"Who knows, perhaps we'll be able to make whole new careers out of this Directive 115 stuff."

"New careers?"

"Speaking engagements, video stardom, it can all be ours."

Cachester's head was spinning when he got away at last.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT.

WHEN LUISA CHANG TOLD TOHOTO that SHE WAS AFRAID THE Directive 115 alien was able to infiltrate, the sector general's face became very grim.

"Too bad this had to happen," he said quietly.

She explained that it had used a fuel-company credit card as ID for library usage.

"What did it want in the library?" Tohoto said.

"It was looking for its homestar, at least that's the only conclusion I could come to. It ran through a big chunk of the Arntage Series of stellar-motion studies. They were put together by Rieben Arntage, who was one of the survivors of Saskatch."

"The homestar, eh. Too bad." Tohoto seemed to make some distant internal connection, pausing for a second or two.

"Colonel, I want tightened security on all orbiters and all spacecraft insystem your end. I will tell Heldheim myself. If anything else happens, report it to me at once. And, Colonel. . ."

"Yes, Sector General?"

"You have done a great job, Chang. I will commend you in the after-study. Great job." Tohoto cut out.

It sounded as if he was saying good-bye.

Suddenly a great fear filled her heart.

Had she just doomed the entire Wexel system, herself included? They could do it, oh so easily. If it was decided at OverCluster that the Wexel situation under Directive 115 had become too serious, because the Vang parasitic lifeform had infiltrated ITAA forces, then they would use the Starhammer and that would be that-a fiery death for the entire system.

But to Over-Cluster this would be better than the chance that the Vang Oormlikoowl could infiltrate human society and get loose in the starfields.

Luisa Chang caught her reflection in the mirror of the bathroom. She looked old, and very, very tired.

We may all have only a few hours to live, maybe less.

Luisa decided to waste no time. She sat down next to Darel Hopester and leaned over and whispered in his ear. "When we get to Air&Space, which will be very soon, I want to go immediately to a motel room and make love. How about you?"

He looked at her, stunned momentarily. She was military, and tough, but not this brutal.

"I think we all have only an hour or two left. The whole damn system is going to be wiped after that. I don't want to die alone."

Hopester's eyes widened. "How?"

"Starhammer," she whispered. "The thing seems to have infiltrated."

The blood drained out of his face.

"Infiltrated!"

"Look, none of this can go on TV. They're shutting down the orbiters and everything, right now, but it may be too late.

The decision will go to Over-Cluster. They have to balance one system, one planet, against the possible damage if that thing managed to get a Baada-drive ship."

"Starhammer?" He winced.

"The only sure way, before it's too late. It's part of Directive 115, the deep black part. I've seen the whole thing, although I don't have clearance for all of it, but anyway it's there. When I told Tohoto just now he let me know that it could happen."

"My family?"

"What good will it do to tell them? As it is it'll come straight out of nowhere. The flash and then the end in a matter of a few seconds."

"Why did you tell me?"

"Because you owe me, because I want to have sex once more before I die, and because I want to have sex with you."

"Luisa-" he began.

"Don't start, just say yes."

He hesitated for a long moment as be considered it. Kathi and the kids would be scattered over east CKC. Once he told them, they would agonize, they would ask many questions that could not be answered. They would die together but anticipating it for an unknown number of hours.

Or he could forgo that last meeting and they would die with less suffering beforehand.

"What if you're wrong?" hes aid. "What if they don't do it?"

"Then you'll have broken the rules for once, but you can tell yourself it was in the line of duty. And you won't ever have to see me again, either, which is probably the case either way, since I think that I'm due to get lifted to Scopus Central now, if we all survive past the next few hours."

Suddenly Hopester gave her a nod. "You've got it all worked out, then."

"I have."

"I think you're right; I can't even reach them all in less than an hour. If they're going to destroy Wexel then there's no point terrifying them for their last minutes."

The Shark swooped in to Air&Space and Chang went off duty. Only Povet and Sergeant Lagedeen had her beeper number. Povet, too, was going off duty, so Lagedeen, down in Doisy-Dyan, was "minding the baby" for the next few hours.

At the Hotel Splendide Chang made love with a fury that was just about frightening to Darel Hopester.

Somehow he forgot that death was hanging over all of them and lost himself in the passion of the moment.

Once or twice he thought of Kathi, and afterward he felt an immense pang of sorrow that he might never see her again, or the kids.

Torn apart forever, incinerated just miles away from each other. At that moment he wished that Kathi's soft body lay next to him instead of the hard, lean body of Colonel Luisa Chang.

But then the feeling subsided and he lay there, awake but dazed, waiting for the imagined death.

Vaguely he wondered if he shouldn't go out and get a bottle of vodka; getting drunk might be a big help in this situation.

Out of the dark came an urgent beep from Chang's commo. With a curse she arose and slipped it to her ear.

"All right, what's so important that you have to call me now?" It was Lagedeen; he was sympathetic.

"I bet you're getting tired of this, eh, sir? Hate to interrupt you but, well, there's been an outbreak of Directive 115 on Orbiter Three."

"On the orbiter? Oh, shit, it's not over."

Hopester was staring at her. "It's not over?" he mouthed.

She looked at him. She could only tell him if she took him with her. She made a decision. Maybe it would save his life.

"You're going to orbit," she said.

He smiled. "I beg to disagree. I'm not a slave, you know. I can ask the authorities to rescue me from bondage at any time."

"No joke, Darel, there's more of them, they're on Orbiter Three. We're in combat right now and you will get there in time to shoot the first video if you come with me."

Hopester was shaking his head, pale suddenly.

"There's more? We didn't get them all?"

"No, we didn't."

"And they're fighting aboard the orbiter?"

"Correct. Come on, Darel, let's go."

"What about the Starhammer?"

"I don't know, this won't help us with Over-Cluster Command. But we have to carry on, don't have a choice."

She was dressing, fast. He hesitated a moment longer and then he put on his clothes.

The Shark appeared above the Hotel Splendide and lifted them off on hookline. A few minutes later they were lifting away in a shuttle from Air&Space.

Commodore Benx made no objections this time to the disruption in his schedule.

Benx had had a change of heart concerning all this, ever since he'd seen that video from Doisy-Dyan.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE.

THE COCOONS HAD BEEN CAREFULLY HIDDEN IN MAINTENANCE lockers. They had ripened, undisturbed.

The hatching was synchronized and soon two battleforms virtually identical, were standing there together in the dark.

Gently, carefully they reached out to touch each other. Polyps expanded and burst and an odd succession of odors passed between the two, identifying, communicating.

They were preprogrammed to destroy, to kill any living thing they encountered. Beyond that they were the simplest Military Form, inexperienced but equipped with all the complex artificial instincts of all Imperial Military Form.

Outside the maintenance well they were drawn to the sounds of people moving around in a corridor above. They struck up into the ceiling, but there was a ceram bulkhead that withstood them.

Quickly they hunted along the maintenance catwalk for an entrance to the larger corridor above.

Many, many enemy creatures lurked there. All such creatures were to be destroyed.

Soon they found what they were looking for, and with it a woman in the brown oversuit of the maintenance squad. She was checking for the source of a loud sound reported in this maintenance section.

She'd opened a hatch from a storeroom into the maintenance space.

The things hurried toward her, skeletal, glistening, horrors from some nightmare of the pit.

She had turned back to close the hatch behind her and never saw them.

The things leapt on her and killed her with stabbing motions from their horn-covered hands. Then they passed through the open hatch into the orbiter hab-interior.

ITAA orbiters of this class were equipped with spinning toroidal habzones with three full-pressure decks and low-pressure maintenance decks above and below. The docking structures were centered on the hub in the low-gravity section.

The battleforms were now active on C deck. They moved through the space killing everyone they met.

No one was armed, and without guns human beings were virtually helpless against these things. They stabbed people, they beheaded them, and they gutted the occasional man who fought back hard enough to stop them in their first effort to kill him.

The orbiter reacted with a convulsion of panic. Alarms wailed; men and women spilled out of their quarters. Nobody knew what was happening and most suspected a hab-break of some kind at first, but the unwelcome news from C deck soon penetrated, and everyone that could tried to reach A deck and the access to the docking bays.

A squad of six men from the 624 OSF was called together by the orbiter commander, Captain Vorontzov. They were sent down to C deck in a priority elevator, wearing full battle armor with sixty-shot magazines loaded with habsafe nonpenetration rounds, mostly plastifrags.

Unfortunately they didn't kill the things when they first made contact. The troopers were nervous; they fired too soon. A couple of glancing hits were achieved but the things took immediate evasive action, knowing full well the danger of ballistic weapons. They vanished into an office section, broke through into a fire stairwell, and climbed to B deck.

Somewhere on that climb they ran into Officer Suderian, whom they killed and from whom they obtained one of the automatic submachine guns with sixty rounds of ammunition.

They burst onto B deck and slaughtered a small crowd of people, mostly panicked dirtsiders, who were jammed up around the elevators.

Finally the men from Suderian's squad caught up with them and a gunfight broke out. The things retreated using their ammunition sparingly, with efficient Imperial technique on display.

They retreated around the hab. Another squad was sent down to take them from the rear.