Kutath

Then shot a regul in the same interview, bai Sharn, commander of Shirug, lieutenant to humanity's highest placed ally among regul, and all plans were off.

I have done an execution, Duncan had said. The regul know what I am. They will not be surprised. You know this. I can give you peace with Kutath now.

Mri arrogance. Duncan had been acutely uncomfortable, asked for a moment to drop the veil with which he covered his face.

"You worked with the man," Koch said, regarding Galey steadily. "You had time to exchange a few words with him in getting him back to Kutath. Impressions? Do you know him at all now?”

"Yes," Galey said. "It's what he was, back on Kesrith. Only it wasn't wasn't all the same. Now and again it's there, the way he was; and then… not. But “

"But you think you know him. You… were in the desert together back at Kesrith, recovered the records out of that shrine… had a little regul trouble then on the way back, all true?”

"Yes, sir.”

"Hate the regul?”

"No love for them, sir."

"Hate the mri?”

"No love there either, sir.”

"And SurTac Duncan?”

"Friend, sir.”

Koch nodded slowly. "You know the pack he was given has a tracer.”

"I don't think that will last long.”

"You warned him?”

"No, sir, didn't know. But he's not anxious to have us find the mri at all; I don't think he'll let it happen.”

"Maybe he won't. But then maybe his mri don't want him speaking for them. Maybe he told the truth and maybe he didn't. There are weapons on that world worth reckoning with.”

"Wouldn't know, sir.”

"Your first run down there, you took damage.”

"Some. Shaken about. What I hear, it's old stuff. I didn't see anything to say different; no fields, no life, no ships. Nothing, either time. Only ruins. That's what I hear it was.”

"Less than that down there now.”

"Yes, sir.”

A dying world, cities decayed and empty, machines drawing solar power to live; armaments returning fire with mechanical lack of passion; and the mri themselves.…

Rock and sand, Duncan had said, dune and flats. The mri will not be easy to find.

If it's true, Koch thought. If there are no ships in their control, and if all cities are machine life only.

"You think they pose no threat to us," Koch said.

"Wouldn't know that either, sir.”

There was Reeling of cold at Koch's gut. It lived there, sometimes small, sometimes when he thought of the voyage behind them larger. It grew when he thought of the hundred twenty-odd worlds at their backs, a swath which marked the trail mri had followed out from Kutath to Kesrith, a trail eons old at the begi

Mri hired themselves for mercenaries. Presumably they had done so more than once, until the regul turned on them and ended them.

Ended a progress across the galaxy which left no life in its wake, a hundred twenty-odd systems which by all statistical process should have held life, which might have supported intelligent species.

Void, if they had ever been there… gone, without memory, even to know what they had been, why the mri had passed there, or what they had sought in passing.

Only Kesrith survived, trail's end.

I have done an execution, Duncan had said, black-robed, mri to the heart of him. And; The regul know what I am.

"Bai Sharn," Koch said, "is being transported back to her ship. There is no regul authority with us now; the rest are only younglings. They can probably handle Shirug competently enough, but nothing more, without some adult to direct them. That puts things wholly into our laps. We deal with the mri, if Duncan can get their holy she'pan to come in and talk peace. We run operations up here. And if we misread signals, we don't get any second chance. If we get ourselves ambushed, if we die here then the next thing human space and regul may know is more mri arriving, to take up the track the others left at Kesrith, and this time, this time with a grudge. The thing we've seen… continued. Is that understood, out among the crew?”

"Yes, sir," Galey said hoarsely. "Don't know whether they know about the regul, but the other, yes, it's something I think everybody reckons.”

"You don't want to make a mistake in judgment, do you? You don't want to make a mistake on the side of friendship and botch a report You wouldn't hold back information you could get out of SurTac Duncan. You understand how high the stakes are ... and what an error could do down there.”

“Yes, sir.”

"I'm sending Flower and the science staff back down. Dr. Luiz and Boaz are friends of his. He'll talk with them, trust them, as far as he likely trusts any human now. I have need of someone else, potentially. What we want is a substitute for a SurTac, someone who can operate in that kind of terrain." He watched the apprehension grow, and a twinge of pity came on him. "Our options are limited. We have pilots we could better risk. You're rated for Santiago , and you know your value… don't have to tell you that. But it's not a matter of skill in that department. It's the land, and a sense of things you understand what I'm saying.”

"Sir-”

"I want you first of all reserved. Just prep. We keep our options open. Maybe things will work out with mri contact. If not… you have a good rapport with the civs, don't you?”

"I've been in and out of the ship more than most, maybe.”

"They know you.”

"Yes, sir.”

"In some things down there, that could be valuable; and you've been in the desert.”

"Yes, sir," the answer came faintly.

"I want you available, whenever and wherever SurTac Dun-can comes into contact with us; I want you available if he doesn't. Willing?”

"Yes, sir.”

"You'll have some semblance of an office, whatever scan materials we come up with, original and interpreted. Whatever you think you need." Koch delayed a moment more, pursed his lips in thought. "It took Duncan some few days to get from the mri to groundbase; allow ten, eleven days. That's the margin. Understood?”

It was; it very much was, Koch reckoned. He had a sour taste in his mouth for the necessity.

One covered all the possibilities.

A private office; that was status. Someone had put a card on the door, the temporary sort; lt comdh james b galey, beoon & operations Galey keyed open the lock, turned on the light, finding a bare efficiency setup, barren walls, down to the rivets; and a desk and a comp terminal. He settled in behind the desk, shifted uncomfortably in the unfamiliar chair, keyed in library.

orders; the machine interrupted him with its own program. He signaled acceptance. select compatible crew of three AND RESERVE CREW, GROUND OPERATIONS, REPORT CHOICE ADM SOONEST.

He leaned back, hands sweating. He little liked the prospect of taking himself down there; the matter of selecting others for a high-risk operation was even less to his taste.

He' made up a demanding qualifications list and started search through perso

They were Haveners on this mission, and for all the several world-patches on his sleeve, won on this ship, there was nothing they had met like this save Kesrith itself; there was no time at which they had relied on themselves and not on their machines. Saber had not been chosen for this mission; it had gone because it was available. As for experience with mri none of them had had that, save at long range.

Devastation from orbit; that had been their function until now. Now there was the barest hope this would not be the case. He was not given to personal enthusiasm in his assignments; but this one a means of avoiding slaughter that possibility occurred to him.

Or the possibility of being die one to call down holocaust; that was the other face of the matter.

He did not sleep well. He sat by day and pored over what data they could give him, the scan their orbiting eyes could gather, the monotone reports of comp that no contact had been made.

Flower descended to the surface. Data returned from that source. Day by day, there was no reply from Duncan, no sighting of mri.

He received word from the admiral's office; selections ratified. shibo, kadahin, lane; matjst mission. harris, north, bright, magee; backup. proceed.

The days crawled past, measured in the piecing of maps and vexing lapses in ground-space communication as NaYin's storms crept like plague across its sickly face. He took what information mapping department would give him, prowled Supply, thinking.

The office became papered with charts, a composite of the world, overlaid in plastics, red-inked at those sites identified in scan, mri cities, potential targets.

He talked with the crew, gave them warning. There was still the chance that the whole project would be scrubbed, that by some miracle Flower would call up contact, declaring peace a reality, the matter solved, the mri willing to deal.

The hope ebbed, hourly.