When she mentioned Yegrani's Sight as verification, he became testy.

You were the merge, he said. You saved Deneb and you've traveled.

I was NOT the focus at Deneb. Jeff was.

Reidinger made a rude noise. d.a.m.ned clairvoyants are so clever with their ambiguities.

REIDINGER, you are not ignoring this! It was her turn to bellow.

Fat chance I'd have of that when that aggressive Denebian husband of yours is agitating Fleet High Command as well as everyone he's ever met on the League Administrative Panel.

Reidinger sounded disgusted yet there was a hint of pride in his voice, which made the Rowan grin. Should never have introduced him so universally. He's got Fleet in a flap but the units that were stationed around Deneb are insisting that they get the chance to reconnoiter.

Rowan: Jeff said he'd be leading the way.

Reidinger was silent for a moment. He hasn't wasted an ounce of that ingratiating charm of his over the last six months.

He smothered exactly the right egos with it. Consequently he can manipulate the various authorities and agencies that would be involved in an operation of this magnitude. And cut through delays.

The Rowan grinned to herself at Reidinger's grudging admission.

She had learned a thing or two from Jeff about dealing with bureaucracy. More importantly, he could manipulate at a high level.

With Deneb the ostensible target for this new a.s.sault, he had every reason to marshal his Talent.

Jeff was very effective: he managed a squadron to reconnoiter.

And, obeying his wife's advice, specified a high complement of female crews on two of the ships.

d.a.m.nedest thing I ever heard of, Reidinger complained to the Rowan, Jeff s the most perceptive, and certainly the strongest Talent I've ever encountered - and he had to go some to exceed you, Angharad Reidinger had taken to calling her by her real name since Jeran's birth because 'Angharad' sounded more feminine than a tree name - so he's got xen.o.biologists from all parts of the League screaming for details about these feminine menaces oil yours.

The female of the species has always been more deadly than the male, Reidinger, the Rowan replied, though she couldn't remember where she'd heard that maxim. It didn't have the same ring as one of Siglen's.

Defending its young. I suppose even beetles can have maternal imperatives! If it IS the same blasted beetles. His grumbling tone faded from her mind.

As the Rowan turned back to some minor domestic ch.o.r.es -'porting fresh water from a Welsh artesian well for the Callisto cisterns, the weekly supply of comestibles and special household orders of those who lived on the Station - she waited with half a mind open for Jeff's progress report.

We're beyond Deneb's heliapause by two A Us, he said. I brought the squadron out myself Fine Captain, excellent crew, he added with a mental picture of the ZAMBIA's bridge and the exceedingly handsome woman occupying the Captain's chair. The officers seated at consoles were all reasonably young and attractive, too. Picked less for pulchritude and more for vestiges of Talent. You have no compet.i.tion, my love!

I won't daign: that with a reply.

Then shall I be magnanimous and say they confirm your perceptions about the approaching vesseL Not all the crew's female but those who are have exhibited the same symptoms Isthia reports en ma.s.se on Deneb.

I'm feeling distinctly left out of all this and I'm supposed to be highly perceptive!

Be glad you don't pick up on the aura, Jeff' You can really call it evil, or even truly malicious, but it emanates an intensity - an antic.i.p.ation of destruction - that is frightening. If I were a barquecat, every hair on my body would be standing stark out. And don't call the phenomenon 'it'. Mauli echoed a 'many' - a many which will not be diverted from their purpose.

Exactly how Captain Lodjyn summed up her impression of the intent of this Many. And they're unequivocably headed toward Deneb. I may be slightly paranoid about what happens to my planet, but I really can't quite make myself believe the vessel is going through Denebian s.p.a.ce for a shortcut when Deneb VIII will just happen to be in their way.

What I can't understand is how they will avoid impaction at the speed they're going. It takes time to decelerate from the speed at which they're now traveling. Or maybe beetles stand multigravities better than us fleshy sorts?

Rowan, sensing suspicious peripherals from Jeff s mind: Just what are you doing right now?

Taking a look. Too much 'noise' on the ZAMBIA.

She didn't like the thought of him in a vulnerable personal capsule, far from the nebulous safety of a multiweaponed scout vessel.

You should have taken the Captain with you. You won't hear a thing.

I did and Mauli's along. And we're in the Captain's gig.

I've some sense for a mere man, my love.

You rea.s.sure me no end!

Jeff's tone turned wry. I thought this would, cariad.

Mauli's echo is going to come in real useful.

Like never before!

He was silent though his mind kept contact. So, putting everyone on the Station on a Yellow Alert status, she left the Tower, with afra, Mick, and Ackerman in charge, to attend to her son. It was soothing to feed Jeran his lunch before settling him down for a nap. Most of the time she did not have to reinforce his natural rhythm with a mental suggestion, but he had been a little off normal schedule since the Deneb 'portation so she gave him a nudge. She gazed down at him for a long moment - he was endlessly enchanting. Then she stretched out on her bed, one arm flung across the side which Jeff usually occupied, and relaxed, clearing her mind.

WOW! The awe in Jeff's voice was sufficient to rouse her totally from the light doze she had entered.

Mauli's reaction was less awed and considerably more fearful.

Jeff: We seem to have a lumpy-surfaced oval planetoid rolling towards us at speeds which make even gestalt a.s.sisted movements seem crawler-paced. It is currently twenty AUs out but closing fast enough I like. That defense ring which Fleet is so proud of is going to be no use against a vessel this size. More like a flea trying to swat one of those large men Proceyon breeds. Easy, Mauli. I don't care what instrumentation it might have, it can't see us. We're less than a mote. You may feel it, but :f it had sensed us, we'd really be motes.

The Rowan, briefly touching Mauli's panicked mind to rea.s.sure the girl, heard Jells chuckle.

This may only be a captain's gig but its scanner's the best so Fleet'll have the printout as confirmation. I'm getting no readings on ma.s.s or composition. Scanner says 'no accurate a.s.sessment possible at this distance'. That's a lot of comfort.

Tut-tut! And it's running dark. Ignoring the basic laws of s.p.a.ceman ship! That seems to be upsetting the Fleet more than its size.

No, that's a cover for the pure funk even admirals are feeling over my evaluation. They're making contradictory preliminary a.s.sessments, demanding that I increase the resolution. I did: it's on the max right now. What do they think I've got on this skiff? A portable sun for illumination?

The Rowan refined the contact with Jeff sufficiently to see, through his optics, what he and Mauli were viewing on the skiff's scanners: a darkness that flowed across the backdrop of stars. Quite a Leviathan, isn't it? I understand why adrenaline is pumping through your veins Leviathan? An interesting choice of phrase, my love.

Jeff Raven, if you go in any closer to that. . . that menace, I'll kill you, she added, abruptly seized by a gut-generated terror.

Jeff chuckled. That'll teach me a lesson. Rest easy, cariad, I'm as close as I care to get, and closer than Mauli or the good Captain Lodjyn think w:se.

Do they hear anything useful?

Well, Mauli does and she doesn't. She's let me merge and I can sense great industry and bustle, orderly activity, and some areas with no sound at all. I think the d.a.m.ned planetoid was once just that and has been hollowed out for its travels. Mauli's picking up a lot more than I am: six or more different mental ent.i.ties. His tone became attenuated as he spoke to her privately. Mauli's in a muck sweat of terror from the level of 'dedication' . . . purpose is too weak a word. . . that she perceives. I'm taking us back before the poor kid dissolves.

Even the Captain's sweating and throwing out fear phenomes.

Rowan: When Deneb was attacked, the merge didn't sense any great dedication, purpose, or intelligence from the occupants of those vessels.

Jeff: You're a.s.suming that the ship we deported from our system went scimming back to this big Mama?

Rowan: Why not? You thought then that they were softening Deneb up for an invasion. Why couldn't they have been preparing the planet for the arrival of what's bearing down on Deneb now?

Jeff: And the 'mother' ship is why only females sense its intent?

Rowan: Don't you dare snicker!

Jeff: Believe me, dear heart, whatever reservations I might have privately entertained at the outset are null and void. We are in big trouble and I thank all the Powers of Balance for my mother's long ear!

As it is, we're going to have to plan our campaign against that Leviathan very carefully. That's the hard place, and Deneb's the rock and we - Mankind - are between it. There was a brief pause. And so I've just informed Earth Prime! This time he also has no reservations.

In the second pause, Jeff chuckled wryly. However the League may well just argue us all to our deaths. Would you believe it? They are now debating the ethical point of whether we have the right to interfere with the approaching vessel simply on the grounds that it might - get that, might - have hostile intentions?

Rowan, aghast: You can't mean it?

Jeff, sardonically: Now just how do we prove hostile intent? They haven't launched any missiles - yet - that I can lob at Earth and scare the doubters.

Afra: You said Leviathan is clearly on a course to Deneb, did you not?

Jeff: Yes, Afra, I did and the squadron's computer all confirm that. Unless this Leviathan decelerates when it reaches Deneb's system, present calculations confirm that it will smash right into Deneb VIII. Captain Lodj# is extrapolating the repercussions of such a collision.

Reidinger: It will NOT come to that! Talent does not bust its b.a.l.l.s for the Nine-Star League to have them disregard a considered warning of imminent invasion of a possibly hostile force of unknown potential.

Jeff: And what have you in mind, Earth Prime?

Reidinger: I am in conference with the Nine star League Councillors and you may rest a.s.sured that they will be persuaded to act, not argue.

Ah, good! My first order from the Councillors is to dispatch the flagship Beijing to the Denebian system. It will deploy one-half All beyond Deneb's helipause, the Welcome and Ident.i.ty modules which were so successful with the Antarians sentients not dissimilar to the beetle-type species of the first a.s.sault.

Rowan, exasperated: Of all the stupid face-saving ploys!

Haven't we TOLD you that the main sentience of this vessel is motivated by destruction, the annihilation of Deneb VIII?

Reidinger: Oh, I agree with your evaluation, Angharad. I am further ordered to dispatch the Moscow, the London, and the Newyork to redeploy defensive mines one-half inside the heliopause.

Jeff: Bluebells all in a row?

Reidinger: Under the premise that a warning shot across the bows ought to be universally understood.

The Rowan snorted.

Jeff: Remind the captains of those vessels to get the h.e.l.l out of the way before that thing gets within fifty-thousand klicks of the s.p.a.ce mines.

Reidinger: Now we wait!

Rowan and Jeff in simultaneously expressed disgust: Wait?

Reidinger: Wait! That's the trouble with you youngsters.

You don't know when to bide your time.

Jeff: Not when it's my planet that's the target.

Reidinger: It was before and you were rescued. However, in addition to my official instructions, and Reidinger paused significantly, I have sent out a discreet alert to all Primes and Talent above grade 4, regardless of their discipline. Does that precaution rea.s.sure you?

Jeff, diffidently: Not exactly, for I fail to see what Talent will be able to do against that Leviathan!

Rowan: Alen for what action?

Reidinger, malicious chuckle: I thought you'd grasp the essentials more quickly. Mull it all over, will you, while we're waiting. And, in this interval, Jeff, I want you to proceed to Deneb. Angharad, please join him there but I would request that your son remains on Callisto.

Jeff: Now, wait a minute Rowan, beginning to catch a glimmer of what Reidinger held so tightly in his most private mind: No, Jeff I should be on Deneb to augment Isthia. Then as soon as we know and Jeran is safer away from the furor. It could overload him.

And Reidinger most certainly doesn't want that, do you, Peter?

Reidinger in a growl: No!

The Rowan did not like leaving Jeran behind: She would miss him keenly but, between the other women on the Station and Afra, he would be lovingly supervised. So she settled in her capsule and calmly waited for the generators to hit the proper revolutions before she, with Afra and Mick a.s.sisting, 'ported to Deneb. When she entered the Denebian Tower, she noticed the signs of stress in the faces of those who had maintained the Watch.

'If we swallow any more sedatives, we won't be able to hear a d.a.m.ned thing,' Isthia said bleakly. However, as she gave the Rowan a quick embrace of welcome, her incredible energy seemed undiminished, bright red and tangy. 'There's a bottom to the well and a long dry period if I dip in too often. But those things will NOT have my planet.' The red of her deepened.

'What does Besseva say now?' the Rowan asked, missing the clairvoyant from those on duty.

Isthia gave a diffident shrug. 'She's gone into a deep trance, trying to penetrate the sh.e.l.l of that - what did Jeff say you named it?

Leviathan-' she went on when the Rowan put the word in her mind, 'to see what's inside. It's d.a.m.nably frustrating to have an unknown a.s.sailant.' 'The Councillors wish to believe that they may not be hostile,' the Rowan said in a saccharine tone of voice.

Isthia was not the only one in the Tower to have a poor opinion of that belief. Then the Rowan took a spare couch and joined the minds merged on the approaching vessel. It had shortened the distance to heliopause considerably Jeff: Get set to catch me, will you, loves?

Isthia, privately: He must be tired if he's asking us for help.

Rowan: All right, then, my fine lad, into the cradle you go!

Jeff's step had none of its usual spring as he entered the Tower and dropped into the nearest chair. Before Isthia could motion to one of the girls, the Rowan had obtained a gla.s.s of stimulant and, placing it in his hand, laid both of hers on his temples, transferring energy to him. Closing his eyes, he accepted her gift, a loving smile turning up the corners of his mouth. You always know what I need, dear heart!

My profound grat.i.tude. I'll return the gift on demand.

'How long before we get some action?' Isthia asked in a gruff voice.

Jeff shrugged. 'The Fleet wants to make its war-game moves. They believe in their invincibility. I do not.' Rowan: Could a focus protect them? Leviathan may have weaponary we can't perceive.

Jeff: Not over the area of s.p.a.ce where they've deployed, and it'd be d.a.m.ned bad tactics to group them together where we might possibly be able to shield them. He gave a mirthless laugh. The Councillors are certain that Leviathan will respond reasonably to the Welcome and identify modules.

The Fleet are not so no:ve as to consider that likely.

However, the good Admirals are confident that Leviathan will react to the presence of the mines. Once Leviathan has demonstrated its weaponary against the mines, they will know how to defend us against it.