But this was Mac. And if George wrongly distrusted Mac, Capital was just as doomed by the Nihilist plague. George was plenty ready to believe they could invent a disease that could wipe everyone out. The risks were equally balanced.
And then, suddenly, in the middle of his knot of fear and turmoil, George found his answer. George could kill millions if he answered either way and was wrong. He had no control over that. But he, and only he, had control over whether he had faith in people. And if Mac was telling the truth, then Mac was deliberately putting his life in George's hands.
George decided he could live with himself, somehow, if millions died because he made an honest mistake. But he couldn't live with himself if he let a friend down. You had to have a little faith in people. Admiral Thomas had scrawled that across the bottom of George's Britannic Navy commission papers. Well, if he had betrayed the admiral's trust, here was the time to make amends.
"I trust Mac Larson," George said in a strong, firm voice that was nonetheless near tears. "I would, and do, trust Terrance MacKenzie Larson with my life and the life of every human being on this planet."
Phillips stared hard at George, and realized the fifty-fifty odds, the head-or-tails gamble with the fate of Capital was now in his hands.
Then Phillips remembered that he trusted George Prigot. Trust was trust—there was no middle ground to it, no way to water it down and have it be any use to anyone. He reached out and picked up the intercom phone. "Get me the defense control room,” he said.
Both men felt a great burden rise off their shoulders. It was up to others now.
Aboard Reunion, En Route from Outpost to Capital
Lucy had seen it, seen it with her own eyes through the computer-aimed long-range camera, as Reunion headed for deep space. Ariadne was still there in orbit, nothing but the bloody comm antennae gone! She spent the long hours of boost celebrating that, deep in her heart, Johnson Gustav was alive!
Joslyn snuck another quick peek at Lucy, and smiled. Joz was pretty good at reading expressions, and true love was an easy one to spot. And it did tend to crop up in the oddest times and places.
But there was other work now. They were well clear of Outpost, far enough from her gravity well to make the jump. When Joslyn hit one last button, the computer would take over and fling them across C2, to whatever awaited them. "Mac," she said, "it's now or never. We go?"
Mac's face was stern and solemn, and he was an honest enough man to let a little fear show through as well. But he looked at his lovely wife and grinned—a brave, open smile, because living with love and courage and faith was the only worthwhile way to live. "We go. I love you, Joz."
"And I love you, Mac. Always." She had to blink away the tears as she hit the button.
The bootleg C2 box beneath the lower deck grabbed at space around Reunion, carried the ship for an incredibly brief moment, and dropped them down deep inside the Capital system.
Mac shushed the cheer that came from Charlie and Pete in the lower cabin. "Hold the applause down there!" he shouted. "We've got at least ten minutes before we're sure the missiles aren't coming."
"Screw that, Mac," Pete's voice came back. "If the missiles come for me, they'll catch me while I'm glad I'm alive!"
Joslyn powered up the radar. The Guards knew right where they were anyway, and trying to hide wouldn't exactly inspire confidence. "Space is clear as best I can tell, Pete. Go ahead and cheer."
"Cynthia," Mac called, "use the radio and tell the Guards to kick in the defense screen again, just to prove we're sincere."
"Will do, Mac."
Mac turned to the two hot pilots, Joslyn and Lucy, trying to be cool, calm, rational. There was far too much at stake to for him to get excited and make a wrong move. "Okay, here we are. And since we're not a radioactive cloud, we must be doing something right. So, how do we find Starsight?"
"And, short of ramming, how do we stop them?" Joslyn asked. "We have lasers if we get within range for them, but no torps or any other sort of weapons."
"I was afraid you'd bring that up," Mac said, in what he hoped was a cheerful sounding voice. "But one thing at s time—we've gotta find them first. Lucy. Try and think like a Nihilist. Never been in space before, probably getting your plots from a Guard astrogator who knows the straight-fine route takes you right though the barycenter and the battle zone. Where do you go? What's your flight path?"
Lucy shut her eyes and concentrated. "I'd say they'd tend to a very simple and conservative route, and also assume they'd change course somewhere along the line. That way, if the Guards got wind of them, they'd still have a chance to avoid interception. But they can't have any very sophisticated ideas about how to hide in space. Which makes waiting until the Guards are busy elsewhere very smart. If the Guards were in any shape to fly, the Nihilists wouldn't have a chance." Lucy powered up the tactical display and fiddled with a joy stick to sketch things in as Mac and Joslyn watched on their repeaters. "I'd say put us here. I figure they'd head in this way, looping back to come in straight over the southern hemisphere. It brings them in right over the populated areas to give the plague a chance, and they don't approach the planet straight from Outpost. But that's a long-odds guess, Mac. No guarantees."
"But it makes sense, and we've been on the long end of the odds for quite a piece now. Do it. Put us there, and we watch and wait."
Starsight
The long journey down the space Road was nearly at an end. The lovely globe of Capital grew in the viewscreen. It was time to slow the ship. L'etmlich swung the ship around and fired the fusion engine.
Reunion
"Fusion light!" Cynthia cried, after hours of watching a screen that snowed nothing. It had been a long and wearing wait. "Lucy, go in for xenopsychology—they're headed almost right down the path you figured."
"Range and rate!" Joslyn demanded.
"Stand by, still tracking. But they lit awfully close. Hang on, getting a Doppler. Okay, here come the numbers to your screen, Joslyn. Call it about seventy thousand kilometers from the planet and closing at five hundred klicks a second. If they hold course, they'll pass about twenty thousand klicks in front of us. Heavy gee-load, but I'll need a better track to give any good figures."
"Are our movements shielded by their fusion plume?"
"No way. We're in plain sight. But I don't get any active radar from them. I doubt they'll spot us unless we advertise. They're nearly in decent laser range."
Mac thought fast. If the lasers didn't work, the Nihilists would still be out there—and they'd know someone was gunning for them. But if they could take Starsight out here and now—"Lasers," he said, with more confidence than he felt. There were times he hated being a commanding officer.
Starsight
L'anijmeb shouted in surprise. The image of Capital in the viewscreen turned a bright, horrid red, and then the screen died altogether.
Romero would have jumped straight out of his crash couch, but for the safety harness. "Laser attack!" he cried. That terrible flash in the barycenter—that was the League.
They had won, and now they had taken over the skies of Capital itself. "Put the ship in a slow roll, spread the heat evenly! And pitch us around, run for the planet! Drop and get out of here!"
D'etallis almost told the human to shut up, but then she remembered who aboard knew the most about space, fool or not. "L'anijmeb. Do what it says. And kindly use the radar to find our attacker."
Reunion
"Damn it!" Cynthia cried. "Real even heat pattern. I think they're rolling the ship. Fusion light gone, radar on, they'll have spotted us for sure now. Whoa! Fusion light, right down our nose! Now they're running. Diving for the planet—accelerating instead of braking."
"Chase 'em, Joslyn!” Mac yelled. "Lucy! Crank up the damn lasers right into their fusion flame. Try to overheat them!"
Joslyn powered up Reunion's own engines and quickly brought them up to full thrust. Slowly, they started to gain on the Nihilist ship. She watched the fusion light ahe
ad of her on the scopes. She pitched up and back— hard, suddenly. Starsight had come about, trying to fry Reunion in her exhaust.
"Skin temps high and going up!" Cynthia shouted.
An alarm sounded, and Lucy slapped the cut-off. "Mac, we've lost the laser. I think we caught the edge of their fusion plume and that overheated it.
"Mac, how the hell do we play this one?" Joslyn yelled over the roar of the engines.
Sweet Jesus. Mac stared hard at the screen, and felt his heart hammering in his chest. Damn it, there was only one chance, no time to fiddle with this tactic or that. He had to call it right the first time. A stern chase was no good, not with these short ranges. All the advantages were with the pursued. But how to outguess an alien pilot? And they had to get that ship in space. If they chased her into the atmosphere, blowing Starsight up would probably serve to throw the plague germs into the atmosphere.
The planet was coming up fast now. Okay. Cool, calm, collected thought. Those were inexperienced pilots up ahead. Someone with lots of entry practice could take a ship down with all ship stresses shoved right up to the limit, but could a green jockey? "Run a hot-box on them, Joslyn. Put their backs to the wall on entry. Back off, then jump down their goddamned throats. Try and force them to dive too hot."
Starsight
L'anijmeb was scared. The planet as getting close, very close. They had to start braking now if they were to survive. D'anijmeb swung the ship around and started into the braking pattern. Starsight slowed her headlong rush. Gradually, all too gradually, she decreased her madcap speed to a sane level. Behind her, her pursuer matched her maneuver for maneuver, but hanging far back.
Now, Starsight was a bare one thousand kilometers above the cloud tops, and her pursuer was far above, no longer interfering. L'anijmeb didn't even know exactly how long a kilometer was, but that almost didn't matter. She just had to follow the meters, keep within the tolerance the Guards had taught her. Now nine hundred klicks. Eight hundred. She snorted nervously through her blowhole and wished endlessly that someone else could do this job. Seven hundred, six hundred klicks; five hundred, four hundred fifty, four hundred. Very close now, and maybe they had slowed enough.
Reunion
Mac watched the meters, the screens, the planet rising up around them. They were headed straight in. The Nihilists would have to keep braking if they were to survive.
But the same was true of Reunion.
"Do it, Joz," he said. "Rush 'em. Give it everything you have."
Starsight
D'etallis's face crinkled in pleasure. They had outrun them. They were nearly there. No point in even bothering to land. Three hundred klicks. They could fire the plague shell out the airlock while they were hovering. More effective, and probably safer all around—
That loathsome Romero screamed again, and pointed at the radar screen.
D'etallis's jaw dropped in horror.
The chase ship had reversed thrust again, and was diving, accelerating, straight for Starsight.
Reunion
Eight-gees. For a brief moment, nine. Watching her space-track and Starsight and her attitude and her skin temps all at once, Joslyn dove nose first for her enemy. The two ships closed at a terrifying rate, dead for each other. Split seconds from a crash, Joslyn spun ship one last time. There was no radar to guide her; she aimed her fusion flame by luck and feel.
And Starsight's hull was clawed open by the heat of a sun's core. The tongues of starflame sliced through to the hydrogen tanks, bursting their pressure seals—the escaping hydrogen flaring into fusion itself. A tenth of a second later, what was left of the Nihilist ship exploded.
Reunion shook from stem to stern as she dove through the cloud of debris. Tiny fragments of the enemy ship bounced off her hull with terrifying reports, and suddenly Reunion was in the midst of atmospheric entry, pointed in the wrong attitude, moving at far too high a speed.
Joslyn held the engines to eight-gees, and felt their speed begin to die. Slowly, painfully, Reunion clawed its way back up into the dark of space, and scrabbled into a stable orbit. Joslyn cut the engines and started breathing again, staring at a status board with more red lights than green on it.
That was as close to ramming another ship as she ever wanted to get.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO Eagle
It was a week later when Pete Gesseti set off down the corridors of Eagle's officer country, intent on barging into Admiral Thomas's stateroom. And it had been a hell of a week. Peace so far had been anything but peaceful. At least the trip back from Capital had been less nerve-racking than the trip out. The impromptu cease-fire that Thomas had ordered was holding, but negotiations were just about under way. Another three days and they'd settle on the shape of the table.
The Guards still had their defense screens around Outpost and Capital, but the League had the only intact fleet around and a decisive victory in its pocket. Conditions were right for cutting a deal. Pete had a hunch the Settlers, whoever exactly they were, were delaying things until this Jules Jacquet could be neatly deposed with the rest of the Central Guardians and they could move in.
Lucy Calder was champing at the bit to fly the rescue ship that would pick up the Survey Service CIs from Ariadne, and just incidentally reunite her with Johnson Gustav, once the anti-ship defense screens were down.
Pete was hoping and betting and expecting that Mac and Joslyn would call it quits from the military and settle back to have some kids and name one of them Peter. But knowing the two of them, they'd probably outfit their own ship and have their kids out in space on the flip-side of nowhere.
George Prigot was probably going to end up as hero and villain to boot, for history books written by both sides. No one ever had known what to do with him. Another loose end. At the moment, it seemed that he was drawing pay from the Britannic Navy and the Guard Army at the same time. It would get worked out. That was what diplomats were used for after a war—to come in and tidy up the mess, somehow.
The Guards still held stocks of bioweapons. Pete had a feeling that they wouldn't last long. Pete had made it very clear to the officials on Zeus that the League would have two absolutely nonnegotiable demands: repatriation of all Conscripted Immigrants (and any of their descendents who choose to leave), and the verified destruction of the bios. After what the Starsight had nearly done, the Guards didn't seem likely to argue.
When Thomas allowed an unarmed Guard lander (with a New Finn officer aboard to keep everyone honest) to make the transit from Capital to Outpost, they found every human soul at the Guardian Contact Camp was dead and rotting, massacred. The Nihilists themselves were nowhere to be found. They were out there on the planet somewhere, with their Guard-provided combat weapons. They would have to be dealt with.
And no one knew exactly what to do with the Outposters— no, the Z'ensam—in general. Pete was doing his best to learn the one known Outposter language quickly. Someone would have to negotiate with them. He hadn't made much progress there on his first trip to the planet, but the second time round he expected a more dignified journey than a crashlanding, a forced march, plus getting a chunk of his arm taken off and artificial blood put in. Pete, however, didn't want to be in charge of deals with the natives. Too much paperwork. No, he'd need a boss to take the flack and do all the dull ceremonial work.
And Pete knew himself well enough to know he'd need a boss of wisdom and experience, someone who might be able to understand the Z ensam.
Which brought him to the point of his present visit. He arrived at Thomas's cabin.
Pete had gotten a key from somewhere and used it to walk in uninvited and unannounced. As expected, he found Thomas quietly pouring a good strong spine stiffener. As planned, Pete calmly walked up and knocked bottle and glass out of the admiral's hands and onto the deck.
"You not only just went on the wagon, you just decided to retire," Pete announced cheerfully.
"Mr. Gesseti! How dare you barge in li—"
"How do I dare? Easy." Pete took the
visitor's chair and settled back comfortably. "Work it out, admiral. It's time you hung up your gold braid. Oh, if you harrumph loud and long enough, they'd let you stay on. But to do what?"
"I hadn't quite had time to think about—"
"But I have. I'll tell you what I think. / think you're going to be the first League diplomatic representative to the Z'ensam. No one knows what the legal ramifications of diplomacy with aliens are. No one has had any time to make any up. But you and I are on the scene, so we get to make them up."
"Diplomatic representative?"
"Sort of an over-ambassador, is how I see the post. It'd be damn sloppy to have God knows how many League signatories each with their own ambassador, each following an uncoordinated policy. And on the other side, Lucy Calder estimates there are at least one hundred twenty major Groups to deal with. We'll need some centralized organization. And I like you for top man."
Thomas was trying hard to be angry at this cheeky upstart, but it was hard. "I see. And why should I fill this post?"
For the first time, Pete hesitated a moment. "I could say because your grand victory here puts you in the public eye, would give you the prestige to do what has to be done. I could say you deserve it for the way you've fought this war. But though that would be true, it's only part of the reason. With all due respect, admiral, you should have this job because this job demands a tired, cynical, embittered old man."
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