March Upcountry

Unfortunately, it was the only brain she had, and despite its grumpy complaints, she insisted that it apply itself to the problem.

They'd loaded the trade goods. She'd suggested adding refined metals, as well, but Pahner had rejected the suggestion. The captain hadn't felt that the weight-to-cost ratio would make metals worth carrying, and besides, most of the material available consisted of advanced composites, impossible for local smiths to work at the Mardukans' technology level. And, as Pahner had pointed out, material that couldn't be adapted to the locals' needs would be effectively useless to them.

There'd been no great stock of "precious" metals or gems on the ship, either. A smidgen of gold was still used in some electronics contacts, but there'd been no way to get it out. Captain Pahner had ruthlessly appropriated the small store of personal jewelry, but there hadn't been a great deal of that, either. At least what there was ought to be very attractive to a barbarian culture, even though it was little more than costume jewelry by the standards of the Empire of Man. She doubted that anyone on Marduk had ever heard of a synthetic gem!

But even if one assumed that Mardukans valued such items as highly as human cultures of comparable tech levels had valued them, there simply weren't enough of them to even begin to meet their needs. The trade goods would be worth far more in the long run, yet Eleanora still felt she was missing something. Something important. It bothered her that she had all this incredible store of knowledge about ancient cultures and—

Knowledge.

Chief Warrant Officer Tom Ba

He glanced at the monitor and shook his head. He was a "Regiment" pilot, not one of the shuttle pilots assigned to DeGlopper, but it still hurt to watch a sacrifice like that. They were all Fleet, whether they were Marines or Navy, and Krasnitsky had sure taken the highroad. He shook his head again and looked at the number. It would really suck if it all turned out to be for nothing.

"Hello? Pilot?" He didn't recognize the voice in his earbud at first, but then he realized it was the prince's chief of staff.

"Yes, Ma'am? This is Warrant Ba

"Can we still get a co

Ba

"Ma'am, I don't think—"

"This is important, Warrant Officer," the voice in his earbud said firmly. "Vital, even."

"What do you need?" he asked warily.

"There's a copy of the Encyclopedia Galactica in my personal database. Why we didn't bring it with us, I don't know."

"But..." Ba

"I know there's hardly anything on Marduk in it," O'Casey said quickly, anticipating part of his objection, "but there is data on early cultures and technologies. How to make flintlocks, how to make better iron and steel... ."

"Oh." The warrant officer nodded in his helmet. "Good point. But if I try to co

"Oh." It was O'Casey's turn to pause in thought. "We'll have to take the chance," she said after a moment, her voice firm. "This data could make or break the expedition."

Ba

On the whole, he decided, it was.

"Whisker laser!" The lieutenant at Ship Defense Control turned towards her superior. "It appears to be sending a data request to the Empie assault ship. From... two-two-three by zero-zero-nine!"

"The shuttles," Delaney said. "It's the shuttles, trying to sneak away to the planet."

"We're too far out," the chaplain objected. "You said so yourself. They can't brake and make a reentry. And even if they could, we'd still be here to control the planet."

"True." Delany nodded. "But they could hide on the surface for a time."

"Only until the carrier detected them," Panella said dismissively. "They'd be mad to try to sneak down to the surface. Besides, we can still run them down, and we would've detected them soon after they started their deceleration."

"Maybe," the captain said dubiously. "But those shuttles use a hydrogen reaction jet that's fairly hard to detect much beyond a light-minute." He scratched his beard in thought about it for a moment. "Still, you're right. They must have expected to be detected."

He thought for a moment more, and in his eyes flew open wide.

"Unless they know we won't be here to detect them!" He wheeled to his bridge crew.

"Detach the ship! Detach now!"

"What to download?" O'Casey asked the empty compartment. "What? What, what? Come on, load!" she snapped.

Warrant Officer Ba

"Search 'survival,' " she whispered, watching the results of the query come up. "Scroll down, scroll down, 'hostile flora and fauna' download, 'medicine' download. Search 'fuels, shuttle.' Scroll down. 'Expedient' download. Search, 'military, primitive.' Refine, 'arquebus.' Scroll down, scroll." She kept one eye on the loading diagram. The whisker laser was a relatively small bandwidth system, and the first download on hostile flora and fauna survival wasn't complete yet. She hissed, and then shook her head as a default message came up. "Four thousand three hundred eighty-three articles. Damn." She didn't have time for this.

"Refine... 'generals.' Refine, 'greatest.' " She viewed the results. There was only one name she recognized offhand, despite her doctorate in history. She'd been more interested in societal developments than in military destructiveness, and arquebuses were as distant as ancient Rome and its fabled legions. But one name stood out in both the military and societal continuum.

"Download, 'Adolphus, Gustavus.' "

"Damn," Pahner snarled.

Roger nodded, more comfortable with the information now. "Disco

"Yes," the captain replied in a quiet voice, watching the simple text "TOS" which had replaced the data feed from DeGlopper. Termination of Signal. Such a... sanitary acronym. The letters held his eye, and then the sensor readouts on the Saint cruiser disappeared, as well.

"Ah," he said sadly, and Roger nodded again.

"Well," the prince said after a moment, trying to lighten the atmosphere, "at least they got them."

Without even turning around, he felt the temperature in the compartment drop, and swore at himself for putting his foot into his mouth yet again. He'd been wrong about the Marine's lack of feeling, he realized.