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Chapter 38

Coming out of transient, the (fleet) unfolded smoothly. !!Ghint stayed close to his readers, watching as his scouts raced across the star system, popping in and out of space. A blizzard of images came back to the command(ship). They had indeed found a prize—an inhabited planet, plus space settlements and traffic. One flight signature had already been identified as that of an enemy fighter. Clearly this system was an Outsider stronghold.

!!Ghint ordered the scouts to probe more deeply, but to avoid confrontation. Keeping his command(ship) at the necessary distance to focus the energies, he opened a momentary thought-vortex and put the news through to the Homeworld: The enemy has been found.

 

* * *

 

At WarOp, alarm was turning to panic. Enemy ships were crisscrossing the solar system with astonishing faster-than-light jumps. How had it happened? Was the GCS ready? Were the defenses adequate?

No one seemed to know.

At Delta Station, Commander Fisher scrambled every manned ship at his disposal. What frightened him more than the enemy fleet was the lack of clear instructions from WarOp. Delta was the staging area for Mars and the asteroid settlements. There were lives out there that he was supposed to protect. Should he await a command from the GCS? What about his own defense? And what about the alien here at the station?

"As soon as the GCS makes up its mind, cut the orders," he told Ensign Graves. "But nothing goes until I've approved it. Nothing. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"And I want to know every move that stinking alien fleet makes."

"Yes, sir. High-speed reconnoitering, sir. Outer defenses haven't been able to lay a finger on them."

"I know they're reconnoitering, dammit! Tell me when they do something different."

"Sir. Yes, sir."

Fisher returned the ensign's salute and stormed away.

 

* * *

 

Pali hurried down the corridor between two guards. She couldn't help the feeling of awe, but tried not to be controlled by it. So, you've been summoned by the Secretary of the United Americas, she thought. Who would have dreamed it? But then, who would have dreamed any of what's happened? She waited nervously while the guards opened a door and then ushered her alone into a room. "Here she is!" cried a familiar voice. It was Ramo. Sage was with him—and Kyd!

"Pali!" Kyd jumped out of a chair to greet her. "I am so happy to see you!"

"I'm glad to see all of you!" Pali cried, embracing them one by one. Ramo hugged her good-humoredly; Sage was more subdued but still pleased to see her; and Kyd was—hard to describe—happy, nervous, shy. "How in the world did you wind up here?" Pali asked her, as surprised as she was delighted.

Kyd stepped away, looking embarrassed. "That's kind of a long story."

Pali gazed at her in puzzlement, then shrugged. "I don't even know what I'm doing here, actually," she said with a laugh, inspecting the comfortably appointed room. It was apparently an anteroom to the executive guest apartments.

"The core wanted you here with Sage and Ramo," Kyd said. "And the Secretary takes the core's wishes seriously." Pali raised her eyebrows. Kyd frowned, obviously understanding the unspoken question: How do you know all that? Kyd closed her eyes, as though concentrating. "Well," she said in a subdued voice, "you're going to find out anyway, so I guess it's better that you hear it from me now."

Pali felt as though something had suddenly changed in the air. Kyd looked less self-assured than Pali had ever seen her. "Hear what?"

Kyd hesitated another long moment. "That I wasn't just working for the Company all that time. That I was working for the government, too."

Pali opened her mouth, but found no words. Finally she asked carefully, so as not to misunderstand, "You mean, while you were working with us?" Kyd nodded, looking away.

"She got us out of the city," Ramo said. "And arranged for us to be picked up by the feds instead of the ComPol."

Pali exhaled hard. A sensation she couldn't identify was rising in her chest. "The ComPol locked me up," she said at last.

Kyd turned back to her with an anguished expression. "I tried to prevent that, Pali. I pleaded with George. I told him—"

"Who's George?"

"George is my—" Kyd hesitated. "George Katzen—my contact. George is the person I . . . gather intelligence for."

Pali blinked. "Gather intelligence . . . you mean, like . . . spy?" Kyd nodded unhappily. Pali's stomach knotted; she searched for words. "Why? What's there to spy on in my department?"

Kyd shrugged. "Routine intelligence. Nothing very exciting, at least until all this happened." She sighed and continued, "The government maintains a network in the Company, you know, as a matter of course. I guess I can say that now. I suppose the Company has spies in with the feds, too."

Pali noticed Sage and Ramo shuffling their feet as Kyd struggled with her words, and she wondered, What am I supposed to feel? Anger? Sympathy? Betrayal?

"I'm . . . not very proud of myself, for not telling you before. But, you see, I couldn't." Kyd's voice caught, and she seemed to fight for control. She straightened her shoulders and took a breath. "I never dreamed it would come to something like this. Pali, I was just a nobody for the feds, they practically picked me up off the street. But I'd like to think that it was fortunate that I was there. Because if the ComPol had gotten these guys . . ." She shook her head. "Well, you know what's been going on. The government might think that these guys are . . . I don't know, strange, maybe; but to the Company, they're outlaws. Even if what happened to the core wasn't their fault."

Pali tried to shake a bundle of confused feelings out of her head. This was just too much to absorb all at once. "I guess I don't know what to say, Kyd. I'm . . . stunned."

"You have a perfect right to be angry." Kyd twisted her hair roughly between her fingers. "I would be. But—" She hesitated and added softly, "I really am on your side."

Pali winced at the memory of those words coming from someone else. From Russell. She took a breath, trying to dismiss the memory. Kyd wasn't Russell . . . she hoped. "Well. I don't know if I'm angry, Kyd. I just don't know yet." She closed her eyes, feeling a great weariness at the center of her bewilderment. She rubbed her forehead. "Can I ask . . . what made you want to do it?"

"I didn't want to. I never wanted to," Kyd said with surprising bitterness. "I did it because . . . Well, let's just say because of circumstances." She raised her hands helplessly. "As I said, I'm not proud. But I didn't really do anything except report on ordinary activities . . . until this."

Something in Kyd's gaze kept Pali from pressing the question further. A deep sorrow seemed to darken those green eyes. "The reasons aren't important," Kyd murmured. "But I didn't do it to hurt or betray you. Please believe that."

Pali gazed back at her, neither angry nor forgiving, just confused. She hardly knew anymore what to believe.

 

* * *

 

It was time for the jamdam—and here they were, still waiting for the Secretary.

"It's getting late," Ramo said, slapping his thighs impatiently. "They're going to think we've stood them up, at Odesta's." He glanced at Pali and Sage, talking quietly in the back of the room. An unspoken tension had settled in since this morning. Pali and Kyd seemed to have reached an uneasy accommodation, but the forced inactivity was making Ramo irritable.

Kyd sat beside him, legs crossed in a pose of studied relaxation. She had changed into an electric-blue jumpsuit; she alone among them actually looked as though she were dressed for dancing. But then she alone had had time to pack properly before leaving home. "One thing you have to learn around here is patience," she said.

"Easy for you to say," Ramo grumbled. "They're not your friends we're keeping waiting." He rubbed the back of his neck.

Kyd shrugged, bouncing her blond hair. "We're all anxious. Think of me. This will be my first time."

Ramo nudged her with his elbow. "I put in a good word for you. Said you were my main partner. I've forgiven you for your old teasing ways." Kyd's eyes rolled up, whether in real or mock reaction he couldn't tell and didn't really care. A soft spot for her had reawakened in him—perhaps because, for once, he had seen her not in control of a situation. "It's true," he insisted.

Kyd stood up. "Here comes someone now."

The door opened. "The Secretary will be unable to join you," an aide announced.

"After all this time we've been waiting?"

The aide leveled a gaze at Ramo. "There are urgent matters requiring his attention. However, please bear in mind that he'll expect you to report fully, and individually, on the event. Now, if you'll please follow me . . ."

Ramo grumped as they walked down the hall. "Great way to start a jamdam," he muttered to Kyd. " 'Please bear in mind,' " he mimicked. "How are we supposed to get Harry and Lin to loosen up if these guys start off by making us tense?"

"I think," Kyd said, "that these gentlemen are rather tense themselves. I can feel it. Something's happening." Ahead of them, the aide was ushering Sage and Pali into the rap room. She glanced at Ramo with raised eyebrows. "I don't know what it is, but I have a feeling that we'd better do our best in there."

Ramo snapped his fingers to an imagined beat and grinned. "I always do, pretty lady. I always do."

Kyd pressed her lips together and nodded. By the time they'd entered the rap room, Ramo's joke seemed hollow even to him, and he felt a nervous scowl taking over his face.

 

* * *

 

WarOp could not have known it, but the GCS was in many respects as puzzled as they were. It was handling complex judgments quickly, but with uncertainty. Throughout the solar system, Ell ships were being sighted moving at high speed. The GCS had strengthened Earth's defenses, but there were still too few AI-fighters for confidence. Should some be diverted outward to the settlements, or should it focus on guarding the center? How did the value of Human life figure into such decisions? Philosophically, there was no clear answer.

The GCS chose to guard the center.

Elsewhere, it noted two Ell and four Humans in rap-fields, and a hookup to a house where musicians and dancers were gathering; and it wondered if it ought to hope.

 

* * *

 

[Rayy-mo, ba-beee!] Egret shouted over the stringsynths.

[Here and yo!] Ramo called, running himself out full into the vispy. He felt a welcoming murmur in the crowd as he appeared in full-body image, floating in their midst. [Everyone, this is Pali and Kyd, joining us. And you know Sage.]

Egret peered up at him, his face distorted by the fish-eye of the pickup. Ramo could see half a dozen familiar faces: Silver and Odesta, Elina, and others. He felt their presence, as well: Desty's impatience and distrust, Silver's somewhat resigned acceptance, mixed emotions from Elina at the mention of Sage's name. [Ramo, you're the only one we can see!] Egret said.

[Well, take my word for it, they're here. Say hi, everyone!]

[Hi, Sage!] Elina called. [Remember me?]

[Sure,] came a nervous answer, Sage's voice rippling across the room. Elina started to say something more, but there were a lot of other hellos just then, and she finally just shrugged in vague satisfaction.

[Who have we got on tap?] Ramo asked.

[Well, Lip and Eddie here,] Egret said, waving to the two musicians at the end of the room fiddling with their stringsynths. [And we got a tie-in, across town, about ready to mix in.] Egret glanced at Silver, who was fiddling with a small console. [Hang on—] There was an odd shift in the field, and Ramo felt . . . and then saw, through a haze, a trio of musicians on flat-bass, conga, and mixed-set. There was another shift, and suddenly it was as though he were standing in the midst of all five musicians, their images curiously interposed.

And there was Egret and the others alongside him, and people in the other location, too, all itching to feel the flow. Ramo grinned, sharing the feeling; and just then he felt Eddie, the female vocalist, draw a breath to sing, and the crowd hushed, and a slow bass rhythm began. And as Eddie's voice sighed into the vispy, caressing the first verse of her song, he heard a whisper, [Where's our network audience?] And he would have answered, except that at that moment a connection closed across a gulf and he felt two Ell stirring suddenly in his mind and felt their curiosity awakening as Eddie's voice rose earnestly, singing, [Where I go . . .] and the music shifted in rhythm and swelled, [. . . is not where you go . . .] and he felt his own blood quicken, not with the music alone, but with the vispy-joined spirit of the crowd. He began to dance: he let his feelings roam among the others and join with them, and felt the sway and movement in his heart, and beckoned to Kyd and Pali, and even to Sage.

And finally, he urged the Ell to join with him in the spirit of the dance. If there was a response, he didn't feel it. But he didn't worry about that; he just moved deeper into the vispy-gestalt and listened to Eddie croon and trusted the others to follow.

 

* * *

 

Eddie's voice sighed breathily, [My song and my mate . . . my mate . . .], and caught and stretched up the register, pleading, [Don't you know it's too late . . . too late . . .], and, punctuated by a percussion beat and a whine of the strings, dropped to accuse, [If I stay, you won't wait . . . won't wait . . .], before wailing mournfully, with a rising and then descending accompaniment, [for my tears and my fears . . .]

Within the song there was a heart of tears, real Human tears, Eddie's and her listeners' tears, borne on the song and the rhythm and string that swept a roomful of Human hearts into the senso. There was a life within the music that welled and rippled beyond the core's listening center, reverberated into its areas of deepest reflection. At the core's heart, where Ell and Humans were joined, there was a strange clarity—the music like a light shining through, illuminating the gestalt and everyone in it.

Somewhere in that nexus, it hoped, was a bridge. But could it be found in time?

 

* * *

 

There was, in this strange Outsider meditation, a power that intrigued both of the Ell. Silent cues passed between them, conveying a shared fascination in the spectacle of muzik and undisciplined Human interaction.

Lingrhetta did not understand it; but from the first shock of renewed contact with the Humans, he knew that this dants—this strange, flowing movement of the Outsiders—offered a potential glimpse of something vital, something hinted at in the strange memories they had shared earlier. There was a rawness here, a wildness, a lack of rigor and order that both shocked and intrigued him. Never had he felt anything like it—intoxicating in its energy, bewildering in its meaning. He was reluctant to expose himself to its power, but it was too challenging to forgo; if he could understand something of this, perhaps he could understand the Outsiders themselves.

He observed Harybdartt being drawn deep into the spell, and realized that he too was being drawn in by the wash of Human emotion, emotion that he had no name for but couldn't turn away from. The singer's voice wailed like something out of the wilds of his homeland, like a wind howling through stone or a beast screaming—but this was a sentient, passionate wail, and it almost made him want to wail along with it, though he scarcely understood it. He sensed the curiosity of the binder of this meditation, the Korr, and he asked, [What is the meaning? Why should we concern ourselves with it?] And he knew as he asked that he had been made to care without knowing why, and it was perhaps he, rather than the Korr, who would have to explain.

Before there could be an answer, he felt a tremor in the connection; and for an instant he was alone. Then Harybdartt was with him again, and the dants . . . but the Korr's attention was gone.

What was happening? A message had gone to the decision-body, reporting on this link. But even now there was an Ell(fleet) striking out at a Human outpost, possibly the very one he was glimpsing. It was a crucial move in the war, he knew. But now he wondered: should it be delayed?

That was for the Inner Circle to decide. Lingrhetta could only provide information; and right now, his strongest sense was of bewilderment.

 

* * *

 

[Core?] Sage said worriedly, pulling away from the jamdam.

There was a microsecond delay. [Yes?] The core's voice was flat, devoid of personality.

That fact, plus the delay, reaffirmed Sage's concern. While the others were absorbed by the vispy-effect, he had been watching the core and had noticed a tiny but growing sluggishness in its responses. It was busy reallocating gnostic processing space for more urgent activities. But what could be more urgent than the jamdam? Unless . . . [I was just wondering—]

[Yes?]

[Is something going on that we ought to know about?]

Delay. [What do you mean, exactly?]

[I don't know, but I felt . . . you're preoccupied. And I thought I saw . . .] He didn't finish the statement. What he thought he had glimpsed, he did not want to say aloud. Ships. Military preparations. All in a blur, as though images had leaked over from another channel.

This time the hesitation was longer. [There is worry about the war, of course . . . situations that must be monitored.]

The discussion was interrupted by the approach of someone from the edge of the rap-field. It was the Secretary, and he was agitated. He gave Sage scant attention, and spoke directly to the core. [What you're doing here isn't working. What are your plans for that fleet?]

Fleet? Sage thought. [What's going on?] he demanded.

The Secretary was silent a moment—watching the involvement of the others in the jamdam. He seemed torn between hope and despair. [I think you'd better let them see,] he said to the core.

The core hesitated—and opened a window. Sage stared fearfully as the window filled with an image of space—and against the stars, an armada of spaceships. Not Human spaceships. Ell spaceships. And in the distance, the disk of the sun and a tiny blue-green dot that was Earth.

Sage felt his breath leave him. Before he could ask, the core said, [This is an image sent by an AI-fighter just before it was lost—four hours ago.] The image flickered, and was replaced by a graphic depiction of Ell scout ships crisscrossing the inner solar system with fast FTL jumps, converging toward Earth.

[Are they attacking?] Sage whispered, a cold fear rising in him. He was suddenly aware of the two Ell in the rap-field, seeing this image; and nearby he felt Pali, summoned by the core, leaving the jamdam to join him. He felt her confusion, then her understanding, then fear. [Are they attacking . . . ?]

[Not yet,] the Secretary said. [But soon.]

[The attack . . .] the core said slowly, [has already begun.]

 

* * *

 

!!Ghint wasted little time as the thought-vortex swirled closed. The new orders from the decision-body were simple: to test the first lines of defense while surprise was on his side. Behind the simplicity of the orders, he thought he sensed uncertainty, but that was not his concern . . . not as long as the orders were clear. He opened his thoughts to outreach, and the orders shimmered out through normal-space, to the body of the (fleet). Once more the (fleet) opened—two aspects separating to flank and storm an outer settlement of the enemy.

The asteroid outpost offered minimal resistance; the Ell destroyed it in a single sweep. The wings rejoined, and the (fleet) drove inward toward the third planet of the system while !!Ghint pondered the shockingly poor defense. It was unlike the Outsiders. Were their settlements so unimportant? Or were they sacrificial defenses, intended to draw fire while the real defense was clustered around the important targets? There was only one way to know, and that was to strike deeper. The scouts had identified a target in the form of a heavily trafficked station—close to the planet, but not too close—protected, but perhaps not too well protected.

The (fleet) opened again, well outside of the planet's orbit. Three wings diverged, then dived inward, in and out of transient, toward the target. If the Outsiders could defend against this, they were very good indeed. And that was what !!Ghint planned to learn.

 

* * *

 

Sage and Pali watched in horror as images came in from Delta Station, out beyond the moon's orbit but still shockingly close to Earth. Ell ships were converging like a swarm of hornets, sweeping past slower Human spacecraft and outmaneuvering even many of the AI-fighters. They seemed intent upon reaching the station, and the core and its fighters were failing to stop them. It was a new tactic for the Ell—dodging rather than fighting as they closed toward a target—and it was working terrifyingly well.

[Can't you stop it?] Sage cried to the two Ell.

The Ell answer was incomprehensible, until the core caught up with the translation. [We are . . . engaged in . . . war,] he finally understood Lingrhetta to say. The statement was made matter-of-factly, without vehemence, as the music of the jamdam continued to fill the field. Ramo and Kyd and the others remained oblivious to the attack.

It's not my war! Sage wanted to cry, but the words caught in his throat. He studied the images from Delta Station with a desperation he'd never felt before. [Haryb . . . Harry. Isn't that where you are—on that station? Core, isn't that where you've got him?]

[He is at Delta Station,] the core confirmed.

[Are they coming to rescue him? Is that what they're doing? Can't we just let him go?]

[I think,] Harybdartt said, [that is not their purpose.] His tone was dry, devoid of hope, or fear.

[If they destroy this station, you'll die, too?]

[I would think so.]

Sage cried, [Lin, can't you do something? A message . . . ?]

[The decision-body,] the distant El said, [has made its choice. There is nothing to be done. Except to watch.]

Listening to the calmness of Lingrhetta's response, Sage shivered. The Ell ships were growing larger and closer to Delta Station, and the flashes of weapons-fire more terrifyingly bright.

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