RUSSIAN FEDERATION PRESIDENT KONSTANTIN GOGOL

REPUBLIC OF CHINA PRESIDENT KEE CHOW AN

The Japanese aren't going to appreciate being left off this list, Gomez thought with a dark chuckle. They pretty much own the low-Earth orbit commercial satellite business.

"There's a word for what they want to form, Tony,” Hector Gutierrez told him from his seat on the other side of the massive desk. “It's not a nice word here in the States, thanks to a dark bit of our history, but it's accurate. They want to form a confederation. A limited association of sovereign states formed to regulate trade and provide for a common defense."

"You're right, ese— and when you're right, you're right.” In private, the two tended to talk like the old childhood friends they were. “And it's not a bad idea, either. That's what America was founded to be.”

He dropped the message form on the polished desktop. “Remember the Liberal/Progressive movements of the late 20th century? The old Democratic Party? That almost sunk that notion altogether, until the Third World War and the Libertarian Party's becoming a force in national politics.” Gomez stood up and turned to look out the window, hands clasped behind him, unconsciously adopting the posture made famous by another president, many decades earlier. “Can you believe the Republican Party was on the right of national politics those days and it was the old Democratic Party that was considered the left? It's only been the last fifty years that we managed to undo a lot of what they did back then—at least now Congress and the supreme court remembers that there's a constitution. I hear tell that some of them have actually read it."

Vice President Gutierrez was looking thoughtfully at the ceiling, his mind turning over very rapidly. “And what's more, if they manage to put something together, they'll have to have a plebiscite of the various planets to put it in place—at least, if they want to have a free population. How's that going to work on Earth, with all these different nations? Most all the planet has elected governments now, but there hasn't been a serious international forum since the old UN collapsed in the mid two-thousands."

"I'm not too worried about that. There's the European Common Market, the African Confederation that's still trying to form up, the Asian/Pacific Co-Prosperity Alliance and the North American Free Trade Organization—and for that matter, there's still technically a UN office in Belgium, you know. We'll work something out, if there ends up being a good reason to do it."

"So, are you going to this meeting? We can sure get passage on an OWME passenger liner, but you're looking at being off-Earth and out of touch for at least a year, amigo . The ‘esteemed opposition’ is gonna take it out of your hide in the next election, bro, if you leave planet for a year." Gomez smiled lazily, like a cat contemplating a canary with a broken wing. “I know. That's why I'm sending you."

"Me?"

"You, Heck,” Gomez grinned at the vice president as he invoked an ancient childhood nickname.

“You're the man this time. You'll have to speak for the United States. I can't go—you just explained one reason and there are plenty of others. We still have a domestic agenda, remember?"

"You still want to push ahead with a planetary defense?"

"Damn right. Let's be real, Heck—there isn't likely to be too much come out of this meeting. You expect a bunch of businessmen to form a Galactic government?"

"From where I sit, mijo, it doesn't seem all that unlikely. You and I have only been pals for what, nine years? What were we doing before that?"

Gomez shrugged, conceding the point. “Well, that's all the more reason for you to go—I can't send a second-level functionary to something like this and besides, I can trust you. These others,” Gomez waved a hand vaguely at the Oval Office doors, “they're all Washington regulars. You and me, we went to school together, built a business together, we were in the trenches together. I need you to go to Tarbos, Heck."

"I guess I can't argue with that. So when should I figure on leaving?"

"There's an OWME liner leaving for Forest in three weeks and then it goes from there to Tarbos. I've already got berths for you, Sandy, Maria and Manuel."

"Well, at least my family gets a year-long space vacation. Say, will there be any landfall on Forest?

Manuel always wanted to see it, ever since he read about the Grugell invasion in middle school."

"I'm sure you can arrange something,” Gomez said.

Tarbos.

A scattering of hyperphone replies lay on Bob Pritchard's desk. Aside from his old friend Stefan Ebensberg on Caliban, he'd received replies in the affirmative from all of the thirteen inhabited worlds. He read the names with a great deal of satisfaction:

From Earth:

United States, Vice President Hector Gutierrez

United Kingdom, Prince Harry IV, Prince of Wales

Russia, Vice President Vladimir Tarakanov

China, Prime Minister Kee Chow An

Only China's head of state is coming in person, Pritchard noted. Well, that's to be expected—a major nation's president can't really be off world for a year. I wonder how Kee Chow An is getting away with it? His parliament must be going nuts ... He continued reading. Caliban, Halifax, Forest, Selin, Chernov, New Albion, Zed, Avalon, Coronado, Arabia; all the names of attendees were of assistant directors or other high-level executives, but only Caliban's Stefan Ebensberg was coming in person; and as yet, there was no answer from Corinthia. The name of the attendee from Forest was familiar, but didn't belong to any OWME executive that Pritchard could remember. Crider, he asked himself, Crider, where have I heard that name before?

Of course! The Grugell invasion on Forest, he's the big hero that led the scouts. The Battle of Crider Meadow, when they shut off the orbital broadcast power. Well, that's interesting—he'll be the only ordinary citizen here, not a politician or an executive. I wonder why they picked him? Old Bert Grolier's heart probably won't stand a shuttle launch from Forest, but he's got assistants. Why this Crider fellow?

But the meeting was on and it was only now that the thought occurred to Pritchard that had occurred to several other people in the process already: We're forming an interstellar government, here. I wonder what we should call it?

He stood up, gathering the stack of replies and dropping them in a drawer. A stab at a silver button on his desktop opened an audio channel to his primary assistant. “Marie? I'll be over at the Central Library for a while."

"All right."

Pritchard strode from his office, thinking hard: I've got a lot of preparation to do in the next few weeks.

Five

A shuttle approaching the OWME Passenger Liner Star of Carolina , orbiting Forest.

"Geez, Dad, that thing is huge."

"It's not as big as the old Mayflower, but it'll do,” Mike Crider agreed with his son, staring at the huge, slate-blue mass of the passenger liner from his window seat in the orbital shuttle. “It's going to take us a while to get to Tarbos, wherever that is, so we may as well be comfortable.” He dropped back into the bucket seat with a sigh. “At least the company is picking up the tab for this trip. I don't want to think about what a trip on a liner like that would cost. It cost me everything I had to get me to Forest twenty years ago,” he exaggerated.

Mike Junior craned his neck to keep the liner in sight as the shuttle adjusted course. “Why'd you pick Forest anyway, Dad? Don't they use hunter-pioneers on other planets?"

"Yeah, I'm sure they do. It's a long story, Junior, but basically, I saw a recruiting poster in the market one day and an old friend sort of talked me into it. Next thing I knew, I was on the way.” He tilted his big gray Stetson back on his head. “Not that I'd change anything, if I was to do it all over again. If I hadn't come to Forest, I wouldn't ever have met your mother, for one thing."

"And Mom would have been killed by a roc, along with our grandparents."

"That's right. Anyway, from what I hear, Earth's more crowded than ever. Idaho is a great place, son and I hope one day you'll get to see it, but there's sure a lot of people. Forest is nice and quiet."

"Too quiet, sometimes.” The younger man lapsed into a pensive silence for a few minutes before speaking up again. “Dad, by the way, do you think you could not call me ‘Junior,’ while we're on the ship and on Tarbos?"

Mike turned to stare at his son. “What? We've called you Junior since you were born."

"Come on, Dad, I'm a grown man now. ‘Junior’ just doesn't get it, you know? Can't you just call me Mike?"

"Not ‘Little Mike?’ We used to call you that, you know. How about ‘Mikey?'” his father teased.

"Dad!"

"I think I'm following you, son,” Mike Senior teased. “There sure aren't very many girls on Forest, but there's bound to be a bunch of them on that liner,” he pointed out the viewport, “And more on Tarbos. Especially with this big convention going on."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Dad,” Mike Junior chuckled.

"Uh huh.” It would be another hour before the cranky old shuttle made it to the Star of Carolina 's docking bay. Mike smiled and, tipping his big hat down over his eyes, leaned back for a short nap. The Star of Carolina's docking bay.

Eighteen-year old Maria Gutierrez found the trip from Earth of differing levels of interest, in stages. The trip up the Quito Skyhook and the shuttle ride to the ship was exciting. Settling into one of the giant liner's VIP suites was exciting. Watching on the terminal viewer as the ship accelerated and leaped into subspace was exciting.

The weeks-long stretch after that was boring.

Now things were getting exciting again as Maria stood with her father at a port, watching the shuttle approach. She didn't find the vast green and blue expanse of the wilderness below interesting; there were no cities, no air traffic was visible and the liner's planetary information system told her that there wasn't much there for a big-city girl (as Maria invariably thought of herself, having grown up in Denver) to find interesting. There wasn't even a Skyhook; the boarding passengers had to batter their way up the gravity well in an old orbital shuttle.

However, the rather banged-up old shuttle that was approaching the ship now carried a living, breathing historical figure about whom Maria had read in her recent history classes. The hero of Forest, Mike Crider, was on that ship and she was going to get to meet him.

"Maria, honey, back away from the port, let your brother have a look.” Sandra and Hector Gutierrez stood behind their children, awaiting the arrival of the representative from Forest. Maria stepped back to let her fifteen-year old brother Manuel peer through the heavy polymer port.

"Hey, that's some busted-up old junk,” he commented.

"Forest isn't a real profitable venture for OWME,” his father informed him. “There's no mineral wealth, not much for petrochemicals, no precious metals. Mostly farming. It's going to be the breadbasket of the Galaxy one day, but right now, it's still mostly wilderness."

"That's still some busted-up old junk,” Manuel repeated.

The shuttle coasted into the cavernous docking bay of the Star of Carolina, stopping with a puff of maneuvering thrusters. A docking tube extended outwards, connecting finally to the hatch on the side of the craft.

"Let's head over to the gate. I want to meet Mr. Crider as soon as he debarks."

"Yes, I suppose we should. Kids, come on.” Sandra Gutierrez tapped both teenagers on the shoulder.

“Let's go."

Only a handful of people debarked from the shuttle. Hector Gutierrez lined his family up at the port and waited patiently as the passengers filed off.

"There he is,” he said suddenly. The figure that emerged from the port was easily recognizable from old pictures Gutierrez had seen; all of the settled worlds had seen photos of the hero of Forest and anyone would recognize the tall, lean, taciturn frontiersman with the trademark blue cotton work shirt, blue jeans, laced boots and big gray Stetson hat. Behind him stepped a second man, younger, but otherwise a near duplicate of the veteran of the Grugell occupation.

The vice president stepped forward, hand extended. “Mr. Crider?"

Mike smiled, a little intimidated at being so far out of his element. “Yeah, that's me. This is my son, Mike Junior."

Gutierrez shook Mike's hand in a rock-hard grip. “Hector Gutierrez, Mike. I've looked forward to meeting you.” He turned to introduce his family. “This is my wife Sandra, my daughter Maria and my son Manuel."

Mike Junior felt his heart take a sudden lurch. Maria Gutierrez looked at him with a dazzling smile. Her dark eyes sparkled, her raven-black hair shone, her teeth were even and white, her skin smooth and silken. She extended her hand towards him, smiling sweetly.

"Hi. This is all pretty exciting, isn't it?"

"Uh, yeah,” Mike Junior stuttered, shaking her hand lightly, suddenly conscious of her soft, warm fingers clasped in his own thick, callused hand. “Yeah, I suppose it is."

"Have you ever been off Forest before?"

"No, this is my first time,” he replied, finding his voice again. “Heck, I've only been as far as Settlement a few times. Dad doesn't have much use for towns."

"Oh, well, I guess we'll be seeing quite a city on Tarbos."

Mike Junior suddenly realized he was still holding her hand. He let go as though her slim fingers had suddenly turned red-hot. Wow , he thought.

Mike Senior and Hector Gutierrez hadn't missed the exchange. They looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

"I think this is going to be an interesting trip,” Gutierrez observed.

"I think you're right, Mr. Vice President,” Mike grinned.

"Call me Hector, Mr. Crider, please. Oh, hell, call me Heck. That's what all my friends call me."

"Only if you drop the ‘Mr. Crider’ business and call me Mike,” the hero of Forest answered.

"Agreed. I only hope the rest of the issues at this conference can be settled that easily!" Mike frowned, remembering the stack of notes he had in his luggage, products of a week's reading in the Settlement library. “I'm not betting a penny on that."

Earth, high orbit.

OWME's high orbit spacedock contained, among other things, the best zero-gee physics lab that had yet been devised. Hans Richter, as one of Earth's foremost working physicists, was OWME's first choice to head up the staff at that lab. Hired away from The Planck Institute three years earlier, he had immediately gone to work cataloging interstellar dark matter ratios, hopefully to improve the efficiency of the Gellar star drives mounted by OWME ships. To that end, he had sent scanners out on OWME ships traveling all the standard trade routes and kept his staff working late into the nights analyzing the data each time a ship returned.

What his scanners had found, on three occasions, were strange clear areas in his spatial matter density scans—"blank spaces” in space, baffling to Doctor Richter, intriguing to the American government's Air Force Chief of Staff who had visited the labs. Three weeks after Air Force General Janine LeBlanc had visited the lab, she'd returned with a question.

"A cloaked ship? You mean a Grugell ship?” Doctor Richter hadn't even considered that possibility. General Le Blanc answered tersely. “Yes, exactly that. We want to know if a cloaked Grugell ship could be responsible for those blank spaces."

"It's possible. We don't have any idea, really, how the Grugell cloak works. We assume it either renders the ship transparent to the electromagnetic spectrum, or that it somehow bends light waves around the ship's mass. A strong gravimetric field could conceivably do that, but we've no idea how they would generate or control such a field and the stresses on the ship's structure would be far, far beyond the capabilities of any material we know of."

"So it's more likely the former, then."

"Jah. And while the ship is shielded from observation, it still ‘sweeps’ an area of space in passage, either displacing or removing the normal traces of interstellar matter. They may well use them as we do, to power their drive systems."

"Could you adapt your scanner to track the passage of a cloaked ship?"

"Easily, given some added computer support."

General Le Blanc stood up. “I'll have a funding voucher faxed to you from the Pentagon within the hour. I've already cleared it with your bosses at the company HQ in Denver. This will be your top priority now—get your plans together, build a prototype if you have to and get us documents on how to build a tracker."

"Yes, I'll start right away,” Richter answered softly, his scientist's mind already turning over with procedures and plans.

That had been five months ago. Today, Doctor Richter had learned that the plans for his adapted scanner had been hyperphoned to Tarbos. For what reason, General Le Blanc had declined to say. Half a light-year outside the Tarbos system.

Not even a shimmering in the star field betrayed the passage of the cloaked ship; the Grugell frigate slid through space like a wraith, invisible, undetectable. Alone and unsupported, the diminutive warship coasted towards the Tarbos system, decelerating slowly at a rate that would bring it out of subspace a little over a hundred thousand kilometers (the Grugell, of course, used their own units of measure) outside the orbit of the sole inhabited planet.

The K-101 was built on the standard frigate pattern, a sleek, shining silver fuselage between two arms supporting the drive pods. The main cabin was somewhat cramped for the crew of six officers and twenty crew, but Grugell society was spartan in nature and none of the crewmembers thought that things might ever be any different. There was one recent innovation that made life easier aboard ship; this newest frigate had special deck plates that produced a gravity field, approximating the sea-level gravity of Grugell itself.

And deep in the bowels of the ship, shielded by three different energy fields and wired to a self-destruct charge, was the unfathomable black sphere of the cloaking unit. It hummed now in its darkened compartment, exerting its unknowable influence to warp all forms of electromagnetic energy around the body of the K-101.

Two decks above the crew quarters and tiny dining area and one deck above the officer's staterooms, the bridge was small and claustrophobic as was the rest of the ship. The commander had the only really comfortable seat on the ship, a large chair in the center of the bridge that swiveled to face the various stations on the circular compartment: Navigation, Helm, Weapons, Signals, Scanning. A large view screen dominated one wall, at present displaying only the weird, shifting patterns of subspace.

"All stations, report status,” Commander Kadastrattik XII barked from his bridge chair.

"Helm, Commander. We are on course, scheduled to leave subspace as planned, we will assume station one hundred thousand kilos from the planet as you have commanded."

"Navigation, Commander. Confirm we are on course."

"Scanning, Commander. All scanners are nominal. No other detectable ships are in the area.” He didn't bother to explain that detecting another ship in subspace was all but impossible without actually running into it. “We are prepared to begin detailed scans of the planet and surrounding space upon reaching station."

"Weapons, Commander. Torpedoes are stowed, all units tested and operational. Anti-proton projectors are fully charged and functional. Cloaking device is functioning normally."

"Signals, Commander. No incoming messages."

"Excellent.” Kadastrattik was a careful commander, a cautious and prudent Grugell and a veteran of the debacle of the failed occupation under Clomonastik III. His orders were simple, if somewhat cryptic and the manner in which he was to accomplish his final goal had been left to his discretion. Communications intercepts indicated a meeting of some sort was to take place on this planet. The humans were, Fleet Intelligence predicted, attempting to form an interplanetary alliance. His orders were to prevent that from happening.

All he needed was a brief window of opportunity.

And, to his good fortune, he had an idea of how to achieve that as well. He leaned back in his chair now, smiling slightly, visions of group commander rank floating deliciously through his head.

Six

The Star of Carolina , in transit.

"Did you ever imagine anything like it?"

One of the Star of Carolina 's outstanding features was its observation bubble, a large poly-steel blister on the outer hull that offered a slowly rotating view of space—or, in this case, the weird, continually shifting, unfathomable patterns of subspace. The only down side was that, to accommodate the passenger compartment's rotation to provide gravity, you had to strap into seats that rotated into the bubble at the touch of a switch—and the ship's rotation made you feel as though you were hanging upside-down.

"Not me. I've seen stars before, from Forest, but nothing like this." Mike Crider Junior and Maria Gutierrez sat in the observation bubble, ostensibly watching the streams of subspace whipping past but really just enjoying each other's company. Maria's raven-black hair cascaded down, framing her face. Mike's attention was constantly torn from the spectacle of subspace by the nearer, more fathomable and yet more beautiful sight seated next to him.

"Daddy says you don't see stars in subspace. He's not even sure that there are stars in subspace. Oh, look there!” Maria pointed at a vermilion whorl that spun, danced at the edge of vision and was gone, somewhere far aft of the hurtling ship. “I wonder what that was."

"Beats me. Most impressive thing I've seen before was a logger out on the eastern savannah and that wasn't a patch on this."

"What's a logger?"

"Big things, herbivores, live out on the fern prairies and savannahs east of our mountains. They're about six to ten meters long, armor-plated, with big horn blades sticking out to the sides.” He held his hands a meter apart to show the size of a logger's side spikes. “A beak like a turtle and they can bite right through a tree trunk. They've got big plates of horn on their backs and necks and they walk on their hind feet and the knuckles of their hands. First one I ever saw was a big bull, leaning back on his tail to strip a tree along a branch of the East Fork River. He was leaning back on his tail, using the big hooked claws on his front feet to hook down branches to eat. Thing was like two stories tall.

"Dad knows a guy who hunts them, but I'm not about to try it. Rocs are plenty exciting enough. Plus you have to use a rocket launcher or a cannon to kill one."

"I've never seen anything much bigger than a deer, but I've always been a city girl,” Maria confessed.

"Well, you've got me beat there. I've hardly ever seen a town. Just Settlement and it isn't much. Heck, Forest doesn't even have a Skyhook yet."

"Daddy says it's mostly farmers."

Mike Junior smiled as he watched a pattern of violet sparkles cascade past, fading to a dull green as they went. “Yeah, I suppose it is, ships always re-provision at Forest—this one did, we watched two cargo hulls of food shot up before our shuttle took off from Settlement. But we're not farmers, we're pioneers. We hunt for meat, hide and feathers for the colony."

"You hunt wild animals?” Maria asked, frowning a little. “Doesn't it bother you, killing animals?"

"What'd you have for breakfast this morning, Maria?"

"Oatmeal, eggs, sausage—a little chorizo,” Maria answered.

"Sausage, eh? Think the pig gave it up voluntarily?"

"OK,” she smiled. “I see your point. But it's got to be lonely, living way up there in the mountains.”

Maria leaned a tiny bit closer; the herbal scent of her glossy black hair filled Mike Junior's senses. “Don't you ever miss being around people?"

"Sometimes. Can't really miss what you never had."

"I guess."

A trail of salmon-pink ripples cascaded past the viewport, turning rapidly through white to end up bright blue.

"What do you think Tarbos will be like?"

"Beats me,” Mike answered. “I guess there's a big city, just down from the hills where they Skyhook comes down—Dad says it's called Mountain View. It's supposed to be one of the prettiest cities in the Galaxy. Well, that we know of, anyway."

"I've never been off Earth,” Maria said softly.

"Yeah, I've never been off Forest."

"It's a little scary, isn't it?"

Mike Junior thought about that for a moment. “Well, maybe a little, but not like a guts-turning-to-water kind of scary, like when you make a bad shot on a roc and he turns and comes after you, twenty feet tall and screeching bloody murder. It's more like a final-exam-in-cyber school kind of scary, when you know you've been goofing off out in the woods and not studying."

Maria laughed, tossing her raven hair in a way that made Mike's heart hammer in his chest. “I hadn't thought of it quite like that. Has that really happened to you? I read about rocs in science class when I was in high school—you really had one come after you? A wounded one?"

"Yeah,” Mike answered, remembering. “I was only sixteen and my shot went a little low. I had the other barrel loaded with a shotshell, too—stupid. Dad gave me some hell about it later." Maria sat quietly for a moment, waiting and then impulsively punched Mike on the upper arm. “So tell me what happened!"

"Oh, yeah. Well, Dad got him with a high-ex round. Dropped him in a full charge—he slid up to about ten feet from my boot toes. I couldn't move for about five minutes.” He omitted mentioning another, more embarrassing consequence of that close call—one that had required a change of undergarments.

"I imagine so!” Maria casually reached for Mike's hand, intertwining her fingers with his. “I hope that sort of thing doesn't happen very often. I'd just as soon you stayed safe, you know."

"Uh, no. Not very often.” Mike's powers of articulation had suddenly diminished, but he managed to give Maria's hand a squeeze.

Outside the bubble, a swirl of light blue faded through purple to a light pink, culminating in a starburst of brilliant white.

Maria and Mike Junior sat quietly watching the weird, unpredictable lightshow of subspace as the Star of Carolina plunged on through the unfathomable continuum of subspace towards Tarbos. Corinthia.

Of all the settled worlds, there was only one that was not a project of Off-World Mining & Exploration. Twenty-six years earlier, the younger brother to the United Kingdom's King Charles III led an expedition to an undeveloped planet. Prince Harold intended to re-establish a true monarchy and with the wealth of the royal family behind him, he contracted an OWME liner to transport himself, his family and six thousand, two hundred and forty-three followers to Corinthia, where he was crowned King Harold I. Corinthia was then discovered to have an amazing, no, a stunning wealth of mineral riches. Corinthia's crust contained incredible amounts of titanium, germanium, rhodium, all the valuable construction and power metals, silver and gold as well. In the space of five years, mining operations made the privately held planet very, very wealthy indeed and King Harold I became the wealthiest man in the Galaxy by a considerable margin, surpassing even the recently deceased Hiram Gellar. But the message from Tarbos had come as a shock. Harold I had what he liked to refer to as “a very nice little arrangement” on Corinthia and he wasn't enamored of the idea of a Galactic government suddenly wanting to impose rules and regulations on his privately held planet. And so it was a very disturbed King Harold I of Corinthia that called a meeting of his chief advisers to discuss the proposed meeting on Tarbos.

"Would someone please tell me what precisely is to Corinthia's benefit in all this?” The king glared at his ministers, seated before him around an enormous conference table of local wood.

"Sire, we need to examine the logic carefully.” Lord Alfred Roth was the king's Minister of Planetary Affairs, his best and most trusted friend. “This Pritchard, he makes a compelling argument. I would point out, your Majesty, that Corinthia is unfortunately located on the far edge of settled space. There are no colonies farther from Earth than we in this direction. There are no other settled worlds to serve as buffers between the Grugell and us, or for that matter any other hostile races who may exist. The common defense alone is worthy of serious consideration."

"We will have our own shipyards operating in three years,” the king pointed out. “Can we not build our own ships, our own defenses?"

"We could, sire; but the cost would run into the billions.” This came from Lord Nigel Sands, his minister of finance. “I've researched the issue. A modest fleet of ten armed ships for local defense would cost a great deal indeed.” He handed the king a binder. “I've taken the liberty of summarizing the costs involved. It's important to note that we would also be required to seek technical experts in the area of weaponry. We have successfully recruited drive engineers and spaceship architects from Earth, but we have no weapons experts."

The king took his time perusing the document while his ministers waited patiently.

"I'm not entirely convinced, you know,” he said at last.

"It would be imprudent of you to make a decision so quickly, your Majesty,” Lord Roth answered.

"Yes, but it would also be imprudent for us to fail to attend this conference, would it not? And so we shall. In fact, I'll go myself. Lord Roth, you will accompany me to Tarbos. This conference is scheduled to begin in,” he shuffled through a pile of papers on the table, “six weeks. The royal yacht will take less than four to make the journey to Tarbos; this gives you two weeks to prepare."

"As you wish, sire."

"Prepare a message for this chap Pritchard. Tell him Corinthia will be represented." Tarbos, five weeks later.

Mountain View had never been this busy. For that matter, Bob Pritchard had never been this busy before, either.

A month's worth of research went into the conference's program. A month spent in the Tarbos main library, researching Earth history, government, economics, trade issues, a dozen or more smaller topics. The result was a binder roughly three centimeters thick, to be handed to each delegation on their arrival. Pritchard had arranged quarters for the delegates at the Tarbos, Mountain View Marriott, which wasn't nearly as impressive as it sounded. Tarbos had little need for hotel facilities and the hotel was crammed to capacity with the seventeen delegates, their families and aides. In fact, the big new Tide Pool hotel/casino up the coastline from Mountain View would have been far more suitable, but the commute, even by air-car, was considerable.

And the delegates were beginning to arrive. Three this morning and the rest expected within a week. The K-101, outside Tarbos’ orbit.

A hundred and twenty thousand kilometers outside Tarbo's orbit, the undetected and undetectable still held station. Boredom had set in long since; a warrior race with a violent history, the Grugell society did not cultivate patience.

"Incoming message from the Imperium, Commander.” Kadastrattik turned in his bridge chair to take the message form.

MONITOR COMM-CHANNEL 175 STANDARD. IMPERIUM INTELLIGENCE SERVICE

HAS MADE CONTACT WITH AN INFORMATION SOURCE ON THE PLANET.

A series of codes and alternative action plans followed the terse opening. In due time they'd receive a message. The message would tell them how to proceed.

The Star of Carolina.

The Star of Carolina had dropped out of subspace the day before and was now proceeding towards Tarbos on one-third drive.

"That's Tarbos now.” Hector Gutierrez pointed out a blue and white sphere to his family as they stood alongside the Criders in the Star's Stellar Cartography suite, looking at a playback of the main navigation scanner. “It's a heavy planet, I understand—you'll feel about ten percent heavier than in the one-gee they keep on most of the liner's passenger compartments. Lots of minerals. Rich planet. They say Mountain View is the most beautiful city on any of the settled worlds. It's even got nice beaches."

"Not like Forest,” Mike Senior observed. “I'm afraid Forest's always going to be a poor planet."

"How do you figure?"

"Well, we're mostly farmers on Forest, you know. There are no mineral deposits that anyone has ever found, nothing to mine or manufacture with. We have to import almost all of our manufactured goods. The soil is fantastic, Earth crops grow really well and there are a couple of native plants that the science guys say they'll be able to alter for crop growing. But farmers are always on the bottom of the economic heap. In good times there's plenty to go around and crop prices are low, so the farmers don't make much money. And in bad times ... Well, you remember reading about 1930's America? The Dust Bowl?"

"That was mostly due to bad farming practices, but I see your point."

"Yeah. Well, this is going to be a whole different deal. Maybe things will change. They say Forest is going to be the breadbox of the Galaxy one day,” Mike Senior added hopefully. Beside him, Mike Junior's hand sought out Maria Gutierrez's. She returned the pressure of his thick, work-roughened hands with a squeeze of her own slim fingers and smiled a small, secret smile.

"Is there a moon, Daddy?” Maria asked.

"One little one,” Hector Gutierrez answered his daughter. “About the size of Phobos."

"That's sad,” Maria whispered in Mike Junior's ear. “Nights aren't very romantic without a moon."

"They will be,” the younger Crider promised her. “Trust me." Seven

Tarbos, the Main Conference Hall.

The Main Hall was full, full of delegates and their aides in the front, families, friends and curious Tarbosians in the rear. Bob Pritchard strode into the room, walking purposefully up the main aisle to the front of the room.

The Main Hall was, at least, a suitable forum for the convention. A hundred meters long by fifty wide, made completely of petroleum-based polymers, the hall had transparent side walls, which curved gently up to a gleaming black roof. Polished black struts supported the roof and held the power cabling for the wall's rather unique polarization system, an innovation cooked up right here on Tarbos.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please come to order,” he called out. Fifteen assorted delegates and perhaps forty more aides, assistants and hangers-on fell slowly silent.

Pritchard stood behind a black polymer podium at the front of the hall. The morning sun glared in from over Mountain View Bay, striking through the walls; Pritchard, noting the squints of delegates seated near the windows, turned a dial on the podium's smooth black top. The windows polarized, dimming the glare of the sun considerably. He nodded to acknowledge the murmured thanks of the group.

Resisting the urge to say, ‘I suppose you're all wondering why I asked you here today,’ Pritchard instead began with a simple preamble.

"I've been doing a lot of reading since I first messaged you all to invite you here.” He walked away from the podium, gazing idly over the delegate's heads. “I've been doing a lot of reading and a lot of thinking."

"When Stefan Ebensberg and I first conceived the idea of an interstellar alliance,” he began, graciously extending half the credit to his old friend, “We were thinking of a business arrangement, some kind of deal worked within the framework of the company, perhaps. Well, it's become apparent that a business alliance isn't what we need.” Walking back to the podium, he flipped a switch; in mid-air above the delegates, a three-dimensional, holographic image shimmered into view.

"This image and the plans that accompany it were hyperphoned to me from the company's Chandler Aerotech spaceship architect division on Earth. It's hard to get any sense of scale, of course, from a hologram, but this ship is only about a hundred and fifty meters long and carries a crew of one hundred and forty-one. Now look closely, ladies and gentlemen."

Pulling out a laser pointer, Pritchard indicated the oversize Gellar tunnel which seemed to make up three-fourths of the ship's mass—which it did—the stub wings, the bumps on the upper and lower fuselage. “These stub wings contain hard points designed to carry the new Shrike ship-to-ship missiles that Lockheed-Boeing Aerospace is developing. These bumps on the fuselage are high-energy particle beam emitters, turreted to allow a wide range of fire in an arc to the ship's front, rear and sides, above and below. There is also a passive defense, in the form of force-field emitters that can surround the ship with an energy shield that should repel most current weaponry."

"This, ladies and gentleman, is the design of an armed frigate, at the moment known to the engineers as the 901 Project, although the first ship, if it's built, will be named the Farragut ." A hand went up in the room. Pritchard pointed at the King of Corinthia.

"So, my good man, what you're saying we need is a fleet of these things, is that right?"

"These and larger, more heavily armed ships as well.” Pritchard left the hologram floating overhead and walked to the front of the small raised stage. “Plans are begin developed for cruisers, battleships and carriers that will carry wings of fast, agile sub-light fighters and strike craft."

"What we need is a navy. In order to have a navy, we have to pool our resources; the Farragut will cost on the order of sixteen billion dollars and we'll need more than one ship."

"And planets like Forest can't build even one, if we're on our own,” Mike Crider pointed out.

"Yes, exactly,” Pritchard continued. “We need a navy and to build a navy, we need a government. An interstellar government."

The reaction wasn't the pandemonium Pritchard expected, but rather a thoughtful murmur.

"As you all know, our program allows ten minutes for a statement by each representative to open the convention. A computer randomly selected the order of speakers; we'll begin with the Vice President of the United States of America, Earth, Mr. Hector Gutierrez. Mr. Vice President?” There was a smattering of applause.

Hector Gutierrez took the stage, straightening his tie as he went. Some days I wonder if I shouldn't have stayed in the contracting business, he told himself wryly. Striding to the podium, he took the tiny mike he found there, clipped it to the lapel of his dark blue jacket and took a deep, careful breath.

"Ladies and gentlemen,” he began and then paused a moment, frowning in deep thought. “I'm kind of used to saying, ‘My Fellow Americans,’ but that's not really appropriate here, is it?” A smattering of laughter, but mostly just patient expressions followed his opening remark. This isn't a political crowd, he reminded himself. These are chiefs of state and top planetary executives—really chiefs of state themselves. It's a savvy crowd and a sophisticated one. Don't talk down to them, Heck.

"We live in interesting times, my friends. Eighty-five percent of humanity is still on one planet, but most of you here are pioneers on new worlds. I'm a politician now, but I was a businessman for most of my adult life, just as most of you are businessmen and women now. And as executives, most of you are responsible for administering a whole planet, all of you know how to get things done—quickly, efficiently."

"I know that almost all of you here were born on Earth. Our first off-world generations are only now reaching adulthood. You are all familiar, I'm sure, with Earth's history over the last two hundred years, but I'll recap a few items."

"Earth was once a much less inviting place to live. Only a little over two hundred years ago, half of Earth's population lived under the iron fist of dictatorships. It took three world wars and eighty-six million people dead to change that and since the Third World War, representative governments have ruled the nations of Earth. The rule of law and the concept of one citizen, one vote, are now accepted facts all over the globe.” Gutierrez paused to sip some water from a tumbler on the podium.

"The colonized planets are run by a private company and Off-World Mining and Exploration has done a first-rate job at administering these projects. Indeed, OWME has acted as a de facto government for these worlds until this point. But we are met here today on Tarbos, the most centrally located of the settled planets, to discuss a new form of government, an interstellar government, a government that can build a fleet of armed starships to protect us from the threat of another dictatorship, a heavily armed and militarized dictatorship, this so-called ‘Grugell Empire.’ After millennia of fighting, after millennia of sacrifice, the people of Earth now know freedom, but the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance—and this is proven by the threat we face now, where once more the mailed fist of tyranny reaches across the light-years to threaten humanity."

"If there are any lessons to be learned from Earth's history, especially from the world wars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, it is that a free people must always be vigilant to protect their freedom. That dictators and despots will always seek to usurp free societies, to attain through force the wealth that only a free people can achieve, though their own efforts in a society that rewards individual effort and hard work."

"In all three world wars, the United States fought on the side of freedom. We fought our own internal battles as well and in both cases freedom and individual liberty emerged triumphant. I urge you all here to bear that in mind as we continue; if we are to form a government, let us form a libertarian government, a limited association of the sovereign worlds, a confederation of equals that prizes the liberty of the individual and the rights of the planets to govern themselves. Let us establish our armed force, but let us balance that with a bill of rights that assures the sovereignty of the individual above all else. Let us do those things and as the representative of the United States of America, I guarantee that America will fully support this Galactic Confederacy."

The K-101, high Tarbos orbit.

"Commander, our first coded signal has arrived. The humans’ conference has begun as scheduled."

"Good. Good. Our agent is in place, then."

"Yes, Commander."

"Good. Good. Send a message to the fleet commander personally; inform him of events to this point. Move the ship into a high orbit, geosynchronous over the human's main city."

"By your command."

Eight

Tarbos, the Main Conference Hall.

Mike sat in the audience, watching the president of the Republic of China drone on about China's role in Earth history. He glanced down at his sparse notes; he was next up to speak, preceding Harvey's Assistant Project Director, Nancy Kawasaki.

Boy, am I out of my league here.

In the seat next to him, Mike Junior was fighting to keep his eyes open as Kee Chow An went on about the rise and fall of communism in China and how an ancestor of his fought in the rebellion against the Communist People's Liberation Army to liberate China from communist rule. I wonder what's for lunch. Tarbos is supposed to have some sort of local delicacy, some kind of big hairy turtle-thing.

Seated on the other side of Mike from his son was some sort of aide to the King of Corinthia; the man reeked of perfume and was dressed like a peacock. Mike glanced down at his trademark blue cotton shirt; he'd put on black pants, a new pair of tooled boots, a light gray suit jacket and an old-fashioned string tie as a concession to the formality of the occasion. His gray Stetson hat lay in his lap. Oh, boy. Sounds like the old boy's winding down. Get your shit together, Mike old boy. Next to him, Mike Junior started up suddenly out of a doze. He rubbed his eyes and looked around the room for the hundredth time, his gaze finally settling on Maria Gutierrez, seated with her family a few meters away. Maria looked back over her shoulder at Mike Junior; she winked once and smiled. This is going to be serious, Mike reminded himself; he knew all the signs of young love, having been through it once himself. Hell, Jenny still looks at me that way. I probably look at her just like Junior looks at Maria Gutierrez. Oh, boy .

And then it was his turn. Kee Chow An stepped off the stage and Bob Pritchard was introducing ‘The hero of Forest, Michael Crider.’ Mike got up, seated his hat on his head and made his way to the podium like a man on the way to a hanging.

"Good morning.” He shuffled his notepaper, squinting at his own scratchy handwriting. “Excuse me,” he apologized, reaching in his jacket to extract the reading glasses he'd begun to need a few years earlier. A smattering of friendly laughter flickered through the room as Mike gave the glasses a quick polish with his jacket sleeve before threading the earpieces behind his ears. “That's better,” he said with a note of satisfaction.

"I've spent the last few days wondering why, exactly, I'm here. I'm not like the rest of you. I'm not a political or a business leader. I'm just a hunter and pioneer. The rest of you are used to managing the affairs of nations and planets. Me, I'm just used to hunting the occasional boser or roc to send down to the colony for meat; that's how I earn my humble living. And it's a pretty darn humble living, too.” Mike paused, smiling at the laughter his dry wit engendered.

"You all know the reason I'm here. I'm the only one here who has faced the Grugell first hand. I fought the Grugell occupation on Forest, my wife fought in the Battle of Settlement and I led a party of scouts to destroy the broadcast power station in the very meadow I still live in today. You've all read the accounts of those battles and so it's obvious, at least to me, that any of my fellow scouts would be as well suited to this as I. Maybe more so. Nathaniel Tzukuli was one of those scouts and Doctor Tzukuli is probably one of the smartest men in the Galaxy."

"But they're not here. I am. So, I suppose I should tell you what I'd like to see in this Galactic government we're here to form."

"Vice President Gutierrez spoke about freedom. That's the first thing I'd like to see. The freedom to earn my own living as I please. The freedom to be left alone. The freedom to raise and protect my own family."

"The vice president also spoke about the dangers of dictatorships. That's the second thing I'd like to see. I'd like to see a provision for a military force, one strong enough to ensure that the Battle of Settlement won't be repeated. On Forest, we beat the Grugell because they didn't understand us; they didn't understand the power of an armed citizenry, the power of free people fighting to protect their freedom. They know better now and if they try to strike at one of our planets again, they'll come in force and we'll need more than farmers and pioneers with hunting rifles to stop them."

"Finally, the vice president spoke about history. That's what we're here to do; we're going to make history. Well, I was born and raised an American and there's one thing America had right from the start and that was ensuring the rights of its citizens. That's the third thing I'd like to see. A bill of rights, to grant those rights—no, that's not right. I don't believe a government can grant rights. We, as human beings, have certain rights that are inherent in being human. We must have a bill of rights to guarantee the rights that every person is born with, by virtue of their humanity."

"Like I said, I'm a simple man. Just a hunter and a pioneer. But there are billions like me on Earth and in the colonies. We're the people, the ordinary people, who are going to live under this confederation. And just like America was the beacon of freedom that finally removed the scourge of dictatorship from Earth, so should this confederation be the beacon of freedom for the Galaxy." Mike paused, tipping back his hat. The delegates were dead silent; Mike lacked the experience to gauge their reaction.

"I find it interesting that America was founded with thirteen colonies. We have representatives from thirteen planets here today. Let's take that as an omen. Let's proceed with the same commitment to liberty and freedom that those founders did back then."

"That's all I have to say.” He folded his notes and placed them in his jacket pocket, removed his glasses and tucked them away as well. The room was still silent.

And then Vice President Hector Gutierrez stood up, clapping. His family followed suit, followed by Bob Pritchard, by the Russian vice president whose name Mike had forgotten and then by the room en masse. The applause washed over Mike like a wave, leaving him a trifle bewildered. As video and still cameras recorded the scene for history, capturing a pose that would be immortalized in textbooks for a millennium, Mike Crider smiled slightly, touched one finger to his gray Stetson in a half-salute and left the stage.

Nine

Washington D.C., Earth.

President Anthony Gomez was finding the White House a little too quiet these days, with his best friend and most trusted advisor gone over a thousand light-years away. Gomez presided over a United States enjoying an unprecedented economic boom, an America that sat at the heart of an Earth that was now a rather quiet and idyllic place.

But President Gomez had other advisors as well and one of them sat in front of the historic Oval Office desk now.

Army General Horace Julesberg was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military officer in the country, serving in a position that the global political climate had made almost irrelevant—until the word came of the attempted Grugell occupation of Forest.

"At any rate, sir,” the general was concluding, “we'll be ready to launch the first auto-defense satellite later this year, by October 1st at the latest. Each satellite will have a high-resolution-video and a millimeter band radar targeting system, twin particle beam projectors, a laser designator and two Shrike missiles. The computer targeting system can engage three targets simultaneously and can shift fire to deal with as many as sixty targets a minute with particle beam fire."

"And there will be twelve of these in geosynchronous orbit by May?"

"By the end of May, yes, sir. Earth will be surrounded at the equator by a belt of these defense satellites."

"The Skyhooks are still our weak points. We've got almost no orbital lift capacity that doesn't depend on these three Skyhooks."

"Yes sir, that's a major bottleneck in the overall strategic situation. At least Off-World Mining is volunteering the use of their orbital shuttles to launch our satellites from the Quito Skyhook, for the cost of crew and fuel. Saving the taxpayers a bundle there, sir."

"That's what it's all about, isn't it?” President Gomez smiled. “Tell me, do you think we did the right thing sending another representative to Tarbos?"

"Yes sir, I do. Vice President Gutierrez could use the input from a unique viewpoint."

"Yes, I suppose he could."

"I just wish I'd thought of it a few weeks earlier."

OWME cargo ship Cachalot , en route Earth to Tarbos.

The cargo hull was ungainly, awkward, built along wholly different lines than most OWME exploration ships and liners. A giant disk formed the cargo carrier, docked beneath a smaller drive unit housing a Gellar tunnel that was rather small for the mass of the ship. The result was a carrier of massive capacity that handled, according to its pilots, like a hog.

But it was efficient.

On reaching a planet's orbit, the disk portion would detach from the star drive unit and descend through a planet's gravity well using chemical rockets and pressor beams to balance the load; when their planetside chores were done, the disk would rise on four columns of ionic flame, back to orbit, there to dock with the star drive unit.

It was ugly, but it had the virtue of effectiveness. Twelve such cargo hulls, all named for earthly whale species, roamed the trade lanes now.

Command of a cargo hull was considered a punishment posting for an OWME merchant ship captain. Passenger liners were the plum assignments and colonization ships the next in the scale of desirability. OWME's small community of qualified ship captains saw cargo hulls as decidedly unglamorous. But Captain Janice Benton cared not a bit about that. A command was a command and OWME's space fleet wasn't growing nearly as fast as the number of qualified pilots and ship's officers. The Cachalot was big, ungainly, awkward and ugly, but it was a ship and it was her ship. Shifting, dancing and sparkling, the weird and unpredictable patterns of subspace flashed on the main viewer as the ship drove for Tarbos. Captain Benton, like the rest of her bridge crew, was strapped into her chair on the zero gravity bridge; only the small passenger/crew quarters section of the ship was spun on the long axis to provide gravity.

And back in those passenger quarters, passage paid by the United States government, rode an unusual passenger indeed.

Six weeks in subspace and they'd drop out into the normal space outside the orbit of Tarbos. Six weeks and she'd be able to take one of the Cachalot' s small freight shuttles to the surface, to see another new planet with her own eyes. Tarbos would make six planets Jan Benton had seen first-hand. I do love this job, she thought for the twentieth time that day.

Ten

Three weeks later, Tarbos, a maintenance warehouse, 2AM local time. Tarbos nights were uniformly dark, since the planet's one tiny moon reflected almost no light. This made clandestine meetings all the easier.

"You brought the progress report?"

"Yes. The delegates are forming a constitution. It looks like it will be based on the principles of at least three Earth nations."

"Never mind that. What about military forces?"

"There is a provision for a navy. They've shown a design for an armed ship, a frigate. Larger ships are being designed."

"That's not going to go over well with my superiors."

"I didn't think it would. I'm just telling you what happened—do you want the truth, or do you want a bunch of song and dance?"

"You've done well.” A package was passed over. “One week from tonight, same time, same place. Mind your security."

"I always do."

Tarbos, the Main Conference Hall, the next morning.

King Harold I of Corinthia leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling as Stefan Ebensberg of Caliban read off a listing of proposed amendments to the Confederate Constitution. Several attendants sat around him, their expressions alternating between deep thought, rapt attention and barely conscious. In front of the king, Russia's Vice President Vladimir Tarakanov was paying close attention, jotting down notes in a flawless Cyrillic script. The UK's Prince Harry sat next to the Russian, turning now and then to exchange a whispered comment with his cousin, King Harold.

Mike Junior was finding them all pretty amusing. His father was doggedly trying to pay attention to the droning Ebensberg reading what was to become the Confederate Bill of Basic Rights. Freedom of religious practice. The right to privacy. The right to bear arms. The right to free speech. The right to a trial by jury. All the rights enumerated in the American Bill of Rights, but put in language that is a bit more modern. Where America's Second Amendment read, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed,” the Confederate Third Basic Right was drafted as “The right of no free citizen to bear arms in defense of home, community, or planet shall be called into question."

Mike liked what he'd heard so far. A very libertarian interstellar government seemed to be in the works. A janitorial closet, nearby.

"Will this work?"

"Yes. Turn that dial—there—to thirty minutes. Push the big button." A thunderous roar split the quiet of the morning.

The Main Conference Hall.

The blast hurled Mike from his chair, slamming him against the floor with rib-cracking force. A choking blast of dust and grit washed over him and the shock wave of the explosion rippled sickeningly through his body. The roar of explosives seemed to come almost as an afterthought, passing as quickly as it came, leaving only the tinkling of broken ceramics, glass and the crackling of flames somewhere. Mike looked up, eyes stinging, to a room filled with smoke and dust.

"Junior?” he called out.

"Dad?” Mike coughed instead of sighing in relief at the sound of the familiar voice. “Are you all right, Dad?"

"I'm fine. Look for the vice president, Junior."

"He's over here, Dad. He's bleeding, but I think he'll be all right."

"Good.” Mike stood up, stretching his arms and legs experimentally. “The blast came from the back, over there."

A pair of broad-shouldered OWME security troops was already running in that direction. Another tall figure in the uniform of an OWME security lieutenant appeared in the dust and haze. “Ladies and gentlemen, let's get you all out of here. Quickly, people! Let's all get to a safe location."

"And where might that be?” Mike wondered quietly. All but two of the delegates stood slowly, many wincing with the pain of injuries. Two at the back of the room did not stand. Mike shook off the arm of the lieutenant to go over to the two prone figures. He shouted for medical help as he went, but it was to be of little use.

New Albion's Angus MacPherson and Forrest Cox of Zed lay dead in the dust and rubble and with them, all hopes of a quick conclusion to the convention.

The lieutenant crossed to Mike's side, shaking his head at the sight of the two bodies. “Sir,” he repeated, softly, “we really need to get you to a place of safety. There may be more explosives. We need to sweep the building."

"All right,” Mike agreed. “Who would do something like this?"

"If we can figure that out, sir, I hope they give me five minutes alone with him,” the security officer replied. He'd served four years as a U.K. Royal Marine on Earth and the warrior mentality was ingrained in him. “I'd know just how to handle him."

"I hope you get your chance."

Fifteen minutes later, Mike found himself in a skimmer with his son and the Gutierrez family, racing south along the coastline. An OWME shuttle pilot had been impressed to run the skimmer; several other skimmers were accompanying them on the journey, carrying the delegates to safety. Mike Junior leaned forward, poking his head over the seat into the driver's compartment. “Where are we going?"

"Twenty klicks south, the Tide Pool resort,” the driver called over his shoulder, raising his voice so the other passengers could hear. “It's a pretty big place. OWME executives like to hold meetings there, but I don't reckon it's big enough for what you all are doing. Still, it's a hundred-room hotel."

"I bet they'll have a ring of security troops all around it, too,” the younger Crider predicted, dropping back into his seat.

"We can't really continue the convention, can we?” Mike senior was watching the rolling surf whip past, fifty yards from the skimmer's window. “We've lost at least two delegates. We need to have someone from each of the settled worlds."

"We'll get new delegates, Mike.” Hector Gutierrez was holding a blood-soaked bandage to the side of his head, but the cut was superficial. “This is too important. We're delayed, but we're not stopped."

"Of course,” Mike agreed. “You're right. This is too important.” He turned back to the window. “I wonder who else thinks stopping it is important—and why?"

Eleven

Tarbos, three weeks later.

A hyperphone message brought the first note of cheer to Bob Pritchard's life since the explosion. The project directors from New Albion and Zed were on the way to Tarbos personally to replace their slain assistants. It would be another month before they arrived, but at that point the convention could at last proceed.

Lying alongside the hyperphone message was a report turned in two days after the blast by Tarbos’

security chief, Colonel George Perkins. Pritchard picked it up again, reading the conclusion for the thousandth time:

And so it would seem that the two conspirators were given an explosive device with what looked like a timer, but was actually a simple detonator switch. It is one of the oldest tricks in the terrorist book, getting rid of the saboteurs at the same time as the target. It tends to be pretty hard on the bombers, but it eliminates, in this case, two possible leads as to the identity of the responsible party or parties.

The surviving delegates were quartered in Tarbos’ sole hotel, twenty kilometers down the coast and under heavy guard by nearly half of the company security troops on the planet. There was one exception. On the second day after the blast, the delegate from Forest had wheedled some field gear and a rifle from the security troops and vanished into the unpopulated hills behind the hotel, re-appearing ten days later seemingly well-fed and grinning. This caused Colonel Perkins no small amount of consternation.

"Sir,” the colonel had complained, “We know there's a conspiracy to break up the convention. We know there is someone out there somewhere willing to kill to prevent the forming of a government here. And now we've got this, what's his name, Crider, just walking off into the hills all alone for ten days? He's got to be first on the suspect list, sir, he's just got to be."

"I think you're barking up the wrong tree, George. Mike Crider's the hero of Forest. He's not going to turn against his own kind. He's a pioneer; I imagine it's hard for him to keep cooped up. You know the type—we've still got a few pioneers here on Tarbos, don't we?"

"Be that as it may, sir."

And so the investigation was under way.

The Tide Pool Hotel, Tarbos.

Mike was getting restless again.

His ten-day adventure had been fascinating. The wilderness northwest of the Tide Pool was mostly rolling, grassy hills dotted with riverine woodlands and once Mike had gotten used to the unfamiliar rifle and gear, he'd had a great time. The local wildlife was decidedly odd—sort of six-legged half-mammal, half something else, hairy creatures with strange shelled carapaces, from mouse-sized up to the size of an Earth coyote.

Not bad eating, though, once you cracked the shell and cooked them.

Ten days in the wild had enabled Mike to stand the following nine days once again stuck in the hotel, but he was getting claustrophobic. Casinos and restaurants held no appeal for the aging pioneer and certainly he had no reason like his son's blossoming friendship with Maria Gutierrez to keep him indoors. On this twenty-second morning after the blast, Mike was contenting himself with a long walk down the beach, his son and the vice president's daughter in tow. A trio of rifle-bearing security troops followed, not too discreetly, fifty meters behind.

As he walked, devouring the distance with a typical pioneer's long, even stride, he stole the occasional glance back towards his son, walking hand in hand with Maria Gutierrez. There was no doubt they made an attractive couple. Mike Junior was tall and lean like his father, blonde, blue-eyed, still dressed in his habitual jeans and blue cotton shirt. Maria was tall too and slim, but her olive complexion and raven hair made an attractive contrast to Junior's fairness. She laughed easily and her eyes shone when she looked at Mike Junior with a light that the older Crider recognized all too easily. Well, he told himself, the boy could do a lot worse.

I wonder if she'd be happy living on a backwater like Forest?

Five or six kilometers up the beach, Mike stopped suddenly at a large boulder, sticking out of the sand. He seated himself on the rock and stared out to sea. For all his travels, he'd only been to two other seashores, a day on the Pacific in Oregon as a boy and one trip to the Forest town of Edgewater.

"What's up, Dad?” Mike Junior and Maria strolled up, the security troops following along behind.

"Nothing. Just thought I'd set and watch the water a spell."

"All right—mind if we walk up a little farther?"

"Help yourself. Plenty of beach."

The young people walked off. One of the security troops—a sergeant, from the uniform—spoke to the other two in low tones, after which the two followed along after Mike Junior and Maria. The security sergeant walked over to where Mike perched on the rock.

"Mind if I join you, sir?” he asked.

"Sure thing,” Mike replied. “And you can drop the ‘sir.’ I'm just Mike, OK? I'm not a politician or a director, just a hunter and a pioneer."

The sergeant took off his polymer helmet, revealing a surprisingly gray head. “I know,” he grinned. “I know all about you. I was on the security team in Settlement that night twenty-two years ago when you and your boys knocked out that broadcast power station.” He seated himself beside Mike on the boulder, scratching his close-cropped head as he did so. He extended his hand. “Gerry Stiles.” Mike took the proffered hand, shook it.

Sergeant Stiles went on. “I was in the mercantile. Only twenty-one, a private in OWME security and I was scared half out of my wits. Those silver spider-ships were buzzing overhead, green energy bolts flying everywhere—my best friend was cut in half by one of those things before we could get inside. I figured we were all dead."

He looked out at the rolling surf, reflectively. “Then, all of a sudden, we heard a girl's voice—your wife—shouting at us to come outside, that the aliens’ power was out. Boy, I don't mind telling you, we kicked some ass when we heard that!"

"I'll bet you did,” Mike replied, quietly. His own memories of that long-ago moment weren't too pleasant. A sudden memory came unbidden into his mind; a rainstorm, roaring thunder, green bolts and rockets criss-crossing in the dark, a brilliant young scientist working valiantly to save them all while his life drained away into the ferns. The sergeant's voice snapped him back to the present.

"And if it weren't for you and those scouts, we'd have all been killed. They had us beat, Mike and that's a fact."

"So how'd you come to be on Tarbos? The company doesn't move people around too much, do they?”

The cost of interstellar travel was still high enough to deter a lot of planet hopping.

"Well, sir, I'm a city boy. Born and raised in Chicago."

"Forest too quiet for you?” Mike grinned. It wasn't an uncommon sentiment.

"Something like that, yes. Three years after the Battle of Settlement, old Colonel Davies gathered a bunch of us young troops around, said Tarbos was growing fast and hurting for NCO candidates. It was a chance to move up and a chance to move to a boom planet with a real city, so..."

"So, the pioneer's life isn't for everyone. That's good—if it was, there'd be too damn many of us."

"Something like that, yeah. What's Forest like these days, anyway?"

"Not much has changed since then,” Mike answered. “There are more people, of course. Settlement's almost a real city now, forty thousand people. Outskirts is a good-sized town now, maybe eight thousand and then there's Edgewater, up on the coast, maybe twenty thousand and an honest-to-gosh harbor and shipyard. Still no Skyhook, though—we had to go up to the liner on an old orbital shuttle."

"This new government, it's really going to change things, isn't it?"

"Not without a lot of help from Earth."

"Well, I agree with one thing. We'll need a navy. But one other thing, you know,” Stiles added. Mike looked at him expectantly. “You can't just have ships, you need troops, too. I don't care how high-tech mankind gets; you can't have a military unless it's built around guys with rifles. They may be all home-based on starships, but that's how it has to be."

"Marines. You're talking about marines."

"Aye aye, sir,” Stiles joked. “Something to think about. There aren't any former military or security types among those delegates, are there?"

"Not that I know of. I'm probably the closest there is,” Mike said.

"Well, sir, there's plenty of security troops here on Tarbos that can offer you advice and most of the officers and senior NCO's have Earthside military experience. I don't—that's why I'm still a buck sergeant at forty-three. Anyway, something to keep in mind."

"Thanks, I'll do that.” Mike wasn't accustomed to thinking in terms of having advisors.

"One other thing you should know, Mr. Crider."

"It's Mike, remember. What's that?"

"Well, Mike, there's an investigation into that explosion back at the Conference Center in Mountain View."

"I should hope so!"

"You should also know that you're one of the chief suspects, Mike. I shouldn't really be telling you, but hell, I figure I owe you that much. For Forest, you know?"

"What? Me? How the hell can I be a suspect?"

Stiles looked at Mike. “You really don't know, do you? Your disappearance for ten days into the hills raised a lot of eyebrows, Mike. Think about it. There's an explosion, two people killed, two conspirators die in the blast, but everyone figures there's an organization and a leader somewhere. And then, a couple days later, you borrow a rifle and some gear and vanish for ten days."

"I was just doing a little hunting,” Mike mused. “I guess I see what you mean, though. I never thought..."

"Best you be thinking about it now, sir.” Stiles looked up the beach, where the figures of Mike Junior and Maria Gutierrez were coming back towards them. “Here come the kids back. They've been spending a lot of time together, haven't they?” He stood, putting his helmet back on. “Only thing that's holding them up is that you've got no motive, no reason to try to sabotage the convention. But someone out there does and right now the powers-that-be here are barking up the wrong tree."

"Thanks."

There would be no more hunting on this trip, Mike realized. At least not out in the hills. What he would be hunting would be as dangerous as any roc, though and many times as clever. Still, a hunt was a hunt and Mike had been a hunter all his life. His mind was already starting to work. Twelve

The K-101.

"Commander, incoming signal from the planet."

"Yes?"

"Text signal, sir, it reads ‘Green File'."

"Good. Inform the hangar bay to ready in infiltration pod and have Senior Lieutenant Akillistrak stand by for orders. I will be in my quarters; I must update the Imperium."

"By your command.” The bridge crew responded instantly; in a few moments, the cloaked Grugell frigate slowly began to slide inwards, towards the system's one inhabited planet.

"Sir,” the sub lieutenant on the scanning console called out, “A ship, in high orbit; scans indicate a heavy cargo ship."

Commander Kadastrattik walked over to examine the tactical display, recognizing at once the typical huge disk-shape of a human cargo hauler. “Fine. We'll leave it alone. They'll never know we're in the area."

"Yes, Commander."

Kadastrattik looked around his bridge once more; the crewmen were all attending to their duties with typical Grugell scrupulousness. Nodding once in satisfaction, he left for his private stateroom to contact the Imperium.

The Tide Pool.

The alarm buzzer went off at 0600 local, as it had for the last two months since the explosion.

"Junior?” Mike called.

"Mrfff. Come on, Dad, I was out late.” Mike Junior rolled over in his bed, across the suite from Mike's.

“I took Maria out dancing, didn't get in ‘till after two."

"We're going back to Mountain View today, son. Best get up and moving; the convention is going to resume after lunch. The two new delegates got in last night."

Mike Junior buried his face in his pillow.

The older Mike showered and dressed quickly, donning his gray jacket from the first day of the convention. From the bottom of his trunk he pulled a small leather case. He opened it carefully, almost reverently and inspected the contents minutely. Everything looked in order. He removed the rig from the case and belted it at his hip, where the hang of his jacket concealed it nicely. There, he thought. I guess I'm ready.

He walked over to his bed, grabbed a pillow and chucked it at his son's head. “Come on, Junior, we're burning daylight."

Mountain View, the Conference Center.

While Bob Pritchard had expected the two project directors, another arrival due in a few more days from Earth—shipped on the cargo ship Cachalot —was the biggest surprise he'd been handed in some time. Still, the Conference Center was repaired, rewired and ready; the convention was to resume just after lunch today.

Two kilometers down the coast.

In the shade of a tall boulder that jutted from the grass behind the beachfront dunes, two figures met. One was tall, rail-thin and the other shorter, stockier. They spoke in low tones, even though there wasn't another sentient creature within a kilometer. The clandestine nature of their joint enterprise and the risks inherent in the daylight meeting were not lost on either party.

"Are you sure this is a safe place to meet?"

"As safe as any. Are you ready to take the next step?"

"Yes, all my pieces are in place."

"Good. Don't do anything until you hear from me."

"All right, but this is a dangerous business. My expenses are running several times higher than I'd anticipated."

"Don't worry. You'll be compensated more than adequately."

"That's another thing, you know. When, exactly, am I going to be ‘compensated'? I'm fronting a lot of the costs of this operation myself."

"Don't worry. You'll get everything that's coming to you and soon."

"Soon, he says. Are you sure you want me to go ahead with this? These people aren't stupid, you know. It won't be hard to figure out that you people are behind all this."

"That's not your concern,” the tall, thin figure said.

"It's damned well my concern if I get caught,” the shorter figure replied.

"Then, I'd advise you to not be caught."

Thirteen

Caliban.

A really good executive secretary is a treasure to any executive.

Ingrid Holtz was an exceedingly good executive secretary.

Good enough, as it happened, to have been hired by Off-World Mining & Exploration at Stefan Ebensburg's insistence, when he was hired from Heidelberg Polytechnic, where he had been running a petroleum drilling operation. Ingrid was old enough to be Ebensburg's mother, indeed she should by rights have retired years before; but her sense of loyalty had brought her from Berlin to Heidelberg to the North Atlantic oil fields and now to Tarbos, all as the secretary to one man. And now, after all these years, she was about to earn her retirement pay, in spades. Two hyperphone messages had arrived in the director's office, in the space of one twenty-six hour Caliban day.

The first was an account of the destruction of one of the lost cargo ships, the Beluga , from the ship's sole survivor. Crewman Giorg Konstantin survived six weeks in a tiny orbital shuttle before being picked up by an OWME passenger liner headed in the opposite direction.

The second message was from Earth, from an old friend of Herr Direktor Ebensburg's at Heidelberg Polytechnic. Doctor Hans Richter was a physicist working on cataloging interstellar matter, gases and particle ratios, with the intent of improving the efficiencies of the Gellar drive tunnels used in OWME

ships. His analysis of the sketchy reports gleaned from survivors of the stricken ships had uncovered something remarkable.

"Mein Gott.” Holtz copied both messages, set them to forward and checked her note file for the locator address Herr Ebensburg was using on Tarbos. The messages would take a week or more to arrive. Hopefully, Herr Direktor was checking his message cache regularly.

Fourteen

Tarbos, the Main Conference Center.

"Son, I'm going to take a walk around the building during the break,” Mike announced. “I imagine I'll have one or two of those guards for company, but I need some air."

"OK, Dad. Maria and I are going to duck back to that snack bar they set up, get a drink."

"All right.” Mike adjusted the hang of his jacket and walked ostentatiously out of the building and, as he'd expected, an OWME security troop tagged along. Mike wasn't surprised to see Sergeant Gerry Stiles’ face behind the polymer helmet face-shield.

He paused for a moment just outside the Conference Center's main doors to drink in the cool, humid evening air.

"Sounds like everything's moving along in there pretty well, Mike,” the sergeant observed, stepping ahead of Mike to make a show of scanning the surroundings.

"Yeah, I suppose. Did you get a chance to scout around the area?"

"You bet I did.” Stiles took a step back. “There's only four buildings within a kilometer that are ever empty at any time of day or night and one of those is a bank—it's got computer-run security cameras and stun panels on all the doors and windows. There are two big warehouses empty at night, one just north of here about a block and another about half a klick to the east. Last one's a power station, it's got one night operator for about a square kilometer of station—that's as good as empty."

"I don't see how they could be pulling off something like this without someone on the inside,” Mike said.

“And they've got to be meeting somewhere around here, don't you think?” Stiles nodded agreement. Mike stood a moment, rubbing his chin with one hand.

"Let's think about this for a minute. They already tried to bomb the convention and it almost worked, didn't it? They killed two delegates. Now, the convention is starting up again and Bob Pritchard's tech people have cooked up explosives sniffers to cover every way in and out. Now, these people, if they've got someone on the inside, they'll know that. So they'll try something else.” Mike looked up at the Conference Center building. “Could a rifle bullet get through those windows?"

"Not likely, Mike. That polymer will deflect an artillery shell." Mike examined the area with the trained eye of a hunter. “You know, though, if I had a good rifle and I wanted to nail someone walking out these main doors, I think I'd set up right over there, just up that alley—see those trash bins? You've got a clear shot right at the doors and the alley hooks off to the left. Good place to get away if things go wrong."

"You've thought about this some,” Stiles observed.

"You don't hunt rocs twenty years without learning how to set up a stalk and a shot and also how to get away in a hurry if you miss,” Mike said. “I'd be roc-food by now if I didn't have an instinct for this sort of thing."

"Well, I can put a sensor in that alley, sure enough and that'll tell us if anyone slips in there."

"Let's do that, but keep it quiet. Nobody but you and me should know about it. If someone goes in there and hides, just come and tell me. OK?"

Stiles nodded. “If you say so."

Inside the Convention Center.

"Where'd your dad go?"

"Outside, I guess,” Mike Junior answered. He smiled broadly at Maria Gomez. “He can't stand being indoors too long. Back home on Forest, the biggest problem we have around the place is getting dad to stay indoors for more than five minutes."

"You're not too good about that yourself, you know.” Maria giggled as Mike Junior drew her into his arms, kissed her.

"I know. It's hard to get used to all the people here."

"You're doing better than your dad."

"Yeah, Dad's hardcore. I didn't think he's ever make it through that month down the coast." Marie put her arms around the younger Crider's neck and stood on tiptoe to kiss him back. “You're hardcore yourself, you know. Just in a different way."

"They're coming back in. Guess the break's over."

Maria frowned prettily. “That was too short. Take me dancing again tonight?"

"Try to stop me."

The Cachalot , in Tarbos orbit.

"Captain, last shuttle to the Skyhook is leaving in ten minutes." Captain Jan Benton of the Cachalot picked up the handset on the desk in her stateroom. “Very well. Please ask our guest to meet me in the hangar bay."

"Yes, Captain."

The Convention Center.

Free of speeches for the moment, the Convention Center was a buzz of conversation; knots of people stood discussing minutia of the forming government, sub-committees held caucuses around tables and social plans for the evening were finalized with laughs and back-slapping. Amazingly, the Russian Vice President Tarakanov and the Chinese President Kee Chow An had struck up a fond friendship, despite centuries of tension between their earthside nations that still lingered today. They and their wives spent most of their evenings together, touring Mountain View's shops and restaurants. How fast things change in a new perspective, Mike Crider told himself.

"Mike?” Mike looked up from his notes to see the American vice president.

"Hector. What can I do for you?"

"We're about to wrap up for the evening. Will you come over to the Mountain View Skyhook with me?

There's someone coming in from Earth to provide technical advice. I'd like you to go with me to meet him."

"All right. Who is it we're meeting?"

"Let's just say he's someone with a unique perspective."

Mike stood up, stretching out muscles unaccustomed to spending the days in a chair. One issue had been weighing on his mind most of the day and he said so. “A lot of the delegates don't like the article about a right to bear arms in the Bill of Basic Rights."

"I know. I was hoping you'd speak to the convention about that."

"Better you do it, Heck. You're a Libertarian politician, you know all the arguments."

"Yeah, Mike, but you've been there. If it wasn't for armed citizens, Forest would be a Grugell colony now."

Mike nodded. “And I'd be dead. Yeah, nothing like first-hand witnesses, is there? OK, I'll make some notes and talk to Bob Pritchard about getting on the clock for a few minutes during opening remarks in a day or so."

"Thanks, Mike. I've got to go talk to Kee Chow An for a few minutes, then I'll be ready to go."

"OK, I'll go find Junior, tell him where I'm going. We're going to have a situation with these kids of ours, Heck."

The vice president rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Don't I know it? All Maria talks about is ‘Mike this, Mike that'. I suppose your son is the same."

"Pretty much.” Mike looked doubtful. “I'll meet you at the main entrance in what, ten minutes?"

"Sounds good."

One hour later, the Mountain View Skyhook.

"Here's the bus,” Hector Gutierrez pointed up at the yellow indicator light above the bus walkway doors, which had just flashed on. He and Mike stood in the waiting area in front of the big disembarkation doors, which slid open a moment after the bus slid to a stop. Mike goggled at the tall figure that stepped out.

"You!"

Clomonastik III, once and former group commander in the Grugell navy, now a Maryland restaurateur, strode forward, a wide grin on his narrow face. “Michael! What an honor it is to stand before you again, my respected friend."

Mike couldn't quite forget that this tall, imposing alien had tried very hard to kill him and his Jenny at one point, but that had been a long time ago. He took the Grugell's proffered hand and shook it, carefully, allowing for the alien's delicate bone structure.

"You are well, my friend? You look fit!” Clomonastik looked exactly as he had twenty-two years earlier, but an obviously expensive tailored three-piece suit in dark gray silk had replaced the issue Grugell uniform and cloak. A narrow black silk necktie on a sparkling white shirt completed the outfit. While Clomonastik had adopted the dress of a successful earthly entrepreneur, his fastidiousness had survived the years unchanged.

"I'm fine. You look like you're doing well on Earth."

"Very well indeed. I've grown quite fond of your home world, Michael. You must be Vice President Gutierrez,” Clomonastik noted, extending his hand again. “It is my honor to meet you at last. Your president speaks very highly of you."

"Pleased to meet you, sir. Tony and I go way back. He told you what we're dealing with here?"

"Indeed, he did. I do hope my insights may be of some small assistance."

"I don't understand this,” Mike said. “I know it's been a long time, but you're one of them! How do we know you're going to steer us straight?"

Clomonastik just smiled. “You do not, my old friend. But the president understands my motivations for helping and he finds me adequately trustworthy. You are so right to be cautious, Michael, but we have not the time for excesses of prejudgment just now."

"Let's head back to the hotel,” Hector Gutierrez answered. “We'll fill you in on the way." The Truffle, a restaurant in Mountain View.

While the service and the cuisine were impeccable in The Truffle, one of Tarbos’ most exclusive—and expensive—restaurants, Corinthia's King Harold was less than happy with one aspect of the proposed constitution and didn't hesitate to let his kin from Earth know about it.

"So, I'm to understand that I'm to put this to a vote of my subjects on Corinthia? A vote?” He slapped his wine glass down on the table, sloshing a bit of rich Tarbosian red on the sparking white tablecloth. The red stain widened, faded, disappeared into the polarized polymer thread woven into the cloth. Prince Harry of the United Kingdom, Earth, paused with a forkful of steak halfway to his mouth. He laid the fork down, frowning. “A vote, cousin. You know, it's not such a bad thing, having a parliament. Blighty's managed very well with one these last few hundred years, you know and the royal family carries on.” Prince Harry smiled at his cousin. “Would it really be so bad? You can't expect to hold onto a true monarchy for more than a generation, not in this day and age."

"I'll be forced to form a parliament, the way this thing is worded.” Harold held up a draft of the constitution in one hand, slapping it with the fingertips of the other. “I didn't take my subjects a hundred and eighty light years from Earth to form just another rule-by-rabble!" The British prince scowled. “You know, Harold, you were an arrogant sod when you were a lad and I'm afraid you haven't changed much. We've done very well on Earth, you know, with ‘rule by rabble’

across the globe now. We've fought very hard to make it that way. It's not realistic of you to think you can keep your world otherwise."

"And if we choose to go it alone? What need have I for this confederacy? And the right to bear arms, what's the purpose of that? They may as well say the rabble has a right to overthrow their rulers."

"Given the way you're carrying on, you're right to think that, you know. As for the first, you can bloody well answer that for yourself, cousin. There's a hostile race out there, in case you've forgotten and part of this confederacy involves forming a navy to defend us all from attack."

"Well, I don't care for it, you know."

"Perhaps you don't,” Harry chided his relative, “But you'd better accept it. Unless you want your precious Corinthia to be facing an alien occupation army with nothing to protect you but a couple of local cargo haulers and an orbital shuttle."

"I've half a mind to form my own navy,” Harold sniffed.

"Billions of dollars of your own money, cousin,” the British prince reminded him. King Harold I of Corinthia lacked an answer for that. His own personal fortune, while unparalleled in human history, still wasn't up to forming a navy. And he had three daughters to think of, three little girls whom he didn't want seeing an armed Grugell occupation force landing on Corinthia. Still ... “Well, I don't like that last bit. I'll vote against it."

"You must do as your conscience dictates, of course.” Prince Harry said, smiling wryly at the intended irony.

Fifteen

High orbit over Tarbos.

The Cachalot 's captain was not happy.

"Say again, Tarbos Ground,” she barked into the wand mike on her command console.

"Permission to leave orbit is denied. You are to remain in your parking orbit until released by Tarbos Ground Control."

Control of all ship traffic in the Tarbos system was, by company regulation, completely subject to the planetary ground control department, but this was an unexpected reach beyond the normal exercise of jurisdiction.

"Tarbos Ground, we are due back at Earth in six weeks. The director better have a good reason for keeping us here."

" Cachalot, I cite OWME Shipping & Container division's general order four." That set Captain Benton back in her chair. General order four was quite simple: No OWME starship will leave a designated parking orbit when there is a clear and present danger to ship and/or crew.

Tarbos Ground Control's use of GE4 meant that they suspected a danger somewhere near the planet—somewhere close enough to be a risk before the Cachalot could travel far enough to jump to subspace.

And OWME had lost three ships in three years to unknown attackers, presumed to be the warlike and hostile Grugell.

"As you were, Helm,” Captain Benton ordered. “All stations stand down from under-way status. We'll be staying in parking orbit for a while. Exec, get a shuttle ready—we're going to the Skyhook and down to talk to someone in the director's office."

The K-101, Fifty kilometers above and behind the Cachalot.

"Homely ships, Commander, are they not?"

Kadastrattik XII opened his eyes lazily. The huge off-white disk of the human ship had dominated their main scanner screen for three revolutions of the planet below and he'd gotten sick of looking at it. He ignored his sub-commander's remark.

"Have we received any more messages from the surface?"

His signals watch officer didn't even look up. “No, Commander. Nothing since the initial code."

"He's taking his time, this renegade,” Kadastrattik muttered. “Order an inspection and diagnostic routine on all weapons systems. We'd best be prepared for the second option." Tarbos, the Convention Center.

Mike Crider stood once more at the podium, concluding his description of the Battle of Crider Meadow and the Battle of Settlement.

"That, delegates, is why the Bill of Basic Rights must contain a guarantee of the right to bear arms. When the Grugell came to Forest, we fought them of with hunting rifles. Now I know, the main reason we're here, the main reason we're forming this association of free planets, is to raise and equip a navy. Some of you are no doubt thinking, ‘if we're to have a navy, why do we need a constitutional right to bear arms?’

I'll tell you why. In fact, I'll give you three reasons why."

He paused for a moment, looking out over the assembled convention. They were openly calling it a constitutional convention now and the soon-to-be-born government had a name, the Confederated Free Planets, or simply the Confederacy.

Some of the expressions Mike was seeing were skeptical. Most were not. The Grugell invasion of Forest was too recent for that.

"One.” Mike held up one finger. “Numbers. It's a big Galaxy and this navy won't be able to be everywhere at once. It might be weeks before a ship or ships could get to a planet in trouble. Now every planet can and should have their own armed force, but let's look at Tarbos here for an example—Tarbos has four million residents and only four thousand security troops. But based on figures I've been provided, roughly half of Tarbos’ population owns at least one firearm—which yields a standing militia of two million."

"Two.” He held up two fingers. “It's not just about the Grugell. We don't like to talk about it, but you all read the news-screens. I've been reading them every morning in my room, before we come over to the day's sessions.” He extracted a notepad from his pocket. “In the last ten days here in Mountain View, there have been three muggings, two armed robberies, one rape and one attempted murder.” He dropped the notepad back in his pocket and glared at the group. “That's a pretty low crime rate for a city of three million like Mountain View, but it won't get better. It will get worse. The company screened the emigrants from Earth pretty well, but they can't screen the people who are born on these planets and as the generations go on, the demographics will shift to be more like Earth normal—and that means you'll have criminals. And we learned long ago on Earth, the best way to deter criminals is an armed citizenry."

"Now, that brings me to three. And three is the biggest one of all." Mike stood still for a moment, seemingly lost in thought.

"We all come from a place that has one thing in common. At least it does now, after millions of people died fighting to make it that way. That thing is a word, just one two-syllable word, but it's an important one, because it stands for an idea. It's an idea that eighty million people died for. That word, that idea, is freedom."

"There are two kinds of freedom. There is freedom to and freedom from. What we're talking about here deals with both kinds. Free people, as I see it, should be free to do as they please, as long as they don't hurt their neighbors. But when there are people out there and there will be, who will try to hurt their neighbors, then free people should be free to defend themselves and free to own the means to do that. That's where we come to the freedom from. Free people should be free from fear. Free from subjugation. Free from invasion. There's only one way to guarantee, absolutely guarantee, that a free people will remain free and that is to have the guarantee in our constitution that every free citizen who chooses to be armed shall be free to be so."

Without waiting to gauge the group, Mike stepped down. Murmurs floated through the hall as he walked slowly back to his seat. Hector Gutierrez was waiting for him.

"That was good stuff, Mike,” the vice president observed sotto voce. Harvey's project director Annalee Fadzen was at the podium, arranging her notes to speak on another issue. “Just between you and me, I think the Right to Bear Arms will pass. I make it twelve yes votes, three no, one I can't call."

"It would be nice if we had an odd number of delegates,” Mike whispered back. “Think how confusing it will get with tie votes."

"We've been really lucky so far,” Gutierrez agreed.

Mike frowned. “Doesn't it seem a little, well, odd, sixteen people deciding the form this interstellar government is going to take?"

"Wait until tomorrow. You'll feel a lot better about it."

Tarbos security headquarters.

The eyepieces of the human's microscope weren't adjustable for Clomonastik's narrow face and so he was required to squint uncomfortably into the device with one eye or the other. Three technicians and Colonel Perkins waited impatiently for him to finish.

"Well.” Clomonastik stood up straight, massaging the small of his skeletal back. “If only you'd put your benches a little higher, I'd be much more comfortable."

"Sir?” Colonel Perkins wasn't a man gifted with patience. “What do you think?"

"Colonel, I'll want to see the results of your metallurgical studies to be sure—mind you, that never was a specialty of mine. I went to Command School, not the science and engineering academy. But I know enough to give you an answer. On the surface, though, I'd say that you're looking at fragments from a Grugell device, yes.” He gestured at the microscope with a thin, clawed hand. “The fragments are distinctive and your analysis of the explosive residue is even more so. It's a Grugell high explosive. We called it,” he chattered out an unintelligible Grugell word, “which, unfortunately, has no real translation."

"Any conclusions, sir?"

"I can only offer you my opinion, Colonel, with the qualification that what I offer is a uniquely informed opinion at this time and place. You have a cloaked Grugell frigate very near this planet, very likely in high orbit and they are sending landing craft down to liaise with someone on the surface. The trick of fooling the conspirators using a bomb fused to detonate—that's an old, old trick, first documented in our history in an incident called the Night of Seven Blades. An assassination attempt was made on Emperor Ignostak III in the same manner. The emperor survived, of course, but most of his family was killed in a series of incidents during that same night. The emperor's reaction to those attempts led to the complete militarization of our culture.” Clomonastik looked reflectively at the ceiling. “I would suspect, Colonel, that you have a student of history up there.” He scratched his pointed chin. “You know..."

"Yes? What?"

"Colonel, do you think it would be possible to have a Grugell Navy uniform tailored for me, were I to provide the specifications?"

"Certainly. Won't it be kind of an old uniform? You've been out of touch for twenty-some years." Clomonastik laughed. “No. The Grugell officer's uniform has not changed in over three hundred Grugell years. We are not as—how shall I say it—capricious as you humans."

"Very well, sir. I'll look into it."

Sixteen

Later that evening.

There still weren't very many restaurants in Mountain View, but the Palace was one of the better ones, featuring beef from a Black Angus herd imported from Earth ten years earlier. Seated between his father and an equally wide-eyed Maria Gutierrez, Mike Crider Junior couldn't keep his eyes off the tall, weird figure across the table.

It was an odd congregation around the dinner table and one that brought more than a few stares from the dining room's other patrons. Mike Crider and his son, the American vice president, his wife, daughter and son and the alien former commander of an occupation force bound to take over the planet Forest. Clomonastik was finishing off a large porterhouse steak with obvious enjoyment; his side dishes of potato and vegetables were left untouched.

Wiping his narrow mouth with satisfaction, Clomonastik laid down his napkin and smiled across the table at Mike Junior.

"You have heard your father's stories, no doubt, my young friend. I trust his tales did my handsome and commanding presence justice?” He laughed a thin, strange laugh.

"I suppose so. You're my first alien,” Mike Junior commented. Beside him, his father spluttered into his napkin, trying to hide his amusement.

"You're a young man yet,” Clomonastik observed. “I trust I won't be the last. Michael, it's gratifying to see you have such a strong young son, my old friend. He is the very image of you as a young man. You should be very proud."

'I am. He has a sister, too, back on Forest with her mother.” With the instinctual pride of a parent, Mike extracted a flat card from his jacket pocket, pressing a contact to display a 3-D holo of his family from a portrait taken a year earlier in Settlement. It seemed so odd to be showing a family portrait to this alien who had once tried very hard to kill him, but...?

"Ahh.” Clomonastik leaned forward to examine the holo closely. “Still only the one wife? I know, I know! I've lived among you for many years now, but some of your ways are still so peculiar to me. Why should a man such as yourself, a great warrior and a hero among his people, be so limited and by force of law at that?"

"I'd be so ‘limited’ by choice, even if it weren't the law,” Mike answered, “and the only reason I was ever a warrior, you may recall, is because you dropped in on my home with an occupation force."

"And what an adventure that was for us both, Michael! And look tonight, this friendship that has sprung from that old conflict! Tell me now,” he turned serious, “are you not in the slightest bit nostalgic for those exciting times? Do you not miss the excitement, the rush of battle, the surging of the blood?” He fixed Mike with an unfathomable glare from his jet-black, featureless eyes. “Did you not feel more alive then than at any other time in your life?"

"Well,” Mike began, but Clomonastik cut him off with a wave of the hand.

"You need not temporize with me, my old friend. I know you in many ways, in some ways perhaps better than you know yourself. I come from a culture that deals in war and conflict as a matter of routine, you must remember. I know all too well the mind of a warrior-born. I know how the rush of battle gets into a man's blood. You specialize in hunting rocs, yes? Those giant bird-beasts of Forest, like the one that tore my arm that long-ago day?” Mike nodded. “And why?"

"Well, that's where the money is and I've got a family to support."

"Please. Michael. You are a man of vast means, of vast talent and experience. You would earn a very good living hunting the harmless herbivores that roam the plains of that planet and yet you hunt the most dangerous creatures extant and you specialized in that since your arrival on Forest, when there was only yourself to feed and clothe. For the money? You hunt them for the excitement, Michael, do not try to convince me otherwise. Your son—how many rocs has he killed?"

"Three,” Mike Junior answered for his father.

Clomonastik turned to address the young pioneer. “And you felt what, when you killed that first great beast?"

"Excited. Scared. Sick to my stomach afterwards, but only for a minute. I was really proud of myself, but mom sure fussed at dad for taking me out after a roc."

"You see, Michael?” Clomonastik turned back to the senior Crider. “Your son, he has it as well. All of you do. Vice President Gutierrez, you were a businessman before you were a politician, yes?"

"A contractor, but yes."

"You had competitors, yes?"

"Of course. Denver's a big city. There were times during the last big recession, competition for what few construction jobs there were got pretty tough. The kids were just little then and I was working twelve, fourteen hour days, Tony and I were busting our humps trying to keep our people working...” His voice trailed off.

Clomonastik was quick to jump on the opening. “Allow me to speculate. You competed ruthlessly. Your loyalty was to your people, your employees. You pursued your competition, you defeated them on price, on service, on quality, on every front, until they were bankrupt and your own company was the premier construction company in Colorado.” Clomonastik may not have been eligible to vote, but that didn't stop him from reading the political section in the news services.

"Yes."

"And in spite of all the hard work, the time away from your family, the uncertainty, the conflict, you remember those times with a certain satisfaction, do you not?"

"Well, yes."

"And your wife? Madame, how do you recollect those days?"

"It wasn't easy,” Sandy Gutierrez reflected. “Heck was working all the time. Sometimes weeks went by when he only saw the kids asleep in their beds at night. It was worth it, don't misunderstand, it all paid off, but it was hard. We all pulled through it, though—as a family.” She patted her husband's hand fondly and the nostalgic smile on her face wasn't lost on the former Grugell officer.

"You see?” Clomonastik took a sip of the red table wine provided with dinner, made a face. “You thrive on conflict, all of you. Without it you become bored, complacent, lazy. I've seen it myself, in your own American city of Baltimore. Humans who have everything provided for them quickly grow fat, lazy and useless. You need conflict and yet you treasure peace. You co-operate and you compete all at once. You are violent, yet you avoid violence until it comes to your door."

"It hasn't always been that way,” Hector Gutierrez noted. “Our history has been,"

"Warlike? Violent?"

"Yes. Yes, it has."

"Our societies are not so different, you see. And yet I think that ultimately, in this greatest of all conflicts that your race will prevail. Why?” He set his wine glass down. “One of your failings, of course, is this pale, tasteless water you call wine. But I digress. You humans will prevail due to your ability to co-operate."

"But surely your own Grugell military co-operates as well. Any organized structure, such as a military, requires intense co-operation to function.” Hector Gutierrez hadn't known a thing about military organization a few years earlier, but he was a quick study.

"Co-operate, yes, but only to the extent necessary to complete a task. You see,” Clomonastik continued, “my time among you has gifted me with perspectives into the similarities and differences between our peoples, but there is not yet one among you who has done the opposite. You must understand, the Grugell hierarchy is a vicious, intemperate competition—advancement by assassination is not unknown. I myself achieved my rank by ruthlessly undercutting my commander on my last ship assignment. I concealed from him a serious shortfall in weapons qualifications records and revealed them to an Imperium inspectorate officer on a routine inspection tour. My superior was disintegrated and I moved into his role."

Clomonastik looked around the table at the staring faces of his human companions. “And so you see, the tendency of the individual Grugell often runs counter to the overall sense of mission. It is that tendency that we must use to our advantage."

"You know, one thing concerns me,” Hector Gutierrez said. Clomonastik looked at him, an unspoken question on his narrow face.

"Based on all you've told us—especially that last bit—what reason do we have to think we can trust you? How do we know you won't try to find a way to turn this to your own advantage?"

"Mister Vice President, you do not."

Hector Gutierrez was a bit taken aback by the blunt but honest answer. “Why did you ask Colonel Perkins to have a Grugell uniform made for you?"

Clomonastik grinned, baring his predacious teeth. “Many years ago, when I was in command of a small weapons station on the planet Ghathaba, I had a very annoying subordinate. He took Grugell competitiveness to an unhealthy extreme. He was suspected in several assassinations and assassination attempts, including one on my own self. He fancied himself a student of history, you see—he had produced a long, quite boring scholarly work on an incident in our history known as the Night of Seven Blades.” He explained for a few moments, as expressions around the table grew more thunderstruck by degrees.

"And if my former subordinate Kadastrattik XII is indeed up there in orbit,” Clomonastik pointed up at the restaurant's ceiling, “I'd like to meet him again. Yes, I'd like that very much indeed."

"Do you think there's a chance he's the one that's up there?” Mike asked.

"Yes, my old and respected friend, I do think he may well be. I'm not certain, but that bomb; it had a certain ... inelegance ... that reminds me of my former subordinate. And if it is in fact he who is in charge of this mission..."

"Then you'll know how to turn his own impulsiveness and ambition against him?" Clomonastik laughed delightedly. “You see, my old friend? You and I, we are not nearly so different as you would like to believe."

Mike considered that thought for a moment. “I just hope you're right. We haven't had many breaks yet."

"There's an old Grugell aphorism that applies. Let me see if I can translate: ‘When your enemy has you on your back, things are looking up.’ Things may be looking up for us now." Seventeen

Tarbos.

"Sandy, would you look at this?"

Sandy Gutierrez had been doing casual duty helping her vice president husband with note-taking and keeping track of his schedule of committee meetings, working breakfasts and the various other functions taking place as the convention worked through the vagaries of forming a Galactic government. At the moment, though, they were lunching in the courtyard outside the Conference Center's main building, enjoying Tarbo's pleasant summer sunshine.

A few meters away the Gutierrez's daughter, Maria, sat sharing a bench with the younger Michael Crider. They faced each other on the bench, noses almost touching, sharing a bowl of some Tarbosian dish or other. Their eyes were locked together, wondering smiles on both their faces. As Sandy watched, Maria picked up a napkin, dabbed something from the Crider boy's chin.

"Well, Heck, what do you expect? Maria's a grown woman now. She's turned nineteen right here on Tarbos, remember?” For her birthday, the Crider boy had presented her with a lovely green silk shawl and hair cover fashioned from the fleece of an animal native to Avalon. Maria had worn the lace about her shoulders almost continually since.

"I know and Mike's son is a great kid. He's honest, he's strong, he's open, he washes his face and keeps his fingernails trimmed—everything I'd expect in a suitor for Maria. But..."

"But what, Heck?"

"Sandy,” Hector lowered his voice a notch. “He lives on Forest. That's well, I don't know how far, but it's light-years from Earth. We're going back to Earth when this is over and he'll go with his father back to Forest! How's that going to affect those kids?"

Sandra Gutierrez sat down, laying her hand on her husband's knee. “Heck, look at them. Look at the way Maria looks at Mike. Look at the way he looks at her."

"That's what I'm saying, I..."

Sandra cut her husband off. “Heck, it wasn't that long ago you and I were young, remember.” She smiled at her husband. “You know, you looked at me just like Mike looks at Maria. And you know, sometimes, when you're not being all vice presidential, you still do.” She waved a hand at the young people. “You said it yourself—young Mike is like his father, he's honest, he's strong. He'd make a fine husband. And Maria's a grown woman and she's been here on Tarbos for almost six months now, falling in love with that young man."

Hector Gutierrez looked helplessly at his wife, forced to the conclusion that he'd been subconsciously avoiding. Sandra, with the intuition borne of twenty-five years of marriage, read his mind for him. “Yes, Heck, I think we'd better accept the possibility that our daughter may be going to Forest when this is over and not back to Earth with us."

"It's such a long way..."

"I know.” Sandy kissed her husband and her eyes were damp. “But you know, this is another side of what we're doing here. In the old days on Earth, you know, young people would go off to the New World—like our ancestors did, Heck, yours from Spain and mine from England and Germany—and their families would most often never see them again. As this confederacy you're building grows, this will happen to other families too, you know. And these kids aren't growing up thinking of just Earth. They're seeing a larger society. It's not just America, Russia, Europe, Brazil and the other hotspots on Earth. With this new government, kids are going to look out to Tarbos, Caliban, Zed and new worlds we haven't even found yet. History is starting all over again."

"It doesn't make it any easier knowing it's inevitable. And it's strange, but it doesn't even make it any easier knowing that she'd be getting a fine young man."

"I know.” Sandra Gutierrez stood up. “And, my dear husband, I've got a committee meeting of my own to get to—we're designing a flag for this confederacy of yours. We'll be looking for some agenda time later this week to present our design for a vote."

"A flag?” The vice president looked surprised. “I don't think anyone thought about that."

"A nation has to have a flag, doesn't it?"

"A nation?"

"The Confederacy. It's a nation, isn't it? The nation of humanity?"

"It is, isn't it?” This gave Hector Gutierrez something new to think about. I wish Tony were here. He always was better at seeing the big picture .

"I'll see you later, then.” Hector stood up, kissed his wife. He took one last look at his daughter, who was still lost in Mike Junior's eyes. He shook his head and headed for the Conference Center for a committee meeting of his own.

Tarbos, OWME Engineering Design & Development.

"How long will it take to build this?” Bob Pritchard wasn't generally a man of great urgency, but the hyperphone messages from Earth and Caliban had made him break his usual habit. Frad Gilpin looked the plans over casually, wiping a bit of egg sandwich out of his mustache as he did so. A fat, sloppy and profane man, he was a master with electronics and computer technology—good enough to lead to a prestigious posting as Chief of Tech on a high-status planet like Tarbos. “Two days, three maybe."

Pritchard looked at his watch: Seven-thirty-four. “You've got until tomorrow afternoon. I want you ready to go to the Skyhook at fifteen tomorrow, to catch a shuttle to the Cachalot . You'll install the scanner on the ship."

"You want to spend a half a million dollars on hardware to stick on a freighter?"

"Just do it, Frad."

"You're the boss. You're signing off on my equipment expense vouchers, right?" Evening.

Tarbo's short day made the sunsets sudden; in the space of a few minutes, the sun slipped into the ocean off Mountain View and darkness fell. Several committees were still meeting in the Conference Center and the delegates not in committee were in and outside the center. OWME security sergeant Gerry Stiles walked into the building, his uniform allowing him to pass the security guards unchallenged. He didn't see the person he wanted to talk to, but he saw someone that would do almost as well.

"You're Mike Crider's son, right?"

"Yeah, that's me.” The boy was hanging onto a tall, dark-haired girl Stiles didn't recognize.

"Your dad around?"

"He went off looking for something to eat,” the younger Crider answered. “Should be back in a little bit."

"Damn. I needed to talk to him."

"I could take you to him—I think I know where he went."

Stiles looked the young man over. “Sure, I guess."

"I'll just be a minute, sweetie—will you wait for me here?"

Maria Gutierrez nodded, kissing Mike Junior on the cheek. “I need to go talk to my mom for a minute anyway."

They left the conference center together, angling around the corner of the building. “Dad's been eating at that place across the Plaza—we can cut through the trees right over here." It was dark and still under the trees. Stiles was starting to sweat now. “Are you sure he went this way?"

"Pretty sure.” The boy stopped suddenly. Stiles almost bumped into him in the dark. “Well, I think he did."

"You think ?"

"He thinks right,” a soft voice came from behind him.

Stiles reached reflexively into his jacket pocket, but three sharp clicks from the darkness stopped him. “I wouldn't,” the voice advised. “Junior, light us up."

Mike Junior pulled a light-wand out of his pocket and snapped it, lighting up the area with a bright yellow glow. Stiles turned his head, carefully keeping his hands visible. Mike Crider Senior was leaning casually against a tree, an ancient—but no doubt fully functional—revolver in his hand, pointed at Stile's heart.

With his free hand, Mike tipped the brim of his big gray hat back a little. “You've never been a hunter, have you? It's all about setting up a stalk. Sometimes,” Mike continued in a conversational tone, “you even use a lure. But the trick is to draw your game into the place of your choosing." Pounding footsteps announced the arrival of a squad of security troops, led by a lieutenant. “His right-hand jacket pocket,” Mike advised.

Two of the troops pinioned Stile's arms while the lieutenant searched him, quickly and efficiently. “A compressed-gas hypo,” he reported.

"Let's get it analyzed. Be careful with that,” Mike advised. “I'm sure it's dangerous as hell." Mike had expected Sergeant Stiles to be defiant, but instead, he was subdued, almost deflated. Mike pulled his jacket back and holstered his antique Colt before stepping up to the captured traitor.

"Gerry, you've been just a little too anxious to help since this whole thing started and you've been a little too anxious to get me suspicious of the rest of the group. I began to wonder why and then it hit me. The people who set off that bomb had to have someone on the inside, someone who could get them past all the security stations around the Conference Center. And it occurred to me that I hadn't seen you that day; I checked with the duty sergeant and found out that you'd asked for the day off and that nobody had seen or heard from you that whole time. And then it just sort of all came together and it wasn't hard to figure out what your next move would be.” Mike smiled; his hand still rested on the ivory grips of the ancient revolver. “You know, Bob Pritchard wanted to let his men handle this, but I wanted to be the one who caught you. I wanted to look you in the eyes when you knew you were caught. I can't imagine why you'd want to betray your own kind, but that's just what you're doing, isn't it? Somebody gave you orders to kill me and that somebody was probably tall, skinny and alien, weren't they?" Stiles remained silent. Mike frowned at him.

"All I want to know is, why?"

Stiles looked Mike in the eye and set his jaw. “I'm not telling you anything."

"Oh, you will,” the lieutenant snorted. “Get him out of here,” he ordered his men.

"Good work, Junior,” Mike told his son. “Let's go get some supper."

"Sure thing, Dad. OK if Maria comes with us?” After having faced his first charging roc at age sixteen, the capture of a would-be murderer was tame stuff for the younger Crider. The Director's Office.

"Those entryway scanners were a great deal,” the security lieutenant told Bob Pritchard. “Whoever your guy is that cooked those up, he did a great job. They picked up Stile's hypo easily enough."

"Frad's a pain in the ass in a dozen different ways, but he's a hell of a technician. Thanks, Lieutenant, that'll be all for now. Why don't you head home? It's been a long night."

"I'll do that, sir, thanks.” The lieutenant spun on his heel and left.

"Has he told you anything yet?” Stefan Ebensburg asked from his chair near the window. Outside, the surf rolled in against the nighttime beach.

"No,” Pritchard replied. “But it's pretty obvious where he's getting his orders, isn't it? There's a cloaked ship up there and somehow they're getting messages down to the surface without being detected. We'd have picked up a transmission or an orbital shuttle coming down."

"We don't know how their ship cloaks work,” Ebensburg pointed out. “It's possible they can cloak a shuttle."

"Yeah, but according to these messages, we might be able to put something together to track it. I've put Frad on that, too."

"This is getting complicated. I'm sure Stiles wasn't the only person they have on the payroll."

"I'm sure he wasn't,” Pritchard agreed. “There was Sergeant Stiles and the two that were killed in the bombing. None of them were what you'd call take-charge types; the two bombers were just warehouse workers. There's someone running the show, someone with some authority. He's the one we've got to smoke out."

" Jah,” Ebensburg agreed. “And now, mein freund , may I suggest you follow the advice you've given the Leutnant ? You look as though you have not slept in several days."

"I managed about three hours last night,” Pritchard chuckled, “but you're right, I'm not sleeping much. I want to get this thing started off right, Stefan."

"Then you must rest, Robert."

The Cachalot , the next morning.

After ten long, boring days watching Tarbos rotate uneventfully under her ship's hull, meeting a fat, sloppy technician from the surface didn't make Captain Benton's day. But that's precisely what she was doing. She and Gillian Furst, the Cachalot's executive officer, were facing the man across a table in the freighter's tiny wardroom, which at least was in the section of the ship that was spun to provide gravity.

"Let me get this straight. You want to wire this gizmo into my main forward navigational scanner? And for what?"

Frad Gilpin tapped a pudgy forefinger on the display pad. “This here will enable you to track quantum anomalies and non-random distributions of normal spatial matter, both normal matter and dark matter."

"And that is important, why?"

"Well, Captain, if you wanted to track a ship that's not visible, that's a pretty good way to do it."

"So, you're saying I'll be able to track a cloaked ship with this? A cloaked Grugell ship?"

"That's the only kind of cloaked ship I know about.” Gilpin was brilliant, but infuriatingly rude.

"So what you're telling me is that Director Pritchard suspects that there's an armed and cloaked Grugell ship somewhere in orbit here? And we're just setting here big as life in plain sight of this thing?"

"I don't know anything about that,” Gilpin demurred. “I'm just the techie, all right? Just the techie." Jan Benton threw up her hands. “Great. What am I supposed to do when I detect it? This is a freighter, you know? I don't have any armament, no guns, no missiles—what am I supposed to do? Those things have already cut apart, what was it, four freighters in the last year? Freighters exactly like this one?"

"Captain, it's like I said, I'm just the techie, OK? Mr. Pritchard told me come up here and wire this thing in your ship and since he's the local project director, what he says goes, like it or not. Plus he's the guy who signs my paycheck, so I do what he tells me. So, by your leave, ma'am, I'm going to get to work."

"Sure, go ahead."

The fat man stood up and, bracing himself in the two-thirds gravity of the wardroom level, moved out into the passageway.

"What do you suppose the company has in mind?"

"Well,” the exec answered her captain, “I suppose, if the thing works and we pick them up, we can always ram them."

"You're real funny, Gillian, that helps a lot, thanks."

Meeting Room E, the Conference Center.

Maps of the area around Mountain View covered the conference table, all of them liberally marked up with scribbled notations. OWME security Colonel Perkins was holding forth to the assembled group.

"We've had patrols out day and night, all around the area, within a day's march of the city and of the Tide Pool resort up the coast. We've placed remote sensors, we've flown recon droids out farther than the patrols have gone, we've covered every damn inch of ground within fifty kilometers of the city. If somebody's infiltrating by orbital shuttle, they aren't doing it anywhere around here."

"Well, they sure aren't coming down the Skyhook,” Bob Pritchard pointed out. “They've got to be coming down by shuttle and someplace closer than we think."

"If you'll permit me, Mr. Pritchard?"

Pritchard nodded assent to the tall, weird figure at the end of the table. Clomonastik III stood up and rubbed his narrow jaw contemplatively.

"It's not at all uncommon, in exercises, you understand, for an audacious commander to place his reconnaissance assets actually inside the enemy's perimeter wherever possible. That may well be the case here. You have searched the area outside the city, I am certain, with great efficiency and as a result of that we may now rule out the likelihood of a landing site in the countryside. We therefore should begin to look inside the city itself."

"In the city? We've got enough radar coverage over this city to cook birds in flight,” Colonel Perkins objected.

"Ah, yes, but radar has its limits, Colonel. How small a craft could your radar detect?"

"Well,” Perkins said, “We don't have any military stuff; what we've got is traffic-control radar. Frad Gilpin has tweaked the frequencies to allow us to track ships down to six or seven meters long. That's smaller than any landing shuttle I've ever heard of."

"But not smaller than a Grugell infiltration pod.” Clomonastik held up a sketch on a large notepad. “An infiltration pod is designed to do precisely what we are speculating happened here; namely, to land one operative safely in a heavily patrolled and guarded area. The pods are one-time devices; they can only descend to the planet's surface. There is no provision for them to return to orbit."

"So, the operative is expecting to be picked up by follow-on troops?"

"Or to die in the course of his mission,” Clomonastik agreed.

"Nice,” Colonel Perkins observed.

"Sometimes necessary,” Clomonastik pointed out. “Your recent history makes it plain that your military members are expected to return from their missions, successful or not; you even plan campaigns to minimize losses when possible. The Empire knows no such scruples; an officer assigned a task is expected to succeed or die in the attempt. There is no return from failure. Which, of course, explains the initial reason for my own presence among you."

"So, what we have to do, is to find this pod...” Bob Pritchard began,

"...and we'll have a clue to finding our infiltrator...” Colonel Perkins added,

"...he may very well lead us to whoever he's working with,” Clomonastik concluded with a sharp-toothed grin.

"Who's got the map of the city?” Colonel Perkins asked.

Detention A.

"Still isn't saying anything, is he?"

"Nope."

Two security troops were detailed to watch the former sergeant Gerry Stiles, currently Mountain View Detention A's sole resident. A vidcam inside the block covered Stile's cell and since the prisoner was currently sleeping, the guards took the opportunity to grab a bite of lunch in the block's office.

"He's still crashed, is he?” The younger of the two guards was extracting a sandwich from his lunch pack.

"Yep,” the other answered, glancing up at the video monitor as he chewed. “They had him up half the night, grilling him. Used drugs and everything. But he's not saying shit."

"Huh."

The guards ate their lunches and argued about the upcoming zero-gee football championships on Terra Station in high Earth orbit and it was twenty minutes before they looked at the video monitor again.

"Holy shit!"

Plainly visible on the monitor was the bunk that, until just recently, prisoner Stiles had occupied. All that was left was a few charred bits of cloth and half-molten metal.

Eighteen

The Conference Center.

The constitution was taking shape. Mike Crider was well pleased with how the document looked. Two houses of legislators, the House of Selectmen, allocated according to a planet's population and the Senate, with two senators from each world. A High Court would interpret the laws passed by the legislature and the president's office would be responsible for enforcing those laws, as well as managing the security of the confederacy as a whole.

Each world would support the Confederate government by a levy of a percentage of the gross planetary product and from that GPP tax would come funds for the navy, the Confederate government. Mike was not surprised to see that the initial government base would be right here on Tarbos, since it was more or less centrally located and the various functions that the Confederacy would fulfill in arbitrating interplanetary trade.

And best of all, Mike noted, was that the constitution strictly limited the Confederacy's authority in planetary affairs—the free worlds were limited to freely elected, representative governments and to respect and abide by the Bill of Basic Rights, but other than that the Confederate government was barred from planetary affairs.

"Looks familiar, doesn't it?” Hector Gutierrez sat down next to Mike. Small knots of delegates and staff were seated here and there in the main Conference Hall, reading the final draft of the constitution and making notes before the initial vote.

"Yeah, looks real familiar,” Mike replied. “It's a lot like America's constitution, but a bit tougher on federal—I mean, Confederate interference in the state's affairs."

"Right. That's on purpose and it will make ratification easier. The free worlds won't accept this if there's too much chance of the Confederacy getting too overbearing—we went through that in the States once, you know—and this pretty much precludes that. The president has the authority to intercede if a world fails to allow free elections or protect the individual rights that we've defined, but other than that, his responsibilities are to the confederation alone."

"And each planet, to be part of this, will have to ratify by a simple majority of the electorate?"

"Two-thirds,” Gutierrez corrected him. “And any new worlds opened up will have to vote to ratify or not when their population reaches half a million. If they don't ratify, of course, they aren't entitled to trade protection or naval support in the event of attack."

"So, it's a pretty sure bet all thirteen worlds will ratify?"

"Eleven will. Corinthia, who knows? Their ‘king’ isn't going to be happy about putting it to a vote. Oddly enough, I'd expect Earth to be the other possible holdout."

Mike looked at the vice president, his eyes wide. “Earth?"

"Earth. There's a lot of fuss in the US over how much we've spent on planetary defense and since the United Nations collapsed in the early 21st century, there's really been no global international alliance or governing body to speak of. I don't know how Earth is going to manage a vote on ratification."

"I guess I never thought about that."

"Well, I sent Tony—that's the president—a hyperphone message. Maybe he'll be able to work something out."

Mike considered that for a moment. “You know, my son asked me something back on Forest once. There's an issue of citizenship—I'm an American citizen, but what about the kids born on the settled worlds? Junior asked if he's a citizen and to tell the truth, I didn't know what to answer. And, after this, he'll be a citizen of Forest and so will I, for that matter. I'll cast my vote for ratification on Forest and so will Junior. Will we have dual citizenship?"

"Another problem to work out, Mike. I hadn't thought of that one, either."

"And, Heck, to be perfectly honest, it may be something that comes up in your family, too. You've seen those kids of ours together, right?"

The vice president nodded. “Yeah. Sandy and I were talking about it yesterday." The Stardust Lounge.

Late afternoon and Mike Crider Junior had spirited a giggling Maria Gutierrez away from the Conference Center for an early dinner.

"I'm glad you could get away early,” Maria confided. The young people say in a booth side by side, their discarded plates pushed across the table.

"I'm not really doing all that much,” Mike answered. “Just taking notes and helping Dad keep his paperwork organized."

"Why did he bring you, then?"

"He mostly just wanted the company, I guess.” He frowned. “Dad doesn't make friends too easy. He's lived on Forest for twenty-three years and you know I bet we don't get ten people a year out to the place to visit? I remember when I was a little kid old Colonel Davies used to come out for some hunting once in a while and just before we left dad had a visit from some of his old scouts from the invasion, but that's about it."

"You're not like that, Mike.” Maria squeezed Mike's hand in hers. He put his arm around her and squeezed.

"No, I'm not like Dad in that respect. I like being around people more than he does. Mom's afraid that once Dad gets older, it will be impossible to get him off the place at all—he only goes to town two or three times a year now."

"Your home sounds beautiful, though, Mike. The pictures you showed me sure are." The young hunter/pioneer caressed Maria's satiny shoulder with his callused hand briefly. He turned toward her, his face very serious now. “I'd like you to see it, Maria. In fact, I've been thinking about that a lot. I'd like you to see our family place, I'd like to show you Outskirts—it's a really pretty little town now. I'd sure like you to come to Forest."

"I don't know, Mike.” Maria smiled, ever so slightly. “Passage fare from Earth would be awfully expensive."

"I was kind of thinking of another arrangement."

"What arrangement?” Maria knew perfectly well what arrangement the young hunter had in mind, but she was woman enough to want him to say it.

"I was thinking of you coming back to Forest with dad and me. If you and I were to..."

"To what?"

"To get married. That's what I'm trying to say. If you'll have me, that is.” Inwardly, Mike Junior cursed his awkwardness.

Maria smiled broadly, pleased that her prediction was correct. She kissed him once, quickly. “Yes, Mike, I'll certainly have you. And I can't wait to see your home. I know I'll love Forest." Earth.

President Gomez had anticipated the ratification issue.

The old United Nations building in New York still existed, but only as a shell. Since the Third World War, the UN had been all but disbanded, only a handful of Third World countries still meeting in a smaller headquarters in Belgium to debate resolutions that most of the world ignored. The old New York City building still existed, was still maintained at the expense of the United States, largely as a historical site. But now the President of the United States, Anthony Ignacio Gomez, had just become the first U.S. president to visit that building in several decades. Leaving the UN building with the secretary of state by his side and the usual trail of Secret Service agents, the president was a cautiously optimistic.

"The old building is still in pretty good shape,” secretary Stetson opined. “But as to whether anyone will show up to a forum at the UN after all this time is another story."

"It's the first thing that might actually be appropriate for the UN to talk over in almost a hundred years,”

President Gomez reminded her, “and all they have to do is go back to their respective countries and convince their legislative bodies to come up with a mechanism for a plebiscite. Remember, Claudia, there's no constitutional provision right here in America for what we're going to try to do. Each state will have to have elections using their own system and we'll combine the totals to the global count."

"You're that confident that the meeting on Tarbos will come up with a constitution to ratify?"

"I am.” Gomez looked up at the sky as he walked. “I read a lot of history when Heck and I decided to run for national office. I think it's inevitable. And, based on Earth's own history and the usual political bent of businessmen, I'm guessing it's going to be a fairly libertarian government and that implies that it will have to be ratified by each planet. Earth's the only one that's carved up into separate nations, even though it's been dominated by one nation since before the Third World War." The famed circle of flags outside the old UN building was still maintained, like the rest of the site, by the National Park Service. A lot of the flags had changed since the UN had been founded following the Second World War: most of them, in fact. One had not. Gomez pointed at one flagpole where a familiar red, white and blue flag was flying—still flying—after three world wars and the best efforts of generations of dictators and terrorists, still flying. “And the world will still listen to the United States. They'll complain, they'll kick and fuss, they'll whine and bitch, but in the end they'll listen, because they know this has to happen. This is going to work. We're going to get that building back in shape, we're going to assemble ambassadors from every nation we can get to attend and we're going to knock Earth's collective heads together. We'll have our plebiscite."

The Cachalot, Tarbos orbit.

"Well, I'll be damned. It works."

The scanner readout was fuzzy; mostly just a rough indication of a course track, but it was there nonetheless, drawn in green on the Cachalot's navigation readout. Captain Benton was impressed, in spite of herself.

"There, Captain, is your Grugell ship, running cloaked."

Captain Benton examined the readout closely. “This is just an estimate, the error here could be a kilometer or so either way."

"That will firm up as the system gathers data. The program algorithm will gather data on the individual track; once you've got the data, you should be able to pick this ship up anytime, given a few minutes scanning. You'll have a good enough fix in a few hours."

"Good enough to do what? Nobody's been able to tell me that, yet." Frad Gilpin made a sour face. “I'm just the techie, Captain. That's a question for the bosses."

"Well, he's above and behind us, we can tell that now,” first officer Furst pointed out. “That doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling."

"And I bet there's no way we can out-maneuver him—not with this big hog."

"How about if we dropped the cargo disk and went after him with just the drive section?"

"Go after him for what?” Benton demanded. “The only thing we could do is ram him. You want to ram him with the drive section? The only way I'd want to try ramming him would be to clip him is with the edge of the cargo disk and I'm not too crazy about that. At least we're mostly empty right now and there's no crew in the disk, but we're still looking at shock damage, bulkheads sprung, all sorts of trouble."

"So, what are we going to do?"

"I'm going to talk to Pritchard, that's what I'm going to do.” Jan Benton pulled herself across the zero-gee bridge towards the signals station. “Get me the director's office." An alley in Mountain View's warehouse district.

"Well?"

"It is a Grugell infiltration pod,” Clomonastik said.

Colonel Perkins rapped on the opened, empty shell. “What's it made of?" Clomonastik rattled out a series of high-pitched, squeaking syllables. “I don't know the English term,” he smiled. “I imagine your engineers can determine the composition, yes?"

"Well, they'll sure try,” Perkins agreed. “So this thing tells us we've got a Grugell agent here on the surface, then?"

Clomonastik scrutinized the Colonel's face closely. “Why, yes, obviously. I should think he would be a senior lieutenant, probably well trained in infiltration tactics, probably fluent in English and no doubt well-armed and well equipped."

Colonel Perkins tapped the pod casually with the toe of his boot. Rather too casual about all this, Clomonastik thought. Rather too casual altogether.

Nineteen

A warehouse on the edge of Mountain View.

His “contact” was tall, narrowly built and weird and how he had learned English was anyone's guess. But learn it he had.

"I've been in contact with my superiors. We're not at all pleased with your progress. Having your man captured so stupidly..."

"I understand that was a setback. But..."

"But nothing,” the tall figure snapped. “It's already been taken care of. There will be no setback—my superiors will not tolerate it. Do you appreciate what I'm telling you? My superiors—will—not—tolerate—it."

"What exactly do you mean?"

"An orbital bombardment is not out of the question. We do possess the capability to reduce this planet to a smoking ruin, you know.” They had nothing like that sort of firepower, but this human didn't need to know that. They had enough to destroy a good part of the city and that would certainly do.

"There won't be any more problems, at least not if you keep your wits about you. They've found your infiltration pod, you know—you did a piss-poor job of hiding it. But I can cover that up, make sure they get sent off on a wild-goose chase somehow."

"A what? Wild goose ? What purpose would that serve?"

"Never mind. I'm going to make sure nobody finds out what's going on. All right?"

"Very well. And this Grugell renegade that you say is among them?"

"I'll find a way for you to get him back, just like I said I would."

"Good. He has much to answer for. The emperor himself has requested that Clomonastik III be brought before him, before he is disintegrated."

They split up and left the area by different routes than they'd used to come in. The tall, skinny figure of the Grugell officer disappeared into a patch of woods and the human went the other direction, pausing for a moment under a streetlight, where the white glow briefly revealed the form of Colonel George Perkins, Tarbo's head of security.

The Conference Center, next morning.

"I make the votes for the GPP tax fifteen aye, one nay. The motion is carried. Article IV will levy a twelve percent tax on the gross planetary product of each member world.” Not too surprisingly, Corinthia's King Harold had been the lone dissenter.

"We're within days of wrapping this thing up, Mike,” Hector Gomez said in a low voice.

"Bill of Basic Rights passed yesterday, Articles I through IV this morning, five more to go and we've got a constitution,” Mike agreed.

Best of all, the soon-to-be confederacy had a flag now. The first Confederate flag hung now above the speaker's platform at the front of the main Conference Center.

The dark blue banner held thirteen four-pointed stars, twelve in a rough oval with one in the center. A light blue field at the upper left held a stylized representation of the Galaxy in white, with the single spiral arm containing all the settled worlds in red.

"How long do you suppose it will take to ratify?” Mike wondered.

"A year, maybe a year and a half. Who knows? Hyperphones are only about twenty percent faster than a ship and every world will have to set up a system for an election."

"Well, that solves a question my son asked me once.” Mike told the vice president about the citizenship question Mike Junior had asked back on Forest.

"Well, as I understand it, your kids are American citizens, just as the kids of two citizens born in, say Europe are still citizens. They'll be citizens of Forest, now, though I suppose they can claim dual citizenship. But in a couple generations, Mike, this is all going to be moot."

"We're changing everything, aren't we? We're setting the pattern for interstellar politics for generations to come."

"Good thing we know what we're doing, eh?” Gomez smiled, slapped Mike on the back. OWME Engineering Design & Development.

Another one of Frad Gilpin's gadgets was flashing and blinking away in his personal workspace. Gilpin sat watching the device's main panel like an expectant father timing his wife's contractions. Twenty-eight slim antennae had been set up around the perimeter of Mountain View. Those antennae now cast the faintest, barely detectable web of a force field over the city. Feedback from any energy source penetrating the field would be reflected on the panel that Gilpin sat watching. Every so often a sparkle would race across the panel's main display and Gilpin would check it against the receipted traffic from Tarbos main signals station. Signals aimed at Tarbos main signals, he ignored. He was waiting for a beamed message that was being sent somewhere else. He sat up suddenly, coughing a spray of sandwich crumbs. A signal had crossed the field, a tight-beam signal of some sort, aimed nowhere near the planet's signals station. A handset was at his elbow; he grabbed it, punched in five digits.

Near the edge of town.

Fifteen armed security guards moved into the small copse of trees quietly. A special unit, they answered directly to Bob Pritchard; no one else knew their whereabouts.

The squad leader held a small hand-scanner. He held up one hand for the group to stop. A heat source showed on the scan, no more than ten meters to his front.

Senior Lieutenant Akillistrak XI didn't expect to evade capture forever and his orders were that to happen were clear. But he hadn't expected to be found in his field shelter, a narrow, branch-lined pit covered with a film of opaque polymer. Hunched at one side of the pit, grimly re-reading the decoded message he'd received shortly before, he was taken completely by surprise. The humans had slipped silently up to the edge of the shelter, led by the squad leader's scan. The polymer cover was visible at one edge, where the electronic image-enhanced camouflage had shorted out. An OWME security troop took hold of the polymer and flipped it back, revealing the startled, upturned face of the Grugell officer. Akillistrak had time only to let out an startled squawk before the squad leader clubbed him unconscious with a rock-hard fist.

"Call the director. Tell him we've got our bad guy."

Detention A.

Consciousness returned slowly. Akillistrak opened his eyes at last, wincing at the pain of a mild concussion. He looked up—some sort of cage, with bare walls, a metal-barred window and the shimmering gleam of a force field at the one entrance.

Two figures stood in that entrance. One was a human, short as they all were, gray-haired. Akillistrak had received images of the primary human commanders on Tarbos; this was the planetary leader, Robert Pritchard. Beside him...?

"Lieutenant, do you always recline in the presence of a superior?” The tall figure was a Grugell group commander. Akillistrak didn't recognize him, but his reactions were inbred by generations of militarized culture.

Akillistrak snapped to his feet. “Please accept my apology, Group Commander."

"Accepted, for the moment. Tell me, with what authority did your commander send you down to this planet?"

"Group Commander, I assume—well, he acted with the authority of the emperor, sir, as all commanders do."

"I see. And did you see the order dispatch? Did you verify your orders, in accordance with standing order ten?"

A stricken look from the lieutenant in the cell was all the clue Clomonastik needed to proceed. “I see. You did not. And so now you are an accomplice to a serious violation of orders and so are answerable to the Imperium directly. What have you to say for yourself, Lieutenant?"

"Nothing, Group Commander. Group Commander, standing order ten likewise requires me to confirm your identity, does it not?” The lieutenant looked suddenly suspicious.

"Indeed it does.” Clomonastik volunteered nothing.

Akillistrak's initial disorientation, the result of his sudden and violent capture, was fading away now.

“Group Commander, I do not think it necessary to ask. You are Clomonastik III, failed occupation commander, traitor and renegade."

"I am Clomonastik III, Lieutenant.” Clomonastik was unperturbed by the lieutenant's announcement.

“You knew I was on this planet, obviously from the traitor in our own estate." Akillistrak sat back down on the narrow bench in the detention cell, his jaw set.

"I should remind you, Lieutenant, that you find yourself now in similar straits as myself. You have failed in your mission, have you not? And what do you suppose awaits you, should we turn you over to your commander?"

The Grugell lieutenant remained silent, but a look of doubt swept across his narrow face for the briefest of moments—enough for Clomonastik.

"You do know, Lieutenant. You'll be disintegrated for your failure." Akillistrak looked up briefly before turning his gaze on the polysteel floor.

"As I would have been disintegrated, Lieutenant. A harsh punishment, is it not, for a failure in the face of a capable—and honorable—foe, yes?"

"It is known to all..."

"Yes and officers in the Imperial Navy are not encouraged to question the Imperium's policies, is it not so? No matter how harsh—no matter how counter-productive?"

"Counter-productive, Group Commander?"

"Indeed. You know it to be true, Lieutenant. Too many good officers have been wasted, through no fault of their own. Failure even in the face of insurmountable odds is dealt with in the same way—disintegration and the reversion of the officer's estate to the emperor. The incentive is not to succeed at all costs, but rather to avoid risks.” Clomonastik waved at Bob Pritchard, who stood behind him, trying in vain to follow the conversation. “These humans have learned better." Akillistrak looked up again, his face a study in confusion.

"Now, if you would see another sunrise, you will tell me what you know. You will tell me of your purpose here and why Commander Kadastrattik XII is orbiting this planet in a cloaked ship without orders. You are already dead to the Empire. Your only hope for life is here, as was mine after my defeat in the occupation."

"Group Commander, the commander has orders—I mean to say, he claimed to have orders, from the Imperium, to make contact with an agent here on Tarbos, to sabotage this convention by any means necessary and to prevent the formation of a human interplanetary alliance." Clomonastik nodded, inwardly pleased that he'd guessed correctly. “And who is your contact on this planet?” The Grugell lieutenant told him.

Bob Pritchard, while he was unable to follow the high-pitched, chittering Grugell language, had no problem understanding the words “Colonel Perkins” even when spoken in a heavily inflected Grugell accent. He was turning away in rage when he felt Clomonastik grab his arm.

"Director Pritchard, what will you do?"

"I'm going to order Colonel Perkins arrested, for starters,” he began, stopping when Clomonastik held up one hand. The tall Grugell pulled Pritchard out of the cell bay.

In Detention A's lobby, out of earshot of the cells, Clomonastik finally spoke. “It's safe to assume that our infiltrator speaks English, Director."

"What? How?"

"I'd imagine the Imperium has had cloaked ships monitoring your message traffic for several years now."

"Oh."

"In any case, Director, might I suggest you let your good colonel remain a free man a while longer? He may be of more use to us free and active. As long as Kadastrattik XII thinks he still has an agent on the planet, he may overlook the death of his officer."

"But he's not dead,” Pritchard protested.

"He no doubt has orders to be killed or to kill himself in the event of imminent capture, Director. He is dead to the Empire. We were very fortunate that your men were able to take him by surprise."

"So, his boss will assume he's dead,” Pritchard said, “And he'll do what? Send another officer down?"

"He may. I suggest you prepare for that possibility. Now, Director, if you'll excuse me, I think I should continue my conversation with the young lieutenant."

Twenty

The Chief of Security's office.

Things weren't going at all well for Colonel George Perkins.

Word of Akillistrak's capture had, of course, reached his office. Knowing it was only a matter of time before the captured Grugell officer revealed the name of his contact, Perkins was making some alternate arrangements.

In a locked compartment of his office desk were three complete sets identification cards, complete and indistinguishable from OWME issue right down to the holographic ID image that sprang from the card at a touch of a contact. Also in the locked compartment was a sum of cash, sixteen thousand, two hundred and fifty American dollars and five thousand UK pounds; enough to see him back to Earth, where he had banked a considerably larger sum, gained from various activities over the years. Finally, in the drawer, was the final piece of his intended retirement. He pulled the small black cube out of the desk, examined it for a moment before dropping it in his oversized briefcase along with the cash and ID cards.

"I've got a couple errands to run,” he announced as he strode through the outer office. His aide and admin assistant both looked up from their desks, but offered no reply.

"Oh and I'll be going over to Detention One to have a look at this Grugell prisoner, too. Don't look for me back until tomorrow."

Six blocks away was his apartment and ten blocks from there was the transit office. A quick change of clothing and ID, a ticket purchase on next-available transit back to Earth and then all that remained would be to fade away into the background until his ship arrived.

And the chief of security knew all the places to disappear.

The Cachalot.

Captain Jan Benton and First Officer Gillian Furst had just finished reading the orders from Tarbos Ground for the fifth time, their heads bent together over the message flimsy as they floated on the Cachalot's claustrophobic, zero-gravity bridge.

"I'm not sure I understand these orders."

Captain Benton nodded, agreeing with her first officer; but in her nine years with OWME, she'd learned that the company always had a reason for whatever it did. Anyway, the orders were clear. Benton began barking orders to her bridge crew.

"Helm, bring us to one-fourteen, positive fifty, engage the main drive, all ahead two-thirds."

"Coming about, Captain, star drive engaged. Engineering answers ahead two-thirds.” The massive cargo hull accelerated slowly, the drive sending an audible thrummm through the ship. Captain Benton made her way to the navigation station. “Lieutenant Karzai, plot a course to five AU's outside Tarbo's orbit; give me a trajectory that lands us in a parking orbit that keeps us with a line-of sight to Tarbos as much as possible. Relay the trajectory to Helm as soon as you have it."

"Won't be easy to keep a line-of site that far out, Captain. I'm not even sure if we can scan that far, visually or any other way."

"We don't need to. They'll contact us when the time's right."

"Contact us for what, Captain?"

"They haven't said."

The bridge crew exchanged puzzled looks, but the expression on Captain Benton's face forestalled any further discussion. Silently, the Cachalot's crew carried out the necessary tasks to place the ship in a parking orbit near the system's single gas giant.

The Conference Center.

Corinthia, as several delegates had suspected, was shaping up to be a problem. In particular, the king of Corinthia, who had emigrated hundred of light years to set up an autocratic rule, was shaping up to be a real problem.

"We do not see why we need to have this ratified by a plebiscite on each world. The various planets sent delegates here and to do what? To set up a system of interstellar government and to raise a navy. Fine and good, we say. We are more than willing to contribute the required percentage of Corinthia's product to build ships and train people to man them. But we consider the requirement for a plebiscite to be an unacceptable interference in Corinthia's internal affairs.” The king pounded on the speaker's lectern with one hand as he spoke.

"Are not the several worlds to be sovereign entities unto themselves? What right, then, this confederation, to dictate how we administer our own planet, a planet founded our own self at our own expense? A planet settled by our loyal followers, dedicated as they are to serving their sovereign?" In the audience, Mike Crider Senior was beginning to get annoyed at Harold I's constant use of the royal

“we.” He wasn't alone in that sentiment. The king continued on, oblivious.

"And so we must say no, no to the presumption that the confederation will run roughshod over the rights of free planets to determine their own destinies. We must say no to the ratification rule and no to conditional acceptance. If this is to be a limited partnership of sovereign worlds, let it be so. Let the confederation levy its tax and raise its navy and interfere not with the internal affairs of the member worlds.” With a final glare at the audience, King Harold relinquished the floor. In front of Mike, the United Kingdom's Prince Harry muttered to himself, “Stupid, cousin, very, very stupid." Mike leaned forward. Around him voices were raised, many in anger. “Is he really your cousin?" Prince Harry turned around in his seat. “I'm sorry to say, yes, he is. He was never considered one of the brightest of the royal family, you know. His father was very clever indeed and he made a tremendous fortune developing land in Africa following the wars and resulting famine. Harold—you know, at times I'm sorry I share a name with the blighter—always was an arrogant bastard, even as a lad and you see now where that's led him. The moment he inherited his father's money, off he went and the family was quite frankly happy to see him go."

"He sort of just blasted his own argument apart,” Mike commented. “Letting the ‘free planets determine their own destinies?’ Isn't that the whole purpose behind this plebiscite requirement?"

"Indeed. You understand that and I understand that. But Harold will never understand that. As far as he's concerned, he is Corinthia. The man, unfortunately, can not see past the end of his own nose."

"He's not making any friends here. He seems to have just ignored the last few hundred years of Earth's history."

"Oh, he excels at ignoring inconvenient facts, I assure you." Director Pritchard's office, the next day.

The Grugell didn't know or understand the human concept of nostalgia and so Clomonastik was perfectly happy to shed the replica of the uniform he'd once worn with pride. He had replaced it with a tailored, dark blue silk suit with his usual sparkling white shirt and tie. Fastidiousness was customary among the Grugell and Clomonastik was no exception.

"Well, Director Pritchard, it seems my initial guess was correct. The lieutenant, his name, by the way, is Akillistrak XI, informs me that his commander is indeed on a mission to interfere with any attempt by humanity to form an interstellar government, to include the use of force if necessary. I'm convinced that my old subordinate would attempt an orbital bombardment, if he thought he would gain the emperor's favor in so doing; he always was an ambitious sort. So are we all, though, yes? But Kadastrattik XII possesses ambition in an unhealthy extreme."

"Do they have the power to do so?"

"Almost certainly yes. The weapons on even a small frigate could certainly destroy a good part of the city. Twenty-two years ago, a frigate mounted several different weapons systems, including an energy weapon that is quite capable of penetrating the atmosphere to do considerable damage. The Imperium may well have developed more effective weapons since then, although the navy's scientists and engineers do not work with the—how shall I say this—abandon that your own technical people display? Innovation is slower in the Empire."

"People work harder for a personal carrot than a communal stick,” Pritchard noted.

"So I've learned, Director. At any rate, I'm certain Kadastrattik XII would not shrink from bombarding the planet if he thought it necessary; however, his orders would seem to state that such force is to be a last resort. Unusual,” he mused, “that the emperor would be so circumspect. I would have expected him to send a fleet to Tarbos and reduce the planet to a smoking ruin. Interesting—perhaps the Empire is not as strong as we suspected it to be? Some internal problem, perhaps?"

"We have no way of knowing that,” Pritchard pointed out. “We can only proceed on what we know and try to anticipate what this Kadastrattik will do next."

"Indeed. And I may have some insight there as well.” Clomonastik continued for several minutes. Pritchard drummed on his desk, thinking rapidly. “Would these Grugell ships use radio for short-range communications, like we do?"

"They would indeed, Director."

"Good.” Pritchard stood up and walked out of the office without further explanation. Clomonastik watched him go, shrugged philosophically and followed him out.

Twenty-One

The K-101.

Kadastrattik XII was beginning to become impatient. He'd taken time for a meal in his quarters and now bounded back onto his bridge, barking at his signals officer. “Signals, has there been any word from Lieutenant Akillistrak?"

"No, Commander. No word from the surface."

"He's been killed,” Kadastrattik muttered.

"It's soon to assume that, Commander,” the frigate's sub commander pointed out.

"It's not,” Kadastrattik disagreed. “He's three cycles overdue and he's never been so much as a millicycle overdue in reporting before. No, he's been found and killed by the humans. They will know now that the Empire is involved. We'll proceed with our second option. Sub commander, see to the preparation of the weapons station."

"By your command."

Central Signals, Tarbos.

While the main radio tower for the Mountain View area was on the same hilltop as the base of the Skyhook, Central Signals was in the same building as Director Pritchard's office. Three video and ten audio channels provided news and entertainment for the settlers on Tarbos, but the station also had the ability to transmit on a wide range of frequencies—including the list of likely frequencies provided by Clomonastik.

"Send a standard hail on all these freqs,” Pritchard ordered, handing the list to a technician. “Use all the power you've got."

"You want a directional signal, sir?"

"Yeah, if you can. Focus on about a twenty-degree arc centered on a geosynchronous orbit over Mountain View. That's where our target is likely to be."

"A moment, please, Director?” Nearby, Clomonastik was jotting something down on a notepad he'd picked up from a desk. “Send the following, if you would, in binary code,” he told the technician, handing over a notepad page with a series of ones and zeros. “It's a standard fleet hailing code; their computers will recognize it."

"Yes, sir.” The technician programmed a quick multi-frequency standard hailing code and punched to transmit.

"Sending now, sir."

It took a few minutes, but after that time a message-return indicator blinked on the technician's terminal screen. Clomonastik leaned over to look at the code. “Send this in reply,” he handed over another notepad page. “This requests voice communication."

Two minutes passed, then three, before the message-return indicator blinked again. A tap of the key and the technician reported, “Sir, you're on a voice channel.” Pritchard picked up a headset, motioned Clomonastik to do likewise. “I'll probably need you to translate."

"Unidentified ship, this is Tarbos Ground. Please identify yourself.” Beside the director, Clomonastik translated into the chittering Grugell language. In a moment, the high-pitched, rattling reply came, also in the Grugell tongue. Clomonastik translated again: “If you are calling us, then you already know who we are. Who are you?"

"This is Director Bob Pritchard. I'm in command down here on the planet.” That wasn't a perfectly accurate description of Pritchard's level of authority, but he correctly assumed that it would be something the militaristic Grugell would understand. Again, Clomonastik handled the translation:

"Indeed. This is the commander of the Grugell Imperial navy warship in orbit. What is it you want?"

"I require you to drop your cloak and to leave orbit and depart this system without further delay."

"Or you will do what?” Clomonastik's translation couldn't quite disguise the contempt in the reply.

"You are in violation of Tarbos space,” Pritchard evaded.

"We are, Director? And exactly by what authority,” the voice replied, “do you claim right to control passage through this space? What governing body do you represent?" Pritchard paused for a moment, confused. Clomonastik scribbled another note and handed to him, whispering, “you should pronounce the names ‘Kad-ah-strat-ick’ and ‘Ah-kill-ah-strahck.’ It's the closest approximation you'll make in English.” Pritchard examined the note, nodded.

"Commander Kadastrattik,” he barked into the headset's mike. Beside him, Clomonastik translated in a voice that was strangely calm and composed. “Your agent Lieutenant Akillistrak is in our custody. He has told us what your intention is and who you are. You are currently under the surveillance of our defensive systems.” Which was true, as far as it went. “I ask you a final time, you will drop your cloaking field and leave this system at once."

"I think I will not comply, Director,” Clomonastik translated in reply.

"Sir, the signal has been terminated at the source,” the signals technician announced.

"Well. I wonder if I could have screwed that up any worse,” Pritchard groused.

"You have done better than you think, Director,” Clomonastik assured him. “Kadastrattik has been handed a piece of information that will surely make him uncomfortable. He now knows that we know something, which he assumed we would not. This will cause him to consider his next action carefully; we have succeeded, for the moment at least, to force him to react to us, instead of the opposite. We should take advantage of that."

The Cachalot.

The Cachalot's duty helmsman called out, “Captain, we're on station as ordered.” The deep rumble of the drive faded away quickly to nothing.

"Good. All stop. Hold station here. Navigation, are you still able to track that ship?"

"No, Captain—too far away. We lost him about a hundred thousand kilometers out."

"Great. Just great. How fast do you think you'd be able to pick him up if we move back?"

"No idea, Captain. This is kind of a makeshift rig, you know?" Janice Benton muttered a curse under her breath. “The whole situation is rapidly going from bad to worse."

"I have a really bad feeling about this,” her executive officer agreed. Twenty-Two

The K-101.

Kadastrattik sat quietly, his hand still on the cutoff switch for the communication wand on the arm of his bridge chair. He thought very rapidly for a few moments and then stood up.

"Tactical, are any forms of energy emissions directed at us from the planet's surface?" The tactical officer examined all of his readouts carefully. “No, Commander. No unusual energy sources from the planet's surface. The communications signal has stopped. There are the usual electromagnetic communications transmissions and one and one-half cycles ago there was a subspace transmission from the transmitter on their low-orbit docking tower. All traffic appears routine."

"Give me a global scan of the area."

"Scanning now, Commander. Space scans clear for one hundred thousand kilos around the ship. The human cargo ship left orbit six cycles ago, Commander. There is no other detectable ship traffic."

"And as far as we know, they can't cloak a ship,” Kadastrattik mused. “Weapons, status."

"Commander, anti-proton projectors are warmed, charged and ready. Torpedo bays report loaded and ready, all weapons are on-line."

"Excellent.” Kadastrattik crossed over to the weapons station. “Since they know we are here, perhaps it is time to send a more stringent message. Tie in the targeting computer of the number one forward anti-proton projector to the main scanner and pick up the antennae for the subspace transmitter. Very carefully, now—target the antennae only, not the power source or the tower itself. We shall cut off their ability to communicate with their fellows on other worlds and now that the cargo ship has departed, there will be no way for them to call for assistance. Then,” Kadastrattik grinned wickedly, “Perhaps this Director Pritchard and I will speak again."

The whole process took less than fifteen seconds. “Commander, target is acquired, I am ready to fire."

"You may proceed,” Kadastrattik replied.

The Tarbos Skyhook.

From outside, were there anyone to see, the sight would have been impressive. Seemingly from empty space, a slight green glow brightened suddenly, building within a second to a blinding green glare that disgorged an emerald energy bolt down to the planet's surface.

The hyperphone transmitter's antennae on the top of the Tarbos Skyhook consisted of a stout titanium and gallium pole, a meter thick at the base, thirty-five meters high, tapering to only ten centimeters at the tip. Various wiring, relays, molecular switches and a massive power transformer filled the interior of the transmitter; at the heart of the mechanism was a tiny magnetic bottle holding, in separate eddies of a powerfully driven field, a tiny particle of dark matter and another of anti-germanium. The bolt of emerald-green anti-protons, traveling at about a third of the speed of light, hit before anyone could even notice them coming. The bolt smashed into the antennae three meters from the base. The anti-protons converted the titanium and gallium layers of the antennae wall to plasma, which flashed outward, cutting through the rest of the antennae base. Before the top portion could begin to fall, the follow-on antiparticles in the bolt penetrated into the magnetic containment bottle holding the particles of dark matter and anti-germanium, exposing both to the surrounding environment. Both materials exploded violently and only the tiny quantities involved prevented an enormous catastrophe. As it happened, the upper portion of the antennae was shattered into several pieces, which were shot into space by the force of the blast.

Three technicians were working in the monitoring station below the antennae. The explosion immolated all three before they had the chance to know anything was wrong. The next level below the monitoring station was taken up with an automated weather monitoring radar and various mechanical elements of the shuttle docking stations, which absorbed most of the rest of the blast. The next level down contained offices and a small cafeteria for the Skyhook staff, which survived with minor damage. Decompression alarms began hooting as the Skyhook's self-repair droids immediately deployed to close several small breaches in the level's pressure hull.

Three seconds after the anti-proton bolt hit, alarms were clanging up and down the Skyhook and an emergency message was flashed to the director's office even before the emergency evacuation of the Skyhook's staff began.

The Conference Center.

The blast from the Skyhook was only a faint rumble when it reached the courtyard in the back of the Conference Center, where roughly half of the delegates were enjoying the balmy afternoon. Mike Crider looked up curiously, scanning the sky for thunderclouds with an outdoorsman's instinct, but the sky was clear.

"Dad,” his son called from a bench a few meters away. “Did you hear that?"

"Sounded like thunder. No clouds, though...” Around them, the ebb and flow of conversation went on as before, until a contingent of security troops burst into the courtyard.

"Ladies, gentlemen, please follow me at once,” the sergeant leading the detail shouted.

"What is this?” “What's going on?” Several delegates, assistants and various hangers-on began asking questions at once. The sergeant cut them all off with the swipe of one hand. “There's no time for questions now, people. I need you all to follow me out of here right now."

"Come on, then,” Mike called out and got up to follow the sergeant out of the courtyard. The rest of the groups slowly followed them to the street side of the Center, where three skimmer-buses were pulling up. People from inside the Center were already filing aboard the first bus.

"What's this all about?” Mike asked the sergeant.

"Don't know, sir, I've just got orders to get you all in the bus and get moving. We'll get destination orders once we're under way."

"Fair enough,” Mike acceded.

The buses whipped away from the curb the moment the last passenger's foot left the pavement. The sergeant had boarded the bus Mike was on; as soon as the skimmer-bus was moving in the light mid-afternoon traffic, he stood up at the front and removed his polymer helmet.

"OK, folks,” he announced, “I'm Sergeant Paul Kroger and here's what we know so far.” He turned to look out the front windscreen before continuing.

"There's been an explosion and a fire at the top of the Tarbos Skyhook. We don't have all the details yet, but the hyperphone transmitter was knocked out. Initial indications are that the tower was hit by an energy beam or particle beam of some sort, fired from an orbiting ship." Mike Junior and Maria Gutierrez had taken the seat just behind Mike; the younger Crider now leaned forward. “Grugell ship, Dad?"

"Yep. Pipe down and listen, Junior."

At the front of the bus, Sergeant Kroger was still talking. “...at this point, we know that three technicians have been killed and several people in the office/cafeteria level were injured. The Skyhook is being evacuated right now and the director has ordered all of the delegates and conference attendees be taken to a safe place. Where that safe place is, I don't yet know. When I know, so will all of you." The bus shot through traffic, dodging the few private skimmers and larger cargo haulers as it sped for the outskirts of Mountain View.

Central Signals.

Bob Pritchard was back in Central ten minutes after the explosion, trailed again by Clomonastik. “Get me that Grugell son of a bitch on the line again,” he barked at the technician on duty. Two and a half minutes later, the technician reported, “I have a reply, sir." Pritchard heard a string of high-pitched, chittering Grugell in his headphones, reminding him of the calls of bats. Almost instantly, Clomonastik smoothly translated.

"Is this Director Pritchard? What is it you want?"

"You know what I want, you bastard,” Pritchard barked. (Clomonastik, after a pause, translated the last word as “one without honor.") “You fired on our Skyhook. That's an act of war."

"Against whom, I ask again, Director? What government do you represent?"

"I'm speaking as a representative of the Confederated Free Planets,” Pritchard replied, using the term publicly for the first time. “I'll warn you one more time, Commander, you have been ordered to leave Confederate space at once."

"I think I will oblige you to force me, Director."

Clomonastik removed his headset. “Director, I strongly recommend you terminate communications at once and recall your cargo ship. Kadastrattik's ship must be destroyed at once."

"What? Why?"

"He knows more than you suspect, Director. He has already destroyed your hyperphone transmitter, effectively cutting off your communications with the rest of humanity. Were I in his situation, I would now be back-scanning your location from the radio transmitter signal to discover your location and we will know when he has succeeded when he fires on this location. Decapitation,” Clomonastik explained, “Has long been a common tactic against a competent enemy.” Despite his prediction, Pritchard noticed the Clomonastik was quite calm and seemed unconcerned for his own safety. “You should remove yourself from this place at once, Director,” the tall alien urged. “He may already have a close approximation of your location."

"Cut the signal off,” Pritchard ordered. “All right, let's get out of here."

"A wise decision, Director. Where shall we go?"

"The Conference delegates. We'll join them."

Clomonastik nodded and bent from the waist in a half-bow, motioning for the director to precede him from the chamber. “Evacuate this building,” Pritchard snapped at the signals staff as he left. “Everybody out."

Twenty-Three

Fifteen kilometers inland.

The setting was beautiful.

Fifteen kilometers from the outskirts of Mountain View was the tiny community of Rangely, a farming and ranching town of about two thousand. And just outside of that community was the Rangely Retreat, a resort and vacation area still under construction in the timbered hills. The main lodge was built on the edge of a thick stand of native broadleaf trees that resembled, somehow, giant gingkoes. Facing a huge meadow of grasses and forbs, the lodge's enormous porch was within rock-throwing distance of a burbling stream. The air was filled with the twittering of several species of bat-winged, flying creatures that ran from sparrow to crow-sized; most of them hadn't yet been named, but the added to the ambience of the setting nonetheless.

"The main lodge is pretty much finished,” Sergeant Kroger was explaining to the assembled delegates as Pritchard and Clomonastik climbed out of Pritchard's personal skimmer. “The guest cabins back there in the trees are a little rough, but we're bringing in a few crews from Mountain View to make them as comfortable as possible. The problem right now is power; the hookups from the main station in Mountain View aren't finished yet, so we're flying in a Torch to rig up power for the time being.” In fact, the small portable fusion reactor was less then ten minutes away, sling-loaded under a retrieval droid. “The area around the resort is secured by a company of security troops. So, for the time being, I'd ask you all to stay in the immediate area—you'll be stopped by the troops if you go too far—and have a look around. We should have power in a half-hour or so."

The delegates began to fan out around the area, most of them heading inside the main lodge. Mike Crider watched his son and Maria Gutierrez wander nonchalantly off towards the guest cabins before he went looking for Hector Gutierrez.

He found the vice president talking with Bob Pritchard and Clomonastik III near a picnic table on the edge of the meadow a few meters from the stream.

"It's past time,” Pritchard was saying as Mike walked up. Clomonastik was nodding agreement. The director noticed Mike's questioning look and answered before Mike could ask: “I've ordered Colonel Perkins arrested; he's in custody and on his way to Detention One as we speak. I figured that particular jig was up; no point in letting him pass any more information on."

"Like the location of this place,” Hector Gutierrez added.

"Exactly."

"So, what now?” Mike wanted to know.

"We're about to wrap this thing up,” Pritchard replied. “What have we got, two more votes? Let's get it done, printed, signed and ‘phoned off to the other worlds for ratification. What those people in orbit don't know is that we've got a backup to the Skyhook hyperphone antenna. I can have it back in operation in three days, with another day or two to repair some mechanical and structural damage. Let's get our Constitution voted up and sent out for ratification."

"You're in a bit of a hurry, Bob,” Hector Gutierrez noted, examining Pritchard closely.

"Well,” Pritchard confessed, “I jumped the gun a little. I just ordered the Grugell commander to leave the Tarbos system, in the name of the Confederated Free Planets."

Mike laughed. “Well, what was his answer?"

"Basically, it was ‘make me',” Pritchard replied. “That's in the works now." The Cachalot.

"Incoming message from Tarbos Ground, Captain."

Jan Benton released the buckle of the web belt that held her in her bridge chair and floated to the signals console. “Well?” she demanded. The signals tech pointed at her screen.

"The hell...” Captain Benton was a fast reader. Spinning in the zero-gee bridge, she tossed herself back at her chair and began strapping in. “All decks, secure for maneuvers,” she barked into her wand mike, her voice booming out across the ship. “Navigation, get me trajectory back to Tarbos orbit, maximum sub-C speed. No breaking into subspace this trip. Helm, bring us about, one-eighty by zero. Ahead full."

"Coming about, Captain, Engineering answers, ahead full."

"Keep her under the C barrier,” Benton reminded the helmsman. “Scanning, get that gadget on-line, I want a course track on that cloaked ship as soon as we're in range." The K-101.

Kadastrattik turned away from the smoking ruin of a body that still slumped on the deck in front of the scanning station, his personal weapon still in his hand. “Have this wreckage removed at once,” he snapped. “And I will repeat my policy; failure on this ship is not tolerated! If this fool had moved a millicycle faster, we'd have had the human's commander located and this would be over!" The bridge crew was silent. “Weapons! Get me a target. Any target. A major population center will do nicely."

"Tying into the scanning console now, Commander,” the weapons officer answered in a querulous voice.

“Commander, the center of the city below seems to have a marketplace, or at least some center of activity. Scans show heavy traffic in that sector. I am currently tracking vehicle and foot traffic. Number One anti-proton projector is locked."

"Very good. Weapons, hold on that target. I will allow them two cycles to think. When that time is up, we shall see if we can raise that fool Pritchard again."

The Rangely Retreat.

The buzzing of his personal comm-link shouldn't have startled Bob Pritchard, but he was. He pulled the tiny gray card from his shirt pocket and tapped the blue oval on the front to activate it. “This is Pritchard,” he answered.

"Director,” a disembodied voice came from the card, “This is Central Signals. I've got a call in that alien language. We weren't sure what to do about it, so we're prepared to forward it to you, sir."

"Go ahead,” Pritchard answered, throwing a glance at Clomonastik. A stream of chittering Grugell came from the comm-link.

"It's Kadastrattik,” Clomonastik answered. “Director, keep your transmission short; speak to him for no more than a minute or he will trace you. He's demanding that the Convention disband, or he'll destroy Mountain View."

Pritchard thought very hard about that. “Any chance he's bluffing?"

"Virtually none, Director."

"Neither am I,” Pritchard replied. He switched the comm-link to another channel and spoke a code into the tiny mike. “How far out is the Cachalot ?"

"Six minutes, Director,” came the reply.

Pritchard switched back to the first channel. “This is your last chance, Commander. Decloak and leave my system now.” Beside him, Clomonastik translated into chattering Grugell; as soon as he finished, Pritchard killed the signal.

"Let's see what happens,” he said. “In about five and a half minutes, we'll know." The K-101.

Kadastrattik listened to the hiss of static for a moment before turning to his Weapons officer. “Very well, Director, it seems we must do this the hard way. Sub Lieutenant, you may fire when ready."

"By your command."

In space, the faint green glow appeared again, brightened, turned into a spear of anti-protons that lanced for the surface of Tarbos.

Downtown Mountain View.

In the middle of downtown Mountain View was the Main Street Mall, a pedestrian-only avenue lined with shops, cafeterias and lounges. On a weekday afternoon, in a company town, it was mercifully an hour before the end-of-workday shopping rush. There were only a few hundred people in the Mall when the anti-proton bolt arrived, smashing through the Synergy Bar & Grille and exploding outward into the street. Four employees and sixteen patrons of the Synergy were incinerated instantly and five others badly burned from the heat flare from the searing conversion of elementary particles. Nine people walking on the Mall were burned and one killed by flying debris. As the roar of the explosion settled, panic set in and customers and employees alike began to run from the area. Overhead, another bolt of emerald lightning shot down, obliterating the OWME mercantile Furniture & Appliances branch and killing sixteen people. Twenty-eight more were badly injured. The K-101.

"Cease fire, Sub Lieutenant,” Kadastrattik ordered. “Find another target. Find another concentration of humans."

"Scanning now, Commander. There is something..."

"Something? What do you mean, something?"

"There is a concentration of humans here, Commander,” the weapons officer said, pointing at a blue fleck on the display, “outside of their main city. There is a small settlement here,” he pointed again, “And then this concentration of human readings here, just a few kilos away. There's nothing else in the area."

"That's it,” Kadastrattik “That's where their gathering is—I'd wager a year's wine ration on it. Target that concentration, make ready to fire!"

"By your command—locking number one anti-proton projector now." The Cachalot.

"There he is, Captain. One hundred sixteen kilometers out and closing." The Cachalot had been decelerating hard for a minute and ten seconds, slowing from the run in to scan for the alien warship. Janice Benton was at the navigation station in a single bound. A faint green track showed on the screen, off the freighter's port bow.

"All right, we've got him. Now let's see if we can make this work.” She turned to the helm. “OK, all ahead flank, come left to one-sixteen degrees, negative ten. All decks prepare for evasive maneuvers."

"Captain, all decks report secured for evasive maneuvering. Engineering answers ahead flank, coming about to new course one-sixteen by neg ten."

"Very well. Navigation, plot an intercept course, feed adjustments to Helm as necessary."

"Adjusting now, Captain."

Beneath them, the deepening thrummm of the star drive increased in pitch as the huge cargo hull accelerated.

"Helm, come right three degrees,” the navigation officer advised.

"Coming right three."

The navigation display showed the faint green track coming in closer, closer.

"Helm, hold on the source of that track,” Captain Benton ordered. “See how it's flattening out? When we get within two hundred meters, angle us so the starboard edge of the cargo disk intercepts the leading edge of this trace. Give me about ten meters of overlap. Understand?"

"Captain, you're ordering a ramming."

"That's right.” Benton looked down at the track again. “All ahead emergency."

"Ahead emergency, aye. Engine room answers ahead emergency, Captain. Six minutes to C barrier. Ninety-eight seconds to impact on current course."

"Stay on that course, Helm."

Beneath the deck the engine sound deepened to a dull roar.

The Rangely Retreat.

"Let's get everyone into the main lodge,” Bob Pritchard called out. “Let's all get inside. We've still got business to take care of, everyone."

In the stress of the moment, Pritchard forgot that he had laid his comm-link on the picnic table; in the stress of the moment, he didn't notice Clomonastik III casually wandering past the table and picking it up. The K-101.

Kadastrattik looked up as the signals officer called out. “Incoming signal from the surface, Commander."

"Weapons officer, hold your fire. Put it through to my headset,” Kadastrattik ordered. He pulled a slim silver headset from the arm of his command chair and placed the earpieces on his head.

"This is the Commander Kadastrattik,” he answered the messaging tone. “Is this Director Pritchard again?” His eyes widened in shock as a familiar voice answered, speaking not in the human's language but in his own.

"It is not Director Pritchard, Commander. You know who this is, do you not?" Kadastrattik's voice dripped with contempt when he finally answered. “I do. This would be the traitor and renegade Clomonastik III, yes?"

"Yes. Commander, I presume you are still scanning the planet's surface?"

"You know that we are, renegade,” Kadastrattik snapped. “You are all too aware of Imperial navy policy while in orbit above a possibly hostile planet. And what interesting things we are scanning, renegade! Gatherings of humans far outside the city, almost as though they were hiding! Hiding what, I wonder?"

"Yes, I am aware of Imperial policy, Kadastrattik and your strict adherence to it does you no credit now. You were always a shallow thinker; you were so when you served as my inferior and I'm gratified to see you have not changed."

"What? What do you mean?"

'Tell me something, my rigidly ambitious one-time inferior. You fancy yourself a student of Grugell history, yes? Yes, of course you do, how well I remember the boring lectures you would deliver after several servings of wine. Tell me what happened to the conspirators involved in the Night of Seven Blades."

"They were captured and executed,” Kadastrattik answered, remembering the history all too well. He waved a hand at the tactical station. The officer at that post was already at work tracing the transmission's source.

"And you've attempted to retrace the steps of those conspirators, have you not? Perhaps not against the emperor, no, but against several of your contemporaries and, indeed, a former commander. It seems only fitting, then, that the fate of those conspirators be retraced as well."

"Speak plainly, renegade,” Kadastrattik barked. “What is it you want?"

"Only to ensure that, before you die, you know who it was that told them how to find you,” Clomonastik lied. “A final joke to play on my would-be assassin. You are tracing this transmission, yes? It will avail you nothing. You are still my inferior, Kadastrattik, in so many ways.” Clomonastik cut off the transmission.

"What?” The signal died in Kadastrattik's ears. He snapped to his feet, turning to the tactical station.

“Tactical officer, stand down on your surface scan, give me a global scan of the area immediately!

Weapons, lock that target and fire at once!"

The Cachalot.

"Captain, energy emissions from the source of that track."

"It's a scanning beam,” Benton guessed. “Too late. We've got him."

"Forty seconds to impact, Captain."

Benton pulled herself back to her bridge chair and fasted her emergency safety harness. Around her, the rest of the bridge crew followed suit.

"Thirty seconds."

Benton grabbed the wand mike off the arm of her bridge chair, pressing the PAGE stud. “All hands, brace for collision. All hands, brace for collision.” She shouted to the signals station, “Sound the collision alarm."

"Fifteen seconds. Captain, there's something happening on the visual channel." Captain Benton switched her personal bridge chair flip-up viewer to the forward scanner's visual channel. Out there in space, growing closer rapidly, a faint green glow was appearing out of nowhere, growing rapidly brighter.

The rumble of the engine was still increasing in pitch.

The K-101.

"Commander, enemy ship approaching at high speed!"

Kadastrattik shouted, “Turn hard right, drives ahead full! Weapons, power down!" They'd been caught looking the wrong way. Kadastrattik looked at the tactical readout display on his personal viewer, noting the huge shape of the human cargo ship racing in at them from behind. The K-101 responded quickly to its helm, but it was plain to see that they were too late...?

"Sound the impact alarm!"

The Cachalot.

"Captain, the track is changing aspect. Track source is turning, I have a bearing change, they are turning to starboard. Won't do them any good, Captain. We'll clip them with the edge of the cargo disk, just like you planned."

"Five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One. IMPACT!"

The ship gave a mighty lurch and spun to the side. Hooting alarms began to sound and a calm synthetic voice intoned, “HULL BREACH ON CARGO DISK, DECKS THREE AND FOUR, SECTIONS

FOUR FIVE AND SIX."

"Seal off those sections!” Benton barked. “All stop! Bring us around to face that ship, Helm. Stand by on navigation thrusters."

"All stop. Coming left to one-zero-nine pos three. Standing by on navigation thrusters."

"Are those damaged sections sealed off?"

"Already done, Captain. Damage control systems have activated,” the signals tech reported.

"Get me a forward scanner on the main screen!"

The main viewer sparkled with interference, but gradually resolved. At the lower edge of the display, Tarbos rotated serenely, but at the upper, a silver orb with two slender arms wallowed in space, trailing a sparkling cloud of gas from a serious hull breach. As they watched, one of the yellow drive pods disintegrated in a spray of bright metal and sparks.

"There they are, Captain,” the navigator pointed out.

"No shit,” Benton answered. “See if you can raise them on ship-to-ship. And get me a damage report!" The Rangely Retreat.

Clomonastik III came striding into the lodge, an odd grin on his face. He handed Bob Pritchard his comm-link card. “You left this on that table, Director,” he said with a strange, smug tone. “I believe you have a call. I heard it beeping."

Pritchard took the card and tapped the contact. “Director Pritchard."

"Director, this is Tarbos Ground. We have monitored a collision in orbit. High-resolution radar is showing the Cachalot and an unknown ship, sir. The unknown just appeared."

"You don't say,” Pritchard smiled. “What's happening now?"

"Sir, it looks like the smaller ship—the unknown—is badly damaged. It seems to be out of control. Sir, is that the ship that fired on the Skyhook and downtown?"

"Yes, it is."

"Director, it looks a lot like the cargo ship rammed the unknown deliberately."

"Yes, that's right. They did."

"Good."

The Cachalot.

"No reply to ship-to-ship, Captain."

Janice Benton wasn't too surprised. Still ... “Keep trying. Let's close on them a little. We should be able to use one of our landing shuttles to render assistance, if...” A flash of light from the main viewer cut her sentence short.

"All hands brace for impact!" she shouted, watching as the blast front from the Grugell ship's thermonuclear self-destruct mechanism raced towards them.

The Cachalot rang again and again the damage-control alarms hooted, but their distance—and the attenuated shock front from the explosion in the vacuum of space—saved them from major damage.

"That had to be a scuttling charge, Captain.” Benton looked up to see First Officer Gillian Furst floating through the bridge hatchway. “Damage parties are shoring up shock damage on the port side of the cargo disk. Chief Wilson says forty-eight hours and he'll have the damage secured enough to return to Earth.” Furst's face was blackened with soot, her uniform blouse torn, but she looked unhurt.

"I didn't think they'd blow themselves up,” Benton replied.

"I guess they had something to hide,” Furst snorted.

"Ma'am,” the scanning console operator called. “I've got five small object on radar, they look like escape pods of some kind."

"Get a landing shuttle out there,” Benton ordered, “and pick ‘em up. And signals? Get me the director."

"Working on it, Captain."

Twenty-Four

The Rangely Retreat.

Director Pritchard pocketed his comm-link, a satisfied grin on his face. “All right,” he announced, holding up his hands to gain the attention of the delegates assembled in the main lodge. “That was Captain Jan Benton, commanding the Cachalot , an OWME cargo ship now in orbit overhead.” He waited for the group to quieten down before continuing. “The Cachalo t, on my orders, rammed and badly damaged the unidentified ship that fired on the Skyhook and on downtown Mountain View." A cheer rose up from the assembled delegates. Pritchard stood, grinning, until the noise subsided.

"We have now determined that the unidentified ship was a Grugell warship. The ship self-destructed shortly after the ramming, but the Cachalot has recovered several escape pods containing survivors, including the Grugell Captain. They will be brought to Mountain View by shuttle for questioning."

"Hang ‘em!” came a shout from the crowd.

"No, I don't think so,” Pritchard answered. “We've tried very hard to create a society where everyone—everyone—has basic rights. We've tried to create a civilized society, a government of laws, a civilized society that lives under the rule of law. The Grugell don't understand that. As our new friend Clomonastik here tells me, they live as a lot of people on Earth once did, under the fist of a dictator. Well, we're going to face them one day, as free people on Earth had to face the despots and dictators there and fight to make all people free. We won that fight and we'll win this one, too. And in that fight, we'll hold to our principles. The Grugell survivors will be questioned, but then any that wish will be returned to their home society and any who wish asylum are welcome to stay here on Tarbos." Hector Gutierrez led the applause, which rapidly swelled to fill the lodge. Director Pritchard, grinning from ear to ear now, shouted over the noise: “Now, let's get these last two items voted on!" Vice President Gutierrez turned, still smiling, to see the junior Crider and his daughter approaching him, hand in hand.

"Mr. Vice President?” Crider the Younger was slightly nervous, but only slightly. “There's something I'd like to talk to you about."

The smile faded from Hector Gutierrez's face and for the moment he ceased being the vice president of the United States and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention for the Confederated Free Planets. For the moment, he was just a father.

"I have a feeling I know what about. Maria? I presume you've already answered?"

"Yes, Daddy. Yes."

"Mike, I don't suppose you'll be interested in moving to Earth?"

"Actually, sir, we were thinking of living on Forest."

"I thought you might be. You've got too much of your father in you, Mike. I don't think you'd be happy on Earth.” He stopped and looked at both of the young people critically. “Well, I can't say this is unexpected. Mike, I think you'll make a fine husband for Maria. Maria, your mom and I will miss you, but I can see already that you're going to be quite happy on Forest." Behind him, he heard the elder Crider's voice. “What's going on here?” Mike Senior asked. Mike the elder was surprised to hear Hector Gutierrez burst out in laughter. “Come on, bro,” the vice president chuckled, slapping Mike on the back. “Let's let the others get this thing organized. We've got something else to plan for at the moment."

Two days later.

The votes were taken, all measures passed and the draft Constitution hyperphoned to the several worlds of the nascent Confederacy for ratification. Seated once more around a table in Mountain View's Palace restaurant, both Criders and Gutierrezes had cause now to celebrate rather than deliberate. And once more, at Mike Senior's insistence, Clomonastik III joined in the gathering. While the Grugell restaurateur was still amused at the human tradition of monogamy, he was more flattered than he cared to admit by the invitation.

"Well, I sent a hyperphone message to Jenny and Andrea on Forest with the good news,” Mike said, in between sips of a Tarbosian beer he'd grown to like. “So, in about six weeks, they'll know what's going on. And of course it'll be a done deal by then."

"Not soon enough,” the younger Crider quipped. Maria, blushing, punched him in the shoulder.

"See? They're acting married already."

Sandra Gutierrez raised her glass. “Well, here's to all of you who got this constitution written and done. Now, we'll have a government, we'll have a navy and we'll have some security." Clomonastik looked up from his plate at that. “Dear lady, do not be so quick to think all is well now. There was a history-making thing done here these past months, yes; but this confederacy of yours is but the beginning of Galactic history, not the end."

Hector Gutierrez had been thinking along the same lines. “You think the Grugell Empire won't stop at trying to break up the convention."

"Indeed, I do not. We, and I do not use ‘we', lightly, my trusted friends, we have one rather large advantage. The Empire knows the location of Tarbos, but since there has been no detectable traffic in the area of Earth, we can presume that they have not located humanity's home world yet. I assure you, that will change, in time."

"Do you think they'll strike at Earth itself?"

"Yes, Michael, my old friend, I am as certain of it as I am certain of the table before me. From my

‘conversations’ with my former inferior Kadastrattik, I have discovered that the Empire is currently operating under the presumption that Tarbos is the center of human operations—a presumption that we have just corrected for them—and I can assure you that they will be back here again, as well. It is only a matter of time, my friends. Relax not your vigilance yet."

"We don't intend to.” The vice president of the United States tapped on the table with a finger as he spoke. “And we've gained ground ourselves; Bob Pritchard tells me that his technical wizards here are pretty close to figuring out the gravity field generators in the floor plates we salvaged from that Grugell ship, for one thing. It won't be in time for the first generation of our navy ships, but it will be soon enough. It's just too bad we couldn't recover whatever device they use to make the ships undetectable. A stealth device like that could be really valuable."

"And difficult at best to obtain,” Clomonastik countered. “They are well-shielded from scanning and rigged to self-destroy if they are tampered with."

"You're full of good news,” Mike Senior grouched.

"Only the truth, my trusted friend. But,” the Grugell inclined his head gracefully, “I must apologize to our young couple. This evening is a celebration in their honor and I have sullied it with talk of conflict. We must speak no more of these things this evening. On the morrow, you two are to be wedded and I, myself, am pleased and honored to have been invited to witness this ritual.” He chuckled, a strangely high-pitched chittering sound. “It is ironic, is it not, that a former shipmate and fellow Grugell Imperial Navy officer has ended up my enemy, his ship destroyed and the survivors of his crew imprisoned and all due to my aid. And here I sit, across the table from a former enemy who once tried as hard to kill me as I did him and tonight I am so fortunate as to claim this man, his family and his associates as my friends!"

"And we're fortunate to have you as our friend, as well,” Hector Gutierrez agreed. “Without you, we would have had a lot more trouble with that Grugell warship."

"It was my privilege to do so,” Clomonastik responded with great solemnity. Twenty-Five

Mountain View Central Legal Center.

Oddly enough, after all the preparation, the ceremony was brief.

A small chamber to the side of the main courtroom was used for marriages. Mike Junior stood at the front of the room in front of Tarbos’ chief magistrate. The few guests and family members filed in and stood waiting until the faint tones of music from some unseen speaker announced the arrival of the bride. A vision in a simple white silk sheathe of a dress imported from Earth, Maria glided in to the room on the arm of her beaming father. Next to Mike Senior, Sandra Gutierrez sniffled and dabbed at her eyes while Manuel Gutierrez actually ceased fidgeting for a moment to watch.

The magistrate read the stock marriage ceremony from the OWME legal ceremonies manual, Mike Junior kissed his bride and the marriage was official.

Except for the nice clothes, that could be Jenny and me back on Forest twenty-three years ago, Mike Senior thought. Maria Gutierrez—Maria Crider, now—was tall and raven-haired instead of petite and blonde like his wife Jenny, but the important part was the same. The look the two young people shared, standing in front of the smiling magistrate, lost in each other's eyes, was just the same. As long as they keep that, they'll be all right .

"Well, Mike, it's customary to look at these things as ‘not losing a daughter, but gaining a son',” Hector Gutierrez noted, “But I confess, it's going to be hard on Sandy and I having Maria go off to Forest. But there's sure a pretty good compensation and that's your son. We couldn't ask for a better young man for Maria."

"I'm pretty pleased, too,” Mike answered. “It's a good match, Heck.” He watched, entranced, as Clomonastik approached his son and shook his hand. The tall alien then faced Jenny and, with a broad smile, placed both hands on her head, her shoulders and then he traced the outline of an oval in front of her torso with one clawed finger, chittering in Grugell all the while. “A fertility blessing,” he heard the alien tell Maria. “You will now have many children!"