"Like what? An invasion of mysterious green-tentacled slime monsters? We're at the center of as big a volume of peaceful space as anyone's ever known. Barring a few planet pirates, and I'm not minimizing that. But the last big stuff was decades back. Even the Seti haven't dared Fleet reprisals since the Tonagai Reef encounters. They may be gamblers, but they aren't stupid. I suppose, if the Paraden got all their pirate buddies to come blowing into FedCentral at once, they might cause us trouble, but they're not stupid either. They need a fat, peaceful culture to prey on. A shark has no advantages in a school of sharks."

Arly and Bures had crossed glances above Mayerd. Arly had to admit she had never considered a whole pirate fleet. They just didn't operate that way. Two or three raiders at once, more only in defense of an illegal installation. But now, with Sassinak lost somewhere below, the whole weight of the ship rested on her shoulders. She wished Ford would show up from wherever he'd been. She wished Sassinak would come back. Blast that admiral, she thought. Coromell, or whoever it had been, luring her away. And why? The trial? To have the Zaid-Dayan helpless?

The Fleet comline blinked at her, and she put the button in her ear. "Lieutenant Commander Arly, acting captain of Zaid-Dayan."

"Arly, it's Lunzie. Do you recognize my voice?"

Of course she did. She'd enjoyed meeting Sassinak's astonishing young ancestor. But why was Lunzie calling on the Fleet line? "Yes. Why?"

"You need to know I'm who I say I am. I'm on FedCentral. I can't tell you where."

Arly's heart skipped a beat. Could she be with the captain? Were they in hiding?

"Sass—Commander Sassinak?" She heard the rough edge to her own voice, and hoped it would not carry.

"We don't know. Arly, the real Admiral Coromell wants to speak to you. I know he's the real Coromell because I knew him years ago. Before my last session of coldsleep. Do you trust me?"

Something in the voice sounded different; something had changed since Arly had said goodbye as Lunzie left the ship back at Sector HQ. Arly considered. Lunzie sounded more mature, more confident. Did that matter? Did it mean anything at all? And even if she didn't trust Lunzie, she still wanted to hear what this mysterious Coromell had to say. She gestured to Bures, who bent close, and tapped out a message on her console: get Flag Officer Directory. Bures nodded. Arly spoke, hoping her voice sounded calm.

"I believe you're Lunzie if that's what you mean."

"It's not, but it'll do. Here he is."

A silence, then a deep voice that certainly had the expectation of command.

"This is Admiral Coromell. You're Lieutenant Commander Arly?"

"Yes, sir."

Bures handed her the Directory, and she flipped through it. Coromell: tall, silver-haired, bright blue eyes. A handsome man, even approaching old age. He had probably been very handsome when Lunzie knew him before. She wondered whether they'd had anything going, and forced herself to listen to him.

"As you no doubt realize, the situation is critical. Your captain has disappeared and the local law enforcement agencies were, until a few hours ago, convinced that she had killed me. I've been unable to find out what's going on, and some of my own staff have vanished as well."

"Sir, I thought the admiral was hunting over on Six. That's what Commander Sassinak was told."

"I was. I had an urgent message to return, and my return was complicated by Lunzie's..."

A flashing light on the console yanked Arly's attention away from Coromell; the Ssli biolink alarm. Could she interrupt an admiral?

"Excuse me, sir," she said, as firmly as she could. "Our Ssli has a critical message."

He didn't quite snort, but the sound he made conveyed irritation barely withheld. "Check it, then."

Arly touched the controls and the Ssli's message began scrolling across the console's upper screen.

"Enemy approaching. Seti fleet entering system, down warping from FTL, expecting assistance in evading detection and system defenses."

Her hands trembled as she acknowledged that much. The message continued with details of the incoming menace. Number of ships, mass, weapons as known, probable crew and troop levels.

Bures, craning his neck to read this sideways, let out a long, low whistle. Mayerd, then Currald, joined him, their faces paling as they watched the long lists grow.

"Commander Arly?" That was the admiral, impatient of the long silence.

Ar!y answered, surprised that her voice was steadier than her hands.

"Sir, our Ssli reports an incoming Seti fleet, definitely hostile." She heard a gasp, but did not stop. "Apparently they've got Insystem help that's supposed to disable some of the system defenses. They're timed to arrive here during the Grand Council session. There's some kind of coup planned." The display had stopped. She tapped in a question to the Ssli, asking for the source of all this.

"But how do they know?" Coromell asked. The answer came up on the screen even as he asked.

"Sir, our Ssli says there's a Ssli larva, captive, on the Seti flagship, and a Fleet officer... Dupaynil." Her own surprise carried to him.

"Who s that?"

"A Fleet Security officer assigned to us a few months ago. Then he was transferred, I think to go look up something in Seti space."

"Which he quite evidently found. Well, Commander, you have my permission to leave orbit and make life difficult for those Seti ships."

She opened her mouth to ask what about Sassinak and realized the futility. Even if the captain had been at the shuttle port, they couldn't have waited for her. Not knowing where she was, they certainly couldn't delay.

"Yes, sir," she said. Then, "Request permission to drop a shuttle and pilot in case Commander Sassinak shows up. She may need it."

"Granted," he said.

That was all. She was now more than acting captain: she had command of a warship about to fight an alien fleet. This is impossible, she thought, touching the button that set red lights flashing throughout the ship. She punched the ship's intercom.

"Ensign Timran to the bridge." And, off intercom, to Bures, "Get one of Sassinak's spare uniforms from her quarters and whatever else she might need. Get it up to Flight Two, fast."

More orders to give, evicting the Insystem Security monitor teams that had the weapons locked down, to Engineering to bring up the drives.

"Ensign Timran reporting, ma'am!"

He was very quick or he'd been lurking in the passage outside. She hoped he would be both quick and lucky with the shuttle.

"Report to Flight Deck Two. You'll be taking a small unit to the surface."

The admiral had said nothing about an escort, but whatever had happened to Sassinak, a few Wefts and marines couldn't make things worse. When she looked at Currald he nodded.

"Ten should do it," he said. "Leave room for her and that Aygar, coming back." He picked up another comset and called his own adjutant.

"Yes, ma'am!" said Tim, eyes gleaming. "Do I have permission... ?"

"You have permission to do whatever is necessary to assist Commander Sassinak and get her safely ofiplanet at her command. Bures will have some things for you to take. Check with him."

He saluted and was off at a run. She hoped she'd done the right thing. Whatever had happened to Sassinak, if she was still alive, she would think she had a cruiser waiting for her. And now we're leaving—I'm leaving, taking her ship, leaving her nothing but a shuttle.

Arly couldn't believe this was happening, not so fast, but it was. Through her disbelief, she heard her own voice giving orders in the same calm, steady tone she'd cultivated for years. Longscans on, undockmg procedures to begin immediately, two junior Weft officers to report to Flight Two. A loud squawk from the Station Dockmaster, demanding to know why the Zaid-Dayan was beginning undock without permission.

"Orders of Admiral Coromell," said Arly. Should she tell them about the Seti fleet? "We'll be releasing one planetary shuttle."

"You can't do that!"

"We're releasing one planetary shuttle," she went on, as if she had not heard, "and request navigational assistance to clear your Station without damage." She punched the all-ship intercom and said, "Ensign Gori to the bridge."

"But our scans are showing live weapons..."

That voice abruptly stopped, and an Insystems Security Force uniform appeared on one of the viewscreens.

"You are in violation of regulations. You are requested to cease and desist, or measures will be taken..."

"Ensign Gori reporting, ma'am."

Not as quick as Tim, but eager in his own way.

"Ensign, the cap—Commander Sassinak said you knew regulations forwards and backwards." He didn't answer, but he didn't look worried, either. "You will discuss regulations with Insystems Security. We are withdrawing under threat of enemy attack, at the orders of a higher officer not in our direct chain of command." Gori's lace brightened and his mouth opened. Arly pushed him toward one of the working boards, and said, "Don't tell me, tell him."

Yet another screen showed Flight Two, with the hatch closing on one of the shuttles. As the launch hatch opened, the elevator began raising the shuttle. Arly could just see some part of the Station through the open hatch.

"... no authorization for such deliberate violation," the Insystem voice droned on. "Return to inactive status at once or regulations will require that force be used."

Arly's temper flared. "You have a hostile Seti fleet incoming," she said slowly, biting off" each word. "You have traitors letting them past the defenses. Don't threaten me. So far I haven't hurt the Station."

Perhaps not all the Insystem Security were in the plot. This one looked as if he'd just been slugged.

"But... but there's no evidence. None of the detector nets have gone off..

"Maybe someone's got his finger on the buzzer."

The shuttle cleared the Zaid-Dayans hull, and disappeared. Arly sent a silent prayer after it.

"If I were you, I'd start looking at the systems with redundancies."

By now, the Zaid-Dayan's own powerful scans were unlocked. Nothing would show, yet. The enemy was too far out. Arly glanced around and saw that the regular bridge crew was now in place. It felt very strange to be in Sassinak's place, while Tenant Yulyin sat at "Tier" board, and stranger to see that board mostly dark, after a'ship's alert. She pointed to Gori, who transferred the Insystems Security channel to his board.

"Ensign Gori will stay in contact with you."

"Fleet Regulations, Volume 21, article 14, grants authorization to commanding officers of vessels on temporary duty away from normal Sector assignment..." Gori sounded confident, and as smooth as any diplomat.

Arly left him to it. The combination of a surprise Seti fleet and Gori's zeal for regulations should keep trigger-happy fingers off the buttons until they could get away and raise shields.

"Docking bay secure, Captain!"

Arly nodded to Engineering. Critical as the situation was, she could not justify destroying the Station to jump-start the Zaid-Dayan and bringing the insystem drive up was a delicate operation. Centimeter by centimeter they eased away from the Station, adding just enough thrust at first to let rotational inertia begin their outward spiral.

"Weapons still locked down," Yulyin reported, at the two-minute tick.

"Right. Sassinak and I did some fancy stuff" that should unkink by the time we can use them—" She wondered if this Ssli and that distant one were still in contact. And what was Dupaynil doing there? No time for that, though: her weapons had to come first.

She keyed in the code Sassinak had left with her, the captain's access to the command computers, the master controls of all weaponry. Then she explained what they'd done, and as quickly crew and marines began scurrying around the ship to restore it to fall fighting capability. One hundred kilometers from the Station, Arly notched up the insystem drive.

So far, if the invaders were getting scan on her, she would look predictable. A rising spiral, the usual departure of a large ship from anything as massive as a planet. Then she engaged the stealth gear, and the Zaid-Dayan passed into darkness and silence, an owl hunting across the night.

Fed Central: Fleet Headquarters Coromell swung to face Lunzie.

"I never thought of that! My mind must be slowing!"

"What?" Lunzie hadn't heard what Arly said, had only seen its effect in the changes on Coromell's face.

"A Seti fleet, inbound—" He told her the rest, and began linking it to what they'd learned elsewhere. "This Iretan thing... you must have come very close to the bone somehow."

"Unless they had it planned and we just showed up in the middle of it."

"True. I keep forgetting you were sleeping away the past forty-three years. Like a time-bomb for them. Come to dunk of it, without the Iretan's trial, the Winter Assizes were mostly commercial cases this time. And nothing coming up before Grand Council but a final vote on some financial rules affecting terraforming. Not my field: I don't know a stock from a bond."

"So if they wanted a quiet session, they could have arranged that... and we really are a time-bomb."

"Which they set for themselves, I remind you. Very fitting, all this is."

"If they don't blow us away," said Lunzie. "That's not Sassinak up there."

"She'd have left the ship to her most competent combat officer. The best we can do now is make sure whatever was planned down here doesn't work."

Lunzie was unconvinced. "But what can one cruiser do against a whole fleet?"

"Buy us time, if nothing else. Don't worry about what you can't change. What we'll have to do is make sure Insystem has the alarm, and believes it, and get Sassinak out of whatever trap she's in."

The tiny clinic attached to Fleet Central Systems Command had but one corridor that opened directly into the back offices of the Command building. Lunzie followed Coromell, noticing that the enlisted personnel looked as stunned to see him as he had looked when he heard about the Seti fleet.

"Sir? When did the Admiral arrive?" asked one, almost but not quite barring the way to the lift marked "Admiral's use only."

"About thirty hours ago. Apparently our security confused at least a few people." He punched the controls and the lift door sighed open.

"But, sir, that commander... the murder..."

"Put a lock on it, Algin. Who's been speaking for us?"

"Lt. Commander Danish, sir. He's up..."

But Coromell had closed the lift door, and now gave Lunzie a rueful smile.

"I knew that. But he doesn't know that Dallish is the one officer here I really trust. His father and I were close friends, years ago. Dallish has been covering for me."

"Shouldn't you have stayed under cover longer?"

"With Sassinak still accused of murdering me? No. Showing up alive should shake them up just as much as you shook the conspirators by waking up in the midst of their plot. Whoever thought he killed me will wonder who the victim was. And whoever sent the victim to take my place will wonder if we're onto him. We soon will be."

Lunzie found Coromell's office a relief after the pastel-walled, determinedly soothing atmosphere of the clinic suite. A great arc of desk took the place of the command module onboard a ship. He grinned when he saw her expression.

"Yes, it's an indulgence. But one which keeps me thinking like a deepspace admiral, and not a planet-dweller."

A younger man, whom Lunzie assumed was "Dallish," stood aside as they entered, then handed Coromell a sheaf of thin plastic strips. One wall had a window looking out across the city—Lunzie's first live view of the hub of interplanetary government. It looked, to her, like any other large city. Below, a broad street had both slideways and vehicular traffic: bright blue and green monorail trains. She glanced around Coromell's office again. The dark-blue flat-piled carpet that seemed to be favored by Fleet officers, a bank of viewscreens on the opposite wall, racks of datacubes, fichefiles, even a row of books bound in plain blue. "Lunzie!"

She looked away from a row of exquisitely detailed model ships, displayed against a painted starscape. Coromell and Dallish had tuned in one of the civilian news programs, now showing a view that Lunzie realized was the docking tube of a ship at Station. At first she did not hear whatever the news commentator was saying. Over the tube, the electronic display had gone from green to orange; the ship's name Zaid-Dayan and status "Un-dock: Warning" blinked on and off

A commentator stepped in front of the vicam, and Lunzie made herself listen to the sleek-haired woman with the professional frown.

"Most unusual behavior has prompted some to suggest that the missing captain of this dangerous ship may have been contaminated with a psychoactive agent, even a disease which has spread to crewmembers. We have just been informed that the Insystem Federation Security teams whose duty it is to ensure that these warships cannot fire their weapons at innocent civilians, these teams are being evicted from this ship. Even now," and the commentator's head turned slightly so that Lunzie could see out-of-focus movement behind her, up the tube toward the ship. "I believe, yes, here they are, quite against their will..."

Hands on heads, the men and women clumping down the length of the tube looked unhappy enough. Behind them were figures in ominous gray and green armor, helmets locked down, and very impressive-looking weapons in hand.

"Security team weapons," Coromell commented to Dallish. "Notice that? Their own are probably still locked up. They disarmed the warden teams." He sounded almost gleeful. "Probably Wefts, shifting on 'em."

"Excuse me," the commentator was saying, thrusting her microphone into the faces of the first to exit, while the camera zoomed at them. "Could you comment on the mental stability of the crew of this ship? Is there any danger that they might turn..."

"Bunch of flippin' maniacs!" snarled one of the men. He had a ripening bruise over one eye, and a split lip. "Gone totally bonkers, they have, hallucinatin' about invaders from the deep I"

"Krimsl" Dallish glanced at Lunzie and back to the screen. "If they take that line..."

Coromell was already punching commands on his desk. Lunzie's gaze flicked back and forth between him and the newscast. She found it hard to concentrate on either. Those exiting the ship had clumped around the newscaster and her crew; behind them, the camera barely showed something moving again in the tube.

Suddenly a loud squeal made everyone on the screen jump and they moved back. The camera focussed on a large red hatch sliding across the tube opening, as the status board changed to "Undock: ACCESS CLOSED."

The news program shifted to someone in a studio.

"Thank you, Cerise," said a male 'caster who then turned to the front. "As you can see, something ominous is going on with the Fleet heavy cruiser Zaid-Dayan, whose former captain, a Fleet officer named Sassinak, is sought in connection with a murder investigation on the surface of this planet. We have no explanation for the expulsion of the security teams or for the cruiser's apparent intention to undock from the Station. ;.We have learned from sources close to the Federation Justice Department Prosecutor's office that valuable evidence and a witness in the upcoming trail of the ^jheavyworlder conspirator Tanegli are also missing. Although we cannot speculate at this time on any connection between the two, our correspondent Li Tsan is standing by at the office of the Justice Department Chief Prosecutor, Ser Branik. Li, what can you tell us about the Justice Department's reaction to this latest Fleet outrage?"

"Well, the Prosecutor isn't saying anything. This situation is still too new. But we have heard suggestions that the Zaid-Dagan became contaminated with some kind of spore or viral particle, on the proscribed planet Ireta, which is affecting the mental processes of anyone exposed."

"And would that apply as well to the witnesses expected to arrive in the next day or so from the EEC vessel... the... uh... former co-governors, Kai and Varian?"

"It certainly could. We expect to hear that they may be quarantined and their transmitted testimony might well be scrutinized more closely. If such a disease did cause mental instability, that might even be a defense for the original alleged conspirators. Certainly Tanegli hasn't appeared normally healthy in any of the interviews we've seen."

"NOI" Lunzie startled herself as well as Coromell and Dallish with that explosion. They stared at her. She got her voice back under control, choked down the less acceptable phrases she wanted to useT and said, "It's ridiculous nonsense, and any doctor would know that at once. There's no disease that could make Sassinak and Arly crazy after a brief exposure, that wouldn't have affected the rest of us all those years. To the point where we couldn't have survived, Tanegli is not some innocent overcome by alien spores. He's as guilty as anyone could be, and I'll see him convicted."

"Not if this goes on," Dallish said, pointing to the screen. He had turned the sound down, but Lunzie could see that the mouths were still moving.

"He's right," Coromell said, putting down the comunit he'd been holding. "I can't convince anyone to listen to me. Even those who believe I'm who I say I am. Someone's put a lock on this thing, hard and fast. That," and he nodded at the unit, "was the Assistant Longscan Supervisor, and as far as he's concerned there's not a ship within a couple of light-years that he didn't have logged for scheduled arrival months ago. That's one I trust, normally as suspicious as I am, but he's believing his machines and his outstation crews. And someone had already reached him, insisting that it was his duty to squelch any panic in the week before the ; Grand Council and Winter Assizes open."

"Who?" asked Dallish. "I've never seen anything Mocked that fast. It was as if they had everything in place."

"Of course they would have," Coromell said. "Once they knew about their time bomb, about Ireta, they'd Start setting up ways to counter anything we could do. I'm suddenly becoming very suspicious about that hunting trip."

"But, sir, you always go hunting." 'True, but you remember I thought of not going, ; with Sassinak coming in and the trial approaching. Then 'they had that 'cancellation' in Bakli Lodge. Well, no matter now. We can dig into that later, assuming we ensure a later."

"Sir, if I may suggest?" Dallish looked both embar- and determined. "Go ahead."

"Lunzie's now the single witness in the Iretan case. She's an obvious target even if she hadn't brought back all that from Diplo."

"She ought to be safe enough here..." Coromell ! began, and then he shook his head. "Except that we've ; already passed word to the Prosecutor's office that she's j;pnplanet"

"And we have to assume a leak in that office. Yes, ,8far."

"Mmm. We'll just have to make sure we have none are." His comunit buzzed and Coromell picked it up. "Ah... Mr. Justice Vrix. Yes, as a matter of feet, but

-you have her taped deposition on file. No, No, that's ipossible. Because... yes. Precisely. And until that time, I'm not risking the government's remaining wit." He flipped a toggle and smiled at Lunzie. "You see? We must not let you out of our sight between now and the trial."

Fleet shuttle Seeker

This time, Ensign Timran told himself, he would do everything right the first time. Not by accident, but by the exercise of cool judgment and keen intelligence. He knew that he'd been chosen for this mission because he had a habit of being lucky. But this time he had a team of marines, a pair of Weft officers (that they outranked him hardly mattered: while he piloted the shuttle, he ranked everyone) and authorization to rescue his revered captain. He was going to do everything right. He would make no mistakes.

Tongue caught between his teeth, he eased the shuttle off its platform, remembered to key in the appropriate signal to the Zaid-Dayan to confirm liftoff, remembered to check the low-link and high-link connections with the cruiser's com shack. From this vantage, the Station looked as if a mischievous child had taken three or four sets of TekiLink toys and mismatched half the connections. As a habitat for gerbils, it might have a certain charm but it lacked the clean functional lines Timran approved of in Fleet installations. The cruiser had been docked at the outer end of one long arm; he had another such to dodge, with a row of boxy insystem transports.

Then he was clear, with an easy drop trajectory down to the shuttleport. Except that he was not going to the shuttleport. He hadn't told Arly: she was busy enough. And his orders said nothing specific about the shutdeport, just that he was to go render assistance to Sassinak. He was sure she wasn't at the shuttleport. If she had been, she'd have contacted the cruiser before now. So going to the shuttleport would only involve a lot of hashing around with civilians who didn't want a Fleet shuttle in their airspace anyway.

Beside him, one of the Wefts had tuned in the civilian newscast. Tim almost glanced at it when he heard the commentator's question to the evicted Security team and the answers, but he remembered what had happened last time he got distracted. More to the point were the angry questions from Airspace Control. They seemed to think he would interfere with scheduled traffic. He smiled to himsetf. Military shuttles would not have survived in service if they'd been blind to other craft. He knew where everything around him was at least as well as Airspace Control. And all of them knew, from hearing the smug Security teams brag about it, that FedCentral had no inner air defenses The Bronthin had refused to allow them. From Tim's point of view, the only weapons down there were little stuff.

"We're not goin' to the 'port?" asked the Weft, Kiksi, her name was. If she was a she... Tim had never bothered to find out much about Wefts. He didn't

I- dislike them, he just found his own amusements far more interesting than theoretical knowledge about aliens.

"No," Tim said. "They'll just try to impound us. And Commander Sassinak can't be there, or she'd have contacted us."

"Good thought," said the Weft. "Do you know where she is?"

"Nobody does," said Tim. He had punched up the mapping function and was now trying to decide just where he did want to land. FedCentral offered little open land close to where he thought Sassinak might be.

"Not strictly true," said the other Weft, Tenant Sricka. , "Sassinak is not where the shuttle can reach her."

This time he did look away, though he kept his hands steady. "You know where she is? Why didn't you tell Arly?"

"She kept moving. She was under surface. We had no return contact."

"Under surface... like in a submarine?" FedCentral ihad only one ocean and Tim had not suspected it of submarine transport.

A chuckle from Kiksi, that made his ears burn. "No

.. under the city. Subways? Maintenance tunnels? e don't know. We don't talk with her in human Spshape. We're not made for it. It's direction sense only. l-When we are nearer, I can shift, and then perhaps touch her mind more directly. But you, where are you planning to land the shuttle? And how to prevent detection?" "I'm not sure."

He knew his ears were bright red and the back of his neck, under his uniform. It had seemed like a good idea, and even before Arly called on him, he'd daydreamed about rescuing Sassinak, poring over the maps of the vast complex. The shuttle could land on unprepared ground, could even make a direct vertical drop of fifty to a hundred feet, although he'd never done it. But he couldn't land on the roofs of ordinary buildings or on slideways or monorail tracks.

Sricka reached over and tapped the map-control console; the area he'd been watching slid aside, and another came up. Open, not too rough, and fairly near the city. He didn't recognize the code.

"Land fill," the Weft said. "That end's already covered, and the replanting cycle's only up to grass. And that yellow line there, that's a subway tunnel for returning workers to their housing. It's your decision, but if I were flying this thing, that's where I'd go."

He had no better ideas, and he was not about to ask for a vote. He could almost feel the marines' amusement tickling his backbone.

"Looks good," he said, trying to sound casual. "And thanks."

"Will it alarm you if I shift?"

"No. Of course not."

Nonetheless, he had to gulp hard when the ordinary human figure beside him turned into a mass of extra joints, spiky protruberanees, and all too many legs. And a row of bright blue eyes. Instead of staring, he entered his desired destination in the shuttle's navigational computer and saw to it that the course changes all went as planned. By the time he neared the landfill, flying the shuttle as if it were any aircraft, he knew that the Zaid-Dayan was long gone. He had to do it right this time. If he messed up, there would be no rescue.

Chapter Eighteen

For a moment, following Aygar up into the more public tunnels, Sassinak thought how she could explain all this to a Board of Inquiry, if she survived long enough. There were no Rules of Engagement covering this sort of thing. She remembered something about "accepting civilian volunteers into a military mission" —not recommended, but it did happen—and more than one passage strongly cautioning Fleet officers from involving themselves in local politics. And this was hardly local politics. She had taken on some part of the Federation itself and even though she considered the people involved to be traitors, they could say the same of her.

She dared not think too far ahead or the weight of it would crush her. A single Fleet captain against the most powerful families in the Federation, against the massed pirates, plus the Seti? And with nothing but a ragged bunch of crazies and losers? How could she even be thinking of this? Yet the thought daunted her for only a moment. She had survived the raid on her home, against odds as high. She had survived battle after battle in space where any mistake could have killed her, and some nearly had. She had survived the jealousy of other officers, a hundred mischances, to be where she was now. If not you, who? Abe had said more than once.

No time for letting her mind drift, not even to the things Fleur had told her. She would have time later for more such talks, for long reminiscences, for shared tears and laughter, or they would both be dead. For now, she had Aygar to get safely to the rendezvous with his student friend, and whatever came after. She patted her midsection where the extra bulk Fleur had insisted she stuff into the pale blue worksuit felt itchy and unfamiliar. Even worse was the slight dowager's hump that prickled when she twitched her shoulders, trying to remember to slump. Although she'd seen in the mirror that the gray streaks Fleur had added to her hair as well as decidedly wrong makeup made her look years older, she kept thinking a more complete disguise would have been better. Aygar, whose height and shoulders made him unmistakable, had been turned into a male fashion plate. A voluminous magenta shirt unlaced halfway down his chest and tucked into tight gray shorts made him look like anything but fugitive. His mapper button now looked like one of the jewels studding a huge medallion hung on stout chain around his neck.

The first "uptowners" they saw hardly glanced at them. The upsloping tunnel, linking one subway level with another, had streams of pedestrians scurrying in both directions. Most wore one-piece worksuits in grays, browns, and blues; the others were dressed as flamboyantly as Aygar. Homebound workers, Fleur had said, mingling with the pleasure-hunters who also tended to "change shifts" at rush hours. Sassinak trailed him, trying to look as if she merely happened to be going in the same direction. In that brief time below, she'd forgotten how noisy large groups could be. Announcements no one could have understood boomed from the levels below and above; the scurrying feet were overlaid by a constant roar of conversation. A flare of Ryxi screeched, threatening, and the humans parted around them. A gray uniform approached at a jog. At the next level, the upbound stream bifurcated, a third veering left and two-thirds right. Even more noise broke over them. The synthesized voice of the transportation computers announcing train arrivals and departures, warning passengers away from the rails, repeating the same list of safety rules over and over. Friends met on the platforms with squeals of delight as if they had not seen each other at rush hour the day before. Less demonstrative workers glared at them or muttered brief curses. Aygar and Sassinak both turned right. Here, service booths backed the subway platforms: fountains, restrooms, public callbooths, even a few food booths. As he'd been directed, Aygar turned into the third of these. Sassinak paused as if to look over the menu displayed, then ducked in after him.

He was already shaking the hand of a much smaller young man with a milder version of the same outfit; small-flowered purple print shirt, and looser green shorts but higher-heeled boots. Backing him were two other young men, similarly dressed, and a girl who seemed to have stepped out of a Carin Coldae re-run. Her silvery snugsuit clung to the right curves, all the way down to sleek black boots, and her emerald green scarf was knotted casually on the left shoulder. Across the back of the bodysuit ran a stenciled black chain design and short lengths of minute black chain hung from her ear lobes.

Sassinak managed not to snicker. Innocent bravado deserved a passing nod of respect, although she could have told the young woman that carrying a real weapon where she'd stashed her emerald-green plastic imitation needier would make it hard to draw in time for practical use. Her own hand checked the weapon Aygar had taken from the dead man behind the bar. She moved past them, up to the counter, and ordered a bowl of fried twists that were supposed to be real vegetables, not processor output. Whatever it was, it would taste better than her last meal. She paid for it from the money Fleur had given her and sat down at a largish table near the clump of young people. They were talking busily, waving their arms and looking like any other group of young people in a public place. Now they were moving up, ordering their own food, and then Aygar led them to the table she'd chosen.

"Can we sit here?" asked the darkest of the young men. He was sitting already. "We need a big table."

Sassinak nodded, hoping she looked like a slightly intimidated middle-aged office worker. She ate a couple of fries and decided that it didn't matter if they were real veggies or processed: they were delicious.

"I'm Jonk'k," he said, smiling brightly at her. "This is Gerstan, and this is Bilis, and our Coldae clone is Erdra." The girl gave Sassinak a long stare intended to impress.

"I thought you were supposed to be a cruiser captain."

"I am," Sassinak said very quietly. "Did you never hear of disguises?"

They all looked unimpressed and she sighed inwardly. Had she ever been this young?

"I wore this for you," the girl said. "I thought..."

Sassinak laid a hand over the girl's wrist with strength enough to get a startled look. "I had a Coldae poster, in silver, when I was a girl. But that was a picture. Reality's different."

"Well, of course, but..."

Sassinak released the girl's wrist and leaned back, giving her stare for stare. The girl reddened suddenly.

"Erdra, you wouldn't have lasted a week in the slave pens. Most of my friends didn't."

Now their stares had a different expression. Jonlik's bottle of drelz sauce was dripping on his lap.

"Best wipe that up," she said, in the tone she used aboard ship.

He gaped, looked down, and mopped at his shorts with one flowing sleeve.

"I told you," Aygar growled. She wondered what else he'd told them. At least he was keeping his voice low.

Sassinak turned to Gerstan. "Is it true, what Aygar said, that you can patch into the secure links without being caught?"

Gerstan nodded, and gulped down his mouthful of fries.

"So fer. We've gotten all the way up to H-Level, and there's really tricky stuff from F-level on up. I've never been as far as H by myself. Erdra's done it, though."

"What's on H-level?"

Erdra tossed her head in a gesture not quite like Coldae's but close enough.

"Well, it lets you play model games with the lower levels. Like, what if all the water in the auxiliary reservoir is gone suddenly and the pumps on that line are about to seize. That's one thing, but it's not just games, because it's realtime, using their data, bollixing their sensors, overriding the safety interlocks. I've never done anything really dangerous..." The tone was that of someone who had indeed done something criminal, if not dangerous, but who wasn't about to admit it.

Bilis snorted. "What about the time you convinced Uie Transport Authority a train had derailed out on the Yellow Meadow line?"

"That wasn't dangerous. They had time to stop the following trains. I set it up that way."

"Cost the taxpayers 80,000 credits, they said," Bilis said to Sassinak. "Lost time, damage from the emergency halts, hours of hunting the 'bases, looking for tampering. Never did find her."

"Never did find the tap at all," said Erdra who sounded much smugger than someone faking a train derailment should. "And if something blows when a train has to make an emergency stop, it needs finding. If there had been a wreck, that number 43 would've plowed right into it. They should thank me for finding their problems."

Sassinak eyed the girl, wishing she had her on the Zaid-Dayan for a few weeks. With all that talent, she needed someone to straighten her out.

"By the way," Erdra said sweetly, popping a couple of fries into her mouth and crunching them. "How come your ship left without you?"

"I beg your pardon?" It was the only alternative to the scream that wanted to erupt from her gut.

"Your ship. That cruiser. Newscast says it broke away from the Station and went zipping off blathering about an invading fleet. The captain or whoever you left up there is supposed to be crazy with whatever drug or spore or something you caught on Ireta. Whatever made you kill that admiral."

For a moment the whirl of Sassinak's thoughts found no verbal form. Rage: how dare they leave her! Fear: she had been so sure that if she could get a signal out, Arly would be there for her. Exultation: she had been right! There was more going on than anyone had thought and those blasted smug Internal Security fops were going to find something worse than a Fleet cruiser's guns to worry about.

She controlled all that, and her breathing, with an effort, and said, "I didn't kill any admiral." But I could cheerfully kill you, she thought at Erdra who clearly had no telepathic ability at all because she kept right on smiling.

"You nearly finished?" That came from an irritated clump of men in business jumpers, their fry packets leaking grease onto their fingers.

"Oh, sure." Gerstan stood up as quickly as the others did. "Let's go on to somewhere else and talk, huh?"

Sassinak felt very much the drab peahen among the flock but dealt with that by taking the lead. She trusted Aygar to keep them following.

Back down the sloping connecting tunnel to the narrow service tube and the unobtrusive door. Their last protest had been some distance back. Sassinak paid no mind to it. She had enough to think of. Arly would not have taken the Zaid-Dayan out without good reason. That she knew. But on top of her own concern, her own burning desire to be there when anything happened to her ship, the words "Court Martial" burned in her mind. There was no excuse short of death for a captain who was downside when her ship went into action.

She gave the signal knock to the door, and it opened at once. She led the others in, and when the door shut behind them, they faced the same weapons she had.

"What is this?" Gerstan demanded.

"Caution," Sassinak said. And to Coris, "No one noticed us and we had no problems. Some of these were fairly loose-tongued in a fry bar but the place was jammed with commuters. Shouldn't be a problem." She turned back to the students. "You wanted a conspiracy? You've just found one. These," and she waved an arm at her motley troop, "are fellow-conspirators. Refugees. Ex-slaves. The poor and homeless of this city which, according to Aygar, you hope to help by plotting a coup."

From their expressions, none of the students had actually met any of the undergrounders before. To their credit, none of them tried to bolt.

"You're sure about these four?" Coris asked.

"Not entirely, yet, but let's go down a bit and see if Erdra's as good as Gerstan says." Coris nodded, and waved Sassinak through the group. She spoke over her shoulder to Erdra. "Did they give any specifics about the ship leaving? Say what it was after?"

"Uh... not really." Erdra sounded much less smug. Perhaps the girl had recognized that those weapons were real. "Just that they—the people aboard—threw off the Security teams that make sure no weapons are usable. A shuttle was sent off and then the ship left the Station. They'd said something about an invasion, but there's been no word. But that got squashed. It's been confirmed that nothing's out there that shouldn't be."

"And you believe that?" Sassinak didn't wait for an answer, but let her annoyance work itself out. "You, who created a fake train wreck? Who could've hidden a real one as easily?"

"But I didn't. And that means someone else..."

"Is as smart as you are. Right."

"Then is there really something out there?" That was Gerstan, bouncing up alongside her. Sassinak refrained from slapping him back into place.

"Arly would not take the Zaid-Dayan without good reason. She's not any crazier than I am. So I think something's out there. What, I couldn't guess."

Actually, she could: a pirate incursion or a Seti fleet. Either one might be part of a larger conspiracy and she had to hope only one of them had materialized. Her mind reverted to something else Erdra had said. A shuttle? Why had Arly released a shuttle?

Then she grinned: obvious. And she would wager she could name the pilot aboard, but not what that very brash young man would do next.

"So you're saying," Gerstan went on, "that the Federation itself is involved in concealing the approach of some danger from deepspace?"

Sassinak nodded. "Yes, because some faction thinks that will give it control. In such cases you have two possibilities. The present rulers want to use force to give themselves absolute power because they fear a challenge, or a faction not quite in control wants to tip the balance its way."

"Which is it?"

"I don't know." She grinned at their confusion. "It doesn't really matter. If Arly detected the incoming fleet at the edge of the Zaid-Dayan's scan range, it can't be here for days. It won't just launch missiles at the planet. To do that it could have lobbed a passive from far outside scan." Their faces were blank. Sassinak reminded herself that none of these people had military training. "Never mind," she said gently. "Hie point is that whatever's going on up there isn't our problem. Our problem is the group here that's concealing it. That, we can do something about, if we're quick enough. Then the existing defense systems should be able to handle the invaders." She wasn't at all sure she believed that. Would Arly think to call for more Fleet aid? Or would she be worried that what came might not be on their side?

"Now," she said, putting enough bite in it that they all, students and undergrounders alike, gave her their full attention. "First we must locate The Parchandri and neutralize him. That's your task, Erdra. Get into the links and liases, and find out where his hideyhole is. Get control of the lifesupport and communications lines. I'd wager next year's pay that hell be underground but not completely self-contained."

"But..." The girl looked around. "Where's an access port? I've always used one of the Library carrels to get in."

"Coris. Take her down and help her get to one of the trunkline 'ports. Bilis can go with her and you'll need a ten squad for guards. If you run into trouble, run! And get her to another 'port. Two runners, for messages, until we get our communications set up. Gerstan, you told Aygar that there were a lot more students who wanted to get involved?"

"Yes, ma'am." That honorific came out slowly as if he hadn't planned it. Sassinak smiled at him.

"Good. We'll find you a 'port and you can let them know. We need communications links topside so we can keep track of what the media's saying and what's going down on the streets. We'll also need some small portable corns, like those the police have." From his expression, he was finding real action scarier than he'd expected. And he hadn't seen real action yet.

"You mean, steal... ? Like, from a... a policeman? A guard?"

"Whatever it takes. I thought you were eager to start a revolution. Did you think you'd do that without getting cross ways with the police?"

"Well, no, but..."

"But talk let you feel brave without doing anything. Sorry, lad, but the time for that's all gone. Now it's time to act or go hide someplace very deep until it's over. Can you do it? Will your friends?"

"Well... yes. Some of'em we've even had to sit on, practically, to keep from doing something stupid."

Sassinak grinned. "Change stupid to useful and get 'em rounded up. Let's go, everyone."

Coris had already left with Erdra and Bilis. Now Sassinak led the others at a good pace back to the lower levels. After the first shock of hearing that the Zaid-Dayan had left, she felt an unaccountable lift of spirits. The whole situation was impossible, but it would come out right.

In only a few hours, the fragile bond between the various groups began to strengthen. A trickle of students appeared, from one access tunnel and another, all with necessary equipment. Haifa dozen standard 'phone repair kits, with the official connectors that wouldn't trip any alarms no matter where they were plugged in. Two police-issue belt-comps that included both communicators and tiny computers. Nineteen gas-kits similar to the Fleet-issue one Sassinak carried.

"Where'd you get these?" she asked the short, chunky youth who brought them in. He blushed a deep rose and muttered something about the drama department. "Drama department?"

"We did Hostigge's Breathless last year and the director wanted realistic props. She's friendly with a guy at the local station who said these weren't really any good without the detox." At which point, he handed over a sackful of detox tubes. "Now these I got scrounging around in the junk stores over on Lollipi Street. Most of 'em have been used once, but I thought maybe..."

"How long have you been collecting them?" Some-tiling about the earnest sweating face impressed Sassinak. He reminded her of the best supply officers: longsided and sticky-fingered.

"Well, even before the play I thought maybe they'd be good for something, if somebody could synthesize the membranes. Then when we got the membrane masks and they didn't take 'em back, I thought..." His voice trailed away, as if he still didn't realize what he'd done.

"Good for you," she said.

She hoped he'd survive the coming troubles. He'd be worth recruiting. Of course, nineteen gas kits among hundreds didn't help much, but he'd had the right idea.

Meanwhile, with communications access to the topside, they knew what the news media were telling everyone. Erdra had tapped into the lower-level secured lines so they knew where the police patrols were. Sassinak found herself yawning again and when she counted the hours, realized she'd run over twenty-four again. Aygar was snoring in a corner of the crowded little maintenance area their group was in. She would have to sleep soon herself.

"Got it," came Erdra's triumphant cry.

Sassinak struggled up. She'd fallen asleep at some point and somebody had covered her with a blanket. She raked her fingers through her hair and wished she could have thirty seconds in her own refresher cabinet.

"Are you sure?" she heard someone else ask.

"Yes, because it's guarded like nothing else we've seen. It's not in the central city, though, where I'd have thought, but over here, map coordinates 13-H. Below the main tunnels. But look, it's not directly under any of them. So I got into an archive file and found the building specs." She was waving a hardcopy sheet and Sassinak grabbed it.

"It's a ship!" The others stared at her.

"It can't be," Erdra said. "It's underground."

"Silo construction." From the blank looks, none of diem knew what that meant. "Look," and Sassinak pointed to her proof, "the stuff on top's designed to look like real buildings, but it's just shell. Probably even folds back. Down here, this is a lot more than self-contained habitat for a planet... this, and this," her finger stabbed at the plans. "Framing of a standard midsize personal yacht. My guess would be Bollanger Yards, maybe a hundred-fifty years ago. When was that section of the city built up?"

Erdra scowled, fiddled on the keyboard she now carried, and said, "Eighty-two years ago, subdivided for light industry. Before that, nothing but a single ware-bouse and... a derelict shuttle station, from back when private shuttles were legal."

"But a ship couldn't last that long, could it?" asked Gerstan.

"Easily, protected like that. They've maintained it. They'll have replaced obsolete equipment with new. No problem to them. And nothing wrong with the hull design. The question is, do they keep it fitted to launch?"

"Launch? From underground?"

Civilians I Did they not even know that most planetary defenses used some silo-sited missiles, often placed on moons or asteroids in the system, safe from random bombardment by stray rocks?

"Launch. As in, escape. If things get too hot. Which is precisely what we were planning to make them."

"How could we tell? And what will it do if it does launch? Will it start a fire?"

"Erdra, do you have a hardcopy of all the connection data?"

Wide-eyed, the girl handed over a sheaf of them. Sassinak began paging through as she talked.

"If it's the hull I think it is, and if it's got the engines it should have, then it will do more than start a fire if it launches. They won't have intended that silo to be used more than once. Its lining will combust to produce part of the initial lift and since they would only do it in an emergency, it's probably set to backblast down any communicating tunnels. Even though that wastes thrust, I doubt they'll care."

Her eyes scanned the sheets, translating into Fleet terms the different civilian notation. Yes. There. Solid chemical fuel, far more efficient than any in the dawn of the human space exploration, but still unstable and requiring replacement at intervals. So the hardened access tunnel for that alone, in case anything went wrong, would have blast hatches at both ends. He could still get away.

The old rage burned behind her eyes. So close, and he could still get away. She could almost see them getting near, breaking through one defense after another, only to be met by the blazing flare of the engines as the yacht lifted away from trouble to some luxurious hidey-hole in another system.

" Sassinak!"

Her heart caught, then went on. A Weft—one of her Wefts—in range. She sent back an urgent query.

"Ten marines, two of us, Timran piloting the shuttle."

The shuttle! Virtually helpless against real fighting craft, even a shuttle could take an unarmed yacht. Sassinak felt a rush of excitement. Now she had them trapped; The Parchandri and whoever his main conspirators were. She could block their escape. She could push them into it, make them commit themselves, show themselves. And then destroy them. She realized the others were looking at her oddly.

"Don't worry," she said. "That's not the disaster it seems like. In fact, when you know an enemy's bolthole, it becomes a trap."

"But if the ship goes up, how can we..

Sassinak waved for quiet, and the babble died. "My cruiser dropped a shuttle, remember?" Heads nodded. She went on. "So if I get where I can contact them," and she waved her little comunit, "they can intercept it." She was not about to tell them she could talk to her Wefts. She'd heard enough racial slurs down here to convince her of that. "But there's plenty of work for the rest of you."

It would take pressure to make them run, pressure in the Grand Council, pressure underground. They must feel threatened every way but that. And she could not use these civilian lives freely. They were not hers to throw away, not even in such a cause.

Chapter Nineteen

FSP Escort Brightfang, FedCentral Docking Station

On the bridge of the escort vessel Brightfang by the courtesy of his old classmate Killin, Fordeliton had a startling view of the Zaid-Dayaris departure as the escort approached the FedCentral Main Station. First he noticed that the Flight Bay was open, then he could see the elevator rising with a shuttle poised on its narrow surface. He wondered briefly if Sassinak were letting Timran run an errand as the shuttle lifted away, the Flight Bay closing in behind it. A few seconds later, the ship itself eased off the docking probe. He felt a great hollow open in his middle. He had counted on reporting to Sassinak the moment he arrived. He was in time for the trial. Why was she leaving? What would he do now?

"What's going on?" he asked.

No one answered. Killin looked angry as he spoke into his comset, but Ford could not quite hear what he said. The little ship shivered. Someone's tractor beam had swept it. He knew better than to ask anything more, and made himself as invisible as he could. Then Killin turned to him.

"They won't let us dock! They're holding us in position with the tractors and they're threatening worse."

"What's happened?"

"Your captain According to them, she killed an admiral onplanet and whoever she left in charge of the Zaid-Dayan has gone completely bonkers, ghost-hunting. They think it's something catching, probably from Ireta."

"Arly! It'd be Arly if Sassinak left the ship. And Arly's not crazy. Patch me over to "em."

Killin shook his head. "Can't. They've jammed us just in case. So far as they're concerned, Fleet personnel are all crazy until proven otherwise. They're not about to let us spread our damaging lies."

"They said that?" With astonishment came the sudden piercing loss. Where was Sassinak? In prison? Surely not dead! He realized that he did not want to deal with a world that had no Sassinak in it, not anywhere.

"They said it's worse than that. The Insystem Security officer I spoke to had been thrown off the Zaid-Dayan. By Wefts."

"But I've got orders. I've got to get this information down there in time for Tanegli's trial."

Killin shrugged. "Feel like space-swimming the last kilometer? And then I doubt they'll let you go down in a shuttle like a nice, harmless civilian."

"Why are they scared of you? They don't know you've got a deadly Iretan survivor with you."

Killin looked startled. "I forgot. You were there, weren't you? Snarks, if they figure that out..."

"We don't tell them. We don't tell them I have any connection to the Zaid-Dayan or Sassinak. I'm just a humble courier, carrying a sealed satchel from Sector HQ to FedCentral's Justice Center."

"I didn't pick you up at Sector HQ."

"And who knows that? Got a good reason for turning me over to these idiots?"

Killin shrugged. "No. But that still doesn't get you into the Station. If they relent..."He broke off as his comunit blinked at him and he cut the volume onto the cabin speakers.

"... assurances that no member of your crew was at any time on the proscribed planet Ireta, which is believed to be the source of a plague affecting mental capacity, you will be allowed to dock and proceed with normal business."

Killin winked at Ford and spoke into the com. "Sir, this ship has never even been in the same sector as Ireta. We're a scheduled courier run between Sector Eight HQ and the capitol. We have a courier onboard, with urgent sealed messages from Sector to the Justice Center, as I believe your stripsheet will show."

A long pause, then another voice. "Right, Captain. You are on the sheet, listed as courier, with one passenger carrying papers under diplomatic seal. Is that right?"

"Yes, sir. The rest of the crew hasn't changed since the last run."

"Do you... ah... have any knowledge of the Zaid-Dayan s crew? If any debarked at Sector HQ?" Killin raised his eyebrows at Ford, and Ford shook his head quickly, then scribbled a note to him. Killin began drawling his answer as he read.

"Well, only what we heard, you know, back at Sector. Whole crew was ordered to appear here as potential witnesses or something, is what I Heard. Certainly didn't hear of anyone leaving the ship there."

Killin's grin at Ford was wolfish. He didn't like to lie, but this was not a lie. What Ford had told him in the week they'd been together was entirely separate from what he'd heard at Sector. More interesting, too.

"Very well. We will proceed with docking." Killin clicked the com off, and shook his head'at Ford.

"You're going to have to be lucky to get away with this. And that captain of yours shouldn't be so trigger-happy. Admirals! I've known a few I'd like to blow away, but actually doing it gives such a bad impression to the Promotion Board."

Ford maintained the cool reserve expected of a courier all the way through Customs, an ordeal usually reserved for civilians, but in this instance imposed in its full rigor on every Fleet member. He gave his name, his rank, his number, and his current posting: special orders to Fleet Headquarters, FedCentral.

"Last ship posting?" This was almost a snarl.

Ford allowed himself a faint, sad smile. "I'm sorry to say, the Zaid-Dayan. I understand it's been a problem to you?"

He dared not try to conceal this, any more than his real identity. But the Zaid-Dayan had arrived in port without him, with someone else listed as Sassinak's second-in-command. He had a slight chance.

If the Insystem Security officer had had movable ears, they'd have pricked. He could feel the interest.

"Ah. And you served with Commander Sassinak?"

"Some time back, yes."

His tone indicated that the further back in time that association slipped, the happier he would be. The Security officer did not relax, but his eyelids flicked.

"And have you had contact with Commander Sassinak since?"

"No. I had no reason to contact the Commander once I left her... command." Nothing so blatant as open hostility, just a chill. He had been glad to leave her command, and no backward glances.

"I see." The officer looked down at a datascreen Ford could not see. "This was before the Ireta incident?"

Ford nodded, tight-lipped, and muttered, "Yes."

They would have his files, but were unlikely to have the personnel history of the Zaid-Dayan.

"We show no ship assignments after that."

"I had special duty." It had indeed been special. "Plainclothes work; I'm afraid I cannot comment on it."

"Ah. Duration?"

"Nor that, I'm sorry." Ford's regret was genuine. He'd have liked to tell someone else about Madame Flaubert and her lapdog. "Some months, I can say."

"And you've had no contact with I re tans since that assignment?"

Really it was too easy, the way the man asked all the wrong questions. He didn't even have to lie.

"No. I reported directly, got my orders and boarded the next courier."

"Very well, then. We'll escort you to the next shuttle and to the Fleet offices. There's been some unrest because of the... unfortunate incidents."

Ford gathered the details of the unfortunate incidents, at least as they were known to the press, on his way downside. His escort, nervous at first but increasingly relaxed as Ford showed no inclination to leap up and act crazy, filled in what the news reports left out without adding any real information.

Sassinak had been onplanet and had killed someone. They were now fairly sure it was not Admiral Coromell. Ford let his eyebrows rise. She and the native Iretan had then disappeared, and nothing had been seen of them since,

"Dear me," he said, stifling a yawn. "How tiresome."

His escort delivered him safely to the front door of Fleet offices. Ford noticed that civilians did veer away from him, as if he might be contagious. The marines on guard at the door saluted briskly and let him inside. So far, so good, although he had no real idea what to do next. Still playing innocent courier, he reported to the officer on duty and mentioned that he had important evidence for the Iretan matter.

"You! You're from her ship! How in Hades did you get through?" The duty officer, a Tenant, had spoken loud enough to turn heads. Ford noticed the quick glances.

"Easy, there," he said quietly, smiling. "I broke no laws and created no ruckus. Shall we keep it that way? And how about announcing me to the Admiral?"

"Admiral Coromell?"

"That's right." He glanced around and saw the eyes fall before his like wheat whipped by wind. Something wrong in this office, too. "I believe Commander Sassinak would have told him I was coming."

"N-no, sir. The Admiral's been oflplanet, hunting over on Six. That's why we thought at first... why what they said... but the dead man wasn't Coromell..."

This made little sense. Ford tried to hack his way through the verbiage.

"Is the Admiral aboard now?"

"Well, no, sir, he's not. He's en route, I've been told. No ETA yet. He was out hunting at the time of the—of whatever happened. That's why no one could reach him, you see, and..."

"I see." Ford would gladly have choked this blath-erer, but he still had to find someone to share his information with. "Who's in charge, then?"

"Lieutenant Commander Dallish, but he's not available right now, sir. He was up all night, and he..."

Ford thought sourly that Dallish was probably a passed-over goofoff, lounging in bed in midafternoon just because he'd been up all night. Coromell had a good reputation, but if this office was any indication, he had quit earning that reputation some time back. He realized that the day's fatigues and surprises might have something to do with his attitude, but the planetside stinks had given him a headache. He wanted to hand over his highly important information, enjoy a decent fresh-cooked meal, and sleep. Now he could foresee that he was going to have to wait around for a lazy brother officer who would want to sit up and gossip about Sassinak. No. He would not play that game.

"Could you tell me where the Prosecutor's office is, then? I've got a hand delivery there, too."

The Tenant's ability to give clear directions met Ford's expectations, which were low. He accepted the offer of a marine guide and escort, and refused the suggestion that he would be less conspicuous in civilian clothes. He would take his evidence to the Prosecutor, he would find his own way back, by way of a decent restaurant. Surely the Prosecutor's staff would know of some.

By then, surely this Dallish would be awake, and if not... There was always a bunk in the Transient Officers Quarters. He had the uneasy feeling of being watched as he and his escort stepped onto the slideway, but shrugged it off. Of course he was being watched. The news had everyone paranoid about Fleet officers. But if he acted like a big, calm, bored errand-boy, nothing should happen to him.

Lunzie recognized his retreating back, but couldn't get Coromell's attention until Ford was out of sight.

"Who?" Coromell said, peering at the crowded slideway.

"Ford!" Lunzie was ready to cry with sheer frustration. It was impossible that everything could go so wrong. "Sassinak's Exec, from the Zaid-Dayan. He was here!"

"Omigod!" Dallish slammed his hand onto the window-frame "It's my fault. You'd told us he was coming, but I was still thinking he'd report to his ship first. He must've gotten to the Station after..."

"We'll find him. Just call down and ask the duty officer where he went."

But although he told Dallish where Ford was going, they could not find him again. All communications to the Prosecutor's office were blocked.

"Lines engaged. Please call again later" in muted synthetic speech so sweet Lunzie wanted to gag.

"There's got to be a way," she said. "Can't you break into the line?"

"I'm trying. We don't want anyone to know the Admiral's here yet," Dallish said, "so I can't use his special code."

By the time they did get through, it was after hours as the computer's secretarial function insisted. When they worked their way through the multiple layers of authority and back down through the same layers trying to find the person to whom Ford would have reported tf he'd been there, he'd already left. Without an escort. No, nobody knew where he'd gone. He'd been asking around for good places to eat, and the speaker thought he'd talked most to someone who had left even earlier. Sorry.

"He'll come back here," said Coromell, without much conviction. "It's standard procedure."

"Nothing in this entire situation is standard procedure," Lunzie said. "Why should he follow it?"

It came out sharper than she intended, and she realized all at once that she was hungry again and very, very tired.

Despite his confident insistence that he could certainly get something to eat and find his own way back to the Fleet offices, Ford was not entirely sure just where he was. After a long wrangle about what he considered minor matters, he had left the Prosecutor's office. It wasn't anyone's business but his captain's exactly when and where he'd left the Zaid-Dayan to visit his great-aunt. They'd had his original taped deposition; he hadn't wanted to repeat it.

The Prosecutor's staff gave him the distinct impression that Sassinak's disappearance with Aygar and Lunzie's non-appearance were somehow his fault. At least he was there to be griped at. He had pointed out that since the first report that the dead man was an admiral had been wrong, the report that Sassinak had anything to do widi the murder might be wrong, too.

And where was she? he was asked, and he replied, with what he thought of as massive self-control, that he had no earthly idea, having arrived only that afternoon. He had parted from the staff in no mood to take the precautions they advised. It had been his experience on dozens of worlds that a confident walk, clean fingernails, and the right credit chip would keep him out of avoidable trouble, while good reflexes and a strong right arm would get him out of the rest. So he had walked along, working off the irritation until the right combination of smells led him into a dark little place which had the food its aroma promised.

Hot food, a good drink, and he felt much better about the world. He let himself wonder, for the first time consciously, where Sassinak was. What had really happened. He could not believe she was dead, stuffed in a trash bin down some sleazy alley. He wondered where Arly was going with the Zaid-Dayan, and what Sassinak thought about that, and if Tim ran had been piloting that shuttle, and who else might be in it.

Thinking about diese things, he'd paid his bill with a smile and gone out into the darkening evening where the streets looked subtly different dian they had in the sulfurous light of late afternoon. Of course he could stop someone and ask. Or he could go to any of the lighted kiosks and find his location on the display map. But he could always do that later, if he turned out to be really lost. At the moment, he didn't feel lost. He just felt that he wanted a good after-dinner walk.

When he realized that he'd walked far beyond the well-lighted commercial district where he'd had dinner, it was dark enough to make the next lighted transportation access attractive. Ford had walked off most of his ruffled feelings. He realized it much smarter to take a subway back to the central square. He was even pleased with himself for being so careful. Only a few dark shapes moved to and from the lighted space above the entrance. Ford ignored them without failing to notice which might turn troublesome as he rode the escalator down.

For a moment, he considered continuing to the lowest level, and seeing if he could find out anything about Sassinak. Every city had its denizens of the night, usually easy enough to find in tunnels and alleys at night. But he wasn't dressed for that. He would hardly fit in, and if Sassinak had plans of her own going forward, he would only get in her way.

At the foot of the escalator, he stood at the back of the platform, waiting for the next train to come. Only a small group, men and women both, who eyed his Fleet uniform and gave him room. When the train came in, he checked the number to be sure it would take him all the way in without a transfer, letting the others crowded into the first car. Ford shrugged, and stepped into the second without really looking. He had seen only a few heads in the windows. He was all the way in and the doors had thumped firmly behind him, when he realized what he saw. Thirteen Fleet uniforms, and two very nervous civilians who sat stiffly at one end trying to pretend they saw nothing.

"Ensign Timran," Ford said, as if he'd seen him only a few hours ago. And in a way, he had. "You do get around, don't you?" He let his eyes rest a moment on each one, and did not miss the very slight relaxation.

Whatever they were up to, he had been instantly accepted as a help. Fine. When he found out what they were supposed to be doing, he would help. In the meantime..." Tenant Sricka, I presume you're in charge of this little outing?"

A quick flick of eyes back and forth made it clear what part of the problem had been. Timran, in command as long as he was piloting a ship, had not been quick to relinquish that command on the ground. Sricka, a tactful Weft, had not wanted to risk confusion by confronting him: not on what might be enemy territory, in front of the enlisted marines. Ford acknowledged that tact with a quirk of his mouth. Even Timran wouldn't argue with the Exec of the Zaid-Dayan, a Lieutenant Commander's stripes on his sleeves.

"Suppose I fill you in on a slight change of plans," he said. "After you fill me in on a few necessary details, such as where you left the shuttle and how many you left with it."

Timran leaned forward, keeping his voice low. Ford, who had been unconvinced of Tim's reformation after Ireta, approved.

"Sir, it's under shields on the replanted end of the landfill. Tenant Sricka recommended that site because it was remote from the city center but near a subway Hne. We left no one aboard, because we... I... we thought that we might need everyone to help the captain. Sir."

Which meant Sricka had tried to explain the stupidity of taking that many uniformed men into a situation where Fleet uniforms might precipitate panic, but Tim hadn't listened and now wished he had. Typical. Ford shifted his gaze to the Weft.

"Do you know where she is?"

"I believe I can find her, sir, given a chance to shift. It's easier that way."

"For which you need privacy, if we don't want to scare the horses. Right! Let me think." He tried to remember how many stops he'd passed during his walk. If only those civilians hadn't been in this car! They'd probably report this concentration of Fleet to someone as soon as they got out. That decided him. "We're getting off at the next stop. Just follow me."

He didn't know where the civilians would get off, but they didn't move when Ford stood and led the others off at the next stop. This one was no larger than the other, with only a narrow bridge to the outbound platform, and no privacy whatever. But if he led them all up to the street, they'd be just as noticeable. Unless, of course, he could get those uniforms out of sight. He got them all as far from the others on the platform as he could and explained.

"You marines are MPs, and I'm your commanding officer. These dirtsiders don't know one uniform from another. At least the civilians don't. These others are belligerent drunks that we're trying to get back to the city as quietly as possible."

The Wefts, consummate actors, nodded and grinned. Timran looked both worried and stubborn. Ford leaned closer to him.

"That's not a suggestion, Ensign; that's an order. Now say 'I'm not drunk' and take a swing at the sergeant there."

Timran said it in the startled voice of one who hopes it's not true, swung wildly, and the sergeant, grinning, enacted his role with vigor.

"Don't you bother 'im," Sricka said, tugging ineffectually at the sergeant's arm. "He's not drunk, it's just his birthday!"

"Happy birthday to him!" shouted the other Weft, entering into the game gleefully.

The marines grappled, struggled, and started their drunken charges up to street level with difficulty while Ford, still spotless, apologized coolly to the civilians on the platform.

"Sorry. Young officers, a long way from home. No excuse, really, but they're all like this at least once. Get 'em home, let 'em sleep it off, and they'll get their ears peeled in the morning..'

With a crisp nod, he followed his noisy troop up the escalator. With any luck, they'd assume that this had nothing whatever to do with the Zaid-Dayan. Ford had never found a planet yet that didn't know about drunken young soldiers. On the streetside, his group wavered to a halt, waiting for his direction.

"That way," he said. "Just be prepared to do your act again if I signal. If it's official, let me do all the talking. I landed quite legally this afternoon by the official shuttle and all my papers are in order. Now tell me. Who's got the Zaid-Dayan, and what's going on up there?"

Sricka took up the tale, and in a few sentences explained what he knew. Little enough, but Ford agreed that a Ssli would be unlikely to make a mistake.

"If they say a Seti invasion, I'll buy it. What's Fleet have insystem?"

Sricka did not know that. Ford thought about the information lock put on the invasion news, and wished he could talk to his old buddy Killin. But at least Arly could call for help via the IFTL link. Ford decided not to worry about what he couldn't change. That brought his thoughts back to their uniforms, even more conspicuous as they came into better-lighted streets.

"And your orders?"

"Captain... Commander Arly told me to take a shuttle down in case the captain, Commander Sassinak, that is, needed it. To do whatever it took to help her."

"Well, then. First we'll have to find her, then we'll know what help she needs. And to do that, we'll have to look less like what we are. Here, hold up this lamppost for a minute." He had spotted a larger, much busier subway access, the kind that would have shops and other facilities on the platform below. "Sergeant, if anyone asks, tell 'em your officer went down to make a call to the office to get a vehicle."

Back down underground again. He found He was enjoying this much more than he should have. Even the contrast to Auntie Q's luxurious entourage cheered him. He found an automated clothing outlet where commuters who had just spilled something on their suit on the way to a conference could get a replacement. He dared not buy clothes for all of them, but two or three coveralls wouldn't be excessive.

No, four: the least expensive garment came in green, blue, gray, and brown. He inserted his card, punched the buttons, and caught the sealed packets as they came out of the slot. No one seemed to be watching. Back up the escalator, packages in hand, to find the group had put on a small show for a group of late diners who'd stopped to ask questions about Ireta's mysterious plague. He took control, briskly and firmly, and marched his troops off as if to a definite destination. Half a block later, he slowed them down again. The Wefts wouldn't find much privacy in the subway tunnels of the inner city this early in the night. He glanced back at the marines, and met the wary glance of their sergeant. Who'd picked them? Arly? Currald? Whoever it was had had sense enough to send more than one NCO. Which should he peel off for Sassinak? The old rule held: don't tell 'em how to do it, just tell the sergeant what you need done.

"Sergeant, the Wefts'11 need a couple of marines just in case someone comes after 'em while they're hunting the captain." Not that the Wefts couldn't outfight any three humans while in their own shapes, but he suspected that the mental concentration needed for hunting her could take the edge off their other abilities. "Take these clothes and the next dark patch we come to, put 'em on over your uniforms. That'll take care of three of you. One Fleet uniform shouldn't be too dangerous. Then take off. Tenant Sricka, you find the captain, and tell her where the shuttle is. Find out what she needs. If she can't contact me, you do or send one of the marines. Can you find me, the way you sense her?"

Sricka frowned, then smiled. "I was about to say we couldn't, sir, but you've changed..

"That's what I was told," said Ford, remembering the demise of Madame Flaubert.

"But it would be easier if one of us stayed with you."

Ford shook his head. "I know, but we don't know how bad her situation is. She may need both of you, or it may be harder than you expect to find her in a maze of tunnels. It's not like free space. If she knows she has you and a shuttle when she needs it. Which reminds me. Ensign."

"Sir?"

"You've got the toughest assignment. You're going to have to get back out to the shuttle—alone—and be ready for a call. Can't even guess when we're going to need you, or for what, but I know absolutely without a doubt we will, and we won't have time for you to take the subway back out there. D'you have rations on board for several days?"

"Yes, sir, but..."

"Ensign, if I could send someone back with you I would. I need all the rest of these in the city, nearby, in case she wants them. This is not an easy assignment for someone your age." That stiffened Tim's backbone, as he'd hoped. "But Commander Sassinak's told me you have potential, and if you do, young man, this is the time to show it."

"Yes, sir. Anything else?"

"Yes. Take this." The last package of civilian clothes. "Put it on first, then go straight to the subway, and back out to the shuttle. Try to look like a young man who's just been told he has to go back to work and fix a problem. Shouldn't be too hard. Get some sleep. Whatever breaks won't break right away. Just be sure you're ready to get that thing up the instant we call for you. Ill try to patch a call to you from the Fleet offices when we get back, in an hour or so, but don't count on it."

"Yes, sir."

In the next darker patch, Ford got them into a huddle. When it opened again, one "civilian" headed back to the subway access, while three others and a marine continued to the next. Ford led the other nine on toward the center of the city. It was a lovely evening for a walk.

Chapter Twenty

Trial day. The early news reports had more speculation about the mysterious shuttle that had disappeared "somewhere near the city" and the strange plague which supposedly afflicted anyone who'd been to Ireta. Riots in the maintenance tunnels, controlled by police with only minor loss of life.

Sassinak winced. She and Aygar and her crewmembers had just escaped the pitched battle that erupted when the Pollys tried gas on tunnel rats who had gas masks and weapons. She hoped the newssheet was right in reporting so few deaths. Only the knowledge that she had to fight the main battle elsewhere let her live with the decision to run for it. The lower third of the page mentioned the trial and Council hearing on Ireta's status.

Sassinak watched Aygar reading, his lips pursed angrily. She already knew what it said. No precedent for overturning a Thek claim. But at least he was alive, and if she could get him into the Council chamber that way, he should have a chance to testify.

Erdra had come back before dawn with a half dozen of the pearly cards that guaranteed admission, each one embossed with the name of its carrier. Sassinak had become "Commander Argray, Fleet Liaison" for the duration, and Aygar was "Blayanth, Federation Citizen." She hoped these faked IDs and the database entries backing them up would let them get into Council without being quarantined as dangerous lunatics. According to news reports, the lines for public seating had extended across the plaza by midnight. If the "invitations" didn't work, they wouldn't have a chance at open seats. A number of the student activists had been in the lines early, but no one knew which, if any, of those waiting would be admitted.

At least, Sassinak thought, she looked like herself again. Bless Arly for thinking of the clean uniform; familiar in every seam, comforted her almost as much as the bridge of her ship. So did the change in Erdra's eyes when Sassinak appeared in regal white and gold, now suiting the image Erdra had imagined.

"Should be starting now." Sassinak nodded to their guide without speaking. Aygar shoved the newssheet he'd been reading in a disposal slot, and came along.

"Do you think well get in?" he asked for the fourth or fifth time. After that he'd ask what they'd do if this didn't work. She was trying to be patient, but it got harder.

"No good reason it shouldn't work. It..." internal and external communications layered in confusion for a moment. Then she realized that a Weft onplanet had managed to link her with a Weft on the Zaid-Dayan, and with its Ssli, and thence to Dupaynil on a Seti ship somewhere at the edge of the system.

"A Seti ship!" she muttered aloud, and caught a worried glance from Aygar. "Sorry," she said, and clamped her lips shut. "What are you doing on a Seti ship?" she asked Dupaynil.

"Wishing I hadn't ever made you mad." Whether it was his mind, or the Weft linkage, that sounded both contrite and humble, qualities she'd never associated with Dupaynil.

"Are you alone?"

"No. A Weft, a larval Ssli, two Lethi, a Ryxi, and a Bronthin are my companions in durance vile. The Seti want witnesses to their power. Then they'll eat us."

"No way. We'll get you out." How she was going to do that, while stranded onplanet with Aygar, in the middle of a Grand Council trial and hearing that was expected to turn into a revolution, she did not know. But she couldn't let him think she wouldn't try.

"Don't fret... we're sending data to Arly. And I got what you wanted on the Seti, and more. That Claw escort was suborned. All but one of the crew were in with the pirates and in the pay of the Paradens."

Sassinak hoped he could interpret the cold wash of amazement that took all the words from her mind. She had been furious with him, but she hadn't intended that.

Now his contact carried a thread of amusement. "That's all right. I didn't think you knew. But if I live through this, you may have to fix some charges for me and a young Jig named Panis."

"What charges?"

"Mutiny, for one. Misappropriation of government property, grievous bodily harm..."

"We'U get you out alive. I have got to hear this."

But right now she was too close to the Council buildings and she had to concentrate on her surroundings. Aygar strode along beside her, looking as belligerent as any Diplonian. Her Wefts from the shuttle, and two marines, had faked IDs as well. Would it work?

They came to a checkpoint in the angle between a colonnade and the massive Council building. One heavy-worlder in Federation Insystem Security uniform stood behind a short counter. Behind it, lined against the wall, were five others. Sassinak handed over the embossed strip, saw it fed into a machine, and checked against a list. The heavyworlder's gaze came up and lingered on her in a way she did not like.

"Ah! Commander Argray. Your invitation's in order, ma'am. You may enter through that door." He pointed. As they had planned, Sassinak moved on, as if she had no connection with Aygar.

She heard the guard's voice behind her, speaking to Aygar and then Aygar's steps following hers.

The doorway fit the massive building; heavy bronze, I. centered with the Federation seal. Before Sassinak could reach, it opened flat against the wall for her. She entered the Grand Council chamber through a little alcove off the main room and just below the dais where the eight justices and the Speaker had their seats. Across from her, one wall appeared to be a single massive stone, a warm brown with gold flecks. Delegate seating curved around an open area below the dais, separated from the public seating behind by a tall barrier of translucent plastic. Each seat was actually the size of a sentry hut, or more, and in front of each delegate's seat, a colorful seal inlaid in the chamber floor gave the member's race and planet of reference. Sassinak could not see the public seating clearly, but it seemed to rake steeply toward a narrow balcony festooned with the tights and cables of recording and projection equipment. Seating for invited guests was enclosed in a railing somewhat like an old-fashioned jury box, although much larger. Already this was filling up, with rather more heavyworlders than Sassinak would have expected. That fit the rumors of an impending coup. She found three seats together, and settled in, with Aygar between her and one of the Wefts. Aygar said nothing to her, and she watched her other crew come in. The other Weft and the two marines found scattered seats where they could catch her eye.

She had never really wondered what the Grand Council chamber was like. The few times she'd seen it on broadcasts, the focus had been on the Speaker's podium backed by the Federation seal. Now she looked up to see a high, ribbed ceiling, with dangling light pods. Behind the Speaker's podium and the justice's high-backed chairs, the great seal stood at least three meters high, its colors muted now in the dimmer light. From her seat, she could see through the plastic behind the delegates' seats more easily and realized that, early as it was, the public seating was nearly full. At the far end of the arc formed by the delegates' places, another enclosed seating area had only a sprinkling of occupants. She wondered if that was for witnesses. She could not see any of them clearly enough to know if Lunzie or Ford were there.

Soon the delegates began to come in, each preceded by an honor guard of Federation Insystem troops. Each delegate's seat, Sassinak realized, was actually an almost self-contained environmental pod with full datalinks. She watched as the delegates tested their seats. Colored lights appeared, to show the vote. A clerk standing by the Speaker's podium murmured into a microphone, confirming to the occupant the practice vote just cast.

A whiff of sulfur made her wrinkle her nose, as a steth of Lethi came in, looking like so many pale yellow puflballs stuck together into a vaguely regular geometric shape. They disappeared completely into their seat, closing a shiny panel behind them. Sassinak assumed they would open a sealed pack of sulfur inside, where it wouldn't foul the air for anyone else. A pair of Bronthin arrived, conversing nose-to-nose in the breathy whuffles of their native speech. She had never seen Bronthin in real life. They looked even more like pale blue plush horses than their pictures. Hard to believe they were the best mathematicians among the known sentient races. A Ryxi, loaded with ceremonial chains and stepping with exaggerated care, clacked its beak impatiently. A second Ryxi scuttled into the room behind it, carrying a mesh bag in the claw of its right wing and hissing apologies. Or so Sassinak assumed. The Weft delegate arrived in Weft form, to Sassinak's surprise. Then she was surprised at herself for being surprised. After all, as his race's representative, why should he try to look human?

She was surprised again when the Sett came in. She had not expected to see them except in battle armor. But here they were, tail-ornaments jingling and necklaces swaying, their heavy tails sweeping from side to side as they strolled to their seats. She could read nothing of their expressions. Their scaled, snouted faces might have been intended to convey reassurance. Sassinak wondered suddenly if the Seti had politics as humans understood them. Did all Seti support the Sek, were they all involved in this invasion? Could the ambassadors be ignorant of the Sek's plans?

She gave herself a mental shake. Interpreting Seti politics was someone else's responsibility. She had enough to do already. Rightly or wrongly, she had to assume they were part of it. She glanced around. Dark figures on the balcony slipped from one cluster of equipment to another. Lights appeared, narrowed or broadened in focus, changed color, disappeared again. Hie speaker's podium suddenly glowed in a sunburst of spotlights, then retreated into the relative dimness of the overhead panels.

The crowd's murmur grew, punctuated by a raised voice, a sneeze, a chain of coughs that began on one side and worked its way to the other. She could feel her skin tighten as the circulation fans went up a notch to maintain an even temperature. Now the legal staffs Involved came in, bustling in their dark robes, each with the little grey curl of a wig that looked equally ridiculous on humans and aliens. She wondered who had ever thought up that symbol of legal expertise and why everyone else had adopted it.

Federation Court guards, also heavyworlders, brought in Tanegli who looked as if he could barely walk. Beside her, she felt Aygar stiffen and wished she could take his hand. Anger radiated from him, then slowly faded. Had he realized how useless his hatred of Tanegli was? As useless as her hatred of the Paradens.

She shouldn't think about that, not now, but the thought prickled the inside of her mind anyway. It was one thing to hunt them down for the wrong they had done, and another to let herself be shaped wholly by their malice. She couldn't ignore that. Abe had said it, had told the woman he loved, had urged her to find Sassinak someday and tell her. And Lunzie, who had admired her descendant the cruiser captain, would not be so happy with an avenging harpy.

Hie lights flared, then dimmed, and a gong rang out. Spotlights stabbed through the gloom to illuminate the door they'd come in, where two huge heavyworlders now stood with ceremonial staves, which they pounded on the floor.

"All rise!" came a stentorian voice over the sound system, "for the Right Honorable, the Speaker of the Grand Council of the Federation of Sentient Planets, the Most Noble Eriach d'Ertang. And for the Most Honorable Lords Justice..." The floor shook to another ceremonial pounding. The heavyworlder guards led in the procession.

The Speaker, a wiry little Bretagnan who looked dwarfed by the heavyworlders in front of him and the eight Justices behind him were each followed by a clerk of the same race carrying something on a silver tray. Sassinak had no idea what that was but overheard another guest explain to someone who asked that these were the Justices' credentials, proof that they were each eligible to sit on that bench.

"Of course it's all done by the computers, now," the knowledgeable one murmured on. "But they still carry in the haracopy as if they needed it." "And who are those men with the big carved things?" "Bailiffs," came the explanation. "If I talk much more, they'll be after me. They keep order."

Sassinak found it very different from a military court. She assumed that part of the elaborate ceremony came from its combination with a Grand Council meeting. But there were long, flowery, introductory speeches welcoming the right noble delegate from this, and the most honorable delegate from that, while the lawyers and clerks muttered at one another behind a screen of hands, and the audience yawned and shuffled their feet. Each Justice had an introduction, equally flowery, during which he, she, or it tried not to squirm in the spotlight. Then the Speaker took over. He began with a review of the rules governing spectators, then guests, then witnesses, any infractions of which, he said slowly, would be met with immediate eviction by the bailiffs, "—to the prejudice of that issue to which the unruly individual or individuals appeared to be speaking, if that can be determined."

Very different from court martials, Sassinak thought. She had never seen unruliness in a military court. Then came a roll call, another check of each delegate's datalink to the Speaker's podium, and the voting displays of all delegates and Justices. By now, thought Sassinak, we could have been through with an entire trial.

At last the Speaker read out the agenda on which Tanegli's trial appeared as "In the matter of the Federation of Sentient Planets vs. one Tanegli, and the related matter of the status of native-born children of Federation citizens on the planet Ireta!"

Sassinak felt Aygar's shiver of excitement. The moment the Speaker had finished, one of the bewigged and gowned lawyers stood up. This, it seemed, was the renowned defense counsel Pinky Vigal. He seemed tame enough to Sassinak, a mild-mannered older man who hardly deserved the nickname Pinky. But she heard from the industrious explainer behind her that it had nothing to do with his appearance, coming rather from the closing argument in a case he had won many years back. This explanation, long and detailed, finally caught the attention of a bailiff who shook his staff at the guest seating box, instantly hushing the gossiper.

A formal dance of legality ensued, with Defense Counsel and the Chief Prosecutor deferring to one another's expertise with patent insincerity, and the Justices inserting nuggets of opinion when asked. Pinky Vigal wanted to sever his client's trial for mutiny, assault, murder, conspiracy, and so on from any consideration of the claims of those born on Ireta, inasmuch as recent evidence indicated that a noxious influence of the planet or its biosphere might be responsible for his behavior. And that evidence was so recent that his client's trial should be put off until the defense had time to consider its import.

The Prosecutor insisted that the fate of Iretan native-borns, and of the planet itself, could not be severed from consideration of the crimes of Tanegli and the other conspirators. Defense insisted that taped depositions from witnesses were not adequate, and must not , be admitted into evidence, and the Prosecution insisted that they were admissable.

During all this, Tanegli sat slumped at his attorney's side, hardly moving his head.

This boring and almost irrelevant legal dance seemed likely to take awhile. Sassinak had time to wonder again where the others were. Dupaynil she knew about, at least in outline, but what about Ford? She was sure that if Ford had been on a Seti ship, he'd have somehow taken control and arrived in time for the trial. But where was he? He was supposed to have acquired more backup troops. So far she'd seen nothing but heavy-worlders wearing Federation Insystem uniforms.

And Lunzie? Had she not made it back from Diplo? Had something happened to her there? Or here? Aygar could testify about what he'd been told by the heavy-worlders who reared him, damning enough to ensure conviction on some of the charges. But they needed Lunzie or Varian or Kai for the original mutiny.

Despite the briefings she'd had in both the local Fleet headquarters and the Chief Prosecutor's office, Sassinak really did not understand exactly how this case would be tried or whose decision mattered most. A case like this didn't fit neatly into any category although she'd realized that lawyers' perspective would be far diflerent from hers. To them it was not a matter of right and wrong, of guilt or innocence, but of a tangle of competing jurisdictions, competing and conflicting statutes, possible alternative routes of prosecution and defense: a vast game-board in which it was "fan" to stretch all rules to their elastic limit.

She doubted that they ever thought of the realities: those people and places whose realities had no elasticity, whose lives were shattered with the broken laws, the torn social contract. Now the Justices finished handing down decisions on the initial requests and the Prosecutor opened with a history of the Iretan expedition.

Sassinak kept her mind on it with an effort- All the details of the EEC's contracts, decisions, agreements, and subcontracts wafted in one ear and out the other. Lunzie's version had been for more vivid. Display screens lit with the first of the taped testimony on data cube videos taken by the original expedition team, before the mutiny. There were the jungles, the golden flyers, the fringes, the dinosaurs... a confusion of lifeforms. The expedition members, going about their tasks. The chil-

• dren trying hard to look appropriately busy for their pictures.

A light came on above one of the delegate's seats and the translators broadcast the question in Standard.

"Are these the native born Iretan children making claim for the planet?"

"No, Delegate. These children's parents lived aboard the EEC vessel, and given this furlough onplanet as an educational experience."

The light stayed on, blinking, and another question came over the speaker system.

"Did the native born Iretan children send a representative?"

Sassinak wondered where that delegate had been for the past several days since Aygar's involvement in her escapades had been all over the news media. The Chief Prosecutor looked as if he'd bitten into something sour and it occurred to Sassinak that the delegate might be already in the defense faction.

"Yes, Delegate, a representative of these children did come, but..."

Aygar stood before Sassinak could grab him, and said, "I'm here!"

A chorus of hisses, growls, and the massive heavy-worlder bailiff nearest their box slammed his staff on the floor.

"Order!" he said.

Sassinak tugged on Aygar's arm and he sat down slowly. The Speaker glared at the Chief Prosecutor.

"Did you not instruct your witness where he was to go and what the rules of this court are?"

"Yes, Speaker, but he disappeared in... ah... suspicious circumstances. He was abducted, apparently by a Fleet..."

The Chief Prosecutor's voice trailed away when he realized what that gold and white uniform next to Aygar must mean. Sassinak let herself grin, knowing that the media cameras would be zooming in on her face.

"Irregularities of this sort can precipitate mistrials," said Pinky Vigal, with a sweetness of tone that affected Sassinak like honey on a sawblade. "If the Federation Prosecutor has not readied his witnesses, we shall have no objection to a delay."

"No." The Chief Prosecutor glared. Defense Counsel shrugged and sat down. "With the indulgence of the Speaker and Justices, and all Delegates here assembled" —-the ritual courtesy rattled off his tongue so fest Sassinak could hardly follow it—"if I may call the Iretan witness and any other from the guest seating?"

Above the Justices' seats, blue lights flashed, and the Speaker nodded.

"As long as you remember that it is indulgence, Mr. Prosecutor, and refrain from making a habit of it. We are aware of the unusual circumstances. And I suppose this may keep Defense from claiming your witnesses were coached excessively."

Even Pinky Vigal chuckled at that, throwing his hands out in a disarming gesture of surrender that did not fool Sassinak one bit. She felt the rising tension in the chamber. Would Aygar's presence make the conspirators here give their signal earlier or later? They must be wondering what other surprises could turn up. The delegate who had asked the original question had either understood this wrangling, or given up, because its light was out. The Prosecutor went on, outlining the events of the mutiny, of the attempted murder of the lightweights...

"Alleged attempted murder," interrupted Pinky Vigal.

The Prosecutor smiled, bowed, and called for "Our first witness, Dr. Lunzie Mespil."

Sassinak felt the surge of excitement from the crowd that almost overwhelmed her own. So Lunzie had made it! She saw a stir in the witness box, then a slim figure in Medical Corps uniform coming to the stand. Her pulse raced. Lunzie looked so young, so vulnerable, just like the younger sister that Sassinak had lost might have looked. Incredible to think that she had been alive a hundred years before Sassinak was born.

Lunzie began to give her evidence in the calm, measured voice that gradually eased the tension Sassinak felt. But a light flashed from one of the delegate's seats, this time with an objection instead of a question.

"This witness has no legal status 1 This witness is a thief and liar, a fugitive from justice!"

Sassinak stiffened and found that this time Aygar had grabbed her wrist to keep her down. Lunzie, white-iaced, had turned to the accusing delegate's place.

"This witness pretended medical competence to gain entrance to Diplo, and then stole and escaped with valuable information vital to our planetary security. We demand that this witness's testimony be discarded, and that she be returned to the proper authorities for trial on Diplo!"

More lights flashed. As the Prosecutor tried to answer the Diplo delegate, others had questions, comments, discussion. Finally the Speaker got them in order again, and spoke himself to Lunzie.

"Is this accusation true?"

"Not... in substance, sir."

"In what way?"

"I did go to Diplo with a medical research team. My specialty and background suited me for the work. While there I was abducted, drugged, and put into coldsleep. I awoke here, on this planet, with no knowledge of the means of my departure from Diplo. I daresay it was illegal. I hope it was illegal to do that to a Federation citizen with a valid entrance visa."

"You lie, lightweight!" The Diplo delegate had not waited for the translator. He'd used Standard himself. "You seduced a member of our government, stole data cubes..."

"I did nothing of the sort!" Sassinak was amazed at Lunzie's calm. She might have been an experienced teacher dealing with an unruly nine year old. "It is true that I met an old friend, who had become a government official, but as for seducing him... Remember that I had lost over forty years in coldsleep between our meetings. The handsome young man I remembered was now old and sick, even dying."

"He's dead now, yes." That was vicious, in a tone intended to hurt, with implications clear to everyone.

Sassinak peeled Aygar's fingers off her wrist, one by one. He gave her a worried sideways glance and she shook her head slightly. Lunzie still stood calmly, balanced, apparently untouched by the Diplonian's verbal assault. Had she expected it? Sassinak thought not.

The Speaker intervened again. "Did you file a complaint about your alleged abduction?"

"Naturally, I informed the Prosecutor's office. They had me in for illegal entry."

"Well?" The Speaker was looking at the Prosecutor who shrugged.

"We took her information, but since she had no particulars to offer and we have no authority to investigate crimes on Diplo, we considered that she was lucky to be alive and took no action."

Sassinak might have missed the signal if Aygar had not reacted to it with an indrawn breath.

"What?" she murmured, turning to look at him.

'Tanegli's handsign. That guard just gave it and the other one..."

"Lying lightweight!" Again the Diplo delegate's bellow attracted all eyes. Or almost all. Sassinak saw the guard nearest the witness stand shift his weight, the reflections from his chestful of medals suddenly moving. What was he... Then she recognized the position.

"Lunziel DOWN!" Her voice carried across the chamber effortlessly.

Lunzie dropped just as the guard's massive leg swept across the railing. It could have killed her if he'd connected. Sassinak herself was out of the guest box, with Aygar only an instant behind her. Lunzie popped back up and, with deceptive gentleness, tapped the guard on the side of the neck. He sagged to his knees just as Sassinak met the first bailiffs staff.

"ORDER!" the Speaker yelled into the microphone, but it was far too late for that.

The bailiff had not expected Sassinak's combination of tuck, roll, strike, and pivot, and found his own staff suddenly out of his hands and aimed at his head. Singleminded in his original rage, Aygar had launched himself across the Defense table to grapple with Tanegli. A gaggle of legal clerks flailed at Aygar with papers and brief cases, trying to save their client from summary execution.

The eight justices had rolled out of their exposed seats, and only the Ryxi's head peered out as it chittered furiously in its own language. Most of the delegates had shut themselves into their sealed seats, but the heavy-worlders from Diplo and Colrin emerged, clad in space armor which they must have worn under their ceremonial robes.

Sassinak tossed Lunzie the bailiffs staff just as the guard Lunzie had hit came up again. Lunzie slammed the heavy knob onto his head, then swung the length violently to knock a needier free from a guard who aimed at Sassinak. When one of Sassinak's Wefts shifted to Weft shape, a Seti delegate stormed out of its seat, screaming Seti curses that needed no translation. Sassinak snatched at the Seti's neck-chain only to be slammed aside by the powerful tail. She rolled and came up on her feet to face a grinning heavyworlder with a needier who never saw the Weft that landed on his head and broke his neck.

Sassinak caught the needier and tried again to reach Aygar, but he and the defense lawyers were all rolling around in an untidy heap behind the table. She yelled, but doubted he could hear her. Noise beat at the walls of the chamber as the watching crowd surged up to get a better view, and then discovered its own will.

"Down with the Pollys!" came a scream from the upper rows as the students from the Library tossed paint balloons that splattered uselessly on the plastic screen.

"Lightweight scum!" replied a block of heavyworlders, followed by blows, screams, and the high sustained yelp of the emergency alarm system.

Down below, Sassinak faced worse problems, despite the defensive block she had formed with Lunzie, the Wefts and the two marines. The Speaker lay dead, his skull smashed by the Diplonian delegate who now bellowed commands into the microphone. Aygar crawled out of the ruins of the table and ducked barely in time to avoid a slug through the head.

"Over here!" Sassinak yelled. His head moved. He finally saw her. "Stay down!" She gestured. He nodded. She hoped he understood.

In through the door pounded another squad of Insystem Security heavyworlder marines. Three of the Justices tried to break for the door, falling to merciless arms, as Sassinak's group dived for what cover they could find. It wasn't much and the three staves and one small-bore needier they'd captured so far weren't equivalent weaponry.

This would be a good time for help to arrive, Sassinak thought.

"Yield, hopeless ones!" screamed the Diplonian. "Your fool's reign is over! Now begins the glorious..."

"FLEET!"

Something sailed through the air and landed with an uncompromising clunk about three meters from Sassinak's nose; it cracked and leaked a bluish haze. I'm not sure I beUeve this, she thought, reaching for her gas kit, holding her breath, remembering how to count, checking on Lunzie and Aygar. This is where I came in but that shout had to be Ford's.

The heavyworlder troops would have gas kits, too, of course. How fast could they move? She was already in motion, but again Aygar was faster, the blinding speed of youth and perfect condition. They hit the first heavyworlders before they had their weapons in hand, yanking them away and reversing without slackening speed. Sassinak leaped for the higher ground, the Justices' dais, and rolled behind its protective rail just as something splintered it behind her. She crawled rapidly toward the far seat, ignoring the unconscious Justices, and picked off the first trooper who came after her. Where was Lunzie? Which way had Aygar run? And did he even know what to do with that weapon?

A stuttering burst of fire, squeals and crashes, and high pitched screams suggested that he'd found out what to push, but she didn't trust his aim. She saw stealthy movement coming over the rail and fired a short burst: no yell, but no more movement.

"Sassinak!" Ford again, this time nearer. "Pattern six!"

Pattern six was a simple trick, something all cadets learned in the first months of maneuvers. Sassinak moved to her 'right, flattening to one side of the Federation Seal and wondered what he was planning to use for the reinforcements that pattern six sent down the center. The few marines he was supposed to have from the Zaid-Dayan wouldn't be enough. Something coughed, and she grinned. How had Ford managed to get a Gertrud into the Grand Council? The stubby, squat weapon, designed for riot control on space stations, coughed again, and settled to its normal steady growl. Sassinak put her fingers in her ears and kept her head well down. Behind that growl, Ford and whoever he had conscripted could edge forward, letting the sonic patterns ahead disorient the enemy.

But their enemies were not giving up that easily. One of them, must have worn protective headgear, for he put his weapon on full automatic and poured an entire magazine into the Gertrud. Its growl skewed upward, ending in an explosion of bright sound. Sassinak shook her head violently to clear her ears and tried to figure out what next.

She could see through the paint-splashed protective screen from this height. The neat rows of public seating were the scene of a full-bore riot. No help there, even if her former accomplices were winning, and she wasn't at all sure they were. Higher up, she could see struggling figures behind the lights and lenses of the media deck. Down below, she saw the Diplonian delegate begin to twitch, waking up from the gas. Him she could handle and she let off a burst that flung him away from the podium, dead before he waked.

The witness box was empty. She did not see Ford, but she assumed he was still in the row below. But the guest box... from here, she could see its occupants, some dead or wounded, some frozen- in horror and shock, and some all too clearly enjoying the spectacle. These had personal shields, translucent but offering safety from such hazards as the riot gas and small arms fire. Sassinak edged carefully along the upper level of the dais. No one else had come up here after her. Perhaps they'd assume she'd slipped off the far side to join her supporters. She wished she knew how many supporters, and with what arms.

In a momentary lull, one of the shielded guests glanced up and locked eyes with her. Sassinak felt her bones melting with rage. Age and indulgence had left their mark on Randy Paraden, but she knew him. And he, it was clear, knew her. She felt her lips draw back in a snarl. His curled in the same arrogant sneer, gloating in his safety, in her danger. Slowly, arrogantly, he stood, letting his shield push aside those near him and left the guest box. Still watching her, he came nearer, nearer, with that mocking smile, knowing her weapon could not penetrate his personal shield. Raised a hand to signal, no doubt to guide one of the heavyworlders to her.

And then fell, with infinite surprise, that expression she'd seen so often before on others who found reality intruding on dreams. It had happened so quickly the Weft was untangling itself from Paraden's body before she realized it. It had shifted across the shield and broken his neck.

"Back to work." And it was gone, back into the fray.

She caught a glimpse of two other shielded guests departing, in considerable rush, and the Weft message echoed in her head.

"Parchandri."

"You're sure?"

"Parchandri."

If they were going, she was sure she knew where. She fished the comunit out of her pocket and thumbed it on. She had a message to send, and then a fight to finish.

Chapter Twenty-one

Timran had ignored the commotion around the shuttle's shields the morning after the landing. Nothing civilians could do would damage them or give access. He could tune in civilian broadcasts and spent the day watching newscasters ask each other questions on the main news channel. He'd rather have watched a back-to-back rerun of Carin Coldae classics, but felt he should exercise self-discipline. His second night alone in the shuttle he spent in catnaps and sudden, dry-mouthed awakenings. Keeping the video channels on did not help. He kept thinking someone had sneaked in to take control.

Morning brought the itchy-eyed state of fatigue. He turned the com volume up high and dared a fast shower in the shuttle's tiny head. A caffeine tab and breakfast. The news blared on about the trial which would start in a few hours. He had heard nothing from Ford since that brief contact giving him the coordinates to watch, the details of the ship he might encounter. That had been around dawn of the day before.

He felt so helpless, and so miserably alone. How could he help the captain, stuck 'way out here? The memory of the last time he hadn't obeyed orders smacked him on the mental nose. But those had been the captain's orders and these were only the Exec's. He had a sudden memory of Sassinak and Ford coming out of her quarters when he'd been on an errand. On second thought, he had better not antagonize Ford.

He settled down to watch the news coverage of the trial. Another interview with another civilian bureaucrat concerning the Iretan plague. Tim snorted, squirming in his seat. They asked the stupidest questions and the experts gave the stupidest answers. He wished he could be interviewed. He'd do a lot better. None of them would ever say "I don't know" and stick to it. Of course, they'd probably quit asking the ones who did know.

When the coverage of the Grand Council finally began, with the Speaker formally greeting each delegate, Tim sat up straight. He had stowed all the litter of his solitary occupation, prepped the shuttle for emergency liftoff, and made sure that every system was working perfectly. What he didn't have was any kind of effective weapon, unless the ship he expected to meet had neither shields nor guns. He was trying not to think about that. He had his helmet beside him, just in case. Outside the shuttle's shields, a thin line of police kept the curious away. They would be safe at that distance when he lifted.

The view on screen flicked from one location in the chamber to another. He saw Lunzie and an admiral sitting together in the seats reserved for witnesses, then Ford coming in. The view shifted and he saw Sassinak on the other side of the chamber. Why over there? he wondered. Aygar, beside her, looked unhappy. Tim wanted to be there worse than he'd ever wanted anything. He liked the big Iretan and hoped he'd decide to join Fleet in some capacity. And everything was happening there! Not here.

When the trouble began, he sat forward, hardly breathing. He'd often said he wished he'd been there to see other fights, other adventures, but he found that watching was far worse. He couldn't see what he wanted, only what the camera showed, and it was all a lot messier than the stories. Then the screen blanked, streaked, and finally returned as an exterior view of the Grand Council hall with a rioting crowd outside. Again the views shifted; first one streetful of people screaming, then another of people marching in step, waving flags, then of orange uniformed police firing into the crowd.

He glanced outside. The police there shifted about, looking edgy. No doubt they had communication with the inner city, and wondered what to do about him. Suddenly one of them whirled, and fired point-blank at the shield. His companions pulled him away, yanked the weapon from him, and moved back. Tim did nothing. He was trembling, he found, far worse than he had been that time on Ireta, but he managed to keep his fingers off the controls. His mind clung to the thought that Sassinak would call for him, would need him: he must be ready.

Yet when the call came, he hardly believed it.

"Zaid-Dayan shuttle!" came the second time before he got his fingers and his voice working and thumbed the control.

"Shuttle here!" His voice sounded like his kid brother's. He swallowed and hoped it would steady the next time.

"Fugitives en route. As planned, launch and intercept."

Did that mean the others weren't coming? Was he really supposed to take off without them?

"Are you?"

"Now!"

That was definitely Sassinak, no doubt about it. This is not like 1 imagined it would be, he thought. His memory reminded him tiiat so far it never had been. Helmet on, connections made. He looked at the fat red button and pushed it, then got his hands on the other controls just as the shuttle surged up, sucking a good bit of the landfill's carefully planted grass in its wake.

He was high over the city in moments, balancing on a delicate combination of atmospheric and insystem drives. He had time to enjoy the knowledge that he had made a perfect liftoff and was doing a superb job now in precisely the right position.

The coordinates he'd been given, entered into the shuttle's nav computer, now showed a red circle on a displayed map that matched what he could see below. Hard to believe that beneath that vast warehouse a silo poked into the ground ready to launch a fast yacht. But the displays were changing color. The IR scan showed the change first as the warehouse roof sections lifted away. Then the targeting lasers picked up the vibrations, translated as seismic activity.

The inner barriers lifted and the yacht's nose poked out, rising slowly, slowly. As if on an elevator lift, then faster, then... Tim remembered he was supposed to give one official warning and poked the button to turn on the pre-recorded tape. Sassinak had not wanted to trust his impromptu style.

"FSP Shuttlecraft Seeker to ship in liftoff. You are under arrest. Proceed directly to shuttleport. You have been warned."

Sassinak had said they could divert to the shuttleport, even immediately after liftoff. But she didn't think they would.

"Don't even try it, Tiny!" came the reply from the yacht. "You haven't got a chance."

He hoped that wasn't true. Supposedly, the constraints of taking off from a silo meant that the most common weapons systems couldn't be mounted until after the yacht was out of the atmosphere in steady flight. And his shields should deflect all but heavy assaults. The problem was how to stop the yacht. Shuttles were just that—shuttles—not fighter craft. He had a tractor beam which was not nearly powerful enough to slow the yacht and a midrange beamer designed to clear brush when landing in uncleared terrain. Could he disable the yacht's instrument cone? That's what Ford had suggested.

He got the targeting lasers fixed on the yacht's bow as he kept the shuttle in alignment, and pressed the firing stud. A line of light appeared, splashed harmlessly along the yacht's shields. It wasn't supposed to have shields. They were high in the atmosphere now. His displays told him the yacht should be planning to release its massive solid-fuel engine. This didn't worry him because the more massive yacht, with its limited drive system, could not possibly outmaneuver a Fleet shuttle as long as it stayed below lightspeed. But he still could not figure out how to stop it- If it made the transition to FTL, he could not follow.

Of course he could ram it. No shields on a ship that size could withstand the strain if he intercepted at high velocity. But what if he missed? How could he keep track of it, keep it from going into FTL, if he couldn't stop it cold? The yacht's booster separated and it surged higher. Tim sent the shuttle after it. What if it had more power then they'd thought? What if it could distance the shuttle? Then it would be free to go into FTL and disappear forever and he... he would get to explain his failure to Commander Sassinak.

Who had not explained, this time, exactly what to do. Who was not in her cruiser, this time, ready to come to his rescue. He found he was sweating, his breath short. He had to do something and, except by a land of blind instinct, he had never been good at picking alternatives. The yacht opened a margin on him. Tim uttered a silent prayer to gods he couldn't name and redlined the shuttle to catch back up to it. If he was right... if he could remember how to do this... if nothing went wrong, there was a way to keep that yacht from making a jump. If things did go wrong, he wouldn't know it.

Sassinak picked herself out of the tangle of bodies with a groan. A dull ache in her leg promised to develop into real pain as soon as she paid attention to it. Tim should be on his way. Arly was out there somewhere doing something with the invasion fleet. And here.. - here was death and pain and carnage. One Lethi delegate smashed into amber splinters and dust that stank of suHur compounds. A Ryxi whimpering as its broken leg twitched repeatedly. The singed feathers on its back added another noxious reek to the chamber. Aygar? Aygar lay sprawled, motionless, but Lunzie knelt beside him and nodded encouragingly as she looked up. Ford, gray around the mouth, held out his blistered hands for the medics as they sprayed a pale-green foam on diem.

Sassinak limped over to Lunzie and thought about sitting down beside her. Better not. She didn't think she could get back up. "How bad is he?"

"Near as I can tell, a stunner beam got him. Not too badly. He should wake up miserable within an hour. What else?" Lunzie still had that intense stare of someone in full Discipline.

"The Paraden representatives here, the ones in the guest box, got away. To their yacht."

"Blast it!" Lunzie looked ready to smash through walls barehanded.

"Never mind. I had a trap for them."

"You... ?"

Sassinak explained briefly, looking around as she did. The surviving delegates were safely sealed into their places. She could just see them watching her. What must they be thinking? And what should she do?

"Sassinak. A statement?" One of the students had come down to the floor, with a camera on his shoulder. So they had secured the newslines. She frowned, trying to clear her mind, to think. She felt the weight of it all on her. She glanced around for Coromell who should, as the senior, make any statements. Then she saw his crumpled body in the unmistakable posture of the dead.

"I... Just a moment." Had Lunzie seen? What would she do? She touched Lunzie's shoulder. "Did you know? Coromell?"

Lunzie nodded. "Yes. I saw it. I'd just gone to full Discipline. Couldn't save him... and he was so decent." She blinked back tears. "I can't cry now, and besides..."

"Right."

Coromell dead. The Speaker dead. The Justices, if not dead, at least unable to take over. Someone had to do it. She limped up the step to the Speaker's podium and stepped gingerly between the bodies that lay at its foot: the Speaker, who had reminded her of her first captain, and the Diplonian delegate she herself had killed. The Speaker's podium had had status screens, an array of controls to record votes, and grant the right to speak. But none of that worked. Her own shots, most likely, had shattered the screens. Still, it was the right place, and she stood behind it as the student with the camera moved in for a close shot. She could imagine what it looked like. A tired, rumpled Fleet officer in front of the Federation shield, the very image of a military coup, the end of peace and freedom. But she would do better than that.

"Delegates, Justices, Citizens of the Federation of Sentient Planets," she began. "This Federation, this peaceful alliance of many races, will survive..."

Arly, in the command seat on Zaid-Dayan's bridge, had the best view of what happened next. Although the Central System's defenses were concentrated along the three most common approaches from other sectors, the Seti had not chosen an alternative route. They had counted on most of the defenses being knocked out by collaborators. Once she realized that their approach was in feet along a mapped path, she had been able to use the Zaid-Dayan's capabilities against them.

At first she had used the defense satellites as cover, taking out two of the flanking escorts, and one medium cruiser as if the satellites had been active. So far, the Seti commanders had assumed that the losses were, in fact, due to passive defense systems that had escaped inactivation. At least, that's what her Ssli told her they were thinking. She hoped they were also wondering if their human allies were double-crossing them.

When that got too dangerous—for the Seti clearly knew exactly where such installations were and they began attacking them—she used the stealth capability and the Ssli's precision control of tiny FTL hops to disappear and reappear unpredictably, firing off a few missiles each time at the nearest ship, and then vanishing again. She could not actually destroy the invaders, not with one cruiser, but she could inflict serious losses.

Now they were well into the system, inside the outer ranks of defenses, still in numbers large enough to threaten all the inhabited planets. It would be another day or more before any Fleet vessels could arrive, assuming the nearest had come at once on receipt of the mayday. By then FedCentral might be in range of the Seti ships.

She was just considering whether to sacrifice the ship by going in for close combat for she thought she might do the Seti flagship enough damage to force the invaders to slow, when the scans went crazy, doppler displays racing through color sequences, alarms flashing. Then the ship's drive indicators rose slowly from green to yellow with some strain as if a massive object had appeared not far off.

"Thek," said the very pale Weft, its form wavering before it steadied back to human.

"Thek?"

She had seen before the way Thek moved, and how it seemed to violate a lifetime's assumptions about matter and space. She had just not realized that her instruments felt the same way about it.

"Many, many Thek. They... more or less vacuum packed the Seti fleet."

The sensors reported the right density and mass for more Tliek than Arly had ever seen, but what she thought of was Dupaynil. Dupaynti being squashed by granite pyramids.

"No," said the Weft, shaking his head. "Not that ship. TTiat one's whole, but can't maneuver. The Thek have made it quite clear to the Seti that their prisoners had best stay healthy."

"What about us?" After all, humans had been involved in the plot, too.

"We're free to go, although they'd prefer that we picked up the prisoners from that Seti ship."

"Fine with me. I'm not arguing with flying rocks." She hoped the Thek wouldn't consider that disrespectfull. "Are you... talking with them?"

He looked surprised. "Of course. You know we're special to them. They think we're... I suppose you'd say, cute."

"No one ever told me that you Wefts could talk to Tliek."

"Not that many know we're telepathic with some humans, or most Ssli."

"Mmm. Right. So where does this Thek want us to go to pick up passengers?"

In the event, they sent a shuttle which the Thek guided through the interstices of the trap they'd shut on the Seti. While it was on its way, Arly remembered to prepare quarters for the alien guests, including a sealed compartment for the Lethi where the fumes from their obligatory sulfur wouldn't bother anyone else.

Arly decided the shuttle's arrival required a formal reception to reassure the allied aliens that Fleet was loyal to the FSP and not part of the plot. With the crisis over, she left the bridge to a junior officer and came to Flight Deck herself, with a squad of marines in dress uniform.

The Zaid-Dayan had no military band, but she had a recording of the FSP anthem piped in as more suitable to aliens than anything else. The shuttle hatch opened and two of the crew came out, carrying the Lethi. The Ryxi bobbed out on its own, fluffing feathers nervously, and chittered vigorously before greeting her in Standard with eflusive thanks. Then came the Bronthin, its normal pastel blue fur almost gray with exhaustion and fear. Two more of the shuttle crew, with the larval Ssli's environmental tank. Finally, Dupaynil emerged.

Arly stared at him in frank shock. The dapper, elegant officer she remembered was a filthy, shambling wreck, red-rimmed eyes sunken.

"Commander!"

"Is Sassinak aboard?" That had an intensity she couldn't quite interpret.

"No. She's on planet."

"Thank the..." he paused. "The luck, I suppose. Or whatever. I..." He staggered and the waiting medics came forward. He waved them off. "I don't need anything but a shower—a long shower—and some rest."

"But what happened to you?"

Dupaynil gave her a look somewhere between anger and exhaustion. "One damn thing after another, Arly, and the worst of it is it's all my fault for thinking I was smarter than your Sassinak. Now please?"

"Of course."

He did reek and she felt her nostrils dilate as he passed her. She wondered how long he'd been in that pressure suit. She hardly had all the survivors settled when the Weft liaison to the Thek called her back to the bridge. One last chore remained. The humans most responsible had escaped the planet in a fast yacht, and although a Fleet vessel had kept it in sight, it could not stop it.

"Tim and that shuttle!" Arly said. "I forgot him.

Com, get us a link!"

Tim had the yacht's position and the Ssli flicked the cruiser in and out of FTL space in a minute jump that put them well in range. Her weapons officer reported that the yacht lacked anything to penetrate the cruiser's shields. Too bad Sassinak wasn't here. She would enjoy this. But she'd had the on planet fun. Arly put their message on an all-frequency transmission.

"FSP Cruiser Zaid-Dayan to private vessel Celestial Fortune. Going somewhere?"

"Let us alone, or you'll regret it!" came the reply. "You're nothin' but a lousy little short-range shuttle tryin' to play big shot."

"Take another look," suggested Arly and cut back the visual screens. "Do you want to argue with this?"

She sent a missile past their bows, and heard a yelp from Tim on one of the incoming lines. A spurt of annoyance. He should have had sense enough to get out of the way.

"Get that shuttle back in here," she told him.

"Sorry, ma'am "

"What do you mean, sorry?"

"I... uh... It was the only way I could think of."

"What did you do?"

"I... locked shields with "em."

Arly closed her eyes and counted to ten. So that's why they hadn't gone into FTL yet But it meant that blowing the yacht would mean blowing the shuttle, and Tim. Nor could he pull away. Locking shields was hard enough going in. She'd never heard of anyone getting back out, unless both ships agreed to damp the shields simultaneously.

"Who's with you?" asked Arly.

"Nobody," came the reply.

From his tone he knew exactly what that meant. If Sassinak had been aboard... but one ensign, who had been unable to think of any way to impede the enemy but bonding to it? He was very expendable.

"You suited up?"

"Yes. But..." But what good would it do?

Shuttles had no escape pods, for the very good reason that in normal operation they were useless. And being blown out of an exploding shuttle was a little more than hazardous.

"I can flutter their shields, Commander. Give you a better chance of getting 'em with the first shot."

"Dammit, Tim, don't be so eager to die."

It would help, though, and she knew it.

"I'm not," he said. Was that a quaver in his voice?

He was not going to die if she could help it. But the yacht had meanwhile refused to cut its acceleration outsystem or change course. Its captain seemed sure he could make his FTL jump anyway.

"Even if I do scrape a louse off our hide."

"Do that and you're dead for sure. We've followed more than one through FTL flux." She flipped that channel off. "And why can't the blasted Thek help us now?" Arly demanded of the Weft at her side. "I hate the way they pick and choose. If these are the big shots..."

The Zaid-Dayaris proximity alarms blared. The artificial gravity pulsed. Arly swallowed hastily, clutching the arms of her chair. Small objects tumbled about and a dust haze rose, to be sucked rapidly away by the fans.

"Do me a favor, Captain, and don't bad-mouth the Theks any more," said the Weft.

This time he'd shifted completely and hung now from the overhead, bright blue eyes gleaming at Arly. Then he shifted back, leaving a mental image of strings of innards trailing down in a most abnormal way to reassemble into a living person.

"I just said..."

"I know. But you people complain all the time about how slow the Thek are and how they don't pay attention. You should rejoice that they're now paying attention and you've had a demonstration of how they can move."

"Right. Sorry. But the yacht..."

The Thek had absorbed all the yacht's considerable inertia, flicking Tim and his shuttle off as a housewife might flick an ant off a plate. When he hailed them, Arly could hear astonished relief in his voice.

"Permission to land shuttle?"

Should she bring him in, or send him back to FedCentral? A glance at the readouts told her the shuttle wouldn't make it back safely.

"Permission granted. Bring 'er aboard, Ensign."

And he did, without any hotdog flourishes.

Arly looked around the bridge, and wondered if she looked as disshelved as the others. Far more ragged than Sassinak had ever looked, she thought. Well have to get this place cleaned up before she sees it and everyone rested. But we still have to get back down there, just in case.

Convincing the Dockmaster at the FedCentral Station that the Zaid-Dayan was not an agent of doom required the rough side of Arly's tongue.

"We saved your tails from a 'catenated Seti fleet. And you're going to gripe at me because I left without your fardling permission?"

"It was highly irregular."

"So it was, and so were the Seti. So were the traitors in your system that wanted to let 'em in. It's not my feult you wouldn't believe the truth. Now you can let us dock or watch us sit out here using your station for target practice."

"That's a threat!" he said.

"Right. Going to take us up on it?"

"Ill file a complaint." Then his face sagged as he realized to whom that complaint would go: Sassinak, now in command of the loyal Federation forces onplanet, Acting Governor. "It's all very irregular..." His voice trailed away into a sigh. "All right. Bays twelve through twenty, orange arm."

"Thank you," said Arly, careful to keep her voice neutral. Never push your luck, Sassinak always said, and she felt her luck had been working overtime lately. "If you have any fresh forage for Bronthin, we have an individual in bad shape who's been a Seti prisoner."

This the Dockmaster could handle. "Of course. With so much diplomatic traffic, we pride ourselves on keeping full supplies for every race in the FSP. Any other requirements?"

"A Ryxi which is suffering from 'feather pit,' whatever that is, and a pair of Lethi who seem all right, although our medical team isn't familiar with Lethi."

"Only two Lethi? That's very bad. Lethi need to cluster in larger numbers."

"Plus a larval Ssli," Arly said. "It's complained that its tank needs recharging."

"No problem with any of that," said the Dockmaster, suddenly cordial. "If you'll send the allied races to bay sixteen, that'll be the quickest access for our specialty medical services."

"Will do." Arly shook her head as she looked around the bridge, "Can you believe that? He was willing to stand us off as if we were pirates, but he's got specialty medical teams for our aliens."

Arly had been in communication with Sassinak for the past several hours. The situation onplanet had stabilized with the loyalists firmly in control, and only scattered pockets of resistance.

"And I think most of that's confusion," Sassinak had said. "We're finding that many of the Parchandri Paraden supporters had been blackmailed into it. Others just didn't know any better. Right now the Thek are calling for a formal trial."

"Not another one!"

"Not like that one, no. A Thek trial." Sassinak had looked exhausted. Arly wondered if she'd had any rest at all since her disappearance. "Another Thek cathedral is all I need! But considering what they've done, we really can't argue. They want those prisoners you rescued from the Seti, especially the Bronthin, Ssli, Weft, and Dupaynil."

So now, docked at the Station, Arly saw these turned over to special medical teams. Soon they'd be on their way to the Thek trial. She wondered about the crew and passengers of the yacht Tim had trapped. But she wasn't going to ask any questions. Two experiences with fast-moving Thek were quite enough.

It was impossible to overestimate the civilizing influence of cleanliness, rest, and good cooking, Sassinak thought. Back on the Zaid-Dayan, back in a clean uniform, with a stomach full of the best her favorite cook could do, with a full shift's sleep, she was ready to forgive almost anyone. Particularly since the Thek, in their unyielding fashion, had satisfied any remaining desire for vengeance.

For a moment, she felt again the pressure of those most alien minds. And marveled that she had survived two terms in a Thek cathedral. Never again, she hoped. The judgment process might be exhausting but it served its purpose admirably.

The guilty Seti were to be confined to one interdicted planet, guarded by installations whose crews were former pirate prisoners. Paraden family lost all its possessions, from shipping lines to private moonlets. Paradens and Parchandris alike were given basic survival and tool supplies, the same they had sold to many a colony starting up, and deposited on a barely habitable planet.

With the single exception of Ford's Auntie Q. She lost nothing for the Thek considered her a victim, not a Paraden, despite her name.

And, thanks to Lunzie's partisanship and fierce arguments, heavyworlders were also considered victims. After all, they had been cheated by the wealthy lightweights who then blackmailed them into service. So the Thek required only that those conspirators in the governments of heavyworlder planets be expelled. The others, informed of the complex plot, were given shares in the liquidation of Paraden assets. They could use that to ease their lives.

In addition, FSP regulations changed to allow heavy worlder migration to any world open to humans. But that did not include Ireta: the Thek would not change their earlier decision. Aygar had been consoled, finally, by the knowledge that he would have a chance to see many equally fascinating worlds. And enough money to enjoy them.

Now the original team relaxed in Sassinak's office, with most of the tales untold and a long night ahead for telling them. Restored by a couple of sessions in the tank to heal his bums, Ford crunched another of the crispy fries. Sassinak met his eyes and felt indecently smug. They had private plans when the party broke up. He had told her just enough about Auntie Q and the Ryxi tail feathers to whet her appetite.

Dupaynil, though, had lost some of his polish. Specldessly clean, as usual, perfectly groomed, he still had a hangdog tentative quality that she found almost as irritating as his former blithe certainty.

Lunzie, always tactful, had put aside her grief for Coromell to try to cheer Dupaynil up, but so tar it hadn't worked. Timran, on the other hand, was indecently gleeful. He had taken the mild commendation she'd given him as if he'd been awarded the Federation's highest honor in front of the Grand Council. Now he sat stiffly in the corner of her office as if he would burst if he moved. She'd better rescue the lad.

"Ensign, there's an errand... a fairly special one..."

"Yes, ma'am!"

"We're having guests; I'd like you to escort a lady from the Flight Deck in here."

If anyone could settle a young man like Tim, it would be Fleur. He'd enjoy Aygar's student friend, too, and Erdra. Sassinak grinned wickedly at the thought of Erdra coming face to face with the reality behind her daydreams. She was no Carin Coldae and the sooner she quit playing games and went back to finish that advanced degree in analytical systems, the better. The riot had cured her of any thought that violence and glamor coexisted, and a visit to a working warship ought to clear out the rest of her nonsense.

Lunzie would want to meet her relative-of-sorts, from the Chinese family. It had been extravagant, in several ways, to send her own shuttle down for them, but she felt it important to build respect for Fleet. No more restrictions on the movement of Fleet personnel, and no civilian weapons monitors, either. The Zaid-Dayan was, as it always should be, ready for action. Now, while Tim was gone, she could try to penetrate DupayniTs gloom again.

"I wanted to apologize to you," she began, "for pulling that trick..."

"It was a trick, then, with the orders?" He brightened a moment. "I was sure of it. You used the Ssli, right?"

"Right. But it was flat stupid of me not to know more about the ship I tossed you onto. I had no idea..."

"I know." He looked glum again.

"You said something about charges?"

"Well, the Exec of the escort and I had to overpower the crew, put 'em in custody..."

"On an escort? Where?"

"In the escape pod in coldsleep. They were going to space me."

Sassinak stared at him. He said it in a tone of flat misery entirely out of character for someone who had run a successful mutiny.

"I'm sure we can get the charges dropped. If anyone's dared filed them," she said. "Especially now. I've had contact with Admiral Vannoy, back at Sector, and he's rooting out the traitors around Fleet."

But that didn't cheer him up as it should have. Clearly impending charges weren't the burden he carried. Lunzie caught her eye and made a significant glance at Ford, at Dupaynil, then at Aygar. Sassinak let one eyelid droop in a near-wink.

"Ford, if you don't mind, I think I'd like a grownup to supervise that reception. Aygar, you might want to be there to greet your friends."

Aygar leaped up while Ford stood more slowly, grinning at Sassinak in a way that almost made her blush.

"You ladies take care," he said, with his own significant glance at Dupaynil. "No squabbling."

Then he left, shepherding Aygar ahead of him.

"Now, then," said Sassinak. "You've been brooding about as if you were about to be stuck in Administration forever. So, what's the problem?" She thought for a long moment he would not answer, then it burst out of him.

"It's ridiculous, and I don't want to talk about it."

Lunzie and Sassinak waited, saying nothing. Dupaynil looked up and met Sassinak's eyes squarely.

"I was so furious with you for pulling that trick. For getting away with that trick. I dreamed of outfoxing you again, coming back with what you needed, but making you pay for it. Then I had to escape those... those pirates on Claw, and realized that 1 didn't know one tbing about actually running a ship. Panis had to train me as if I were a raw recruit. But I still thought, with what I'd found, that I'd have a chance of returning in triumph. A good story to tell, all that. But then the Seti..."He stopped, shaking his head, and Sassinak and Lunzie stared at each other over his bent head.

"What did they do?" asked Lunzie.

Sassinak was thinking that it was a good thing they'd died before she'd had the opportunity to skin their scaly hide off their live bodies.

"Arly didn't tell you?"

"She said you looked pretty dilapidated when you came aboard, but you wouldn't go to Medical—" Her skin crawled as she thought of reasons why he might not, which could explain his present mood. "Dupaynil! They didn't!"

This time he laughed, a genuine if shaky laugh. "No. No, they didn't actually do anything. It was just... Have you ever seen a Seti shower?"

What did that have to do with anything? "No," Sassinak said cautiously.

"It sprays you with hot air, grit, and more hot air," Dupaynil said with more energy than she'd heard from him yet. Bitter, but alive. "I'm sure it's what keeps their scales so shiny. Probably takes care of itchy little parasites on a Seti. But for a human, day after day...

And then I had to stay in that blasted pressure suit for days." His expression brought a chuckle to Sassinak; she couldn't help it. "I'd planned on strolling in, cool and suave, to hand you what you needed. Instead, I was stuck in a stinking pressure suit in a crowded compartment full of terrified aliens where I could do not one damn thing, and had to be rescued like any silly princess in a fairy tale."

"But you did," said Sassinak.

"Did what?"

"Did do something. Kipling's corns, Dupaynil, you got the warning to us. You had evidence the Thek used."

"They could have got it straight from those slime buckets. minds."

"Well, if the Thek hadn't been there, we'd have needed it. After all, they asked for you at the trial. They needed your evidence, too. I don't know what more you could want. You escaped one death-trap after another, you got vital information, you saved the world. Did you really think anyone could do that without getting dirty?" She thought of herself in the tunnels, even before Fleur's disguise.

"I wanted to impress you," he said softly, looking at his linked hands.

"Well, you did." Sassinak cocked her head at him. "Impress me? Was that all?"

"No." She would never have suspected that Dupaynil could blush, but what else were those red patched on his cheeks. "When I was on Claw, when I realized what you'd done, and I was so mad... I also realized I wanted..."

It was clear enough, though he couldn't say it.

"I'm sorry." That was genuine. He had earned it. She couldn't offer more. Her joyful reunion with Ford had revealed too much to both of them.

"Sorry!" Lunzie fairly exploded, her eyes sparkling. "You nearly get the man killed, he has to take over a whole ship, and then he saves us all from a Seti invasion, and you're just sorry!" She looked at Dupaynil.

"She may be my descendant, but that doesn't mean we agree. I think she ought to give you a medal."

"Lunzie!"

"You wouldn't think so if you'd seen me getting off that shuttle." Dupaynil said. "Ask Arly."

"I don't have to ask Arly. I can see for myself." That came out in a sensuous purr. Under Lunzie's bright gaze, Dupaynil's grin began to revive.

Sassinak regarded her great-great-great with affectionate disdain. "Lunzie, I know where I inherited some of my propensities." If Lunzie stayed interested, she gave Dupaynil only a few more hours of freedom.

"Meow!" Lunzie stuck out her tongue, then leaned closer to Dupaynil.

Whatever else she might have said was interrupted by the arrival of the others: Fleur, who had worn one of her own creations in lavender and silver, Aygar and Timran in the midst of the students. Erdra, Sassinak noticed, wore the same land of colorful shirt and leggings as the others. Perhaps she had grown out of her wishful thinking already.

"Have you?" Fleur asked, drifting close a little later, as the conversation rose and fell around them.

"What?"

"Grown out of your past?"

Sassinak snorted. "I grew out of Carin Coldae a long way back."

"You know that's not what I mean."

Sassinak thought of Randy Paraden's face, the instant before the Weft killed him, and of the faces of the other conspirators in the Thek cathedral. She had looked long in her mirror when she came back aboard, hoping not to find any of the marks of that kind of character.

"Yes," she said slowly. "I think I have. I can't change what they did to me, but I can change what I do about it. It's time to be more than a pirate-chaser. But not less."

The End