Even approaching the city from its eastern side, coming in from the direction opposite the spaceport, Harry and his traveling companions would have had a good view of any liftoffs or landings that might have been taking place. But the open, sunless, starless imitation sky above the port was absolutely clear of traffic; doubtless every ship physically capable of getting off the ground had already done so in response to the alert.

There were definite signs of military activity along the city's streets and on its outskirts, and a notable lack of normal civilian presence. Harry's party was challenged again as it approached the spaceport, at another hastily constructed roadblock.

This time he saw to his relief that the barrier was manned by only a couple of lightly armed Templars. Harry immediately stopped the car, got out, identified himself, and demanded to be taken to General Pike.

Harry spoke confidently, but was a little unsure of what kind of welcome to expect from the general. He wondered what Pike had thought when he heard of the two rescued men from Thisworld, and the most improbable story Redpath and Dietrich had told in the Space Force office just downstairs from his.

Lily had got out of the car, too. She must have been thinking along the same lines, because she whispered in Harry's ear: "Maybe we ought to tell the general the entire truth?"

"We'll see."

Pike, who had been patrolling nearby streets and roads, was quickly summoned by radio, and in a few moments his command post came rolling up to the barricade, in the form of a sizable armored half-track, from whose turret projected the thick muzzle of an imposing cannon. Any berserker that happened to come this way was going to face some real opposition. Harry supposed this must be the most formidable surface weapon the Templars had on Maracanda.

The general had no staff or escort with him; Harry supposed he'd posted just about everyone available on guard duty at various places. Quickly he invited Harry and Lily into the vehicle's cabin to be debriefed.

Dr. Kloskurb hastily introduced himself to the general, then immediately made his excuses and took himself away as rapidly as he could, wishing Harry and Lily good luck in whatever they were going to do next. Now that they had rejoined civilization, Kloskurb wanted to get a message to whatever family or friends he had who had been worrying about him. "I've got to get to my family in Port City. They're going to be tearing their hair out."

Harry grunted. "And I've got to get to my ship."

Watching Kloskurb hike briskly away, Lily murmured wistfully: "It must be really great to have someone who cares about you."

Once the three of them were inside the cramped cabin of the combat vehicle, Pike greeted Harry and Lily fervently, offered food and drink from his onboard supply of field rations, and eagerly demanded to be told everything they knew about the situation in the east. But a moment later he interrupted himself to briefly relate the story of Dietrich and Redpath, as he had heard it from his contacts in the Space Force office.

Harry interrupted briefly to assure the general that one of the men in question was dead.

"Hah. You knew them, then?"

"I wouldn't say that. Just met them very briefly, heard someone call him by that name." And Lily nodded in verification.

"Then you've probably heard the rest of their story."

The general went on to tell the version that he knew, while his audience heard him out in silence. Pike said his first impulse had been to suspect the unsavory pair of being goodlife, mostly because no one could believe their tale of a mysterious stranger who for no particular reason gave them a ride in his unidentifiable ship, and then marooned them.

In Pike's mind any peculiarity could be made to point in that direction. What had two men with criminal records really been doing on that abandoned satellite, anyway, in a system where a berserker had recently been sighted? Possibly they had been receiving instructions, or materials for terrorism, from one of the dark things of lifeless metal that served perverted goodlife as a god.

Pike did not give the impression of suspecting that the suspicious pair had anything to do with Harry. Far more likely they had been engaged in some forbidden commerce with the berserker that Harry's ship had struggled with. "I don't suppose you observed anything out there to suggest such contacts?"

"Believe us, general," said Lily, "we'd tell you if we did."

Glad to drop that subject, Harry got right to more important business, saying he was reasonably certain that none of the enemy was going to find their way this far west. It was good to be able to report that they had seen no sign of goodlife or berserkers on Maracanda since leaving the far east. They had experienced no serious pursuit. Quickly, Harry and Lily reported very nearly everything that had happened to them, leaving out only the fact that Bulaboldo and his crew were smugglers who had thought they were faking an alert when they arranged for one to be called.

Privately, Harry had been thinking over that coincidence: but no, it couldn't be coincidence that the real attack had come along just when the phony alert was called. No; instead, the news of the alert must have flushed out a goodlife crew and their malignant hardware who were already in place on Maracanda, prodded them into the open before they could accomplish whatever secret nastiness they had been planning.

Harry was beginning to think it could be worth an arm and maybe a leg to know just what that was.

"Everything I see and hear, general, convinces me that we're really facing only a small force. If the people in the field say they're facing no more than a dozen machines, I see no reason to doubt that. Not a routine invasion, only a small party, here for some special purpose. Aided and abetted by not more than a handful of goodlife, and it seems most of those bastards have already been disposed of. Maybe one or two will be available for questioning."

"Ever try to question one of those?" The general let it drop, and went on to describe the overall military situation. According to Pike's latest information, this was little different from what the telegraph had been reporting at the caravanserai. The lines were still open to that midpoint, and on to Tomb Town and Minersville, where fighting still raged, and casualties on the human side had mounted into the thousands. Active goodlife, righting fanatically, had reportedly been well-nigh exterminated by now, but of course the machines were much tougher to defeat, especially given the humans' shortage of effective heavy weapons. One small berserker on the edge of Tomb Town had been rammed by a kamikaze pedicar and knocked into a breakdown zone, where it was probably going to lie inert till doomsday.

The most recent telegraph reports were mildly optimistic, despite the heavy casualties. A majority of the population had fled Minersville and Tomb Town into breakdown territory, where berserkers could not follow.

Of course, if the enemy got control of a telegraph line at any point, they could be sending false, deceptive messages, spreading disinformation at a great rate, just to create panic or to get our military looking in the wrong place.

Even without such interference, the authorities in the west had only a hazy picture of what must be going on in the east. No more than an occasional telegram and the trickle of refugees could tell them.

If Pike could find some way to transport his armored vehicle across hundreds of kilometers of breakdown zone to Minersville, the people who were there fighting for their lives would certainly bid him welcome. The general announced his intention of getting started on that effort as soon as possible, entrusting the half-track to a junior officer who would drive it east as far as free zone stretched, then work with the caravan people to come up with some way to hitch the massive weapon to a doubled team of rollers for transit through the long stretches of breakdown zone. Pike had delayed this redeployment until now, thinking that the peculiar small attack in the east was only meant as a feint, a distraction, and that the main assault was soon to come down out of space on the spaceport in the west.

The general went on to say: "A berserker attack on Maracanda seems an odd choice, to pick a place where their operations will be restricted to a few small areas of free zone."

Harry said: "But this is the battlefield they've chosen, and you're absolutely right, general. I don't get it either. Of all the possible targets in the Galaxy, why should they organize an attack on the back country of this world? It doesn't seem to make any sense from their point of view... and berserkers are not stupid. Whatever else they may be, never that."

The general growled, deep in his throat, making the sound of an unsatisfied predator. "You're saying their real objective on this world must be something other than the lives to be harvested in those two small towns."

"That's it." Harry slammed down a fist on the arm of his chair, meant to be occupied by some crew member who must be busy elsewhere. "Something, but we don't know what. All we can be sure of is that it will somehow add up to killing a lot more people."

Lily said: "There are other forms of life, and berserkers want to kill them all."

"Sure, other kinds of life, but in berserker calculations, we're always the kind of breathing thing that really counts. As an old book says, one human is worth many sparrows... and God knows how many blades of grass. Because once the thinking part of life is disposed of, and that is us, then all the rest, all the orchids and insects and elephants, will be an easy harvest."

Pike said: "The presence of machines in the east implies their use of a secret landing place in that region, perhaps somewhere outside the habitable area. How can they have any kind of force in place near Tomb Town if there's no place to land? And how come, after that first alert, days ago, the early warning system robots haven't picked up a trace of any incursion?"

"General, I'm not absolutely sure there's no place to land on the east side of the habitable zone. In fact, I'm got some evidence in my pocket right now, suggesting that there is. As soon as I can get my ship off the ground, I'm going to check it out."

"Evidence?"

Digging out the message cube that had been given him by Bulaboldo, Harry displayed it on his palm. "This is said to contain a chart, showing a route to be followed, a narrow channel of free space extending all the way through breakdown space, to a spot where a small ship might be able to land. It's only a few kilometers from Tomb Town and Minersville."

Pike was incredulous. "How in the Galaxy did you get hold of a chart like that? Any reason to think it might be accurate?"

"Well, you sent us over there as secret agents - and yes, I think there is a reason. But please, don't push me yet on where and how I got this. Let's see if it works. If I can get the Witch safely on the ground over there, I ought to be able to do our side some good."

"Well. In any case I'm going to make a copy of that, before you dash away with it again. Just in case." The general snatched the cube from Harry's hand and snapped it into a slot on the side of the half-track's communicator. Moments later it reappeared, a duplicate beside it.

Harry nodded. "Right. Just in case. But let that go for a moment. I've got what may be a better idea about where the berserkers landed. It may have been right here at the spaceport."

When others looked at him, Harry explained: "I think it would be fairly easy for people to smuggle in any kind of hardware they wanted here. Outgoing cargo is rigorously inspected at this port, because of the problem with illegal drugs. But I don't think many incoming containers ever get looked at. And even if you opened one, an inspector couldn't necessarily tell berserker components from lawn mowers at a glance. What do they look like? Just machinery.

"Goodlife could package berserker components somewhere else, ship them in here, then on east by freight caravan, along with tons and tons of other gear brought in by miners and builders. Berserkers come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and possibly there are kits for more goodlife at this end to put it back together. You know, 'some assembly required.'"

Harry was just getting up to leave the half-track when Pike called him back. "Oh yes, Silver, I almost forgot. You've got some mail." And he handed over another tiny cube.

When Harry squeezed the little object lightly, a neat, small readout popped into the air above it, showing that the message had originated on the planet Esmerelda, some sixty light-years distant. Also listed in fine print were the various relay stations through which the message had been forwarded, between the stars, by the regular robot courier service. Sometimes personal messages were forwarded in multiple copies, by regular interstellar couriers, the service sometimes duplicating and reduplicating the message without reading it, and sending copies on to different places, as often happened when the exact location of the addressee was unknown. Harry's eyes lit up on seeing the point of origination, and he accepted the little cube with what seemed like reverent care.

Lily was staring at him curiously. She asked: "Not going to read your mail?"

He juggled the messenger indecisively for just a moment, then muttered: "It can wait." A moment later it had been stuffed away in a deep pocket of his suit.

Once a red alert had been called, standing orders and regulations forbade anyone, including Space Force officers, from trying to keep any ship on the ground. Even Rovaki would not dare detain a capable pilot like Harry on mere suspicion, certainly not when it was a question of getting a ship up and into space. Instead, they would be working hard to get every vessel and its crew off world, where they could either fight the enemy or try to get away.

General Pike was as eager as Harry to get into action. He was now recalling his single scoutship to the spaceport, so he could get aboard and lift off.

Just as Harry was about to leave the half-track, a message came in, relayed to the mobile vehicle through Templar headquarters. It was from Commandant Rovaki, who was out in space himself.

Rovaki's original query was some routine question about how the patrol duties in space were going to be shared - the Space Force had more ships available than Pike. But when he was informed that the Witch would soon be lifting off, the commandant made it clear that he was still very suspicious of Harry Silver. He informed General Pike that his agents had discovered some evidence suggesting that the original alert had been a fake, and Rovaki hoped to connect that fake with some elaborate smuggling scheme. Of course, there was no question now, with fighting actually in progress, of aborting the alert. But there was also some criminal plan afoot, and the commandant had no doubt that Harry Silver would be found deeply involved in anything of that kind taking place on Maracanda.

General Pike seemed momentarily stuck for a reply. Harry leaned forward a little in his chair, letting Rovaki get a look at him. "I'm shocked to hear it," Harry said. "Deeply shocked. That man is a friend of mine."

On discovering Harry's presence in the vehicle, Rovaki glared at him. "I'm not through with you, Silver. As soon as this is over, I'll want to see you in my office."

"Not as much as I'll want to see you."

The image on the small screen blinked beneath its silvery eyebrows. "What?"

"Rovaki, we're berserker-scuffling now. You don't know how deliriously happy I'll be, when this is over, if I can still see anything."

As soon as Harry got the chance, he wolfed down a few more mouthfuls of Pike's field rations, thanked the general for effectively keeping the other authorities off his back, and announced that he had to be on his way.

Pike gave Harry and Lily his blessing.

When Harry climbed out of the half-track, thinking yearningly of how good a real drink would taste right now, he discovered a pair of suited figures waiting for him, two people carrying carbines and clad in heavy Templar armor.

Harry stared with disapproval at the hulking pair. For a moment the suspicion flashed across his mind that Pike was about to have him arrested after all. "What's this?"

The general's head protruded from the half-track hatch. "A couple of men I'm sending with you, laddie. They just arrived on world shortly before the alert and have no battle stations assigned as yet. Wish I could go with you myself, but that's out of the question."

The pair of newcomers, having saluted the general, were leaning forward slightly, obviously ready, or thought they were, for whatever test the enemy might be about to throw at them.

In a moment Pike had performed introductions, accomplishing the whole job in about a dozen words.

Corporal Teagarden looked a couple of years older than his subordinate; the younger man, Private Zhong, gave the impression of being even more gung-ho than his partner. His clear blue eyes were flashing with excitement.

Harry asked: "Have either of you been at this kind of thing very long?"

Private Zhong was ready to answer that one. "We just finished Tactical Training, mister. We're ready. All you have to do is get us there."

"I'll do my best."

The ride to the field, in one of the general's groundcars, was swiftly accomplished. Sitting beside Lily in the car, Harry told her: "Last chance to back out of this, kid. Once you plunk your bottom down in that copilot's chair, you're signed on for this next mission."

"When I want to back out, Harry, I'll let you know." She was smiling at him, a little. She looked ready.

"Good." He found her hand and gripped it briefly. "Another pilot will definitely be good to have, because I don't know what we're getting into. But I wanted to make sure you had the chance."

A very few minutes later, Harry, with Lily still at his side and the two armored Templars almost treading on their heels, was striding up the ramp leading to the Witch's main hatch.

He was telling her: "Soon as we're aboard, you put on some coveralls and then a spacesuit, while the Witch and I run a checklist and get us moving. I'll be getting my suit on later. That'll be a bit of a special project."

Pointing to the sealed hatch, Harry issued another order: "Corporal, you've got some hands on. Get that bubble gum off my ship."

The seal was made in jarring colors, like a plague warning, and was almost a full meter square. At the first touch of Teagar-den's armored fingers, a recorded warning coded in its substance shouted out a stern command to desist. At the first real tear in the gooey inner material, there burst forth a loud discordant squawk of official outrage, followed by threats of retribution. Their volume faded swiftly as the corporal flung the fragments away into the night. Zhong and Teagarden exchanged faint smiles, quietly appreciating this defiance of the rival authority.

An ugly stain persisted on the hull where Rovaki's chemicals had been, and the sight of the blemish made Harry use foul language.

Harry was weary already, in a way that went deeper than pills were likely to help. He thought what he needed was a good fight, just to get some of the anger out of his system, and then about a day of sleep. Just looking at the pair of Templars as they marched aboard his ship, to stand expectantly in the control room, made him feel worse. They seemed to radiate an innocent enthusiasm that could wear him out as fast as gamma radiation.

The corporal in turn was looking appraisingly at Harry. "Any combat experience, Mr. Silver?" The question seemed to be asked in perfect innocence.

Lily uttered a small noise, as if suppressing a sneeze.

Harry grunted, a kind of wavering sound. By all the gods, the pair in their fancy armor appeared younger every time he looked at them.

He couldn't come up with any response that seemed appropriate. But at last he got out: "Let's just say I'm a tired old man. But I'm also the captain of this ship. So don't irritate me."

The young faces inside the helmets both looked faintly disappointed.