Perhaps I can imagine, Soong thought. Surely to some degree. He took a tiny three-cornered sandwich and tasted it. Goose liver paste, he decided, its seasonings close to perfect. No doubt the makings came from the command officers' mess. "Was that why you wanted me to come into the kitchen?" he asked. "To give me that insight into Charley?"

She shook her head. "No," she said. "You need to know something he has done. He mentioned it just yesterday. You may not approve."

He frowned. "Yes?"

"He hasn't been listening to music as much as I'd thought. Playing it, yes, but quietly, as background. He'd… broken into the battlecomp system; he said it wasn't difficult. For weeks he's listened to your battle exercises. He told me it was the most interesting thing he'd ever done; much more interesting than battle dramas." She shrugged. "He's always liked battle dramas and histories, and war games when I smuggled them to him at the Institute. Patients were not supposed to have them, nor staff as far as that's concerned."

She paused, calmly accepting the admiral's eye contact.

Soong nodded slowly. "I see. Thank you for being forthright."

They returned to the living room, Charley's room, Soong carrying another sandwich and a glass of fruit punch. "Ophelia is quite skilled in the kitchen," he said, using the name Charley used for her.

"I'm sure she is," Charley answered. "Before you leave, I'd like you to have a cube. Of the early, magazine version of `Flowers for Algernon,' translated from the original Anglic. It is the story of the original, fictional Charley Gordon. My dear Ophelia read it onto the cube for me. It is sad, but it is also beautiful. It is rich in love."

When Soong left the small apartment, it was soberly. It was not surprising that in Charley Gordon's mind, love was associated with sadness. Meanwhile he needed to have the battlecomp checked for anything Charley might have done to it.

That evening, a careful rundown by Lieutenant Commander Bedi Chen, the flagship's senior computer specialist, found nothing out of order in the battlecomp. Chen was curious as to why the admiral had asked for the check; the system monitored itself constantly, and at frequent, random intervals ran all-inclusive scans. But he didn't ask, and Soong volunteered nothing.

The admiral was glad, in fact, that Charley had done what he'd done. What he needed to do now, he told himself, was find ways to (1) check his operating assumption, and (2) find a way to make use of it. While not allowing himself expectations. Hopes, yes, but not expectations.

Before he went to bed that night, Soong read "Flowers for Algernon." It was sad, and it was beautiful. Normally the admiral was not fond of sad, but in this case he made an exception. Perhaps because it seemed to him that Male Infant Doe, aka Charley Gordon, himself showed considerable love. And in the physical universe-the world Alvaro Soong knew-there could never be too much love.

On a Different Flagship

Tension had worn on Grand Admiral Quanshuk, tension born of incongruities and enigmas-of a situation and life-form beyond comprehension.

Only a very potent life-form, powerful, vigorous, and technologically advanced, could have spawned so many colonies so far. A life-form strong enough, confident enough, smart and ruthless enough to have overcome and destroyed its sapient rivals on its world of origin. And on any other attractive world it found.

He didn't actually think the concept of ruthlessness. In the Wyzhnyny world view, ruthlessness toward rival life-forms required no conceptualization. It was an underlying truth.

So far, his armada had penetrated only the outer zone of the human empire. That was obvious, despite the distance of that penetration. Somewhere ahead he would encounter the old, long-settled body of the Commonwealth, and there, if not sooner, meet resistance. The prisoners had admitted it.

He'd considered coercing more information from them, but Qonits had recommended against it, reminding his admiral that the two humans were simply marine scientists. Obviously most humans were not fighters. Their warrior gender, called "soldiers," seemed missing from their colonies. And clearly their other genders were untrained-probably unsuited-for war.

Quanshuk and Qonits had reviewed the situation repeatedly, particularly since the passage of time made it both clearer and more enigmatic. The landing forces had met essentially no resistance, and had already captured twenty-one planets. The human empire was truly vast. Humans must be bound together by unbreakable loyalty for such an empire to exist, a loyalty deep within the genes. The enormous volume of space involved, the time requirements even for hyperspace pod communication, the difficulty of effective policing-all made space empires impractical without such inborn loyalty.

But loyalty extended in both directions, from the ruled upward to the rulers, and from the rulers downward to the ruled. Quanshuk believed that implicitly. It was logical, and it was true to the experience of his species.

Over their long history, the Wyzhnyny had known and destroyed a half-dozen, space-faring species. Two of which had created large empires, though neither with a radius that approached the distance he'd already traveled in this one. And both had responded to invasion with a united ferocity that could only grow out of such loyalty.

Yet the humans had not. Why had that loyalty not manifested? Or perhaps manifested so strangely?

From the very first human world his armada had reached-clearly a picket world-three, perhaps four craft had escaped. And beyond doubt had homed inward to warn their empire. They would have come out of hyperspace a day or so inbound, and launched message pods to the nearer inhabited worlds. Which in turn would have spread the message: invasion!

Pods were intrinsically faster, because they carried no life-forms. Nor did they need to detour and emerge, to examine systems for habitable planets. Nor cover an invasion flotilla when such a planet was found. So surely the human core worlds knew by now. Should have known months ago.

Unless their empire was vast beyond imagination! The possibility gnawed on Quanshuk. What sort of empire had he invaded? With how many core worlds? How many fleets?

Yet he'd encountered no enemy force at all. None! And clearly the humans had hyperdrive. Without it they could not have begun to colonize so far.

This lack of resistance had to be a strategy. But what strategy? Was a vast human warfleet being gathered, while his armada was being sucked in as if by some enormous singularity?

The thought squeezed his heart like a giant fist.

And on the other warships, his officers had surely hatched and brooded those same fears.

The responsibility was his though, and it was taking its toll. He was on medication now for arthritic hips and tarsal joints. The ship's chief physician had advised him to stay off his feet as much as possible, so he'd reduced his time on the bridge, and worked more from his stateroom. Which, after all, had full access to shipsmind, which meant to everything on board.

A time or two he'd wondered if his anxiety was worsened by the presence of humans on board. He'd even thought of jettisoning them from an airlock, but his troubles and fears would not die with them. And as Qonits had pointed out, "We have learned much from the prisoners; to kill them would be to throw away a resource. Soon we will meet the humans in battle. It is unavoidable. Then further questions will occur to us, and without our captives, we would have no one to ask. They can make the difference between success and failure."