"Then wecould hurt them."

Renzi nodded. "If you happen to possess nuclear explosives and can deliver them to within a kilometer of the target city before detonation. Not otherwise, I fear."

"Then perhaps we should get busy constructing such weapons."

"How? Saturn has no ready supply of fissionables, and even if it did, the industrial processes involved are cumbersome. The aggregate equipment involved in fission weapon manufacture exceeds an average cloud city in mass. Nor can Titan offer much help. True, we have not your mass constraints, but our production of fissionables is strictly a byproduct of our other activities. The total supply is inadequate for any serious dissuasion of Alliance imperialism."

"We could rig fusion generators to explode."

Renzi nodded. "True enough. Still, such a bomb would be low yield and difficult to deliver. Worse, while you are jarring the Alliance cities out of their complacency, they will be sending yours plummeting into the hydrogen sea. Hardly an equitable exchange."

"You seem to know a great deal about these screens," another officer noted. "Can't you reproduce the data the Alliance stole?"

"Eventually."

"How long is 'eventually?'"

Renzi shrugged. "If provided with unlimited sources and a team of good people, I could probably learn what our ancestors knew within fifteen to twenty years. Unfortunately, the data from the laboratory willallow the Alliance to have a working screen within the next five years."

"That quickly?" Vishnu asked.

"If the data base they stole is a complete one, it may not takethat long."

"Can Earth really be protected from the sun?" a commander in the uniform of Shin Nippon asked.

Renzi swung around to regard his new interrogator. "From a purely theoretical standpoint, yes. There are a number of practical problems, of course. For one thing, we would need to modulate the screen to shield the daylight hemisphere while letting the night hemisphere radiate heat out into space. Even without that complication, building a planet-size energy screen will be the work of many decades."

"But it can be done?"

"It can indeed. Had our ancestors possessed our knowledge of space tensors, they might have saved Earth from the sun."

Vishnu let his eyes scan the assembled officers. "In that case, gentlemen, we prepare for more than a battle to see who will control this flyway. The fate of all humanity rides with your ships. Please keep that in mind when you meet the enemy."

After hearing from Renzi, the battle staff turned to discussions of strategy. The session went on for two hours. At the end of that time, Sands's head was reeling from the multitude of factors that had gone into planning this campaign against the Alliance. The tone of the discussion was what impressed him. There was the mixture of excitement and fear that grips men on the eve of battle, but also a quiet confidence.

This was no spur-of-the-moment operation. Someone had been planning an assault on the Alliance much longer than the few weeks it had taken the strike force to gather.

The talk of thrust and counter thrust finally ended. As the officers from half a dozen navies filed out of compartment, Envon Crawford laid a restraining hand on Sands's shoulder.

"A moment, Lars."

"Something wrong?"

"Admiral Vishnu and I would like to talk to you about a special operation we have arranged."

"What sort of operation?"

"One we think will interest you greatly."

Kelt Dalishaar sat in his office and gazed at the tactical map displayed in his wall-mounted holoscreen.

The display was a repeat of the big situation display down in fleet headquarters. It showed the known locations of enemy and friendly forces and made projections as to what the enemy was likely to do next.

So far, they were still concentrated in the stormlet that had served as their gathering place. He wondered how much longer they would remain there.

Dalishaar reached out and angrily changed to another display. This was the view from one of the overhead satellites. It showed more than fifty small silver beads floating in a densely packed cluster in the middle of the flyway. The cities of the Alliance had drawn together for mutual protection. Their staggered altitudes allowed each city's heavy lasers to cover the others should that become necessary. Thefirepower thus arrayed was greater than that of all the battleships that had ever graced Earth's seas. That fact did not particularly impress Kelt Dalishaar, however. He knew that if the enemy fleet ever came within range of the city lasers, the Alliance would already have lost the battle.

"Professor Garcia to see you, First Councilor," his secretary announced over the intercom.

"Send him in," Dalishaar replied. He wiped the screen and swiveled to face the door as the archaeologist appeared. He was struck by the change in the scientist's appearance. The Renauld Garcia who had gone to Earth had been confident, even a little arrogant. This new Garcia's eyes shifted nervously from point to point, never seeming to alight anywhere. Garcia was obviously a haunted man."

"Hello, Renauld. Drink?"

"Thank you, yes. Have you any brandy?"

Dalishaar depressed the key on his desk intercom. "Mai, bring in two glasses of Sorrell Premium. Make them doubles!"

"Yes, sir."

"How was the trip?" the first councilor asked after Garcia had two gulps of the golden liquid in him.

"Horrible, First Councilor, just horrible! Those butchers cut down innocent men without a qualm. I was afraid they might even killme !"

"I know," the first councilor said, his tone sympathetic. Actually, the massacre of the Titanian scientists was about the only thing Mikal Blount had done on Earth of which he approved. Not only had Blount protected the secret of the energy screen, he had eliminated virtually everyone who might have learned it.

"What about the energy screen data?"

"What about it?"

"Is it still on Earth?"

"Hell, no! Blount got every record tile in the whole damned laboratory."

The news was like a knife thrust into Dalishaar's intestines. "You're sure?"

"I practically rested my feet on the box they used to transport the tiles back to orbit. It was all I could do to pretend they weren't important to me."

"Does Blount know the significance of what he has?"

"The talk was of little else the whole trip back."

Dalishaar paused to consider his options. The loss of the energy screen data was a major blow. With that data went his plans to make the Northern Alliance the dominant power on Saturn, and himself the most powerful man in the Alliance. Its possession by the Militarists put his Accretionists in an untenable position.

Then there was the matter of Strike Force Redemption. If the Navy managed to beat off the combined fleets of Titan, the Corwin Confederation, and the Moskvan Free State, the Militarists would gain control of the council by acclimation. Whether the coming battle was won or lost, the results would be the same for Kelt Dalishaar and his people. Thus, the battle must not be joined. All that remained was to find a way to abort the fighting and rob Admiral Samorset of his victory.One thing was certain. Envon Crawford would not renounce his crusade so long as his daughter languished in an Alliance prison. The Militarists had him stymied even in this minor matter. Rather than turn her over to the civil authorities, they held her deep inside their fortress headquarters. Still, the matter of Kimber Crawford was the one element of this quandary where Dalishaar had the power to affect events. It would have to be made to serve his purposes.

"What of the women prisoners Blount brought back with him?" the first councilor asked Garcia.

"I don't know," the professor responded. "He seemed anxious that they not talk to anyone. Herrera had them gagged the whole time they were in the landing boat. Blount put them in cold sleep as soon as they were aboard ship."

"Odd," Dalishaar muttered. "What did he expect them to say?"

"At first I thought he was trying to protect the secret of the energy screen. When he made no effort to stop the speculation later, I decided he must be protecting some other secret. What, I have no idea."

Dalishaar leaned across the desk and poured his own drink into Garcia's empty snifter. There was only one secret Kimber Crawford and Halley Trevanon might know that would worry the Navy -- the identity of the individual or group who had contracted for Larson Sands to raid Cloudcroft. Slowly, a thin smile appeared on Kelt Dalishaar's face.

Suddenly his problems did not seem nearly so insurmountable. Perhaps he had more to bargain with than he had realized.

Chapter 31: Prisoner Exchange.

Larson Sands crouched in the underside hydrogen lock of a strike force swift and tried to take his mind off his discomfort. He was encased in a black environment suit with a flight wing pack on his back. The belly hydrogen lock for a swift is a short cylinder with hatches at both ends. Used primarily for maintenance access, it is too small in every dimension for a man. There was not enough diameter to stretch out one's legs, or sufficient height to stand erect. All Sands could do was crouch with his back jammed against the side of the lock. It is a position for which the human body is not designed. Lars's thigh muscles had long since knotted up and the ache that had begun in his lower back had long since reached his shoulder blades. It did not help to know that a full squadron of enemy ships was somewhere nearby and would not hesitate to blast the swift from the sky if they suspected treachery.

Treachery was precisely what Sands was engaged in.

As he had surmised, Strike Force Redemption's battle plan had not been thrown together in a few short weeks. Rather, it was the product of a decade of studies by both the Corwins and Moskvans. Both governments had realized that so long as they rode in the N.T.B., eventually they would have to face the Alliance's imperialism. When Envon Crawford had called for a coalition to stand against the Alliance, the strike force battle planners had combined the best features of both plans.

One of the major aspects of the strategy was to sow confusion within the Alliance by launching a campaign of sabotage inside the cloud cities themselves. Agents had been infiltrating the Alliance for several weeks, helped by the Cloudcroft government's sluggish response to the threat. By the time Kelt Dalishaar had finally sealed his cities, more than thirty agents had been successfully put into position to perform their missions. Not included in that number were another dozen sleeper agents, people who hadbeen infiltrated years earlier.

On cue from the flagship, the infiltrators and sleeper agents would attack critical installations. Their mission was to sow confusion among the Alliance leaders in those last critical hours before battle.

"What sort of confusion?" Sands had asked after Admiral Vishnu explained the sabotage plan.

"Anything that will rattle them. There will be explosions, power failures, communications disruptions, and even a few assassinations. There will be one other effort that we think will interest you. Sometime during the excitement, we will try to rescue Envon's daughter and your copilot."

"You're sending a team in after Kimber and Halley?"

Vishnu nodded. "If we can discover where they are and the risk to our team can be held to acceptable levels."

Sands's laugh was almost a bark. "Thank, God!"

"I take it from your reaction that you approve. How would you like to be in on the rescue?"

"Are you serious?"

"I am."

"How can I get there? Even if they were accepting tourists, I would be stopped at the first check point."

Vishnu explained how someone might be smuggled aboard Cloudcroft even at this late date. He finished with, "I warn you that it may be dangerous."

"I'll do it! When do I leave?"

"Immediately. We will send the coded message now. If for any reason we fail to get an acknowledgement in time, we will recall you. If that happens, we'll find a place for you in the battle line."

The swift droned on into the blackness of First Midnight. The Notch stood at zenith overhead. Far to port the southern cloud wall was a barely discernable silver line. Much closer, but still far below, the lightning of the flyway floor illuminated the scene in sporadic flashes of actinic fire.

The swift's pilot was the first to notice the arrival of the fast moving ships. The fact that they were expected did nothing to minimize the surge of fear he felt. He directed his comely passenger's attention to the long-range screen, and while she was preoccupied, reached down to touch a control near his left knee. A small blue light illuminated on the instrument panel, then went out. While the light burned, the ship shuddered subtly, as though its aerodynamic sleekness had been momentarily marred. The passenger noticed none of this, being too engrossed in watching the approach of the squadron of warships.

The pilot glanced at the passenger who sat in the jumpseat between him and the copilot. Her features were illuminated by the glow from the instrument panel. She had blue eyes set wide apart in an intelligent face, a straight nose, and full lips that were currently pursed in a hint of a smile. Funny, he thought, she did not look like an Alliance spy!

Following the assault on Halley Trevanon, Arvin Taggart had begun a campaign to identify the Alliance agent in Titania. He had succeeded two weeks earlier, and had arrested Almy Breck. Taggart's first impulse had been to toss her out of the nearest airlock without a suit, but he had suggested trading her forKimber and Halley instead. The Alliance had made a counter offer: Almy Breck for Ganther Bartlett.

Since he did not know of the plan to infiltrate Sands into Cloudcroft, Taggart was surprised when Envon Crawford accepted the deal.

"Not very trusting, are they?" the pilot remarked to his prisoner as he slowed the swift to a hover in front of the oncoming Alliance ships.

"Would you trust them if the situation were reversed?" Almy Breck asked in her husky voice.

"Hell, I don't trust them right now!"

Half-a-dozen Alliance warcraft surged around the swift, orbiting it like a pack of wolves. One ship continued past and took up a picket position several kilometers to the east. It was this last vessel that the swift's pilot watched closely on his sensor readouts.

Meanwhile, the copilot unstrapped from his seat and moved to the rear. "All right, Miss Breck. Time to go home. Come on, I'll help you with your breathing gear and the midships hydrogen lock."

Sands soared high above the flyway. Suspended below his black flight wing, he watched the approach of the enemy prowler with a tight knot in his stomach. The ship arrowed directly for him, as though the crew could see the pulses of invisible light being broadcast by the ultraviolet beacon at his belt. The ship's exhaust glowed purple in the false color display of his night goggles. When the ship closed to within a kilometer of him, it slowed its headlong rush and came to a hover. In his goggles, the underjets appeared to be emitting a soft, violet fog.

Sands heeled over and dove directly for the enemy craft. Two eternal minutes passed while he approached the craft. In his mind's eye, he could see the defensive lasers tracking him, ready to burn him at the twitch of an unseen crewman's finger. The stabbing beam of light never came. He swooped high above the stationary vessel, and then spiraled down to ground against its fuselage near the dorsal hydrogen lock. It was the work of a few seconds to shed the flight wing.

"Hurry," a voice called to him. A crewman in an environment suit stood with his torso protruding from the lock. "They're liable to notice that we've slowed to a hover."

The crewman disappeared into the lock and Sands followed. He was no sooner inside than the outer door snapped closed above him and the inner door opened at his feet. The crewman descended a ladder into the prowler's interior.

Sands joined him and doffed his helmet. The sandy haired crewman looked him over before muttering, "You don't look worth risking my neck over!"

Sands ignored the outburst and stuck out his hand instead. "I'm Sands."

"Yarbro, Captain of Moskvan Intelligence, masquerading as a Flight Lieutenant for the Alliance. I am the copilot of this tub. My pilot is Murphy, Senior Commander in the Confederation, and a full commander for the Alliance."

"I was surprised to learn that we have people in the Alliance Navy."

"No more surprised than we were to receive orders about you, Mr. Sands. You don't know what sort of tricks we had to pull to make sure we were the ship on picket duty.""I'm glad you pulled them. I would hate to fly home from here on my own power."

"You and me both!"

"How difficult will it be to smuggle me aboard Cloudcroft?"