— 130 —

WarAvocat grew uneasy as VII Gemina drove nearer and nearer Canon's heart. That Outsider watcher had dropped away, but watcher or no, his intention must be apparent.

If he was indeed too late... For what? That was the question.

For the Ku, too late could mean too late to abort his attack. But that was not the mission VII Gemina had assumed. He was going to get Kez Maefele and rob the Outsiders of their most potent weapon. He need not be too late for that.

But he remained uneasy in the way he did when he left his quarters sure he had forgotten something important but could not think what it might be.

Even putting Gemina onto it surfaced nothing to justify his uneasiness.

What sort of reception would be waiting? Material losses at P. Benetonica would restrict his options. He consulted Gemina and the Deified, put together a straightforward consensus plan of attack.

VII Gemina would go in screened, thrash around till the Ku was spotted, then would chase him till he was caught. Those new ships were nimble, but they had to put into a station sometime.

With slightly over eight days on the count, Seeker reported the Ku's arrival at the S. Alisonica anchor point. An hour later he reported a big burst of coded transmission throughout that region.

"Are they jumping off early?"

Seeker did not know.

Soon afterward the Meddinian stopped reading anything. The implication was that the Outsiders were all in starspace and communicating by normal means. Which in turn implied that the attack had begun.

WarAvocat became more uneasy.

Next day Seeker reported catching the tail of a brief signal from behind. It could have originated anywhere between VII Gemina and the nether face of the Outsider empire.

Forty-six hours later he reported a similar unrangeable signal.

The record passage for a Voyager running from T. Rogolica to the Barbican was forty-three hours and some minutes.

Moments later VII Gemina ripped past an Outsider sitting in a turn node. It blatted a signal. Seeker reported it as a number.

Little things. Little things. WarAvocat was tempted to cancel.

VII Gemina broke away from the Web expecting anything. And found nothing.

Capitola Primagenia had been attacked but not destroyed. The Outsiders had pulled out. Losses on both sides had been heavy, those of the Outsiders apparently heavier than they had expected. But a triumph had been within their grasp.

And they had gone.

Everyone began pestering WarAvocat about tactical dispositions and relief efforts. He shut them out and brooded, sure he was one piece short of a complete puzzle.

The last Outsider, another damned watcher, handed him that piece. It sent a message. The dragon has taken the poisoned bait. Now it is too late. Success is assured.

"Aleas! Get over here. It's Starbase!" he roared. "Damn his black heart!"

Aleas stared."What are you howling about?"

"What's been nagging me. What I'd forgotten. The Ku always used decoys. You never knew what was real and what wasn't. He led us here. He knew the Meddinian was reading his signals. Now we're too far away to get into his hair at Starbase. That watcher is mocking us because we can't do anything but go back and count the cost." He started stomping around WarCentral, indifferent to the disapproval of the Deified.

"You're not going to charge back there after him?"

"Damned right I am!"

"Isn't that message supposed to make you do that? We go, the fleet jumps back in here?"

WarAvocat stopped stomping. She was right.

He grinned.

VII Gemina climbed onto the Web but moved only a short distance. Two minutes after Seeker reported a bleep of a signal from the watcher, the Guardship broke back off on top of the Outsider, unleashing a Hellspinner storm so intense not a thought escaped.

WarAvocat disposed his secondaries and waited.

Only two ships survived his ambush.

VII Gemina clambered onto the Web cursed by Capitola Primagenia's bureaucratic legions for leaving them to fend for themselves.

Now for the Ku.

— 131 —

Turtle faced a display representing starspace from Starbase to Gateway. His lieutenants were with him, arguing about how best to deploy the fleet—not quite in the manner their employers would have approved. For safety's sake, the discussion took place in warrior ghifu dialect.

They reached agreement. Turtle moved to the Outsider commtechs, gave them orders to relay to group commanders.

Delicate Harmony climbed onto the strand, moved toward Starbase, broke away again before reaching the end of the strand, sneaked forward to watch for the projectile strike coming in from behind Starbase.

The Outsider crew, human and methane breather, were awed by their target. They had not believed before. Not really.

The Valerena wandered into the combat center while the gawking was going on. Nobody paid any attention. She had become a familiar haunt. When she got bored she went roaming, looking for an Outsider who could be led into temptation.

She paused behind the commtechs, peered at a screen. "Is that Starbase?"

One of the Ku told her it was. The Outsiders understood body language better than they did the speech of Canon. She toyed with a man's shoulder for a while. Then she just slipped past, hit a few keys, and started yelling at Starbase to look out.

She ended up restrained by two of Turtle's people. Everyone stood around looking at one another. Turtle checked the board. "She missed the safety key. It didn't go out. You. You." He picked two of his own and four Outsiders. "Collect the hostages. Lock them in the mess of the number two rider. They will have what they need there and there will be no more of this nonsense."

They went.

"Get to work." Turtle assumed his station, apparently studying Starbase.

The Valerena had played that well. The rest would have to manage as cleverly if they were to survive.

There was a lot of comm chatter. Starbase was engaged with the backside force. Turtle beckoned the senior Outsider on duty. "Right on schedule. We have fourteen hours. I want as many men rested as possible."

Those Turtle had sent to confine the hostages returned. One Ku twitched, so. Provik had surrendered the toxin he had been carrying disguised as medicine, finally.

He felt a stir of remorse, but his bets were down. He had chosen a narrow path between light and shadow. He could not balk at the price.

More waiting. More trying hours as the backside force hurtled closer, as his human and nonhuman supporters ran cautious backup checks throughout Delicate Harmony, seeking a flaw in the plan.

The Outsider techs sounded an alarm when they had the backside force in detection. Turtle hurried into Combat. What he saw troubled him. Starbase had defended itself better than expected. "The fools," he grumbled. "Send the move order now."

Techs looked at him askance. They had trouble with fluid tactics. They made a plan, they stuck to the plan. "They've lost three of the four projectiles targeted on Starbase. They haven't redirected any of the others. It's probably too late, but we'll try to adjust."

He was not entirely displeased.

The Godspeakers sent the move order to the main fleet.

Turtle determined which projectiles had chances of warping course enough to impact Starbase. "Code this and send it to projectiles Three and Nine," he told a commtech.

"Sir, if I send this, they'll know we're here."

"If you don't, we'll have no chance of victory." He faced the senior Outsider. "Man the fighters and number one rider. When that message passes Starbase, they'll send someone to investigate."