Spinneret

Saleh stared at Allerton's image, again forcing his temper down. "All right, then.

If we can find a supplier of such weaponry, will you help pay for it?"

"Possibly," Allerton said. "It depends partly on who would have control of the weapons and how you would guarantee they wouldn't show up later in various national arsenals."

"We—the United Nations—would retain control, naturally."

"That's a little vague. Do you mean the Security Council, the General Assembly, or just the Secretariat?"

Saleh favored him with a long, cool gaze. "You don't trust us, do you?"

"As you've so often pointed out, Mr. Saleh, all Ctencri contacts run through the UN. Given the anti-West invective that seems to be a staple of Assembly speeches, I think I have a right to be concerned when you start talking about hasty weapons deals."

"Yet you are offended when I suggest the benefits of Astra and the Spi

"That's a different situation entirely, and you know it."

"Of course I do. But world opinion is seldom so rational." He paused. "So I'm giving you advance warning as to my plans. One: I'm going to make public the full details of the Spi

"The United States will veto any such action," Allerton cut in sharply.

"So you've told me. And two: I'm going to authorize the formation of an international scientific task force to study the Spi

He had the satisfaction of seeing Allerton's expression twitch at that. "So. Faster ships," the President said slowly. "Well, if you're expecting a communications advantage like that to shake us off Astra, you're going to be disappointed. What Astra needs most is a stable source of supplies, and I doubt your little couriers are going to have anything near the capacity of our ships."

"True. But who knows? In a month you may be leasing those ships to us—because I assure you, Mr. President, that the Spi

Allerton was still staring blackly at the camera when Saleh cut off the co

Chapter 15

Meredith had guessed the political ripples of the M'zarch attack would take a month to return to Astra; but in fact the ships started arriving barely ten days after the incident. Three warships from the Orspham Empire were first, hulking monstrosities that completely dwarfed the Rooshrike corvets which escorted them in from the border. The Whissst arrived a few days later, their ships much smaller and reminding Meredith of nothing so much as large, steel-plated pretzels. The Ctencri sent no warships, but the flying warehouse they brought was a gadgeteer's delight, judging by the catalogue they transmitted groundside. As each race arrived Meredith did his best to send properly courteous greetings, and to gratefully acknowledge their offers of assistance and defense without actually accepting any of them.

"I feel like an Exxon heir at a gold diggers' convention," he grumbled to Major Barner one afternoon in the latter's Crosse office. He seemed to be spending a lot of time in people's offices lately; the thought of all the radio monitors overhead had made him increasingly leery of the phone for anything but the most i

"Except with the Orspham," Barner noted. "They seem more interested in finding a M'zarch ship to shoot up. Have you figured out yet what you're going to do about all of them?"

Meredith grimaced. "Not yet. It's obvious we're going to need some protection, if only to keep the M'zarch from taking another crack at us. The only problem is making sure the guards we pick don't decide at some point that robbery would pay better." He shook his head. "Never mind that for now. We can afford to string them along for a while longer. Did you really want me here to discuss the harvesting, or is this more from Hafner's people?"

"The latter." Barner unfolded a map and indicated the new areas of crosshatching.

"They've eliminated three more hills and most of the ridge that overhangs that end of the Dead Sea."

"Um. Still using that sonic echoing gadget Brown's people cobbled together?"

"And hoping slabs of cable material don't play games with sound waves as well as electric fields, yes. So far nothing that looks like a cavity has shown up."

"Have they talked to Dr. Chang's team about that? I don't know if they've done any sonic studies on the cable, but they should be able to rig up something."

"Probably could." Barner hesitated. "I don't really think Hafner's people want Chang in on this, though."

"The hell with what they want," Meredith growled. "We've got a set of experts here and we're going to use them. What does Hafner think this is, some new version of keep-away?"

"I don't think Dr. Hafner cares that much, himself. But some of his people—well, resent the way Chang just came in and took over up at the cable site."

For an instant Meredith remembered how Captain Witzany had reacted to that same event. "This whole place better start remembering that Astra is a territory of the United States, not some free and independent country. You'll send a messenger to Chang this afternoon to ask about the cable's sonic characteristics."

He caught the objection in Barner's eyes and mentally backed up a step. "You don't have to tell him why we want the information, though."

"That'll help." Bamer pushed the map to one side, replacing it with a sheaf of photo enlargements. "Dr. Hafner also took an extensive set of photos of the area and suggested we try shape analysis on the hills. I think it might be worth a try."

"Yeah." Meredith picked up the top photo, glanced at the one beneath it.

"Unfortunately, it would mean putting all this on the computer, and I'm still not sure I want to risk that."

Barner shrugged. "I'll admit my knowledge of computers is limited, but it seems to me that if you tore out the entire remote-access system the thing should be secure enough. No one's going to eavesdrop on buried fiberop cables from thirty thousand kilometers, and the machine itself should be adequately shielded."

" 'Should be' is about as far as I get, too. Given our truly abysmal ignorance of the local state of the art in such things, it's not very reassuring." The colonel dropped the photo back onto the stack. "You might as well put all these into your boobyproofed file. I'm going to have to get back to Unie—some son of silly resolution Carmen Olivero told me the council was taking up this afternoon. Keep me informed on Hafner's progress."

"Yes, sir."

Heading back outside, Meredith paused beside his car and peered for a moment toward the south. Two harvesters were visible in the fields, working to bring in the meager crop. Nearly thirty percent of the plants had died under the shock of having their trace metals twice yanked out of their soil. / hope the Celeritas is bringing plenty of extra food, he thought, climbing behind the wheel and starting the car. And lots of spare fuel, too.

The last speech—Perez's, as usual—was already in progress when Meredith finally showed up, choosing a chair by the door instead of joining the others at the table. Carmen shot a brief look of a