Margaret seemed lost in thought. “Where do I start? The black robots? How your father died on Rheindic Co? How I lived isolated among the Klikiss for years? How I finally came back home?” She flashed him a strange smile. “Remember that music box you gave me — the one that played ‘Greensleeves’?”

“It was a present for your. anniversary? Birthday?” He always had trouble figuring out what to get his mother, and he had bought it at the last minute. Although the little metal box hadn’t cost much, it had appealed to him, and she had seemed pleased by the gift. “You actuallykept that?”

“It saved my life. Its music was why the Klikiss didn’t kill me, as they did the other human captives.” She held his shoulders, studying him. “You look sad.”

Once again, he was at a loss for words. “We’ve both got some complicated stories to tell.” He shook his head. “There was a time when I thought being invited as the guest speaker to a conference was the most exciting thing I could aspire to. I liked to read about great heroes, not try to be one.” Without realizing he was doing it, he suddenly found himself crying on her shoulder.

Margaret held him for a long while, and then took him by the arm. “Is there a coffee shop on campus where we can talk?”

He wiped his eyes. “We’ll need more than a cup of coffee. How about we plan on having dinner together?”

Margaret smiled as they walked down the hall. “Tonight, and maybe for the next few nights. This won’t be quick or easy.”

115

Mage-Imperator Jora’h

Drawing a deep breath of bitter air on the open landing bay with Del Kellum, Jora’h stared out into the clouds, watching the stately Solar Navy ships. Osira’h and Nira were also with him to observe the preparations to take the battle back to Ildira. Nearby, the hydrogue derelict sat waiting for whatever tests Kotto intended to perform, but his work on it — as well as the Klikiss Siren — had been preempted by their preparations to fight the faeros. The intense gear-up had been under way since the previous day.

After the war council meeting, Adar Zan’nh had returned to his flagship to oversee yet another round of practice runs. Warliners cruised back and forth in regimented formations, practicing maneuvers, performing intricate loops and close encounters, in training for their offensive against the faeros.

“They never tire of flying in all those complicated patterns, do they?” Kellum asked.

“The Adar tells me these maneuvers help Ildiran pilots to hone their skills.” As they watched, three warliners drove directly toward each other, nearly colliding, but then dodged with pinpoint accuracy.

“Impressive enough, but when those ships go into actual battle, the rules of engagement won’t have anything to do with fancy dance moves.”

Jora’h looked at the bearded man. At one time he would have disagreed out of sheer pride, but now he nodded slowly. “Adar Zan’nh has been learning to adapt. But who has a training program to fight the faeros? This is a new kind of war for us.”

“For all of us, by damn.”

They peered into the bottomless pit of calm clouds. Out there, Jess Tamblyn and Cesca Peroni flitted about the cloud tops in their silvery vessel, coalescing water droplets and then flying back to the skymine.

The wental vessel returned to the open launching bay to deposit a large spill of energized water they had retrieved from the atmosphere. “This should be enough to make a few dozen more ice projectiles,” Jess said, emerging from his shimmering ship with Cesca.

The liquid flowed out onto the scuffed metal floor, and the wentals seemed to know what to do. The spreading puddle separated itself into smaller globules that formed pointed cylinders and then, in a flash of curling white steam, they spontaneously froze into icy artillery shells.

Kellum called a work team that used insulated gloves and tongs to distribute the frozen shells among the ships near the skymine, and Jess and Cesca flew off again to draw more traces of wentals from the clouds. By the time the ships were ready to go find the faeros, they would all be fully armed.

While the activities carried on all around them, Nira sent telink messages through her treeling to inform the Confederation of the plans the allies were making to fight the faeros on Ildira.

Jora’h felt satisfied. “We have waited a long time for this. And I am glad, very glad, that I maintained my faith in the Confederation and the Roamers, rather than trusting Chairman Wenceslas.”

A cargo vessel loaded with hundreds of the new projectiles lumbered off across the sky to deliver them to the other skymines. Adar Zan’nh had already sent specifications to Kotto Okiah, so the Roamer engineer could create frozen wental shells for use in Ildiran projectile launchers. Soon, the Solar Navy would be armed with them as well.

Osira’h moved closer to the edge of the open platform and pointed upward. “Look.”

High above the skymine, a single bright shape streaked alone across the sky, like a meteor that did not burn up. Behind it came another crackling ball. and dozens more, like a shower of incandescent sparks.

Jora’h instantly realized what he was seeing. His braid whipped and thrashed of its own volition. “So, Rusa’h has found me after all.”

Nira’s eyes widened. “Did he track one of the warliners? Or did he locate you somehow through thethism?”

Two more flaming ellipsoids streaked past, followed by another dozen. Flashes raced above the upper fringes of Golgen’s sky in a rain of fire.

“Doesn’t matter how — they’rehere,” Kellum said.

The Solar Navy ships abandoned their complex exercises and quickly arranged themselves into genuine battle formations. Alarms began to sound. The skymine’s intercom flooded with an overlapping cacophony of shouts. Kellum ran to the wall and slapped the transmit button. “I’m on my way. Tell Kotto he’s getting a chance to test those wental popsicles.” He turned to Jora’h, his face flushed. “The faeros blew up the whole Moon trying to get to you, Mage-Imperator. I doubt they’ll show any more restraint here.”

Jora’h knew he was right. “No, they will try to destroy everything.”

116

Tasia Tamblyn

The vanguard of fireballs left a roiling wake of hot gases and thermal ripples across Golgen’s sky. Having seen the faeros arrive, some of the skyminers were already evacuating. The flaming ellipsoids streaked after anything that moved.

Inside Kellum’s skymine, Tasia slid down ladders, dodged stored cargo crates and industrial equipment, and raced across the deck to the lower hangar bay where she had left her cargo hauler. She was already kicking herself for not bringing a military-grade vessel with her, just to cover the bases, but she would make do. At least the ship was equipped with the standard new armaments and improved hull plating supplied by the Confederation.