For the hundredth time, Svensndot glared at the trace display and contemplated mutiny. There were Alliance stragglers too — "high performance" vehicles left behind the central pack. But his orders were to maintain position, to be a tactical coordinator for the fleet's swifter combatants. Well, he would do as he was hired… this one last time. But when the battle was done, when the fleet was dead, with as many of the Alliance that they could take with them — then he would think of his own revenge. Some of that depended on Tirolle and Glimfrelle. Could he persuade them to leave the remnants of the Alliance fleet and ascend to the Middle Beyond, up where the Olvira was the best of her kind? There was good evidence now about which star systems were behind the "Alliance for the Defense". The murderers were boasting to the news. Apparently they thought that would bring them new support. It might also bring them visitors like Olvira. The bombs in her belly could destroy worlds, though not as swiftly sure as what had been used on Sjandra Kei. And even now Svensndot's mind shrank from that sort of revenge. No. They would choose their targets carefully: ships coming to form new Alliance fleets, underprotected convoys. Olvira might last a long time if he always struck from ambush and never left survivors. He stared and stared at the display, and ignored the wetness that floated at the corners of his eyes. All his life, he had lived by the law. Often his job had been to stop acts of revenge… And now revenge was all that life had left for him.

"I'm getting something peculiar, Kjet." Glimfrelle was monitoring signals this watch. It was the sort of thing that should have been totally automated — and had been in Olvira's natural environment, but which was now a boring and exhausting enterprise.

"What? More Net lies?" said Tirolle.

"No. This is on the bearing of that bottom-lugger everyone is chasing. It can't be anyone else."

Svensndot's eyebrows rose. He turned on the mystery with enormous, scarcely realized, pleasure. "Characteristics?"

"Ship's signal processor says it's probably a narrow beam. We are its only likely target. The signal is strong and the bandwidth is at least enough to support flat video. If our snarfling DSP was working right, I'd know — " 'Frelle sang a little song that was impatient humming among his kind. "— Iiae! It's encrypted, but at a high layer. This stuff is syntax 45 video. In fact, it claims to be using one third of a cipher the Company made a year back." For an instant, Svensndot thought 'Frelle was claiming the message itself was smart; that should be absolutely impossible here at the Bottom. The second officer must have caught his look: "Just sloppy language, Boss. I read this out of the frame format…" Something flashed on his display. "Okay, here's the story on the cipher: the Company made it and its peers to cover shipping security." Back before the Alliance, that had been the highest crypto level in the organization. "This is the third that never got delivered. The whole was assumed compromised, but miracle of miracles, we still have a copy." Both 'Frelle and 'Rolle were looking at Svensndot expectantly, their eyes large and dark. Standard policy — standard orders — were that transmissions on compromised keys were to be ignored. If the Company's signals people had been doing a proper job, the rotted cipher wouldn't even have been aboard and the policy would have enforced itself.

"Decrypt the thing," Svensndot said shortly. The last weeks had demonstrated that his company was a dismal failure when it came to military intelligence and signals. They might as well get some benefit from that incompetence.

"Yes sir!" Glimfrelle tapped a single key. Somewhere inside Olvira's signal processor, a long segment of "random" noise was broken into frames and laid precisely down on the "random" noise in the data frames incoming. There was a perceptible pause (damn the Bottom) and then the comm window lit with a flat video picture.

"— fourth repetition of this message." The words were Samnorsk, and a dialect of pure Herte i Sjandra. The speaker was… for a heartstopping instant he was seeing Olvira again, alive. He exhaled slowly, trying to relax. Black-haired, slim, violet-eyed — just like Olvira. And just like a million other women of Sjandra Kei. The resemblance was there, but so vague he would never have been taken by it before. For an instant he imagined a universe beyond their lost fleet, and goals beyond vengeance. Then he forced his attention back to business, to seeing everything he could in the images in the window.

The woman was saying, "We'll repeat three more times. If by then you have still not responded, we will attempt a different target." She pushed back from the camera pickup, giving them a view of the room behind her. It was low-ceilinged, deep. An ultradrive trace display dominated the background, but Svensndot paid it little attention. There were two Skroderiders in the background. One wore stripes on its skrode that meant a trade history with Sjandra Kei. The other must be a lesser Rider; its skrode was small and wheelless. The pickup turned, centered on the fourth figure. Human? Probably, but of no Nyjoran heritage. In another time, his appearance would have been big news across all human civilizations in the Beyond. Now the point only registered on Svensndot's mind as another cause for suspicion.

The woman continued, "You can see that we are human and Rider. We are the entire crew of the Out of Band II. We are not part of the Alliance for the Defense nor agents of the Blight… But we are the reason their fleets are down here. If you can read this, we're betting that you are of Sjandra Kei. We must talk. Please reply using the tail of the pad that is decrypting this message." The picture jigged and the woman's face was back in the foreground. "This is the fifth repetition of this message," she said. "We'll repeat two more — "

Glimfrelle cut the audio. "If she means it, we have about one hundred seconds. What next, Captain?"

Suddenly the Olvira was not an irrelevant straggler. "We talk," said Svensndot.

Response and counter-response took a matter of seconds. After that… five minutes of conversation with Ravna Bergsndot was enough to convince Kjet that what she had to say must be heard by Fleet Central. His ship would be a mere relay, but at least he had something very important to pass on.

Fleet Central refused the full video link coming from the Out of Band. Someone on the flagship was dead set on following standard procedures — and using compromised cipher keys stuck in their craw. Even Kjet had to settle for a combat link: The screen showed a color image with high resolution. Looking at it carefully, one realized the thing was a poor evocation… Kjet recognized Owner Limmende and Jan Skrits, her chief of staff, but they looked several years out of style. Olvira was matching old video with the transmitted animation cues. The actual communication channel was less that four thousand bits per second; Central was taking no chances.

God only knew what they were seeing as the evocation of Pham Nuwen. The smokey-skinned human had already explained his point several times. He was having as little success as Ravna Bergsndot before him. His cool manner had gradually deserted him. Desperation was beginning to show on his face. "-and I'm telling you, they are both your enemies. Sure, Alliance for the Defense destroyed Sjandra Kei, but the Blight is responsible for the situation that made that possible."

The half-cartoonish figure of Jan Skrits glanced at Owner Limmende. Lord, evocations are crappy at the Bottom, Svensndot thought to himself. When Skrits spoke, his voice didn't even match his lip movements: "We do read Threats, Mr. Nuwen. The threat of the Blight was used as an excuse to destroy our worlds. We will not go on random killing sprees, especially against an organization that is clearly the enemy of our enemy… Or are you claiming the Blight is secretly in league with the Alliance for the Defense?"