"Axe you sure? I don't want to overload you again. Remember, this is only our first session."

"I can take it. Go ahead."

"If you say so. I wanted to start close to home, give you the local perspective, so to speak, then move us out bit by bit. So here we go again."

Sol began to shrink. The room that Drake was sitting in backed away into space and lifted high above the ecliptic. Sol became a tiny disk. The highlighted flicker of the outer planets moved in to merge with it and become a single point.

The apparent distance to Sol was increasing. In another half minute the inner region of the diffuse globe of the Oort Cloud was visible. Billions of separate and faint points of light were smeared by distance to a glowing haze. "Every one has been highlighted for the display," Tom said casually. "Have to do it that way, or you wouldn't see a thing. Not much sunlight so far out. And of course we've been showing just the inhabited bodies. What you might call the 'old'

solar system colonies, before the spread outward really began. Wanted you to see that, but now if you don't mind, I'm going to pick up the pace a bit. Don't want to take all day."

The outward movement accelerated, accompanied by Tom Lambert's apparently offhand commentary (Drake realized that the composite speaking through Tom was actually anything but casual; it was his own needs, structuring the form of the input). The whole Oort Cloud was seen briefly, then in turn it shrank rapidly with distance from huge globe to small disk to tiny point of light. Other stars with inhabited planets, or planet-sized free space habitats, appeared as fiery sparks of blue-white and magenta.

At last the whole galactic spiral arm came into view. It was filled with the flashing lights of occupied worlds. Theinterarm gaps showed no more than a sparse scattering of points, but across those gulfs the Sagittarius and Perseus arms were as densely populated as the local Orion arm. Finally the whole disk of the Galaxy was visible. The colored flecks of light were everywhere, from the dense galactic center to its wispy outer fringes. Humans and their creations spanned the Galaxy.

The display froze at last.

"In all our forms," Tom said, "we endured. More than endured: prospered. That's the way things stood, just one-tenth of a galactic revolution ago-twenty-five million years, in the old terms of time. Development, by organic, inorganic, and composite forms, had been steady and peaceful through thirty full revolutions of the Sun about the galactic center. Pretty impressive, eh?"

Very impressive. Drake recalled that one galactic revolution took about two hundred million years. Humans had survived and prospered for more than six billion years.

"But it's not like that anymore," Tom added. "I'm going to show you a recent time evolution-in terms familiar to you, I will display what has been happening in the past few tens of millions of Earth years."

Again there was a tremor in his voice, a hint of uncounted minds quivering beyond the gate and walls imposed by Drake. The static view outside the picture window began to change.

At first it was no more than a hint of asymmetry in the great pattern of spirals, one side of the Galaxy showing a shade less full than the other. After a few moments the differences became more pronounced and more specific. A dark sector was appearing on one side of the disk. On the outermost spiral arm, far across the Galaxy from Sol, the bright points of light were snuffed out one by one. Drake thought at first of an eclipse, as though some unimaginably big and dark sphere was occulting the whole galactic plane. Then he realized that the analogy was no good. The blackness at the edge of the Galaxy was not of constant diameter. It was increasing in size. Some outside influence was moving in to invade the galactic disk, and growing constantly as it did so.

"And now you see it as it is today," Tom said quietly. The lights had come on again within the room, dimming the display outside. Drake did not know if that was under his control or Tom's, as Tom continued, "Except, of course, that it has not ended. The change continues, faster than ever."

A crescent wedge had been carved from the Galaxy, cutting out a substantial fraction of the whole disk.

"Colonies vanish. Without a signal, without a sign." Tom sounded bewildered. "If we assume that all the composites in the vanished zone have been destroyed, as the silence would suggest, then billions of sentient beings are dying from moment to moment even while we are speaking."

It was a tragedy beyond all tragedies. Drake had become used to the tours of a changing solar system, provided on each resurrection until overstimulation led to numbness; but death was different.

He had been touched by death just five times in his own life: his parents, Ana's parents, and the death of Ana herself.

Those single incidents loomed enormous, but they sat within a century of larger disasters-of war and famine and disease. Thirty million had been killed in two world wars, twenty million dead of influenza in a single year, twenty million starved to death by the deliberate act of one powerful man.

Those were huge, unthinkable numbers, but still they were millions, not billions. They were nothing, compared with what he was facing now.

Tom said softly, "Our galaxy is being invaded by something from outside. We are being destroyed, faster than we can escape."

Drake knew that. He also knew he did not want to face it. "Your problem is terrible, but it has nothing to do with me.

More than that, there is nothing that I can do about it."

"You do not know, unless you try."

"Try what? You are being ridiculous."

"If we knew what to try, we would long since have tried it. Drake, we did not rouse you from dormancy on a whim, or without prior thought. You are from an earlier age, more familiar with aggression. If anyone can suggest a way to protect us, you can do so."

"Why me? There were fifty thousand others in the cryotanks, all from my era. They were resurrected, every one ofthem. I assume that some at least are still conscious entities."

"Most are. But they no longer exist as isolated intelligences. All, except you, form part of composites. The result lacks-please do not misunderstand me-your primitive drive and aggression."

"You need me because I'm a barbarian!"

"Exactly."

"To try and do what you refuse to do."

"No. What we are unable to do. As I said, you are our last hope, and it is a desperate hope indeed. Drake, let me suggest that you have no choice. If you want Ana to return to you, ever, you must help us."

"Blackmail."

"Not at all. Consider. If you fail to help, and if human civilization falls, so too do the electronic data banks. You will then cease to exist, and so will any possibility of resurrecting Ana. This is not, in the language of game theory, a two-person zero-sum game between you and the rest of humanity. Only if humanity wins can you possibly win. In order for that maximum benefit to be reached, by you and by humanity, it is necessary for you yourself to suffer a period of great effort, with no guarantee of return on that effort. No guarantee, indeed, that your effort is even needed.

It is conceivable that, without you, we might come up with an answer to our problem tomorrow. But I do not think so.

We have tried everything that we know. Well, Drake?"

Drake shook his head and stared out at the mutilated disk of the Galaxy. "You sure don't sound much like Tom Lambert. Tom couldn't have talked about zero-sum games to save his own life."

"This was your chosen medium of interaction, not ours. The composite that is addressing you is purely electronic.

And talk of zero-sum games may be needed to save all our lives."

The scene beyond the window changed. Again it was the seacoast villa, looking across a bay tossed now by whitecaps beneath racing storm clouds.

"You see," Tom said. "You make my point. That is your vision, not ours. But we do not dispute its accuracy, as a possible harbinger of things to come."

Drake turned moodily to face the south, where a single sailboat was running for shelter. A squall struck as he watched, catching the little vessel and leaning its pink sails far over to starboard.

"I think we ought to start over," he said at last. "Tell me and show me everything, right from the beginning. Then I have a thousand questions."

Chapter 17.

Star Wars.

"I know more than Apollo, For oft when he lies sleeping I see the stars at bloody wars In the wounded welkin weeping."

Drake could have anticipated the problem. Composites came in all sizes and types, remote and nearby, wise and foolish, planetary and free-space, organic and inorganic. Their constant interactions blurred the lines of identity, until it was not clear which elements were speaking or which were in control. Since he saw that problem in others, he had to assume that the same thing might happen to him when he worked with them. Yet he must, at all costs, maintain his individual character and agenda.He decided that he had to create a private record of his own thoughts and actions. It seemed not a luxury or a personal indulgence, but a necessity.

The irony of the whole situation was not lost on him. He had been a lifelong and dedicated pacifist, hating all things military-so much so that until Ana went into the cryowomb and he was desperate for money, he would not consider military music commissions, no matter how much they offered. Now, so far in the future that he did not like to think about it, he was an aggression consultant to the whole Galaxy.

His private thought: the incompetent and the ignorant are now leading the innocent; but he did not offer that comment to anyone else.

"What have you tried?" Drake was in working session with Tom Lambert. He was sure that he couldn't really help, but he was also sure that the composites wouldn't accept a negative answer. More than that, for Ana's sake he could not accept it. He had to pretend, to himself more than anyone, that he knew what he was doing.

"Drake, we have tried many things. We sent S-wave signals to that sector of the Galaxy. There was never any reply-"

"Back up, Tom. S-wave signals?"

"Fast signals. Superluminal signals, that employ an S-wave carrier to advance at high multiples of light speed."

"You can travel faster than light? I thought that was impossible."

"It is, for material objects. We have superluminal capability for signals only. Just as well that we do, because we really need it. How else could a composite with widespread components operate as a unit? Anyway, we sent fast signals to the silent region, but no reply was ever received. We wondered if the problem might be that the other entities could not detect superluminal messages. So we sent subluminal signals and inorganic probes. We waited for millions of years, knowing that all the time more of our stellar systems were becoming mute. Nothing returned. We sent ships bearing organic units, and ships carrying full composites. Nothing has ever come back."

"Were your ships . . . armed?" Drake had to hunt the data banks for that final word, but apparently it gave Tom even more trouble. There was a long silence.

"Armed?" Tom said at last. He sounded perplexed.

"Equipped with weapons." Drake wondered. Had aggressive impulses been stamped out completely, as an impediment to steady progress and the colonization of the Galaxy? When Tom didn't answer, he added, "Weapons are things able to inflict damage. Weapons would permit a ship to defend itself if it were to be attacked."

Tom Lambert didn't like that, either. His image flickered and wavered, as though whatever was communicating had suffered a temporary breakdown. Confusion bled in from the clamoring host of minds in the background.

"They had no 'weapons.' " Tom was steadying again. "There are no 'weapons.' The details of the concept have been relegated to remote third-level storage, and it is poorly defined even there. What are you suggesting?"

"Something very simple. This galaxy is being-" Now Drake had to pause. He wanted to say 'invaded,' but that word had apparently vanished from the language.

"Something outside the Galaxy is moving into it," he said at last. "Do you agree?"

"So it would appear."

"And that something is displacing human civilization."

"Yes. That is our fear, although we have no direct proof. But what could be doing this?"

"I have no idea. That's something we're going to find out. You've been making too many assumptions, Tom. One is that you are seeing something intelligent at work; something with a developed technology."

"We made no such assumptions."

"Of course you did. Not explicitly, but you did it. You say you sent signals and you received no reply-but even to expect a reply presumes that something out there is able to detect a signal, comprehend a signal, and reply to a signal.

Suppose that the entity moving into our Galaxy has no intelligence at all?""Then we will never be able to communicate with it. We are doomed."

"Why?" Drake, in spite of his own reservations about his ability to help, was becoming annoyed with the composites.

They were such a spineless lot, ready to lie down and die before they were even touched. "Why are you doomed? You don't need to communicate, you know. You just need to stop the-the-" Again, the need for a word that did not exist. The composites had not named the problem. "The blight," he said at last. "The marauder, the Shiva, the destroyer, the whatever. we choose to call it. I don't know if it's intelligent or nonintelligent, but it's changing the Galaxy in a way that's deadly to humans. Even if the Shiva don't mean to kill, they are silencing stellar systems by the billion. Never mind understanding what's happening. That would be nice, but the main thing is, we have to defend ourselves against the effects."

"But we have no idea how to do that."

"I'm going to tell you how." The amazing thing was that he was starting to believe his own words. It was a chilling reflection on the humans of earlier times. No one, no matter how much the pacifist, could in his own era go from child to adult without becoming steeped in the vocabulary, ideas, and procedures of war. Even games were a form of combat, using the language of conflict. Drake knew more than he realized about the theory and practice of warfare.

"We have to do a few things for ourselves," he went on, "before we can consider external action. First, we have to create and become familiar with a new language. You must learn to speak War." Drake said the last word in English.

"You need to be able to think war, and before you can think it you have to be able to speak it. I will provide the concepts, you will deal with the mechanics of language creation. All right?"

Silence from Tom. Drake took it as reluctant assent, and went on. "Second, we must form something called a chain of command. You were right when you told me that this form of communication between us limits the rate of information transfer. We have to change the system. I'm sure I can't deal directly with billions of composites, so we need a new structure. I will deal with no more than-how many? Let's say six-I'll work with half a dozen composites like you.

Then each of you will work with six more, and so on to successive tiers. How many levels will be necessary to fit every composite into such a framework?"

"Nineteen levels will be enough."

Tom's reply was instantaneous. Drake tried to do the inverse calculation, and failed. Six to the nineteenth. How many billions, how many trillions? Let's just say, a mind-boggling number.

And he was supposed to direct the actions of every one of them. How? He had no idea. Composers were not expected to run things. Had any musician in history ever managed a group bigger than an orchestra? The only one he could think of was the pianist Paderewski, who early in the twentieth century interrupted his performing career to become prime minister of Poland. Great pianist, average politician.

He pressed on, before worries and irrelevant thoughts like that could take over.

"Third, I must learn your science and technology. I don't mean I have to understand it, because I'm quite sure I can't.

But I have to know what the technology can do. In return, I'll tell you what weapons are, and you must learn what weapons do, and how to make them. I'll warn you, you won't like what you hear-any more than I'll enjoy telling you."

"We'll learn." Tom was calm now. He even shrugged his shoulders and ran his hands through his mop of red hair.

"When we asked for help, you know, we didn't assume that we'd be sitting around doing nothing. And we didn't assume we'd enjoy our part of it."

"I'll go further. You won't. Let's begin by defining the first level of the chain of command. As I said, I can't interface with you all the time, and I certainly can't interface directly with umpteen billion composites."

"Six hundred trillion."

"Thanks." Six hundred trillion. It was worse than Drake had thought. "So we set up the chain of command, then we'll talk about self-defense. You ought to send that information immediately to the section of the Galaxy likely to be the next one threatened. It might help, and it can't hurt."

He would prove disastrously wrong on that last point, but he didn't know it.

"Self-defense?" Tom said.

"Don't worry about it. You won't have to harm anything that doesn't try to harm you. You'll find self-defense easy. Butafter that it may start to get nasty."

Just how could a planet or a space colony defend itself from outside attack? How could humans counterattack or make a preemptive defensive strike? How did one fight something unknown? Drake rummaged for long-buried ideas, things he had read when he was young and never expected to use or need. His mind was disturbingly well-stocked with them.

So much for his pacifist self-image.

Until Ana went to the cryowomb and he was scrambling for money, he had resisted the idea of producing any form of professional description. He had been pretty snooty about it. What could words possibly say, he said to himself and to anyone else who would listen, about the ability to write interesting music?

Times changed. Now he could produce an intriguing resume: Drake Merlin; composer; performer; would-be pacifist; and Supreme Commander of Combined Galactic Forces.