"AnyKaat. You ever get nostalgic about Merod Schene?"

"No. That wasn't a good time."

"Life was simpler."

"Too damned simple." AnyKaat snorted. "This loafing is too much for you; why don't you blow yourself away?"

"I wouldn't wish it on another me. Strate would have another Jo out in three days. Hell. I'm about done. If I can just get straight what he's saying about the Web and the Presence."

WarAvocat ran the encounter with the Outsider forerunner five times, speed up, slow down, trying to find a clue to why the ship tripped alarms. Aleas finally took pity. She froze the scene, blew up the nose of the Outsider, scribed a circle. "Those characters are Ku. They translate ‘Delicate Harmony.' The characters on the vanes translate ‘Dire Radiant, One.' The characters between the fighter nests are the Ku date for their surrender and a word that comes through as dishonor but means more."

He disappointed her expectations of gratitude. "He wouldn't advertise himself like that."

"How often would he see the outside of his ship?"

"Not often." Did the Outsiders have their politics, too?

No matter. It was evidence the Ku had been here. "Access, Gemina. Isolate the battle data pertaining to this vessel." It could be another of the Ku's diversions. "I want it temporal, regardless of source. Run at one hundred times real time. Sit down, Colonel Klass. Where have you been hiding?"

"With our aliens, sir."

"Uhm." Strange, that maneuvering with the riderships ... There it was. "But you've got something?"

"It may not be important but it's got to be interesting to anybody who believes the fleet is the pinnacle of technological possibility."

"That sounds ominous. One minute." He watched the tumbling rider till it vanished. He launched a blossom of nine probes down its track, ran up views of Web strands, launched more probes, then faced Klass. "Tell me about it."

She went at it directly. "The Web is an artifact. The Presence—there are three in our part of the galaxy—is an automated repair device."

"Well," he said. And was so stunned he could only repeat himself. "Well." Nowhere in any hypothesis was there a suggestion that the Web was a construct—except in the theological sense. Starbase was the ultimate macroengineering concept.

Klass said, "Seeker says his people have been on the Web six million years. They met one race that had been around an eon. They didn't know who built the Web, they just had legends from older races. The Builders probably were the first intelligence to evolve, and were functionally immortal. They laid out the pattern in starspace at low sublight velocities, taking eons. When they finished this galaxy, they supposedly were going to connect the nearer galaxies. Maybe they're out there spinning the Web right now."

He said nothing. He was in shock.

"The Web wasn't meant for travel, it was a means of communications, like a fiber-optic network. Of course, all that's hearsay now."

"These Builders sure built for the ages if their ‘machines' are still operating."

"Seeker says the Web is deteriorating. Traffic wears it out. In the past billion years a thousand races have found it. The Presences can't keep up. They've stopped trying in some regions."

"Whoa. This is too much right now, with everything else." He had waiting calls nagging. "Get it prepared for review. Sounds like a first-rate job."

"Thank you, sir. It hasn't been easy. I thought you'd want the key information. I wouldn't have interrupted had I realized we were operationally engaged." She departed.

He muttered, "She has been preoccupied."

Aleas said, "An interesting revelation. Consider the consequences of that becoming general knowledge."

"Eh?"

"We've spent millennia claiming Guardships represent the limit to technology. We believed it. Now suppose this gets out."

"Why worry? The information hasn't exactly been secret." He turned to his calls waiting.

The third was interesting. A fighter had located the main of the Outsider forerunner. It was damaged but functioning.

He ordered the derelict collected.

— 135 —

The starspace journey became dreary fast. There was only so much planning possible. Once everyone had added to the wishlist, there was nothing left but routine duty and watching stores dwindle. Turtle spent his time with Midnight, trying to know her while he could.

Time's gnawing had become obvious. Blessed was troubled. Then Midnight herself caught on, at least unconsciously. She suffered mild depressions. They would get worse.

Turtle was nursing her through a spate of tears when Provik appeared. "Better come forward." His tone was grim.

A crowd had gathered. One of his people had held his seat. "It's set to run."

He ran the tape.

A recon probe ripped past. "Twenty minutes ago." Two more followed, barely detectable. Calculation indicated they had come from the vicinity of Starbase.

"VII Gemina. WarAvocat figured it out."

His people had run the options. They had found what he expected. There were no options.

The rider did not carry foodstuffs enough and could recycle nothing but air and water. It had not been designed for protracted independent operation.

They were committed to the shortest possible starspace run.

One of his people said, "If ten of us were to..."

"No."

"It would give the rest more time."

"No."

"Better ten dead than all dead."

"Better no dead than ten."

"Sir..."

"The subject is closed. And I will not tolerate disobedience. Find out what resources we have. Hospital, chemicals normally used for other purposes, vermin, whatever." He had a despicable idea. "Anyone kills himself, the rest of us will eat him." His gorge rose but he meant it. They knew that. None would subject his comrades to that.

"We begin strict rationing. We avoid activity as much as possible."

Turtle made a course adjustment. It would take two days longer to reach the strand, away from where it had intersected his earlier course. It was the best he could do.

All systems went down to minimal. He ran Stealth and SCAM patterns to blind active scans, launched an ECM probe programmed to look like a ridership trying to do a sneak down his former course. He sent a second probe off on a likely alternate course. He reviewed the tricks they had used in the old days. Some should be good still.

He hoped Hanaver Strate was WarAvocat VII Gemina still.

— 136 —

VII Gemina broke away running dead slow relative. Ops took sights and moved ship to a position astride the quarry's last known course. No scan, passive or active, detected anything.

That was to be expected. The Guardship was days early.

WarAvocat was in Hall of the Watchers. The display wall showed nothing but the starfield. Outwardly he appeared calm, confident. But that was half his job. Inwardly, he was paralyzed by a conviction that whatever he did the Ku would anticipate. Like they were tied into a knot of predestination.

He could not see beyond the Ku's prime objective, the strand, which he would use for all it was worth, on and off, to shake the Guardship.

Aleas said, "He'll see our corona soon, Hanaver."

"I know." He moved closer, whispered, "My mind has turned to gelatin. I don't know what to do besides wait. Unless I make him go against an unknown."

Aleas looked quizzical.

"You take him. He doesn't know you."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes."

Aleas reflected, examined the estimated situation, ran some calculations. He saw her intent, was surprised he had not thought of it himself, and worried. If the Ku did slip past, it was all over. He would vanish before they could recover riders. Secondaries had become too precious to abandon.