“You’d damn well better give me documents. Wouldn’t be any good to me otherwise.”
“True. True.” Delightful Childe stroked his proboscis. “Very well, we will give you the necessary documents. I will have to twist some noses, but it will be done. However, you will have to agree to certain, uh, limitations.”
“Like what?” Lucky tried not to let his pleasure show. Whatever the limitations, Oinaise citizenship had potentials he was only beginning to understand.
“Formalities, really,” Delightful Childe said, “like agreeing not to endanger our neutrality, and promising to relinquidh your citizenship on demand when you are no longer representing this planet.”
“Sounds easy enough to me,” Lucky said.
“Do not be so sure, nor so eager, Lucky. You will carry a grave responsibility in this matter – to us, and to yourself.”
“I’ll worry about the responsibility.” A sense of triumph broke the smile free on his face. “You just get me that citizenship. Then we’ll really be in business.”
“And you will leave immediately for Cloise?”
“Of course.” His smile broadened. “And don’t worry. I’ll do my best not to shame you or Oina.”
22
MARSHA WATCHED THE FINE LINES STREAK across the remote sensorscreen – lines representing the paths of the tiny search ships as they disappeared from sight. “How long will it be now?” she asked quietly.
“Thirty-five hours until we leave subspace,” Frye said. “As soon as the search ships locate Sondak’s defense fleet, we will launch our attack.”
With a gentle shudder Marsha turned to face her father. “We’re going to take a lot of casualties, aren’t we?”
“What makes you ask that?” Like many of her questions, this one angered and annoyed him – not so much the question itself, but the accusatory tone in her voice when she asked it. Possible casualties were none of her business.
She heard the edge of anger, but refused to back away from it. “Because I don’t see how we can avoid them. And I’m still not sure why the Matthews system is so important.”
“In Decie’s name, Marsha! Haven’t you been listening to me? Matthews system is midway between us and Sondak. Whoever controls Matthews controls a hundred-thousand tachymeters in every direction. If you’re so concerned about casualties, think about all the people in the U.C.S. who won’t have to suffer under Sondak attacks once we control Matthews.”
She sensed something deeper under his anger – something coldly separate from any concern about future lives that might be spared. With a quick blink she reminded herself of the thing that had always been the hardest to face as she grew up. Her father was first and foremost a military man. Maybe that was why he hadn’t acknowledged her to his officers. Everything else in his life competed for secondary priority.
“I understand your strategy,” she said carefully, “but I do not understand your callousness about casualties.”
Frye looked at her sternly. Maybe I should have kept Melliman after all, he thought. There is so much stubbornness in Marsha that I had forgotten. Or never accepted.
“Be reasonable, Marsha. Wars create casualties. Men and women die in battle. That’s a fact, not callousness. A commander’s job is to obtain his objectives with a minimum loss of life…but he cannot – ever – let fear of casualties dominate his thinking.”
“I didn’t mean that you should –“
“I don’t care what you meant.”
His sharp rebuttal didn’t surprise her. She had been pushing him for a reaction since their reunion. What she needed was some evidence from him that would help justify her decision to leave Lucky to come here. Instead, the things he said and did made him seem more and more like a stranger than the father she thought she remembered.
“Did you ever care what I meant?”
“We’re not going to get into that again, Marsha. I don’t have the time, or the inclination – or the energy – for that kind of dead-end conversation. If you want to help me, then bite your tongue and suck in your self-pity. If you don’t…”
When he didn’t finish his statement Marsha thought again of Lucky and the terrible moments when she had watched Graycloud rise from Alexvieus into space without her. “Do you know what my partner said right before I left him on Alexvieux? He told me to tell you he hated you.”
“Because I wouldn’t let a Sondak space-tramper like him come with you,” Frye said flatly.
“No…I thought that then, too. But I was wrong. Now I think he said it because my obligation to you was stronger than my love for him. And he’s not a space-tramper.”
“You loved him?” Frye was genuinely surprised. She had so little about that time –
“Yes, I love him…maybe more now than when I was with him. Then I didn’t know what I had. Now I do.”
“So you’re sorry you came to me.” Even though he knew he was right, Frye regretted the words as soon as he said them. The last thing he wanted to do was alienate her any more than he already had.
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, but you meant it.”
“You’ve never known what I meant,” she said as she stood up and walked to the door. Quiet tears edged into the corners of her eyes, and she did not want him to see them. “Unless you need me, sir, I’m going to my quarters.”
“Very well, Marsha.” He returned her silent salute with ambivalent emotions, unsure of what to let himself feel.
After she shut the door he turned immediately and activated the holospan galactic map of the space surrounding Matthews system. Somewhere in the void around that system Sondak’s forces were waiting for them. For the hundredth time he asked himself what he would do if he were commanding those forces.
As he considered all the possibilities again, thoughts about Marsha and what she had said slipped without notice into the dark emptiness under his heart.
◊ ◊ ◊
Fatigue had joined LRRS One-Zero-Two as an unseen member of the crew who altered their judgments and slowed their reflexes.
When Louise picked picked up a strange echo, she should have recognized it as a black hole. But she wasn’t looking for a black hole, she was looking for the Ukes. Without thinking she gave the heading of the unidentified echo to Da B’Barbara. He made a quick course correction and told Kimkey to report that they had located the Uke fleet.
“But, Da,” Louise protested, “we can’t be sure of that.” She stared at the echo reading and knew there was something familiar about it – something important.
“You just get their range,” Da said. He wasn’t going to be cheated out of this chance again.
Minutes later Louise realized what she had found. “Da!” she screamed. “Turn away!”
Her warning was too late. LRRS One-Zero-Two slipped over the event horizon of an uncharted black hole and disappeared forever.
The crew of LRRS Ninety-Three picked up a true echo, locked onto it, and recorded nine minutes of valuable data before the echo faded. They, too, reported having located the Uke fleet.
When Admiral Pajandcan received the conflicting reports she shook her head. “What in the blue novas is going on out there, Nick? Are the Ukes coming at us from two directions?”
Nickerson looked up at her with tired red eyes. “Beats me, Admiral. Neither one of those reports fits this.” He handed her his latest computer chart drawn from the subspace monitors’ data.
“Why not three directions?” she asked suddenly.
“Do they have the forces for that?”
“Who in blazes knows?” She looked at the LRRS reports again, searching for anything that would give her the information she needed. “Look at this,” she said finally. “If we put Ninety-Three’s reports aside for the moment, and just look at your data and One-Oh-Two’s, does it make any more sense to you?”
After carefully comparing the two, Nickerson said, “Well, given the angles and One-Oh-Two’s speed, plus the time adjustment factors, I guess you could
say these aren’t far apart. But –“
“I know,” Pajandcan said as she snatched the papers from his hand. “I know. They’re not close enough to bet this fleet on. But dammit, Nick, we’ve got to bet on something. I’m going to send out another wave of LRRS.”
“We only have forty left, Admiral.”
“Don’t you think I know that? We’ll send twenty ouy and call the others back. They’ve been out there too long already. If they continue searching as they return, that will give us a cone grid.” She paused, staring at nothing, thinking of those fifty little ships and their crews like tidfish searching the ocean for a school of goliathsharks. “I want to find those Ukes, Nickerson. I want to find them now.”
◊ ◊ ◊
“A human?” Leri asked. “Why are they sending a human?”
“They did not say, Proctor,” the Isthian answered from his suckling position on her neck.
He sucked hard, and Leri was glad. It was difficult for her to concentrate in the middle of an exchange, but it would have been harder if this one were less aggressive. Still, Leri resented the distraction. Normally, exchanges provided the time for her to relax and meditate, to appreciate the music she loved while the Isthian renewed her antibodies and took its nourishment from her blood.
But these were not normal times. Cloise had suffered under the burning and would probably suffer more. Her vision of the future had been distorted somehow, and no amount of meditative coaxing seemed capable of calling it back.
“I taste your unhappiness,” the Isthian said through a slurping of its lips.
“My apologies, tender one.”
“No apologies necessary, Proctor. We all taste the bitterness of these days in one way or another. I seek no other for exchange.”
His reassurance relieved her slightly. “May the Elett bless you,” she whispered.
“And may you share my blessing,” he replied before he resumed suckling the fat nipple on her neck.
Leri concentrated on the sensation, seeking the tranquility that might let her think more clearly. Yet every time she felt herself slide toward contentment, the thought of humans intruded. Thus she was surprised to hear the Isthian speak to her.
“You slept well, Proctor.”
“I slept?” She did not believe it until she realized how rested she felt.
“I helped you,” he said calmly, “but now I must go.”
“May your blessings double, tender one.”
“By the grace of the Elett,” he said before scuttling off her back and disappearing behind her.
One day, she thought, I will look upon an Isthian and know my benefactor. That might make up for having to look at a stupid human sent to represent the soulless Oinaise.
◊ ◊ ◊
Dawson allowed himself a grin as he watched the eighth missile exploded in a brief flash. They were getting better, his hunter crews, a damn sight better at finding Uke neutronics. For some reason the Ukes had not shielded their weapons properly, and as faint as their radiation emissions were, they were strong enough to give away their locations. “Wish we knew how many more there are,” he said aloud.
“Would be nice, sir,” the tech beside him said. “But you can bet on at least one more.”
“Why?”
“One of the civies, the Anned, just picked up a reading.”
“A good one?” He was pleased that the civilians had finally found one. It reminded him of their defense of Granser’s planet.
“Looks like it, sir. They’re closing on the target with two of our ships in support.”
“Put it on general broadcast,” Dawson said, “and tell them to be careful.”
“Aye, sir.”
Dawson looked at the faint starfield on the viewscreen with its superimposed grid and found a green civilian blip and two blue military blips closing on the telltale orange blip of the Uke neutronic device.
After twenty minutes watching and listening to the communications between ships, Dawson senses something was wrong, “Mr. Edwards,” he said into the transceiver, “how close are you to the target?”
“Just reached the safety point, sir,” the civilian answered thirty seconds later.
“We’re stopping too, Admiral,” the leader of the military ships said. “It ought to blow up in a second.”
But it didn’t. The orange blip pulsed steadily in the center of a triangle formed by the three ships. The tension mounted in the communications room as everyone waited for the explosion.
“Lieutenant Welch here, sir,” a voice finally said from the speakers. “Request permission to close with the target.”
“Negative, Lieutenant,” Dawson said automatically. “That thing could blow any second.”
“But the readings are different on this one, sir. Electronic emissions are lower. Power source appears unstable. I think it’s malfunctioning, sir.”
“All the more reason to wait. Maintain your distance, Lieutenant. You, too, Mr. Edwards.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Yes, sir,” came the overlapping responses.
Dawson was intrigued with the possibility of capturing one of these devices, but he wasn’t about to risk a crew and a ship to do it. Still…”Lieutenant Welch, lock your weapons on the target to fire automatically if it moves. Then continue monitoring and inform me of any noticeable change in its status. Is that understood?”
“Affirmative, Admiral…Weapons locked…Will continue monitoring and keep you posted as instructed.”
“Mr. Edwards, you may withdraw the Anned and resume your search pattern.”
Edwards answered after a longer than usual pause. “It’s our find, sir. We’d like to stay.”
Dawson smiled. “As you will, Mr. Edwards. But at the first sign of movement, you get the hell out of there.”
“Yes, sir.”
After three hours of intermittent reports of steadily declining electronic emission from the Uke missile, Dawson made his decision. “Lieutenant Welch, do you still wish to close with the target?”
“Affirmative, sir.”
“What about your crew?”
“Only me and Longpat, sir. We’re ready when you say so.”
Dawson listened to the background static for a long minute. “Very well, Lieutenant, close slowly and carefully to within ten kilometers. And give us a continuing report as you go. If its power increases in the slightest, I want you gone on full thrust. You got that?”
“Initiating closing action now, sir. No change in electronic emissions. Target remains steady. Radiation constant. Three hundred kilometers and closing…”
Dawson listened for twenty minutes with growing anxiety, expecting to lose the target and Welch any second.
Finally Welch said, “Ten kilometers and holdng, sir. Pictures on their way.”
Dawson shifted his eyes to the video screen and for the first time saw one of the Uke devices. It was shaped like a sphere with a long, pointed projection sticking out tangentially from its axis. “I want views from all sides, Lieutenant,” Dawson said calmly. “Then I want you to return to the safety point and destroy it.”
“But, sir…we could get a tow on it.”
“Negative on the tow. You have ten minutes to get your pictures and begin your return, Lieutenant, or you’ll spend the rest of this war dirtside.” Dawson was surprised at the fierceness with which he spoke until he realized both his fists were clenched with tension. He relaxed only slightly when the angle of the picture started shifting.
“Aye, sir,” Welch said, “circling target.”
Dawson could not relax until Lieutenant Welch had his ship back behind the safety point. When the two military ships fired on the Uke missile, its neutronics were detonated in another of the familiar flashes. Nine, Dawson thought, nine down, but how many to go?
“THEY’RE COMING IN, SIR!” Mica said as she hurried into the Battle Center. “The Ukes are on their way! Pajandcan’s LRRS picked them up in subspace about eighty thousand tachymeters out.”
&n
bsp; 23
Gilbert frowned. “Eighty thousand tachymeters? I would have expected them to be much closer by now.”
“She said the subspace monitors confirm it.” Mica was still excited, but by now understood her father’s caution. If the Ukes actually were closer –
“How many LRRS picked them up?”
“Just one, sir, but like I said, the subspace monitors –“
“One isn’t enough, Mica. Let me see.” He took her printouts and compared them with the projections on the holospan map in front of him. “Plot these,” he said to the map operator.
By the time the new projections came up, the deck officers were crowding around the map, and Gilbert frowned again. Turning to Mica he said, “Tell Pajandcan she needs at least two and preferably three more confirmed echo sightings before she moves to engage them.”
Mica saw the differences on the map, but did not share his concern about the LRRS sightings. “Yes, sir,” she said, “but may I ask a question, sir?”
“Certainly, Captain.”
His tone told her to be careful, yet she felt the question had to be asked. “Sir, what if these are true sightings? Won’t she be wasting valuable time?”
“That she will. But what if they’re not true sightings? She might be maneuvering to engage an enemy who’s not there. Now pass that message.”
“Yessir.”
“And Mica?”
“Sir?”
“Alert our fleet to this possibility.”
“Will do, sir. Anything else?”
“No. That will be all for now – except that I think it’s time for you to shift your operation here. On the double.” He turned back to the problems at hand without acknowledging her salute. It seemed like only a minute later that she was back, flushed with excitement.
“Three more confirmed sightings,” she said triumphantly as she handed a new printout to the map operator.
When the new coordinates appeared on the map, they were totally off line from the first set. “What’s this?” Gilbert asked, “a two-pronged attack? Extend the projections.”
Pale orange lines extended from the pulsing coordinates across the sphere.
Double Spiral War Trilogy Page 23