Spinneret

"Probably put their generator at the end of a tu

"Doctor," the major said slowly, "that coil down there. If it can knock out a flyer's repulsers a thousand meters up … what's it doing to the men in the tu

"Why … " Hafner felt his mouth go dry. The medical people had okayed all of the observer positions … hadn't they? "But weren't you just talking to them?"

"No—it was the men in the outside hall." Barner was tapping the call signal.

"Edmonds, are you in contact with the men inside? … No, I mean since the humming started? … Damn. Get that door open and—"

"Wait a second," Hafner interrupted. "Ask them to test first for electric field strength in the hallway where they are. If there's no reading, the wall may be acting as a shield, and they'd better not breech it."

"It doesn't matter," Barner said quietly. "The door won't open anyway. It seems to have locked itself."

Hafner stared at him, then let out a quiet sigh and turned away.

The solenoid ran for another two hours before finally shutting both itself and the door safety interlocks off. The two men who'd been inside were found in contorted positions against the door, dead.

And at sundown, in full mechanical indifference, the Spi

Two more men, Meredith thought wearily, his eyes fogging slightly as he read the report. Two more men.

Sighing, he leaned back in his chair and stared out the open window into the darkness outside. It was late, and he knew he'd pay for that the next day, but his mind was far too keyed up to sleep. The whole event had come off virtually without a hitch: they'd successfully produced a cable to order, had taken disks and disks' worth of data on the Spi

And the deaths of two men had turned it all to ashes.

There was a tap at his open door, and Meredith looked up to see Carmen standing there. "Up late, aren't you?" he asked, waving her to a chair and flipping his terminal to standby.

"I saw your light and thought I'd drop in on my way home," she said, sitting down and handing him a disk. "You might be interested to know we now have an official balance with the Rooshrike of just over one point eight billion dollars."

"Which makes us either a fair-sized corporation or a small country," he grunted, plugging in the disk and sca

She nodded. "And we've got several hundred million in other stuff on order, so this won't last very long. But for the moment, at least, we're rich."

"Um." Ejecting the disk, he handed it back. "I trust the Rooshrike are happy with their new plaything?"

"Delighted. Last I knew they'd caught one end of it and were starting a long, leisurely turn toward the proper shift direction."

"I hope the cable shifts with them."

"It should. Sileacs tal Mors kith indicated they've done some tests with normal cables trailing behind starships. Besides, the Spi

Meredith nodded grimly. "Burned-out brains or something— none of our doctors are really sure of the exact mechanism."

"I didn't realize electric fields could kill."

"Neither did I. Neither, apparently, did anyone else." He sighed. "Looks like Perez is going to turn out right again. We're simply not going to be able to handle everything here by ourselves. The colony population was designed for geological studies and fa

"So what's the answer?" Carmen asked after a moment. "Import experts from Earth?"

"It's that or let the aliens in on it. The real question is whether Saleh will be hardnosed about it and lump people in with everything else he's embargoing."

"You're going to be making a list of people you'd like to invite?"

He raised an eyebrow. "You've been talking to Perez, have you? Ah" —he added as the light dawned—"it was you who pulled the Scientific Directory out of cold storage for him to give to the Ctencri, wasn't it?"

She blushed violently, but almost instantly the color vanished into a look of surprise. "He did what! But—he said he only wanted to make up his own list for the scientists to vote on."

"Apparently he decided to skip the procedural details," Meredith said dryly. "He must have given the Ctencri a stack of invitations to deliver. I wonder how he expects them to get the UN to provide transport."

Carmen still looked confused. "But how did you know—I mean—"

"We checked his computer usage after he gave a packet to the Ctencri at the security meeting. He hadn't gotten around yet to clearing the file you dumped the Scientific Directory into." He smiled briefly as she suddenly looked striken again.

"Don't worry; I'm not mad at you for doing it—he would have gotten in one way or another. There's probably no real harm done, though I'm going to wring his tail for bypassing me like that."

"Only if I don't get to him first," Carmen growled. "That smooth-talking—"

"Save your anger," Meredith advised. "Consider him as now owing you a big favor, and make sure he knows it. It may help keep him in line."

"I doubt it." Carmen shook her head. "I just can't figure him out, Colonel. One minute he's on our side, and the next minute he's pulling something underhanded like this."

Meredith shrugged. "He's never been on our side; we've just occasionally been on his. He has a vision for Astra and has been pushing us toward it ever since he got here."

Carmen's lip twitched. "Yes—his paradise for the poor of Earth. Probably want to put a duplicate of the Statue of Liberty in orbit somewhere."

"Actually, as matters stand now, his huddling masses are probably the only new colonists we're likely to get. Permission to leave Earth lies with individual nations and, ultimately, the UN, and Saleh's not likely to let us lure away the brightest and best."

"Which means," Carmen said slowly, "that unless the Ctencri are personally bringing Cris's scientists here, they're probably not coming."

"Probably." Meredith glanced at his watch. "Well, I'd better let you get home.

You're bound to be busy taking orders tomorrow after the way today's operation went."

"Yes." Carmen sighed and got to her feet. "Are we going to have a proper funeral, or are you going to keep the deaths secret from the aliens by giving them a private burial somewhere?"

"We'll have a funeral. We don't have to advertise how they died." Hitching his chair closer to the desk, he reactivated his terminal. Taking the cue, Carmen left.

For a moment Meredith stared through the terminal, wondering for the millionth time why this burden had fallen to him. / never asked for this, he reminded the universe resentfully. I wanted to make Astra a modest success, collect my brigadier's star, and go home. Why the hell couldn't the Spi

The terminal had no answer for him. Shaking his head, Meredith cleared his mind of questions and got back to work. At least, he told himself, he'd soon have some experts here to help share the load—presuming, of course, that the Ctencri came through on their end of Perez's deal.

Loretta Williams was just putting the vegetables on the stove when the doorbell rang. "Kirk, can you get that?" she called, grabbing the potholders. "I've got to get the roast out."