An innocent vacation spot with little to hide, a secluded, low-gravity stop for the space-touring wealthy. Though it was a long way to go for a vacation.

All in all, Tagus seemed a harmless place, without so much as a pod beacon in the system's fringe.

Henry Morgan was Tagus's founder and (often in absentia) ruler. He'd borrowed his name from a 17th century Welsh buccaneer, and it was the only name he admitted to. Like the original, this latter-day Henry Morgan was Welsh, born in Swansea, but he'd grown up in the North American city of Omaha. Remarkably, his birth name was Edward Teach, a name he shared with an 18th century pirate, but the earlier Teach was more barbaric than his namesake cared for. In fact, this latter-day Morgan and his personnel were generally civilized, even amiable, with a leaning toward nonconformity and adventure. Morgan thought of his crew and himself as gentlemen adventurers-daring, risk-taking, colorful. An attitude shared vicariously by many "good Commonwealth citizens." On Terra, from time to time, pirate dramas were popular, in the form of books, videos, and cinemas.

Henry Morgan was eating lunch in his living quarters when his yeoman knocked, audibly agitated. "Commodore," he said, "come quick!"

Morgan stopped his fork in mid course. "What stung your ass, Jerzy?" he called back.

"Sir, it's emergence waves, sir! All over hell, sir!"

Frowning, Morgan lay down his fork, with its morsel of sea turtle fried in nut oil, got to his feet and left, hurrying down the corridor. In his forties and moderately overweight, he still moved well. The wall screen in his office showed a three-dimensional coordinate model of the local solar system and environs. And thousands of hyperspace emergence loci! A footer said 16,297.

Sixteen thousand spacecraft! And Jerzy's "all over hell" summarized the situation nicely: the loci formed a diffuse lenticular swarm in the Tagus System's far-side fringe. Some were out-hell!-close to 5 billion miles, according to the grid. Others were less than 2 billion. Allowing for distance, the size of each locus indicated the mass of the emergent ship, and virtually all were larger than anything his two small squadrons of corsairs had. Larger than anything the Commonwealth admiralty had, excepting a handful of prototypes.

For just a moment Morgan stared, then sat down on his command seat and pecked at his key pad. An overlay, a chart, popped onto the screen, its numbers telling him more than he cared to know. Centuries of galactic radio monitoring had turned up nothing remotely convincing-threatening or otherwise-in the way of alien radio traffic. But in his youth, Morgan had read disreputable novels in which the Commonwealth was invaded by aliens. So the concept of alien invasion was familiar to him, and it seemed the only possible explanation of what he was looking at. Sixteen thousand alien ships! While the Commonwealth had half a dozen squadrons-frigates and (mostly) corvettes-for piracy suppression. That was the sum of its space defenses.

Sixteen thousand! And unless their hyperspace navigation was incredibly poor, they'd come a very long way; otherwise they wouldn't be so dispersed. After-what? Years? After years in hyperspace, it seemed likely they'd explore a bit before moving on. Look over the neighborhood, establish references.

Morgan frowned. "It's going to take them weeks to re-form formations," he said thoughtfully. "Days even to form up an assault group, if they're interested." He turned grinning to his yeoman. "Tell me, Jerzy, if you were me, what would you do about this?"

The young man blinked. "Why, sir," he said, "I'd order all hands to prepare for evacuation. In case the intruders move insystem."

Morgan laughed. "Sounds like a winner. Let's do it."

Preparing ships would take a day or so. The onworld squadron parked in the hangar caverns had recently returned from a long sweep. The loot was still being transferred to the bag ships, and Morgan was short on AG cargo handlers. And till now there'd been no hurry.

The only data he had on intruder ship positions was when the instantaneous hyperspace emergence waves were received. The emergence loci were an unchanging record of something that had already happened. They told him nothing of subsequent ship movements. Equally important, Morgan was unfamiliar with either the intruders' intentions or procedures, and his working assumptions were incorrect. Nor, of course, could his sensors see into warpspace, to detect ship movements there.

He left his office and strode back to his apartment. He was someone who didn't hesitate when something was necessary, however unpleasant, and he was about to throw away a secure base he'd developed over a dozen years. Entering his younger brother's room, he stepped into a fragrance much like Terran night jasmine. An orderly on an AG scooter had collected them from the forest roof; she collected some fragrant species or other every morning. It was more than a duty. It was an expression of fondness for Robert Teach. Robert was a pudgy, disarmingly sunny man, a thirty-one-year-old child liked by everyone. Beginning with his older brother, who'd rescued him after their mother suicided.

Just now, Robert was sitting at his computer terminal, playing with the ephemeris for Epsilon Indi. He could compute in his head-if compute was the word-the moment-to-moment positions of the planets of every inhabited system in the Commonwealth, for any moment you'd care to give him. What he could not do was read above the primary level, or write at all beyond a carefully lettered "signature." He even had trouble buttoning his shirt. Med-tech Connie Phamonyong did that for him. Robert didn't like Press Close or pullovers. He liked buttons. They were nicer.

"Hi, Robert," Morgan greeted. Robert didn't reply. The words hadn't registered; he was utterly engrossed. Connie came out of the kitchenette and gave her commodore a hug and kiss. A fond, familiar kiss. They'd been together for fifteen years.

Morgan nodded toward Robert. "I need his help," he told her. "I need to contact the prime minister and the Admiralty."

Her eyes widened, but she asked no question, simply nodded. Turning, she spoke to Robert, the words a command hypnotically programed years earlier. He didn't hesitate, didn't even blink, simply turned his chair, got up, stepped to a nearby couch (it once had graced a yacht owner's saloon) and lay down. Connie pulled the computer chair over to it and sat, then looked questioningly at Morgan.

"Just the two for now," he said, "the PM and the Admiralty."

She turned to Robert, and spoke with a calm she did not feel, a standard prolog to whatever the message would be. Then she looked again at Morgan, and briefly they waited.

On Terra, in the palace penthouse at Kunming, a young man not basically unlike Robert Teach sat at a keyboard, playing a flowing improvisation based on a Chopin nocturne. Abruptly he stopped, and turned to his attendant. "It is something for Mr. Peixoto," he said. Then getting to his feet, he stepped to a nearby lounge and lay down. The attendant clicked a switch on his belt and sat down beside the young savant.

At the same moment, half a mile away, a tiny aging woman at a computer screen broke off her inspection of a commercial freight schedules at the Kinshasa terminal; she could have recited it verbatim, it and numerous others. Turning, she spoke to her attendant, not a frequent event. When a communication triggered a trance, her speech was quite clear, not at all like her usual lisping voice that resembled a three-year-old's. Her attendant helped her to her couch; the old woman couldn't walk unassisted. She'd never been able to.