"This genanite is tailored to settle initially in the Phinon 'lungs' and begin rapid reproduction. It will then enter the circulatory system or be exhaled into the environment. With the amount of genanites we expect to inject into the Phinon ships, the infections will be massive, adequate even without reproduction to kill the Phinons on board."

Sammi continued for a few minutes more. She went into the details of how her one organism would "split" into two types, so that on average only half of the Phinons infected would show prompt symptoms while the others would hopefully last long enough to infect others back at their home comets. But apart from Dykstra, Andy (now), and a few of the biology Ph.D.s, she knew she was speaking over their heads.

"And now, there is nothing left to do but begin the demonstration," Sammi concluded. She was looking right at Dykstra when she said it. He looked proud of her and gave her a discreet thumbs-up with the hand he had resting on his cane. Hague was looking intently at the Phinon. Once Knoedler had found out what Arie had been doing, he'd had the savant listening to every piece of possible Phinon ship-to-ship chatter that the Patrol had been able to gather. Knoedler himself looked positively grim.

The crowd heard a brief hiss as the genano agent was introduced into the cage. "Effects should be noticeable within minutes," Sammi said, taking her seat.

More like seconds.

Immediately the Phinon let loose with a series of sharp chuffing and whuffing sounds, their equivalent of coughing and sneezing, from the breathing hole in its chest.

Chuff. Chuff. Chuff-chuff-chuff. Whuff, whuff. "Click-clackle'chk, clk'ick?"

"Oh yes, Ti'kak does not know what is wrong. Yes," Hague said. The rest just watched. Sammi could not have had her gaze torn away by anything less than a hook and winch.

Another staccato burst of chuffs and whuffs was ripped from the Phinon, followed by a hideous series of convulsions. The arms and legs with their backwards joints jerked everywhere-straight out, curled up, and then in sickening gyrations. The Phinon was tossed about the chamber by the violence of a body dying, and going hopelessly out of its control. Briefly, the alien would regain a measure of control, only to fall into deep shudders and convulsions again.

It let out with a long, mournful wail-or so it sounded to Sammi. "Ti'kak is frightened, yes," Hague informed them.

Then, starting with the smallest, the four rod tendons of the Phinon's arms snapped, one by one. Its arms fell to its sides, though were still thrown into motion by convulsions, though they these were rapidly weakening. Lesions began to form on the Phinon's skin. Although Sammi's bugs were intended to attack the skeleton, steel filaments were threaded throughout the alien's body-the ugly sores were testament to that.

The Phinon tried to stand; its leg snapped in the thigh, bending like a second knee, perpendicular to the original.

"Nasty stuff," Sammi heard Knoedler say.

Sammi still couldn't pull her eyes away even though she was getting sick to her stomach. The Phinon was beginning to resemble an octopus stranded by low tide. Its facial structure had crumpled; the head flopped over like an underfilled water balloon. All of its limbs were compactifying now, the tissue contracting as the steel skeleton flaked away inside. The lesions had bubbled up into boils which began to pop and leak slimy fluids.

Somehow the alien wound up on its back, its breathing orifice pointing straight up, like a bean bag with a blowhole. Slowly it started to ooze over. It released one last weak wail. "Oo-oo-oo-oo ch'k! Ti'kak?" followed by an obscene gurgling sound.

My God, it still isn't dead! Sammi thought, horrified."Ti'kak knows he is dying, oh yes," Hague said.She'd ignored the warning signs too long. When the urge to vomit struck, Sammi had no time to rush out of the room. She bent over and lost it on the floor.

She was sure she'd been retching for a good five minutes. Still bent over, she felt a hand on her shoulder, and another on her forehead. Memories of her father helping her during a childhood bout with the flu came to her. It was Dykstra. He'd gone out and returned with a glass of water for her. She sat down, took

a sip, swished it around in her mouth, shrugged and spat it out on the floor. She swallowed the next sip.

It was then that she noticed how few people remained in the room.

"You weren't the only one to blow your groceries," Dykstra said. "You weren't even the first one to lose

it. Andy beat you to it.""Where is he?""Restroom.""I thought I had some idea . . ." Sammi began. "Oh God, Chris. I never imagined it would be like that-""Impressive work, Ms. MacTavish," Knoedler said, unknowingly interrupting but already on his way out."It was so disgusting, Chris. Can we really do that to them? It was so . . . so . . . inhuman."Dykstra just looked kind of sad. " 'Inhuman'?" he mused. "Odd word for a class of behaviors so typical of our species."

Hague was still standing in front of the viewer, looking in. "Yes, Ti'kak is dead. Oh yes."

XIII.

The Vegas Star was a huge luxury liner, fully 300 meters long, filled with 22 casinos, 41 bars, 8 lounges, and 442 well appointed staterooms. Just recently she had been equipped with several thousand cots, tons of extra food, and the Dykstra-Hague impellers. On the way to the Jovian system, despite the room, she currently had only two occupants.

I've been on more luxury boats since this war started than any other time in my life, Bob thought as he walked through the corridors. Dykstra had not confided to the lieutenant his concern about the relative scarcity of spaceships equipped with the new drive. Bob was simply content to have the opportunity to pilot another ship with the drive so soon after losing the Hyperlight.

Bob turned a corner and entered the Starlight Lounge. Soft music was playing there, and Nikki was sitting at a table in the middle of the room, her dinner plates pushed aside, her computer pad aglow. She'd come down here to work and grab a bite to eat.

Nikki was dressed simply, in a jumpsuit with no special adornment, an outfit seldom seen in such an elegant setting as the lounge. Still, she was a beautiful woman, a tad bit tiny for Bob's taste, but you know what they say about small packages.

Bob had been a complete gentleman the entire trip. He knew that she and Knoedler were an item-she'd clarified that immediately even before the Hyperlight had been abandoned. And besides, she was a lieutenant commander.

"Itinerary update," Bob said, taking a seat at the table.

Nikki looked up. "Oh, goody. What new disaster this time?"

Bob handed her a memory cube. "Nothing that qualifies as a disaster. Just a couple more names of people we have to try to get off Ananke." Ananke, though one of the twelve classical Jovian satellites, was a trivial moon only seventeen kilometers in diameter, orbiting on average over twenty million kilometers away from her primary. Most people from the inner system had no idea just how damn big the Jovian system was.

"Anything new on the Phinons?"

"The High Command has been monitoring them steadily. They still show no signs of slowing down, nor even of turning. But since they accelerated at six gees for seventeen hours once they got going, everyone assumes they'll do the same thing in reverse once they get to Jupiter. We just don't know how the Phinons define 'get to Jupiter.' " The Phinon armada had accelerated up to a velocity relative to Jupiter of nearly 3500 kps. They'd been coasting ever since for sixteen days, and if they did nothing they'd reach the Jovian system in another ten. Bob expected to be gone from Jupiter with at least one day to spare. But there were so many people of varying degrees of importance that just had to be evacuated, or so said the governments of both the Solar Union and the Belt.

The Great Jovian Exodus had happened almost immediately upon the news of the Phinon fleet reaching Jupiter. There was no way to keep the knowledge under wraps, and once four people found out, it wasn't long before the entire population of four million plus found out, too. At that point, anyone with access to a ship loaded up his family and fled. Dozens of the super rich suddenly discovered that money didn't buy enough loyalty to keep their pilots from stealing their yachts and heading for the inner system. The same was true of governmental figures. Even the governor of Ganymede had been left behind in his mansion.

Bob and Nikki were constantly receiving information updates to assist them in plotting the most efficient schedule to maximize the number of VIPs they could evacuate. Bob didn't see how it mattered. They were going to visit three of the Galilean moons first, then Himalia in the intermediate group about eleven million klicks from the giant planet, and finally Ananke and Sinope in the distant outer group. It was also at these last two satellites that the Belter dignitaries with their tiny rock hopper spaceboats (ships too small to set out into the Solar System proper) were supposed to congregate. There was no way the Vegas Star could visit any of the myriad "little rocks" that the Belt and Solar Union had been squabbling over.

"I'm sure the colonel will keep us updated if the Phinons do anything we need to know about," Nikki said.

"If for no other reason than that he's in love with you?" Bob asked, smiling.

"The only reason, Bob," she answered. "By the way, I'm supposed to jettison you before we leave Jupiter to make room for one more dignitary."

Bob laughed. "I wish I had someone waiting for me when I get back. But no. Just a cold, empty room and cold meal to eat alone-"

"But you do have someone," Nikki interrupted, cutting off Bob's silly soliloquy.

"Huh? Who?"

"Samantha, you dummy."

"Oh, right. Rick told me that same bullshit when we were on the Hyperlight. Got me believing it, too. Then we get back and its still shiver city from her."

"Bob, you told me you met Sammi when Steve was still alive. You took her to meet Dykstra."

"Actually, I met her before that when I dropped off some files," Bob corrected. Nikki gave him a stern look.

"Anyway, I know what she saw when she first opened that door for you-one prime male specimen. Stop blushing! Her husband had been away for quite a while, and she most certainly felt a physical attraction for you. Many women would just shrug that off as something natural. Sammi would feel guilty about it. And then Steve died. That's what's so desperately hideous about having a spouse die. Just when you need comforting the most, your main source of comfort is gone. And still there would be attraction for you, and in the fog of hurt somehow she'd think those moments of attraction were the cause of Steve's death, that she was being punished . . ." Nikki trailed off.

"Drawing on some personal experience, there, Commander?" Bob asked softly.

"I told you about Luke," Nikki said. "My impression is that war adds a sense of urgency to everything. I'd never be with Tommy this soon if I hadn't lost Luke in a heartbeat. I doubt if Luke and I ever would have been more than friends. But my first impression of the colonel was different and I was not going to waste time. Good thing he felt the same way.

"But, we were discussing Sammi. She just needs time, Bob. In fact, I'm sure by now she's had enough."

"I haven't seen any evidence of that."

"You have to know where to look. When you told me about how you felt about her on our way back from the Hyperlight, I wanted to see her face when she saw you again. Do you remember? We walked off the boat together. Her face flickered through rage, jealousy, disappointment, and resolve, all in two seconds. She saw you coming off the boat with moi, and figured she'd lost her chance."

Bob thought about that. "Think I should talk to her?"

"No. Let her come to you. She knows about Tommy and me now, and you're not supposed to know about how she felt when she saw us together. Just keep your mouth shut and be patient."

But patience turned out to be something Bob needed in spades after they arrived at Jupiter.

Picking up their passengers from the inner satellites, all members in good standing of the Solar Union, was accomplished with a minimum of fuss. The governments still maintained discipline, and the local infonets were loaded with commentary, no small part of it suggesting that maybe the arrival of the Phinon fleet wouldn't be so bad. After all, the Galilean satellites were bigger than some planets, and the cities went down pretty deep, and every last citizen would be armed by the time the Phinons arrived.

One optimistic voice even suggested that the Phinons were probably only going to use the mass of mighty Jupiter herself to effect some kind of orbital maneuver. Since that idea defied logic, Bob and Nikki assumed it was just happy talk to keep up the spirits of those who had no chance of escape.

After stops at the inner moons, the Vegas Star was quite comfortably populated. It had been planned in advance that Ganymede would provide the ship with a support staff to maintain order on board, and the trip from Callisto to the four midway moons was hardly different from a typical vacation cruise. Even the casinos got up and running by evacuees with vacation resort training in their backgrounds.

The Jovian system can be thought of as consisting of three separate, and by no means equal, subsystems. In close to Jupiter are the Galilean giants, all orbiting within two million kilometers of the planet, smack in the equatorial plane. A second group orbits at a mean distance of eleven million kilometers, but inclined to the equatorial plane by nearly 30 degrees. Of these four, Himalia is by far the largest, and even it is less than two hundred kilometers in diameter. Farthest out is another group of four, the retrograde miniature moons and most certainly captured asteroids. These exist in eccentric orbits of mean distance greater than twenty million kilometers from Jupiter, and at inclinations of over 150 degrees. Along with the moons are enough other captured rocks and boulders to provide Jupiter with her own miniature asteroid belt.

At the time of the settlement of the giant inner moons, the outer groups were left alone to be gotten to later, for it was understood that anything that orbited Jupiter belonged to the citizens of the Galilean satellites. The Belt, however, was less particular about whether or not obvious asteroids orbited both the Sun and Jupiter, and began to occupy the retrograde group in due course. There was nothing planned about it; the Belters just followed their fiercely independent whims.

But the "little rocks" were far richer in metals than the Galilean moons, and so it was inevitable that conflict would eventually arise.

But hopefully not on the Vegas Star.

With the ship populated, Bob and Nikki spent less and less time off the bridge, and even began taking meals there. They wasted an entire precious day at Himalia when an accident at the spaceport made it impossible for their passengers to leave the surface until repairs could be made.

"Oh great. Fine time for this to happen!" Bob had said, storming about the bridge.

Nikki, who had not been on watch but was trying to compose a personal letter to Knoedler, said, "Simmer down, Lieutenant. You knew our luck couldn't last. We planned ahead for forty-eight wasted hours. We'll still have twenty-four left by the time we leave."

"Yes, but I expected to lose all forty-eight at Ananke and Sinope. At heart I'm as independent as any Belter. But dammit, not when there's an impending disaster!"

They lost sixteen of the remainder at Ananke, and the last eight at Sinope. And they were still there.After the stop at Himalia, the Vegas Star had become cramped; after Ananke, packed. Some of the acting stewards from below had made it known that most of the passengers felt it was time to go, and Bob was of a mind to grant them their wish. But Nikki was in command."One more hour, Bob. We'll give them one more hour. I'll call the mayor myself," Nikki said, trying to placate the lieutenant one more time.

"Nikki, um, Commander, the Phinon ships haven't turned around yet. HC is beginning to think they're not going to slow down at all, just come buckshotting through the system at thirty-five hundred kps. God

knows what they'll do on the way through. I don't want to stay to find out. If they don't decelerate, the first ship will be here in three hours."

"Then we'll still have two hours to leave Jupiter before they arrive."

"At twenty gees? That's only five million klicks away by then," Bob protested.

"And a million more every seven seconds," Nikki shot back in pilot speak of her own.

"Fine," Bob said. "But let's leave at twenty-two gees. The compensation fields won't quite handle the

extra two gees, but I don't think our passengers will complain too much about the discomfort."

Nikki nodded and Bob assumed that was a yes. She called down to the surface. Bob watched her

affected smile turn almost instantly to a frown, then she glanced at the Dykdar screen and looked ready to chew nails. Angrily, she broke the connection.

"What?" Bob asked.

"The mayor of Sinope just informed me that the tiny skiff that's been orbiting near us is armed. Not with

much, mind you. Just a couple of little missiles. But we don't have a damn thing to counter them with!"

"Shit."

"He says we'll be free to leave when his people are all on board. He hoped another day would be

sufficient to gather them all together.""Great time to find a little tin god," Bob observed, then: "He'll have us blasted for sure if we try to leave. What does he have to lose? But I wonder what he'll do if we stay put? Really stay put."

"Oh?" Nikki asked expectantly.

"The Phinons are coming in from solar south. Since we're going to be here at the time they arrive, I wouldn't mind having the mass of Sinope between us and them. In another half hour or so we'll be in just about the right position. I'd like your permission to take us out of orbit and assume station keeping with Sinope instead. We can do that forever with our drive."

"And the skiff can't. Clever, Lieutenant. The pilot will be out of fuel in a few hours if he tries to stay with us. Permission granted," Nikki said.

It didn't take the mayor long to figure out what they were doing. He called, spluttering and threatening, but he needed the Vegas Star if he was going anyplace, and Bob was certain that the mayor wouldn't be able to bring himself to have them attacked while he could still look out his office window and see them hanging above the horizon.

They were still at a stalemate when the Phinons arrived.

As Bob had feared, the aliens did not slow down. And the first indication of what the Phinons would do came in the form of an explosion on the surface of Callisto, a flare visible from 20 million kilometers away.

"Holy Mother of God," Bob whispered. "Did you see that, Nikki? Did you?"

She hadn't been looking. "What?"