

“Thanks.”

Gillespie poured Harry’s glass full again. “Lot to do yet,” Gillespie said. “First, we have to bring in the ferryboats. Tomorrow morning we’ll send all the dependents, and everybody but the launch and flight crews, over to Port Angeles.”

Harry dropped into one of the command chairs, dodging TV screens. “What about the rest of Bellingham?”

“We wait on that one.”

“Yeah, if the snouts see there’s nobody here … going to be tough, though. What do we do?”

“We don’t do anything,” Gillespie said. “We’ll give the sheriff as much notice as we can. You don’t need to worry, Harry. We’ve got speedboats for the last-minute crew.”

“Sure — how far away would you have to be?”

“A couple of miles if you have shelter. At Hiroshima the damage at five miles wasn’t too bad. Of course we’re setting off a lot more than one bomb.” Gillespie drained his glass.

“Of course the safest place is in the ship,” Max Rohrs said.

“That’ll be all military people—”

“Well, but some will be more military than others,” Rohrs said. “I’m going.”

“You?” Harry almost laughed.

Max didn’t laugh. “Yes. Chief Warrant Officer Maximilian Rohrs, Damage Control Officer, at your service. Who else knows as much about the way this ship is put together?”

“Well, Harry does,” Ed Gillespie said.

“Hey, wait a minute!”

“He does, doesn’t he?” Rohrs came over and clapped Harry on the shoulder. “Don’t I remember you doing some entertaining in the Chuckanut? Something about it wasn’t your regular line of work, your regular work was hero?”

“Something like that,” Gillespie agreed. “So. Want to take up your regular occupation again?”

Harry tried to stand up, but Rohrs’ heavy hand was on his shoulder. “Now hear this. I am not an astronaut.”

“Neither am I,” Max Rohrs said.

“I didn’t tell you to go! And, Max, you and the General designed this ship. If—”

“Have some more champagne, Harry.”

“A pleasure. Look, I’ve met most of the crew. You’re not really filling it out at the last second, are you?”

“No. I thought this over fairly carefully,” General Gillespie said. “What is it that those kids don’t know? That stuff shouldn’t be allowed to get warm, Harry.”

Harry drank. Gillespie said, “They know the ship. They know what’s most likely to happen to it. They’re dedicated. They know how to be tired and hurting and still keep going because we taught them that, pretty much the same way I was taught. But, Harry, it was us making them hurt, and they knew we could make it.

“Harry, you had a back problem. You got yourself a book of back exercises, and you used it while you crossed the country on a motorcycle, and got beat up on by the fithp, and lost two women and you still kept going, and all to keep a promise. And you hadn’t even promised to do that! I want my dedicated astronauts and want you too. I don’t know who’ll fall apart up there.”

“And what is it I want?” Harry inquired politely.

The General half closed his eyes. He seemed in no hurry to answer. Rohrs finished his glass and poured again. He was watching the screens.

The screens hadn’t changed in several minutes. One, from a camera on the dome wall, showed Michael in full. Two great towers stood on the curve of the hemispherical shell, with cannon showing beneath the lip, aimed inward. Four smaller towers flanked them. A brick-shaped structure rose above them. The Brick was much less massive than the Shell, but its sides were covered with spacecraft: tiny gunships, and four Shuttles with tanks but no boosters. The Brick’s massive roof ran beyond the flanks to shield the Shuttles and gunships.

Rohrs said, “The biggest spaceship ever built by Man. Done by God.”

“And I’m done too,” Harry said.

—

Gillespie said, “If we win this. If. We’ll kill a lot of snouts and the rest will surrender. Thousands of snouts, all trying to join what our Threat Team has started calling the Climbing Fithp. Thousands of snouts — sane snouts, mostly — all learning to be human. Who will want to learn the name of the man who first captured a snout?”

“Pour me some more of that,” said Harry.

40. THY DASTARDLY DOINGS ARE PAST

Jenny winked at Jack, then went into the balcony office. The Situation Room down below was crowded. Every console held a group, all the regular duty-crew plus most of the Threat Team, and anyone else who could think of a good reason to be there.

“Come in, Colonel,” Admiral Carrell said. “Your station is here.” He indicated a table facing the big screens beyond the glass wall. The table held a small switchboard and computer terminal. Jenny put on the headset with its microphone and single headphone, and pushed buttons.

“Operations, Colonel Walters.”

“Control here, communications test.”

“Roger. I read you five by five.” Another button.

“Dreamer Fithp here,” a voice said.

“Control here. Communications test.”

“Fine.”

She pushed other buttons. Finally she nodded to Admiral Carrell. “Communications checked out, sir. The link with Michael has a lot of static.”

“It will probably get worse. All right.” Carrell went to the door. “Mr. Clybourne, please tell the President that everything is ready, and he can join us whenever he likes. Colonel, begin Operation Moby Dick.”

“Yes, sir.” Jenny touched another button. On the floor below a siren wailed and red lights flashed. “Harpoon, this is Gimlet. Let fly!”

They could hear the cheers through the glass wall. Then the Situation Room fell silent. Crews hunched over consoles.

One of the situation screens showed the locations of the Invader Mother Ship and all the digit ships they could locate. The mother ship and sixteen digit ships were in geosync over Africa. They posed no danger yet. The moon was just setting; snout installations there would see nothing. Africa was wrapped in night. For whatever it was worth, the Invaders would start from their sleep to find themselves attacked.

Eight digit ships were in twelve-hour orbits, evenly distributed around the Earth, and three of these passed to east, center, and west of the United States every twelve hours. One would be passing over the South Pole when Michael launched. The others would have to be distracted.

Another screen showed all the effective missiles remaining under U.S. control. Lights blinked and colored lines flowed across the screens as the main battle computer matched missiles with Invader targets.

General Toland came in. “All ready at my end,” he said.

Not that the Army has much to do — unless the snouts start dropping rocks at random!

“Good.” Carrell stood at the balcony window, his eyes fastened on the screens below. After a moment, General Toland sat at one of the desks.

One screen faded, then was replaced by a map of the South Atlantic. A bright red line rose from the ocean and arced toward Johannesburg.

“God, what if it really hits?” Toland said to no one.

“It won’t,” Carrell said.

Other lines arced upward from the South Atlantic. One rose straight up: the EMP bomb. Then a bright blue ring sprang up to surround that area.

“We’ve lost communications with Ethan Allen,” Jenny reported. “The Nathaniel Greene is launching now.” The EMP bomb bloomed into a red patch, wide of Earth’s arc. More lines sprang up, this time from farther south, almost directly below the Cape of Good Hope. After a few moments a blue circle appeared there, too.

“No communications with Nathaniel Greene,” Jenny said. “Or anywhere else for the next few hours. We got our electromagnetic pulse.” The room seethed with static.

The office door opened. Jack Clybourne ushered the President in. General bland stood. Jenny saw him, but remained seated.

“Good afternoon,” President Coffey said. “Continue with your duties.” He sat at the large desk in the middle of the room.

“Actually, we have very little to do,” Admiral Carrell said. “The tough work was planning this. Now it either works or it doesn’t.”

Reassuring bullshit, Jenny thought. No battle plan ever works.

Seventeen digit ships destroyed in the war. We can’t find three. Assume one destroyed, unreported, and two on the ground in Africa, where they can’t rise in time. Can we get that lucky? Another of the battle screens flashed to show Georgia and South Carolina. A network of red lines leaped upward toward the digit ships patrolling in low orbit.

Ten minutes went past. The red lines began rapidly to wink out. Red blotches appeared south of Atlanta.

“They’re damned fast,” Toland muttered.

“Yes. Too fast,” Admiral Carrell agreed. He turned to the President. “We’d hoped to keep them distracted for half an hour or more.”

“When does Michael go up?” the President asked.

“In eighty minutes,” Admiral Carrell said.

“God help the people in Bellingham,” President Coffey muttered.

God help us all.

“God, Miranda, we can’t keep this up. I’m supposed to be on duty!”

“So you are.” She made a point of buttoning her blouse as she moved away from him to the passenger door of the squad car, and pretended to be interested in the sparse scenery of the Lummi Indian Reservation. “All right, you’ll just have to take me — home—”

“Well, but not just—” He rolled over in the seat, prepared to follow.

“All units, all units, proceed with Big Tango, proceed with Big Tango,” the radio blared.

Leigh sagged back, stunned.

“What is it?” Miranda demanded. His look frightened her.

“I don’t even know where to start!”

“Start what, damn you?”

He was buttoning buttons, fumbling it. “It’s — we’re supposed to evacuate the city. Everybody within five miles of the harbor.”

“Five miles?”

“Your place isn’t in the zone,” Deputy Young said. “You’re almost six miles out. But the Rez is.” He leaned forward and started the cruiser. “And I guess you’re riding with me. Miranda, how the hell do I get a bunch of Indians to leave their homes?”

“Tell them why. Tell me why, Leigh!”

“I don’t know! They told me that when Big Tango started we have one hour, one frigging hour to get everybody out of their houses and away.” He put the car in gear. “So here we go, not that it will do any good.”

It didn’t look like an Indian reservation. It looked more like a rural slum punctuated by occasional suburban houses. There was only one paved road. Leigh drove along it and spoke at intervals through the loud speaker mounted on top of the police car.

“Hi! This is Leigh Young. I have bad news. The aliens going to bomb Bellingham. You have about half an hour to the hell out of here. Drive, ride bikes, run, walk, do anything you can, but get the hell away from Bellingham Harbor.” He drove around the paved loop.

There was a numbness in Miranda’s brain. John Fox expected something, something he wouldn’t talk about. What can I do? Give Leigh half an hour to get the Indians moving, but then he damned well better take me home so I can tell Dad!

They were at the end of the loop. There were speedboats in the harbor, all racing southwest and away. Headed for Port Angles? Escaping. Escaping what?

Leigh was driving back into the loop. “Run for the hills,” his amplified voice blared. “Get out any way you can: foot, horse, car; don’t take anything you don’t value more than life. Don’t look back because the glare will burn your eyes out.”

Already there were cars moving the other way. “Some of them listened,” Miranda said. “Leigh, we have to go warn Dad if the snouts are going to bomb us!”

“They’re not going to bomb us.”

“Huh?”

“I made that up,” Leigh said.

“Then why are we doing this?”

“Damfino.”

“Ask the Sheriff.”

“Miranda, I already asked him, and he wouldn’t tell us.”

“Ask now! He has to tell us now!”

“Well …”

Miranda took the microphone from its hook and handed it to him. “Go on, ask. What harm can it do?”

“Well, all right.” Leigh keyed the microphone.

“Dispatcher.”

“Is the Sheriff there?”

“He’s busy.”

“I have to talk with him.”

“One moment.”

“Sheriff Lafferty here. That you, Young?”

“Yes, sir. Sheriff, I’m on the Rez. Most of the Indians are moving on, but some aren’t. Isn’t there anything I can tell them that’ll make them move out?”

“Tell them they’ll get killed if they stay.”

“I did. I said the snouts are going to bomb Bellingham.”

“Snouts bomb us! That’s a good one. Leigh, we’re going to bomb ourselves, there’s going to be atom bombs…”

The radio dissolved in static.

“What the hell?” Leigh tuned up and down. “Buzz saws. Like we were being jammed.”

“Maybe we are,” Miranda said.

“What?”

“Leigh, what did he mean, bomb ourselves?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t know either, but why would the Army jam your radio? Leigh, I’m scared.”

So far, so good. Jenny watched the big wall screens with satisfaction. “M minus fifty-five minutes, and counting,” she announced. “Thank you,” Admiral Carrel! acknowledged.

“Melon daiquiri,” President Coffey muttered.

“Sir?” Carrell asked.

“Nothing. Admiral, I have a good feeling about this.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You don’t.”

“Mr. President, they say that Admiral Jellicoe at Jutland was the only man in the world who could have lost World War One in a single afternoon.”

“Oh. And we …?”

“Can lose something more than that,” Carrell said.

“Of course you’re right.” The door opened to admit a mess corporal with a tray of coffee. Outside the door were half a dozen military personnel, plus Jack Clybourne, who was doing his best not to look through the door and across the office so that he could see the big battle screens on the floor below. The President grinned. “Mr. Clybourne?”

“Sir.”

“Let Sergeant Maihey’s people act like doorkeepers. Come in and watch the action.”

“Sir?”

“Come in. You’ve earned a ringside seat.”

“But … well, thank you, sir.” Clybourne stood against one wall.

He blends into it. Like wallpaper, Jenny thought. She turned to wink at him. There was a buzz in her headset.

“Control. Gimlet.”

“Gimlet, this is Harpoon. We have a security breach. We have a security breach. This went out on police radio air four minutes ago. I play the tapes now…”

“Launch now,” General Toland said.

“There are people in Bellingham,” the President said. “A lot of them.”

“All right, so it’s hard on Bellingham! Launch! Colonel, tell them to prepare.”

“Yes, sir.” Jenny spoke into the microphone. “Prepare for launch in five minutes. Launch in five minutes.”

More sirens blared on the floor below.

“Admiral?” the President asked.

Admiral Carrell put his fingertips together and looked acros their tops at the situation maps. “Give me a minute.”

“Not much more than that,” said the General.

“All right. First, the timing is terrible. We’d be launching straight up at Bogie Two, and we didn’t hurt those digit ships enough.”

“If they drop rocks on Michael, we’ve had it!” Bland shouted.

“Yes.” Carrell glanced at his watch. “What are we afraid of? A laser can’t hurt Michael. A meteor takes time …”

“It could be on its way now!”

“And ready to hit atmosphere. All right. I say we … wait. Get ready to launch on ten seconds notice. Wait the full hour if we can, but if Gillespie sees a light in the sky he’ll launch. A meteor would flare at fifty miles up, and come in at a slant at five to six miles per second. We’d be twenty seconds in the air when it hit. Michael would survive.”

“Michael can blow Bogie Two out of the sky,” the General said. “It’s all alone. We won’t see another digit ship for an hour.”

“We have a plan,” Admiral Carrell said.

“And if we stick with it, we lose! Mr. President, you’re betting everything on this.”

“General, I’m aware that it’s important.”

“We have to fight the damn digit ships anyway! Go now.”

“And kill everyone in Bellingham,” President Coffey said.

“Better Bellingham than the whole damn human race!”

“Oh, Jesus.” President Coffey stared at the situation screens. “Admiral Carrell, you’re my naval expert. Take command.”

“Yes, sir. Colonel Crichton, get me direct communications with General Gillespie.”

“Sir.” The first three lines she tried were filled with static. “General Gillespie, sir.”

“Ed, this is Thor Carrell.”

“Yes, Mr. Secretary?”

“There’s been a possible security leak. Your local sheriff used his radio.”

“Is that why there’s jamming? We can’t talk to our own MPs.”

“That’s it. General, you’re to make ready for instant launch. Watch the skies. The first glimmer up there, and you go. It’s your ship, as of now.”

“Acknowledged.”

President Coffey looked significantly at the Admiral.

“Mr. President,” Carrell said.

“I won’t take your time,” Coffey said. “Godspeed, General.”

The sirens were still wailing on the floor below.

General Toland was still frowning. “All right, God damn it, we’ll do it your way.” He turned to Jenny. “Colonel, get me the MP commander in Bellingham. I want that sheriff’s ass in a sling.”

“General.”

“Yes, Mr. President?”

“Have your MPs do what they can for the people in Bellingham. They’re Americans too.”

“Yes, sir.”

John Fox heard it first.

There was high wind with a few raindrops in it. Fox was turning the compost heap. He’d managed to make this his own territory; nobody else would fool with it. His pitchfork probed, and he worked around the denser mass he sensed, to keep Roger hidden. Bones showed suddenly, not clean yet — a foot. Fox grimaced an picked up a pitchforkful of compost.

He stopped, cocked his head. There was a sound in the wind. Motors.

Fox placed his forkful to cover the bones deep. Then he moved briskly toward the house. He opened the door and shouted at the first human figure he saw. “Navy coming back. Alert everyone. I’ll be at the gate.”

The Navy had come twice before, first for the CBs, then for Roger Brooks. Both times they had come in force — but not like this. You could hardly hear the wind for the roar of motors, and they were only just pulling up! Armored trucks lined the road. It must be a nuisance for them, John Fox thought. All that gasoline. But they know we’ve got guns, and somebody might do something stupid if there was just a truckful of them. He counted eight trucks, and more vehicles behind them. New cars, old cars, decrepit civilian trucks, a score of them thinning out of sight into the rain.

Four men climbed out of the third vehicle and came up to the gate. They looked nervous. One was the sheriff, old Ben Lafferty. Three were Navy, and Fox had seen one of them on their second visit: Commander Arnold Kennedy. Kennedy stepped forward an said, “You know we’re coming in. We’ve been through this before. John Fox’s worries were growing. Nobody had come out the house to join him; what did that mean? Were they getting ready to shoot it out?

Two more came up. Miranda Shakes, and that deputy sheriff she dated.

“It’s all right, John,” Miranda said.

“What is it this time? Who the hell are they?” Fox waved back down the road.

“Your neighbors,” Sheriff Lafferty said.

“Civilians seeking refuge,” Commander Kennedy said, “and you will by God give it to them. We’re prepared to shoot the top off your house. What we want is the use of your bomb shelter for about two hours.”

Fox nodded. Orion, he thought. Now. “How many are there?”

“About three hundred.”

“You’re crazy. Even elbow to elbow—”

“And on top of each other too. This is serious. You tell the rest of ’em in there, this is serious. If they start shooting we’ll take the house off the top of the shelter. It’ll go anyway. Now, you and I are going up to the house.”

They walked around the greenhouse and up to the front door. Kennedy rang the bell.

The invaders trooped through the house and through the “secret” door and down.

There were storekeepers and Navy and Indians, grandparents and children and infants. Two old men and a heavy middle-aged woman had to be lifted from wheelchairs, carried inside, and deposited in the three decks of bunks. The wheelchairs stayed in the living room, along with everything else, suitcases, briefcases, picnic baskets, even heavy overcoats. The living room looked like a rummage sale. The rug was a swamp. Clara was too angry to scream, but Bill Shakes raged.

“We’ll have to tear up the floor to get rid of all they’ve trucked in! We’ve got one — count ’em, one — bathroom down there, and we’ll have to pack people in that too. We’ll have to fumigate — Commander, who’s going to pay for all this? What are you laughing at?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Shakes. You submit a bill for damages. I guarantee you it’ll be honored, but you’d better wait an hour before you add up that bill, Mr. Shakes!”

George Tate-Evans felt his insides turning to water. What were we supposed to do, conduct a point defense against the Navy? We’ve got enough firepower here to get us all killed dead, and not even Jack lost his head quite that bad. Thank God. But they … none of them thought it through … The Navy searched us whe they came for the CBs, so they knew we had a bomb shelter. Half of Bellingham is trooping through our basement because we’ve got a bomb shelter, a bomb shelter! “Commander, what happens in one hour?”

“That’s still classified.”

“Are you out of your—”

“You had a fuck of a lot of radio equipment, and I’m not sure in my heart that we got it all, and the sheriff used his car radio to try to alert the populace! You almost died then, Mr… Tate Evans. I’ll tell you when I can. Really.”

“But what do we prepare for? How long will we be in there?”

“Hours, not days. Without us it would have been days,” Kennedy said. “We’ve got decontamination equipment parked outside ready.”

“Decontam—”

Up the stairs came a riot of noise. People were jammed in the stairwell, all the way to the thick iron trapdoor. “Something I think we’d better do,” Isadore said. “Pass out all the booze. I mean it Bill. You heard the commander, the Navy’ll pay for it. But that’s a supercooled riot in there, and something awful’s about to happen and we’ll want them tranquil.”

“Right. Medicine too,” George said. The living room held only Navy men and the legitimate owners. “Commander, get your men to carrying booze. I’ll get the medical kit. We’ll set up on the stairs. Force the rest of those carpetbaggers down to leave the stairs clear. And then I’ll offer you a drink.”

“Not for—” The Commander checked his watch. “We’ve got twenty minutes. And then I’m prepared to drink a toast.”

There were no windows on Michael. The control room was buried deep in Michael’s heart, between the water tanks, with the tower to shield it too. For Harry and the others there was nothing by TV screens.

Somewhere outside, there were still people to talk to Gillespie. “Nothing from the President. If anything comes, it’ll be a messenger. We’ve got a tight phone to the gate.”

Gillespie said, “If a digit ship changes course anywhere, I want to know it.”

And the tinny response: “We’re getting some action from the ships we attacked, but nothing aimed here.”

“How long?”

“Eight minutes.”

There were cameras everywhere, inside and outside Michael. One camera on the wall of the dome showed all of the great ship: the Shell, the placement guns protruding under the rim, six towers around the base; the Brick standing above them, its flat sides hung with smaller spacecraft, shadowed by the overhang of the nose. The dome that had swarmed with activity, day and night, for months, now looked deserted, silent, empty.

Gillespie turned toward the repair crew. “Five minutes. Close your faceplates now.” Then, by intercom, “Testing. Can you all hear me?”

They responded.

“All personnel outside Michael, get to the shelter. And thank you all.”

A dozen crash couches covered the floor. Harry and Rohrs and Gamble and the others were strapped down like mental patients; the only difference was that they could pull their arms free. An umbilical carried oxygen from the wall, and made a cold spot on Harry’s chest. Harry was feeling claustrophobic. And elated! Here’s Harry the Minstrel in a by-god space suit, waiting for launch!

Rohrs said, “It’ll be rough on the pilots, riding outside like that.”

“At least they’ve got windows,” Harry said.

Someone said, “Here we lie, waiting for an atom bomb to go off under our asses …”

“There has to be a more graceful way to say that,” Tiny Pelz said. Dr. Pelz was an atomjack, built heavy and strong. He looked strange with his bushy black beard shaved off to fit him into the pressure suit.

The desks and tables and phones and lines were all gone. The ready room was neat and clean. Padded handholds lined the walls and ceiling.

Harry remembered the men in Kansas who had gone forth to battle the enemy with tanks. They talked to keep their courage up. Harry didn’t know these men. Young, strong, healthy — if he told them about his back problem, what would they say? Pelz would understand, or Rohrs, or Gamble.

“One minute,” said a tinny voice, “and I’m going.”

They watched for bright light in their screens. The snout meteor could fall at any second. The silence grew thick, the tension stretched until Harry could stand it no longer. He bellowed, “Sancho! My armor!”

The youthful faces looked at him. Some were grinning. He heard Gillespie’s grunt of disgust and saw Gillespie’s elbow move. An atomic bomb went off under Harry Reddington’s ass.

Maintaining a civilization in here was going to be worse than Isadore had thought. He’d never seen human beings crowded close. Miranda and her deputy sheriff shared a bunk. All the bunks held two or three each, and if the supports collapsed the bunk would not fall. There was no room.

He heard, “Oh, God, it’s another meteor!” and wished he hadn’t. It could start an epidemic of fear; and it might be true. Bill Shalt was still fulminating at Commander Kennedy, who still hadn’t lost his temper, quite.

“Hey, Bill,” Isadore bellowed. Nothing less would be hear “We always prepare for the wrong disaster. You told us. Remember?”

Shakes turned. “Well, this idiot won’t tell me what disaster we are prepared for.”

“Reminds me,” Commander Kennedy shouted. “Just how did you go about constructing this place?”

“We built it good. Two layers of — why? You crammed two thousand Indians in here with no deodorant, and now you want to know it’s safe?”

“I do.”

“It’s safe. Two layers of concrete separated by—”

The sound of the end of the world slammed against the ceiling, For a moment that incredible crowd was totally silent. Then it came again: SLAM.

Commander Kennedy whooped. “They made it! They’re up! It’s—”

SLAM

“-first bomb fails you just start over.”

SLAM

“If the second bomb fails, you’re already—”

SLAM

“-already in the air. You’ll fall. They’re on their—”

SLAM

“-way, by God! You can give me that drink now.”

SLAM

41 BREAKOUT

God was knocking, and he wanted in bad.

WHAM

WHAM

WHAM

quiet

“The respite will be brief,” Gillespie bellowed. Harry barely heard him in the silence after the bombs. How many were there? Twenty? Thirty?

“Stay in harness and be ready for acceleration.”

Goddam! We made it! The screens showed little but clouds. Harry caught a glimpse of Vancouver Island and the Straits of Juan de Fuca. There would be nothing to see but the Pacific Ocean anyway. Presently Earth was a shallow arc, cloud-white, and beyond it a winking light, blip blip blip. “Digit ship under power, two o’clock high!”

“Roger, I see it,” Gillespie said.

“There’s another!” Ensign Franklin shouted into the mike, then lowered his voice and tried to sound like an astronaut. “Nine o’clock low, far away. Accelerating.”

“Roger. Stand by for acceleration. Fire.”

Harry was shoved back against his couch. In the moment before thrust resumed, the screens showed lines of spurt bombs leaving their rails on all sides. The spurt bombs looked like fasces, bundles of tubes around an axis made up of attitude jets and cameras and a computer. They moved in straight lines past the rim of the Shell, turning as they went …”

WHAM

Harry waited. Nothing. Then Gillespie’s voice in the intercom.

WHAM

WHAM

The nearer of the blinking lights had gone out. The view in one screen expanded once and again. Something showed dim against the stars. How far?

“Object in view, nine o’clock low.” Franklin had his voice under control now. He sounded like Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff. “Might be Big Mama.”

“Roger. acceleration.”

Gillespie sounds tired already. Maybe he’s just bored?

WHAM

WHAM

Spurt bombs rained into the blast. The forward view jittered but that distant object was too blunt to be a digit ship. Other cameras swung in arcs… and that glare-green star was a digit ship, and it had found them with its lasers.

Harry switched the intercom to local. “Max, when do we turn the Shuttles loose?”

“Not for a while.”

“But—”

“Just now we can shoot anything that moves.”

“But if we wait too long—”

“Harry, we all have work to do. Ed flies the ship, we watch for bandits.”

“Yeah.” And when the ship gets holes in it, we go fix it. That’s democracy.

WHAM

WHAM

Harry lost count of the explosions.

“Blue fire around primary target,” Ensign Franklin said. He was shouting again. “Sir, I think they’re accelerating.”

“Roger.”

WHAM

WHAM

Harry’s universe was a madness of noise and jolts, as if a giant had put him in a garbage can and used the can for a field hockey puck.

Quiet.

“Looks quiet for a while. Keep your straps on, and take a break.”

Harry opened his faceplate. So did the others in the damage control section.

“I think we took out that first digit ship. The second is receding; it can’t slow down in time to hurt us, and the third is around back of the Earth. Odds are we won’t see another digit ship for the next hour.

“We’re moving toward the prime target. It’s running away. We’ll give the computers a chance to gather data so we can tell which way to run. God knows, big as that thing is, once it gets started it won’t turn fast! When we launch the Shuttles, we’ll have to switch over from automatic aiming for the laser weapons. We’ll hang on to the Shuttles and gunships as long as we can.”

“Enjoy,” Max Rohrs said. He took out a pack of cigarettes. “Anybody really mind?” He offered them around. Harry reached out eagerly.

Ensign Franklin said pointedly, “There are studies that prove smoking takes ten years off your life. Harry, you really ought to give that up.”

“Well, I don’t believe in statistics. What about Max?”

“He’s smoked so long it will probably kill him about—” Franklin looked at the wall chronometer “-now, and I’ll be in command of damage control.”

Nobody wanted a second cigarette. Harry tried to relax; half close his eyes, to look like Franklin and his two Navy boatswain’s mates. His three personal TV sets showed unchanging views down access ducts within the Brick. Harry began playing with the view. Steam pipes; more steam pipes; outside, looking past the attitude jets into the overhang of the nose shield…

“Bandits,” Franklin said. “Half a dozen pulsing lights, west and a little south… more of them… start just above the arc of the Earth, you can follow them up to the primary target. They’re all accelerating.”

“Got them,” said Gillespie.

Harry slammed his faceplate shut. So did the others, but more slowly, deliberately. The lights were far apart, and they changed with relation to each other. Don’t panic. Calmly and deliberately as he could, Harry adjusted his straps. No one was watching. Pity.

Michael’s nose was a thick shield, and the butt plate ought to stand up to anything. Turn either of those toward danger and you couldn’t be harmed. But if danger came from half a dozen directions …

WHAM

WHAM

WHAM

Michael was pulsing too, and the spurt bombs were throwing gamma-ray lasers. Death rays! Eat hot gamma rays, foolish Centaurans!

WHAM

WHAM

One of the pulsing lights went out.

“Another one… Bandit, south, just above Europe.”

“Stand by. Maneuvering.”

Harry heard the faint hiss of steam jets. The drive explosions stopped, and Michael was turning, before Harry spotted the other lights.

“Bandits to starboard. I think those are missiles.” Tiny flames, wavering against the stars.

“Roger.”

Blam. Blam. After the shocks of the drive bombs, the big antimissile guns were almost gentle.

“Stand by. Maneuvering. Acceleration.”

WHAM

They attack at night. They know us that well. For us it is night. For them it is day. I should have expected this. Do the prey have other surprises for me?

Already the Herdmaster knew that he had been tricked. He had been strapped to his acceleration pad for an hour now, on duty to handle further emergencies; but this was not what he had expected.

It pulsed like a digit ship, but more slowly. Half a breath passed between explosions. We taught them that, the Herdmaster thought. It looked bigger than a digit ship, smaller than Message Bearer.

Four digit ships, the lowest in their various orbits about Winterhome, converged on the intruder. The Herdmaster saw the pulse drive fail on one of them. He watched, and another died.

How did they do that? They’re killing my fithp! “Defensemaster, you lead Message Bearer now.”

“I obey.”

There were sounds. The screens showed sixteen mounted digit ships released from their ring around Message Bearer’s stern. They formed an expanding ring about the mother.ship.

“Prepare. No spin. Prepare.” The Defensemaster’s voice was sent through the ship.

Spin decreasing. Digit ships launched, to form a defense screen. And where are the others?

He had lost several himself, an hour ago.

There had been eight digit ships in twelve-hour polar orbits, passing repeatedly over various parts of Winterhome. Two of those had been attacked by missiles from the sea. Attackmaster Koothfektil-rusp had agreed with his assessment: the missiles were a diversion like the attack that preceded the bombing of the Kansas foothold. The prey had already aimed one missile at the fithp base in Johannesburg. Surely there would be more. Pastempeh-keph had set several digit ships to converge on Africa, ready to fire on missiles aimed at the African foothold.

Wrong! Five, perhaps six could not reach the intruder in time to fight.

He tapped rapidly, summoning knowledge. Four digit ships were already rising from the Moon. Those carried material to wherever the war effort needed meteors. But, though two were empty, though they had risen as soon as the enemy ship was sighted, they would not arrive in time. Still, meteors would be needed. The enemy ship had to come from somewhere.

The ships patrolling Africa: could he use them? Sixteen were in eccentric geosynchronous orbits: dropping low while they moved east, falling outward, drifting west while they arced around and fell back; but always over Africa. Ten of those were in the upper arcs of their orbit, above Message Bearer. Lower above Africa, the remaining six were low enough to engage the enemy. The Defensemaster was doing his frenetic best to coordinate their efforts… and three were not responding.

He eavesdropped … The fi’ talking to the Defensemaster sounded sick, or mentally deficient. He had something like hiccups. “… like a laser attacked us, but not like. Heat all through the ship, fuel pressure very high, as if light we cannot see was shining all through the hull. Gamma ray, it may be, but where do they find their power? We were eight-cubed of makasrupkithp distant!”

“Can you fight your ship?”

“No. We cannot breath, can you hear? Shookerint-buth has stopped. I can’t control my digits or my legs. Controls burnt out too.”

Enough of this. Mourn in daylight. “Defensemaster.” Tantarent-fid broke contact with the sick fi’. “You will be certain Attackmaster Koothfektil-rusp is aware of the situation.”

“Herdmaster, I’m doing all I can. What could he tell us?”

“Possibly nothing. This is your thuktun. I will see that he is told.” He gestured to one of his aides. “It is important that you and the Attackmaster coordinate digit ships for simultaneous attack.”

“It will be done, Herdmaster.”

“Talker, get me Takpusseh-yamp.” Be glad even of small benefits: the mating season was over. “Breaker-two, is Tashayamp available too? Good. Send Tashayamp to fetch Rogachev from the human restraint cell and bring him to the bridge. You come straight here.”

Night. Jeri lay curled against his chest. It was a frustrating experience, sleeping with a woman in a public place, a woman who did not care that her daughter knew what she did with Arvid Rogachev, but who would not let anyone see her behave improperly. Alien speech sounded. The room tilted sideways. Arvid felt Jeri’s nails dig into his arm.

The others stirred. “What is it?” Jeri demanded.

She believes that I know everything.

Dmitri shouted in Russian.

So does he. “Wait. What else can we do?”

Presently the door warning light came on. Tashayamp stood at the entrance. “Rogachev. You will come.”

Takpusseh-yamp moved at a slant. It wasn’t exactly a run, yet it was fast. His body tilted against Message Bearer’s awkward acceleration. Message Bearer was losing its spin. The Herdmaster must be preparing for acceleration.

The bridge was frantically busy. The Herdmaster summoned him with a wave, and pointed. “I want to know what to expect from that.”

Takpusseh-yamp looked at three displays of the sky. Black, star-sprinkled, with a crescent of Winterhome showing large — and a black dot that flashed light around its edge. There were sparkles in the flash.

“I am not a technician.”

“How did I know you would say that? Breaker-two, I can learn about that craft. Assume that there are humans in it. Assume length of twice eight-cubed srupkithp or less, and half that in width. It moves in the manner of a digit ship, but more crude! — probably using fission bombs instead of deuterium fusion. Assume a bumpy ride. Query: humans can tolerate more shock than we can?”

“Yes.”

“Assume at least one weapon which we can’t describe. Query what do they want to do with this?”

“Win a war.” — The intruder had stopped pulsing.

The Herdmaster said, “But of course they—”

“No, listen, Herdmaster. This is no demonstration, to give them higher rank after surrender. If there were two of these, they would have sent two. If they know it to be inadequate, they would not send it until they could build two. I am no Predecessor. I guess my best guess is that this device is expected to set a human foot on the Traveler Fithp.”

“How?”

“You spoke of a new weapon. Remember that the human fithp must write their own thuktunthp.”

At that moment the unknown ship seemed to explode. Message Bearer must have looked like this when the digit ships were loosed on the USSR space station. Ships were spreading out around it … “Defensemaster, how big are those ships?”

“Tiny. No fi’ would fit the small ones. They must be automatic. Two or three might wedge themselves into the large—”

Takpusseh said, “Automatic, perhaps. Perhaps one human each.”

Hardly volunteers… rogues, captured, then forced into ships launched, then expected to perform alone in space and under fire with no similar mind nearby, no contact with the herd… “No. Ridiculous. These are big automatic devices. We would not have built so large.”

“’Now my digits are whole again,’ remember? Human rogues may cooperate.”

It was still nonsense. The devices were tiny. Even a single rogue man would not fit. “Take an acceleration pad, Takpusseh. Remain. Defensemaster, is the drive ready?”

“No, Herdmaster. I need another sixteen sixty-four-breaths. The alien device would need sixteen times as long to reach us. We could move if I had kept the digit ships mounted, but—”

“Better to set them free to defend us, yes.”

The doorway opened. Tashayamp entered, with the human. Takpusseh-yamp curled his digits, a private message of affection. She pretended not to see.

“Tashayamp! Excellent.” The Herdmaster gestured her toward his station. “I will need you to translate. Arvid Rogachev, look at this.”

The human stood tilted, looking about the bridge. He came forward, lurching, gripping consoles and machinery where he could. Screens showed him the intruder pulsing against the dark night side of Winterhome. “What is this?”

“Man, I expect you to tell me that!”

“Lead me.” Rogachev braced himself against a console and continued to watch.

The intruder had resumed acceleration, but more slowly now. The smaller ships diverged on what had to be chemical flame: some toward the two closest of the digit ships now converging from low orbit above Africa; some moving ahead, toward Message Bearer. One enemy flared, then became a fog.

Rogachev spoke in the language of the thuktunthp. “Some fi’ placed weapon well. This is a spacecraft carrying smaller spacecraft—”

“We know that.”

“Bombs make it go. Thuktun students of United States and England consider idea long ago, but we make it against the will of the Fithp of Nations. Query: size of these things?”

“The largest is twice eight-cubed srupkithp. The smallest are five srupkithp in length, no more than one srupk thick.”

“Ah. My fithp may ride such small things, but I thought United States fithp be afraid.”

“The device rose from the North American continent,” Takpusseh-yamp said. That was certain; otherwise it would have been seen. “Rogachev, they have something that is killing our fithp aboard the digit ships. Can you make a device that throws gamma rays in a narrow beam?”

“Not understand.”

“Tashayamp?”

“Shine light like laser at two times eight to minus twelve snipkithp wavelength.”

“Means nothing,” Rogachev said. “I need tools—” He gestured, tapping on his hand with one finger.

“Ah. He wants the calculating device from their space city,” Tashayamp said.

Why did I not understand that? I was shrewd to choose Tashayamp as my mate. “Shall I send for it, Herdmaster?”

“Yes. Rogachev, that sparkle within the explosion—”

“I not understand either. Query: the United States build some rogue device? They did not tell us!” Rogachev laughed, a peculiar, hackle-raising sound.

He should not do that.

The Herdmaster stamped impatiently. “Tashayamp, return Rogachev to the restraint cell.” He turned to Takpusseh-yamp. “The fi’-killer has not heard a fithp or human voice in more than sixty-four days. Will he be sane? Will he be amenable to reason?”

“Herdmaster, I do not know. I believe he will be both sane and reasonable, even though such treatment would make rogues of any normal fi’. Dawson understands how machinery may be used in space. Perhaps we can learn.”

We’re finally fighting back! No, the United States is fighting back, Arvid corrected himself. Never mind. What have they got? Can they win? Can they even catch us? The spin was gone. Gravity was a feather-touch aft. Thuktun Flishithy’s drive took time to build power, but it was possible that the ship could simply outrun the Americans.

“Tashayamp. Query: you usually have warriors with you?”

“For this breath the warriors have better things to do!” Her tone was sharp. The fithp could enunciate, could decrease the air escaping with the words, when they wished. “Here we are.” The key she used was a bar of metal; the lock was magnetic, as Arvid had established long ago. The hatch swung out. “You have sufficient padding, but acceleration may come from abnormal directions. Be careful. Grip when you can. You will be as safe as any fi’ aboard. Now go in.”

The others watched as Arrid swung his body around the edge of the hatch. They saw him grip Tashayamp’s trunk, brace his feet, and pull her digits loose from her handhold.

Tashayamp shrieked. Her first impulse wasn’t to crush Arvid Rogachev; it was to tether herself. Her hampered digits wrapped around the edge of the hatch. Dmitri leapt from below. He crashed into her like a fullback. Then Arvid and Dmitri were pulling her trunk in two directions, pulling her through the hatch. And the hatch was still open.

Tashayamp recovered. Arvid found himself flying. He curled himself into a ball; struck padding; struck again with less force; uncoiled and leapt again. The others had got the idea. Mrs. Woodward and the children huddled in a corner. Jeri, Dmitri, Nikolai looked to be tangled in Tashayamp’s digits. Arvid snatched at her harness as he passed, climbed around onto her back. He found the buckle and loosed the harness.

Straps and a pack. Arvid opened the pack and swung. The contents flew wide. Tashayamp was screaming, thrashing, drifting much too near a wall. If she could anchor her feet in the padding

He swung around her belly, caught the wall with his feet, and kicked away, toward the middle of the cell.

The fi’ seemed to be tiring. Arvid joined the others at her head. “Push them in here,” he shouted, and grasped a digit that writhed like a fire hose…

Five minutes later, a furious fi’ female glared at them over the edge of a bag. Straps were tight around her ears. Dmitri moored other straps behind her forelegs and tightened them. He cast loose and studied the situation thoughtfully. “Is there a reason to betray our true motives now?”

“Thuktun Flishithy is under attack,” Arvid replied. He heard Jeri gasp.

“Right on!” Alice shouted.

“By whom?”

“American. One carrier with missiles and smaller spacecraft. Our last chance, Dmitri. The fithp cannot follow us into the ducts. We fight there!”

“I see. Agreed.” Dmitri spoke rapidly in Russian.

“No,” Arvid said.

“No, what?” Jeri demanded.

“It is State Security!” Dmitri shouted in Russian.

“He wishes to kill this fi’,” Arvid said.

Jeri said, “Hey!”

Mrs. Woodward said, “You wouldn’t.”

“Do you think those straps will hold her helpless?” Dmitri shouted. “And so do I, but what do we know? Kill her. Think of India and kill her.”

“Over my dead body,” Jeri said. She moved closer to Tashayamp.

Dmitri shouted in Russian.

Arvid replied. “I will think with what organs I choose. I grant you command, but not in this. Think, Dmitri. Thuktun Flishithy is under attack.”

“By the time they find the Teacher’s mate, we will be beyond their reach. There is no need whatever to kill her.”

“You let women think for you.”

“He doesn’t need women to tell him what’s right,” Carrie Woodward said.

“I like Tashayamp!” Alice said emphatically.

Dmitri looked about him. Arvid, Alice, Jen, and Mrs. Woodward were between him and the fi’ … who had stopped thrashing because of an understandable interest in the topic of conversation.

“Arvid, you may regret this, but it is done. Now let us be gone! Mrs. Woodward, take the children to the Garden. It is never locked, and you should be safe there, if anyone is safe anywhere. Nikolai, Arvid… with me. Jeri? Alice?”

“Both of you to the Garden,” Arvid ordered.

“Wes! What about him?” Alice cried.

Dmitri snorted contempt. “Have you any idea where he is? Forget Congressman Dawson. He is untrustworthy, he has proved it again and again.”

Alice shrugged angrily. “I don’t like you very much.”

“Imagine my concern. You are unreliable. Go to the Garden with the others.”

“Damn right.”

“I’m coming with you,” Jeri told Arvid.

“Mother—”

“You go with Carrie. Arvid!”

Arvid studied her face, and nodded.

“Do as Carrie says,” Jeri said. She slapped Melissa on the rump. “Now get moving.”

They set Tashayamp spinning in the middle of the cell and left her that way. They set off forward along the corridor. The first grill they passed, Arvid unscrewed the wing nuts and led half the party inside. The rest continued.

42. THE MEN IN THE WALLS

Four digit ships were coming near. They were half a thousand miles away, not close enough to use missiles, but close enough to show as brilliant, wavering green suns. That laser light must be boiling away Michael’s hull. Refrigerators chugged, pumping unwanted heat into Michael’s heat sink: the water tanks that had been two huge icebergs at takeoff.

The bombs were still going, WHAM WHAM WHAM, the spurt bombs were still raining into the blast, but Gillespie was on the radio link. “Shuttle One, I’m cutting you loose. Gunships one through six, I’m cutting you loose. See if you can damage some bandits for me.”

WHAM

WHAM

WHAM

quiet

Vibrating through the hull came chunkchunk sounds: mooring prongs releasing their passengers. Flames lit and pulled away. The exhausts of the gunboats were bright and yellow: solid fuel rockets. The single Shuttle flame showed faint and blue: oxygen and hydrogen. They swept away to do battle. Watch for bandits. Watch for damage. Watch temperature gauges. Listen, watch, and hang on. Constant chatter in the intercomm. “Too many digit ships,” Gillespie said. “If I can kill a few, I can outrun the rest. Jason?”

“Targets acquired. Fire when ready.”

“Acceleration. Stand by.”

“Get on the horn and tell the fly-boys to leave that nearest ship to me. Get ’em away from it. Fire.”

WHAM

“Bandits, eight o’clock high.”

“We’re getting an overheat amidships starboard.”

WHAM

“Request salvo—”

“Time problems.”

“I need it.”

“Roger. Say when.”

“Stand by. Targets acquired. Ready.”

The bomb placement cannon chugged almost inaudibly. “Acceleration. Stand by.”

WHAM

“Bandit, eleven o’clock low.”

WHAM

Harry’s teeth were clenched. The temperature starboard amidships was falling again. No major hits on Michael. A gunship flared brilliant green, held, died…

“Stovepipe Five; this is Big Daddy.”

“Big Daddy, this is Stovepipe Four, scratch Stovepipe Five. I say again, scratch Five.”

“Bandit, eight o’clock low.”

“Big Daddy, this is Stovepipe Three, I’ll take the new target.”

WHAM

“Request salvo.”

“Roger. Acceleration. Stand by.”

WHAM

WHAM

Three digit ships showed behind them as brilliant green suns.

“Temperature rising, ventral aft four.”

“Steam forming, ventral aft six.”

WHAM

“Big Daddy, this is Stovepipe Three, scratch one bogey.”

Two brilliant suns aft.

“Big Daddy, this is Stovepipe Four, scratch Stovepipe Three.”

WHAM

WHAM

Temperatures fell toward normal. Two lights showed aft. The gunships were invisible, beyond the battle now, living or dead.

“Short break,” Gillespie said. “They’re trying to clump. They want to hit us in clusters. We won’t reach the next cluster for couple of hours.”

Thank God! Harry eagerly reached up to open his faceplate.

“Sounds like a good time for an inspection tour,” Max Rohrs said. “Get used to moving around in free-fall.”

“Hey, give us a break,” Harry said.

“I’ll suggest it to the snouts.” Harry fastened the faceplate again.

The ducts were roomy enough. They were square in cross section so that patch plates could be all the same size. What had been ladders, padded rungs welded into the sides, had been left for handholds.

Harry knew the ducts like the roof of his mouth. The trouble was that he kept bumping into the sides. Ensign Franklin stayed ahead of him. Franklin hadn’t helped build these ducts, but he had astronaut training in a weighted pressure suit in a swimrnii pool.

“Acceleration. Stand by.”

The ship surged. Gillespie was throwing the thrust bombs far back, using them less for thrust than to power the spurt bombs

Still, Harry snatched a rung only just in time.

“Where are we?” Franklin asked.

“About the middle of the Brick. That was the midpoint later tunnel we just passed. Port water tank below us. Here, this is top of the equipment bins.” He looked in, and Franklin peered past him. “Nothing shook loose. Welding and cutting equipment, patch plates — same size as the walls, you have to tilt them to get through the ducts—”

“I know.”

“Patches for steam pipes, the valve wheels, lines and cable nooses of the finest hemp.”

“’There was a girl who never laid me, but she made me scream’, The Five Thousand Fingers of Doctor T,” Franklin said.

“I like her already.”

“Yeah.” They continued forward. Harry tried launching himself from the rungs, bouncing slantwise from the opposite wall. Didn’t work. Best move was to parallel the rungs and keep the within reach. “It’s harder to move around than I thought it would be. Tires you out faster, too.”

“Yeah. That’s always a surprise,” Franklin said.

The duct expanded into a maze of pipes. Pipes five feet wide flared into cones eighteen feet across. The cones ran through the hull and outside: twelve cones facing in three directions in rows of four each. “The attitude jets. We’re at the upper port corner of the Brick,” Harry said. “It’s all so clean. I’m going to hate seeing it messed up in a battle.”

“When they told me about the steam pipes, I wondered if they’d want me shoveling coal too.”

Harry laughed. “Shall we take the cross duct and come down the other side?”

“Lead on. I’m lost already.”

“Acceleration. Stand by.”

WHAM

Nikolai led. The gravity was still low enough to let them move in great leaps.

If it gets strong enough, he won’t be able to move fast, Jeri thought. What will they do then? She wanted to ask, but the last time she’d spoken it had upset Dmitri.

Arvid lets that commissar tell him what to do. Why? We aren’t in Russia, and he isn’t smarter than Arvid.

It was difficult to keep up. It was also obvious that the Russians weren’t going to slow for her. They moved on through the air shafts. Each time they passed one of the ring-shaped robots Jeri felt terror. Suppose the thing came after them, tentacles flailing? They moved deeper into the ship. Where are we going? Wherever it was, Nikolai never hesitated as they went through twists and turns. Jeri caught glimpses of marks by some of the tunnel forks. Cyrillic letters. Of course!

“We are here, Comrade Commander.”

Dmitri might be in command, but Nikolai spoke and listened only to Arvid Rogachev. He must not like Dmitri any more than I do, Jeri thought.

The room below was filled with cabinets and boxes, but no snouts. Dmitri waited impatiently for Nikolai and Rogachev to open the accessway, then dashed ahead of them to begin opening boxes, flinging their contents out onto the deck.

Tang? And that label says something in Russian! Where are … oh.

Dmitri opened another box. “Ha!” He reached into the box and brought out a big pistol, then fumbled in the box again until he found ammunition.

“That belonged to the American, Greeley,” Arvid said. “Is there another? The Americans brought several and gave one to me as a gift.”

“Da. There are two.” He brought out another pistol and handed it to Arvid with a box of ammunition.

Only two. I wonder if Dmitri can shoot as well as I can? I don’t suppose there’s any point in asking.

Arvid loaded the pistol and held it high. “At last my arm is whole again!” he shouted in English.

And what did the snouts make of that picture? “Is there anything else? Knives? I had a Walther PPK when they captured me, is that in there?”

“No.” Arvid opened wall cabinets. Spacesuits hung like mannequins. “Hah. I suppose it is too much, to hope there will be filled air tanks.”

“If these can be made airtight,” Dmitri said, “will they not allow us to live in vacuum even without air tanks?”

“A few minutes longer. Not more.”

“We can kill many snouts in a few minutes,” Dmitri said. “Let us see if these can be made to fit us.”

Mrs. Woodward was dithering. “If I thought we could get to that big slab, the Podo Thuktun — they worship that, don’t they? We’d be even safer.”

“They lock it,” Alice said. “They lock everything but the kitchen and the garden and the funeral pit. You don’t want to hide in the funeral pit!”

“No. What are you doing?”

Alice was unscrewing the big wing nuts on a grill. “I’m going to Wes. Get the kids to the Garden. Hide.”

“Hide? Alice, they won’t harm children.”

“Carrie, you don’t want to be caught after Arvid and the Russians start their moves!”

“Oh.” Carrie put an arm around each of the children. “Alice—”

“I’ll be fine. Wes needs me.”

Carrie Woodward nodded agreement. “I’d have gone for my John. God be with you, Alice.”

“Thanks.”

A recorded voice trumpeted in the alien language. “Take footholds against thrust!”

Alice dove into the air shaft. Behind her Carrie Woodward gripped the corridor’s wet carpeting, both children clinging to her.

The pull increased until it was uncomfortable, then increased again. Like Kansas? More? I don’t know. Alice moved through the air shafts. Somewhere ahead was Wes Dawson.

The fithp warriors gestured but didn’t speak.

All right, Dawson thought. They’re still trying to drive me mad. Have they done it? How long since I had anyone to talk to?

There were only two, one before and one behind. I’m strong like Superman. Exercise. I’ve walked all the way from New York City to Joplin, Missouri. And they’re still elephants. Too damn big.

I’m as fast as they are. Faster. Jump back, grab that one’s gun! But why did they come for me?

No spin. Acceleration, thrust after all this time. Why am I out?

To prove I’m a rogue. Wait for me to go for a gun so they can kill me… no. Makes no sense. They wouldn’t take the spin off just for that.

Damn! I’m as schizzy as Alice. He stifled that thought. Alice isn’t crazy. Maybe she got over it.

Alice is sweet, and if I live through this, what will I do with her? Carlotta will kill her!

They were in a shallow spiral curve, climbing toward the ship’s bow. Thrust had risen to something like Earth normal.

They emerged in a place with windows, a place he had never seen… except in his mind, perhaps. A starship’s control room, an alien starship. It was dimly lit; half the light was coming from square UV monitor screens. There were no chairs, only pads and recessed holds for the claws of fithp feet. The pads would tilt for spin gravity, but they were flat now. He’d guessed from the change in gravity, and now he knew: Thuktun Flishithy was on a light footing. The warriors were holding back, out of the way.

Four fithp stood together in the center of the bridge. Dawson recognized one. Takpusseh-yamp. A fi’ saw them and beckoned. The Bull Stud? Yes, for the warriors immediately brought him forward, digits twined round his arms.

“Dawson,” the Herdmaster said. “Are you sane?”

He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes up and bobble his finger against his lips. “Yes. No thanks to you.”

The Herdmaster pointed to a screen. The view zoomed toward a distant, fuzzy object. As Dawson watched, it flared brilliant green, then flared again. Faint blue-green threads played against it from distant digit ships.

The Herdmaster gestured impatiently. “Look at that and tell me what it is.”

Dawson’s lips curved in a smile. “That is a tape of Star Wars,” he said. We’re fighting! Should I have jumped that soldier? Hell no. This is where they run everything. Stall. Wait for the chance to snatch a gun and …

“Speak our language, Dawson. We have no time for gibberish. You lectured Fathisteh-tulk on devices for use in space. Lecture me now regarding that. If you remain silent, I will return you your silence.”

“I can’t even tell which is which. There’s too much going on. “That big blinking thing — is that ours?”

“No, it rose from the United States. It carries a weapon that would be a laser but that it sends an impossibly high frequency. We have no such in our thuktunthp. What can you tell us?”

The last thing Wes wanted was to return to the dreadful silence of his cell. Here was where it was all happening! And he wouldn be giving away anything useful. “Gamma-ray lasers are possible. They destroy themselves, you only fire them once. You power them with a fission explosion.”

The Herdmaster bellowed something.

Takpusseh-yamp spoke too rapidly for Wes to follow. Another fi’, one Dawson was certain he had never seen before, listened gravely, then spoke slowly.

“Perhaps. There is nothing in the thuktunthp. This would explain why they use so many bombs.”

“What is the purpose of the intruder?”

Was that a serious question? Wes said, “They make war.”

“War has a purpose. What is the purpose? Do they seek a not surrender surrender?”

“I don’t understand. They want you extinct. They’re coming to kill you.”

“They will kill entire fithp? Females, children?”

“India.”

“India was not all of the human fithp.”

“Unless you surrender, that ship will destroy Thuktun Flishithy.”

The Herdmaster didn’t seem surprised. He spoke to the fourth fi’ in the group. “Defensemaster, you have heard. Warriors, keep this one there, where he will not interfere.”

The guards dragged him to one bulkhead. They placed his hands against the damp, spongy wall. “Grip.” Each hand was encircled by tentacles. The fithp warriors dug their claws into the floor.

The Herdmaster made certain that Dawson was held securely, far enough away that he could not overhear.

Thrust was steady now. The sixteen digit ships which had surrounded Message Bearer, her last wall of defense, were dwindling in her wake. “Defensemaster.”

“Lead me.”

“Can — we avoid battle?”

“Herdmaster, the intruder already has too high a velocity. If we thrust lateral to his path, he will still miss by only a few makasrupkithp. I am thrusting away from him, directly out from Winterhome. He must pass the last digit ships to find us.”

“This is your thuktun.” Do it your way. “Takpusseh-yamp.”

“Lead me.”

“Raztupisp-minz told us that the humans in Africa often demand conditions before foot touches chest. What words did he use? ‘Not surrender surrender’?”

“We took to calling it a ‘negotiated loss of status.’ ”

“Draft me one to be used if we lose this battle.”

“Herdmaster, is this possible?”

“Probably not. What else are you busy at? You have said yourself that this is their last attempt to break from beneath our foot. When the intruder is gone, then we can let them study how to surrender to us. Meanwhile, exercise your skill. Prepare for us negotiated loss of status giving them as little as possible.”

“Herdmaster?”

The call came from one of the lesser posts. “Speak.”

“Camera twenty-eight.”

The Herdmaster tapped two buttons. A screen lit with a view of an air duct … and a small, red-haired human female.

“It’s — she’s just outside the aft control room, watching through the grill.”

“Send a warrior for her. Send another-send three to the human restraint cell. If she’s loose, they may all be loose. And summon Tashayamp!”

Half a dozen fithp were beyond the grill. They didn’t seem particularly excited by what they were watching, and they were all doing anything but switching the views on their TV sets. One view stayed. It showed a room like this one, but much larger. There were windows, with stars beyond.

There was Wes Dawson, against a wall, between two of the horrors.

And there, suddenly live on another screen, Alice saw herself peering through an air duct.

Time to move on, Alice thought. Forward. Windows on a spaceship had to be at the nose…

43. STEAM

The big digital timer above the war screens ticked off the seconds since Michael’s launch. When it passed six hours, Admiral Carrell said, “Try it now.” He put on his own headset.

Jack Clybourne sidled through the room like an English butler, silently removing coffee cups and emptying ashtrays, before fading back against one wall. Can you type? Jenny thought. She touched keys, and gave orders that flashed across half the globe.

Somewhere out there a submarine sticks its nose up just so we can get a report. The situation boards had showed few changes in the past two hours. The missile sites in Georgia and Missouri were craters now, and a curious pattern of meteoric death, neither random nor any geometric figure Jenny had ever seen, had fallen on the South Atlantic. Nothing had hit Bellingham yet. Harpanet had been badly upset to learn that the Friendly Snout had been painted on the Archangel dome. If the digit ships were given leisure — if Michael fell — they would punish that affront.

There was static in her phones. “Try routing through Florida.”

“Trying, sir.” And if that doesn’t work … “Gimlet, we have Nosebleed.” The computer console identified Nosebleed: Ethan Allen.

“He must have gone deep,” Admiral Carrell said. “I thought we’d lost him.”

“Gimlet, we have Chickenpox.” Another nuclear sub.

“Two possible links. Good enough. Try to get through,” Carrell said.

“Michael, this is Gimlet.” Oh ye Thrones, Dominions, and Powers …

Static burst in her headset. She winced.

“Can you put it on the speaker?” the President asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Gimlet, this is Michael.”

Hurrah! “Michael, this is Gimlet. Your orders are unchanged. Continue your mission. Godspeed, Ed. Report, please.”

“Reporting. We’re 20,000 miles above Africa and climbing, present vel …” The voice faded.

“Come on,” General Toland whispered.

“Garble garble but no serious damage. Casualties are light. We have launched five gunships and one Shuttle to assist in breaking through garble garble …”

Damn!

“… a formation of digit ships above Africa. At plus one poi garble garble its drive. We believe the enemy mother ship running away. Garble garble.”

“They have to catch it!” the President said.

“Michael, continue pursuit.”

“… are in pursuit. Estimate we will be in effective rank within six to twelve hours. We will have to fight our way past a formation of sixteen digit ships they have left to delay garble garble.”

“Hoo boy.” General Toland thought he was whispering.

The countdown timer showed 6 hours, 12 minutes since Michael’s launch.

“We have not been attacked for four hours. The next attack may be worse. No missiles so far. We’ve used more missiles than I like, but we still have plenty, and the spurt bomb supply is garb blurbie garble garble.”

The static increased.

“Link with Nosebleed has been lost.”

“Should we try for a new link?” Jenny asked.

“How long until we have direct contact?”

“About two hours, Relay through the East Coast in half hour.”

“Any orders for them, Mr. President?” Admiral Carrell asked.

“You’re in charge, Admiral.”

“We’ll wait. Hide the subs,” Admiral Carrell said.

“All fishes, this is Gimlet. Run away!”

“Bogeys ahead are at extreme missile range.”

“All right, children, quiet hour is over!”

Harry jumped awake. He had slept! Harry found that amazing. He’d thought sleeping would be as difficult as pissing, which had required two men and fifteen minutes each to open the pressure suits and close them again. He’d slept, and he felt wonderful! Now, what?.

His forward view screens showed sixteen digit ships in a spreading ring. Their light swamped the stars, hellglare green. In their center was a violet-white glare.

It’ll be like a single pass through a Cuisinart. But we’re gaining on Big Mama!

“Acceleration. Stand by.”

WHAM

WHAM

WHAM

Three kicks in the arse. One of the green suns faded, then became a fireball. “How did we do that?” he asked aloud.

“Gamma rays could have set off fusion in the deuterium,” Tiny Pelz said. “That’s a guess. We still don’t know just how their drive works.”

“One thing sure,” Jeff Franklin said. “Hot gamma rays can’t be doing their ships any good.”

“Crews either, if they’re anything like us.”

“Bandit at one o’clock high is changing color.”

“Roger. Take him, Jason. Acceleration. Stand by.”

WHAM

“Good shooting!”

Jason Daniels opened his faceplate. “Did you get through to Colorado Springs?”

“I did my best. No new orders. They may be missing all the excitement.”

“More excitement coming up,” Jason said. He scratched his nose, then closed the faceplate. “Missiles dead ahead.” They showed as a swarm of fireflies. Bullets would be as dangerous, and they’d be invisible. Harry winced. At these velocities, marshmallows would be dangerous. They would strike like meteors.

“Rotation. Stand by.”

Steam jets hissed. Michael turned ponderously.

“Don’t turn a cold shoulder; show your armored ass,” Franklin said.

“And if we don’t turn fast enough?” Harry asked.

“Keep the frivolous chatter to a dull roar,” Gillespie said.

Aw, shit! Harry turned his intercom switch to local. So did Jeff Franklin. Kid looks embarrassed. Harry did an exaggerated shrug so that Franklin would see it.

TV cameras looked up along the flanks of the Brick, toward digit ships spreading across the sky. The Brick’s massive nose would reflect some of that green glare, absorb some too. Some got through. The forward shield couldn’t hide them from all sixteen enemies, but turned arse on to the enemy they couldn’t accelerate.

Michael’s amidships guns were firing forward, assisting in rotating the ship. My guns. I put them in. Clouds of shotgun pellets made of spent uranium were arraying themselves ahead of Michael. Harry saw bright flashes among the missiles.

Steam roared again. Michael’s rotation ceased. Cameras on long booms looked out beyond the butt plate, and the ring of digit ships.

The first of the missiles struck. Whatever they carried for a warhead, it was puny compared to Michael’s own drive.

“Ten minutes. Then we turn again and accelerate like hell,” Gillespie said. “Amuse yourselves.”

Yeah. Sure.

“Stovepipes Seven and Eight. Shuttle Two. Your turn. Stand by.” The gunships cast loose, accelerating to the side. Shuttle Two followed. Harry watched the flames dwindle, then veer, around more oncoming missiles and toward the digit ships.

“It’s their last chance at us,” Tiny Pelz said. “They’ll pour it on.” “Rotation. Stand by.” Steam jets hissed. “Hail Mary, full of grace…”

Franklin had forgotten the intercom was on. Don’t blame him much. This was the trickiest part: as they passed through the ring of digit ships, they would rotate to face away from the thickest cluster, protecting themselves with the butt plate, but exposing Michael’s comparatively weak sides to others.

The ship turned ponderously. Spin, you bastard!

Missiles exploded. Light washed two screens. The ship kicked mildly, Wham Wham Wham pause Wham: snout missiles exploded under the butt plate.

“-now and in the hour of our death, amen. Temperature rising starboard amidships.”

“Gun turret four no longer reporting.”

“Bandit, nine o’clock.”

“Steam forming, bow section three.”

More missiles. Michael trembled to the shock waves.

“You can do it, baby, you can do it—”

A vastly larger shock wave kicked Michael sideways. Somebody screamed. Half a dozen screens blinked white and went blank. Tiny Pelz said, “Oboy.”

“Damage control, report!”

“Stand by,” Max Rohrs said. “Tiny, what the hell was that?”

“We got two! Two, digit ships blanked out!” Harry shouted.

“Fascinating. I didn’t shoot,” Jason Daniels said. “Who got them?”

“We’re tumbling,” Gillespie said. “I’ve got no attitude control. Damage control, do something!”

“I know what happened,” Pelz said. “I just can’t see it. Somebody deploy a camera.”

“Gamble, go. Tiny, talk.”

Hamilton Gamble left his seat on the jump. Tiny Pelz said, “I think we’ve lost one of the spurt bomb bays. The snouts set off a nuclear missile close enough to pump some spurt bombs. Maybe the whole bay fired! One tremendous blast of gamma lasers. It’s not as bad as it sounds — I hope.”

We’ve had it! The implications hit him. We’re all there was. Aw, shit.

“Kasanovsky, get moving. I want to know what’s happened to our steam jets.”

Another suited figure left the bridge.

My turn soon. Harry played with his own TV screens, switching to internal cameras. Nothing here. Go around the ship. Assume we lost the ventral spurt bomb bay. Move from there. Ha!

Something had kicked an enormous dent in Michael’s port side. Forward of that, the port pipe room was swirling gray chaos.

“Ham Gamble here. I see it. Look for yourself, channel Alfa six.”

Harry switched his TV monitor. There.

The screen lit to show the sky. Digit ships were blurred green spotlights; the stars didn’t show at all. The camera swung down. Spurt Bomb Bay 1 was gone. Only its melted-looking base still stood up from the Shell. The much larger tower that was Thrust Bomb Bay 1 had a chewed look. As Gamble swiveled the camera, their view ran along the flank of the Brick. Meteor holes pocked it. The base was ripped. A stream of fog jetted away.

Max Rohrs spoke quietly, a litany of disasters. “Port water tank gone. I’ve got the port fission pile scrammed. We’ve got no water for it anyway. The whole portside attitude jet system is dead.”

“Slow response to starboard control system,” Gillespie said.

“Nothing from the Stovepipes or the Shuttle. I think they’ve had it.”

“Overheat, starboard amidships.”

“We’re still taking hits,” Gillespie said. “Max, if you can get a wiggle on—”

“Situation assessment coming up,” Rohrs said. His calmness was a rebuke.

“Okay, I have the picture,” Pelz said. “It could have been worse. Most of the energy must have gone forward. Better figure we killed all of the ships we deployed, and the two snout ships that aren’t firing lasers anymore. We got some spillover energy to the side.”

“Anything coming apart? If we shake and rattle, do we break anything?”

“Not by me,” Rohrs said.

“Stand by. I’ll try to stabilize. Jason, get ready! Kill something! Acceleration and rotation, stand by!”

“Wait one. Bombs away — she’s yours.”

WHAM

WHAM

WHAM

quiet

“It sure sounds good in theory,” Tiny Pelz said.

“What does?” Franklin demanded.

“Firing bombs off center to compensate for rotation. Sure sounds good in theory.”

The screens showed they were still rotating, but more slowly. Michael was the center of a ring of dazzling green lights… receding aft.

“We’re through, or close enough,” Jason said. “Their missiles can’t hit us, we can’t hit them, but this is the closest approach to those damn lasers. The steam we’re losing — the cooling effect may be all that’s saving us.”

“If we don’t get attitude control, we’ve got a big bloody pinwheel! Acceleration. Stand by. Jason.”

“Bombs away. Locked on. She’s yours.”

WHAM

“Try again. Jason…”

“Roger.”

WHAM

“Shuttles Three and Four. We may not make it. We have to hit this mother with something. You’re on. Stand by.”

“Roger.”

“Max, get me some attitude jets!” Harry already had his faceplate closed.

Max Rohrs used a light pen to trace lines on the screen. “There’s plenty of pressure in the starboard system, and we have working attitude jets starboard, ventral, and here and here dorsal.” The pen flicked across a stylized view of Michael. “The port jets look okay in TV pix, but they won’t hold pressure. The electronics aren’t much good either.” No wonder! Half the portside pipes are gone!

“What we’ve got to do is isolate the working chunk of the portside system, then shunt steam in there from the starboard generators. We don’t have electronic control of those valves — or if we do, we don’t have any feedback on what they’ve done, which is just as bad. What we have to do is start at the breaks and move toward the jets, patching as we go.”

Harry laughed. His screen showed a three-foot pipe with a six foot section missing. Beyond it was a hole in the hull, a neat oval with a rim that bulged outward. Stars showed through.

Rohrs pointed at Harry’s display. “The merely difficult we do immediately. The impossible we leave for dry dock. You’re supposed to use judgment, but get the damn lines fixed! Patch anything you can patch, and use the manual valves to shut off everything else.

“Lambe, Donaldson, go through the starboard system and check it out. Get things set up to shunt steam across to the port system, and stand by. We’ll need pressure to test.

“Reddington, Franklin,”

Here it comes.

“Start with the big hole in the port system and work your way up to the jets. Your goal is to make the port jets work with starboard steam. Got that, Harry?”

“Righto.” All this so I could wear a pressure suit? “Move.”

ChunkChunk. Roy Culzer, in Shuttle Four, named Atlantis in a more peaceful era, felt the prongs unlock at the nose. The main tank was moored to Michael by the same matings that in gentler times would have gripped solid fuel boosters. Now only the aft matings were still attached, and Atlantis’s nose pointed beyond the overhang of Michael’s roof.

Jay Hadley had the motors going. Blue flame played down the flank of the Brick. The aft prongs released, and Atlantis was free.

The sky was a hot green.

“Turning. Stand by.” The Shuttle turned as it pulled away. Earth and Michael were behind, the violet-white flame of the prime target ahead. Four, five green spotlights sank below window view. “Okay,” Jay Hadley said, “now they’re only heating the main tank. We’ll burn that fuel before the tank blows up.”

For nearly eight hours Michael had been in direct sunlight. The pressure in the main tanks was already too high, and rising. Have to live with it.

Shuttle Three, Challenger, was already lost to sight. Roy caught sight of a gunship’s yellower flame just before it disappeared into a missile explosion.

“Maneuvering. Stand by.”

Roy’s sense of balance protested as Jay turned the Shuttle. “What have we got?”

“Missiles. We’ve got five miles per second on those snout ships. The missiles only get one pass. They can’t hit us if we keep veering.”

“You hope.”

“Semper fi, mac. Let me know when you think you have a shot at something.”

“Yeah, sure.” The missiles were in the main compartment, and the big bay doors weren’t open.

The ring of green lights dropped away aft. “Go, baby, go,” Roy prayed. Talking to the ship. Why not? What else can I do? “Maybe we should open the bay.”

“No point.” The dreadful green lights were fading. “Our missiles can’t reach them either. Save ’em for Mommy Dearest. How long before we’re in range?”

“Maybe an hour, if we don’t get hurt, and they don’t get more acceleration.” Roy poked numbers into Atlantis’s computer. “Looks to me like they’re pouring on all they have.”

“So are we. Roy—”

“Yeah?”

“General Gillespie said Michael might not make it.”

“Yeah. I heard.”

“That leaves it up to us.”

“Well, there’s Challenger.”

“Heard from Big Jim lately?”

“No.” Big Jim Farr. Six four, only he managed to lose two inches in the official records. Laurie Culzer and Jane Farr and five kids were sharing a house in Port Angeles. “Think he’s had it, Joe?”

“I think we act like he’s out.”

“Which leaves us.”

“Which leaves us. Maneuvering. Stand by.”

The whole portside structure was hot.

“X-rays,” Tiny Pelz said. “What they don’t go through, they heat up. Efficient at it.”

Harry trailed air lines behind. The tanks in his backpack held an hour of air, but without cooling he wouldn’t live an hour. It was already uncomfortable. His trailing air lines were picking up heat.

Sweat pooled. When he jumped it ran down his face, his arms, his legs; when he was still it couldn’t run.

“I’ve closed seventeen-tango,” Harry reported. “Moving forward. I don’t see any breaks in this section.”

“Stand by. I’ll send over steam for a test.”

“Roger.” Harry put his helmet next to Jeff Franklin’s and turned off the intercom. “All we need. More heat.”

“Sure hope it holds — naw. Look.”

A thin plume poured out ahead: live steam, absolutely clear up to two feet from the break. “Kill the shunt,” Harry said. “We’re losing pressure—”

“Belay that,” Gillespie said. “Reddington, you’re a wonder. I’m getting some control.”

“You’re also losing steam.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Sure, if you take the pressure off!”

“Give me ten minutes.”

“Harry,” Rohrs said.

“Yeah, I knew he didn’t mean it.”

“Harry, scout ahead. What’s it like on forward?”

“Hot!”

“Sure be useful to know—”

“Max, has anybody ever suggested you change deodorants? I’m moving forward.”

It wasn’t easy getting past the plume of leaking steam. Harry took it fast, then waited for Jeff.

The ship surged, then surged again. Gillespie sounded excited, “Goddam! We’re turning. Head for Big Mama. Coming around. Almost there… Jason?”

“Ready!”

“Acceleration. Stand by.” Harry grabbed for a ladder.

WHAM

WHAM

Harry slapped on a patch and braced against the bulkhead while Jeff Franklin ran the torch. Metal glowed where Franklin worked. He was almost done.

“Maneuvering. Stand by.”

“Shit, give us a minute!” Harry shouted.

“Stand by.”

Steam leaked from the side that Franklin hadn’t finished. Michael turned. Harry’s head swam.

“Maneuver done. Acceleration. Stand by. Jason.”

“Locked on and tracking. Take that, Mommy Dearest.”

“Acceleration.”

WHAM

WHAM

“Maneuvering.”

“How do you get a transfer out of this chicken-shit outfit?” Harry demanded.

“Well, you have to fuck up.”

“Fuck up. That’s my problem. All this time I tried to fuck off.”

“Maneuvering. Acceleration. Stand by.”

“Target acquired.”

WHAM

The gauge on his wrist said 40.1. Shit fire, why couldn’t they give me a normal thermometer? “Jeff, what’s 40 degrees?”

“About 105° Fahrenheit.”

“No wonder I’m hot. That’s what my suit shows.”

“Harry.”

“Hmm?”

“That’s not your suit temperature. That’s you. Inside.”

“That thing they rammed up my ass? One-oh-five? Jeff …”

“It’s dangerous but not fatal. What we have to do is cool off.”

“Sure. Where?”

“Acceleration. Stand by.”

WHAM

“Incoming.”

“Missiles dead ahead.”

“Target acquired.”

“Acceleration. Stand by.”

WHAM

“This is Turret Five. We have a target. Permission to fire.”

“Let her fly.”

WHAM

“Maneuvering. Stand by.”

Steam poured out through the leak. Harry braced a pry bar against one bulkhead and wedged the other end against the patch plate. “Hammer.” He felt it in his right hand. He grabbed a handhold with his left, then pounded on the pry bar. “I got that one. Hit it with the welder. I’m going forward.”

The next compartment held a storage area for welding equipment, and cooling air outlets. Harry tested the air pressure. “Goddam, Jeff, cool air!”

“Be right with you.”

Harry gratefully found a corner to wedge himself into. Presently Jeff Franklin joined him. The ship continued to accelerate.

Franklin talked to the control room. “We need some time. We’re getting goofy with the heat.”

“Take ten minutes.”

“It’ll have to do.”

Had Franklin been acting goofy? Harry hadn’t noticed. But the cool felt wonderful, as if his skin were drinking a good brand of beer. The air jetted through his suit, and he waved his arms and legs to let it through.

There were no digit ships now. Atlantis’s screen showed only the prime target — unmistakably the Mother Ship now, short and wide, as in the last transmissions from Kosmograd, and riding a spear of violet-white light. The drive flame was swinging around.

“Trying to lose us,” Jay Hadley gloated.

The Shuttle’s thrust dropped suddenly. Roy started violently. “Relax,” Jay said. ChunkChunk: the empty main tank was free. Attitude jets popped, and Atlantis eased back until the Mother Ship was behind the main tank.

“They can’t get loose now. They can’t turn fast enough. We’re on intercept and in missile range. Let’s see what happens. Are you going to open the bay?”

“Not just yet. We’re too fragile with the bay open. You know damn well what they’ll do when we’re in range.”

“They’re doing it now. I saw missiles before I turned us.”

“Yeah?” Intercept. Roy couldn’t make himself feel surprised. He’s going to ram. He didn’t even ask me.

The Shuttle main tank was a green-edged black shadow, growing brighter. Big Mama had its own defenses. The main tank must be boiling. And suddenly the main tank’s black shadow vanished in half a dozen simultaneous flares. Missiles were homing on the explosions of other missiles. The Shuttle turned, and Roy felt the solid thumps of fragments impacting the tile shielding. There would be no reentry for Atlantis.

Jay reached down to move lever arms that protruded through the floor. These were new: they connected to petcocks in the lower level. Water that had been ice at takeoff was jetting from vents in the Shuttle’s nose. The cloud of debris ahead thickened with water vapor.

It might hide Atlantis… but there was no hiding Big Mama. Her drive flame must be visible across half the world. Jay was firing the EMU motors, the smaller jets that connected to the Shuttle’s onboard tank.

“Still on intercept?”

“Yeah.”

“Opening the bay. Let’s get closer before we loose the birds. If you did everything right—”

“They’ll think we’re dead.” Jay laughed.

The gauge showed Harry’s internal temperature at 39 degrees. I’ve gained some. Not enough.

“Incoming. Hang on.” Oh, shit. Michael shuddered.

“We took something, portside forward,” Gillespie said.

“Losing steam pressure.”

“She’s getting sluggish. Doesn’t want to maneuver.”

“Something’s wrong portside forward.”

“Harry!”

“Yeah, Max, I’m on the way. “Jeff, let’s do it.” Progress was slow. As they moved forward, the ship was hotter, and there was more damage. Handholds were missing. New holes punched through.

Some punch. Michael’s armor was in layers: steel armor, fiberglass matting, more steel armor, layer after layer of hard and nonresilient soft. Anything coming through that had been moving fast — and hadn’t melted.

Harry felt a tug. He looked behind. His air lines were stretched taut. “End of the line.”

“Max, we can’t get further,” Jeff Franklin reported.

“You have to. We’re losing pressure just forward of you.”

“Losing pressure.”

“Yeah, the most powerful spacecraft ever built by man is going to fail for lack of steam.”

“Okay,” Harry said. “I’ll go have a look.” He disconnected the line, and now he was on canned air.

Big Mama was close, close. The drive flame, the dark cylinder at its tip — the sudden green flare, the firefly lights of missiles pouring from four points along her flank. “Firing,” said Roy.

“I’ll wait.”

“Good. Missiles one through five away. Getting target acquisition for the next group. We’ve actually got a few minutes don’t we?”

“Say two minutes before the missiles get here …”

“Missiles six through ten, away.” The green light had dimmed. Big Mama’s lasers had found more interesting targets: Atlantis’s own missiles.

“-But we’re heating up. Oh, fuck it. We won’t be taking it long. How you doing?”

“Target acquired, missiles eleven through fifteen away; that’s all of them. Turn us! Now!”

Motors popped on. Atlantis turned, belly toward Big Mama. Roy opened the petcocks again. A cloud of water vapor might slow a missile or confuse its poor brain. Something slammed them against their seats. Again. “Reentry is going to be a problem,” Jay said, and laughed. “It isn’t atmosphere you’re—”

The Shuttle twisted: an explosion against one wing. Jay brought them back with attitude jets.

“-thinking of entering. I wish I had a view.”

Nothing showed beyond the window save stars and a hail of green. The reentry shield was boiling under Big Mama’s lasers. “Are we still on target? I’d hate to miss after all this.”

“Big Mama’s a big target,” Jay said. There didn’t seem to be a hell of a lot more to say.

The portside bow was chaos. Steam poured from broken pipe and streamed through the ripped hull.

“Shut the damn steam off!” Harry shouted.

“Maneuvering. Stand by. Harry, if we cut the steam on port side, I won’t be able to maneuver.”

“Incoming. Stand by.”

Michael shuddered again.

Max Rohrs was holding his calm, but it sounded like he was fighting to do it. “Steam pressure falling. We’ll try to shunt to secondary water sources.”

What good will that do if we can’t get the leak shut off. Harry studied the situation. The compartment ahead was filled with steam and wreckage. He could feel its heat radiating through his faceplate. If I move real fast, I can just — “Jeff, I’m going forward and close that valve. Nine-alfa for the record.”

Rohrs overrode Franklin’s answer. “Don’t, unless you can open nine-bravo. We need that steam path.”

Oh, holy shit! “Roger. Here I go.”

He dove forward. The handholds were hot through his gloves. The ship maneuvered, so that he wasn’t quite in free-fall, but there wasn’t real gravity either. Ragged metal ends reached out to scrape against the hard upper torso of his suit.

He reached the valve wheel. “Max?”

Nothing. “I don’t think he can hear you,” Jeff Franklin said. “Harry, do you need help?”

“Not enough room in here for two. Tell Max I’m opening nine-bravo now.”

The big valve wheel didn’t want to turn. There was nothing to brace his feet against, and the valve wouldn’t respond to onehanded operation. Got to move slow. Careful. Think it through. He placed his feet as carefully as an Alpiner on a granite wall. Finally he had both braced, his left foot wedged into a wide crack in one bulkhead.

“Turn, you mother! Got it! Now to close nine-alfa.”

He didn’t dare look at the temperature gauge on his wrist. The valve wheel was all the way forward. Beyond it was a smooth-edged hole four feet around. Stars shone through that.

Between him and the valve was a jet of steam.

“Jeff, make them stop acceleration for a moment. I have to jump.”

“Okay. Command, this is Franklin. Reddington needs things stable for a minute.”

Static in Harry’s intercom. Then Franklin. “You can have two minutes, exactly four minutes from now.”

“Roger.” If I can live four more minutes. He could hear each heartbeat as a base drum in his head. Slow down. Calm. Relax … Relaxation made the pounding sound worse.

There were flashes out there, outside. Shadows flickered through the hole in the hull.

Jeri. Melissa. They never found the bodies. Hell, here I come!

“Stand by, Harry. Ten seconds. Okay … now.”

Harry leaped across the gap. Steam played over him.

It was cooler on the other side. The black outside seemed to suck heat away. “Got the valve. Turning it. It’s turning — shit! Have to brace my feet.”

“Harry, can they maneuver now?”

He sensed urgency in Franklin’s voice. “All right.”

“I’ll relay warnings. Acceleration. Stand by.”

WHAM

Left foot here. Right foot. Okay. Grip. Turn. Turn. His left foot slipped. Sharp pain ran up his shin. A small plume of steam came out at the ankle. Steam? That hot in my suit? He tried to brace his foot again. The universe shrank to a sticking valve wheel. Behind him the steam plume was tiny, nearly as small as the plume from his suit.

“You got it, Harry, get the hell out of there!”

“Coming.” Turn, you bastard. Turn. His foot hurt like hell. Forward was the black of space, cool. If I wedge in that hole I can get leverage. He moved forward. One quick look outside.

The Mother Ship was far ahead, still too far for details; but the drive flame was a spear, not a dot. She had turned sideways. Trying to dodge. To dodge one of the Shuttles. Harry could see the familiar triangular silhouette limned against the flame, easing forward, past the flame…

Flame burst from near the center of the cylinder. They rammed, Harry thought, and they did it right. Big Mama’s drive flame veered, and suddenly there was a brighter streak in the violet-white. Yellow and orange, and the wavering flame was veering back into line, but down the violet-white spear ran a stream of bonfire-colored flame.

“Jeff—”

“Yeah? Harry, get out of there!”

“In a minute. Jeff, tell the boss. Shuttle Four. Atlantis. They rammed. They hurt that mother, they hurt her. I can see it did something to the drive. They hurt her—”

“Harry, are you all right? Get out of there!”

“Yeah, they rammed! They damaged her! They damaged the drive! Now we’ll catch her. Something inside the drive is boiling away, you can see it in the flame. And the impact point, it’s a pit, and I bet I can see — four layers deep. Big Mama must be built like a Heinlein Universe ship, for spin, you know? Layers wrapped around a free-fall axis. We hurt her.”

“Yeah—”

“Tell Gillespie, damn it!”

“You tell him! Come on, Harry!”

Harry shined his light down. The small jet from his left ankle was pink. The gauges showed that he had five minutes of air. It was cool out here, most of him outside the hull. His legs were inside. It was hot in there. Go back in there?

Five minutes. It takes three or four to get through there. And it’s hot …

“Maneuvering. Acceleration. Stand by.”

WHAM

In there? With acceleration?

“Incoming. Harry, move!”

“Can’t move, Jeff. Anyway, I’m leaking.”

“Harry! I’ll come get you—”

“Bullshit! Get your goddam hero medal rescuing somebody else.”

“Harry—”

“Incoming. Missiles.”

“Harry — oh, shit! Maneuvering. Stand by.”

“More missiles coming. I think they’ll hit,” Harry said. “Tell Gillespie. We hurt them. Tell him.”

44. IMPACT

Sometimes Jeri Wilson thought she heard — or felt — shocks, but mostly there was the steadily increasing acceleration that had topped out at around one Earth gravity. No one — or no fi’ — had been interested in the storeroom. She’d lost all track of time.

“Arvid, we can’t just sit here doing nothing!”

“What would you have us do?”

Jeri glared at him. “You’re the damned expert! But we ought to be doing something.”

Dmitri spoke sharply in Russian.

“Our commander says you should make less noise,” Arvid said.

“That’s another thing. Why is he in charge? You’re smarter than he is. You know spaceships. He doesn’t.”

She felt Arvid’s hand on her shoulder. His fingers gripped tightly. “You wanted to come with us.”

And you’ll send me away? But he wasn’t threatening. Worse than threats. Reminds me of promises. “We could — we could open air shafts. Find a way to vacuum. Threaten the women and children.”

“You are bloodthirsty,” Arvid said.

“No. I hate it. This isn’t my game at all. But we have to do something! We wouldn’t have to kill them, just show we could. Between that attacking ship and whatever we can do, maybe they’ll surrender.”

Dmitri spoke in Russian.

“Tell her yourself,” Arvid said.

“It won’t work,” Dmitri said.

“Why?”

“We cannot threaten all of the women and children,” Dmitri said. “Without atomic weapons we cannot threaten all those aboard this ship. Thus, why would they surrender?”

“But—”

“We would not surrender,” Dmitri said. “Not even Comrade Rogachev. So why should the Invaders?” Jeri huddled in the corner.

“We wait,” Dmitri said. “We will have one chance. We must not throw that away.”

“What if it never comes?” she asked listlessly.

The ship rang like a great brass bell. The wall slammed against them.

Thuktun Flishithy shuddered with the impact.

Alice picked herself off the duct floor. Her whole body was bruised. There were spots before her eyes. A whistling shriek echoed through the ducts. The gravity fell to near zero, then began to build again.

What the hell was that?

The scream was dying, or else she was going deaf. She moved to the nearest grill.

A horror was out there. An armed snout, floating in the hall, turning. Stunned. Alice didn’t stop to think. She twisted the wing nuts loose and wriggled through. The horror still hadn’t made a move to anchor himself. Alice kicked toward him.

The tiny impact of a human body didn’t wake him.

She pulled the gun from its holster. The stock was short and very wide. Trigger in the middle… safety? Did it have to be cocked?

Tentacles wrapped around her and pulled.

Alice shrieked and pushed the barrel against flesh and pulled the trigger.

The gun went whipping down the hall. The snout moved the other way, turning slowly, spraying a cloud of dark red blood. Alice leapt after the gun. Damn thing would have killed me if I’d had it against my shoulder! Brace it against a wall or something next time. Have to fire with my left hand, too. Her right arm flopped limp. It was just starting to hurt.

She didn’t notice the slanting duct until the second snout came out. The snout emerged like a bomb, caught itself — herself: the harness was a female’s — against the wall. She saw the spinning gun coming at her, and Alice behind.

Alice couldn’t even flee. The walls weren’t in reach yet. Paykurtank caught the gun, tossed it behind her, and reached forward in plenty of time to catch Alice. The constricting tentacles sent new agony through her arm and hand. Alice screamed and fainted.

The impact had knocked Jeri dizzy. It wasn’t just dizziness. She was almost floating. Jeri clutched wildly and found a handful of wall rug. Air was escaping somewhere: Thuktun Flishithy screame like a dying dinosaur.

Arvid had already anchored himself. He gripped Jeri’s hand. Nikolai shouted something in Russian. Dmitri answered. “The Americans are coming!” Jeri said.

“I agree,” Dmitri said. “Something has damaged this ship. It can only be the American ship that Comrade Rogachev was permitted to see.” Nikolai spoke rapidly again.

“He is right!” Arvid said. “Dmitri, he is correct.”

“Da.”

“Correct about what?” Jeri demanded.

“The ship’s drive has been damaged,” Arvid said. “You can feel it. The gravity is much lower now, it fell, then builded, but it has not come back to its original strength.

“Let us suppose the drive damaged, and the Americans in pursuit. The Invaders will wish to repair their drive.”

“Rogachev!” Dmitri brandished his captured pistol and shouted what must have been orders.

“Da, tovarishch. Jeri, we must prevent those repairs. Nikolai will lead us to the engine room control center. We will attempt to destroy that.” Rogachev took out his own pistol and inspected it. Satisfied, he thrust it into his belt.

Nikolai was already in the air duct. Dmitri waved frantically. Arvid moved to the shaft.

“Jeri, you will follow me,” Arvid said. “Let us go.”

Right. Jeri Wilson, famous Amazon, all hundred and twenty pounds of her. The Russians had pressure suits. She did not. Maybe I ought to think this over?

Fithp soldiers reeled across the bridge. Wes Dawson flailed to save himself, and wound up clutching a fi’s harness.

The fi’ responded by wrapping digits around him. The grip constricted. The fi’ said, “You saw the weapon. Was it an automatic device?”

Wes had seen it on half the screens and through the window too, in that last minute before impact. “My fithp have come knocking,” he said.

“I am Defensemaster Tantarent-fid and I assert my right to know! Are your automatics so agile? It escaped our guns!”

Dawson grinned into eyes the size of oranges. “It was an ordinary Space Shuttle. Men! We’ve rammed you.”

“Man, they died! Are you all rogues?”

“Why ask me? Ask your Breaker.”

The fi’ hurled him away. He picked himself up and moved toward a wall, reeling in the dwindling gravity, seeking a handhold. No warning this time! We actually did them some damage!

The hive was broken and the bees were in turmoil.

One warrior had rolled shrieking across the room, denting a monitor console with his body, damaging himself more. He was getting medical attention. The other had Dawson back in restraint.

“Herdmaster, I have our thrust up to five eighths gravity, but a 512-breath of this will ruin the drive. We must make repairs.”

“We have no more time than that?”

Tantarent-fid spoke into his microphone and listened to replies. “Herdmaster, I can guarantee no more time.”

After crossing from the Homeworld it has come to this. The alien vessel was aimed directly at them. It flared continuously, and with each flare gamma-ray lasers shone through hull and walls and flesh and bone. Tiny spacecraft had spread from the enemy, and now they hurled missiles to trample him. Tinier missiles leaped from Message Bearer to intercept. That ship comes closer.

“Dawson! Will they trample us as the Shuttle did?”

“Herdmaster, my people will do what they can to make you extinct. This is the cost of the Foot.”

That is no surprise. He would say that in any case, for strength in negotiation. “Defensemaster.”

“Lead me.”

“Maintain maximum thrust.”

For a moment Tantarent-fid hesitated. “As you will.”

“Takpusseh-yamp.”

“Lead me.”

“You will assist. We must send messages to…” he struggled with the alien name, “to the United States. Dawson will assist.”

Humans in Africa had given them six possible loci for 1 surviving government of that fithp. They would all be the target of tightbeams. Now I must know what to say.

The Herdmaster changed channels. He could have leaned out the corridor and spoken to Takpusseh-yamp, but he didn’t want Dawson to hear. The rogue human’s thoughts had begun to matter.

“Breaker-Two, do you now have a… what you called—”

“I have prepared two versions of a negotiated loss of status Herdmaster, though I’m sorry to hear you ask. Here, channel 4.”

The Herdmaster read. I must. That thing will catch us. We might destroy it when it comes near, but it will send fire and gamma rays regardless. Our mates and our children are at ransom here and what Breaker-Two suggests is acceptable. The dissidents should be joyful. “Maintain this channel.” He motioned to the warn who led the human forward.

“Wes Dawson, I wish to negotiate a loss of status.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Takpusseh-yamp?”

“The Herdmaster wishes to offer conditional surrender.”

The air went out of Dawson. In full thrust he might have collapsed. He said, “Speak more.”

“You shall have Winterhome — Earth. We shall have the solar system.”

“Why do you offer this now?”

“You see the screens. Your ship approaches. It can harm us. I would avoid that harm — but, Dawson, your fithp have no other ship, for if they had, they would have sent it. That ship can’t destroy us. It can only harm us, kill females and children. I want to avoid that.”

“I wish to think of this.”

Dawson’s eyes strayed to the screens. Message Bearer had been ripped; the edges of the hole still glowed red and orange. Sun-hot plasma must have roared down the corridors. Against the dark back of Winterhome, a light pulsed. Smaller flames came near, and flared green.

The ship rang to the tune of another explosion. Missiles exploding against the hull made a muffled thump you could hardly hear. But when a missile went off in the scar the Shuttle had left, it was different. Vibrations came from everywhere, with a sound like — that of a smashed banjo.

“Dawson, you act now or not at all.”

“I won’t send your message.”

A communications console buzzed. Pastempeh-keph gestured to the Breaker to answer. Not now! “Dawson, this is what you offered Fathisteh-tulk! We will depart Africa, all of the Traveler Fithp and the humans who wish to join us. We will follow the paths we both know, reaping the riches of space, trading your soil grown products for metals and—”

Dawson dare to interrupt. “Fathisteh-tulk knew me. I see that now. I want the solar system. If I’m crazy, that’s partly your doing.”

“You are mad indeed. When we have destroyed the intruder, we will visit Winterhome with destruction. That ship was built under the sign of peace. Never again will we honor that. We will trample every place, large or small, that ever displayed that sign.”

Dawson said nothing.

As I thought.

Takpusseh-yamp was finished with his call. He looked smug. It is his thuktun. He deserves one last play. “Breaker-Two. Speak to this rogue.”

Takpusseh-yamp turned. “Dawson! We have captured your mate. Paykurtank, the priest’s acolyte, found her after she left an air duct.”

“My mate is on earth,” Dawson said.

“Untrue. We know she is your mate because we watched you mating in the ducts.”

Dawson flushed. “So? We watched you mating in your rooms.”

“We do not speak to amuse ourselves, Dawson! You pretend to be a rogue, but you have a mate. A fi’s mate is clearly responsible for him! Your pretense is done.”

“Hell. If we’d known… wait a minute. You captured Alice?”

The Herdmaster was in a towering fury. “I would kill you this instant, Dawson, did you not represent your fithp in council. Will you transmit our terms and let your … Breaker-Two?”

“Your President. Dawson, your President surely has the rig to hear such an offer.”

Dawson said nothing.

I have him!

“You have a point,” Dawson said. “But … you had to capture Alice? She was loose! They’re all loose, aren’t they? Where?”

“We will leave your world to heal,” the Herdmaster pressed. He had not really believed this would work. Negotiated loss status, indeed! “There will be none of us on Earth, but there will be humans among our fithp. Surely your flthp and ours can survive alongside one another,” he said, not believing a word of it. “Humans will travel as passengers in our ships. From us you will eventually learn to build your own.” But the losing fithp become part of the winner’s. It had never been different.

Dawson’s objection fell very wide of tradition. “Let you leave, huh? And go to Saturn, and repair your ship? And what then?”

“Then… I don’t understand. Breaker-Two?” Takpusseh-yamp said, “We fail to taste your problem.” “What’s to stop you from coming back with another Foot?” “Our surrender, you brain-damaged rogue!”

“Are you telling me that a negotiated…” Dawson fell silent.

Now what stops him? Ah. The red-haired female had reached the bridge. The frail human was nested in Paykurtank’s digits. She’d been hurt; she was hugging her right foreleg. She writhed at the sight of her mate.

“Wes! The Russians are loose. I killed a snout!”

“Good! Alice, we’re hurting them, we really are. The Herdmaster wants me to transmit a conditional surrender. Trouble is we can’t trust it.”

Alice looked from Dawson to the array of screens.

A female. We know too little. Will she be able to hold him calm? What counsel will she give? Was it an error to bring her here?

The Herdmaster listened as Dawson explained to Alice. Her alien face was unreadable, but the Herdmaster could guess at the bloodthirsty joy as she watched the sparkling intruder come near. When Dawson finished speaking, she said, “They’ll come back.”

“Yeah. Herdmaster, Takpusseh, have you been trying to tell me that a ‘negotiated loss of status’ is the same as a surrender?”

The Herdmaster couldn’t speak. Takpusseh-yamp said, “We give our surrender forever. You know us that well.”

“I have not been offered a surrender,” Dawson said.

“What is it you want?” But the Herdmaster knew, and he was trumpeting in agony now. “Wish you my chest under your foot? You shall not have that!”

And every fi’ in earshot was staring at him. “Fight your ship!” he trumpeted. “This battle is not concluded! We waste time. Kill that enemy. Signal the moon base. Trample that planet until its leaders roll on their backs. Dawson, we do not kill without reason. You have given us reason enough!”

“Hey, wait—”

“If we wait, that ship will harm us. When it is close enough, we kill it. Then there will be nothing to discuss. Speak to your President, or return to your cell.”

“Your offer isn’t good enough!”

“I have made my last offer. Choose.”

If man and fi’ had anything in common, then Dawson was in agony. The muscles of his face looked like digits in knots. His teeth were bared; they ground together.

The female ruined it. “Wes! Look!”

“My God!”

“Your—” Predecessor? But Dawson and Alice were gaping past the Herdmaster’s shoulder. The Herdmaster turned. Four screens showed four views of the engine room. The floor was awash in blood. The air itself was pink with spray. Nine corpses lay chewed as if by predators: eight fithp warriors and the legless Soviet in his curious legless suit. The remaining three humans were tearing the place apart.

Wes was in agony.

It was Coffey’s department — Coffey’s thuktun, and the Stud Bull had him dead to rights there. But Coffey would take the offer. Coffey would give away the solar system!

Or Dawson was about to give away the Earth. Could that weird device smash Message Bearer? Or was it only coming close enough to die? Would the fithp honor a conditional surrender? We taught them conditional surrender. Have we also taught them to break their parole?

“Wes, look!”

Not now, dammit died in his throat.

He’d never seen this room before, but it had that look. Machinery took its orders from here. Screens, dials, keyboards with keys the size of a child’s fist; and flthp corpses, and blood, amazingly red, hemoglobin for sure, like some madman had bombed a Red Cross blood bank. Nikolai was dead, suit and man shredded by the huge fithp bullets.

Arvid was in a pressure suit. His faceplate was open, showing a Cossack’s grin that would have frightened children. He had braced a fithp rifle against a console and was firing bullets into randi controls.

Dmitri wandered about, examining the paraphernalia that made the ship go, shying minimally when Arvid blasted something, as if Arvid were a child at play, and Dmitri, the adult, were trying to learn something. He stopped, examined a console; pried the cover off with a piece of steel bar. He began tearing at wiring.

Arvid’s rifle ran empty. Arvid grimaced, then smiled toothily into the camera.

Jeri Wilson studied the scene judiciously. Wes wondered if she was in shock. She climbed onto a console to bring her face close to a camera. She shouted soundlessly.

“Put the sound on,” the Defensemaster commanded.

“Negative,” said the Herdmaster. “Dawson, your response?”

What was the Herdmaster afraid of hearing?… Afraid that Dawson might hear? It didn’t matter. Wes grinned at the fi’. “They were in the ducts, weren’t they? And they’ll be there again, wandering through your air supply. There’s a great gaping hole in Thuktun Flishithy, isn’t there? Maybe they can open more locks. Random death in the life support system!”

The ship hummed like a smashed banjo, twice in quick succesion.

The Herdmaster said, “Dawson. We will leave Africa, we will leave your Earth. You will have your solar system. We will go another star.”

“You can’t.”

“With time and your aid, of course we can. We will repair Message Bearer and build a new siskyissputh. You will assist. When we depart your system, you will have your own.”

“That word …?”

“The siskyissputh is the device we used to cross from Homeworld to Saturn. It takes energy from the main drive and uses that energy to push against interstellar matter. The siskyissputh is the door, not to your own planets, but to the worlds of other stars. Dawson, why did you think we discarded it?”

Dawson, staring, got his lips working. “Too massive. You could not have reached Saturn.”

“No. Dawson, we came knowing that you might be more powerful than the Traveler Fithp. We came to conquer or to surrender. If we came to surrender, we had the siskyissputh to offer our new fithp. We let the siskyissputh hurl itself at the stars so that you cannot examine it.”

“I had it wrong. That never, never crossed my mind. But you have tapes of thuktunthp—”

“We have the Podo Thuktun itself, rogue! That is the siskyissputh, and the Podo Thuktun’s supports are explosive. But if we are to leave your star, we must have another siskyissputh, and you must build it with us. When we leave, you will know how to make another. Dawson, I know that you want more than the planets. Take our negotiated loss of status or you will never leave your star.”

“Wes, he’s crazy! We’ll have it in ten years! Wes, once we know something is possible — like the atomic bomb, as soon as they knew it was possible, everyone started working on how to build one.”

The screens flickered. Dmitri jerked backward. One foot was missing. There were holes in the walls. The humans moved to one corner. Jeri Wilson continued to shout soundlessly at the cameras.

Irrelevant. We’re all irrelevant. The Herdmaster said, “The Predecessors developed the siskyissputh. It took more than eight-cubed years. Dawson, humans are a herd under siege by their own rogues! You will not survive sixty-four years! And we might yet win this battle.”

Alice was strangling his arm. “Wes, it’s the same thing all over again! They’ll come back!”

I wanted to be President! Why? “Alice, if they win — can they win?”

Her grip slowly relaxed. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t either.” I can’t decide this. “Give me your microphone. I’ll speak to the President.”

45. TERMS OF SURRENDER

The screens had not changed for more than an hour.

General Toland set down his coffee cup. “How many snouts does it take to change a light bulb?”

The President wrinkled his brow in puzzlement. “None. They’ve invented torches.”

“No—”

“I have something,” Jenny said.

“Gimlet, this is Michael.”

They’re alive!

Down below all the crews were cheering.

“Michael, this is Gimlet. No new orders. Report if you can.”

“Gimlet, this is Michael. Reporting. We have inflicted heavy damage on the invader mother ship. We have taken severe damage. We have fifty percent casualties. They are definitely running away. We continue in pursuit. Stand by for digital data.”

A picture emerged on the screen below: Michael with his whole portside kicked in. One spurt bomb rack had vanished, and the portside propulsion tower was dented and holed.

“Holy shit,” General Toland muttered. No wonder Ed sounds tired.

More data. A blurred image of the enemy ship. It looked scarred. “Estimate one hour to interception,” Gillespie said. “Jenny, is that you?”

“Michael, this is Gimlet, Colonel Crichton here.”

“Jenny, tell Linda I love her.”

Jenny looked quickly to the screens below. They flowed and changed as Michael’s computer dumped in data. They don’t have enough bombs left to kill their velocity. They can’t come home unless they win.

“Admiral, is there anything I ought to say?” President Coffey asked.

“You’re the politician, Mr. President.”

“Meaning that it’s more important to me than to General Gillespie. Colonel, tell him — dammit. Cut me in.”

“Sir. Michael, stand by for Executive One.”

“General, this is David Coffey. I’ll give your message to your wife. Anything else?”

“For the record: posthumous awards for civilians. I recommend the Medal of Freedom. Dr. Arthur Grace Pelz. Mr. Samuel Cohen. Mr. Harry Reddington. Military personnel — Excuse me. I’ll switch on automatic digital reporting. Mr. President, it’s getting a bit thick—”

“Godspeed, General.”

“Michael out.”

The screens below shifted: a composite picture of Michael, dented and torn. Bombs exploded aft as the big ship accelerated.

Another screen showed a tiny Earth surrounded by colored dots with arrows protruding. Velocity vectors. The Navy would need to learn a whole new way of reading maps if this kind of thing ever became common. The alien invader was a large red spear; Michael, in blue, pursued relentlessly; both vectors pointed away from Earth. Michael’s vector was longer. The dots would be touching within the hour.

Digit ships were orange dots. They swarmed close around the Earth. A few were farther out and tens of thousands of miles away, their orange arrows pointing toward the battle.

Admiral Carrell studied the screen. “The digit ships are no threat. It’ll be all over by the time they get there.”

“Is he going to ram?” General Toland asked.

“He can’t come home,” Admiral Carrell said carefully. “Under the circumstances, what would you do?”

“Damn straight,” Toland said. “Can he do it?”

Carrell shrugged. “General, I expect the engineering people will be working on that question. It would be interesting to know what they think.”

“Sir.” Jenny touched more buttons. Jenny Crichton knew: that was Ed Gillespie, her sister’s husband, with no more than two hours to live and nothing anyone could do about it. Colonel Jennifer Crichton called the engineers.

“Dreamer Fithp here.”

“Engineering.”

“They’re all busy,” Reynolds’ voice said. “So they have me answering the phone.”

“Your projection?”

“I’ll give you Colonel Matthews. Al, they want a projection.”

“Matthews here. We don’t have a projection.”

Admiral Carrell broke in. “Colonel, would you care to explain that?”

“Sir. Given the damage Michael has sustained, and the defense capabilities demonstrated by the enemy, a majority of my analysts believe the most likely event is mutual destruction of Michael and the enemy mother ship. We can’t assign a probability to that. A large minority of our people believe the enemy will be severely damaged but Michael will be destroyed.

“The Threat Team is nearly unanimous: the enemy will do almost anything to prevent severe damage to the mother ship.”

“What does that mean, almost anything?” Carrell demanded.

“Certainly an offer of surrender.”

“Sincere?”

“Sir?”

“My apologies. You can’t know.”

“They’ll also go all out to protect the mother ship. Their warriors aren’t likely to be less courageous than ours. They’ll throw everything they have.”

“No surprise there,” General Toland said.

“Thank you, Colonel. I’ll ask you to use screen five to display your projections.”

“Yes, sir.”

On the screen below, Michael’s blue crept toward the enemy red.

“Sir. We’re getting something.”

“Gimlet, this is Harpoon. We’re getting a tightbeam message on the same frequency the aliens used when they sent that message to the President. It’s for the President.”

“They want to talk!” General Toland said.

“Put them on!” David Coffey ordered.

“Alert the Threat Team to listen to this,” Admiral Carrell said.

“Harpoon, put them on. Stand by to transmit replies.”

“Roger. Stand by.”

“Mr. President, Mr. President. This is Wes Dawson. Come in, Mr. President. President Coffey, this Wes Dawson.”

“Am I on?” Coffey demanded.

“Yes, sir.”

President Coffey spoke into the microphone. “Congressman Dawson, this is President David Coffey. Can you hear me?”

“Mr. President, this is Dawson. I hear you. I have an offer of conditional surrender from the Herdmaster.”

Jenny knew his voice. It was Wes, and he was all right. She could see Carlotta Dawson down on the floor below. Carlotta was grinning like an idiot.

“Surrender,” Toland muttered. “We must have hurt them.”

Admiral Carrell waved impatiently.

The President said, “What terms?”

Wes Dawson’s laugh sounded half mad. It could have been simply static. “That’s the stumbling point, all right. Here are the terms. We call off the attack. The enemy, the Traveler Herd, will vacate Earth immediately. They’ll vacate the solar system as soon as possible. What we’ll have to do to bring that about involves building them a—” Dawson stopped, then seemed to sputter. “A siskyissputh. They threw their own siskyissputh away while rounding the Sun, so that we couldn’t examine it. It’s a modified Bussard ramjet. Get a technical expert to explain that to you. It’s the key to the stars, and when we’ve built theirs we’ll know how to build one for ourselves.

“The Herdmaster has offered these terms, not the formal surrender of his herd. I am not to have my foot on any fi’s chest. This was made clear. Do you understand?”

“I understand. Have you a time period for the evacuation of Earth?”

“No. I’m not sure they can enforce it anyway. The fithp can split into smaller herds, and it’s possible the ones in Africa won’t leave…”

“Dawson! Dawson, come in, Dawson!”

“Africa can take care of itself,” General Toland said. “Hell, the snouts can’t fight with nobody to drop meteors for them. Let the Zulus have ’em.”

“No threat to us, agreed,” Admiral Carrell said. “Did they cut Dawson off?”

“Dawson here. They didn’t want me to say that. They should have let me finish. The ones in Africa won’t matter! They’ll be glad to call a truce. They don’t want Kansas. Mr. President, I cannot tell you what’s happening outside. Do you know?”

“Wes, we’re in communication with the Archangel. The commander is General Gillespie. They expect to destroy the enemy mother ship within two hours. Certainly we know what’s happening.”

“The Herdmaster wants me to repeat the offer. You call off — what did you call it? Archangel? Good name! You call off Ed Gillespie, and they’ll use the digit ships to rescue Michael and the smaller ships. Everyone who wants to leave Africa will get a chance. Any that stay won’t be a problem. They’ll tell us how to build an interstellar drive. Mr. President, they’re prepared to destroy all the plans for that drive. They’ve been planning this for years, since before they ever reached the solar system. They planned to surrender the interstellar drive if they couldn’t defeat us.”

“Should we take this offer?” the President asked.

“I’m sorry, President Coffey. I don’t know enough and it’s not my choice. They made a previous offer I decided not to transmit. Mr. President, they’ll give you — it’s about ten minutes. They say they’re mobilizing to fight Archangel, I don’t know what with. They say that once they start doing that they will have no reason to surrender.”

“Are they listening to me? Can they understand?”

“They’re listening. Some understand.”

“Tell them they will have to wait while I get advice.”

“They understand that, sir.”

“All right. Hang on …”

“They want you to have Archangel stop shooting while you decide. The reason they want to negotiate is to keep you from damaging Thuktun Flishithy, because it’s carrying all their females and childr—”

“Wes. Wes, what’s happened?”

A strange voice, cold, sibilant, spoke. “This is Teacher Takpusseh-yamp. Go seek your advice. We will listen.”

“Get Michael,” Admiral Carrell ordered.

“Can he tell us enough?” President Coffey wondered aloud.

“Whatever he knows, we’ll need to talk with him,” Carrell

“Michael, this is Gimlet. Michael, this is Gimlet.”

“Go ahead, Gimlet.”

Jenny motioned to Admiral Carrell.

“General, we’re pretty certain our codes are good, but you’ll excuse me if I use circumlocutions.”

“Understood.”

Mama wants to kiss and make up. We live in separate houses, only you have to stop projecting dinnerware at her right now. Great White Father needs a lawyer. You’re it.”

“Ah-Roger. Tell Big Daddy we don’t have lockjaw yet, but you never know.”

“Michael, have you enough dinnerware?”

“We are running short of dinnerware. The family car needs repair too. Can win the case, but cannot stop to discuss alimony.”

“Thank you, Michael. Carry on. Gimlet out.” Admiral Carrell nodded, speaking mostly to himself. “As I thought. If he stops now, they’ll outrun him. Michael fights on while we decide this.”

“Send for Hap Aylesworth, and get me the Threat Team,” the President said.

Nat had been waiting for the phone to ring. “Dreamer Fithp, Nat Reynolds here. We’ve been listening.”

“Mr. Reynolds, your opinion: what do we do about this offer? Accept or let Archangel go for the throat? Bearing in mind that Archangel might not make it.”

The others were crowded close around him, with Harpanet’s huge head protruding between sets of shoulders. They all looked like they were ready to jump down his throat.

Nat said, “Give us five minutes.”

“Take four.”

Nat hung up. “I’ll take a poll. Keep it short. Sherry?”

“They’ll honor a surrender. Take the offer.”

“Bob?”

Bob Burnham shook his massive white head. “It’s not a physics problem. Oh, if we let them go, they can go straight for the Moon; then they own us. But whether they’ll do it … Nat, you never liked my aliens.”

“Right. Curtis?”

“Nuke ’em till they glow, then shoot ’em in the dark. Sherry you can—”

“Cool it! Joe?”

Joe Ransom hesitated, spoke in a rush. “I abstain. It’s too even I wish Bob Anson were here.”

“We all do. So we don’t know. Discussion. One minute each. Sherry?”

“It’s not complicated. When they surrender, they stay surrendered.”

“Yeah, but — okay. Wade?”

“No. They’ll go back to Saturn, repair their ship, and come back with a fucking moon. We win now or we never do. As for surrender, bullshit, Sherry. The surrender a fi’ honors is a foot on the chest and join the herd as a slave. They haven’t offered surrender.”

“Joe?”

“By damn, they haven’t, have they? But they’ve been giving conditional surrender in Africa. They understand the concept.”

“Sure,” said Curtis. “Charnel House Books understands contracts too, but they don’t honor them! Sherry, if they don’t offer a foot on the chest you can’t argue that their reflexes are involved.”

“I haven’t heard you commit yourself, Nat.”

“Right. Harpanet? This is a peculiar case. You joined the Dreamer Fithp before you ever heard of a conditional surrender.”

“Not so. I know of such a case in our history.”

“Say on, but keep it short.”

The fi’ said, “There was a war. Others had been fought with nuclear weapons, and so was this. The South Land Mass Fithp evolved a disease that would feed on the edible grasses of the East Land Mass. They demonstrated this for the East Land Mass Fithp and learned that they had evolved something similar …”

“We don’t have time, Harpanet!”

“Lead me. The planet was harmed. More harm would come. Maybe all fithp would follow the Predecessors into death. The Herdmasters met and agreed to use the knowledge in the Sky Thuktun to build a spacecraft. The high ranks of one flthp would travel to the nearest star, which was known to house intelligence. When Thuktun Flishithy was prepared, the two fithp would gamble for who must leave.”

“Was the agreement honored?”

“It was. We are here.”

“Do you know of any other such event?”

“Ffuff. Within a flthp, such adjustments are common. Between fithp, very rare.”

“Okay.” Reynolds raised the phone. “Mr. President?”

They barely heard the knock through the thick soundproof door. Jack Clybourne opened it. Hap Aylesworth, fat, bearded, his hair a mess, came in. “You wanted me, sir?”

“Right with you. Reynolds?”

“We can’t agree. It’s a good bet they’d keep their surrender. There’s even precedent. We don’t like the size of the pot.”

“I don’t either. Thank you.” The President hung up. “Hap, I need advice. Have you been listening?”

“Yes, sir.”

Seconds flowed on the big digital timer. “Six minutes,” Jenny said.

“I thought the Threat Team people would know,” Coffey said. “But they don’t. General. Admiral. You heard. Your advice?”

“The human race won’t be safe until the invaders are disarmed,” General Toland said.

The President jerked a thumb toward the big screens outside. “And if they defeat Michael? They could, you know.”

“Unlikely,” Admiral Carrell said.

“I beg your pardon, Admiral?”

“They’re closing fast. Unless Michael does something stupid, they’re bound to ram. I believe you can depend on General Gillespie to detonate every bomb aboard at closest approach.”

“Your advice, Admiral?”

Admiral Carrell raised an eyebrow at the timer. “I think I would do nothing at all.”

“All their women and children. They came from the stars. They offer an interstellar drive. We lose all that—”

“And keep the Earth,” Carrell said.

“But at what price? Hap?”

“Pass. I know how to win elections. This one’s beyond me.”

“Gimlet, this is Michael. Big Mama’s mad; she’s got all the children in the fight. I mean, she’s really mad.”

One of the screens below flashed, then flashed again.

“They’re really pounding each other,” General Toland said. “Go for it, Gillespie!”

“No,” President Coffey said. “Colonel, get me General Gillespie. Inform him that I have new orders. Then get Wes Dawson. We can end this with honor.”

“Mr. President, please,” General Toland said. “Sir, the risk is just too damned high! Thor, tell him!”

“I’ve heard your advice, General. I don’t need it again. Colonel, if you please.”

Jenny reached for the keys. Her hand moved slowly, reluctantly. Visions of dolls and smashed children came unwanted, and corpses heaped high in a Topeka street, human shapes merging as they decayed. She stood. “No, sir.”

“Colonel!”

“I resign.”

“Admiral Carrel!”

“No, Mr. President.”

Coffey turned to the door. Jack Clybourne stood solidly against it. “Mr. Clybourne — you too?”

Jack said nothing.

“I am the commander in chief! Hap, tell them.”

“I’m not the commander in chief, David.”

“Colonel, will you at least do me the courtesy of calling Mrs. Coffey?”

Jenny looked to Admiral Carrell. He shook his head. “Sir, there wouldn’t be time to explain anything to her.”

“I’ll have you all shot!”

“Possibly,” General Toland said. “Tomorrow. But just now we have about three minutes.”

“Damn you all! Those creatures will blow Michael apart, and then they’ll own the Earth!”

“No, sir,” Admiral Carrell said. “It is you who risks the Earth. We risk only mankind’s enemies.”

Coffey sat and buried his head in his hands. After a moment Admiral Carrell lifted the microphone. “Colonel, get me Mr. Dawson.”

“Sir.”

“Congressman Dawson, this is Admiral Carrell. The President is not available.”

“What?”

“Tell the enemy commander that his offer is rejected.”

Steel plates now covered the windows. The sky was alive with green flares and retina-burn-white explosions. Fithp in pressure suits crawled across the slagged hull, towing equipment. Message Bearer rang like a smashed banjo, and the Herdmaster trumpeted, “How are they doing this? Defensemaster!”

“The wound in Sector Five is turned full away from the intruder, and has been since before you ordered it. Herdmaster, the tiny ships circle and fire into the wound. They are not using rockets, and our lasers cannot find inert projectiles.”

“Then kill me those flying guns! Takpusseh-yamp, was there an answer from the President?” But he knew. Takpusseh-yamp’s digits were rigid across his head. They still strangled the receiver with which he had been monitoring Dawson’s conversation.

“Dawson.”

“Say good-bye, Herdmaster. We’ll find our own path to the stars, and you won’t be there waiting.”

“Could you not persuade?”

“The President’s not available. I know David Coffey. He must be dead or dying. Admiral Carrell is in charge now. The Attackmaster. He wants you extinct, and he wouldn’t listen to me if I pleaded. I’m not even sure he’s wrong.”

“Wes! Did we win?”

“I think so. Hang on, Alice. It’s not likely to be long now.”

The Herdmaster asked, “What would you have of me, Dawson?”

“Two months in solitary confinement, Herdmaster, but I don’t think we’ll have the time.” Dawson’s grip tightened on the wall rung as Message Bearer shuddered sideways. Despite the danger, he was standing fully erect.

“Get me my mate,” the Herdmaster ordered.

Safe Room Two was jammed with females and children. The noise was terrible to hear: comforting adult voices, bleating of terrified infants, the herd is attacked! His mate cried, “Keph, what’s happening? The children are going rogue!”

“Keph, I want to surrender.”

There was an awful silence. Then the last voice Pastempeh-keph wanted to hear was speaking. “You would surrender the Traveler Fithp, you? Fool rogue, my mate would have had us safely circling Saturn if you had not stripped him of his status!”

“I acknowledge this. You in Safe Room Two must speak for the rest. Will the females consent to surrender?”

“Let me speak to the Defensemaster!”

Tantarent-fid clicked on. Pastempeh-keph listened with half his attention. Damage… weapons… intruder closing at five makasrupkithp per breath, targeted dead on, able to turn faster than Message Bearer ever could. If we vaporize the enemy, the globules will condense and kill us. If we kill all aboard, the bomb will explode when it is close. Our only chance of escape is for the enemy to guide that ship away from us.”

“Surrender,” said Chowpeentulk. “Roll on your back for my mate’s murderer.”

“Surrender, Keph. We are agreed.”

The Herdmaster stepped-staggered-into the corridor between crash pads. “Dawson. The ship is yours.”

“I want to see the other humans.”

Screens blurred, then sharpened. Arvid Rogachev and Jeri Wilson stood close together in the midst of carnage and wreckage Dmitri lay in one corner.

“Give them weapons, and escort them here.”

“I obey.”

“Now turn off your drive. Blow up all missiles in flight. Don’t send any more.”

“Agreed. We need your ship alive. Dawson, make haste. Tell your herdmaster. That ship must not strike us.”

“When I hear you give those orders.”

“Tantarent-fid! Destroy our missiles now. Continue to use laser to stop incoming weaponry. Begin damping the drive.”

“Lead me.”

The Herdmaster could not have imagined how those words would hurt. The eyes of his fithp were all around him. Pastempeh-keph rolled on his back in the aisle.

Herdmaster Wes Dawson said, “Alice.”

“Wes — did we really win?”

He held out his hand. The frail redhead moved to join him. Dawson took her hand. Together they stepped forward and set their feet on the Herdmaster’s Advisor’s chest.