“The answer to your question, Captain, is that we have agreed to represent the neutral alliance in the festbid for this ‘special’ weapon my cousin has procured.

  “But why?” Lucky asked. “Why in the voids of space would you want anything to do with something like that?” He felt Marsha squeeze his hand slightly and knew she supported his persistence.

  “Because, my dear partner, if we gain control of this weapon, then neither the Ukas nor Sondak can use it against one another nor could they use it against us or –“

  “But doesn’t that mean the alliance won’t be any better-”

  “Please, be patient and let me finish. As I was trying to say, if we possess the weapon, we can destroy it. Then it will never be used against anyone.”

  Lucky shook his head. “I still don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I,” Marsha added, “and I saw the damned thing and the scientist who supposedly invented it and-”

  She cut herself off from adding Inspector Janette to that list.

  Janette had wanted the weapon enough to steal Graycloud to get it. “What makes it so special, anyway?”

  “Xindella did not tell you, then?”

  “Would I be asking if your arrogant cousin had told me?”

  “Easy, Mars,” Lucky said softly.

  She gave him a half smile, and then looked back at Delightful Childe. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I can’t see why this weapon is so important.”

  Delightful Childe’s proboscis fluttered in a rumbling sigh. “If my cousin is to be believed, this weapon, when completed, would be capable of destroying a star from as far away as eight or ten parsecs.”

  “Impossible,” Lucky said. “It would have to violate the laws of physics to do that.”

  “Oh?” Delightful Childe cocked a ridge of wrinkled skin over one eye. “Have you become a physicist, now? Do you know how this weapon functions?”

  “No, but...”

  “Neither do I, Captain. However, neither is I willing to take a chance that the Ukas might get their hands on it and find some way to make it work. That is why the alliance is willing to outbid the Ukas and Sondak, regardless of the expense, because that is the only guarantee we obtain for our own safety.”

  “Tensheiss,” Lucky cursed, “there has to be some other way.”

  Delightful Childe looked carefully at Teeman. “We are open to all suggestions,” he said finally, afraid to acknowledge any stirring of hope. He and the council had discussed this through endless meetings with no other realistic alternative being presented by anyone.

  “I don’t know,” Lucky admitted, yet he knew there was something wrong with this approach, something that was biting at the back of his brain. “But I’m sure not ready to give in to this idea just because you Oinaise think-”

  “I do,” Marsha said. “I mean, I have another idea, another way you might solve your problem.” She paused and wondered if they would both think she was crazy – especially lucky.

  “Offer to back the U.C.S. In the bidding – without anyone else knowing, of course,” she added. “Then you can talk them into secretly destroying it. Sondak will think the U.C.S. Still has it and will have to be wary of –“

  “Preposterous,” Delightful Childe huffed. “We would certainly get no guarantees from the Ukas-“

  “Stop,“ Lucky said quickly. Suddenly he knew what had been nagging the shadows of his thoughts. “Marsha’s idea is no more preposterous than your own. If you’re precious neutral alliance wins the festbid and possesses this super weapon why wouldn’t Sondak and the Ukes both turn against you? Then what happens to your guarantee of peace? Since when has possession of a powerful weapon ever guaranteed anyone peace?”

  “An ugly but persuasive argument, Captain. Yet, I do not believe we have a choice. The festbid will be held regardless of whether we choose to participate or not. It still seems that the least risk to the neutral systems would be to possess and destroy the weapon. Perhaps your argument could be countered if there were observers from both human groups present.”

  “I doubt it,” Marsha said before Lucky could reply. “They won’t believe you actually destroyed the real weapon, and as long as there was a mote of doubt in their heads, neither side would take a kindly attitude toward you.”

  “Then perhaps another way can be considered,” Delightful Childe said quietly. “However, it would require your specific involvement, as neither I nor any other Oinaise could take the risk we would ask of you.”

  “And what’s that?” Lucky asked.

  “To steal the device from Xindella before the festbid and destroy it yourselves.”

  Marsha looked at Lucky and saw questions in his eyes, the same doubting questions that were coursing through her own, all surrounding the biggest question of all why should they get involved in this?

  “We would have to think about that,” she said, “and discusses it much more.”

  “Then by all means, do so,” Delightful Childe said. “I excuse you both.” As they left, he prayed for relief from their annoying arguments and wondered what they would finally do. He prayed it was something quiet and unobtrusive and assumed that it would be, because they had no reason to risk their lives stealing the weapon from Xindella. No reason at all.

  3

  THE UKE FIGHTERS CAME STREAMING out of the belly of their launchship as soon as they reached the maximum range. Post-Commander Bacus smiled faintly when they appeared on her screens and sent her own fighters spewing from the Taxco against them.

  It wasn’t her job to wonder why they were probing this uninhabited system or how they had located her ship. It was her job to hold her sector and fight back.

  “They’ve got us outnumbered, Commander,” the Tech Mate said from his coordinating computer.

  “As usual. Issue the order for standard skirmish procedures, Lieutenant Henry. Then notify POLFLEET Headquarters that we have made contact.”

  “Aye-aye, ma’am,” the young lieutenant replied.

  They’re getting younger every year, Bacus thought. And I’m getting older-too old for this kind of action. I should be holding down a desk on a headquarters-ship somewhere, telling others how to do the fighting. If there were a way to-

  “Unidentified targets, high acceleration, one-eighty full astern!” the Tech Mate shouted.

  “Size, type, and range,” Bacus demanded.

  “Too soon to tell, Commander, but they look like hunks!”

  “Full quartering defense!” Nothing scared Bacus like the thought of being pursued by the new Uke hunter-killers. They had blown a ship out from under her at Satterfield, and she dreaded what they could do to her now. She would have to defend Taxco against the hunks’ long-range missiles as well as hold off any Uke fighters that got through to attack the ship itself.

  Commander Bacus had every right to be afraid. Less than ten minutes later the first four hunk missiles were on their way. Taxco’s gunners destroyed three of them, but the fourth missile caught Taxco with a glancing blow by the stern, temporarily knocking out her maneuvering engines.

  After that it became a running fight, with Bacus finally deciding that the only way they would stand a chance was to chase the hunks instead of trying to avoid them. Her change of tactics helped, and it also confused the Uke fighters who broke through Taxco’s defense screen.

  However, by the time the Ukes withdrew their fighters and their hunks thirty hours later, the Taxco had lost ten percent of its fighters, and half the others were crippled. The Taxco itself was seriously damaged but still capable of offering some defense for its sector.

  The only thing that gave Commander Bacus any satisfaction from the whole encounter was that the Ukes had probably lost as many fighters as she had and at least one hunk. That was too little satisfaction as far as Bacus was concerned.

  As much as she hated this duty, she hated not beating the Ukes even more. Someday, she thought, someday, we’re going to beat those homo Communis bastards, and whenever it comes, it won’t be soon enough-not nearly soon enough.

  * * *

  The sun settled through an orange haze into the sea, filling the room with an almost-fluorescent light. It had been on an evening very much like this one when Mica Gilbert had come to Rochmon’s quarters on the day she joined his Cryptography staff.

  Suddenly Rochmon remembered that day with annoying clarity. He had not brought Mica here until later in the evening – after dark – yet his casual memory linked her with the sexual ephemera he had used that afternoon years before. Maybe it was the odor that caused the link – the same heavy odor of sex mixed with the sharp smell of a fading ephemera that laced the room even now to remind him of his major vice.

  Rochmon checked his chronometer and climbed swiftly out of bed. He had more than enough time to shower and dress for the promotion ceremony this evening, but he wanted to be clean now-immediately. And he wanted his room cleansed of the smell that had triggered those memories.

  Mica was out there with Admirals Dimitri and Pajandcan, out where the fighting was going on, out there in danger. She had ignored his message of concern for her and rejected his request that she return. Instead, she had gone straight to her father for permission to stay with Polar Fleet. She was sending him her own message by doing that, yet he refused to accept it. More and more she haunted his thoughts, and worse – or better, he couldn’t decide which – her image appeared with increasing regularity in his erotic dreams.

  Hew Rochmon stood in the shower, letting the sharp sprays of water rinse the sweat from his body, and shook his head. It amazed him when he admitted to himself how much he wanted Mica, how much he needed her, and how much she had become a fixation he couldn’t shake. But what he didn’t know was whether or not he loved her. He wanted to love her. He wanted to allow himself that emotion again. He wanted to let his feelings for her blossom with the wild abandon of unrestrained love. He wanted that and more.

  Yet he couldn’t get any of it. Something inside held him back. The barriers from failed loves and failed marriages kept him constantly in check. The defenses erected after other emotional failures refused to yield simply because he wanted them to. It would take something greater than lust and desire and a need to love and be loved for him to break through those barriers. It would take something far more passionate than that.

  “And the irony is, stupid,” he said aloud as he carefully rinsed the cleanser off his body, “the one thing your defenses will never allow is passion. Too dangerous. Too threatening. Hell, too damn frightening. Might as well save the passion for Cryptography and get Mica out of your mind.”

  In the bedroom his milcom began clinging insistently. Rochmon shut off the water, grabbed a towel, and answered the milcom as quickly as he could. “Rochmon,” he said curtly.

  “Two things, Hew,” Admiral Gilbert’s voice said. “First is that I would like to have you share a drink with me before the ceremony this evening. Second is that I think you should be warned that afterward Stonefield may want to talk to you about Bock. Can you come for the drink?”

  Bock? A drink? “Uh, certainly, sir,” Rochmon finally managed to say. “Will an hour be soon enough?”

  “Fine. See you in one hour in the HQ Senior Wardroom.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Rochmon shut off the milcom and began drying himself automatically. Why would Stonefield want to talk to him about Bock? He hadn’t seen her in over a year, and as much as Cryptography missed her brilliant services, part of him was relieved that he no longer had to endure her acerbic presence. The goldsleeves had never found any evidence to charge her with, and she had quickly found a job with Scientific-Security where at least her talents were being used to some degree. Those two things combined to relieve any lingering guilt he felt for not having defended her more vigorously.

  “Guilty until proven innocent,” he reminded himself as he began to dress. “Both of us, I guess. So what does Stonefield want to talk about?”

  Could they have found some evidence? He doubted it. He had enough contacts in enough places to have gotten at least a whiff of such a discovery. No, it must be something else, but what?

  An hour later, as he joined Admiral Gilbert in the Senior Wardroom, Rochmon had pushed that question temporarily out of his mind and tried to put himself in a brighter mood. After all, it wasn’t every day that he got promoted to Quarter-Admiral.

  “New uniform, Hew?”

  “No, sir,” Rochmon said, accepting the drink Gilbert handed him. “There’s still a materials shortage, so I had the best of my old ones altered. I seem to have lost some weight lately.”

  “Well you certainly look fit enough. Gilbert meant what he said. He was as proud of Hew Rochmon as if he had been his son instead of just his protégé. “Shall we drink to victory?”

  “To victory, sir.” They touched glasses, and Rochmon took a slow sip of the smoke-flavored liquor. Very nice, Sir, he said after the last of the sip dissolved on the back of his tongue. “Very, very nice. What in the galaxy is it?”

  “It’s called Aquamarie. Mica sent me a liter of it from Sutton and she told me to expect only trinkets from her for the next few years because it was so expensive.”

  Mica again. Always Mica. “Maybe I should just soak my tongue in it and absorb it by osmosis.” Rochmon said, swirling the Aquamarie in the glass. “Or maybe just take it in by fumes.”

  Gilbert laughed. “I’m not going to be that stingy with it, Hew. Drink it as you see fit and I’ll gladly pour you another.” Rochmon nodded and emptied the glass into his mouth, letting the delicious flavor soak every taste bud as the exotic fumes filled the back of his nose. Then he slowly swallowed the Aquamarie with a pleased sigh and held out his empty glass.

  “Second and last drink,” Gilbert said as he refilled Rochmon’s glass from the quaint blue bottle. “You’re feeling too good already for any more than that.”

  “I’m trying, sir,” Rochmon said without thinking as he took the refilled glass.

  “Trying? Is there something wrong, Hew?”

  “Not exactly, sir. That is, nothing out of the ordinary. The Ukes have started using their Q-3 code for all their major transmissions, and even though we know how they put their Q-codes together, we’re having a tough time breaking this one.

  Gilbert watched Rochmon’s face. “There’s something else. What is it? Anything I can help with?”

  “Well, sir…” Rochmon hesitated, and then decided that if Gilbert couldn’t help him, no one could. “It’s about Mica, sir. You know how I feel about her – how much I care about her, I mean, and I just wish she were back here, that’s all. Now don’t get me wrong, sir. I’m not suggesting that you call her back or anything like that. It’s just that–“

  “Wouldn’t do any good.” Gilbert laughed, but behind the laugh he felt an uneasiness about what Rochmon had said. “She’s determined to stay out there come hell or black holes.” A soft chime sounded in the Senior Wardroom. “We only have a few minutes left. Shall we finish this drink and go down to get you your gold sleeves?”

  Rochmon sighed, then quickly smiled and lifted his glass. “To Mica, sir.”

  “To Mica,” Gilbert responded. As he downed his Aquamarie, his eyes began to water. Strong stuff, he thought, yet he knew that was only part of the reason for the wetness in his eyes.

  As soon as they finished their drinks, they walked down the ladders of the Hall of Flags. To Rochmon’s surprise, the hall was crowded with senior and junior officers, many of whom signaled thumbs-up as he made his way to the platform.

  The ceremony itself was handled quickly and efficiently by Admiral Stonefield’s staff. First the new officers were awarded their commissions, then the junior officers were given their promotions, then Admiral Stonefield pinned on the ceremonial gold sleeves and the two space-blackened stars that denoted Rochmon’s new rank of Quarter-Admiral.

  The reception following took much longer than the ceremonies themselves. Liquor flowed freely from the bars along the side of the hall, but Rochmon was careful to drink very little.

  After a respectable period of time that allowed Rochmon to accept a series of congratulations, Admiral Stonefield crossed the hall and said, “Admiral Rochmon, may I have a few minutes alone with you?”

  “Of course, sir.” Rochmon followed Stonefield through a side door and into a small, richly furnished meeting room.

  “Please, Hew, sit down,” Stonefield said.

  Rochmon settled himself in one of the padded leather chairs beside a small table in the corner, and held his drink in his lap with both hands. Stonefield remained standing.

  “I won’t beat around the stern tubes, Hew. I’ve been reading your latest reports very carefully, and it seems to me that you’re going to have to break that Q-3 code if we’re going to stay ahead of the Ukes.

  With a nod of his head Rochmon said, “I agree, sir. It’s already becoming their major code.” He hadn’t been prepared to talk about the code, but he was more than willing to agree.

  “Then I think we should recall that Bock person who helped break the Q-Two.”

  “What, sir? I thought – I mean – I’m not sure I understand, sir. You want to bring Bock back to Cryptography?”

  Stonefield stared at him with no emotion showing in his cold, dark eyes. “That’s what I want, Rochmon. You’ll have to keep tight security on her, but I’ve checked around. She’s the best. And Sondak needs her.”

  ”Does that mean you’ve cleared her of the spying charge?”

  “No Rochmon, it doesn’t. As far as I’m concerned, she’s a threat, but if she’s as good as everyone claims then use her.”

  Rochmon stood up slowly. He didn’t know if he liked this or not, but from the angry undertone in Stonefield’s voice and the look on his face, Rochmon knew better than to pursue the subject any further. “I’ll make good use of her, Sir” he said quietly.

  “You do that, Admiral. You do that. Now, go enjoy the reception.”

  Rochmon left the room and rejoined the reception, but after all that had happened that day, there was no way for him to really enjoy it.

 

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