"Not could.Will! And damned fast!" Sands shook his head as he contemplated the screen. "Hell, the Alliance's neighbors are already nervous after their conquests of New Philadelphia and Glasgow. Every city in the NTB is out hiring privateers and looking to their defenses. The moment Dalishaar's ships move again, half the cities in the belt will rush to support the victim. That will lead to pitched battles between massed fleets and could easily degenerate into the sort of unrestricted warfare nobody wants.

"Surely the Alliance rulers know that."

"You would think so," he agreed. "So why are they even considering this lunacy?"

"Could it be a contingency plan?"

"This doesn't have the smell of contingency planning. It seems more an operational projection. Besides, if you read the supporting documentation, you discover that they expect most of these cities to capitulate without a fight."

"That's impossible!"

"Whoever wrote this thing assures Dalishaar that after the first few battles, most of their conquests will be bloodless. The timetable supports the idea. Notice how the pace picks up toward the end of the list.

Their biggest planning problem seems to be having enough troops to garrison so many cities at once."

Kimber shook her head. "Dalishaar isn't that stupid."

"Agreed," Sands replied. "So what does he know that we don't?"

"The tile doesn't say?"

"Maybe it does."

Sands returned to the main menu and its index of files. He pointed out one well down the list.

"But that isn't very important," she objected. "Look, he's only accessed it a few times. The importantones are the files he uses frequently."

"I've been thinking about that. I think our classification scheme has a flaw in it."

"What flaw?"

"Do you keep a file of your friends' birthdays?"

"Of course. They pop up on my day list a full month in advance so I can plan what to get them."

"Yet, I'll bet you don't keep your father's birthday on that same list."

"You'd lose the bet," Kimber said with a smile. "I'm always forgetting my father's birthday. He's the reason I started my birthday file in the first place."

"Okay, bad example. Still, the principle is sound. Dalishaar does not need to consultreally important information very often because he has it committed to memory. It's logical that the files with the most activity are working documents, and those with the least are prime documents."

Kimber reached over his shoulder and pointed to the file. "And you thinkthis is important information?

What's in it?"

"Not what you might think," he replied. "It's a report of an archeological expedition to Earth some twenty years ago."

"What?"

"You heard me."

It had been more than a century since the Earth became so hot the oceans had boiled; turning the home world into a twin of cloud shrouded Venus. Most of humanity's constructs had long since crumbled to dust in the thick atmosphere of superheated steam. Most, but not all. In sheltered places -- mostly deep underground -- much of what humankind had built remained largely intact. Periodic Saturnian expeditions sought out these installations and salvaged the remnants of a human culture long dead.

The report Sands called to the screen was the account of one such expedition. Twenty years earlier, a ship from the southern Saturnian city of Borman had been sent to Earth to salvage scientific apparatus from a string of underground laboratories. The labs had worked to discover a means by which the planet could be protected from the flaring sun. Some had sought the elusive goal up until the very end. The report dealt with a laboratory in a region of Earth once known as California. The facility had been devoted to a new technology developed in the last decade before the evacuation.

Scientists studying the underlying structure of the space-time continuum had discovered a way to generate a discontinuity in the very fabric of space, a discontinuity that was impervious to the transmission of matter and energy. The first discontinuities were perfectly mirrored spheres only a few angstroms in diameter. Because they were opaque to all known forms of energy, they were dubbed "energy screens."

The invention had given humanity hope that at last they had found the salvation for which everyone had been searching. If the tiny impervious bubbles could be expanded sufficiently to envelop the Earth, then such a screen might be flickered on and off to deflect the excess solar energy from the flaring sun. A massive program was begun to perfect the new technology. Unfortunately, by the time it became necessary to evacuate the laboratory, the researchers' largest screen was only a few hundred meters in diameter. And as humanity's every resource was turned to the great migration to Saturn, energy screens, like so many other promising avenues of research, had been abandoned.Kimber scanned the report through to the end. "I don't understand, Lars. What has this to do with anything?"

"There's a cover memo. The Alliance researcher who discovered the report of the Borman expedition wrote it. Let me read an excerpt:"

"... Although the laboratory was unsuccessful in creating a planetary energy screen, they had notable success with much smaller versions. In their last days on Earth, the scientists reported that given time, they might generate a screen several kilometers in diameter. It is noted that such a device might be used to shield a cloud city and protect it from attack..."

Kimber looked at Sands in horror.

"I see you understand the implications," he said.

"But if they can defend their cities, while the other Saturnian cloud cities are helpless..."

He nodded. "Then their timetable for taking over the North Temperate Belt would appear to be reasonable. As soon as the other cities realize retaliation is no longer a viable option, they will surrender in droves rather than risk destruction. I only wonder why they are stopping at the North Temperate Belt.

With an energy screen to shield their home cities, why not conquer all of Saturn?"

"They're alive!"

Admiral Mikal Blount of the Alliance Navy looked up from the cluttered desk and frowned. He had been going over the never-ending flow of reports that had chained him in this office almost from the moment his fleet had taken the Glasgow Cluster. He was none too happy with his life of late, and this news did nothing to improve his outlook.

"Are you sure?"

His aide nodded. Captain Gregory Herrera had been with Blount for nearly ten years. Herrera was one of the few people Blount trusted to help him with planning the raid on Cloudcroft. That fact had forged a bond between them stronger than was normal between commanding officer and subordinate.

"We've been monitoring the news feeds out of Titan, Admiral. They carried a hologram of Kimber Crawford attending some sort of social event last night. She had Larson Sands on her arm."

"Damn!" Blount rubbed his bald pate with one hand while he thought furiously. Finally, he leaned back in his chair and said. "This changes everything. So long as there was no evidence to the contrary, we could claim they all died in the battle ... or, at least, that we thought they did. We will have to break the news of their survival ourselves. If Dalishaar learns it from us, we might allay his suspicions long enough to get our people to Titan."

"And if he already knows?"

"Then we will have lost nothing in the attempt. Who are our two best assassins?""Gunner Hardwick and Airman Quintana, sir. I have used them before. They're reliable and they'll get the job done."

"Good. See that they are given a plausible cover story and documentation, then get them to a neutral city where they can book passage to Titan."

"Aye, sir."

"What about the rest of the fugitives?"

"We nearly caught Bailey and Reese down inside the support truss last night. Their beds were still warm when my men got there. We swept the whole sector and rounded up dozen or so witnesses. They are being put through questioning now."

"And Garvich?"

"There's been no word since the sighting report of last week."

"Damn it, how can three men evade us so successfully in an occupied city?" Herrera moved to speak, but Blount held up his hand to silence him. "I know, the Scots are hiding them. I'll be damned if I know why."

"Perhaps we should put the question to Fitzroy again."

"No. The doctor thinks one more session is liable to kill him. We need him alive. You will have to continue your sweeps and hope someone who knows something falls into your net. Dismissed."

"Yes, sir!" Herrera snapped to attention and saluted. He then turned on his heel and marched out of the office.

Blount watched him go. After his aide left, he leaned back in his chair to contemplate the implications of Larson Sands's reappearance. That Sands might have escaped his trap had long been a nightmare for Blount. The rest ofSparrowHawk 's survivors were dangerous enough with their limited knowledge of the events leading up to the raid on Cloudcroft. Still, they could be handled. If one of them were to tell his story, there was a chance Blount's cover story would hold up. Sands was another problem altogether.

He would be able to testify under drugs concerning the meeting aboard Port Gregson. His death could not come too soon for Blount's peace of mind.

Yet, Sands was not Blount's only worry. There was the curious reaction of the first councilor to all of this. Admiral Samorset had had several meetings with Dalishaar since the raid. He had passed on his concern that the first councilor might suspect the truth. Inexplicably, Dalishaar had not ordered anyone arrested. Come to think of it, he had been uncharacteristically docile in all his dealings with the Navy. It was as though he had reasons of his own for not wanting the true story to come out.

The thought was a new one for Mikal Blount, yet it triggered a resonance in his brain. He toyed with it for long minutes, testing it against the known facts. The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed.

The hypothesis had the advantage of explaining several things that, up until now, had been mysterious.

As he reached for another in the interminable stack of occupation reports, Blount wondered what Kelt Dalishaar was afraid of. Whatever it was, if he (Blount) could find out, it would substantially improve his bargaining position if his part in the raid ever became known.

#Envon Crawford stared at the screen and read the report of the archeological expedition to Earth.

Kimber sat next to him, waiting for him to finish. Across the room, Larson Sands and Arvin Taggart sat on the couch in the factor's living room. In the dining room, the meal Crawford had been about to eat was long since cold.

"And you think this means that the Alliance plans to build an energy shield for their cities?"

"What else could it mean, father? Remember Dalishaar's password: 'His truth shall by thyshield and buckler.'"

"Possibly a coincidence." Crawford looked up from the screen and regarded his security chief. "What about it, Arvin? Do we have any corroboration for this?"

Taggart frowned. As he had remarked to one of his men that very day, he'd been doing a lot of that lately. "There just might be, Factor."

"Enlighten us!"

"Several weeks ago, one of our agents in the Alliance sent a report of a space expedition being organized by the Cloudcroft Museum. That was not news. The expedition has been a matter of common knowledge for quite some time. What piqued our interest was the additional information that the Accretionists are the real force behind this exploration."

"I want details," Crawford demanded.

Taggart glanced in Sands's direction. Like all security men, he had an inborn caution against revealing the sources or means by which his information was obtained. At a nod from the factor, he continued: "Our agent is posing as a visiting specialist in Earth history at the museum. One of his colleagues got drunk at a cocktail party and told him the first councilor's office was behind the museum's recruiting of historians, archaeologists, and computerists for an expedition to Earth. He further alleged that the truth was being kept from the Alliance Council. Apparently, he was quite incensed over science being perverted to political ends."

"What ends?"

"Up until now, we had no idea." Taggart gestured toward the workscreen where the report on the Borman archaeological expedition was still displayed. "Captain Sands's discovery may be the missing piece to the jigsaw puzzle."

"How much faith do you put in this agent's report?"

"It is quite difficult to be sure ofanything in intelligence work. However, he's one of our best men and has excellent contacts within the upper echelons of Alliance society."

Crawford was silent for a long time. When he spoke again, it was with a heavy sigh. "I suppose that puts the matter back into our orbit. The stakes are high enough that we dare not be wrong on this."

"Agreed," Taggart said. "If the Alliance gains effective control of the NTB, they will destroy our independence of action. We'll be forced to sell our metal at their prices and on their terms."

Crawford nodded. His features were sunk in gloom as he contemplated his three visitors. "So what are we to do about it?"

"We'll just have to get to this laboratory and seize the secret of the energy screen first!" Kimber said.Her father looked at her sharply. "You mean mount an expedition to Earth?"

"Why not? We know where the laboratory is and what to look for. If we get there first, we can block the Alliance from gaining a monopoly. In addition, Titanian possession of such a secret could be highly profitable! We could sell defense screens to the cloud cities much as we now sell metals."

"Taggart?"

"I agree with Miss Crawford. It will be expensive, but a great deal cheaper than doing nothing."

"Captain?"

Sands shrugged. "Not a bad idea, sir, if you can spare a ship."

Crawford mulled it over for a few seconds, and then said, "Vixenwill be coming out of overhaul at the end of the month. I suppose we could delay her return to the merchant fleet long enough to send her to Earth."

"What about the special equipment we'll need?" Taggart asked.

"Yes, there is that problem," Crawford agreed. "We'll need heavy duty environmental suits and a great deal of other specialized hardware. That we will have to obtain secretly on Saturn to keep the Alliance from getting wind of what we are about."

"I once served a stint with New Holland in the southern hemisphere," Sands said. "They harvest the complex organics that only occur in the lower atmosphere. They have suits and other equipment capable of withstanding heat and pressure."

"I take it you are volunteering to purchase this equipment for us?"

"Yes, sir."

"Excellent! We will deposit you somewhere other than New Holland where you can charter a dirigible to fetch back whatever equipment we need." Crawford turned to his security chief. "Arvin, you are in charge of selectingVixen 's personnel. We will need a levelheaded captain and crew who can keep their mouths closed. We will also need the same sort of specialists the Alliance is recruiting. Kimber, you have been out of school a short enough time that you might be able to help with technical recruiting."

"Yes, Father. I know a few people at Oxford-in-the-Clouds who would be good candidates."

Taggart shook his head. "No one from Saturn. This expedition is to be limited to Titanians only."

"Very well. I'll start checking out the university roster."

"Good," Envon Crawford said. "One last thing. This is to remain a secret shared by the people in this room. No one else! Guard what you say. Are there any other questions? If not, Kimber, you and Lars are excused. Arvin and I have other security matters to discuss."