"Officer represents prince? Are you a Cerian prisoner?"
The girl looked startled for a moment but composed herself, catching on quickly and translating the first question only. She relayed back the colonel's answer, "You may talk to him. Freskel-Gar is very busy at present." Then added, "Yes, with the Cerian technical group."
"Tell him the visitors know things. Very important Freskel-Gar be aware. Plane is in danger."
"The colonel asks, what things? Who are you? How do you know?"
"We know the action, event planned today that involves missile. We know who is responsible. If we know, others will know. Lambia will stand… guilty, to be blamed. Very complicated. Don't endanger yourself." The officer's expression conveyed that it didn't mean much to him. Hunt persisted, "Freskel-Gar should know that ships of other visitors have limited power. Cannot be refilled. Soon useless. Bad bargain. The large ship is good… for a long time. Without limit. The Giants have returned."
The girl's eyes widened. "The colonel says yes, he will pass that back. Is that all? From the stars?"
"Freskel-Gar must stand by Perasmon. War will be… ruin, end… of Minerva. We know your future. Bad. Trying to change it. Please stress urgency."
The officer listened, nodded, and went back through the inside door.
"How can you know the future?" the translator asked.
"No talking now," the woman escorting her snapped.
***
"Putting you through to General Oodan now."
"Oodan."
"Hovin Lilesser of NSRO for you, General."
"Hello? Lilesser here." Lilesser was the person Oodan had tasked to try and locate the member of the National Science Research Office's delegation in Melthis who was allegedly responsible for originating the warning.
"Yes. Oodan speaking."
"This is uncanny. We've been trying to contact the delegation in Melthis for almost an hour. Communications seem to be out. The Lambians say there's a computer down or something. But how did you know?"
"What do you make of it?" Oodan asked.
"I'm not really sure. It's very unusual. They should have backup for this kind of thing."
"There could be something strange going on, then?"
"Well, I don't know. That's not really for me to say. Why? Is something else happening?"
"I'm not sure… Leave it with me. Thank you. You've helped as much as you can."
"Any time."
Oodan replaced the phone and stared at it for almost a minute. A remarkable coincidence, he decided. Coincidences always made him suspicious. The Internal Security people needed to be in on this. They were the ones who dealt directly with the President's Office. He picked up the phone again.
"General?"
"Who do we know at DIS? I need to talk to somebody there right away. Find out who handles the President's personal security, or someone to talk to whoever does. This can't wait."
"At once, General."
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Prince Freskel-Gar watched the screen showing the Giants' ship while he listened to the colonel's summary of the message from the human accompanying them who had called himself Hunt. With all that was going on that day, he hadn't had time yet to discover what the story was behind this awesome-looking vessel whose appearance had troubled even Broghuilio. It was coasting in space, maintaining a position that kept the Moon interposed between it and Minerva. The view was being captured by one of the Broghuilio's ships on the Farside surface. It was being relayed too, from the Agracon, to Wylott and his advance group of Jevlenese at Dorjon. The Jevlenese were also human, but they seemed different from the two who had landed with the Giants. It sounded as if this was going to be a complicated story.
The last-minute decision to bring forward the takeover at the Agracon had been pulled off surprisingly smoothly, with the world outside still unaware that it had happened. It was important that news of Perasmon's end be known first, before Freskel-Gar began moving overtly to consolidate his position. As expected, there had been a barrage of calls and messages querying the apparent hitches with communications, and some visitors had been inconvenienced, but by and large the cover stories had stood. Later, an explanation could be concocted attributing the early moves in the Agracon to security precautions taken in response to an intelligence alert that had been recognized only later as pertaining to the assassination. To minimize the time for which the action at the Agracon would need to be concealed, Hat Rack had also been brought forward and would now be executed over mid-ocean. That part of the operation was being directed by Freskel-Gar's deputy, Count Rorvax, from Dorjon. For obvious reasons the details had been made available only to an absolute minimum who had a need to know.
All in all, Broghilio's show of nerve had paid off. His improvised amendment to the plan to accommodate the sudden change in the situation appeared to be working. This surely wasn't a time for Freskel-Gar to be losing his nerve and over-reacting. So the big news from Hunt, the colonel was telling him, was that the Giants knew about "an action" and "who was responsible." All very vague, with nothing specific stated explicitly. Freskel-Gar didn't see how they could know-even the colonel who was delivering the message didn't know what it was in reference to. Most likely, Freskel-Gar, thought, with their advanced surveillance resources the aliens had detected the Hat Rack flight climbing and moving on an interception course, made a lucky guess, and the rest was pure bluff. So Broghuilio was intending to scrap his ships because Minerva didn't have the resources to refuel and maintain them. Well, wouldn't that apply equally well to the ship that the Giants had arrived in too? Hunt said no, but that was no doubt just another part of the bluff. And if their ship was so superior, why were the Giants evacuating it right now, as he watched? They didn't seem to have much ability to resist whatever Broghuilio was threatening. No, just at the moment Freskel-Gar saw no reason to reverse his decision.
Broghuilio appeared on the channel being maintained to Farside and announced that he intended taking command of the Giants' starship. "I will inform you when I have completed my assessment," he said. And with that, the link cut out.
***
The essence of gaining the controlling hand in this kind of situation lay in assertiveness. Freskel-Gar had acquiesced when Broghuilio tested his mettle by presuming to give orders. The thing now was to keep to the precedent. To have consulted first about taking over the Shapieron would have been tantamount to seeking approval, conceding Freskel-Gar the territory. Keeping the channel open would have been fitting for a subordinate reporting progress. Broghuilio would decide his course of action independently, in his own time as it suited him, and then announce it.
"Auxiliary compensators stabilized… Thrust vector balanced," the computer advised. "All ships ready to lift off."
The captain scanned the bridge-deck readouts. "Proceed."
Broghuilio stood watching, arms folded, as the side-view displays showed the other four craft shedding their coatings of rubble and dust as they rose from the lunar surface. Although the altering surface perspective showed his flagship to be climbing too, with inbuilt Thurien-type g-localizers there was no sensation of movement. The five ships formed into a V with the flagship at the head and turned onto a course directly outward from Luna, in the direction of the Shapieron. If he transferred his followers and installed the armaments now, the complications of having to land his ships on Minerva and then dispose of them there could perhaps be avoided. Why should they live like thieves in hiding among hostelries provided by Freskel-Gar, when they could base themselves in a functioning starship?
He had more running in his favor than just the weaponry, the ship, and knowledge of how to use them, Broghulio had decided. There was also the psychological factor. The Lambians and the Cerians walked around in uniforms, held exercises, and drew plans on maps, but they were still playing at being soldiers. He had the records of two thousand years of Earth's history to go on. Having been entrusted with its surveillance by the Thuriens had definite
advantages.
***
So they were playing that kind of game, were they? Freskel-Gar was conscious of his staff officers around him, outwardly impassive but waiting to see his reaction. He reassessed his situation rapidly. The destruction of whatever the objects had been that Broguilio ordered taken out had demonstrated the potency of his weapons. But before the Giants' craft arrived, Broghuilio had been willing to join Lambia as an equal partner. Now, all of a sudden, he was foregoing all else to get his hands on the Giants' ship. So maybe there was some substance after all to Hunt's claim that it had things going for it that Broghuilio's ships didn't. Freskel-Gar was feeling less sure about the formidable ally that he had thought he could count on. He needed to improve his own bargaining position drastically.
"The Jevlenese general Wylott is asking what's happening," an aide reported, gesturing toward one of the consoles a short distance away. The transmission from the ships on Farside would have been lost at Dorjon also.
"Tell him we're looking into it," Freskel-Gar replied.
Broghuilio was not in control of the Giants' ship yet. Maybe there was a way of leveling the situation. Hadn't Hunt said something about the translating device being the starship's computer? It would presumably have a picture of the situation out there on the other side of the Moon that it might be disposed to share. If nothing else, that would show Freskel-Gar's staff that they didn't need to await Broghuilio's pleasure to be informed as to what was going on.
Freskel-Gar indicated the screen that had been displaying the starship. "Do we still have the connection via that shuttle they landed in that's standing out back?"
The colonel checked with the engineering chief. "It's still there. There's just nothing coming over it."
"Can we activate it somehow?"
The engineering chief moved behind the chairs of the operators manning a section of equipment. "It seemed to be voice driven." He raised his tone and addressed a grille. "Hello?… Testing?… This is Melthis calling the ship." There was no response.
"Try Cerian," someone suggested. "The aliens spoke some Cerian." It did no good.
"How about these?" Another engineer produced the collection of headbands, ear pieces, and wrist sets that had been taken from the captives. Nothing worked.
"There's probably some kind of activation code word," the engineering chief said.
Freskel-Gar frowned in annoyance. "Is that human who wanted to talk to it still out there?" he asked. "The one called Hunt."
"Yes, Your Highness."
"Bring him back in."
The colonel went out to the ante-room and came back with Hunt. Using signs and words, the engineering chief explained the problem. Hunt turned to the grille that was connected to the channel being relayed through the shuttle.
"ZORAC?"
"Yes, Vic?" a voice replied.
***
ZORAC integrated the data from its external sensors to compose a representation of the five Jevlenese vessels closing in around the Shapieron to command it from all sides. As instructed by Garuth before he and the others evacuated the ship, ZORAC had opened the main docking bay doors. As it watched, processing and evaluating the incoming data, three things happened simultaneously.
A communications processor forwarded a message received via the probe positioned to provide a signal path around the Moon. It was an acknowledgment from the Lambian embassy in Osserbruk, the Cerian capital. This was ZORAC's latest try at getting through to the Cerian President's Office, after its attempt via the National Aerospace Directorate hadn't worked.
Vic Hunt reappeared, after a long delay, on the channel to the shuttle that had landed in Melthis.
And the Jevlenese leader, Broghuilio, initiated contact over the link that Garuth had told ZORAC to keep open to the Jevlenese flagship. "I am calling the Shapieron."
"Shapieron. I hear you," ZORAC replied.
"Am I talking to the ship's controlling AI?"
"You are."
"We are about to come aboard, as was previously advised."
"I understand."
"Confirm that the vessel had been evacuated of all occupants."
"Confirmed." They were now in the surface lander that had withdrawn far outside the screen of Jevlenese ships. Garuth had yielded to the threat of violence against those down on the surface. ZORAC concluded that bioforms had their built-in operating directives too.
Broghuilio appeared less sure of the fact, however. ZORAC read the expression, pattern of muscles tensions, and intonations of voice that it had learned to associate with human uncertainty and apprehension. "I just wish to remind you of the fate of the Thurien devices that appeared here immediately before the Shapieron," Broghuilio said. "The weapons responsible are trained on your ship, and also on the lander that is standing off outside the limit. We expect to be received aboard the Shapieron without interference or any clever surprises. I hope the implications are clear. Do I make myself understood?"
"Perfectly."
ZORAC had no surprises waiting. Even if it had conceived any, with the Ganymeans and their human friends in jeopardy it would have been unable to act on it.
***
Frenda Vesni sat listening to Negrikof bellowing in the next room. She had just put a call through from a secretary at the Lambian embassy in Osserbruk, saying that a message purporting to be from an alien spacecraft in the vicinity of Minerva had warned that President Harzin's plane was going to be shot down. Ironically, the Lambian had ended up being routed through to the same desk as the alert from NAD earlier.
"Look, what is this? Doesn't anyone have any sense of discrimination left anymore?… No, I don't take it seriously… Because we've had it going on all day. There's some hackers loose who are having what they think is fun, and that people like you and me have got nothing better to do… No, because if I did that every time…"
Another indicator flashed on Vesni's desk. The head and shoulders appeared of a man in Army uniform. "This is Frenda Vesni."
"Is that Intel Dir? I was told I need to speak with Zumo Negrikof. It's very urgent."
"He's on a call to the Lambian embassy right at this minute. I'm his second. Can I help you?"
"I'm not sure it can wait. I really need to talk to someone in the President's Office, but I was told we have to go through you. Can you interrupt him, please?"
"What's it about?
"I'm with Chief of Staff Headquarters. We've received a warning through one of our locations that has contacts in Lambia that the plane that's on its way here with the President and the Lambian King aboard is in imminent danger. The President's Office has direct contact with the plane and also with ground control. They need to know."
Vesni turned her head for a moment. Negrikof was still yelling. If this had come through on its own, she would have let Negrikof deal with it. But there had been three warnings now. And this one wasn't claiming to be a talking starship. Her terms of office authorized her to act on her own initiative if her chief were unavailable and it was a matter of national security or an emergency. Well, this certainly qualified. She thought about the probable reaction from Negrikof if it turned out to be a hoax or a misunderstanding of something. Then she weighed that against the consequences if the warning was genuine. She took a deep breath. There were times in life when you just had to hope you were right.
"Taking all the details would just lose more time," she said. "I'll connect you through to the President's Office directly."
***
In the Lambian communications room, the views being sent back by ZORAC of the five Jevlenese ships positioned around the Shapieron were distributed across several screens. A daughter craft of some kind was detaching from one of them. It was obvious to Hunt now. The Jevlenese had to have been on the Moon somewhere. His spirits sagged as he watched. Even at this early stage, the alliance between Broghuilio and Freskel-Gar had proved itself durable enough and flexible enough to seize a new opportunity when it presented itself, virtually without even faltering in the
ir stride. Now they had a functioning starship as well as Jevlenese weaponry. So much for the mission and its hope of averting a planetary war. About the only consolation Hunt could see was that at least this way, the advantage would be so devastatingly to one side that it might be over sooner, without spreading to dimensions that would engulf the whole of Minerva. So the mission might have created a new reality after all that was at least an improvement, if not the ideal they had hoped for. And that was something, for with the beacons gone and the Shapieron now taken over by Broghuilio, it was beginning to look very much as if they might be stuck in it.
He stared at the images of the Jevlenese craft seen from the Shapieron, hanging seemingly motionless in the void against the background of stars. Different stars-not a pattern that would have been visible from the Solar System of the time that he belonged to in a different universe. How many ships and constructions against a backdrop of space had he seen since that first trip from Earth to take part in the investigation after the discovery of "Charlie" on the Moon?
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