The other four robot ships did not turn back to defend their comrades, did not work together-they simply increased engine power and accelerated away from the Dhula moon cluster.

Keah yelled, "Helm, increase engine speed. Keep pace, and keep firing."

The Ildiran warliners spread their extravagant sails, fired up the stardrives, and accelerated as they blasted at the fleeing vessels. They gained on the robot ships, and the rearmost enemy vessels launched a fusillade of energy bursts that struck the shields of the CDF battle group, forcing three Mantas to veer off so their systems could recharge.

Adar Zan'nh's flagship took point as the Solar Navy septa closed in. One robot vessel fired another round of energy blasts-targeted on the lagging robot ship. The barrage damaged its engines in a sacrifice play, and a crippling explosion sent the vessel tumbling backward in an uncontrolled spiral. It careened into the oncoming warliners, striking one and caroming off into a second warliner, taking both out of the chase.

Adar Zan'nh let out a loud curse. "Bekh!"

Keah had never even heard him raise his voice before. While her battle group streaked past the reeling Ildiran ships, she gave him a reassuring smile. "We've got it, Z."

The engines of the last three enemy vessels were bright and hot as they burned their systems to tolerance levels. Black robots could withstand far more acceleration than any fragile biological body, but Keah pushed the Kutuzov's engines as hard as she dared.

She loathed the bugbots, and it was more than just a philosophical disagreement-this was personal. She had been there on Earth when the robots launched their worst betrayal, wrecking numerous EDF ships, including hers. As a young bridge officer, Keah had seen the explosions all around her, watched her commander killed, could still recall the names of her fallen comrades.

Keah gritted her teeth and ordered another full weapons volley, just because she was pissed. She raised her voice to the green priest on the bridge. "Mr. Nadd, use your tree to tell the King that we've flushed out an infestation of leftover black robots, but we're in pursuit."

Nadd blinked. "Shouldn't I wait until we're done, General?"

"Some news is too good to sit on."

The three surviving robot ships had left the ruddy gas giant behind and plunged headlong into open space, racing beyond even the cometary cloud.

The five intact Solar Navy warliners caught up with the Kutuzov. "We're causing damage," she transmitted to the Adar, "but the bugbots will get away if they can keep up that acceleration without exploding their engines. We can't match it."

On the tracking screens, the three robot vessels increased their lead, pulling ahead into the emptiness. Keah yelled to her sensor chief, "Lieutenant Saliba, do not lose track of them-that's an order!"

"Scanning ahead, General, keeping my eyes on-" Saliba paused. "Detecting something odd outside the system. Some sort of black nebula or dust cloud. I can only tell it's there because I can't read anything else through it." She shrugged. "It's giving no readings at all-like a hole in space, and I swear it wasn't there when we entered the Dhula system."

On screen, the black nebula swirled, darkness mixed with deeper darkness. Keah thought it must be an illusion, because any dust cloud so large would grow and change on a cosmic timescale, nothing the human eye could ever notice. She hit the comm again. "Z, do you see that shadow cloud up ahead?"

"There is a deep shadow, and I find it unsettling-we have no record of anything in that area."

"There's definitely something now."

The three robot battleships changed course and veered directly toward the cloud.

"They probably want to hide in the dust," her navigator said. "If we lose them inside the nebula, they'll get away."

"Then don't let them get there," Keah said.

As the Kutuzov raced toward the looming dark nebula, several bridge screens flickered and blurred. Bursts of static danced across the display panels before they sharpened to clarity again.

Keah's throat went dry. During the Elemental War, the Klikiss robots had introduced insidious viruses that wrecked EDF command-and-control systems. "Did those bugbots sabotage our core programming? How is that possible?"

When Adar Zan'nh contacted the Kutuzov, his image was out of focus. "We are experiencing difficulties, General." Behind him, the lights in his command nucleus flickered.

"Ditto over here." She turned to her weapons officer. "Mr. Patton, please tell me that our jazers still work."

"I suggest we test them out, General."

She grinned. "I like the way you think. Indulge yourself."

Patton opened fire, and a barrage of energy beams streaked toward the fleeing robot ships, but the aim was wildly off. He looked embarrassed. "Sorry, General. Our systems seem to be out of whack."

The warliners blasted as well, a haphazard flurry of discharges that went far afield, although several struck and damaged one lagging robot ship. The other two enemy vessels pulled forward, careening straight toward the black cloud.

The shapeless nebula surged and roiled, which Keah found disconcerting. She leaned forward. "What the hell?"

The robot ships pushed toward the blackness, and suddenly, like the pseudopod of a nightmare amoeba, it lunged out and engulfed the two enemy vessels.

The third robot ship kept struggling along. The CDF and Solar Navy ships charged forward to intercept it, but the lights flickered on the Kutuzov's bridge. Diagnostic screens went to complete static. The engines sounded as if they were laboring.

The navigator fumbled with his systems. "We're losing control, General. I can't figure out these glitches."

From Engineering, Mr. Kalfas transmitted on the override line, "Systems everywhere are going haywire."

All the pursuing ships were struggling as they raced after the last robot vessel. Adar Zan'nh signaled from his command nucleus, "I do not like this, General. If these malfunctions continue, we will be dead in space." His face looked drawn, his eyes haunted. "One of our rememberers has reminded me of a similar black nebula from our past. I am not sure I believe it myself, but it could be very dangerous."

The lagging robot ship finally made it to the shadow cloud and vanished inside the darkness.

The Kutuzov lurched, and the deck tilted as the artificial gravity systems became unstable. Two Manta cruisers sent distress signals and abandoned the pursuit, changing course. Systems flickered on the Juggernaut's bridge, and competing alarms began to ring out. Many systems had already dropped offline.

No robot vessels were visible on screen, but the shadow cloud continued to swell toward the pursuing ships.

In disgust, Keah muttered under her breath, "All right, dammit!" She activated the comm again; it took her three tries to connect with the Solar Navy flagship. "This is frustrating, Z! Break off the pursuit."

The battle groups veered away from the dark nebula and retreated. The robot ships were gone.

CHAPTER.

41.

SHAREEN FITZKELLUM.

After a year in the straightjacket of schools on Earth, Shareen was glad to be back in the free skies of Golgen.

When she had asked her quiet study partner if he would be interested in leaving the classroom for some "real education" at the gas giant, Howard remained so calm that he almost fooled her, but she knew him well enough to see the excitement in his dark eyes. "That would be an excellent way to acquire a practical education. My family would be pleased if I became a certified ekti-processing engineer."

She thought it was cute. "And I'd love to have you there with me," she said. While she couldn't wait to leave Earth, she didn't want to lose Howard.

Happy to reward a child that caused them no problems, unlike his siblings, Howard's parents agreed to the proposal. Howard Rohandas had seven brothers and sisters; as the youngest, he had often been left alone, especially since his siblings gave his parents so many headaches. Howard was a good student, self-sufficient and reliable.

As they emerged from the transport in the skymine bay, the clangs, pumps, engine roars, and venting gases sounded like a welcoming choir to Shareen. Howard wrinkled his nose at the chemical exhausts in the air and the industrial racket. "Is it always this noisy?"

Shareen laughed. "Sometimes louder, when big shipments come and go. You'll get used to it."

She spotted her parents working their way toward them, dodging equipment and activity. Her mother held Rex with one arm, waving with the other. Shareen ran forward to give her mother a hug, then she playfully poked her baby brother in the stomach, making Rex giggle.

"About time we had some qualified help around here," Patrick said. "This must be Howard Rohandas? You come highly recommended from a source I trust." He nodded toward his daughter.

"Pleased to meet you, sir," Howard said. "Shareen and I worked together in school, but she says I'll learn much more on Golgen."

"Shareen might not have gotten passing grades without you, Howard," Zhett said.

Howard blushed. "We helped each other."

"My problems were with the instructors, not the science," Shareen said, then gave Howard a comradely nudge with her elbow. "I needed him more than I thought, and it was good to have a friend to help me out."

Her brother Toff bounded in, his hair tousled, wearing a justified expression. "See, Mom? You can't send me to Earth. Academ was hard enough."

Shareen teased him. "Academ was hard for you because you can't sit still."

Toff looked to his father, as if he might be a better ally. "I'm going to be a skymine engineer, so I may as well just stay here and learn."

"First you'd have to find a skymine that'd take you," Shareen said.

Her grandfather blustered into the bay, both arms extended. "And there's my lovely granddaughter!" Del Kellum's exuberance always embarrassed her. "And who is this fine-looking young man?"

"Shareen's boyfriend," Toff said.

Howard's mouth fell open, and he looked as if he were trying to speak, but no sound came out. Shareen took pity on him. "Don't overwhelm my friend or he'll jump off the deck. Let him settle in."

Though he seemed to be out of his depth in this new environment, Howard finally managed to say, "Really, this is nothing compared to my usual homecomings with seven brothers and sisters."

"Good," her mother said. "We intend to put you to work on the next shift."

After unpacking, Howard wanted to explore, and Shareen led him along the process lines deep in the bowels of the skymine. Roamer workers in jumpsuits moved through the maze of conduits, testing flow temperatures or monitoring pressure levels in the throbbing reactors. Pistons pumped alongside the catalyst chambers.

The skymine plowed through the Golgen sky, gulping and exhausting huge quantities of atmosphere, digesting the hydrogen, and crunching the atoms into the rare allotrope that served as stardrive fuel. Up on the intake deck, Shareen laughed in the roaring wind as fans cleared the air of chemical mists.

When Toff came in, obviously looking for his sister, he had a mischievous expression. Shareen rolled her eyes. He always tried to find ways to pester her. "We're working here," she said, hoping he would take the hint.

"Looks like you're just chatting," Toff said, then added in a singsong voice, "Or did you want some alone time with your boyfriend?"

Shareen snapped, "Why don't you dive into the clouds and go hydrogue hunting? Don't come up until you find some."

Toff started to give her a rude response, but ducked when he saw Del Kellum enter the deck. "Toff, there you are. I've got work for you to do."

"Sorry, I have homework! I was just asking Shareen some questions." Toff darted away.

When her brother was gone, Shareen said to her grandfather, "I'm showing Howard the process line. We studied the engineering on paper, but he should see it with his own eyes. If Howard and I put our heads together, we could change the nature of skymining. He's very practical, and I've got lots of big ideas."

Her grandfather chuckled. "You always did-and sometimes they're even good ones." Del Kellum glanced up at the chutes, the big fans, the pumping turbines. "Roamers have been in the business for centuries, and this skymine's been working for a long time. I have high hopes for you, girl."

Shareen clipped a stabilizer cable from her belt onto a thin metal rung, and gestured for Howard to do the same. "The view's better up there. Come on."

The young man followed her, with Del Kellum huffing to keep up. From the high platform, they could look into the vortex of misty chemicals that were sucked into the main body of the skymine. Shareen swung out, relying on the clip to keep her safe. Howard peered into the dizzying swirl of gases.

Del raised his voice above the loud wind. "You always were a tomboy-just like your mother! But you're a young woman now, a beautiful girl, even if you don't know it." He jabbed a finger in her face. "You could trouble yourself to look nice. Don't you want this young man to notice you?"

"I already notice her, sir," Howard said, making Shareen feel warm inside.

She responded with a mock huff. "I want a boy who sees me for who I am."

Del reached out to wipe a grease smudge from her cheek. "Sometimes it's hard to see who you are." Then he playfully tugged on one of her pigtails. "I want to show you something." He unfolded a flexible screen from one of his jumpsuit pockets, spread it on a flat surface, and activated the power film. "You're not done with your schooling, just because you didn't like Earth. It's time for some Roamer education."

"That's why we came here. Hands-on work at the Golgen skymine."

Del took Howard by the sleeve and pulled him closer to the filmscreen as well. "Not good enough. You're a genius, and geniuses have to go the extra parsec."

On the screen Shareen saw a beautiful maelstrom of nebula gas, a cluster of stars at its core, and a flotilla of domed habitats, skeletal frameworks, flitting ships, stretched sheets of polymer fabric like butterfly wings, and a partially completed arc that, when finished, would become a giant metal ring.

"Kotto Okiah has the biggest ideas of any Roamer," Del said. "I'm going to make some contacts. I have a lot of clout as former Speaker of the clans, by damn."

Shareen wasn't impressed. "My dad used his connections to get me into the best Earth academy-and look how well that turned out."

"My clout is different from your father's, and I know different people. Wouldn't you like to study with Kotto Okiah?"

Even Howard seemed impressed. "He's a legend."

Del tapped the images on the screen. "This is Fireheart Station, where you belong. Once you've studied with Kotto, the Spiral Arm will be your oyster."

Shareen frowned. "I don't like oysters. You made me eat one when we visited you on Rhejak."

Del laughed. "Don't much like them either-salty and squishy, and if you don't swallow one whole, it's like a glob of phlegm stuck in your mouth." He rolled up the flexible screen and stuffed it into his pocket. "Anyway, that's just an expression. Sure, spend a few months here if you want, but you'll have all your life to run this skymine. I want you to dream big, girl. Dream big."

CHAPTER.