"She walked," Tandra said. "I saw her go. There was no trike or anything. She was all alone."

"Where was she going?"

"She didn"t say." Tandra hesitated. "I thought it might be a man. She used my makeup, took a long time. She looked great when she left."

"Ah," Beckia said. "Did she look like herself?"

"Not really; she changed a lot. Her hair was real dark. Her own color is better for her."

"Clever."

"Okay, then." Oscar looked back at the Cat. "You got anything else to ask?"

"Who"s she s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g?" the Cat asked.

"I don"t know," Tandra said. "I hadn"t seen her for ages. It was a surprise when she came here."

"So you"re her best friend? The one she turns to in a crisis?"

Tandra shrugged. "I guess."

"I"ve heard enough." The Cat released the twins and stood in one swift motion. Oscar blinked. She really had moved fast fast.

Must be running accelerants, he thought.

Tandra and Martyn rushed for their children.

The Cat gave Oscar a wicked grin. "Be seeing you."

"I"ll tell the grandkids you"re coming. There"s lots of them. It"s been a thousand years, after all."

Her chuckle sounded genuine. "You know, maybe it is possible."

Oscar braced himself. If she was going to do anything, it would be now now. The moment pa.s.sed, and the Cat left.

Beckia let out a low whistle as she relaxed.

Tomansio put his hand on Oscar"s shoulder. "You know, you"re almost as crazy as she is. Er, you and her on the plane. Did that really ..."

"A gentleman never tells," Oscar said solemnly.

"f.u.c.k me."

"When this is over, I"ll take you up on that. But I think we"d better leave now." His field scan showed him the Cat"s stolen capsule rising from the pad. Once again he tensed up. Would she fly over the house and blast away at it?

Tandra and Martyn had huddled up protectively, hugging their children hard. The twins were sobbing in distress.

"Take my advice," Oscar said to them. "Leave here right now. Go stay with friends or in a hotel, anywhere, just not here. There will be more like us coming."

"Ozzie curse you straight to h.e.l.l, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," Martyn hissed furiously. There were tears running down his face.

"I"ve met Ozzie," Oscar said quietly. "He"s nothing like everyone today thinks he is."

"Just go go," Tandra implored.

Oscar led Tomansio and Beckia back to their borrowed capsule. As soon as they left the little drycoral house behind, he called Paula.

"The Cat"s here."

"Are you sure?"

Oscar shuddered. "Oh, yeah. We had quite a chat."

"And you"re still alive. I"m impressed."

"Yeah, well, I managed to throw in a cosmic-sized distraction. It put her off her game for a while."

"Is she joining the hunt for Araminta?"

"Yes."

"Figures. The Accelerators are desperate to acquire her."

"I thought we are, too."

"We are. It has become imperative."

"I"m doing my best. I"m still hopeful she might just call me. She"s not quite the superwoman everyone thinks."

"I never believed she was. What"s your next move?"

"We"re going to visit a Mr. Bovey, Liatris has uncovered some kind of connection between him and Araminta."

"Okay, keep me informed."

"What are you doing?"

"Don"t worry; I"m on my way to Viotia."

"I thought I was doing this so you could keep a low profile."

"That time is now officially over."

As he approached the Ocisen fleet, Kazimir maintained a single hypers.p.a.ce communication link back to ANA. He knew the ExoProtectorate Council was expecting him to provide it with a real-time progress review of the engagement, but that would have given Ilanthe too much information. The Prime ships traveling with the Ocisen Starslayers would have been warned of his approach. Not, he admitted, that it would have done them any good against his abilities. But then, they were never the true threat. Something else would be out there watching, sending precious information on the nature of the deterrence fleet back to the Accelerators. He was sure of it.

Kazimir matched velocity with the vast alien armada and began to examine the ships. With his sensor functions, detection was easy; over two thousand eight hundred Ocisen ships were racing through interstellar s.p.a.ce at four and a half light-years an hour, including nine hundred Starslayers. His perception infiltrated the hulls, exposing the weapons they carried, enough quantumbuster types to wipe out most of the Greater Commonwealth worlds should they ever reach their destination. But nothing more, no postphysical systems they"d chanced upon and retro-engineered, which was a relief. He switched his attention to the thirty-seven Prime ships accompanying them; they used a sophisticated hyperdrive configured to keep their distortion to an absolute minimum. Their weapons were considerably more advanced than anything the Ocisens possessed, effectively equal to a Commonwealth Navy Capital-cla.s.s ship. But that was it. They didn"t pose a danger to him. And there were no other ships, no clandestine ultradrive-powered observers keeping watch, no unaccounted hypers.p.a.ce links within a light-year of the Ocisen fleet. Each of the Prime ships had a hypers.p.a.ce link opened to some location back around Commonwealth s.p.a.ce; he could sense them, slender threads stretched across the quantum fields, pulsing with information.

The Prime ships were the observers, he decided. Presumably they wouldn"t expect him to be able to eliminate all thirty-seven of them simultaneously. Well, that was their first mistake.

Kazimir manifested extra sensor functions into five of the Prime starships. In s.p.a.cetime they were barely the size of a neutron, but they could receive all the inter-Prime communications with the hulls. Every Prime ship had a controlling immotile that took the job of a smartcore in human ships, governing the technology directly; it also instructed the immotiles. The ships represented a microcosm of Prime society. Pretechnology, the Primes had communicated by touching their upper-body stalks, allowing nerve impulses to flow between them. That had been superseded by simple electronic carriers, allowing immotiles to extend their immediate control over vast distances.

Kazimir began to read the digitized impulses. The Commonwealth had a lot of experience with inter-Prime communication. The navy had developed a whole range of disruption routines and electronic warfare techniques. If the Primes ever escaped the barriers at the Dyson Pair and posed a threat again, they would find their thoughts literally snuffed out.

The first thing that was apparent was that the Primes in the starships were simple biological hosts to human thoughts. So Paula was right So Paula was right, Kazimir thought grimly.

"Do you concur with my a.s.sessment?" he asked ANA:Governance.

"Yes."

"Very well." Within the deluge of the neural directives he was aware of a datastream being encrypted and sent down the ultrasecure hypers.p.a.ce link to the Commonwealth. There was a lot of sensor data, but again, nothing beyond Capital-cla.s.s level. "The Accelerators will know I"ve intercepted the fleet when the signal is severed," he said. "But I can ensure they don"t know the nature of the interception."

"Proceed."

Kazimir manifested a series of aggressive function inside each Prime starship and used them to attack the hypers.p.a.ce communication systems. As the secure links failed, he switched to breaking the hyperdrives themselves. The ships fell back into real s.p.a.cetime within fifty milliseconds of each other. With their flight ability neutralized, he set about eliminating the onboard weapon systems. It took a second and a half for his aggressor functions to break down the hardware. Then he turned his attention to the Ocisens.

The problem he had was eliminating the military threat the aliens posed without causing catastrophic loss of life. He couldn"t simply destroy the drives of so many ships, because the empire didn"t have the ability to rescue so many of its own kind from such a distance. Instead he manifested specific aggressor functions inside each of the starships and ruined the weapons beyond repair or recovery. Between them, they weren"t left with enough components to make a single laser, let alone the more advanced devices.

Total elapsed time to nullify all two thousand eight hundred starships was eleven seconds, enough for them to realize something was starting to go wrong but denying them any response time. Not that they could have done anything against him even if they had known.

Kazimir let them go. His energy signature flashed back to the area of s.p.a.ce where the big Prime ships were floating helplessly. This time he manifested a communication function into one of the ships, its ability identical to the inter-Prime system. Like all human minds, the one occupying the Prime bodies utilized a.s.sociation as its main memory routine.

Kazimir injected: Origin.

Ident.i.ty.

Purpose.

Each one triggered a deluge of thoughts. Kazimir identified that the animating personality was derived from Chatfield"s mind, his human persona stripped of most emotional traits. His sense of purpose was resolute, as was his devotion to the Accelerators. The Prime ships were to escort the Ocisens and protect them from the Commonwealth Navy"s attempts to intercept, but their most important mission was to report on the appearance of the deterrence fleet, its nature and capability. After that there was no requirement left.

A sensation of puzzlement flashed between the immotile and its motiles as the burst of thoughts Kazimir had elicited faded from its main consciousness. Realization followed. It sent a specific code to the scuttle bomb. Kazimir wasn"t quite quick enough to prevent it. Now that he knew what to look for, he quickly manifested a function into the remaining ships that disabled the scuttle in all of them.

"Do you have sufficient evidence now?" he asked ANA:Governance.

"I do. The Accelerators have acted recklessly. In supporting the Ocisens and manipulating Living Dream, they have violated the principles under which I was established. I will convene a suspension conclave."

"They will know the deterrence fleet has intercepted the Ocisen fleet even though they remain unaware of my nature. They must a.s.sume the worst, that I have uncovered their exploitation of the Primes."

"That would be logical. However, there is little their agents can do. Once suspension is enacted, their operations will be exposed to full scrutiny and neutralized."

Kazimir reviewed the starships as they drifted pa.s.sively. "Nonetheless, I still don"t see what the Accelerators hoped to achieve, outside crude political manipulation. Ilanthe is smarter than that. I would feel more comfortable being on hand during the hearing. I will return immediately."

"What about the Ocisen fleet? I thought you were going to monitor them."

"They are incapable of causing any harm. When the commander realizes that, they will have no option but to return home. Our Capital-cla.s.s ships can a.s.sume observation duties."

"The defeat to the commander"s pride is considerable. It may not want to return to the empire."

"That will be something for the Capital ships to determine. I am coming back to Sol."

"As you wish."

Kazimir manifested a communication function and broadcast a simple message to the ships. "Attention the Chatfield personalities, this is the Commonwealth Navy deterrence fleet. We know what you are and what you intended. Do not attempt any further suicide bids. Capital-cla.s.s ships will rendezvous with you shortly. You will be taken into navy custody."

With that, Kazimir withdrew his manifested functions and headed back toward the Sol system.

Justine: Year Three Reset

EXOIMAGE MEDICAL ICONS leaped out of the darkness to surround Justine Burnelli"s consciousness. She"d seen the exact same set of readouts once before.

"Oh, man," she grunted in shock and delight. "It worked." She tried to laugh, but her body was resolutely refusing to cooperate, insisting it had just spent three years in suspension rather than ... Well, actually she wasn"t sure how long it had taken to reset the Void back to this moment in time.

The medical chamber lid peeled back, and she looked around the Silverbird Silverbird"s cabin again. Really, again Really, again. She sat up and wiped the tears from her cheeks. "Status?" she asked the smartcore. A new batch of exoimage icons and displays sprang up. They confirmed that the Silverbird Silverbird had been under way for three years and was now decelerating hard. Something was approaching. had been under way for three years and was now decelerating hard. Something was approaching.

"Ho yeah," she murmured in satisfaction as the starship"s sensors swept across the visitor. It was the Skylord, vacuum wings fully extended.

As it drew close, she examined the weird ovoid core once more, still unable to decide if the fantastic folds of crystalline fabric were actually moving or if she was seeing surface refraction patterns. The Silverbird Silverbird"s sensors couldn"t get an accurate lock on the substance.

As before, she settled back down in the lounge"s longest couch and reached for the Skylord with her longtalk.

"h.e.l.lo," she said.

"You are most welcome," the Skylord replied.

So far, so the same. Let"s see "I have come to this universe to achieve fulfillment." "I have come to this universe to achieve fulfillment."

"All who come here strive for that moment."

"Will you help me?"

"Your fulfillment can be achieved only by yourself."

"I know this. But humans such as myself reach fulfillment by partic.i.p.ating in our own society. Please take me to Querencia, the solid world where my kind live."

"My kindred are not aware of any thoughts akin to your species anywhere in the universe. None are left."

"This I also know. However, I am simply the first of a new generation of my species to reach this place. Soon millions of us will be here. We wish to live and reach fulfillment on the same world humans matured on before. Do you know where it is? There was a great city there, which was not of this place. Do you remember guiding human souls from that world to the Heart?" Justine tensed up on the couch. This was the critical question.

"I remember that world," the Skylord said. "I guided many from that place to the Heart."

"Please take me there. Please let me reach fulfillment."

"I will do so."