"You mean the guy with the blue headband and the Fenkep-style beard about fifteen meters to my left?"

"Precisely. You have noticed him too?"

"Naturally. Do you think Captain Rob.i.+.c.haux sent me to a nonaligned planet near a war zone on a covert intelligence-gathering mission along with one of his most valuable officers just because I'm a good drive and thruster man?"

"I suppose not."

"I spent three years in the Navy's Criminal Investigation Division in covert surveillance and countersurveillance, specializing in tailing and slipping tails. I had to get out when I became too familiar to too many of the wrong kind of people."

"Then I defer to your professional expertise. What do you recommend?"

"Well, Bones, I was thinking about taking him."

After a short discussion of how that was to be accomplished, the two men walked on about half a block until they ducked inside a small sundries shop that Fahad had noticed earlier. Fahad pretended to shop for local souvenir knickknacks, consisting mainly of poorly made plastic camels, of all things, from a counter that allowed him to see out the window while Sahin made a quick purchase.

A few moments later, the doctor exited the shop, holding an aerosol can while fumbling with the nozzle and to all appearances not looking where he was going. He then walked right into the man who had been following them. "Oh, my pardon to you, sir."

"Think nothing of it," said the other while the doctor made a great show of straightening the man's robes, which had become somewhat disarrayed by the collision.

"My most sincere pardon, most sincere. Tell me, sir, you sound as though you are local. The way this can works is different from how they operate on my home, and I can't get it to spray. Perhaps you can a.s.sist me. See? Nothing happens when I press here."

The doctor then, apparently accidentally, sprayed the man in the face with a sunburn treatment product, temporarily blinding him, while, at the same moment, Fahad-who had slipped out of the shop through the delivery entrance-jabbed the man in the neck with a pressure syringe disguised as an ordinary pen. Before the man could say a word, Fahad said firmly into his ear.

"You will say nothing and will come with us." And then to the doctor, "I'll call us a cab while you call your new friend."

Eighteen hours later, Dr. Sahin stood beside Max while the quartermaster and several men under his command used four small, highly maneuverable electric forklifts to remove cargo palettes from the microfreighter on the hangar deck and drive them down a corridor leading to the c.u.mberland's main cargo hold. Once the unloading operation was running smoothly, Max began scrolling through the microfreighter's cargo manifest.

"Doctor, you did us proud, no doubt about that." Max was even more than customarily enthusiastic. "We're going to be eating better than any crew in the Navy outside of the Core Systems. Two tons of fresh-frozen beef. Real beef. Three tons of fresh-frozen chicken. Plus frozen turkeys, sausage, ham, salami, fresh and frozen vegetables, fresh and frozen fruit, frozen fish, frozen shrimp, olives, dates, real b.u.t.ter, honey, cheese, fresh eggs, fresh milk, a quarter ton of frozen ultra-concentrated orange juice, Russet potatoes, red potatoes, sweet potatoes, beans, rice, Arabica coffee. Morale on board is going to go up 100 percent. And your other cargo is even better."

A predatory grin spread across his face. "Much, much better. Let's go to the Casualty Station and look in on our new pa.s.senger."

The two men walked to a closed examination room in the Casualty Station, meeting Intelligence Officer Grade 4 "Robert Jones," a moniker that only the most gullible on board believed to be his given name, along with the tail man from Ras.h.i.+d IV, who was strapped securely to an examination bed, and Nurse Church to monitor the tail man's vitals during interrogation.

"Well, Jones, what have we learned so far?"

"This man was given 85 ccs of Agent 11 eighteen hours and seventeen minutes ago," said Jones. "As such, he has been completely cooperative."

"I had never heard of Agent 11 until today. I'm not sure I am particularly happy that such a thing exists," said Dr. Sahin.

Agent 11, or Compliazine, was a drug first devised for the mental health industry as a treatment for highly oppositional and noncompliant patients. But as soon as some unusual side effects of the drug were discovered in clinical trials, it quickly vanished from sight. For a period of roughly twenty-four hours, it suppressed to the point of nonexistence the ability of the subject to exercise any independent will. He would obey without question virtually any command given to him, including a command to provide truthful answers to questions.

The drug came with certain disadvantages, though. First, in suppressing the will, Agent 11 also suppressed intelligence, such that a subject could tell you what he knew but could not make any use of that knowledge or draw any conclusions from it. Second, the drug did not so much wear off as break down in the body to component compounds, most of which were highly toxic. If the subject was not detoxified starting about twenty-four hours after administration, he would die.

Finally, any subject could be given Agent 11 only three times, four at most, without suffering permanent brain damage. Even with these limitations, though, the drug was extremely useful for interrogations and was proving especially useful now. Because of the obvious misuse to which such a drug could be put by unscrupulous individuals, not only was the drug itself strictly controlled, but its formula and even its existence were closely guarded secrets.

Jones continued his briefing. "Name: Ernilum Grek. Occupation: espionage, specializing in surveillance and a.s.sa.s.sination. Works for the Krag, planted to feed them information on whether the Union or the locals ever started to zero in on their source of supply on Ras.h.i.+d IV and to kill anyone who got too close to the truth. He was planning to kill the doctor and Fahad by attacking their air car on its way from Amman back to the s.p.a.ceport, and then returning to kill Wortham-Biggs and his daughter.

"He has a.s.sa.s.sinated twelve others on five planets, some for the Krag, some for hire to various criminal organizations. Ten of those deaths are in our records as unsolved murders and the other two as accidents. We have his contacts, comm frequencies, check-in schedule, authentication codes, cipher and encryption keys, cut-out and dead-drop locations-everything.

"This lets us wrap up a nice package to give to the local authorities that will let them clean out the entire Krag intelligence network on their world and will let us get in one or two good pieces of disinformation to lead the Krag by the nose to exactly where we want them. Capturing this fellow has worked out very well for us.

"I have also gotten from him a wealth of information about how the Krag run their local intelligence operatives, what the procedures are, how they are paid, and what systems they use to protect each cell. And because this man had worked for them on several other worlds before this one, we can get a general idea of the logistics they use from planet to planet. And-"

Jones was cut off by the loud buzzing of the Casualty Station comm panel, the volume of which the doctor had set to an unusually high level to get his attention, as he had a tendency to become absorbed in what he was doing. He poked at the switch with his finger, missing it three or four times before hitting it. "Casualty, Sahin here."

"Doctor, this is Chief Xang in Cargo Handling. In unloading and stowing the contents of the microfreighter, we came upon a crate that is labeled 'Personal: For Ibrahim Sahin.' What do you want us to do with it?"

"I have no idea what it is. What might be the size of this mysterious crate?"

"About a meter and a half tall and about seventy-five centimeters in the other two dimensions. It's gotta weigh a couple of hundred kilos."

At this, Max stepped over to the panel. "Xang, this is the skipper. I want you to have two of your best men, and I mean your best men-in fact, make it yourself and your best man-take the crate to the doctor's quarters. By the time you get there, he will have set up a one-time-only entry keyed to your voice-that's your voice, Chief. Take it inside, open it, and whatever it is, set it up, lay it out, or whatever is appropriate. Understood?"

"Perfectly, sir. Don't worry; I'll take care of it personally."

"Very good. Let me know when you're finished."

"Aye, aye."

Jones got to finish his rapturous description of the "take" from the captured Krag spy. Sahin's own enthusiasm was dampened substantially when he learned that the man was a Union citizen, born and raised on Alphacen. That unpleasant revelation, of course, meant that sometime in the next day or so the doctor would get to start his day off with a bang.

Once this cheerful news was announced, the doctor had to detoxify the prisoner to make sure that he didn't die in an hour or two of the poisonous byproducts of his body's efforts to metabolize Agent 11, rather than dying in a day or two from having five 7.62-millimeter full metal jacket bullets pierce his heart at 843 meters per second. Dead is dead, but timing is everything.

When he finally got to his quarters and palmed the entry scanner, all the doctor could think about was taking a shower and getting into bed. To his surprise, stacked neatly in front of his desk were several dozen bright-red, rectangular packages, each about half the size of a loaf of bread. When he walked over and picked one up, he could see that the packages were vacuum-packed polyfoil labeled "Wortham-Biggs Coffee: Ras.h.i.+d IV Community Special Reserve, Four-Planet Blend. One Pound Net Weight."

Leave it to Wortham-Biggs to package his special coffee in that archaic quant.i.ty. There had to be fifty or sixty pounds. The doctor knew he could never drink that much coffee himself. He decided to give several pounds to the captain and to others to whom he wanted to show special appreciation or kindness, and to turn most of the rest over to the wardroom steward to serve to the s.h.i.+p's officers on special occasions.

Just as he was feeling good about that, savoring the memory of how good that coffee had tasted in the shop back on Ras.h.i.+d IV and mentally composing a note of thanks to send back to the giver of this unexpected gift, the doctor turned a corner into the main sitting area of his quarters.

And stopped, dumbstruck.

Chief Xang had been busy. He had brought in and set up one of the small but elegant pedestal tables kept in s.h.i.+p's stores to display trophies, plaques, and other honors awarded to the s.h.i.+p. He had installed several microspots, small but powerful and tightly focused lamps that cast a bright, precisely directional beam of light and that drew their power from hair-thin, almost invisible wires plugged into tiny pores every half-meter or so in the bulkheads. And he had placed on the table, turned to its most flattering angle, perfectly lit from above and four sides by microspots, filling the doctor's quarters with an ethereal radiance of s.h.i.+mmering blues and purples and violets, the exquisitely glowing Birth of the Waters.

CHAPTER 20.

19:52Z Hours, 5 February 2315 (Navy Day) The c.u.mberland's wardroom was full of singing. Not particularly tuneful singing, as those a.s.sembled were not chosen for their musical abilities. And not particularly articulate singing, as those a.s.sembled had been partaking rather liberally of the excellent beer and wine and ardent spirits taken aboard at Ras.h.i.+d IV. But what the singing lacked in musicality and precision, it made up for in volume and enthusiasm, for it was Navy Day, the Union holiday set aside to honor the men (and very, very few women) who defended humanity's very existence by service in deep s.p.a.ce.

The men in the wardroom were singing a particularly naval song, one with its roots sunk deep in the traditions of the service, back to the days before man reached for the stars, before he even managed to coax his frail, little s.h.i.+ps into sailing against the wind and tide by pus.h.i.+ng them with smoky boilers, scalding steam, and whirling machinery. This song was a legacy from the days of oaken hulls and billowing sails, of "s.h.i.+ps of wood and men of iron." For more than five hundred years, men had handed it down like a cherished family heirloom, until now it was given booming voice in the cold void between the stars, a thousand light years from home.

The words had evolved to fit the needs of a time harsher and more desperate than the age that gave rise to the original, but the tune was one that would have brought a smile to the face of Lord Nelson. He knew it as "Heart of Oak." Over the centuries, it had become "Hearts of Steel."

To stations, my lads, 'tis to glory we steer, Oh, sons of the Union, we fight without fear; 'Tis to Honor you call us, for Honor we stand; We brothers in valor await fame's command.

And the chorus rang out with even more gusto, as the half-dozen or so senior mids.h.i.+pman who did not know the verses joined in. These boys, ages fifteen to seventeen, were even more thoroughly inebriated than the officers because, although naval regulations prohibited giving them alcohol, by immemorial naval tradition they were permitted beer, wine, ale, and stout on certain holidays, including Navy Day (February 5), Union Day (July 20), and the birthdays of Admiral Nelson (September 29), Admiral Halsey (October 30), and General Patton (November 11).

Hearts of steel, that's our s.h.i.+ps; hearts of steel, that's our men.

We always are ready; steady, boys, steady!

We'll fight, not surrender, again and again.

When the next verse began, the mids stopped singing and went back to drinking. The officers carried on, sounding very much as though they had the blood of Mars in their veins.

We'll take payment in blood for the debt Krag must pay, And carve them with cutla.s.s when they come to play; Our courage defiant enn.o.bles the stars, Stalwart sons of Ares, strong offspring of Mars.

The mids joined in the chorus again, this time even more loudly, many arm in arm and swaying back and forth in unison while Max's booming ba.s.s and "Wernher" Brown's tuneful yet powerful baritone practically rattled the china with "steady, boys, steady," a phrase that had endured without change from the song's "hard tack and salt horse" roots.

The officers forged on into the concluding verse while the mids refilled their gla.s.ses.

We still make them bleed and we still make them die, And we shout mighty cheers as they fall from the sky; So cheer up me lads and let's sing with one heart, We will win this war if we all do our part.

The song was topped off by another repet.i.tion of the chorus, sung even more loudly than the first two iterations and ending with a resounding thump as each man in the room honored tradition by pounding his fist on the table with the last "again." Tradition also required that, after any singing of "Hearts of Steel," gla.s.ses be drunk down and refilled-a tradition that never went un.o.bserved.

A delightful meal, superb drink, manly singing, and naval companions.h.i.+p all combined to create a fine, warm mood in the wardroom, the kind of mood that made up for days and weeks of long, lonely service, short rations, protracted hards.h.i.+p, and extreme danger.

When gla.s.ses had been filled all around, the captain stood at the head of the wardroom table and began to speak, the talk in the room dying quickly.

"Gentlemen, I have two toasts. And only two." Cries of "Hear, hear!" made their way round the table, as many officers had endured endless litanies of Navy Day toasts from inebriated COs who had no inkling of when to shut up.

"First, to our greatly esteemed Dr. Ibrahim Sahin, who acquired for us this outstanding food and excellent drink. I shall never again wonder which of my officers is best suited to go planetside and act as this vessel's victualer." He drained his gla.s.s, containing about two fingers' worth of the warm, dark, fragrant liquid distilled only in an exotic corner of the galaxy known as Kentucky.

"Hear, hear! To the doctor!" the officers responded, and drained their gla.s.ses.

"Now, recharge your guns, gentlemen," he said. All refilled their gla.s.ses.

"Today is Navy Day. I'm just a plain-speaking fighting man, so I can't give you a stirring speech about what the Navy means to each of us. But I can say this. Every one of you is a volunteer, most from boyhood. Every one of you has had at least one chance-and most of you several-to leave the service at the end of a tour and has instead re-enlisted. You have decided to make the Navy your life not just once but many times. There is something about the Navy that has kept you here. Only you know, deep in your hearts, what that is. It is likely different for each of you.

"I want to take this time to tell you what it is for me. For many years, I had the honor of serving under one of the greatest men to ever wear the uniform, Commodore-now Fleet Admiral-Charles L. Middleton."

Several of those present rapped their knuckles on the table or raised their gla.s.ses in tribute. Admiral Middleton was almost universally loved and respected not just for his strategic brilliance but for his psychological insight, which was reputed to be better than that of any other man in the Navy.

"At a gathering like this, when I had just been commissioned as an ensign on board the old battlecruiser Margaret Jackie, someone asked him what it all meant. 'Commodore Middleton, what does it all mean? Life, the Navy, our purpose for being, the Universe, and everything else?' Now, as many of you know, old Uncle Middy can be a bit long winded"-a few men smiled at their own recollections of the admiral's infamous loquaciousness-"and we all expected quite a speech, but not this time. He just smiled and said one word: 'love.'

"I didn't get what he meant back then. I thought he was talking about romantic love or maybe the love that parents and children have for each other. But now I understand. He was talking about the kind of love that we have here, in the Navy. It may seem a strange thing to say about a service that has as its goal taking or killing the enemy, but at its very core the Navy is all about love. Because, gentlemen, loyalty is love-love for your s.h.i.+p and love for your s.h.i.+pmates. Patriotism is love-love for the Union and the things that it stands for and protects. And even courage is love-the love of all these things and added to it the love of duty and honor that is so powerful that for its sake you reach down to the very bottom of your deepest well of resolve and do what you have to do, no matter how difficult it is and no matter how afraid you may be.

"Understood in that light, the Navy is the greatest home and repository and source of love in the galaxy. She has no equal. So, gentlemen, raise your gla.s.ses and lift your hearts to that which moves us, to that which sustains us, to that which protects us, to that which gives us life, and to that which calls us to love, to duty, to honor, to glory.

"To the Navy. May she live forever."

As one man they stood and drained their gla.s.ses.

There was even more eating and drinking and singing one deck lower and sixteen meters aft in the enlisted mess, where food was generally served cafeteria style, and the men helped themselves to whatever drink suited them. The songs included "Hearts of Steel," just as in the wardroom; other patriotic songs; and some others of a bawdier variety. Indeed, one old able s.p.a.cer managed to lead the company through seventeen of the twenty-nine verses to "The Dirty Old Wh.o.r.e from Alnitak, Rendezvous" before pa.s.sing out, slumped against the soft-serve ice cream dispenser.

Even Clouseau, the s.h.i.+p's cat who joined the c.u.mberland when she was docked with the Loch Linnhe by running through the docking tube after springing out of the locker in which the Krag on board had insisted he be stuffed, was enjoying the festivities, circulating from one mid's lap to another, begging little sc.r.a.ps of meat with an endearing tilt of the head and an occasional quiet meow. Indeed, he was not above stealing some of the tastier-smelling morsels from the plates of men and boys whose vigilance was impaired by drink.

Clouseau was generally successful in obtaining whatever he wanted. In s.p.a.cer lore, all cats were lucky, because of their "nine lives." Black cats, into which category Clouseau fit quite comfortably, were even luckier. And cats that "joined" the s.h.i.+p on their own by running across a boarding tube or up a docking ramp were luckier still. Clouseau, then, was thrice charmed, and much cherished-even spoiled-by boys and men alike.

Most of the squeakers, the youngest mids.h.i.+pmen who spent more of their day in the s.h.i.+p's school than in official duties, were present and were even allowed tiny amounts of the weakest beer and of wine diluted with ginger ale under the watchful eye of Mids.h.i.+pman Trainer "Mother Goose" Amborsky, who on this day was celebrating his thirty-second Navy Day in uniform.

Old Mother Goose had taken a bit more than usual of the potato vodka he favored and was in a talkative frame of mind, almost a different man from the gruff and laconic, but inwardly gentle, man the squeakers were used to seeing. Sensing this difference in mood, the boys had drawn out the chief, getting him to reminisce about his younger days in the Navy and the changes in the service over the years. At the end of one such story, about how in the Portugal cla.s.s battlecruisers all the mids.h.i.+pmen were crowded into one cabin and slept on hammocks suspended from the ceiling-hammocks that, along with their boyish burdens, tended to become hopelessly tangled if the s.h.i.+p's artificial gravity failed-the youngest mids.h.i.+pman, Park, the one stuck with the nickname "Will Robinson" until someone even younger came aboard, asked, "Chief, is it true you was in the Navy on the first day of the war?"

"Aye, lad, that I was." He paused to take a sip of his vodka. "Sometimes I want to forget that day, and sometimes I think it is my duty to remember every detail until the day I die. Mostly, I try to remember." Another long pause as he considered whether to stop there or to go on. h.e.l.l, these hatch hangers would have to hear the story sometime.

"I was a recruit s.p.a.cer second cla.s.s on the old battlecruiser Repulse. The War of the Fenestrian Succession had been over for fifteen months, and we were with what they used to call the Twenty-Second Fleet, jumping from system to system along the Fenestra Treaty Boundary as a deterrent. We were cruising along, fat, dumb, and happy, with no idea of what was about to happen. A few freighters had reported some compression trails in deep s.p.a.ce near the border, but we gave them no mind. We thought it was s.p.a.ce-happy sensor officers seeing star fairies from spending too many hours at their scopes. We sure as h.e.l.l didn't suspect the Krag."

"Why not, Chief?" asked the eternally curious Will Robinson. "Why not suspect them?"

"Because no one had seen their beady little eyes for nearly a hundred years, that's why. h.e.l.l, when we encountered them in 2183, we thought we were going to be fast friends with them. They were sure smart enough. Seemed friendly. And curious they were too, right eager to learn everything they could about us and not afraid to tell about themselves. We traded whole libraries of history, literature, trid vid programming, art, music-everything.

"But things went all pear shaped when the biology information started flying back and forth. Anyone could see that life on the two planets was two pages from the same chapter of the same book. The same biology. Not similar-the same. Same basic anatomy, same biochemistry, same DNA. Life from the whole Krag planet could have almost been from some remote island on Earth that split off from a land ma.s.s long ago, kind of like Australia.

"They had sent us the complete genetic information for hundreds of life forms on their world, and when our DNA guys worked through it, they figured out what happened pretty quick. All the life on the Krag homeworld had clearly evolved from plants and animals that were alive on Earth eleven million years ago. In fact, from just 150 or so species if you don't include the insects and bacteria. Well, paints a pretty clear picture, doesn't it? Somebody terraformed the Krag homeworld, visited Earth eleven million years ago, picked up some specimens, and gave them a new home. No telling why.

"Maybe they wanted to study Earth life in a new setting. Maybe they wanted a b.l.o.o.d.y zoo. Who the h.e.l.l knows? Unless we find those aliens-and if we do, I've got a h.e.l.luva bone to pick with them, let me tell you-we'll never know. What we do know is that those animals included the ancestor of our Earth rats. But on this new world, the ugly little critters didn't evolve into rats. They evolved over eleven million years into the Krag.

"When we shared that theory with the Krag, they went totally bats.h.i.+t. Now, they're not stupid. They can read their fossils in their rocks just like we read the fossils in our rocks. They had the same facts, but just about the same time we were developing the Theory of Evolution, they came up with a totally different kind of theory. According to them, eleven million years ago their Creator-G.o.d found a hostile world, remade it into a hospitable paradise, and then created perfect life to place on that world with the plan that it would evolve into his holy children, the Krag, and into creatures and plants to be their servants and their food.

"What about us? Did that make us the Krag's sacred brothers and sisters under the skin, united by bonds of kins.h.i.+p and chemistry? Not a b.l.o.o.d.y chance. What it did was make us unholy blasphemers for saying that life on their world was merely a transplanted offshoot of life on ours. On top of that, it made us a living, eating, breathing biological insult to their Creator-G.o.d because we were demonic spirits that had chosen to defy him by cloaking ourselves in the shape and chemistry of his true handiwork. When we wouldn't agree to be ruled by genuine creations, meaning the Krag, they just got madder and madder, until in 2184 they cut off all contact. They refused to respond to or even acknowledge our messages, turned back all diplomatic s.h.i.+ps, stopped all trade-everything.

"Just before they cut off contact, they sent one last message. It said: 'You and all the infesting vermin sp.a.w.ned by your world are an affront to the Creator-G.o.d and exist in defiance of His holy will. The stars will be cleansed of you.' And then, nothing. Not a squeak. That is, until June 26, 2281.

"Suddenly, they showed up in a dozen systems with more than a thousand s.h.i.+ps. It looked like they had spent the whole time since 2184 busting their rat a.s.ses to build a fleet just to wipe us out. Twelve systems fell in the first ten hours. Fifty-four in the first week.

"The Twenty-Second Fleet was cut to pieces in a matter of hours. I was in Auxiliary Pulse Cannon Fire Control standing by to a.s.sist with DC in that compartment. I didn't have anything better to do than watching the tactical repeater as s.h.i.+p after s.h.i.+p just dropped off the display. The Rhine, Formosa, New Zealand, Galapagos, Aegean, Volga, Lincoln, Bolivar, and a dozen others."

He paused, experiencing a powerful echo of the horror he felt watching, mute, as s.h.i.+ps crewed by thousands of s.p.a.cers simply winked out of existence. Clouseau hopped in Amborsky's lap and rubbed his head against the old chief, who absently stroked his black fur.

"Still, their tactics showed that they expected to get the whole fleet with their first salvo. Didn't happen. Our defenses had improved more than they expected during the last war, but we lost two-thirds of the fleet in less than three hours. Then Commodore Fuchida on the battles.h.i.+p Texas pulled what was left back four jumps, taking the jump point marker buoys with us in each system, all the way back to the Theater Strategic Reserve Force in orbit around Milvian III.