In a way, the lie had been reassuring. It established that the monitor worked. And why make small lies? To that question anyway. So say they'd doubled the actual size, and the true diameter was half a hyperspace year. Considering how far his armada had already penetrated, that was conceivable, though barely.

It never occurred to Quanshuk, nor to Qonits, that the human, to make himself more believable, might have deliberately described the commonwealth as half its actual diameter, not twice. And that the volume of human space was roughly sixty-four times what he himself was assuming.

The watch officer's voice broke Quanshuk's preoccupation. "Lord Admiral, the F-space potentiality indicates another stellar gravity field coming into range."

Quanshuk's gaze moved to the red view screen. Perhaps two hours ahead and to starboard, a white gravitic isoline formed hesitantly, a segment at a time. So many stars, and so few suitable planets; detouring and emerging to examine them slowed his armada greatly. Fortunately, some could be dismissed without doing either. Like this one, which promised to be a white dwarf.

What he really wanted was to reach a system with a human defensive fleet, something he could deal with. Not an empire too vast for his capacity to subdue and occupy.

Quanshuk, he chided himself, you worry needlessly. No empire can be that large.

Annika now had easily recognized cycles of sleep and waking. But her waking state was definitely not normal; mostly she lay on one side or the other in a fetal curl, her eyes open. From time to time she'd get up on her own to use the latrine, though it was Yukiko, or occasionally David, who cleaned her up. Or she'd sit up and repeat the single word "eat," until she was fed. Fortunately for her health, she'd stand up when Yukiko asked, and allow herself to be walked around their fifteen-by-twenty-foot chamber. Recently she'd even done simple exercises when led. But she was nothing like the happy child she'd been aboard the Cousteau.

Yukiko had been tempted to impose herself on Annika's odd state, and see if she could break her free of it, but the temptation was easily resisted. As David had said: what good would it do? The girl seemed content as she was.

He broke his wife's thought now with a whisper, breathy and without sibilance. They weren't sure whether the monitor picked up such whispers or not, but they needed some means of confidentiality. "What did you say?" she whispered back.

He repeated even more softly than before. "It was spooky, the way Qonits acted when he talked about the ship being jumped between galaxies. Do you think it actually happened?"

"I have no doubt at all." Yukiko barely breathed it.

Snuggled beside her, Annika neither doubted nor believed. She simply, unknowingly, passed it on to Kunming.

Night Surprise

The night was moonless, the galaxy a banner of frost half seen through bare branches and twigs. Boots crunched recently-fallen leaves, loudly enough, it seemed to Esau, to be heard a hundred feet away. Until it rained again, there was no chance at all of slipping quietly through the woods.

His helmet gave him a choice of two night-vision enhancements. One provided positive night vision, which worked even in heavy forest and under thick clouds, but might be detected by an enemy. The other amplified natural starlight, moonlight if any, and whatever other light there might be. The army preferred the latter, when there was moonlight or enough starlight.

Isaiah Vernon had wondered aloud whether the Wyzhnyny might have a way of detecting starlight vision, too. And of course no one knew, or would know till they fought.

At any rate Esau could see in the dark, could see Jonas Timmins ahead of him, it being Jonas's time to lead the squad. Off to the left, twenty yards or so, was a meadow, with thin wispy fog on it. Odds are, Esau thought, it'll thicken through the night.

Ahead of Timmins was the rest of the platoon, and ahead of it, Ensign Berg, Sergeant Hawkins, and the point man.

Esau was a little irked that Timmins was leading 4th Squad tonight. He considered himself the rightful squad leader. But the ensign was giving others the experience, which Esau realized made sense. And Timmins was probably the next best leader after himself. Timmins and Jael. His wife had surprised him with her willingness and ability to make decisions and give orders. And to his further surprise, he liked her even better that way.

Somewhere up ahead, the ensign or Sergeant Hawkins raised an arm, and the file of trainees stopped silently. This was a simplified problem, Esau realized, one suited to their training level. Somewhere on the other side of the meadow, the platoon's scouts had spotted the enemy outpost. The platoon was to capture it. The problem had no broader context, strategic or tactical.

An order spoke in their ears, and the file became a rank, slinking toward the meadow's edge. Halfway there they dropped to their bellies and stopped. To lie waiting, while Timmins and the other squad leaders moved forward in a low crawl, to examine the ground with Hawkins and the ensign.

After a couple of minutes, Timmins spoke to his squad on their own frequency, ordering them to the forest edge. When they'd reached it, he spoke again. "4th Squad, we'll start out crawling; the vegetation'll cover us. And don't bunch up. See that pointy-topped fir sticking up above the hardwoods?" On Luneburger's, the Jerries called any evergreen a "fir." "I'll guide on that. If anything happens to me"-they were being as realistic as they knew how-"Esau takes command. When we come under fire, proceed by teams. The teams that are covering, really pour it on."

They'll have starlight vision, too, Esau thought. They'll spot us by the way the weeds move when we crawl through them.

Timmins continued. "That worm fence down the middle is the sticky part. If anyone's over there, that's where they'll spot us. If we haven't come under fire before we cross it, climb over. Anyone not over before they start shooting at us, pull the fence apart and advance by crawling. Everyone that's across, lay down covering fire."

It was, Esau judged, about a hundred yards to the fence. Where he saw a complication: pulling the fence down would be easier said than done. The meadow hadn't been grazed that spring and summer; that was obvious. The livestock had been removed when the area was made a military reservation; that's why the vegetation was so tall. Along the fence, he could make out a row of naked saplings-probably a row along each side. Unbrowsed they'd flourished. Many were six feet tall or more, he judged. They'd tend to hold the rails in place.

He wondered if Sergeant Hawkins had spotted that. It would be like him to see if they came up with it themselves. If they didn't, he'd point it out later. Or maybe not. From things he'd said, Hawkins had grown up a town boy. He might miss something like that.

"2nd Platoon, listen up." This voice was Ensign Berg's, activating the platoon command frequency. "When you reach the fence, stop. Squad leaders, tell me when your squad is there. Now move out."

Timmins moved out at once, on elbows and knees, his blaster cradled in his arms. The rest of the squad followed, almost even with him, losing themselves at once in the thick, falling-down meadow growth. From time to time Esau raised himself high enough to see the fir tree. Either they're blind over there, he told himself, or they're waiting for us to reach the fence. We'll be better targets then, for sure.

They were all good crawlers. They'd practiced a lot, and it didn't take long to cover a hundred yards. After a bit, 3rd Squad's leader announced his arrival at the fence. Almost at once, Timmins reported his. Esau and the rest of 4th Squad reached it at almost the same time. Then 1st and 2nd Squads reported.