Haget scowled. "Don't give the little bastard any ideas. Hell. WarAvocat should have given us the necessaries. We'll work on the alien. It's out for sure? After the doctor we'll get cleaned up. Did you get any wind of the krekelen, Degas?"

Degas and AnyKaat shook their heads.

"Better work on that, too."

Jo came out of her quarters, found Haget ready before she was. She said, "That stuff does take the sting out. But it makes the red even redder. I look like some kind of artifact."

Haget grunted. He looked uncomfortable. He blurted, "Tell me something, Sergeant." But then he lost momentum.

"Sir?"

"Uh... what's wrong with me?"

"Wrong with you? Are you asking for an opinion of your personality?" She knew damned well he was, but if she pretended density maybe he would back off.

No such luck. He insisted. "Yes."

Shit. "You're probably a good officer. You wouldn't be a full Commander and a WatchMaster if you weren't. But you never go off duty. You probably sleep at attention."

He opened his mouth to snap, bit on his rejoinder. "I asked, didn't I? Qualities that are prosurvival in Hall of the Watchers but less important out here, eh?"

"You've adapted some, sir."

"I've tried." He did not know what else to say. So he fell back on the support system that had served him in the past: getting after the job. "Let's go visit Seeker and see if we can't communicate. Do you have a functional comm?"

"Yes, sir."

He strapped on a sidearm. "Tell Degas and AnyKaat we're coming."

Jo's eyes were vacant when she walked out of Seeker's cabin. Haget stepped into her path. She mumbled and tried to slide around him, headed for the bridge. He blocked her. "AnyKaat."

AnyKaat slapped her.

She shook her head, rubbed her cheek. "It got to me this time, didn't it?" It had been her fourth attempt and fourth failure. The alien was not interested in communicating, it was interested in getting Glorious Spent to carry it where it wanted to go.

"All right," Haget said. "We tried it one rational species to another. Now we do it my way." He drew his handgun, stepped inside, let the alien have it. ‘Two hours till it wakes up. Let's get the equipment installed."

His way amounted to crude operant conditioning. They would take turns trying to communicate. If Seeker tried to control instead of communicate, zap! Someone would sit monitor in Jo and Haget's suite, ready to administer the zap.

"There's no positive reinforcement in the cycle!" Jo protested.

Haget snapped, "The hell there isn't. The absence of pain. The opportunity to argue its case."

More than an hour passed before Jo realized that was what Haget considered a joke.

"You think we could try this on him, too?" AnyKaat whispered. "Zap him till he gets human?"

"He's basically all right. He just never learned how."

AnyKaat gave her a wonderstruck look.

"Shit," Degas said from outside. "Here comes the angel of gloom."

Jo leaned out. Sure enough, Timmerbach was headed their way. He did not look like he had a social visit in mind.

"What you got, Chief?" Degas asked. "We falling into a black hole? Somebody undo the golden zipper of the universe? You find the krekelen holed up in the wardroom?"

Timmerbach was taken aback.

Jo said, "You never come around with good news. What's wrong now?"

"Where's the Commander?"

"Asleep," Jo lied. Haget had gone off to test the monitor. "And he said don't wake him up."

"You'll have to do. I don't have time to run after him. We're not going to be able to get onto the strand we wanted. It's the one the Presence and the Guardship used. It's too feeble to get hold of."

"I knew it," Degas said. "What did I tell you?"

"We're headed for another one?" Jo asked.

Timmerbach nodded. "It means another four days in star-space."

"Any problems with that? Stores shortages or anything?"

"No. I just don't like to be alone in starspace so far from help. Anything could happen. If we have a breakdown, we're dead."

Degas said, "Chief, the law of averages is due to catch up. Your luck is going to change."

Timmerbach"s look said that while his Traveler was occupied territory, the only shift he expected was for the worse. That this was not worth whatever VII Gemina might do for House Cholot.

That things might have gone worse without them was irrelevant.

"I'll inform the Commander," Jo said. I'll tell him you looked like a fat little boy with naughty thoughts who maybe ought to have his butt spanked just in case.

She watched Timmerbach out of sight. "From now on we watch Timmerbach and Cholot. No need to be discreet about it, either."

— 34 —

A. Neuelica. J. Claeica. S. Reinica. The pageant of systems rolled. The roster of bloodsheds for naught lengthened. There was no pattern. No one House had suffered abnormally. None in harm's way had been spared.

WarAvocat had expected no less. The enemy's stupidity was not tactical, it was strategic.

In transit from K. M'Danlica to M. Colica, WarAvocat moved into seldom visited Hall of the Stars, down against VII Gemina's Core, where everything the Guardship fleet knew about its territory was projected in a display. The detail was as exhaustive and accurate as four millennia of observation could make it.

WarAvocat spent a work shift adrift there, then half another, till he thought he sensed something. Then he sent for Kez Maefele.

Security brought the baffled alien. The Ku's bewilderment only increased when they just deposited him. "WarAvocat?"

"I want to solicit a professional opinion."

"Military? Isn't that absurd?"

"Some things change more than others. I've located a suit Gemina says will do you. The fit will be odd but you'll be able to do everything you need to in it."

"You want me to go EVA?"

"We're going into near vacuum, but right here. The place is its own best explanation. If you will?" He indicated the suit he wanted the Ku to wear.

"It's been a long time, WarAvocat."

"I'm watching you."

The Ku fumbled some with unfamiliar closures but he made no mistakes. War Avocat led him into Hall of the Stars.

"You've always had this? No wonder you defeated us. We made do with paper charts and our own memories."

"The same system was on line. There's more detail now." WarAvocat moved them to the quadrant of interest. "This is the corner where we're playing. The Sixth Presidency. Chart my first. The red line is the krekelen's track. The green represents the course VII Gemina has made. They don't match. We don't want it obvious what we're doing. And the earlier we get there the better our chance of catching them on the stool. Chart my second."

Blue set off a globe seventy light years in diameter. "I believe, and Gemina and the Deified concur, that the krekelen started out somewhere in here. That's where we'll find whatever we're supposed to find. I'm not taking the chase any closer. There'll be alarms. I'd rather not give our adversary warning."

"You appear to be maneuvering against what you would do were you running your enemy's game."

"I always go against myself. I'm the trickiest WarAvocat I've ever met."

"Why am I here?"

"If he plans an ambush, he needs a place to set it. Chart my third." The blue faded. "I used my own requirements for a site. Chart my fourth." Most of the stellar information vanished.

"Three tag ends. None with anything to recommend it as more likely than the others. None have been explored. I've eliminated everything else."

"So now we come to me."

"Yes. You operated in this starspace. The Dire Radiant explored at least two of those tag ends. Could you use one to ambush a Guardship?"