"I know, sir. That's why I'm going to ask you to contact the thunderheads for me."

His sense was startled, then cautious. "Why me?"

"Because I can't use Shepherd Zagorin." I braced myself; this was likely to be painful. "What do you know about what's happening?"

His forehead furrowed slightly. "The thunderheads are intelligent, with what seems to be a complete society, though we don't yet understand how it works. There's also a fleet of sublight spaceships a little under a light-year from Solitaire and due to reach us in about seventeen years."

"Did you know the Patri is planning to destroy that fleet?"

The skin around his eyes tightened, his sense turning to horror. "God save us all," he murmured. "But... why?"

"Because we're afraid of them," I said simply.

He licked his lips, and I could see him struggling with the enormity of it. "How do they intend to... do it?"

I grimaced. "A hundred ninety-two of Collet's biggest rocheoids are going to be fitted with Mjollnir lacings and tethered to tugboats equipped with Deadman Switches," I told him, my stomach tightening as it always did at the thought of it. "Zombis will be put aboard, and the thunderheads will guide them to points directly in front of each of the ships. Too close, of course, for the aliens to veer or take any kind of countermeasure."

For a long moment Adams was silent. I watched, also in silence, as he slowly forced his horror back. "How will they know how close they'll have to get?" he asked.

I nodded. "The same thought occurred to me. Apparently the thunderheads know more about this than they'll say."

"They know who the Invaders are, then." It wasn't a question.

"I'm certain of it," I agreed. "But they won't tell us anything."

He thought about that. "What is it you want to ask them?"

"I want to know how to communicate with the aliens," I said. "If we can talk to them, maybe we can figure out what's going on here, as well as what side of this confrontation we should be on."

He gazed steadily at me. "And what makes you think there is a side we should be on?"

I blinked, the question catching me off-guard. "We have to take a stand on this somewhere."

"Do we?" he demanded. " 'Blessed are the peacemakers'—or had you forgotten that?"

I clenched my teeth against a rush of anger... anger tinged uncomfortably with guilt. "Are you suggesting I've forgotten the goals of my faith?"

"Have you?" he asked bluntly.

The emphatic denial I'd planned died in my throat. "If eight years in Lord Kelsey-Ramos's business world didn't break me," I ground out, "a couple of months here certainly didn't."

A faint, sad smile touched his lips. "The business world of Lord Kelsey-Ramos is one of the acquisition of money and the stabbing of competitors in the back," he said quietly. "Here, you've been offered a chance to use your talents to explore a part of God's universe. Which world do you think it would be easier for you to fit comfortably into?"

"Neither," I retorted, feeling uncomfortably on the defensive. To even suggest I could be so easily seduced by the secular world was utterly absurd, even insulting. "And anyway, that's beside the point. The point is that unless we can find an alternative, the Pravilo is going to snuff out a great many intelligent lives."

He nodded, but I could see that the issue of my path was merely being shelved, not abandoned. "So why won't they let you talk to the thunderheads?"

With some effort, I forced myself back to business. "They probably would, actually, if that's all I was going to do," I told him. "But I'm going to have to do more than just talk. I'm going to have to reveal to the thunderheads that we know a secret about them."

Adams's frowned. "What kind of secret?"

"One that shows they aren't the poor, picked-on victims they've been pretending to be. That they deliberately drew us to Solitaire system in hopes of embroiling us in this dispute with the aliens."

"Interesting," Adams murmured. He pondered for a moment. "You don't think revealing that will make trouble?"

I shook my head. "The thunderheads almost certainly know by now that we know it. And in the two weeks since Lord Kelsey-Ramos figured it out they haven't shown any signs of being particularly worried." Which, if that was true, meant that its use as a lever might well be vanishingly small. But there was nothing left for me but the grasping of such straws.

For another moment Adams gazed at me, his sense a kaleidoscope of indecision and thought and the weighing of possibilities. Then, abruptly, it cleared; and he nodded briskly. "All right. Are you ready?"

The quickness of the decision surprised me. "Well, yes, but you aren't. We'll need to get some of the drugs they've been using to prepare Shepherd Zagorin."

"And you have access to these drugs?" he asked pointedly.

"I can get them," I insisted. "We can't risk the kind of trouble you had the first time."

"Why not?" he countered. "I lasted several minutes then, and with my rebuilt heart and cerebral circulatory system I shouldn't be in even that much danger this time."

I felt my stomach muscles tightening up. I couldn't ask him to do this—not now, not unprepared. But he was right. The first batch of rocheoids were already being prepared, and the schedule called for the rest to be finished within another month. The longer we delayed, the less likely anything we learned would be able to stop the holocaust. "All right," I sighed at last. "There shouldn't be anyone at the Butte City at the moment."

"I'm glad to hear it," he said dryly. Laying his fork trowel aside, he shifted to cross-legged position and closed his eyes.

I felt a rush of heat to my face, feeling like an idiot. Of course there was no need for us to physically go to where the thunderheads' bodies were. Sitting down in front of Adams, I took a careful breath and tried to clear my mind of extraneous thoughts. Adams slipped into his meditative trance... reached what seemed to me to be the proper point... "Thunderheads?" I invited.

The response was immediate. "I am here," Adams whispered hoarsely. "What do you wish?"

I braced myself. This was it. "I wish information," I said. "I'd like you to teach me how to communicate with the aliens who are approaching this world."

Eisenstadt had made the identical request before; and, as with that time, there was a long moment of silence. I kept my eyes on Adams, watching for any signs of physical distress. "There is no way to talk... to them," the thunderhead answered at last.

Predictably, the same answer as last time. "Then perhaps we humans will choose to leave this place," I told him. "Perhaps those in authority over us will decide they don't like being lied to and manipulated by others."

I'd half expected the thunderhead to feign innocence; but perhaps I'd underestimated the creatures' sophistication. "Your race has gained much from... this place," he said through Adams. "You seek certain miner... als for your machines. They are worth lives to you. You will stay and fight for... what you want."

"I'd advise you not to underestimate the strength of human pride," I warned him. "You see, we now know all about your natural defense strategy, with the stinging insects and all. We know that you're playing the exact same game with us, right down to luring us here by creating the mineral wealth of Collet's rings for us."

"We do not create," he said calmly. "Semantics," I snorted. "Perhaps you'd prefer the word enhanced. Regardless, we know all about it. Must have been quite a project: an entire planetful of thunderheads focusing their organic lasers on the rings for years at a time, slowly boiling off the lighter elements and leaving the heavier metals behind."