can't shut off. Priorities right now are foodstuffs, heavy equipment—well, it's the same list that's on the computer. All the stuff we lost to the Spinneret's leecher."

"How about weapons?"

"None." His lip twitched at her expression. "Yes, I know I'm a military man and that we've already been attacked once. But our best chance of survival right now is to look and act as harmless as possible. Remember, the warships upstairs know even less about the Spinneret than we do—and they don't know we aren't in actual control of the thing. I've already had to deflect two or three veiled questions about the 'weapon' we used against the M'zarch landers, at least one of which concerned the thing's range. The minute we start looking militant I think they'd come to a pretty quick agreement on joint action."

"I suppose so," she agreed reluctantly. "I just don't like feeling so vulnerable."

"Neither do I, but for now it can't be helped."

She shrugged, as if dismissing the matter. "All right. Now, how are we proposing to pay the Rooshrike for whatever they get us?"

Meredith took a deep breath. He hated to do this, but could see no alternative.

"We'll pay them—and any other race with which we do business—in lengths of Spinneret cable. The value per meter will be assessed later, once we've completed our tests on its material properties."

Carmen's dark eyes held his. "You're going to let the aliens buy the cable, just like that? Suppose one of them figures out what it's made of or how the glue works or something?"

"I don't think that's likely to be a problem," he returned dryly. "And even if they do, I doubt it'll hurt our profits any. If Dr. Hafner's right, the Spinners' factory could be the size of a small city, and I can't see the Rooshrike or Ctencri throwing one together overnight." He paused, but she still looked troubled. "You disagree?" he prompted.

"What about Earth? Are you going to give the UN or U.S. some cables free, or make them pay for it like everyone else?"

Meredith shook his head. "I don't know yet how we're going to handle them. My first inclination is to pay off the costs of the colony and then treat Earth as just another customer … but since the U.S.'ll get the lion's share of cable that way, it's bound to cause a major stink at the UN. And this damn six-week communications lag doesn't help any—we could spark off a war and never even know about it until it was all over." He scowled toward the computer screen. "Let's add a couple of those fast courier ships to the Christmas list you're making. If the UN can get advanced drives, we ought to be able to, too."

"Yes, sir." She hesitated. "Colonel … before I came here I was talking to Cris Perez. He's also starting to talk about selling Spinneret cable."

"Oh? I would've thought tawdry mercantile matters beneath him."

She flushed. "He's less interested in profits than he is in making Astra an escape hatch for Earth's poor. He sees the Spinneret as the cornucopia that'll make that possible."

"He would," Meredith grumbled. "Perez is a grade-ten idealist."

"Perhaps," she said noncommittally. "But you're now talking about a similar course of action … and either way I'm worried about what we'll do here with a sudden influx of wealth. I'd hate to see all of us sit back and loaf while the Spinneret pays the bills for us."

Meredith nibbed his chin. "I doubt that it'll come to that extreme. The cable may be strong as hell, but what can you really do with something shaped like cosmic spaghetti?"

"I don't know. But the Spinners apparently did."

"Yeah." For a moment Meredith stared past Carmen. An entire planet-worth of metal … quintillions of tons of it … all made into six-centimeter cable? Why!

"You'd better go back to your office and get busy with your preparations," he said, instinctively pulling back from what could only be futile speculation. "I'd like to get Beaeki's people down here tomorrow morning for a preliminary meeting."

She nodded and stood up. "I can be ready."

"Good. I'll let you know the time after I talk with the Rooshrike."

He glared at the desktop for a minute after she'd gone. So he and Perez were both thinking along the same lines for once, were they? An annoying thought, in some ways; but if handled properly it might enable him to take some of the wind out of the Hispanic's rhetoric. Even a brief respite would be helpful; between Perez, the UN, and the collection of alien ships overhead, Meredith was facing too many opponents as it was.

Hitching his chair closer to the terminal, the colonel keyed for the job file and began to type: SEARCH ALL AVAILABLE ALIEN LITERATURE FOR HISTORICAL

RECORDS, LEGENDS, OR MYTHS RELATING TO OTHER RACES, GODLIKE BEINGS, ETC. EMPHASIS ON ROOSHRIKE AND POM

TERRITORIES. FULL ANALYSIS REQUESTED, INCLUDING

CORRELATIONS AND COMPOSITES WHERE POSSIBLE.

Know thy enemy, the ancient dictum went … and if the Spinners had left any other trace of their passage behind, Meredith wanted to know about it.

The report was short and maddeningly uninformative, and Secretary-General Saleh slapped the last page onto his desk with a snort. "I don't suppose," he said sarcastically, "that you have any idea what these meetings with the Rooshrike are about?"

Ashur Msuya shook his head. Judging from his expression his own mood wasn't much better than Saleh's, but he knew better than to snap back at his superior.

"Nothing positive. There's been nothing like a general announcement about changes in defense arrangements or anything. It's possible they're working on a trade agreement, but the shipments that the Rooshrike landed there could equally well have been in return for the cable they made off with after the M'zarch attack."

Saleh snorted. "Oh, it's a trade agreement, all right— Allerton is moving to open up an independent pipeline to the alien marketplace."

"Or Colonel Meredith is," Msuya offered, shaking his head. "I'm not really sure whose side Meredith is on these days."

"Forget your doubts. He's an American soldier on American-claimed soil. Any rifts that appear are purely for show."

"Perhaps. But either way I submit that it's high time the UN made a move to assert its rights on Astra."

"Your economic embargo of the colony, I presume?"

Msuya nodded. "Whatever agreement Meredith—or Allerton—is setting up, the Rooshrike can't deliver food that we don't let off the Earth."

"The Americans have their own starships—"

"Which now use Ctencri drives and are supplied from the ground by Ctencri shuttles. We can cut off the flow of spare parts and fuel cylinders any time we want. It would take months or longer for them to get their older shuttle fleet back in service."

Saleh pondered. He hadn't liked this idea much when Msuya first proposed it, and he didn't like it any better now. To deliberately put his hands to the throat of a colony he himself had helped set up … but, then, it undoubtedly wouldn't come to that. The Americans would back down before they'd let their people starve.

"You're sure their own crops won't be adequate?"

"Positive. Even after harvest, crop yield analysis can be done very accurately."

"And if the Rooshrike open up a shipping route to Earth … ?" Saleh smiled and answered his own question. "We don't let them, of course. Earth is technically within Ctencri borders, and we could simply ask them to keep Rooshrike traders out. Very well; I'll put the matter before Allerton this afternoon, give him a chance to back off on his Rooshrike deal."

"Why bother? You'll just give him that much more time to prepare for the embargo."

"Because if we proceed with so drastic an action," Saleh said coldly, "I want the world community to have no doubt that it was fully justified."