As they were leaving the Officers Club feeling good about themselves and each other, Captain Tappan walked in the door.

  “Priority message for you, sir,” he said handing the envelope to Gilbert, “from Nordeen.”

  Gilbert tore it open and read it, then silently handed it to Pajandcan. Her eyes filled with tears as she stared at the words. Admiral Dawson had been killed in a mass hunk attack off the Ivy Chain.

  * * *

  “I fear, Captain Teeman, that we are being followed by both parties,” Xindella’s voice said from the speaker. “That is going to make the consummation of our arrangement much more difficult than I had hoped it would be.”

  “You mean you didn’t plan on this? I can’t believe you thought either the Ukes or Sondak would simply let us take the weapon and go,” Lucky said. “From what I’ve heard, you’re supposed to be much shrewder than that.”

  “Flattery, Captain, is quite meaningless in this particular situation. I did expect one or the other to follow, since I expected one or the other would win the festbid. I never assumed that you – the Neutral Alliance, that is – had a real chance. My contingency plan, unfortunately, did not allow for dual pursuit.”

  “Your equipment must be better than ours. How far behind are they?”

  “One thousand exatrens.”

  “Can you convert that into tachymeters? I never did quite understand exatrens.”

  “I cannot, but it does not matter, Captain. Suffice it to say that they are close enough to follow us out of subspace as easily as they followed us in.”

  Marsha leaned over Lucky’s shoulder. “I have an idea. Couldn’t we close with you, make the transfer, then head in opposite directions?”

  “An excellent idea, citizen, except for one thing. What is to keep them from closing with us while we are closing with one another? Your prize isn’t something I can hand you, you know. It fills almost half of Profit’s main bay.”

  “Then what are we going to do?”

  A deep fluttering sound came over the speaker, followed by a long moment of silence. “Captain, stay close. We are about to exit subspace close to – never mind. Just coordinate your exit with mine.”

  “Understood,” Lucky said. Two minutes later they exited subspace, and Lucky began to break Graycloud.

  “Where did he go?” Marsha asked from the nav-chair. “We’ve lost him, Lucky. No, wait. We passed him. But if you don’t put on full dampers, we will lose him.”

  “Hold on!” Lucky cringed and put the inertial dampers on full. Graycloud began shuddering as the dampers absorbed too heavy a load all at once. “Xindella! What the tensheiss are you doing?” Lucky screamed into the transceiver.

  “Zzzaug-dit-dit Gouldrive failurrrssss,” his voice came back. “At-t-t-try starrrrr-”

  “Fix on the closest star, Mars,” Lucky said as he eased off slightly on the dampers. The shuddering was reduced to a low vibration.

  “I’ve got it. Deflect forty-five toward the fix. That’s as close as we’ll get until we recover maneuvering.”

  “Wonder what happened to our escort?”

  “One of them just overshot us by about sixty thousand kilometers. I don’t see any sign of the other.”

  “So what do we do now, Mars?”

  “Ride out the curve and then see if we can find Xindella,” she said. “What else can we do?”

  “We could just get the tensheiss out of here and leave Xindella to Judoff and Janette. They all deserve each other.”

  “We can’t, Lucky. You know that. We have to complete our part of the agreement. Then if you want to take off for somewhere else, you’ll get no fight from me.”

  “Why? Really, Mars, what difference would it make?”

  “All the difference in the galaxy.” Marsha understood his frustration, but she also had confidence that deep down inside he didn’t mean what he had said.

  “I suppose,” he said finally, “but sometimes I wish we could just fly away from it all and find someplace quiet where we could do whatever we please without having to cope with galactic government and war and greed and plain lightspeed stupidity.”

  She reached over and put her hand on his arm. “I don’t know where there is such a place, but once we turn the weapon over to Delightful Childe, I’d be more than happy to go look for it with you. Will that do?”

  “Mars, I love you. Yes, that will do.”

  “Good. Now go fix us something to eat while I keep an eye and ear out here. It will be at least three hours before we can start searching for him.”

  Lucky got out of his chair, leaned over, and gave her a kiss.

  ‘“Three hours, huh? Lotsa things can happen in three hours.”

  “But who would watch...or does it matter?” she asked after he kissed her again. “Probably not. I don’t think we’ve ever made love in hard decel before.”

  He pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her. “First time for everyone,” he said.

  * * *

  Henley stood with Sergeant Denoro across the road from lngrivia’s company. They had finished their meal, and Denoro had suggested they take a casual walk. Despite all the walking he had done in the past ten days, Henley agreed, and they set off down the road at a pace that would have been considered casual only by Denoro. They hadn’t walked far, but Henley was glad when they returned to the company area and stopped. He was tired.

  “Tell me, Denoro, do you understand what happened? Why didn’t the Ukes put up more of a fight?”

  “Looks to me like once we broke through their initial resistance, they didn’t have much fight left in them or enough troops to fight with. They were sittin’ thin all ‘round, as my old training sergeant used to say. Anyway, what does it matter? The occupation corps will be down soon, and we’ll be up and heading for rest and retrainin’.”

  “You’re beginning to sound like the Colonel,” Henley said. “Pretty soon you’ll be using her odd contractions.”

  “Already caught myself at it once or twicet. Got to admit, though, her way of talkin’ i’not as hard on the ear as some I’ve been hearin’.”

  Henley laughed. “If she catches you making fun of her like that, you’re liable to hear something else that’s hard on your ears.”

  ‘‘I’m careful. Besides, Chief, the Colonel’s all right. Even if she heard me, I don’t think she’d mind.”

  “I woul’not mind what?” Ingrivia asked from behind them.

  Henley and Denoro looked at each other, then fought to smother their laughter.

  “How many private jokes do you two have at my expense?” Rasha’kean would have loved to have been in on their secret, but in a way she was glad she was not. That gave her something to tease them about. “Never mind the answer,” she said. “Denoro, get the company to scour their equipment and pack it tight for travel.”

  “Orders?” Henley asked.

  “Orders,” she replied, “but d’not even begin to ask for where. General Schopper wa’not tellin’ us, and I ca’not be tellin’ you what I d’not ken.”

  “I’ll get ‘em started, Colonel,” Denoro said with a quick salute. She immediately headed across the road where Delta Company was lounging out under the shade of an orchard whose blossoms made the air heavy with their scent. Many of the troopers were obviously sleeping off their midday meal.

  “Schopper didn’t tell you anything?” Henley asked, hoping for something he could grab onto for a story. The Ukes on this planet had fallen so quickly, that after the landing assault Ingrivia’s company had not been involved in anything that would count as a real battle.

  “Only that we were going to hit another planet as quickly as we could reassemble and ship out.”

  “Is that his plan? To hop from one Planet to another, system to system, straight into the U.C.S?”

  It was at times like these that Rasha’kean wished Stanmorton were somewhere else. She would probably never understand why he constantly asked questions she could not answer.

  “Ask him yourself, Chief. He’s hot on his way here from Nordeen to get us ready for the next hop, as you put it.”

  Henley smiled. “That’s it Colonel. This was his entire plan to begin with. We’re all going to be part of General Schopper’s Planet Hoppers.”

  Rasha’kean was amused in spite of herself. “I d’not believe the general would like such a name.”

  “General Schopper the Planet Hopper. General Schopper’s Planet Hoppers.” Henley repeated the two variations several more times. “Has a sound to it, doesn’t it?”

  “A childish sound, Chief. Bairn-rhymes, my mother would have called them. And not to be changin’ roles, but might I ask a question? Is your equipment squared away? If I’m rememberin’ correctly, you’re still attached to my unit, are you not?”

  Henley could see what was coming and tried to dodge it. “I am, Colonel, but I need to get this story-”

  “You need to get your equipment ready, Chief Stanmorton. Your story will wait, but I wi’not. I suspect your ‘Planet Hopper’ would be displeased if I di’not take proper care of you, so get to work.”

  Henley saw the twinkle in her eyes and decided to see how far she was willing to play this game. “But Colonel, if I do that, I’m going to miss my-”

  “That’s an order, Chief. By the regs I can only give you orders as regard your health and safety, and this is one of those times. Now move.”

  As he started to cross the road, she cursed.

  “Colonel?”

  “There was something’ I was meanin’ to ask you, Chief. Have you heard the rumor that we lost an admiral up there?”

  “Yes, but as far as I know, it’s nothing more than a rumor. The Ukes could have started it for all we know.”

  She motioned for him to come closer. “Chief, I d’not want this gettin’ down to the troops, but I suspect it’more than a rumor. We’re short one ship – Admiral Dawson s. Part of our briefing after General Schopper signed off was how we were going to adjust for the lost space.”

  Henley never liked to give credence to rumors, but what she said made a certain amount of sense to him. “You’re probably right, Colonel. Rumor says the system was full of Uke hunks after we landed. But you’re also right in not wanting the troops to know. They’ll hear it officially soon enough. No sense in knocking their morale down with it now.”

  “Thank you, Chief. I appreciate your opinion on this.”

  “Colonel, you can have my opinion any time you want it. You may not always appreciate it, but you’re certainly welcome to it.”

  “Better get your equipment ready,” she said. This time he didn’t argue with her.

  As she watched Stanmorton cross the road and enter the orchard, Rasha’kean was annoyed by all the ambivalent feelings that were tangling her thoughts. Part of her was glad she had Stanmorton around, and part of her wished he was gone. Part of her was sure it would be a mistake to mention Dawson’s death to her troops, and part of her thought she should be honest with them. No matter what she decided about those things, she ken she would second-guess herself.

  With a shrug of her shoulders she followed Stanmorton, grateful that she did not have that kind of trouble when they were fighting the Ukes.

  24

  AS QUARTER-ADMIRAL ROCHMON scanned the preliminary investigation report, he had an odd feeling that something was missing. This report covered the same basic information that the last security investigation on Bock had covered. Date and place of birth, parents, grandparents, acquaintances, schooling, previous employment – it was all here, as neat and concise as the analysis reports Bock herself wrote fur Cryptography. Even the innuendos and hearsay comments fit neatly into a pattern.

  Maybe that was it. Maybe it was too neat, too concise. There should have been some evidence in here of Bock’s bizarre sexual appetites, not just rumors, and some indication of her unruly temper – but there wasn’t. Why? he wondered. Fleet Investigations should have been able to find something more than rumors about those things. It didn’t make any sense, and Hew Rochmon needed for it to make sense.

  Ever since the spitting incident, Bock had been acting in an unnaturally polite way. He could have accepted her new-found civility as evidence that she had taken his warning to heart, but he knew better. Bock was playing some game with him. Too many times before she had misled him, dragging him so far into her private game that by the time he realized what was going on, it was almost always too late.

  The first time had been the worst, because she had used him sexually and then invited him to a party with some of her more unusual friends. Only when the lights went out and the projector went on did he learn that the purpose of the party was to view a video recording she had made of their lovemaking. It still embarrassed him just to remember it. That incident taught him to be on guard against her, but she still tricked him in little ways after that.

  The problem, the damnable problem, was that she was a better cryptographer than anyone he had ever known. Even now, in the midst of this new game, she was making huge dents in the Ukes’s Q-3 code and with any luck would break it in the very near future. For that reason alone he would put up with more from her than he would from any ten other people.

  He sat up straight, took a deep breath, and as he let it out, flipped back to the first page of the report, ready to go through it one more time. He began reading slowly, looking again for some solid clue to what was bothering him.

  “Bock to see you, Admiral,” his aide said over the intercom. “Send her in,” Rochmon ordered, closing her folder.

  She was through the door and making straight for his desk almost before he finished speaking. It was obvious that she was very, very angry.

  “What is it, Bock?”

  “Hew Rochmon, you motherless son of a Castorian turd, I ought to walk out of here right now and let you break this stinking code yourself.”

  “Sit down, Bock,” he said steadily, “and tell me what you’re so all worked up about.”

  “You, you sneaking vermin,” she said, waving her arms. “You put the scabbing FID on me! I can’t go anyplace. I’ve got the damned MGs with me every hour of the day that I’m not right here in this section. Isn’t that enough? Did you have to put the FID on me?”

  “Not me, Bock. You put them on yourself.”

  “Like crap I did!” She glared hard at him. “You get them off me or I quit. You understand that?”

  “You sit down and listen to me,” he said calmly. “Now.” He waited until she finally seated herself before he continued. “You can’t quit. Remember? Stonefield said he’d put you back into the service and then court-martial vou. When will you learn, Bock? I’m not the one who’s been stirring up the goldsleeves. You are. You kick a beast, you expect to get bitten. What I –“

  “But I’ve been so nice,” she complained.

  “Yes, you have. But this current FID investigation started before your new nice game.”

  “What do you mean, game? I’m just doing what you told me to do – treating people with courtesy.”

  “Bock, if I believed that, I’d be the stupidest man in the Service. I’ve watched you in action too many times to believe what I see on the surface. Something’s working in your head, something I’m sure I’m not going to like.”

  Arms folded, she leaned back in her chair. “I want them off of me, Hew. I want them off of my past and out of my life.”

  “Talk to Stonefield. He’s the only one who can stop them now,” Rochmon lied. “Or learn to live with the fact that someone in FID is going to know everything there is to know about you.” To his surprise, he thought he saw a flash of concern cross her face. “Does that worry you?”

  “No. I have nothing to hide. It’s the intrusion I hate.” She paused as she stood up. “Do you have to make the appointment for me to see Stonefield, or can I make it myself?”

  “Either way. But I don’t know why you’re bothering. You know he isn’t going to stop it.”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no, but...Hew, just what is it they’re looking for, anyway? I don’t understand.”

  “Sins, Bock. All your sins. You have committed a few sins, haven’t you?” Again he saw a flash of concern alter her face for a second.

  “It’s my parents, isn’t it?” she asked slowly. “They’re looking for some mistake my parents made, something with the right hint of scandal that they can use against me. Admit it.”

  “Not as far as I know,” Rochmon said. “It’s your mistakes they’ll space you for, not your parents’.”

  “My parents didn’t do anything like that. My father had the bad luck to die when I was very young. My mother worked hard, kept me fed, and educated me as best she could to prepare me for school. Then she married my secondfather and got another chance at happiness. She hated the investigation that got me my clearance, and she hated last year’s even more. Now the FID snoopers are asking all her friends questions again, all because of me.”

  “Can’t be helped. You’ve angered Stonefield. You’ve angered Gilbert, who used to defend you. And you’ve angered almost every senior commander attached or assigned to Cryptography. You can’t anger that many powerful people and not expect to catch some flak for it, Bock.” He shook his head. “Why can’t you understand that?”

  “And you don’t think Stonefield will call it off?”

  “I know he won’t. Just ignore it. Tell your parents that it’s all routine and let it go. FID’ll stop sooner or later.”

  “They damn well better or I’m going to give the goldsleeves something to really get angry about.” She turned on her heels and left his office.

  Another act, Rochmon thought to himself, but frayed around the edges this time. Sooner or later she was going to say or do something that would give her game away, and he only hoped he was there to see her fall.

  * * *

  “Marshall Judoff’s back,” Melliman said, “and she’s raging through the building like the Terminator of Texnor.”

  Frye smiled. “Amazing. One thing about her, she never ceases to amaze me. What possible good does she think a temper-tantrum is going to do her? And why in public? Why not save it for the Bridgeforce meeting?” Looking at Melliman standing there in her sharply pressed uniform made him feel good. “Are you ready?”

 

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