Chapter 12 FINAL BATTLE

Gerald Phist was an honest man; he followed the directive to the letter. He proceeded to an efficient reorganization of all properties of the Task Force, preparatory to the voyage back to Jupiter, and disposed of all non-Navy equipment. We were permitted to monitor these preparations on the interfleet video system, since the directive covered only what we were allowed to communicate out, not what we received. Thus we knew what was going on without in any way affecting it.

Mondy and Emerald were allowed to visit me at will, and Spirit and Repro, for all were under similar arrest. Our section of the ship was simply cordoned off, and only service personnel on specific business were permitted to enter.

Phist himself stayed clear, not even communicating with us; in no way could he be said to be in violation of any aspect whatever of the letter or spirit of the directive.

Rue, interned with us, seethed. "The bastard's mutinied!" she exclaimed. "He's taken over your command!"

"Commander Phist is a good man and a fine officer," I said. "He is doing his duty, nothing else, as he always has, regardless of personal considerations. I can't fault him."

"But he's torpedoing the whole mission! The Samoans will take over!"

Mondy smiled. On this occasion we were all seated around my chamber, which, as the Captain's quarters, was the largest and best furnished. "May I, sir?"

"By all means, Peat Bog," I agreed.

"Perhaps you have not paid proper attention to the incoming data, Roulette,"

he said. "It tells a story of probable success despite adversity."

"All I've seen are ships being mothballed and our plunder ditched," she said.

"The Jupiter Navy does not plunder," Mondy said. "The pirate ships we captured and recommissioned are being sold to the highest bidder, in accordance with regulations. The proceeds will be used to liquidate all outstanding Navy debts in this region."

"What about all the money you borrowed from my father to buy supplies?" she demanded.

"Precisely. That debt is in the process of being settled."

"And who the hell is buying these ships?" she continued. "Those aren't just scrap metal, you know! Those are functioning carriers and cruisers and destroyers; in fact, they now amount to more than half the fleet! Any pirate who gets hold of those ships can dominate the Belt, or whatever part of it the Samoans don't take over." She paused, alarmed at her own assessment. "Who is buying those ships?" she repeated.

"Your father."

That stopped her for a moment. "What does he want with a battle fleet? All he wants is a legitimate gambling empire."

"I believe he plans to engage the Samoans," Mondy said , innocently.

"He can't! They have more hardware. The full Task Force could have tromped them, but not half of it, with no Navy crews and no genius strategy. It'll be suicide!"

"Those ships do have crews," Mondy said mildly. "The pirates who have joined us have been released, as there is no future for them at Jupiter, and they are not prisoners. There is no longer an alliance between the Navy and the Solomons band, so their allegiance devolves on Straight, the dominant pirate leader."

"No alliance? My father's a pirate, but he keeps his word!"

"He kept it," Mondy said. "The Navy broke off the alliance, with Captain Hubris's deposition and the voiding of your marriage."

"There's no voiding! I never agreed to that!"

"But you did relay Captain Hubris's message to your father."

"Yes. But my father knew that wasn't real." "Why not?" Mondy asked, knowing the answer. She touched her cheek, which showed a bruise. "Because Hope hit me. Hard enough to show. He never did that before, not since the wedding. My father saw that mark."

"And so your father knew that the Captain still laid claim to you," Mondy said. "Yet his message was that the marriage was voided. Didn't that seem strange to you?"

"It meant he still wants me as a concubine," Rue said, her lower lip trembling. "I'll settle for that."

I started to speak, but Mondy wasn't finished. "But without formal marriage,"

he pointed out, "the alliance between your two groups has no basis. Straight's on his own now, owing nothing to the Navy."

"And he's fool enough to fight the Samoans for you!" "You misunderstand,"

Spirit said. "That mark on your face belied the captain's words. Officially he was terminating the alliance, but in reality he was continuing it. That's why your father is acting. He knows he must do what the Navy will not do, and that we are backing him in the manner we are able."

Rue nodded, brightening. "Still, my father doesn't have to-"

"Well, it is a question who will be the dominant power in the Belt, once the Navy presence is vacated," Mondy said. "Evidently Straight prefers to assume that mantel himself. It does seem reasonable in the circumstance."

"But he can't take Samoa! Not without her." She gestured to Emerald. "You know she's the reason the Navy has been so successful in the Belt."

"One of the reasons," Mondy agreed. "I could be inclined to give credit also to the accurate intelligence provided by my department, the superior logistical performance of Commander Phist, and the inspiring leadership of Captain Hubris."

"But my father has none of that! He doesn't even have me to command his fleet!

He's a gambler, not a warrior!"

"Well, he may have some of it. It seems that the civilian employee Isobel Brinker elected to take employment with Straight, rather than remain as a clerk in the Navy; I gather he offered her command of a cruiser. She happened to have in her possession a dossier I had prepared on the Samoan pirates, including the most recent and accurate intelligence estimates of their strength and dispositions, and a tentative plan of battle worked out by my wife-"

Rue stared at him. "You slimy dog!" she exclaimed admiringly. "You could be hung for that!"

"I really don't know how she got hold of that dossier," Mondy said innocently.

"It was securely locked in my file."

"She's a pirate! She knows how to get into a locked file!"

"So it seems. I shall, of course, accept responsibility for the oversight; no doubt I shall receive a stern reprimand." He shrugged. "But it was a standard Navy security file cabinet, and the material was not relevant to Naval interests following Captain Hubris's deposition, since we have no intention of engaging the Samoans, so I doubt there will be very much of an issue made. In any event, it is useless to bemoan the loss now; the damage is done." Somehow Mondy did not look regretful.

Roulette's brow wrinkled. "How could all this just happen so fast, with no meeting or discussion? How could my father know? I didn't tell him! I had no inkling!"

Mondy spread his hands deprecatingly. "A smart commander prepares contingency plans, in case of surprise developments. In the course of exchanging information, in order to ensure proper liaison between our fleets, I may have mentioned something about surprises. Casually, of course; it would not have been my place to make any official statements. But I believe it is generally known that on occasion there are unforeseen consequences for the proper performance of one's job, as was the case with Commander Phist some years back, and Sergeant Smith." His lips quirked wryly.

"You told my father the Navy would bust my husband for doing his job?"

"Naturally not! I merely reminisced about past events. I have had a certain experience with the ways of the Navy.

Your father is an intelligent man, master of the finesse. Possibly he drew a conclusion that should have seemed unwarranted at the time. Certainly I am paranoid about things that no longer exist. I even dream about them."

"I always wonder what Rising Moon saw in you," Rue said. "Why she holds your hand at night. I'm beginning to get a glimmer. You have an obscenely suspicious mind."

Emerald took Mondy's hand. "Isn't it awful!"

"But Commander Phist-he doesn't know? He's not stupid-"

"There is nothing stupid about Old King Cole," I said. "He knows what's going on. He is simply following the letter of the law, as he always has."

"But he could scotch this transfer of ships and personnel and information anytime!" she said.

"He has not been directed to do so. He has been directed to reorganize the Task Force for prompt return to Jupiter, purging it of foreign elements. I'm afraid you have lost Shrapnel, Rue; he'll probably command a ship for your father."

"Shrapnel," she murmured. "I wonder what his song was?" Then she reverted to the more vital matter. "But Phist knows what's happening! All he has to do is tell Jupiter-"

"To blow the whistle?" Spirit asked. We all laughed.

"What would he tell them?" I asked after a moment. "About conjectures?

Hearsay? Paranoia? Scuttlebutt?" I shook my head. "He would not stoop to that sort of thing. The admirals back home are not interested in sordid pirate gossip."

Rue nodded. "I guess Phist is more man than I figured, too. He's making it all work out right."

"A man can be honest and gentle," Spirit said, "and still be worthwhile. I married him for other reasons, but I would have chosen him for love, had I known."

Rue pondered, considering that. She had been learning a lot about gentle men recently. Then her gaze turned on me. "What will become of you, Hope?"

"I'll be court-martialed," I said. "The responsibility is mine; my officers simply obeyed my orders. They are clean, but there's not much question of my guilt. This has been a remarkably un-Navy campaign."

"But you didn't do it! You're a figurehead!"

"All was done in my name. I take the credit-and the blame. I would not have it otherwise. The record shows that I have indeed pursued my mission beyond my authority and did indeed flee before the enemy for six days-"

"But that was strategic!" she protested. "And you turned around and destroyed them when a conventional approach would have decimated your forces!"

"But it looks like cowardice, and that is bad for the Navy image. Appearance is more important than reality at times. And I have certainly consorted with pirates."

"Such as my father-and me."

"I'm afraid so. So I will be found guilty of at least one count and probably stripped of my commission, or at least be reduced in rank."

"But you've done everything they wanted! You wiped out the pirates of the Belt with few losses, and freed the base-"

"Captain Hubris has done more than they wanted," Mondy said. "There's the key."

The key. That reminded me of the one I carried, that QYV still wanted.

"But if they didn't really want the Belt cleaned up, why did they send him?"

Roulette was still having trouble with the background.

"They thought he would fail," Mondy explained. "As he would have, had he insisted on planning strategy himself, as most commanders do. Hope has no special talent for that. He is intelligent and motivated, and his men are devoted to him-I'm sure Sergeant Smith has his hands full, now, keeping them in line-but he is no strategist."

"But-"

"But the salient quality he does have does not show well on the standard tests," Mondy continued. "Hope is a born leader, not by rhetoric or force of personality or ruthless application of power, but by his inordinate talent to grasp the true nature of men and thereby to inspire their loyalty.

Thus he lacks the overt abilities of a conqueror but has established those abilities in his staff."

"He hasn't shown much understanding of me!"

Emerald laughed. "His talent fails when his emotion gets in the way. I was always able to fool him."

Rue's eyes narrowed, then relaxed. "I told him I hated him-"

"And he believed you," Emerald said, nodding knowingly. It was as if I wasn't there.

"My father had it figured," Rue said. "He had Hope picked out for me from the moment the fleet set out from Jupiter. God, I was angry!"

"Your father sought the best possible match for you," Mondy agreed. "He knew you would submit to no ordinary man either in body or emotion, but Hope has the ability to-"

"To conquer unruly women," Rue concluded, glancing at Emerald. "But I still don't see why Jupiter wanted the mission to fail. First they sent a man they thought couldn't do the job. When he started doing it, they cut off his supplies. When he fled before the enemy, they let him be. But when he turned about and beat the pirates, they deposed him-right before final success. Why?"

"They had to act when they did," Mondy said. "The other pirates are expendable, but the Samoans control the drug trade."

"Which is why they must be destroyed," Repro put in. "The drug trade is more insidious and damaging to our society than piracy itself. It does to the society what the drug does to me."

Now Rue focused on Repro. "My father said if he had wanted to destroy the true threat to piracy in the Belt, he'd have sent an assassin after you. But you're the least effective officer in this bunch! You're slowly dying!" "True," Repro agreed. "I'm only a dreamer." "Whose dream almost came true," I murmured. "I still don't get it," Roulette said. "Why does Jupiter want the drug trade to continue?"

"You see, many legitimate elements of the Jupiter society use those illegal drugs," Mondy said. "They can't afford to have their major source of supply cut off. So while public pressure required that the Marianas be punished for stepping on our base, it was never intended that piracy itself-particularly the Samoans-be extirpated from the Belt. Had Hope gone straight to the Marianas and liberated the base, or had he bungled the job, all would have been well. But when he forced their hand by succeeding too well, the powers that be acted."

"Seems to me there are worse pirates in Jupiter than in the Belt," Rue muttered darkly, and I was surprised to see the others nod agreement. "But now my father will do the job, anyway. He has no truck with drugs."

"So it seems," Mondy agreed. "The Jupiter authorities will be furious, but fortunately our fleet will be safely out of it before the final battle occurs.

They will not be able to blame us for that."

"They'll try, though!" she said. "They'll crucify Hope!"

Mondy shrugged. "Hope always knew that-as did we all, including Phist. Phist more than any of us! Now it is Hope Hubris's turn, and Phist, ironically, will achieve honor for delivering Hope into their hands."

"And so Hope tried to void our marriage before he got canned."

"He gave you that last chance, knowing you would have been better off with your father, in the Belt, though he knew we still needed you for the alliance."

Rue turned to me. "Hope, I have a gift for you."

Mondy stood up. "We'll be leaving now."

"No!" Rue said sharply. "All of you were witnesses to my rape; you must be witness to this, too."

Mondy sat down again. "None of us liked what we had to do then. We are not of your culture."

"But I am joining yours." Rue took my hands in hers. "For you, Hope. My tears."

I was startled. "Your what? You never cry, Rue-" Actually, I had felt her tears during the wedding rape, but those had been of frustration, not grief or love.

"I never had reason before." Already they were starting, brimming at her beautiful eyes as if the tide had risen in her body, overflowing to her cheeks, and down to her mouth and chin.

"I don't understand," I said, hesitating to take her into my arms; she was not necessarily partial to open gestures of affection. "I haven't really voided our relationship; I'll never do that without your consent."

"You raped me and won my body," she said through her tears. "But you never conquered me. I swore no man would do that. I knew I could take or leave any man, and never love him. But you-"

Now I took her in my arms. "I never required your love, Rue."

"Well, you got it." And she sobbed into my shoulder. "You tamed the shrew, you monster."

Mondy stood again. "Congratulations," he said to us both, and led the way out.

Yes, we made love, and she was able to respond without even token violence. I would never have to hit her again. She had indeed given me a rare gift.

Yet what would I have for her when I was stripped of my rank and perhaps my freedom? She still would be better off returning to the Belt. But she could not-and I knew that if she could, she would not. The loyalty of a pantheress is not easy to obtain-or to end.

We were well on our way back to Jupiter when the final battle was fought. We were able to follow it only approximately, by monitoring erratic news reports from the Belt. I reconstruct here in minutes what we learned piecemeal in the course of many hours. The rest of us had no notion of Emerald's strategy, and she refused to tell; she wanted it to be a surprise. Well, it was certainly an adequate distraction for the occasion.

The fleet of Samoa was ensconced within the shelter of a great, curving, cup-shaped cloud of debris from a defunct comet or fragment of an ancient supernova. They had mined the cloud, using a camouflaged variety of mine that looked exactly like space refuse; it was impossible to tell with the equipment available in the field which chunks of rock were natural and which were mines.

Any ship attempting to pass through this region would contact a mine; if the explosion did not hole it, the attention attracted by the detonation would set it up for a shot from the battleship at the fringe of the cloud. A ship inside the cloud would be practically invisible; the dust and debris interfered with radar. But an explosion emitted radiation that penetrated the rocks and was readily detectable from nearby. Thus the cloud was considered impassable, and the ships in the cup were secure from any flank or rear attack.

With that protection, the Samoans needed only to cover the region of space in front of their fleet. It was like the pincushion defense without any planetoid for the pins to anchor to; thus it was more versatile. Since this was the only feasible channel through the Belt leading to their main base, they seemed secure. The Solomons fleet could not occupy the Samoan base without traveling this channel, and the cloud-backed Samoan fleet guarded it. But the Solomons could not afford to ignore the base; Samoa was far from the Solomons' home region, and the moment Straight departed for home, as he had to do before long, the Samoans would come out and take over whatever they wanted. More frustrating to us, they would continue their drug trade, the worst of the pirate activities in the Belt.

Oh, I realize that some people would question that, suggesting that the slave trade was worse. But slavery was limited, with very specialized markets, while drugs penetrated to the heart of the leading governments of the Solar System, corrupting them-as our present situation showed. The power of the drug trade was much greater than showed in the Belt; the Samoans were only the visible projection of it. Only now was I coming to appreciate the sinister magnitude of that business. Even the Jupiter Navy danced to its tune!

So now we watched, hoping Straight could do what we could not. Oh, there would be an outcry in private circles if he managed it, but what could they do?

Court-martial him? He was technically a pirate, beyond their jurisdiction. No, they would have to deal with him, his way; a new power was forming in the Belt. Straight would probably obtain the legitimacy he craved. Provided he took out Samoa.

Would Emerald's strategy work without Emerald there to oversee it? A battle was not something one set up and let fall, like a row of dominoes; proper implementation was critical. Could Straight provide the proper tactics? I was not at all easy.

The Solomons fleet came straight down the channel, decelerated, and drifted just beyond combat range. It seemed that Straight was hoping the Samoans would come forward to fight, deserting their cloud-cup rear protection. That, of course, was foolish. The Samoans had an excellent defensive position, their guns covering the full breadth of the channel, and they were surely stocked for a siege. Straight, with his makeshift fleet and skeletal crews, could not wait them out; he had to win quickly, or give it up. He could not even restock at the Jupiter base, for the alliance was off and the commander there was no longer permitted to associate with pirates.

There they waited for a day in seeming indecision. Straight made some feints, but these were unsuccessful. The Samoans, though their fleet was as strong as Straight's, were too canny to budge. They were forcing him to attack their prepared position and suffer ruinous losses, or to retreat and suffer similarly.

Then news of another fleet came. The remnants of the other pirate bands were sending their ships to support the Samoans, and in two days these would come down the channel behind the Solomons' fleet. That was trouble indeed; Straight would have to commence withdrawal immediately if he was to avoid being caught in the middle. Obviously things had started to go wrong the moment Emerald was disassociated from the effort.

Our fleet's night came, and I slept, holding Rue's hand. I still had much joy in her final gift to me-the gift of her tears, her unrestrained emotion-but I feared for her father, and for her if she lost him to battle just when she was losing me to Navy discipline. She had given herself at last , to me, but. at what cost to herself and her band?

I dreamed, in that special fashion I sometimes do when under stress. Rue and I were in space, in the Belt-an impossibly crowded section. We were perched on boulders, carrying pugil sticks. All around us were other members of our crew, each person riding a rock and bearing a pugil stick. Sergeant Smith, and Shrapnel, and Juana, and Brinker, and all the other Hispanics and Saxons and just plain, good people. We waved cheerily to each other, but no one deserted his rock.

Then something floated toward us, huge and cylindrical. It was a spaceship-a cruiser! There is no good reason for spaceships to be rounded or cylindrical, apart from the convenience of construction, since there is no atmospheric friction in space, but the Navy somehow never felt free to deviate far from the streamlined form. The cruiser nudged so close to my rock I could touch it, and, indeed, I did touch it, reaching out with the padded end of my pugil stick to shove the huge hull away. Of course, the mass of the cruiser was much greater than mine, even including the rock I perched on and braced against; all I accomplished was to shove my platform away. I retreated from the cruiser, waving my stick, and now I saw that on the hull were hundreds of other people, each with a similar stick, and all of them waved cheerily back at me. We seemed to be having one big, crazy party in space, the rockworms and the hullnuts pushing each other away. Odd game!

But now I was drifting away also from Rue. She stood on her stone, gesturing helplessly, proffering respect and love but unable to reach me or draw me back. I knew, with the certainty that only a dream provides, that neither of us could leave our rocks, lest some horrendous disaster occur. We were bound to go with our pieces of real estate, wherever that might be.

"Rue!" I cried.

"Hope!" she cried back. The vacuum of space was all about us, yet our voices carried.

"I'm worried about you!" I called.

"My garden is waste!" she replied.

"Thank you for your tears!" I cried. But our boulders were rotating, and hers had turned to face her away from me, or maybe mine had spun, and we were lost to each other. And now I cried, inheriting her tears.

I woke, and she woke, and we hugged each other. We were together after all!

But still I felt the premonition of the dream, and the chill of outer space seeped through my bones. This lovely girl, not yet out of her teens, would surely be lost to me, and I could do nothing to prevent it. There was a knock.

I recognized the touch of my sister and called her in. "It's happening," she said. "Turn on your vid." But she did it for me, then sat down on the edge of the bunk. There was plenty of room, this being the outsize nuptial bed. Now it reminded me of a space boulder. A Jupiter-Network news spot was in progress.

Of course, reception was poor, this being several light-minutes distant from the source, but we were used to that. ". . . activity behind the Samoan battleship," the announcer was saying.

Emerald arrived. "Hear that, Worry? They did it!" "Did what?" Rue demanded, not bothering to cover herself.

"Sneaked through that cloud with a cruiser," Emerald explained. "Fired point-blank into the Samoan battleship, taking it out. Now the cruiser commands the field. Those lesser Samoan ships are pointed the wrong way; they're sitting ducks!"

"Through the cloud?" I asked. "Your plan, did it include setting men on space boulders with pugil sticks?" "Oh, you found out!" she said, annoyed. "I think I was there," I said. "Where?" Rue asked. "You were there, too."

"That's nice. Does this mean my father's all right?" "He's in control,"

Emerald assured her. "My plan was to infiltrate the mined cloud by moving very slowly, matching the velocity of its internal currents and posting men on every rock in the path of the ship. It didn't matter whether any given rock was natural or a mine; none were allowed to touch. So the cruiser did what the enemy thought was impossible: It ambushed their battleship from behind."

"God, I'm glad to hear that!" Rue said. "But what will the drug merchandisers do now?"

"First they'll have Hope's head," Spirit said, taking my free hand. "Then they'll set about developing other avenues of supply. But it will be much harder for them to operate now."

Rue pulled me back down with her and enfolded my head in a bosomy embrace.

"They can't have his head," she said. "It's mine!"

I liked this new mannerism of hers very well. But I suspected the colder vision of my dreams was closer to reality. Powerful external forces were bearing us apart, and we could not resist them.

Commander Phist brought the fleet safely back to the Jupiter System and duly turned us all over to the military authorities. It was a measure of his integrity that he had never met privately with Spirit since the directive came, though she was his wife and he loved her. In this respect his ordeal was harsher than ours, but it would have been an abuse of his position to socialize with any of those who were under arrest, and this he would not do.

We were separately interned; there was no more camaraderie in captivity. I had a good month in virtual solitary confinement while they prepared their case against me. Here I was denied access to external news, and that was almost as painful as the separation from my staff and friends.

I put that time to use: I commenced writing this narrative of my military career. There is nothing like solitary confinement to sharpen one's appreciation for past experience! I have written this in Spanish, to refresh my skill in my native language and to protect its privacy at least somewhat from my English-speaking jailors. They don't care what I do, but they do peer over my shoulder, As it were.

I fear I have focused too much on personal aspects, neglecting the technical ones, but in this time of isolation and loneliness, it is these personal experiences that assume the greatest meaning. The officers of the prosecution will surely be assembling many volumes of technical data; I cannot do better than they in that respect. But when I write of Juana, Emerald, and Rue, they seem to be with me again, and I can almost believe that I loved them each.

Yes, surely I did!

Before I completed my narrative, I was interrupted. Without explanation I was conducted to a mortuary section. For a moment I feared I was to be summarily executed without hearing or trial; but, of course, that is not the way the Navy works.

The reality was almost as bad. I was here for the stark private funeral service for Lieutenant Commander Repro, who had suffered a circulatory failure. Ha! I knew what had killed him: deprivation of the drug to which he was addicted. Naturally they had not provided him with it in prison. Whether there was specific malice in this I cannot be sure, but they must have realized that he, more than any other person, was responsible for the campaign that cut off the major source of supply for most of the illicit drugs, and there were those in the anonymous echelons who were angry and perhaps hurting privately. The fact that Repro had been slowly dying, anyway, did not much alleviate the ugly shock; he had been the guiding genius behind the unit I had formed and commanded. It was his vision, more than my own, that I had implemented. Now Beautiful Dreamer was gone. What was his reward? An anonymous extinction. No mention was made in the spoken service of his addiction, for theoretically no officer of the Jupiter Navy indulged in drugs. At least they had had the grace to see him out with the honor befitting his rank. Poor Repro! He had wrought so well, from the depths of his own captivity by the drug, and had so effectively struck back at it. He had had the immense courage to dream and to shape reality to that dream, all the while slowly dying. He was truly a great man, doomed to be unrecognized for his most singular accomplishment.

The other officers of my staff were there. I stood beside them for the somber service, glad for their company, sad that this had to be the occasion for it.

I knew they shared my emotion, and that they were crying, too.

Afterward, we were permitted a brief grace period of reacquaintance. First to come to me was Captain Phist, at long last promoted for his sterling service to the Navy, who had the privilege of rank, though he seemed almost ashamed of it. Gravely he shook my hand. "Your work will continue, sir," he said. "And his." His eyes flicked toward the coffin. "If we can just preserve the liaison with Straight, on whatever basis ..."

Yes-here was an important element. Straight now controlled the Belt, and if Phist retained command of the unit, as seemed to be the case, he could preserve what remained of our nucleus unit and hold the loyal lower officers and enlisted men. He was not Hispanic, but they knew him and trusted him, knowing that he had done what he had done because he had had to. But only my marriage to Straight's daughter had secured our uncertain and unwritten treaty of alliance; without that, the cooperation would be lost. I knew, now, that the Navy would never let me resume command, of this unit or anything. The Navy never forgave a transgression of this nature. Only Phist, who had obeyed their directive so perfectly, could retain his power. How could he relate to Straight?

Next came Mondy. "But there is a way," he murmured as if reading my thoughts.

"You know they will never let your sister return, any more than you, sir. So Phist loses his wife, too. He loves her, but he is a realist. If Rue is willing . . ."

I understood him. Trust Mondy to see the vital connection!

Roulette came next, her eyes brimming with those tears she reserved for me.

"They are making you the scapegoat this time, Hope," she said. "Everyone else gets off, except The Dear, if you-"

"Yes, of course," I agreed gently. "My sister and I are finished in the Navy.

But you need not be. Rue, for the sake of the unit and the mission, will you let Old King Cole tend the garden?" Naturally the Navy guards did not grasp the significance of what I was saying; our songs became our code.

She looked startled. "Him? After what he-?"

"He obeyed orders," I reminded her. "By so doing, he made it possible to complete our mission, help your father, and preserve the unit. King Cole had loved The Dear, he could love the Ravished. If your father accedes to the connection-"

Her chin lifted. "Yes, of course. Now I understand. I will . . . facilitate the alliance. But I won't cry for Cole."

"Don't expect him to lay waste the garden, either," I said. "He is a gentle man."

She smiled wanly. "I know the type. Don't worry, Hope; you tamed me. I can play the game. I will serve the post."

"Thank you. I believe you will find the game worthwhile, for yourself and your father. You are the only way this alliance can be held. I wish I could have been the one . . ."

Her tears began to spill. Slowly I leaned toward her, and we kissed a chaste kiss. That was all we could get away with here.

Before we separated, she whispered: "Hope, would you- would you-one last time?"

I glanced around. The guards weren't watching us at the moment. I brought my right fist up in a short, concealed uppercut and clipped her on the chin.

Somehow she bit her lip in the process, and blood welled out. She backed away, her eyes shining with more than tears.

Emerald came up, blocking the view of the nearest guard who had thought he had seen something. "That was a nice thing you did, Hope," she murmured.

"She won't cry for any other man," I said. "I won't strike any other woman."

No one outside this unit would grasp the significance. If I had tamed Rue, she had taught me her way, too.

"Your tactical position is better than you might think, sir," Emerald continued. "The news had been full of the Hero of the Belt, the Hispanic Scourge of Piracy. The Navy has been stalling, waiting to bring you to trial until the notoriety dies down; they don't want to make a martyr of you. But it hasn't died down; you're becoming a cult figure. In fact, there are growing rumblings about their failure to give you a medal and promote you to admiral."

"Admiral!" I stifled a laugh.

"Just don't give in, Hope; you can win the final battle."

I hadn't thought of it as a battle, but perhaps it was. "Thanks, Rising Moon,"

I said with feeling.

"And I bring a message from Used Maiden," she said. She took my head in both hands, set her mouth against mine, and gave me a kiss that sent me right back to that first session in the Tail. That was from Juana, all right, who was not privileged to attend this officer's funeral. Sweet Juana!

Last came Spirit, who had just completed an impassioned parting with Captain Phist, the severance of their marriage. I held her and she held me, and we did not speak.

As I started back to my cell, an anonymous officer gave me a box. "The Deceased bequeathed this to you," he said curtly.

Back in my cell, I opened the box. It was the structure with the five steel balls. I put my head down and cried.

In due course I resumed my narrative manuscript, feeling somewhat better.

Between bouts of writing I knocked the balls about, grateful to Beautiful Dreamer for this remembrance. He had made of his life a better thing than others knew. He had understood force and counterforce.

Perhaps a week later I had a visitor: Reba Ward of QYV. "The forces are finely balanced at the moment, Captain," she said, setting on the table a device I knew was there to guarantee security from electronic surveillance. "A small nudge at the correct nexus can change history. Will you deal now?"

"You!" I exclaimed with angry revelation. "You had me deposed and recalled, just when victory was at hand!"

She shook her head in negation. "A natural suspicion, Hubris, but unfounded.

We oppose the drug trade as strongly as you do."

"You tried to addict me!"

"I do not condone my predecessor's acts. The end does not justify the means.

Otherwise I would have had your item long ago."

I saw that she was speaking truly. "Kife did not-?"

"We hoped you would succeed. The Navy acceded to our nudge and gave you the command because it thought you would fail. We protected you as long as we could, but in the end your success was too great and we could not act without exposing our interest. But we did do this: We had one of your officers assume the command, instead of the martinet they planned to appoint. That enabled you to do what you did to the Samoans, and to avoid a mutiny by your loyalists."

Still she spoke truth. QYV was on my side now. "Go on."

"We can't restore your command, but we can engineer a compromise. If you will agree to resign from the Navy, with your sister, with no adverse publicity, you will be granted a medal, full Jupiter citizenship, and a perfect military record. You will retire a documented hero."

I did not quite trust this. "And my unit?"

"Captain Phist will retain command. But there will be no more pirate fighting; he will have a mission elsewhere."

I realized that it would indeed be expecting too much to have my unit returned to the Belt. "And the Solomons?"

"They have delegated the chief's daughter, Roulette Phist, to be liaison to Jupiter. The Navy is interested in peace in the Belt. As long as no outbreaks of violence against Jupiter interests occur, the existing order will not be challenged."

It seemed a fair offer. Slowly I reached down to my left shin, where flesh tape bound the key invisibly. As a ranking officer I had never been subjected to a physical shakedown. I separated the key and handed it to her. The terms of this deal had been set before I went to the Belt; now I had to accept them.

Reba smiled as if this were a routine formality. "When you arrive at Jupiter, our representative will provide you with the background on Megan. She is, at this point, exactly what you need."

"Need for what?"

"To become a politician."

"Why would I want to go into politics?"

"That is the only way to pursue your life mission. We want you to succeed."

So it seemed I had gained an ally in QYV. But I had lost my last physical memento of Helse, my love. That cut me deeply. Yet I knew that loss had been replaced by the prospect of finding new love, in the form of the one woman in the Solar System who could replace the old one. My emotions were mixed.

Editorial Epilogue

This manuscript, unlike the prior one, titled Refugee, survived complete.

Perhaps Hope Hubris intended to write a few more paragraphs, since he never quite caught up to the present tense, but he did not.

As is, of course, well known to history, he did resign from the Navy, together with his sister Spirit, and came to the planet Jupiter as a hero. That is just about the only particular in which the official Navy record of the event coincides with the presentation by this manuscript. Readers are now free to choose which version to credit. Certainly this manuscript helps clarify the passion and determination with which the Tyrant pursued piracy and drug dealing throughout his later career, and the unfailing support he received from the rising echelons of the Jupiter Navy. Probably never in history have these evils been as thoroughly suppressed as during the Tyrancy. But as the following manuscript shows, Hope Hubris had an extraordinary account to settle with these forces.

Note the continuing influence of the Tyrant's sister Spirit. Hope himself was courageous in his dealings with others, whether they were his erring superior officers or fleets of pirates, and he had more personal magnetism than he credits himself with. His men respected him, and his women loved him. But when Spirit was not with him, he had very little initiative; he simply survived, taking things as they came, responding to the passions of the moment. But once he discovered that Spirit was alive, his whole ambition was to recover her.

That, rather than any initial interest in ascending the military ladder, was what caused him to cooperate with Commander Repro's grand design. Once Hope had Spirit, who sometimes seems more like a lover than a sister, he pursued other interests, but she was always there to implement them. She was in many respects the true leader of his outfit, having subtle but enormous power. He gives credit freely to the other officers of his staff, and certainly they deserve it, but it is literally true that he could not have run the unit without Spirit. He needed her, in both the business and emotional senses; she was his better half, the competent reality behind his figurehead. The failure of others properly to appreciate this reality turned out to be critical to the Tyrant's career, as will be seen. It was to Spirit's wordless embrace that Hope went last, at the funeral; no words were needed.

Hope Hubris, at the age of thirty, professed to have only two loves: Helse in the past and Megan in the future-but, in fact, he had one: Spirit in the present.

Hopie Megan Hubris, daughter of the Tyrant

January 4,2671