LILAH slowed to a walk as she reached the open door of the control center and strolled through, as though this were the perfectly ordinary morning of a perfectly normal day.
At first sight it was. The control room was quiet and uncluttered. Connie Cheever sat at a communications console, apparently relaxed. Half a dozen senior staff members surrounded her. Only the displays, set to show the sky in every direction from Confluence Center, told a different story.
Scores of ships were displayed there, four or five on every screen. They were moving into position, slowly and deliberately. The fleet had abandoned the hollow-cone formation used on long journeys, and was regrouping to form a great hemisphere with Confluence Center at the center. Once a ship reached an assigned position, it remained there.
"You know what that means?" Jeff said softly. "If they just wanted to keep us from escaping, they would deploy around the whole sphere. Ships form a formation like this when they want to be sure they can't fire past the target—us—and hit each other."
"I guessed that." Like Jeff, Lilah spoke in a whisper as they edged into the room. "Bad sign."
"But a good sign, too." Jeff added. "They aren't going to fire at once. Before they do that, you'll see them turn to face us head-on. As long as you see the ships in profile, you're all right."
Low as they had kept their voices, they had been noticed. Connie Cheever had her back to them, but she turned and pointed to Jeff. "You stay. But I don't want a word from you unless you see the fleet doing something that you think I'll miss. Then you pipe up at once. Don't worry, no one in the fleet will be able to see or hear you. Lilah, you can stay, too—but not a peep, no matter what."
Lilah did not risk a reply. She came forward and settled down cross-legged by her mother's chair. Jeff, not at all sure what Connie Cheever might notice or overlook in the actions of the fleet, moved forward and stood by Lilah's side. As soon as he was settled, Connie Cheever touched a pad on the console and said to the air in front of her, "Go ahead."
The face of Captain Mohammad Duval appeared. Jeff started to say to Lilah, "The Dreadnought never left! They just pretended to!" He bit back the words.
"Administrator Cheever." For a change, Duval was not smiling. "Following our last conversation, I have had the opportunity to consult with the Sol authorities."
Lilah gave Jeff's leg a great jab with her elbow. He could guess what she meant. He's a bloody liar. You can't talk to Sol authorities without going back through the node, and we know he hasn't done that. He nudged his calf back at her arm, looked down, and winked in agreement.
"I see." Connie spoke slowly, and only after a long pause. "Are you permitted to tell me what the Sol authorities told you?"
Not a word about the sudden appearance of the fleet. No mention of Mohammad Duval's obvious deceit the last time that they met. Jeff decided that he had no idea what game Connie was playing.
"I relayed to them your proposed terms, including your offer to provide the Anadem field and all associated technology. Unfortunately"—Duval offered his flawless and humorless smile—"those terms are judged unsatisfactory."
Again Connie delayed before she answered. "I am sorry to hear that," she said slowly. "Was there a suggestion for more acceptable terms?"
On her final words, Hooglich came hurrying in at the other side of the control room. She was wearing a space suit. She nodded vigorously, gave a thumbs-up sign, and was away again without a word.
"Because, of course," Connie went on, at more like her normal rate of speech, "we are anxious to reach agreement with you. We prefer to enjoy a mutually beneficial trade relationship with the Sol worlds, rather than engage in disputes."
Instead of answering, Duval vanished from the display. He was back in a few seconds, and now he was not smiling at all.
"Administrator Cheever, my technical staff report that a powerful, very low frequency electromagnetic signal is emanating from your facility. If you imagine that this somehow shields you from the weapons of my fleet, let me assure you that is very much a mistaken notion."
"I never held any such illusions, Captain Duval. The long wavelength radio signal that you refer to is simply a part of our communications system. Let me say again, we would like to hear the terms that Sol would consider acceptable."
"Very well." Duval glanced to one side, seemed reassured by what he saw or heard in his own ship, and went on. "As you know, the Sol central government regards the Messina Dust Cloud as historically part of the Sol domain. All technological developments made in the Cloud therefore legally belong to Sol, as do any and all materials and natural resources found in the Cloud. I am directed to perform annexation of the Messina Dust Cloud in the name of Sol. You are to turn over to me, and to my fleet, control of Confluence Center. You will also direct all harvesters and rakehells operating within the Messina Dust Cloud to report to me."
Jeff felt Lilah jerk on the floor beside him, and heard her stifled snort of disbelief. The independence of the crews of harvesters and rakehells was legendary. How could Connie Cheever make them report to Duval and the Sol fleet, when they never acknowledged any government?
Jeff had his own worries. He was watching the ships on the screen. One by one they were turning to point directly toward the Center. Firing position.
"And, of course," Duval was continuing, "your submission to us must include turning over to my custody the renegade jinners and ensign of the Aurora, so that they may be delivered Sol-side for trial."
"The ships," Jeff whispered. "The fleet ships are getting ready to fire."
Connie turned at once. Out of sight of Duval, she spoke into the general-address system. "All personnel into suits." And to Jeff and Lilah, "You too!"
While Lilah went scrambling toward a control-room locker that Jeff had never even noticed, Connie returned to her position and nodded to Mohammad Duval. "Let me make sure that I understand this, Captain," she said calmly. "You lay claim to all of the Messina Dust Cloud, including Confluence Center and its contents. The Cloud will become an occupied territory, taking direction from Sol. You further require that all harvesters and rakehells submit to your orders. And we must hand over to you Jinners Hooglich and Russo, and Ensign Kopal."
"Correct."
"And if we refuse to do so?"
"I suggest, Administrator Cheever, that refusal is not an option for you. Perhaps I was not clear. Let me say this now in such a way that you cannot possibly misunderstand me. My orders are quite explicit. We are not here for negotiation. We are here to accept your surrender."
"Yes, that's clear enough. And if we do not surrender?"
"I repeat, that is not an option. I am empowered to use all necessary force to make you comply. If you do not surrender, I will be obliged to use whatever weapons are needed to subdue you or destroy you. I suspect that you do not comprehend the forces at my disposal."
He gestured offscreen. Where he had been standing, the display now changed to show an image of Confluence Center, floating free against the glimmering backdrop of the Messina Dust Cloud.
"Watch closely, Administrator," said Duval's voice. "This does not show the strength of my fleet—rather, it demonstrates the power of one weapon of a single midsize cruiser. Now!"
At his final word, the control room of Confluence Center shivered. The displayed image of the structure blazed with light, then cleared to show that the longest extension arm of Confluence Center was gone. It had not been sheared off, to hang loose in space. It had vanished in a puff of incandescent gas.
Jeff felt a knot in his chest. He and Lilah had been in that very arm less than a quarter of an hour earlier. But for her arrival, he would have stayed there and been vaporized. If the fleet fired at Confluence Center, the suits that Lilah had brought and they had just put on would do nothing to protect them.
"Do you need further proof, Administrator?" Once more, Duval occupied the display region, and the smile was back on his face. "I am sure that you will agree you have no alternative. Nor, in fact, do I. I must demand your surrender."
Connie, without looking down, touched the control pad in front of her. Jeff heard—or imagined, it was so deep and faint that it was hard to tell which—a subsonic murmur in and around him.
"You make matters very difficult for me, Captain Duval. I do not wish to endanger my people, or seek to harm yours. I ask again, Is there any way that we can negotiate a peaceful resolution? As you know, we are willing to make concessions."
"You heard my terms. I cannot change them, even if I wanted to. As for your ability to harm us, that is ludicrous. You must surrender. After that, we will see."
"We will not surrender, Captain. The terms that you state are totally unacceptable. In fact, they are insulting."
Duval stared back, tight-jawed. "Administrator Cheever, you are insane. You must accept our terms. Didn't you hear what I said? I am empowered to use all necessary force. If you resist, I have no choice. You face total destruction."
"You believe that, Captain. We—and I speak for all senior members of Confluence Center and the Cloud government—feel differently."
The background murmur was stronger, increasing steadily in pitch. It was now unmistakable, a low rhythmic whine as loud as speech. Connie Cheever raised her voice to speak over it. "I say again, we reject your proposed terms. Moreover, I urge you and your fleet to leave the vicinity of Confluence Center at once, and as fast as possible. If you refuse to do so, I cannot be held responsible for the consequences."
Duval's face reflected his disbelief. 'We are in danger? From your stupid, do-nothing radio signals? I don't know what your scientists told you, Administrator, but it's nonsense. The low-frequency field you are generating does nothing to us, and it will not protect you from our weapons. Surrender immediately—or suffer the consequences."
"You have it the wrong way round, Captain. You must surrender to us. Do so at once, and formally, and you will not be harmed. Fail to do so, and I cannot say how many of you will be alive one hour from now."
"That was your last chance." Duval glanced beyond the display region to left and right. "Gunners, prepare to fire. Cheever, you do not have an hour. You have exactly half a minute. Surrender within that time—or die."
"We will not surrender. We will never surrender. Captain, I beg you, for your own sakes, leave here—and leave now." Connie Cheever glanced down, and Jeff caught her muttered words. "Simon Macafee, you had better be right."
The whine became a scream. As it moved higher in pitch, it also became familiar.
Shreep-shreep-shreep-shreep.
Jeff covered his ears with his hands and crouched down beside Lilah. To his surprise, Connie Cheever left her position at the control panel and joined them on the floor. She worked her way rapidly into the suit that Lilah had brought for her. When that was done she put her arms around her daughter and Jeff. She pulled them to her, huddled their heads close together, and said, "It's out of my hands now. God help us, no matter who wins."
A moment later, Lilah broke her mother's order to remain silent. She cried, "The displays! Look at the displays!"
Jeff raised his head. He had never seen an actual space battle, but no one born a male Kopal could spend his boyhood without being forced to watch scores of simulations and reenactments. He was looking at a classical pattern. The ships of the Sol fleet showed on the screens in a great hemisphere, poised in formation and ready to fire on Confluence Center. The glowing mass of the Cloud sat behind them, its rivers of neutral hydrogen swirling with plasma streaks of ionized carbon and oxygen and salted with pockets of stable transuranic elements.
He had stared at the Cloud a hundred times in the past few weeks, but it had never been like this. As he watched, the smooth dimly lit face sparked and scintillated with a million scattered points of light. Pinpricks of orange and gold flared bright and then as quickly faded. Where they had been, space held a curious empty clarity. Jeff felt that he could see all the way to the edge of the universe.
The luminous clarity lasted for only a few seconds. Then black marks pocked the delicate lilac-and-pink background. At first they appeared as little more than tiny dark tadpoles, but rapidly swelled to more ominous shapes.
Sounders—and sounders in numbers that Jeff had never dreamed of. They were appearing from nowhere, more and more, in their hundreds and in their thousands. Every one came racing in, rushing straight at Confluence Center. Shreep-shreep-sh-r-e-e-e-e-e-p. The ear-piercing signal generated within the Center faded. As it did so, a thousand answering calls poured in from space, shreep-shreep-shreep-shreep.
The infalling wave of sounders came toward Confluence Center like the rush of night, a closing wall of darkness oblivious to the loss of the outgoing signal. Between sounders and Center stood the ships of the Sol Space Navy. They had certainly detected the presence of the sounders—the calls resonated in every electromagnetic circuit within thousands of kilometers. For a few moments navy discipline held, all ships maintaining their positions. Then, one by one—with permission from Duval, or without it; there was no way that the watchers on Confluence Center could tell which—the ships turned.
Half of them fled, streaking toward and through the sphere of sounders at maximum acceleration. The rest, confident of the power of their weapons, held their ground. As the sounders closed and closed, space filled with the infernal flare and sparkle of Space Navy might.
The brilliance was too much for the display screens. They overloaded. When they flickered back into service, the scene had changed. Sounders closest to the ships were homing in on them, apparently little damaged by the first attack of navy weapons. The dark maws were stretching wide. Jeff saw a cruiser, its weapons firing right into the open gullet of a sounder, engulfed by that dilating hole in space. As the cruiser was swallowed down, the mouth closed. The sounder appeared to shimmer and dissolve, and then was gone.
The set piece of navy formation fractured into dozens of separate engagements. Jeff realized that he was in the middle of—and part of—a full-scale naval battle. Even if the ships were not firing at Confluence Center, in the heat of conflict they could easily hit it by accident. He also knew what perhaps Lilah and Connie did not: The weapons of the fleet were either pulses of neutrinos and radiation, traveling at light speed, or they were highly relativistic particle beams, moving only slightly slower than light. In either case, Confluence Center could have no possible warning before a weapon struck.
The sky became a wild tangle of ships and sounders. A few vessels, learning from the experience of their fellows, directed their salvos away from the maws and struck at the sides of the sounders. Each time, the wounded sounder either vanished in a spangled glitter or spun to take the attack on its open maw. Power directed there was absorbed with no apparent effect. The navy ship had a simple choice: Try to flee, or hold position and be swallowed up. Of the dozens who engaged the sounders, only a handful were clever or lucky enough to escape.
Jeff, trying to look everywhere at once to follow the bright kaleidoscope of discharging weapons, felt but did not see the thunderbolt. The floor of Confluence Center shook beneath him, sending all three people sprawling full-length on the floor. Moments later an urgent and unfamiliar voice spoke over the address system: "Sector Four is breached. We have casualties. We need help."
Connie struggled to her feet and moved to the control chair. She had not quite reached it when the second hit came. This one was nearer, so close that the chamber walls buckled. Air screamed out through fractured seams. Connie went spinning away across the room, while Jeff and Lilah skated across the floor and ended underneath a table. He was behind her, and his weight drove her body hard against one of the table legs. He heard her cry in pain.
"Sector One is gone," said a breathless voice. "Adjoining bulkheads have failed to close. This is Sector Two. We have many casualties."
Jeff struggled out from under the table. He saw Connie lying against the far wall. He felt sure that she was dead, until he saw her roll over and crawl doggedly back to the control panel.
"Maintenance Logans to Sectors Two and Four," she said through clenched teeth. "If necessary, seal off Sector One. All others, hold position pending instructions."
Jeff pulled Lilah out from beneath the table. She was still and silent. He was enormously relieved when at last she whimpered, shivered, and put her hand on her right side. He turned again to the displays. They had blanked out when the second impact came, and now they were flickering back, one by one.
The battle continued, but its character had changed. The remaining navy ships had realized that their weapons could not destroy all the sounders. Some tried a late escape, drives flaring at maximum acceleration. A few broke clear. Others, despite the thrust of their drives and the inferno of their discharging weapons, were drawn helplessly toward and into the sounders' dark throats. As the ships were absorbed, the sounders shimmered, called across space, and vanished.
Finally just one vessel remained. It was the flagship of the Central Command fleet, a battle fort of the Thor class. Captain Duval himself commanded the half-kilometer sphere and its bristling array of weapons. According to navy publicity, a vessel of this type was invincible and indestructible.
The fort faced one of the largest sounders. The two approached each other, the fort firing all weapons, the sounder shivering and shuddering under multiple impacts to sides and head but not slowing its advance. The maw opened and opened, a chasm in space. By the time that the orbital fort changed tactics and turned to escape, it was too late. Slowly, weapons firing everywhere, the fort was engulfed. Bolts of random energy lit up the sky. The sounder called, high and loud, shreep-shreep-shreep, and disappeared.
The battle involving Sol's navy was over. But hundreds of sounders remained, undamaged and still heading toward the crippled Confluence Center. Jeff felt Connie Cheever's arm tightening convulsively around him. She had moved back to sit on the floor between him and the wounded Lilah.
"Now we'll find out," she said. "Oh, Simon, Simon, Simon. You'd better be right."
The sounders came on like a black tide. In ten seconds they would reach Confluence Center. Jeff could see beyond the maws the long, dark sides, stretching away into the distance and marked by patterns of lighter dots and swirls. He could see the eight tendrils, their blue-white and green-white whiskers distorting space around them. The nearest sounders were so close, he could look down the open gullets to a region of obsidian blackness, and see within them occasional glints of faint iridescence.
The nearest sounder was another giant. It raced in, all dilating mouth. And then, after a few long seconds, it began to slow. For a while it held steady, tendrils extended as though tasting the space around it. At last, when Jeff felt he had to breathe or burst, the sounder turned. He saw its vast sides, mottled and scaled and marked by strange spirals. And then it was retreating from Confluence Center.
Connie Cheever took a long, deep breath as though she, like Jeff, was learning again how to work her lungs. "Hats off to Simon," she whispered. "He was right, they don't like a low-frequency electromagnetic field. Look at them."
Sounder after sounder was approaching Confluence Center. When they reached a certain distance, one by one they slowed and tasted space with those long, impalpable, whisker-like tendrils. And, one by one, they halted, turned, and made a stately departure. Far from the Center, the backdrop of stars and Cloud around each sounder would shiver and twist. A moment later, the sounder called and vanished. The clarity of space faded; there was soon no sign that a sounder had ever been.
Within Confluence Center it should have been a time for relief. Jeff saw no hint of that. Connie sat again in the control chair, fielding a dozen urgent messages from the damaged sectors. A hole, twenty-five meters wide, had been punched right through Sector Four. Forty people had disappeared without trace, and another hundred were badly injured. Sector One had fared even worse. It was simply gone, together with all its equipment and hundreds of colonists. Five adjoining levels had been badly damaged by the same searing blow, and Sector Two was still trying to discover the extent of its loss.
Jeff watched and listened to the reports that streamed in, but he felt only half there. He was numb and exhausted. Lilah was worse off, it hurt when she breathed and she would not let him touch her ribs. But they were the lucky ones. Were Hooglich and Russo alive? Was Simon Macafee, and Billy Jexter? It might be hours before anyone knew.
Confluence Center had survived the battle with the Space Navy fleet; maybe it had even "won." But at a terrible price.
To Jeff's relief, Hooglich entered the control room. She had removed her suit, and her black face and arms were streaked with grey powder and what looked like drying blood. She came forward, slumped into a chair, and shook her head. "Hundreds or thousands of people lost here, and on them ships. Some of my best jinner buddies."
"I know." Connie Cheever broke off from rapping out streams of terse instructions. "It's an appalling tragedy. There were good officers and people in the Sol fleet, good as our people here. Most of them were just doing their jobs. Any feedback?"
"Not yet. Too soon. Lures may be working, but we won't know for a day or two. Macafee says—"
"He's alive? You're sure of that?"
"Sure am. I saw him, cool as liquid helium. Takes more than a battle to rattle him. He says the lure we set here would only have had time to call locally. If the sounders go back where they came from, or to one of our other lures, they'll be near a Cloud reef. But if a sounder made an interstellar hop, or decided to go extragalactic . . ." Hooglich blew out her fat cheeks and wriggled her shoulders against the chair back as though they were paining her. "The only hope would be to pump up Confluence Center again to high energy, and see if we can call 'em back."
Jeff had an awful thought. "Myron. My cousin. He was on Captain Duval's ship . . . ."
"We don't know that," Connie said. "He came here on the Dreadnought with Duval, but then Duval switched to the orbital fort. Maybe your cousin switched, too. He could be on one of the ships that escaped. I'll try to find out for you. We have to open communication with them anyway, see which of the survivors need help. Most of them took off at accelerations enough to burn out the drive. They'll be hanging helpless."
"Like we were, on the Aurora." Hooglich stood up. "Seems like years ago. I ought to say, let 'em rot. But I can't. I'd like to help them. Maybe we can jury-rig something, enough to let them crawl back to the node."
"No." Connie Cheever stood up also. "I know how you feel, you want to help your friends. But we are still at war with the Sol government. They did terrible damage to us, while we didn't want to hurt them in any way. Until that's resolved, I am going to blockade the node. Nothing comes through from Sol without our permission. No ship of the fleet will go back."
"But people on those ships may be badly hurt. They may be dying."
"I didn't say we wouldn't help them. We will. As soon as we've done what we can for our own, we'll provide humanitarian and medical aid to them. Nannies, too, if they'll agree to it. But their drives stay dead. The node will be guarded with a sounders' lure. So far as Sol is concerned, the Central Command fleet was routed, demoralized, and captured. If we choose to do so, it can be annihilated. I'll take a couple of navy eyewitnesses with me, who can vouch for all of this."
"Take them?" Lilah asked. She spoke in a weak, pained voice, but at least she spoke. Jeff felt his spirits rise. Maybe she had nothing worse than bruises.
"To Sol." Connie met her daughter's gaze. "That's where I have to go."
"But it's dangerous."
"I don't think so. Not when we have half their fleet as hostages."
"Why can't you negotiate here, with Duval or whoever will take over if he's gone?"
"Because Duval isn't the key. He was only following orders, and I'm sure those came from Sol-side. That's where we must do our talking. And as soon as possible. I can't hold a Central Command fleet—what's left of it—forever. We have to reach an agreement with the Sol government. And since I won't let them through the node to come here, someone must go there. Someone who can speak for the Cloud."
"Mother—" Lilah began. But Jeff cut her off.
"You have to go." He moved to stand between Lilah and Connie. "I have to go, too. Back home I've been branded a renegade and a traitor, guilty of negligence on the Aurora and of desertion from the navy."
"Certainly." Connie nodded. "After the negotiation is completed, when it's safe for you—"
"No." Jeff interrupted the general administrator of the Messina Dust Cloud without hesitation. "I must go as soon as possible. My mother is on Earth, alone and maybe desperately ill. The reports accusing me of treason could be killing her. I have to see her and explain what really happened."
"It won't work, Jeff. Suppose you did go with the negotiation party. You can't just arrive in the Sol system and demand transportation to Earth."
"Yes, I can." Jeff gave Connie and Lilah a grim and humorless smile. "Though I agree that you and Hooglich couldn't." He turned to the jinner. "Could you?"
"No way. Try it, and I'd be straight in the can."
"But I can. Remember who I am. I'm Jefferson Kopal, one of the almighty Kopals who run Kopal Transportation and half the Space Navy. Maybe I'll be court-martialed when I reach Earth; for all I know they'll want to execute me. But until I'm tried, and until I'm found guilty, I'll be treated like royalty. I can make things easier for you when you get Sol-side. I'll make sure you are talking to the right people. I can tell you who you can't trust, who the snakes are—I'm afraid it's mostly my own family."
Connie's eyes locked onto his, and he did not flinch. "I see," she said at last. "We'll have to discuss this. But not now. There are more urgent items on my agenda. Go with Lilah, and we'll talk later."
Jeff nodded. He held his arm out, so that Lilah could hold on to it and limp alongside him. He would settle for Connie's promise of future discussion. She was going to give him an argument, he was sure of it. No matter when that began or how long it took, he would be ready.
Being born a Kopal was a nuisance, a burden, and a torment that no one in his right mind would ever choose; but sometimes, just when you felt ready to curse your name and household and all that they stood for, the name might prove a blessing and a boon.