Time to leave! The Minerva had half-closed the gap. As Drago activated the strange-space generator, her light hull resonated to an alien target lock. Had it been a torpedo lock, he'd have been in warpspace before the torpedoes reached him. As it was, a war beam began its non-explosive but sustained and intense energy transfer an instant before the Minerva left F-space.

An instant too short for human reaction, though the temperature increased. Then Drago stared at his screen. It showed not the indigo blue his shipsmind used to represent warpspace, but the restful yellow it showed for hyperspace.

"Gracious god," he breathed. He knew exactly what had happened. In the moment when warpspace was generating-in that small fraction of a second-the beam had corrupted his warpdrive, and he'd entered hyperspace instead.

His first officer too sat staring, then finally spoke. "Looks like we're screwed," he said softly.

"Screwed, rolled over, and screwed again," Drago answered, then paused. "Take the helm. I've got a report to make." Getting up, he started aft to the cabin shared by his savant and her attendant.

It had been evening in Kunming when Drago Dravec notified War House of his emergence in the Hibernia System's cometary cloud. So instead of going to his apartment to sleep, Admiralty Chief Fedor Tischendorf had lain down on the couch in his office, just a few strides down the corridor from his savant's suite. When Drago's next savanted contact arrived, the admiral's night yeoman woke him. The admiral was off his couch instantly, wide awake and energized, and reached the savant's couch in under a minute, his shoes on but unsecured.

The savanted exchange was recorded and backed up on War House's AI. And on the admiral's powerful mind, where it instantly began to make connections, tying it into the extensive interconnected matrix that was his understanding of reality-his personal, internal version of the universe.

The session took nearly an hour, the information sometimes coming slowly: the size of the system defense force and the planetary guard flotilla; their distances from Star; descriptions of the enemy warships; the masses of the battleships and cruisers, their outriggers… and of course their shields, beam locks and radio frequencies. Important stuff.

Tischendorf imagined the pirate screening his cube-visuals and data-deciding what was meaningful and what wasn't. And when in doubt, telling it. Better the error of excess than to leave something out that might prove important. Invaluable.

The admiral wasn't surprised that one of the corsairs had funked out. He wouldn't have been shocked if none had carried it through.

The last thing Dravec mentioned was being scorched by a war beam in the moment of escape.

"Did you take damage?"

"It knocked out my warpdrive and FSP dish. So I can't use the F-space potentiality to navigate, and I can't use dead reckoning like I could in warpspace. I'll pop into F-space from time to time though, if I can, and see if I can figure out where I am and what direction I've been going. Ever hear of anyone making it back like that?"

The admiral pursed his lips, then answered. "No, Drago, I haven't. But I'll put someone on it; see if we can come up with something useful for you. Maybe we can. We've been performing wonders on industrial mobilization. We've got the beginnings of a real fleet under construction, and your information will be extremely useful. All of it. We'd hoped the aliens hadn't developed shield technology-it would have given us an important advantage-but just knowing it will help us plan, and save lives and ships."

He paused. "And, Drago, check in with us from time to time, just so I know you're alive. For what it's worth, I wish you well. If you make it back, and if you're interested… the fleet can always use more good officers."

A very long way off, in another, very different universe, Drago Dravec grimaced at Tischendorf's words. If Henry Morgan was dead, and he just about had to be, then Drago owed loyalty to no one but his crew. They'd waited three long days at rendezvous, and Morgan hadn't shown. While Minerva, Bachelor, Ludmilla and Aztec had arrived within minutes of each other. Presumably Morgan was dead.

"I'll think about it, Admiral," Drago said. "Meanwhile, do me a favor: pass along my apologies to Ambassador Khai." Only now did he realize he didn't know her first name. "I expect I made a lot of trouble for her. And she's quite a person, quite a lady. Maybe I should have let her handle things, but I didn't trust that bastard Rees. Basically he's psychotic."

They wound up the session then. War House's master artificial intelligence had not only backed up the recording of the session in real time, it had uploaded a copy to the prime minister. Meanwhile, for Tischendorf, it was less than two hours before time to get up, so he simply took off his shoes and lay down on his couch again.

Where he dreamed of drifting derelict in hyperspace.

Recruits

Bulk carriers were well suited for conversion to "snooze ships"-stasis ships-for evacuating colonies. They were extremely large, and their holds readily segmented by decks, dividing them into numerous levels.

In Esau Wesley's broad, low-ceilinged compartment, the aisles between the stasis lockers were packed with men; the sexes had been separated when they'd come aboard. Which left Esau uneasy, because he didn't know where his wife was. Women and men, they'd been told, needed to be put in separate holds for prestasis processing. "Processing," he discovered, meant getting ready for three and a half months of stasis; a kind of deep sleep, they'd been told. "Standard" months, whatever that meant. They'd also been told they wouldn't get any older in stasis. He'd wondered if that meant setting back their birthdays three months, but hadn't asked. The man who'd told them things had one answer for all questions: the single word "later."

They hadn't even been fed since the night before boarding the ship. By then they'd had to show their nakedness to what he supposed were physicians, who among other things had stuck them with needles, drawn blood, looked at their teeth, and shamelessly examined their private parts.

After that they'd been given a thin, soft, snug-fitting, one-piece suit to wear "for while you're in stasis." There were no seams except in front, where they'd been open from throat to crotch. Like winter underwear but without buttons or a trapdoor. After they'd got into the sleep suits, men had shown them how to fasten the seams by pressing. He hadn't known the whys for any of it. Then, at their command, he'd rolled up his homespuns, tied them with a tape they'd provided, and fastened his high-cut moccasins to the bundle with another tape. All the while wondering if he'd ever see his real clothes again; they were a lot better than what he'd been given.

When he wakened, the lid was open on his stasis locker, and there was a faint smell in his nose, mildly sharp. He wasn't groggy, but he was briefly confused. Then he remembered. Meanwhile his bundle lay on his belly, moccasins included. At least the Terrans didn't seem to be thieves.

Then a whistle had blown, and a loud voice had bellowed instructions. Esau had climbed from his locker and changed into his own clothes, he and all the other men in his compartment. They filled the aisles. Nobody had said much, and most who spoke, spoke quietly. His stomach growled, and he felt strange.

The whistle shrilled again, cutting off the soft refugee murmur. Again the loud voice spoke, seeming to come from all around them. "ATTENTION ALL PASSENGERS! ATTENTION ALL PASSENGERS! YOU ARE ABOUT TO BE DISEMBARKED. YOU ARE ABOUT TO BE DISEMBARKED. STAY ALERT AND FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS. STAY ALERT AND FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS. WHEN ORDERED, FILE OUT IN AN ORDERLY MANNER. DO NOT PUSH. WE DO NOT WANT ANYONE CRUSHED, OR KNOCKED DOWN AND TRAMPLED. WHEN YOU GET OUTSIDE, LISTEN FOR YOUR NAME. WHEN YOU GET OUTSIDE, LISTEN FOR YOUR NAME."