Unknown

by Unknown

CHAPTER 1

There were ten of them, wearing dappled camouflaged uniforms, heavily armed. They were dirty, and smelled like the jungle they’d been living in for the past four days.

Now, they crouched in meter-deep muck at the edge of a swamp, and watched the security patrol move past. The patrol’s heatscanners were blocked by the insulated fabric the ten wore, and no one in her right mind would dream anyone would hide out in the reeking swampy goo.

The man on point looked at the team’s leader, pointed to half a dozen bubble shelters a hundred yards away, drew a question mark in the air. The woman in charge nodded. The point man held up one finger… one sentry? The woman in charge shook her head–two. She pointed, and the point man saw the second, moving stealthily behind the first.

She motioned two others forward, tapped her combat knife. One smiled tightly, drew his blade, and crept forward, his partner behind him…

Haut Njangu Yoshitaro picked up his mug of tea, sipped, grimaced at the tepid mixture, then turned back to the holo.

“The problem, boss,” he said, “is that they’ve got antiaircraft here… here… and I’ll bet more missiles right under that finger of land that looks so frigging inviting for an LZ.

“I don’t see any way to honk our Griersons into this LZ over here, either, so we could make a decent attack.”

Caud Garvin Jaansma, Commanding Officer, Second Regiment, Strike Force Angara, studied the projection, spun it, spun it again.

“Howsabout we whack ‘em with a wave or so of Shrikes on the ringer, then put in the combat vehicles through the mess?”

“No can do,” Njangu, his Executive Officer, said. “We’ve got Nan Company right here… Rast Company backing them up, too close in to chance a blue-on-blue friendly casualty.”

Garvin Jaansma was every centimeter a soldier- tall, muscular, blond-haired, blue-eyed, square-jawed. Everyone agreed he made a perfect recruiting poster. Everyone except Jaansma, which might have been part of his charm. Few people knew the devious mind concealed beneath his straight-arrow appearance.

But almost everyone agreed Njangu Yoshitaro was exactly what he looked like-sneaky and dangerous. Slender, dark-skinned, black-haired, he’d come from the depths of a slum world, forced into the military by a hanging judge.

“Shit,” Garvin muttered. “Whose dumb-ass idea was it to put our grunts right on top of the baddies?”

“Uh… yours.”

“Shit twice. I guess we can’t tolerate friendly fire from our own artillery, can we?”

“Not after yesterday,” Njangu said. “And all the aksai are tied up working for Brigade. Look. Try this. We take a flight of Zhukovs up high… above Shadow range, then have ‘em come straight down toward-“

He broke off, hearing a soft grunt, as of someone being sapped.

“Aw hell,” he said, moving swiftly across the bubble toward his combat harness. He’d barely touched the butt of his pistol when the bug shield was ripped aside, and three dirty men and a woman jumped into the shelter.

He tried for the gun anyway, and two blasters chattered. Njangu grunted, looked at the bloody mess of his chest, fell on his face, and lay still.

Garvin had his blaster up, and the woman in charge of the team shot him in the face. He went backward, through the holo, sending the projector to the ground.

“All right,” Cent Monique Lir said briskly. “Spread out and take care of the rest of the command group until you get killed. Don’t get taken prisoner… interrogation is a righteous pain in the ass.”

Her Intelligence and Reconnaissance troops went back out, and the sound of blasters thumping came.

Lir sat down in a camp chair, put her feet up on another.

“Nice dying, boss. The new ones love a little realism.”

Garvin sat up, wiped sticky red dye off his face.

“Thanks. How the hell’d you get through the lines?”

“Just looked for the shittiest part of the world and started crawling,” Lir said.

Njangu got to his feet and looked at his uniform distastefully.

“I hope to hell this crap washes out.”

“Guaranteed,” Lir said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go finish wiping out your headquarters.”

She left the bubble.

“Fitzgerald is gonna rip my lungs out for getting killed,” Garvin said.

“I think she’s likely to have her own worries,” Njangu said. “Last time I got a sitrep, she was up to her ass in cliffs and Aggressors.”

He went to an unmarked cooler, opened it, and took out two beers.

“I guess since we’re officially dead, we can have one, eh?”

“Why not?” Garvin said, drinking deeply. “This was about an abortion of a war game, wasn’t it?”

“Only goes to show first that a brigade attacking an entrenched brigade takes it up the old koondingie,” Njangu said. “Just like in the books.

“Not to mention that well-trained thugs like I&R can always pull a sneaking number on crunchies like we’re in charge of.”

“As if I ever doubted that,” Garvin said. He took another swallow of beer. “You know, it was a lot more fun when we got to play Aggressor and do dirty deeds dirt cheap and ruin other people’s plans, wasn’t it?”

“Maybe,” Njangu said. “But when the blaster rounds got real, we also got killed a lot, remember? Which also was real, remember? That was one reason we decided to get ambitious and move upward in the chain of command, like good little heroes.

“More money in that, too.”

“But it sure is duller’n shit in peacetime,” Garvin said.

“Shut up,” Njangu suggested. “Death comes knocking too early in the morning anyway.

“Let’s see if we can’t wrap this whole mess into one untidy ball, pull the troops out, and go looking for a shower and a drink.”

“After,” Garvin said gloomily, “we get our asses chewed for losing.”

“Ouch,” Garvin said, rubbing imaginary wounds. “I keep forgetting that one reason you get promoted to high command is an ability with words. I wish Caud Fitzgerald had done the critique instead of Dant Angara.”

It was late the next afternoon before the Legion’s CO had finished his after-game commentary and the troops had been bathed, fed, and turned loose for a deserved two-day pass.

“I bleed, I moan, I sorrow,” Njangu said. “What did he say about me? ‘Ineptly planned, carelessly executed, stupidly ended’?”

“I got worse, nanner,” Garvin said. ” ‘Incorrect intelligence, failure to control staff, assumption of a degree of intelligence, deservedly assassinated, generally lazy staff and field work that can only be ascribed to the torpid assumption that peacetime exercises aren’t important.’ “

“The Man can talk some shit,” Njangu said, absently returning the salute of an Aspirant trotting at the head of his platoon as they went up the steps into the Camp Mahan Officers’ Club. “What time’s Jasith coming over for you?”

“Eighteen-thirty or so. She said I wasn’t supposed to let you get me too drunk.”

” ‘At’s funny,” Njangu said. “That’s the same thing Maev said about you.”

“Great minds, in the same track,” Garvin said. “Like sewers.” He wriggled. “Sure feels nice to be clean again.”

“Gettin’ soft, boss,” Njangu said. “You ain’t much of a field troopie if a mere day or three without a ‘fresher gets to you. And you wanted to be out slith-erin’ through giptel doots with Lir? Getting old, grandpa. What are you, almost twenty-six? That’s a year up on me.”

“Maybe I am turning into a candy ass,” Garvin said. “Unlike you younger goons. Hey. Look.”

He pointed across the cavernous club to a table in the rear, where a very large, prematurely balding man in a flight suit sat, morosely staring at an almost-empty pitcher of beer.

“What’s our Ben brooding about?” Njangu said. “He can’t be too broke to drink. We just got paid a week ago.”

“Dunno,” Garvin said. He went to the bar, got two pitchers and two glasses, and he and Njangu went to Cent Been Dill’s table.

“Oo looks unhappy,” Njangu cooed. “Did oo faw down getting out of oo’s aksai and dent oo’s ickle nose?”

“Worse,” Dill said. “Far, far worse. Mrs. Dill’s favorite son got killed today.”

“Big frigging deal,” Njangu said. “So did we.”

“No, I don’t mean playing some stupid war game,” Dill scowled. “I mean killed killed.”

Garvin reached over and poked the pilot.

“You seem pretty solid for a ghost.”

“I don’t mean killed killed killed,” Ben said. “Just killed killed.”

“I’m getting confused,” Garvin said.

“Here,” Njangu said. “Drink beer and tell Aunt Yoshitaro all.”

“Can’t do it,” Dill said. “What’s your clearance?”

“Crypto Quex,” both officers said smugly. “There ain’t no higher,” Njangu added.

“Oh yeh?” Dill growled. “What about HOME-FALL?”

Jaansma and Yoshitaro looked at each other blankly.

“Ho-ho,” Dill said. “If you ain’t heard of it, you ain’t got clearance enough, and I can’t talk to you.”

“I surely understand your caution,” Njangu said. “Being here in a nest of spies and all.”

“Come on,” Garvin said. “Security’s important.”

“Only for other people,” Njangu said. “Now, let us do a little intel analysis while we sit here and work on the beer we just put on Mr. Dill’s tab.

“First, we should be aware that, since I’ve been demoted from my former lofty position as one of Dant Angara’s intelligence sorts, the quality of Two Section has slipped astoundingly.

“This means that my replacements have slid into the easy grip of giving a certain operation a code name that suggests what it’s about.

“We might suspicion that…” and Njangu reflex-ively lowered his voice, looked to make sure the tables around them were empty, “… HOMEFALL might just happen to have something to do with the Force starting to investigate why our ever-so-beloved Confederation has vanished and left us out on the far frontiers with a tear in our eye, our dick in our hand, and a hole in our pants.”

Dill covered his flinch. “Jeez,” he said, “you’re getting as wordy as Jaansma.”

“There probably has been a certain cross-cultural leveling flow,” Njangu admitted.

“More like I’ve been able to drag him up to our level,” Garvin said. “Njangu’s doing a good job of guessing, since all of the hot-rod pilots have been detached for a special assignment… people like you and Alikhan and Boursier, for instance. And if you get killed killed, but not killed killed killed, maybe you’re running pilotless craft out into the wild black yonder.

“But I don’t think we ought to get specific if you want to tell us any details.”

Dill nodded. “Let’s just say I stuck my dick out where it shouldn’t've been and got it shortened by about forty centimeters, leaving me with only a ninety-centimeter stub.”

The Confederation was a centuries-old federation, sometimes authoritarian enough to be called an Empire, scattering across several galaxies. One of its Strike Forces, the Legion, had been assigned to the mineral-rich Cumbre system, which sat on the edges of “civilization,” with the alien, hostile Musth “beyond” and the aggressive systems of Larix and Kura “behind” them.

Garvin and Njangu had been raw recruits on the last transport from the Confederation’s capital world of Centrum to support Cumbre, barely escaping a highjacking by Larix and Kura to make it to D-Cumbre.

And then all communications, all transport, ended.

The Force, now isolated, fought first a civil war against the ‘Raum, worker-terrorists of Cumbre; then against the Musth; and, not much over an E-year past, a brutal campaign against Larix and Kura.

Now there was peace. But sooner or later everyone knew the Legion, as it was unofficially known, would have to go looking for the Confederation, or its remnants.

And so, very quietly, Force scientists had built drones, with realtime controllers on D-Cumbre “flying” them. The commands to the ship bounced from satellite to satellite as the drone jumped from hyper-space navigation point to nav point, making them ideal for taking a peek at places elsewhere.

“I think we can figure out what happened,” Njangu said. “You were out playing with your drone, and somebody or something blew you off. Sorry about that.”

“At least we’re not sending manned ships out,” Garvin said.

“Still, it’s damned unsettling, getting killed,” Dill said, drinking straight from a pitcher until it was dry, ignoring Garvin’s protests. “Shuddup. If I’m buying, it’s my beer, so I can drink it if I want.

“Right?”

He glared at Garvin, who nodded hastily. Ben Dill was, thankfully, a cheerful sort of prime mover. Mostly. The problem was that no one in the Force was precisely sure what set his temper off, since it seemed to vary from day to day and mood to mood.

Jaansma waved at a bartender for another round.

“You know,” Njangu said thoughtfully, “maybe it’s time I put my finely tuned mind to considering things.”

“What sort of things?” Dill said, accepting one of the three new pitchers.

“Oh,” Njangu said, “like how you got so ugly.”

Dill was about to respond when he saw a nightmare entering the club. It was over two meters tall, with many-banded coarse fur in various shades of yellowish brown. It had a small head, on a very long neck, that peered constantly about.

The creature walked upright on large rear legs, and its front legs were clawed. It had a small tail and wore a weapons harness in the Confederation colors of blue and white.

“Hey, Alikhan,” Dill bellowed to the Musth mercenary pilot. “Get your fuzzy butt over here and help me deal with a couple of line slime!”

The alien made his way to their table.

“Whassamatter?” Dill asked. “You don’t look happy.”

He was one of the few who claimed he could decipher Musth expressions.

“I cannot say,” Alikhan said. He, unlike most Musth, who had trouble with sibilants, spoke excellent Common Speech. “But if I were where I was not, I would not be here with you.”

“Aw,” Ben Dill said. “Order up some of your stinky meat and get wasted with us. The whole lot of us have gotten killed.”

“Yes,” Njangu Yoshitaro said thoughtfully. “Time and past time for me to be thinking about this whole Confederation mess.”

CHAPTER

2

Jasith Mellusin considered Garvin Jaansma’s skinned nose, and giggled.

“I told you that you’ve got to be born on D-Cumbre, or maybe some other world with a lot of water, before you can wave-ride.”

“Nonsense,” Garvin said, eyeing his equally battered chest. “I merely need guidance. You never told me you can fall out of a wave.”

“Because I never knew anyone who did it before,” Jasith said.

Jasith Mellusin, at twenty-three, was one of the richest women in the Cumbre system, controlling Mellusin Mining and its many ancillary corporations that her grandfather and father had built. She and Garvin had been lovers, ex-lovers, then came together again during the Musth occupation of D-Cumbre.

“I’ll just lie here and sunburn a while,” Garvin groaned, “then rise up and fight again. Hand me that glass, if you would.”

Jasith reached under the umbrella’s shade, passing the tumbler sitting atop the small portable bar to him. He gurgled down alcohol. Behind them, on the deserted beach, was Jasith’s lim. Beyond, large waves smashed down, slithered up the black sands.

“Ah. I may live.” He stretched. “You know, you’re doing an extraordinary job of making me forget that tomorrow’s a duty day.”

“My intent,” Jasith purred. “Speaking of which-“

She broke off.

“Maybe you want to put your pants back on, and give me that towel. I hear music.”

“Naah. You’re cracking up.” But Garvin obeyed, as two figures hove down the slope toward them. One was Njangu Yoshitaro, the other Maev Stiofan, recently rescued from Larissan service, now the head of Dant Angara’s bodyguards.

She was turning a handle on a brightly painted box, and Yoshitaro carried a cooler in one hand, something in wrapping paper in the other.

“Ah-yut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dah-doo,” Njangu sang as they approached. “We bring gifts of great import, O fearless leader.”

“How the hell did you find us?” Garvin demanded. “Thisyere beach is private property, and we didn’t tell anyone where we were going.”

“Ah,” Yoshitaro said, looking mysterious. “Have you not learned by now I know everything?”

“Hey, Jasith,” Maev said. “This is all his idea, and I don’t have a clue what he’s got in mind.”

“As usual with these two,” Jasith said. “Pull up a towel and have a drink.”

“Did I say to stop playing?” Njangu said as he opened his cooler and took out two beers.

Maev obediently began turning the crank, and more tinny music floated out.

“What in God’s tattooed butt is that?” Garvin demanded.

“Hah,” Njangu said. “And here you claim to be a circus master.”

“Ringmaster,” Garvin corrected, looking closer at the box. “I’ll be dipped,” he said. “It’s a music box. And it’s playing, uh, the ‘Elephant Song.’ “

“Actually, ‘March of the Elephants,’ ” Njangu said. “Maev found it in some antiquey store, which gave me the idea. Here.” He passed the parcel across.

“It’s not my birthday,” Garvin said suspiciously.

“Nope,” Njangu agreed. “Merely my sub-tile way of leading you into yet another of my brilliant schemes.”

Garvin tore paper off. Inside was a disk, and on the disk was a tiny figure of a man wearing clothing several sizes too big for him; a dancer standing on the back of a quadruped, another woman wearing tights, and in the center a man in very old-fashioned formal wear. It was made of plas, and the paint or anodizing had worn off here and there.

“I had to get the motor replaced before it’d work,” Njangu said. “Hit that button, there.”

Garvin did, and the clown in the baggy clothes pranced about, the horse ran around the ring while its rider did a handstand, the woman in tights tumbled back and forth around the ring, and the formally dressed man held out his hands here and there.

“Well, I shall be damned,” Garvin said softly. His eyes filled.

“What is it?” Jasith asked.

“It’s the center ring of a circus,” Jaansma said. “A circus from a very, very long time ago. Thank you, Njangu.”

“You see how well my plan’s working,” Yoshitaro said. “Almost got him blubbing like a babe. Softened the idiot up, I have.”

Garvin turned the device off.

“This is quite a buildup.”

“This is quite a plan,” Njangu agreed.

“First, consider what we’ve been doing wrong. Back when we were expecting trouble with ol’ Protector Redruth, we went and sent a snoopy shit out to see what was whuppin’, right? And, thanks to that late and unlamented spy, they wuz lurkin’ on us, and we got our butt buzz-sawed, right?

“Now, and ladies, I’ll expect you to plug your li’l bitty ears and not listen to what I’m saying, we’re now engaged in a certain enterprise, being sneaky once more, and what’s happening?”

“You mean those drones we’ve been losing?” Maev said. “You’re not supposed to know anything about Operation HOMEFALL.”

Njangu raised several eyelids.

“Neither are you, you common bodyguard.”

“Surely am,” Maev said smugly. “Who do you think Dant Angara uses for his couriers? I got a HOME-FALL clearance about a month ago.”

“And never told me?”

“You, my dear, don’t have a need to know.”

“Zeus on a poop deck,” Njangu said. “You see, Jasith, m’dear, why you’re best staying well away from the military? Corrupts even the most loving relationship with its insistence on dirty, dark secrets.”

“I know,” Jasith agreed. “That’s why I felt so bad about not telling Garvin here about the Legion contracting to have its drones built by Mellusin Yards.”

Both men stared at each other.

“Thank any species of gods we don’t believe in there aren’t any spies about anymore,” Garvin said finally. “This goddamned society leaks like… like a noncom with bladder problems.”

“How can we have spies if we don’t even know who the frigging villains are yet?” Njangu asked reasonably, drained his beer, got another from the cooler.

“Having been thoroughly sidetracked, I might as well stay that way. Jasith, my love, my darling, my bestest friend’s delight, could I borrow a ship from you?”

“What sort?”

“Something big and clunky. Some power to it. Interstellar, of course. Doesn’t have to be too fast or maneuverable.”

“What shape are you going to bring it back in?”

“Damfino,” Njangu said. “Maybe perfect. Maybe in a collection of brown paper bags. Maybe not at all, although if that happens, you won’t be able to rack my heinie, since I plan on being aboard it.”

Jasith grinned.

“I think I’ve got what you need.

“I happen to have a certain clunker in the yards right now. Commissioned right after the war. De-signed to carry and deploy, without a dock, mining machinery… I mean big mining machinery, like self-contained drilling units, even full mills… D- to E-Cumbre and to the outworlds for exploration. It’s huge, almost three kilometers long, and gives ugly a hard way to go. Best description I could have is it looks like the universe’s biggest nose cone, with landing-support fins that nobody built the rest of the ship for. Lotsa bulges and extrusions. Since it was to be the ultimate pig, and a good tax writeoff, we went ahead and put stardrive in it.

“You could fit a whole handful of patrol ships, plus maybe a couple-four aksai in it. Takes a smallish crew to run… I don’t remember just how many… and has living space that can be configured as dorms, cubicles, or even single bedrooms. It’ll sleep fifteen hundred or more… in comfort and happily, since nobody wants to be around a smelly, angry miner.

“The holds can be sectioned, and, since we sometimes tote delicate stuff around, there’s triply redundant antigrav,” she added. “I’ll lease the Heavy Hauler VI to the Force for, oh, ten credits a year, being the sentimental patriotic sort that I am.”

“Step one is now accomplished,” Njangu announced. “By the way, I admire the romantic names you Mellusins give your spaceships.”

“You want to tell me what some lardpig of a spaceship has got to do with a circus?” Garvin asked.

“Why, we’ll need a lardpig to haul our circus around in.”

“Our circus?” Garvin said.

“What a very thick young caud you be, Caud Jaan-sma,” Njangu said. “What do you think I’ve been hinting broadly about? And aren’t you the one who’s always been nattering on, whenever you get drunk and maudlin, about giving all this up and running away and joining the circus, like the ones your family used to run?”

“Mmmh.” Garvin considered.

“What we do,” Njangu went on, getting more enthusiastic, “is we put together a troupe… I went and looked that word up… made up of Forcemen, and then we go out, hiding in plain sight, doing a show here, a show there, and all the time we’re working our way closer to, maybe the Capella system and Centrum.

“We don’t have to be very good, just not visibly anyone interested in anything other than a quick credit.

“We’d best put in some crooked games,” he said thoughtfully. “First, nobody’d expect a Confed soldier to be crooked; second, that could be some good coinage for our retirement.

“When we get an eyeful and an earful on what’s happening out there in the great beyond, we slide on back home, report, and let Dant Angara figure out what to do next. But at least we get an idea of what’s out there… besides blackness and nothing.”

Maev nodded understanding, coming from another system herself. Jasith, who’d known nothing but Cum-bre her entire life, shrugged.

“Interesting,” Garvin said after being silent for a while. “Very interesting.”

“You want to go for it?” Njangu asked.

“Some of it,” Garvin said, pretending utter casu-alness. “I’ve got a few ideas of my own, you know.”

“The last time you tried some of them, you damned near got yourself executed, remember?” Njangu said. “I’m the brains of this operation, right?”

Maev started laughing. “If that’s true, boy are you two clowns in trouble.”

“Clowns,” Garvin said, a bit dreamily. “I’ve always dreamed of having a center ring full of clowns, so many when they shivaree nobody’ll be able to make me out.

“You’ll make a good clown, Njangu.”

“Me? Uh-uh. I’m gonna be the guy who goes in front, getting the people ready.”

“Boss hostler? Dunno if you’ve got the talent,” Garvin said, mock-seriously.

“Wait a minute,” Jasith said. “You two are talking about going out, running around, and having fun.”

“Oh no,” Njangu said piously. “Lotsa big risks out there. We’re laughing, ho-ho, in the face of danger.”

“Fine,” Jasith said. “Change one. You want my ship, you’re taking me with you.”

“Huh?” Garvin said.

“You’re always the ones having adventures,” Jasith said. “No more.”

“What sort of slot would you want?” he said.

“Are you going to have dancing girls?”

“Sure,” Garvin said. “What’s a good circus without a little bit of sex around the edges. Most respectable, of course,” he added hastily.

“And with me along, it’ll be doubly so,” Jasith said firmly.

“I have learned,” Garvin said to Njangu, “never to argue with Mellusin when she gets that tone of voice to her voice.”

” ‘Kay,” Njangu said. “She goes. That’ll keep you straight. Plus she can run payroll and the books, being the business yoink she is.”

“And I’ll take care of you,” Maev said. “Since you said something about recruiting from the Force.”

Njangu grinned and kissed her.

“If Dant Angara turns you loose, why not?”

“Lions and horses and maybe even bears,” Garvin said, lost in his vision.

“Yeh,” Njangu said. “Sure. Just where on Cumbre are you gonna find any of them?”

Garvin smiled mysteriously, then came to his feet. “Come on. Let’s go tell Angara about your latest craziness.”

Dant Grig Angara, the Legion’s Commander, stared at the small holo of the Heavy Hauler VI as it went through its paces-extruding ramps, opening huge ports, its decks changing- without seeing it.

“My parents took me to a circus once, when I was a kid,” he said slowly. “And the prettiest lady in the world, who wore white tights, gave me some candy that was like a pink cloud when you bit into it.”

“You see?” Garvin said to Njangu. “Everybody loves a circus. Cotton candy for all.”

Angara brought himself back.

“An interesting idea,” he mused. “Of course you’d punt out without leaving any tracks so you could be followed back to Cumbre.”

“Of course, sir.”

“And we could hold a Field Day for the Force, and you could pick any athletes you want.”

“Actually,” Njangu said, “we could do it for the whole system, since we don’t have to worry about this having any kind of security hold.”

Angara made a face. “I don’t know if I agree. I don’t like everybody knowing our business. But maybe you’re right.”

“If you want to have a mass tryout, sir,” Garvin said, “that’s fine. But our first stop… unless you order otherwise… will be at one of the circus worlds.”

“Circus worlds?” Angara said, a note of incredulity to his voice.

“Yessir. I know of three. Circus people have to have a place to get away from the flatties… the crowd. Even in olden times there were circus towns where the troupers and their animals would go in the off-season.

“That’s where they recruit people, practice new tricks, change jobs, catch up on the gossip.”

“What will that give you?”

“Animal acts,” Garvin said. “Trapeze artists. Flash.”

“How will you pay for that?” Angara asked. “It’s peacetime, and PlanGov is getting a little tight with the budget. I don’t want to have to stand up and say,

‘fine, ladies, gentlemen, we’re going to put on a show you’ll never see.’ “

“Mellusin Mining has already agreed to fund us,” Garvin said. “Plus I&R’s got a ton of money in a discretionary fund that was given us by Mellusin back during the Musth war.”

“I am getting very fond of this idea,” Cent Erik Penwyth, one of Angara’s aides said. He was a member of Cumbre’s elite, the Rentiers, and ex-member of the elite I&R Company, sometimes considered the most handsome man in the Force.

“And we’d love to have you,” Garvin said. “Maybe as advance man.”

“Hey,” Njangu said. “I thought that was my slot.”

“Not a chance,” Garvin said. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I want clowns. Plus,” he added thoughtfully, “I want somebody close at hand for security.”

“Oh. Oh,” Njangu said in a mollified tone. “That’s different.”

“Which brings up another problem,” Angara said. “This little mission is going to strip the Force clean of some of its best troops. I’ve got to assume worst case, and you’ll have problems. I agree this mission is important-but I don’t want it accomplished with the loss of some fine soldiers a long way from home.”

Garvin inclined his head in agreement. “First, I plan on bringing everyone back. Second is that some of what I’ll call best may not be on your roster.”

“A good point,” Angara agreed after a bit of thought. “I&R troops don’t always make the best line soldiers. I assume you’ll be taking a lot of them with you.”

“With your permission, sir,” Garvin said. “Since we’re at peace, that’ll give them something to keep out of trouble.”

“Bigger trouble generally does,” Angara said. “So you’ll collect a team… a troupe, you called it, and start gathering intelligence. Let’s for the sake of argument, and to keep one small measure of security of things, call the operation HOMEFALL, like another, similar one we have running presently. That should thoroughly confuse the issue.

“But back to the matter at hand. What happens if, or when, you run into trouble?”

“We’ll have the ship armed to the eyebrows,” Gar-vin said. “With all the goodies out of sight. I’ll take some aksai, some of the Nana-class patrol boats we took back from Redruth’s mob.”

“Won’t that appear suspicious?”

“If the Confederation has fallen apart,” Garvin said, “which seems a little more than logical, considering the drones I know nothing about that have been getting disappeared lately, I’d assume anybody going anywhere off their own homeworlds goes armed these days.”

” ‘Kay,” Angara agreed. “Probably right on that one.”

“By the way, we’re going to rename the Hauler, for good luck,” Garvin said. “It’ll be Big Bertha:?

“Damned romantic,” Penwyth said sarcastically.

“Named after the biggest circus of them all,” Garvin said. “Way back on Earth. Ringling Brothers and Bailey and Barnum.”

“Whatever you want,” Angara said.

“There is one other thing I’d like, sir,” Garvin said diffidently. “This whole situation might get a little… tense. And I’m just a young trooper. Shouldn’t we find some diplomat to go with us? Just to make sure we don’t make any mistakes. Soldiers have a, well-“

“Tendency to pull triggers when in question or in doubt,” Angara finished.

“Well… yessir.”

Angara considered for a moment. “Not a bad idea, Caud. There’s only one problem. I can’t think of any politico in this system who qualifies as any kind of subtle peacemaker or -keeper. Cumbre’s history over the past few years doesn’t exactly suggest any names to me. Do you have any candidates?”

Garvin shook his head, looked at Njangu.

“Other than me,” Yoshitaro said, “sorry, sir. My files are empty.”

“So I’m afraid,” Angara said, “you’ll have to play things as best they appear to you. How far do you want to go?”

“As far as I can get, sir,” Garvin said firmly. “Hopefully, all the way to the heart of the Confederation, to Centrum itself.”

CHAPTER

3

“At the moment,” Caud Fitzgerald said to Garvin, “you are not one of my favorite Regimental Commanders.”

“No, ma’am.”

“And you, Haut Yoshitaro, are on the same shit list.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Njangu said. Both Jaansma and Yoshitaro stood at rigid attention in front of their Brigade Commander.

“Once again, I’ve got to remind both of you. This Force has something called a chain of command. That means when you two thugs have an idea, it is supposed to go to me, then, and only then, assuming I approve, up the chain of command to Dant Angara.

“Instead, I find I’m losing both of you to go haring out into the unknown as if you were both still with I&R… and the scheme was your idea in the first place.”

“Sorry, Caud,” Garvin tried. “I forgot.”

“Old habits die hard,” Njangu hurried.

“It’s a pity that Dant Angara doesn’t approve of some field punishments other armies used, such as crucifixion.”

Garvin looked into the woman’s hard eyes, not sure if she was joking, and said nothing.

“Very well,” Fitzgerald said. “Since Angara’s already approved, there’s nothing I can do but rail at you.

“Don’t fail… or, if you do, come back dead.

Otherwise, I might have to remember this conversation when it’s time for your next fitness reports.

“Now get your asses out of here… and, incidentally, the best of luck.”

Ben Dill shambled into Garvin’s office, something just bigger than a cubicle, with an inspiring view of the Second Regiment’s motor pool. He managed a salute, didn’t wait for Jaansma to return it, and sat down.

” ‘Kay,” he growled. “First, I’ll listen to you tell me why I can’t go on this wildhair trip of yours, then I’ll tell you why I’m going.”

“Save it, Ben,” Garvin advised. “You’re already on the roster.”

Dill blinked. “Howcum I don’t have to threaten you, like usual?”

“I need a good pilot,” Garvin said, “but I’ll take you. We’re bringing along three aksai, plus a hangar queen for spare parts, and I understand you know which end of those evil-flying bastards goes first.”

“I am only the best aksai pilot in the cosmos, including any Musth that might think, just ’cause he invented those evil pigs, he’s better than me.”

“Which is why I put you down, right after Alikhan and Boursier.”

“Alikhan, ‘kay,” Dill said. “But Boursier? I can fly circles around her butt without power.”

“I just wanted to wait to see how long it took you to show up,” Garvin said, suppressing a grin. “You want to know your other slot?

“We’ll need a strongman.”

“You mean, like in the holos, stripped to the waist, all oiled up, with big ol’ iron rings on my arms to show off my perfect physique?”

“Plus a corset to hold in your gut.”

“Damn,” Dill said, oblivious. “I get to show off.”

“Within reason.”

“Hey,” the big man said, “I got a great idea. Since you’re taking Alikhan already, and nobody needs to know he speaks Common Speech, you could use him-“

“As an exhibit,” Garvin interrupted. “Meet Man’s Deadliest Foe… See Him in an Orgy of Decayed Flesh… a Cannibal Fiend from a Nightmare Beyond the Stars. And anybody who comes close to his cage will talk freely, not knowing he’s got big ears on ‘em.”

“Aw shit,” Dill said. “You went and beat me to it.”

“Always,” Garvin said.

Dill chortled. “It’ll be worth the price of admission just seeing him in a cage.”

“Only when the gilly-galloos are around.”

” ‘At’U be enough. I’ll bring… what’re they… nutpeas to throw at him.”

“I suppose,” Njangu said, “all this is in the noble tradition of I&R volunteering for everything.” His hand swept out, indicated the company formation in front of him. “Is there anybody missing?”

“Nossir,” Cent Monique Lir said briskly. “Other than one man in hospital who won’t be discharged before takeoff time.”

” ‘Kay,” Njangu said, then raised his voice. “I’m proud of all you sneaky mud-eaters for courage and general stupidity.

“Now, my flyer mentioned specific talents. Anybody who’s got one of them, stay in formation. The rest of you, who’re just looking for some cheap adventure like I am, fall out and go back to your barracks.”

He waited, and, grudgingly, people began slinking away, until only about sixty of the 130-plus unit remained.

” ‘Kay,” Njangu said. “Now, we’ll start screening.”

He eyed the men and women.

“Striker Fleam… what are you planning to add to things? Besides your general surly attitude, I mean.”

The hard-faced Striker, who always refused promo-tion but was one of the best field soldiers in I&R, which meant the entire Force, grinned thinly.

“Knots, sir.”

“Beg pardon.”

“I can tie any knot known. One-handed, off-handed, upside down, in my sleep, on a drunk.”

“A knot-tier,” Njangu said, beginning to enjoy this, “wasn’t on the list.”

“Nossir,” Fleam agreed. “But I checked around, and went and looked up circuses, and all of them talk about ropes and lines and pulleys and shit like that.”

” ‘Kay,” Njangu said. “You’re aboard. What about you, Cent Lir?”

“I’ve been a dancer with an opera company.”

” ‘Kay. We’ll need somebody to ramrod the dance troupe. What about you, Alt Montagna?”

“Swimming, sir. High diving too. And I thought I could learn trapeze, since I’m not a bad climber.”

“Have either of you thought about what’s going to happen to I&R with both the Company Commander and Exec away?”

“Already taken care of, sir,” Lir said briskly. “We’ll vet Lav Huran up to take over as CO, give him a temp commission that’ll go to permanent if we don’t come back, Abana Calafo as XO, also with a temporary rank. Already approved by Caud Jaansma.”

“Mmmh.” Njangu turned serious. Of course the incredibly competent Lir would be welcome, although he hadn’t heard of her opera experience.

Darod Montagna was another story. Garvin, in spite of his ongoing affair with Jasith Mellusin, had more than a casual interest in the young black-haired sniper/ officer. Njangu had caught them kissing when both were drunk during the war with Larix/Kura, but didn’t think much further had happened.

It would’ve been trouble if it had, except Montagna had gotten herself commissioned during the war, so the traditional ban on enlisted/officer relationships wasn’t there.

But still… Njangu remembered two things. First, that Jasith was going on the expedition and, second and more important, he wasn’t Garvin’s keeper.

” ‘Kay,” he grudged. “Now, let’s sort the rest of you fools out.”

“Send him in,” Garvin said. He leaned back in his chair. It had been a very long week, vetting volunteers, listening to the lies of commanders trying to fob off the lame and lazy on him, and to the screeches of other COs who were losing their best. And now this.

Dr. Danfin Froude was one of Cumbre’s most respected mathematicians, though his talents led into most areas of applied science. In addition, in spite of his over-sixty years, the rumpled small man was a daredevil and had accompanied the Force on several hazardous missions, getting a reputation for complete fearlessness. During the Larix/Kura war, he’d fallen in love hard with one of the Forcewomen, not uncommon when romance comes late in life. She’d been killed, and Froude’s world seemed to have ended. He was still there for the Force for any desired analysis, but he was a bit distant, as if a part of him had died with Ho Kang.

The door came open, and Garvin jumped. The man standing in front of him wore exaggerated stage makeup, the saddest man in the world, with a peculiarly obnoxious long nose. His pants sagged, his shoes were holed, and ridiculously oversize, his vest tattered as much as his archaic hat.

“Hello, Garvin,” Froude said. “You’re looking very well.” He snuffled. “I’m not.” He began taking a large handkerchief from a sleeve, and more and more material came out, until he was holding something the size of a bedsheet. There was a flutter in its midst, and a stobor, one of the two-legged snakes peculiar to D-Cumbre slithered out, landed on Garvin’s desk, hissed, and fled into the outer office.

“Oh, sorry, Garvin,” Froude said, still in the same monotone. A tear dripped from one eye, and he wiped it away. When the handkerchief was gone, his long nose had changed into a red rubber ball. He scratched it, took it off, bounced it against a wall, shrugged.

“I don’t guess you’re going to let me come with you, are you?”

“You learned all this in two days?”

Froude nodded, and his pants fell down.

“You know there’s no way I’d refuse a Willie the Weeper,” Garvin said.

Froude snuffled, picked up his pants.

“You’re not just saying that to try to make me smile, now are you?”

He lifted his hat, and some species of flying object scrawked and flapped away.

“You’re aboard, you’re aboard,” Garvin said, starting to laugh. “Now get the hell out before you produce some carnivore out of your pants.”

“Thank you, sir, thank you, thank you,” Froude said, still in the monotone, bowing and scraping. “But I have one more boon, a small favor, just a little service, since Ann Heiser is off getting married to Jon Hedley, and wants to stay home for a while, which means I won’t have anyone to bounce my ideas off of.”

Garvin noticed the way Froude’s face twisted when he said “married,” but said nothing.

Froude went to the door, opened it.

Garvin looked suspiciously at the completely undistinguished man who hunched into his office. He was short, a bit over a meter and a half tall, wearing battered clothes that the poorest of poor clerks might disdain.

“This is my colleague, Jabish Ristori,” Froude said.

Ristori extended a hand. Garvin reached to take it, and Ristori did a backflip, landing on his feet. He held out his hand again, and as Garvin stepped forward, the man cartwheeled against the wall, then, somehow, up onto Garvin’s desk, and against the other wall, once more came down with a graceful bounce, and solemnly shook Garvin’s hand.

“Pleased to meetcha, meetcha, meetcha,” and Rist-ori turned another flip to show his pleasure.

“Professor Jabish Ristori,” Froude said. “Nice enough guy, a colleague of mine for years, even if he does belong to one of those fields that can hardly be called a discipline.”

“Socisocisocisociology,” Ristori said, doing a handstand, then lifting one hand off the ground.

“Jabish became curious ten years ago about wandering entertainers, and determined to learn their tricks,” Froude went on.

“And I never, ever, ever went back to the univee,” Ristori said with an infectious giggle. “Dull, dry, dry, dull.”

He pushed off from the ground and landed on his feet.

“Welcome to the circus,” Garvin said. “We can always use a tumbler.”

“A tumbler, bumbler, stumbler,” Ristori said. “Here. I believe this is yours.”

He gave Garvin back the identity card that, until a few seconds ago, had been clipped to Jaansma’s shirt pocket.

“How’d you… oh. Sorry,” Garvin said. “I should know, never wise up the mark.”

“And this is yours,” Ristori said, giving Garvin back his watch ring. “And this.” It was Garvin’s wallet, which had been most secure in his buttoned rear pocket.

“But you never got within a meter of me!” Garvin blurted.

“I didn’t, did I?” Ristori said, in a deep voice full of ominous significance. “If I had, I might have all your credits, which you’ll find in your left front pocket.”

“You two,” Garvin said, knowing without checking, the money would somehow be there. “Out. Report to Njangu and draw your gear.”

“And try to leave him with his pants.”

The tall man in greasy coveralls slid out from underneath a Zhukov Aerial Combat Vehicle. He held an unpowered torque wrench about as long as his arm.

Njangu saluted him smartly as he got to his feet.

Mil Taf Liskeard returned the salute, after noting the wings on Yoshitaro’s chest.

“Didn’t think you flyboys would even recognize my existence these days,” he said bitterly.

Njangu didn’t respond to that, but said, “Sir, I’d like to speak to you privately.”

Liskeard looked across at the two mechanics, who were visibly not paying the slightest attention.

“In that grease trap that passes for my office, then.”

Njangu followed him inside, closed the door.

“All right. What do you want, Yoshitaro? Aren’t you too busy putting together your latest scheme to be wasting time on a grounded old fart who broke under fire?”

“I want you, sir, as one of the pilots on that scheme.”

“Bad joke,” Liskeard said shortly. “I say again my last. I broke, remember? I had Angara ground me. Or hadn’t you heard? I couldn’t take killing people.”

“I know,” Yoshitaro said. “But I still want you. To fly that Big Ugly Flopper we’re going out in. I looked your record up, sir. You had more than two thousand hours in converted civilian transports before you transferred to Griersons. And we’re very, very short on people who’ve got experience moving hogs of steel about.”

“I did do that for a while,” Liskeard said. “I should have known my limits and kept pushing those BUFs around the sky.

“But that’s not the point. I couldn’t take it, busting other transports apart like the ones I flew, like gutting fish, and turned my wings in. Angara said he’d make sure I never flew anything military again, and would have my ass out of the Force as soon as he got around to it.

“I guess he forgot about me down here in this motor pool,” Liskeard went on. “And I’ll be damned if I know why I didn’t remind him.”

He rubbed his forehead, leaving a greasy smear.

“No, Yoshitaro. You’ve got something else in mind than rehabilitating a coward. Am I supposed to be the Judas Goat on this new operation? I hear you’re famous for nasty little tricks like that.”

“I want you,” and Njangu paused, trying to hold back his temper, trying to hold to his purpose. But the words didn’t come easy, “for personal reasons. A month or so after you… grounded yourself, I got in the center of somebody’s sights and they dropped a barrage on me. And I broke, too.”

“But you came back. Obviously, or you’d be under that Zhukov with me, looking for grease points.”

“Yeh,” Njangu said. “I did. Maybe because I was too cowardly to tell somebody who saw me go down that I was shattered, that I couldn’t keep on keeping on.”

Liskeard’s manner changed. He eyed Njangu.

“So this is a kind of rehabilitation. You’re willing to take a chance on me again?”

“We’re not going out in Big Bertha to shoot at people,” Njangu said. “We’re going out to have a look around and get our asses back here to report.”

“That doesn’t mean I’ll be able to hold together if things get sticky.”

“Then I’ll yank your ass off the controls and break it myself for real. Sir.” Njangu growled, his fingers unconsciously curling into a strike hand.

Liskeard saw his hands, then started laughing, very hard.

“Does Angara know you’re trying to recruit me?”

“He does,” Njangu said. “And he growled something about I better be sure I’m right.”

Liskeard looked surprised. “That’s the last thing I’d expect that hard-ass old bastard to say.”

He took a deep breath.

“Yoshitaro, I’ll put the wings back on for you. And if I snap again… you won’t have to take care of me. I’ll do it myself.

“And… thanks. I owe you. Very, very large.”

Njangu, never happy with sentiment, came to attention, saluted, and turned. Over his shoulder he said:

“Then get over to Big Bertha-she comes out of the yards in two hours-and start learning what a pig she is to fly. Sir.”

“You’re sure that dance is authentic?” Garvin asked doubtfully.

Dec Running Bear, resplendent in breechclout, a rawhide necklace of long teeth, face paint, and a feather sticking sideways out of his braided hair, grinned.

“Just as my mother’s mother’s mother taught me. Or, if the people I’m dancing for start lookin’ like they think I’m shitting them, my father’s father’s father’s father. Hell, I’ll tell ‘em next performance I’m gonna put bone spikes through my tits, hang in the air, and yodel for the ancient Sun Dance.”

“I dunno,” Garvin said, still skeptical.

“Look, sir. I could really use some action. I’m bored cross-cocked doing nothing but fly Dant Angara around. Great Spirit on a bicycle, I actually found myself wanting a little shooting last week.”

Running Bear absently rubbed a scarred arm. He was one of the few living holders of the Confederation Cross, gained in what he called “one ee-holay mad moment.”

“So I dance some, tell some stories… those are for real from back when, maybe even back to

Earth… my gran taught me… smoke a peace pipe, sing some chants, look like a dangerous warrior.

“Isn’t that a good way to meet women? Sir?”

“Doesn’t sound that bad,” Garvin said. “Plus we can always use another certified crazy besides Ben Dill. And you can fly.”

“Anything short of a Zhukov, right through the eye of a goddamned needle, sir.”

“Well, we’re pissing off Dant Angara bad enough already, taking his best. Might as well grab his chauffeur as well,” Garvin decided.

“Might be fun,” Erik Penwyth drawled. “Wandering out there, a day in front of you folks, seeing who and what can be taken advantage of.”

“Just don’t get cute on me,” Njangu promised. “Remember, you’re in the job I wanted.”

“Would you stop whining?” Garvin said. “Clown master you are, and clown master you remain. Pass the goddamned bottle, would you?”

Njangu pushed it across, just as a tap came on the door.

“Enter,” he said.

The door opened, and a woman wearing hospital whites came in.

“Well, I’ll be goto,” Garvin said. “Alt Mahim. Sid-down, Doc. I thought we’d detached you to medical school.”

She sat, on the edge of one of Garvin’s chairs.

“I am… was, sir. Until three days ago, when the term finished. I took a long leave.”

“Uh-oh,” Njangu said meaningfully. “The sy-reen call of excitement.”

“Come on, Jill,” Garvin said. “First, knock off the ’sir.’ Or have you forgotten I&R tradition, such as it is?”

“Noss… no, boss. I came to see if you need a good medico aboard.”

“Damme,” Penwyth said. “What is it about the old

I&R crew? You try to put them in place where they just might not get killed, learn how to do valuable things like deliver babies and do brain surgery that’ll give them a slot on the outside, and they come roarin’ back to the cannon’s mouth, every time.”

“I won’t even try to argue with you,” Garvin said. “Hell yes, we need a good combat medic. Here. Pour yourself a drink.”

“Not right now, boss,” Mahim said, getting to her feet. “I’ve got to go steal what medpak supplies I’ll need. But thanks.”

She saluted, was gone.

Penwyth shook his head.

“We’ll never learn, will we?”

Garvin got out of his lifter, started up the long steps to the Mellusin mansion, Hillcrest. He was at the door when he heard a loud crash. He opened the door, heard an obscenity, then another crash.

“Assholes!” Jasith shouted.

There was another smash.

Garvin went carefully toward the sound of the destruction. It was in the remnants of the kitchen.

Jasith Mellusin was glaring at a smashed communicator. Then she went back to the serving cabinet, selected a platter, and threw it the length of the dining room.

“Shitheads!”

She picked up a plate in each hand.

“Uh… I’m home, dear,” Garvin said.

She looked at him angrily, threw both plates at the wall.

“Sons of bitches!”

“Since you’re talking plural,” Garvin said, “I can hope you’re not sonsabitchin’ me.”

“Not you!”

“Then can I kiss you?”

Jasith pursed lips. Garvin strode through the ruins of most of their dinner service, kissed her. After a bit, they broke apart.

“That’s a little better,” Jasith admitted. “Not that it makes me want to stop cursing.”

Garvin lifted an eyebrow.

“My goddamned Board of Directors, my twice-goddamned stockholders, my three-times-screwed executives!”

“Pretty comprehensive list.”

“Don’t stay so calm, Garvin! They just told me I can’t go with you!”

“But… you’re Mellusin Mining, I mean, the only one,” he said bewilderedly. “You can do what you want, can’t you?”

“No,” she said, starting to steam once again. “Not if it affects the price of the stock, or the confidence of the stockholders if their chief executive happens to be out-system, maybe even in danger and God forbid I go and get killed. The entire goddamned board went and voted they’d resign if I go out with you. Said I didn’t have any regard for my own company if I’d go do something dangerous that I didn’t have to, that was the job of proper soldiers, not immature little girls like they seem to think I still am!

“Fughpigs!”

A very large crystal dessert tray Garvin had rather liked skimmed across the room and disintegrated in rainbow shards.

“Oh,” Garvin said.

“You want to throw something?”

“Uh… no.”

She gave him a suspicious look.

“Aren’t you sorry I’m not going?”

“Of course, sure I am,” Garvin said hastily. “So don’t go and lob anything my way. Honest, Jasith.”

“Dammit, dammit, dammit,” she said, and started crying.

Garvin, cautiously, put his arms around her again.

“Why don’t they ever let me have any fun?” Jasith said into the hollow of his shoulder.

“I always thought,” Garvin said, “the really rich were free.”

“Nobody’s free, dammit,” Jasith said. “Except maybe the dead.”

“What do you think?” Maev said, raising her voice to a singsong, “Candy, lifts, chewies, balloons, candy, lifts, chewies, balloons, a prize in every box.”

“I think,” Njangu said, eyeing her very scanty costume, “nobody’s gonna be looking at your goodies. At least not the ones in that tray.”

“Sure they will,” Maev said. “Little children love me.”

“Then what’s this about selling lifts?”

“Nothing addictive,” Maev said. “A mild mood-enhancer. With about an eight hundred percent profit.

“And if they are ogling m’ boobs, that’s fine, too. They’ll never notice…”

And her hand moved under the tray slung around her neck, came out with a smallish, large-barreled projectile weapon.

“… this. Guaranteed I can put two of these slugs .between somebody’s eyes at fifteen meters. For less lethal response…”

Again, her hand went under the tray, came out with a squat cylinder.

“… blindspray. Give you convulsions for half an hour, vomiting for an hour, can’t see squat for two hours.”

“That’s if somebody tries to get friendly?”

“Other than you,” Maev said. “Or somebody really, really rich.” She took off her tray.

“Now, I need a drink. This security operation is sweaty work.”

“Already made for you, m’love,” Njangu said. “Over on the sideboard.”

It wasn’t financially convenient, but Njangu had kept the lease on the apartment across the bay from Camp Mahan, on the outskirts of D-Cumbre’s capital of Leggett, as a convenient way of getting away from uniforms when the military made him want to howl at the moons.

“Pity about poor Jasith,” Maev said.

“What? I haven’t heard squat.”

Maev told him about the near revolt by the officers of Mellusin Mining.

“So she’s out, sulking like a fiend.”

“Uh-oh,” Njangu said inadvertently, thinking of Darod Montagna.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Njangu said hastily.

“You’re holding back.”

“I surely am.”

“How terribly interesting,” Darod Montagna said. “Poor Miss Mellusin, forced to stay home and count all her money and not go play with us.”

“Dammit,” Monique Lir told her XO, “I hope you’re going to be a good girl.”

“I’m going to be a very good girl,” Darod said in her most sultry voice. “I’m going to be the best girl that man’s ever seen.”

“Uh-oh,” Lir said.

Finally Stage One-planning; Stage Two-logistics and personnel; and Stage Three, operations, were finished. There were almost 150 men and women picked, all volunteers, including a few civilians who’d managed to penetrate the fairly tight security screen Dant Angara had imposed after all.

They filed into Big Bertha and found their assigned compartments. The old soldiers made old jokes that hadn’t been that funny the first time around, the new women and men wondered why they had tight lumps in their guts instead of pride.

Garvin Jaansma kissed Jasith Mellusin.

“You better come back,” she said fiercely, then looked away.

“I’ll go with what she said,” Angara said. “But with an addition. Bring me back something, Garvin.” There was a flash of desperation in his eyes. “Dammit, we can’t keep on as we have, not knowing anything!”

“I’ll come back,” Garvin promised. “With the hot skinny, boss.”

He saluted Angara, kissed Jasith again, and went up Big Bertha’s ramp. It slid shut, and a speaker blat-ted: “All personnel. All personnel on ramps. Clear ramps for takeoff. Clear ramps for takeoff. Three minute warning. Clear ramps.”

“Come on,” Angara said, taking Jasith’s arm.

She followed him back into the terminal, went to a window.

The ground trembled, and Big Bertha’s antigravs lifted her clear of the ground. Her secondary drive cut in, and the behemoth crawled upward, became graceful, and vanished into the stratosphere and space.

Jasith stood there, watching emptiness for a long time.

CHAPTER

4

N-space

Njangu and Garvin had given themselves more tactical options than just hiding in plain sight if-or, more realistically, when-problems developed.

“I am getting very damned tired of being ambushed every time we come out of hyperspace,” Yoshitaro had said, looking pointedly at the three aksai pilots. “Which is why I’m going to use your young asses as bait… or anyway, some kind of warning system. I just hope you won’t slow down and get dead bringing us the word.”

The aksai was the prime fighting ship of the Musth during the war with Cumbre. Now, with peace looming on all sides and trade flourishing with Man, the aksai were being built for the Force, somewhat modified for human pilotage. It was a flying wing, C-shaped, about twenty-five meters from horn to horn, with one, two, or three fighting compartments, capsules, mounted on the concave forward edge of the wing, weapons either encapsulated or just hung below the wing. It was impossibly fast and, as Ben Dill said, “harder to fly than a whore on roller skates.”

Jacqueline Boursier, the self-described “shit-hot pilot,” tried to put together a fund to hire an athletic prostitute, buy some old-fashioned roller skates, and lock Ben Dill in a gymnasium with her to see what happened. She had no takers.

In-atmosphere, the aksai would stall handily and snaproll into the ground if flying speed wasn’t kept up, and transitioning between the standard antigravity lift system to secondary and then stardrives took a most delicate touch.

Out-atmosphere, its instant acceleration and speed were as likely to stuff its pilot into something unpleasantly solid as punt her to the fringes of the system before reaction time could take over.

But those who could fly the ships invariably fell in love with them. They were possibly the most acrobatic craft ever built, with the possible exception of Dawn-age propeller ships.

The procedure Garvin and Njangu had come up with to keep from being mousetrapped was complicat-edly simple: Big Bertha would set a hyperspace jump to the desired navigational point. However, the navigational instruments were set with a pause feature, rather than the usual, automatic reemergence into N-space.

Hanging in something beyond nothingness, the mother ship would launch an aksai. The aksai would enter real space and make a preliminary recon for bad guys, surprises, or flower-tossing maidens. It would pass the word back to Big Bertha, which could take appropriate measures.

If the system was hostile, the ship would wait as long as she could for the aksai to rejoin her. If the mother ship had to flee, the aksai was to make a hyperspace jump, to a predetermined nav point, and Mayday in all directions, hoping for rescue before the air ran out.

But this was an option none of the three aksai pilots believed would ever happen.

After all, they were all shit-hot, not just Boursier…

The inship annunciator burped sedately. The synth-voice Garvin hadn’t gotten around to replacing, which, unfortunately, ‘cast into all compartments, announced

“Aksai section… aksai section… ready pilot, report to the bridge.”

The man, woman, and alien cut for high card, and Alikhan obeyed the summons, round ears cocked in excitement.

The bridge of Big Bertha was as unusual as the rest of the bulbous starship: a self-contained pod at the “top” of the cargo/passenger spaces, with the forward edge, monitors looking like ports, protruding from the hull a bit. Flanking the large bridge area were communication and navigation compartments and, at the rear of the pod, a secondary command center with observation ports looking “down” into the hull’s huge cargo spaces.

It would make, Garvin thought, a dandy place for a circus master to crack the whip from. Or possibly, if they kicked out a few of the windows, some sort of high-wire or other flier act.

Alikhan got his briefing, and went along a sealed catwalk through an airlock to the “top” of the ship, where three of the state-of-the-ten-year-old-art Nana boats and the four aksai hung, like so many bats in a huge barn.

He wedged himself rear legs first into the aksai’s pod on his belly, then closed the clear canopy. He turned power on, checked controls, touched sensors, read the displays on his canopy as the main and secondary drives came alive, then announced he was ready to launch.

“This is Command,” Garvin told him. “Your coordinates and flight pattern have been fed into your computer. Launch at will.”

A hatch above him slid back, and a steel arm lifted the aksai clear of Big Bertha. Alikhan watched readouts blink on his canopy, trying to convince himself that the blur of N-space around him wasn’t vaguely nauseating, certainly not for a combat-experienced Musth.

Gravity spun, vanished, and he was beyond the ship’s grav field. Alikhan considered what Garvin had told him about the system he was to enter-three worlds, settled over two hundred E-years ago, no data on government, military, peacefulness. It’d been chosen for the first system to enter because it was distant from the nav points “close” to Larix and Kura, and hence, Garvin assumed, hadn’t been slandered by Re-druth, and, hopefully, wouldn’t be that hostile to an intruder.

Alikhan touched a sensor, and the aksai dropped out of hyperspace, the swirl around him becoming stars and not-too-distant planets. He went at full drive toward the second- planet, reportedly the first colonized, searching all common bands for ‘casts.

Within an E-hour, he sent a com back into hyperspace to Big Bertha: no hostiles. Safe to enter. Request assistance, nonemergency.

The big ship obeyed, and the two patrol craft, Chaka in command of the flight, were launched, shot toward the homing signal on Alikhan’s aksai. Behind them came Big Bertha.

Dill was riding shotgun on one of the patrol ships.

“What’s the problem, little friend?” he asked on a standard voice channel as the two ships closed.

“Your data, to use a phrase of yours, sucketh goats, whatever a goat is.”

A louder signal boomed from Big Bertha: “Scout One, this is Command. Give details. Over.” Garvin didn’t sound thrilled at the relaxed com procedure.

“Command, Scout One,” Alikhan ‘cast. “Details are: There is nothing here, and it appears there never was. No cities, no buildings, no humans. Over.”

And so it was. None of the three planets that were supposedly colonized, all within the habitability range, showed any sign of settlement or abandonment.

“This makes no goddamned sense,” Njangu snarled. “Howinhell could the Confederation punt some people out with their little shovels and picks and tents…

I assume they did that, unless this whole goddamned scheme was some bureaucrat’s fiddle to steal something large… and then not check on them, not follow up, not send the occasional goddamned checkup team… for two hundred goddamned years?”

Garvin shook his head.

“It makes me goddamned wonder,” Njangu raved on, “just how much of our goddamned Empire was a goddamned phony. Maybe the whole goddamned thing was some kind of a shadow play.”

“That makes little sense,” Danfin Froude said mildly.

“Then give me some explanation that does. God-damit!”

Froude held his palms up, helplessly.

” ‘Kay,” Garvin decided. “Forget it. We’ll pull the recon elements back and try again.

“I don’t like this,” he finished. “I don’t like things that don’t have explanations.”

Froude looked at him.

“In another life, you could have been a scientist.”

“The hell,” Garvin said. “In another life, I’m going to be a frigging boulder on a beach somewhere, with nothing to do but watch pretty naked women and slowly turn into sand.

“Get ready for another jump.”

Garvin had made one major break with naval tradition. The Big Bertha had a club, but it was for all ranks, not just officers. Njangu had agreed with this, since both of them found a noncommissioned officers’ club far livelier than anything for upper ranks.

As to the old military policy that these restrictions gave rankers a place to relax and discuss their problems without being around the enlisted sorts, Garvin’s answer was short and sweet: “Let those who want to play footsie or whine do it in their own compartments.”

He’d found a corner with a beer, and was still wondering about that colony that evidently never had been, when he saw Darod Montagna, mug in hand.

“Greetings, boss,” she said. “Are you in deep thought, or can I join you?”

“Grab a chair,” Garvin said. “Njangu should be here in a mo, so obviously it’s not deep.”

She sat, sipped at her beer.

“Thanks for letting me go on this little detail.”

“So far, no thanks… or blame… needed,” he said.

They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes. Garvin realized he didn’t feel any particular need to be entertaining or even companionable, somewhat like the peacefulness he felt around Njangu.

He saw his XO enter the rather crowded compartment, make his way toward them.

“I guess I better scoot,” Darod said. “Deep, dark secrets and all that.”

She got up, just as Big Bertha twitched a little, making another jump, and fell into his lap.

“Bastard!” she swore, picking herself up. “I’ll never get used to going out of N-space.”

Garvin just smiled, thinking how she felt rather nice against him.

“Who does?” Njangu said, taking her seat. “And I’m gonna rip a strip off our damned watch officer, who’s supposed to notify us before we hippety-hop in or out of the wild black yonder out yonder.”

“Oh… maybe I should have said something,” Montagna said. “The PA system’s down… one of the techs is trying to get rid of that old lady in the system.”

As she spoke, the overhead speaker crackled into life: “Time to next jump… three ship-hours.” It was still the weird synthesized voice they were all growing to hate.

“I love technology,” Njangu said. “Let’s take an ax to the system and put in voice tubes like the first starships had. Or uniformed messengers. Or signal flags.”

“Good night, sirs,” Darod said, and left. Njangu watched her leave.

“Not hard on the eyes at all,” he said.

“Not at all,” Garvin said, pretending casual notice.

“Did she have anything in particular to talk about… being nosy?”

“Other’n what a nosy sort you are,” Garvin said, “nothing much.”

“Careful, Garvin,” Njangu said.

“Careful about what?”

Njangu waited a moment. “Careful that you don’t spill your beer in your lap. Sir.”

“Mother Mary on a bender,” Garvin said softly, staring into the screen.

“Yeh,” Njangu said. “Evidently somebody didn’t have any qualms about going nuke.”

The planet below it, like the twin moons that were supposed to be fortified, was nothing but desolation. A counter roared radioactivity at them.

“Any ‘casts?” Garvin asked the com officer.

“There’s a lot of clutter from the craters, sir,” the man reported. “We’ve blanked all that come from obvious bomb sources… and there’s nothing left. We thought for a minute we were getting some sort of code from one of the moons, but it’s pure random noise.

“Nothing else, sir.”

Njangu scratched his chin.

“The whole goddamned system gone,” he mused. “The book said it had a population of five billion.”

He shuddered a little. “Guess there’s things worse than Empire, huh?”

“Maybe,” Garvin said. “Unless the Confederation was the one who decided to break policy first. Watch officer!”

“Sir!”

“Take us the hell out of here. Next possibility.”

“I’ve got a question,” Maev asked.

“I’ve got an answer,” Njangu said, yawning. “Your head is very comfortable on my chest, by the bye.”

“I got that notion,” Stiofan said, “that you and Gar-vin had the idea, at one time, of deserting, the first time you hit a world where there’d be some kind of main chance.”

“Ah, but that was in the sinful days of our yout’,” he said. “Before we became aware of the stellar virtues of serving the Confederation forever and ever or at least until somebody shoots our asses off.”

“I don’t suppose this whole thing”-and she made a circle in the semidarkness with her hand-“is some elaborate con to get you two to somewhere profitable, at which point you’ll exit stage left.”

“I’ll be a son,” Njangu said, sitting up abruptly. “You know, I never even thought of that possibility. What a dummy.”

Maev also sat up.

“I’m afraid,” she said. “You actually sound like you were telling the truth. If I can’t tell…”

“I was telling the truth,” Yoshitaro said with an injured tone. “I hardly ever lie, and never ever to the woman wot I adore.”

” ‘Kay,” Maev said briskly. “But assuming you’re not lying… which is a big assumption… let’s say we run across somewhere like a nice Eden in our travels, where there’s connable marks left and right, and nobody has ever heard of a truth scan. What then?”

“What an interestin’ possibility,” Njangu said. “Naah. Anything like that would’ve been kicked over in the early days after the Confederation did whatever it did to itself. All those wonderful little sheepies would be shorn bare by now.

“Besides,” and he sounded serious, “even if we found such a hog heaven, I’ve got to assume that there’s wolves out there in the darkness, to really screw my analogy up. So we’d sit there makin’ credits up the yinger, and sooner or later, probably sooner, given my luck, some baddies with lotsandlots of guns would swoop.

“No, Maev my love, I’m afeared you’ve cast your lot with an honest dullard. At least for the moment.”

“What, the lot, or the dullard?” she asked.

“Probably both. Now, if you’d be good enough to hand me that knotted cord again, I might find the energy for one more round before my engine runs out, since it’s evidently the raw, nekkid trut’, honesty, and loyalty of a Confeddie ossifer is wot powers me to new heights.”

The next system was still inhabited.

Dill brought his aksai out of hyperspace, and his sensors were already buzzing. His briefing had said there were supposed to be four inhabited worlds in this system, called in the star catalogs R897Q33, with an archaic designation of 2345554, and a system name of Carroll.

Three… no, five ships were homing on him, two of them sweeping the com bands for a frequency this unknown ship would be on.

He obliged them by opening on the standard Confederation emergency frequency:

“Unknown ships, unknown ships, this is the Scoutship, uh, Dill,” as he realized nobody ever got around to naming any of the aksai, and he wasn’t interested in being One, Two, or Three.

Another com beeped, announcing the arrival of a patrol boat from Big Bertha, then Boursier in another aksai.

“Scoutship Dill, this is the destroyer Lopat,” came a return com. “Be advised you have entered into Confederation space.”

Dill’s eyes widened, and he broadcast a second message to Big Bertha.

A secondary screen that had been added before Big Bertha left Cumbre started scrolling:

JANE’S ID positive… three ships positive ID… Confederation D/az-class… the borderline obsolescence at time of final Confederation revision this file…

Dill ignored the weapons and crew entry.

Sumbeech, sumbeech, we’re home, we’re home, he thought gleefully, ignoring the sarcastic part of his mind that asked what and where the hell home was, anyway.

He started to ID himself correctly, stopped, remembering belatedly that anyone could say he was Confederation.

“This is Dill” he said. “Understood your last, that we are in Confederation space. Extreme approval on this side.”

Another, larger ship blinked into existence.

The ever-watchful Jane’s told him it was a completely obsolete light cruiser, Daant-class, probably Quiroga.

“This is Fleet Commander von Hayn,” was the com. “We do not recognize your ship class at all for leading two ships. No linkage shown to Confederation. Third ship identified as standard-manufacture planetary patrol craft. Explain. Over.”

“This is the DM,” Ben said. “My ship is locally built, and you have correctly ID’d the patrol ship. Over.”

“Neither of you look long-range capable,” the grating voice said. “Suspect you are outrunners of larger ships. Give system of origin at once.”

“Uh… Erwhon,” Dill said, wishing to hell Garvin was here, or maybe Froude. “And we do have other ships in hyperspace, waiting assessment of the situation.”

“That system you named is unknown to us.”

“We were just being colonized when we fell out of contact with the Confederation. I guess nobody sent the proper bulletins around. What happened to our Empire, anyway?” Dill couldn’t hold back the question.

There was a long time of dead air.

“This is Fleet Commander von Hayn,” the voice came reluctantly. “We are not in contact with the Homeworlds, but have sustained order through our own devices for some years, maintaining peace and the rule of law and order.”

“As have we,” Dill said. “And now we’re trying to reestablish contact.”

Again, a long silence, and Dill was about to rebroadcast.

“We have communicated with our superiors,” von Hayn’s voice came. “Permission to enter the Carroll system is denied. Be advised a full launch of our fleet has been made, and any other ships appearing in normal space will be treated as enemy and fire will be opened on them immediately.

“Again, you are refused entry. Leave this system at once, or face immediate attack.”

“You paranoid old poop,” Dill muttered to himself, not knowing age or sex of the fleet commander, and opened his mike.

“Von Hayn, this is the Dill. We come in peace, I say again, meaning no harm, but wishing only supplies… and you rotten bug diddler!”

The Quiroga had just launched a pair of missiles at the aksai.

Ben wanted desperately to make a counterstrike, but remembered his orders and fled back into hyper-space, even as the patrol ship disappeared with him.

He locked aboard Big Bertha, and steamed for the bridge.

Garvin, Froude, and Njangu were waiting.

“Thor with an anvil up his ass, but those bastards were unfriendly,” he snapped.

“We know,” Froude said. “Remember, we were monitoring all ‘casts.”

“Well what the hell are we going to do?” Dill asked.

“We’re going to make another jump, far, far away from here” Garvin said. “Listen. Here’s a couple of selections the patrol boat’s com picked up. Both came from the homeworld.”

He touched a key.

A harsh voice grated:

“Meal hours for all Zed-, Extang-, and Hald-class citizens have been changed by point-one-five tics. Be advised the grace period for change will be four shifts, then penalties may be assessed. Further-“

Static, then a woman’s voice said:

“Due to compliance with voluntary work output, issuance of rapture tabs are authorized for the following districts: Alf, Mass-“

“Oy yoy,” Ben Dill said. “They tells you when you can eat, get your head ruined. How much you want to bet they let you know when it’s ‘kay to screw?”

“I don’t think we need to trouble ourselves with these people,” Froude said. “At least, not until we’re prepared to come back in force and discuss this system of peace, law, and order.”

The three aksai pilots sat in their ready room, waiting for either mess call or another alert.

“I’m starting to think,” Ben Dill mused, “this universe might not be that friendly a place.”

“When was it ever?” Boursier asked. “Or weren’t you paying attention in Astronomy One?”

“I don’t mean black holes and wormholes and ghosties and goblins and that,” Dill said. “I’m talking about people.

“Not to mention we ain’t found squat beside ruination.”

“Do not despair,” Alikhan said. “For I remember the tale of a great Musth warrior who was once lost in a trackless forest. But he kept on looking, trying different trails, different signals. His belief was ’seek a thousand tracks, and one of them will lead to home.”

Dill looked at the alien thoughtfully.

“Be damned. I didn’t think you Musth ever said anything reassuring.”

“Neither did I,” Boursier said. “How long did it take this warrior to reach his home?”

“He never made it,” Alikhan said. “They found those words scratched on the outside of a tree, next to which he had starved.”

CHAPTER

5

Salamonsky

“Take it in closer, Ben,” Garvin said, his voice showing no emotion.

“Yessir,” Dill said, and dived into Salamonsky’s atmosphere.

Garvin turned away from the projection.

“What sort of lousy bastard would attack a circus world?” he asked no one in particular. “We never did anything to anyone… gave them something to laugh at, something to wonder about, sent home with stars in their eyes and a smile on their lips.”

The enlisted woman on one of the radars turned. “You ever hear of some people called Jews, sir?”

Garvin looked at her, then away.

Dill was coming in fast a thousand kilometers below-even at his height above land, there was perceptible ground rush.

“Captain Liskeard,” Garvin said, “bring it in-atmos-phere. We’ll have a look, maybe get some idea of who the bad guys could have been. Put two patrol boats out now for top cover.”

“Sir.”

“As soon as we’re below the stratosphere, launch the other aksai and the patrol boat. Keep them sweeping, looking for trouble.”

Njangu came up to him.

“You got a crawly feeling?”

“Not necessarily,” Garvin said. “I’m probably just hoping there’s something to shoot at, no more.”

Dill flared the aksai two hundred meters above the landing field he’d targeted. Small carpet bombs had knocked the tower askew and set fire to hangars and admin buildings. Then strafers must have come in to finish the job. There were remnants of ships scattered around the field, some that would have been modern, others beyond-belief rust buckets that transported small dog-and-pony acts or even sideshows around the region. All of them had been anodized in the most garish colors that were now just beginning to flake.

“I’d guess,” Njangu said, “whoever hit them came in less than an E-year ago. There’s still cables dangling, looks like some rope that’s not rotted hanging from that drive stand, and that old hovercraft cushion’s still inflated.”

The image on-screen changed as Dill’s aksai banked over the port’s small city. It sprawled for some kilometers, and was mostly separate houses of wildly varying styles and sizes.

“I wonder,” Garvin said absently, “if any of those houses belonged to any little people. I remember, when I was a kid, going to one family, and everything was built to scale, and they were smaller than I was, so for the first time I felt like a giant.

“All of them but their daughter,” he went on. “She was, oh, maybe thirteen, and as pretty as I’d ever seen. I fell in love with her… but of course she didn’t know nine-year-olds existed.”

The city’s business center was a cratered ruin.

“I hope they fought back,” Garvin said. “It would’ve been-“

The watch communications officer came into the bridge.

“Sir. We’re getting a transmission, in Common, on a Confederation guard channel. Shall I pipe it through?”

“Now,” Garvin ordered. “And get DF finding out where it’s coming from.”

The transmission quality was wavery, and the woman’s voice was flat, tired, as if she’d done the ‘cast a thousand thousand times:

“Unknown ship… our detectors picked up a disturbance entering atmosphere… unknown ship… we are refugees in hiding after our world was looted… we’re only a handful of survivors… oh Allah, be a ship, not another damned meteorite. Please.”

The emotion stopped, and once more the woman said her plea.

Garvin was reaching for the mike, when Njangu caught his arm.

“Let her run on for a minute. It won’t hurt.”

“Why?”

“It might not be a bad idea… once we find out where she’s ‘casting from, to drop a drone down before Big Bertha wallows over there, don’t you think? Since I’m the only me I’ve got, I’d like to take precautions.”

Garvin’s lip thinned, then he caught himself.

“You’re right. Sorry.”

Njangu ordered one of the patrol ships to launch a drone in-atmosphere. Moments later, the direction finders had a location for the plea for help.

“Nap of the earth,” Njangu ordered the drone’s pilot on the patrol ship. “I want a realtime normal-vision transmit, and metal detection patched to me.”

“Sir.”

A tech moved a screen down, and it lit up, showing the drone’s point of view, approaching the ground.

Njangu told Dill what was going on, ordered him and the other ships to low altitudes.

The drone was flashing over wooded hills, then a lake, a small valley, then more woods.

“That was where she DF’ed from. Nothing to see,” Liskeard said. “The poor scared bastards must be hiding.”

“Look at that display, sir,” a technician said.

Garvin looked as well… and saw high-zigging lines.

“Nothing but brushes and woodses down there,” Njangu said. “And a lot of hidden metal. Like ships under camou nets maybe?”

“Shit!” somebody in the control room swore as ragged black smoke dotted the sky on-screen.

“Most poor scared bastards don’t have antiaircraft guns… or use ‘em on rescuers,” Liskeard said wryly.

“No,” Garvin said. “No, they don’t. Commo, give me an all-channels.”

“Sir. You’re on.”

“All Bertha elements. Target Acquisition on our main screen. Indicators show hidden ships… and we got fire. Suspect cannon, not missiles. Nana elements, to ten thousand meters, stand off two kilometers. Goddard launch on command.

“Aksai, stay clear until we open things up a little, then we’ll send you… cancel that for the moment.”

Garvin hadn’t needed the technician’s warning. He’d seen a ship lift through trees below.

“Nana Flight… take him out.”

“Sir,” Alt Rad Draf said. “Two, do you have that ship?”

“Affirm…”

“I’m firing. Two shadows… on command… FIRE!”

The meter-long Shadow antiship missiles spat from their pods.

“We have a counterlaunch and countermeasures in effect,” Draf’s ECM officer reported. “Divert one… two… hit! Hit!”

The seething ball of flame that’d been a small starship spun back toward the ground.

“Nanas… proceed with Goddard launch!” Garvin ordered.

“On my command,” Draf said, still calm-voiced. “All elements… target from flagship… one Goddard per Nana… FIRE!”

The Goddards were heavy shipkillers, six meters long, sixty centimeters in diameter, with a five hundred-km range. They drove toward the valley at full speed.

AA guns on the ground yammered up, but struck wide.

All four targeted within fifteen meters of each other, and the ground roiled, bucked, and net covering guns and two more ships on the ground burst into flames. Secondary explosions sent flame waves boiling into the air.

“Aksai,” Garvin said, “if there’s anything left to kill… go on in.”

The fighting ships dived down, swept the small valley. Boursier’s chainguns yammered once, again.

“Half a dozen men… with guns,” she reported. “No more.”

“That’s it,” Garvin said. “All Bertha elements… recover.”

He looked again at the screen showing the destroyed valley, then at Njangu.

“Hope none of the people they captured were down there,” Yoshitaro said.

Garvin flushed.

“Goddammit, if they were… they were leading us into a trap!”

“True,” Njangu said. “Sorry. Boss.”

Garvin’s face returned to normal.

“No. My turn for the apology. This one got to me a little.”

“Forget it,” Njangu said. “I suppose you’ve got another place to look for your elephants.”

“I do. Two more, if it comes to that,” Garvin said. “But number three is halfway to hell and gone.”

“Then… unless you want to land, and sift some ashes trying to figure out where those raiders came from, and do a few paybacks… I guess we should depart this fair clime.”

“Yeh,” Garvin said heavily. “There’s nothing for us… or anyone else… here.”

Two of the next seven nav points were in inhabited systems. Scouting aksai reported those worlds were settled, primarily agricultural and, from detected emissions, were obviously out of contact with the Confederation, slowly working their way back down the energy ladder.

Boursier reported, in rather shocked tones, the second system was even using some nuclear power.

“Obviously,” Njangu said, “there’s no point in stopping for help when somebody’s worse off than we are.”

“Nope,” Garvin agreed. “Besides, the next jump will be Grimaldi, full of fun, laughter, and life.

“I bleeding well hope.”

CHAPTER

6

Langnes 4567/Grimaldi

“This is Grimaldi Control,” a woman said. “Link to Channel five-five-four-point-eight-seven… you are cleared to land. You will descend vertically from present position, then take course Nan Eleven, as indicated on your Standard Instrument Screen for approximately twenty-two, that is two-two, kilometers. We have clear weather, so you should have visual contact with Joey Field at that point. Use Beam Eleven Teng to guide you to your landing spot.”

The voice paused, then said: “Be advised we are a peaceful world, and are welcoming you.

“If, however, you have other intentions, also be advised you are being tracked by various weapons systems we do not want to use. Over.”

“This is Big Bertha” Liskeard said into a mike. “We are just what we claim to be… understand Course Nan Eleven for two-two kilometers, use standard Beam Eleven Teng and visual flight regulations to land on field. Monitoring Channel five-five-four-point-eight-seven. Over.”

“Assuming you know what the name of your ship means,” the voice said, “welcome home. Grimaldi Control, clear.”

Njangu glanced at Garvin, swore that the other man had tears in his eyes. He wondered what would be a home to him, one day, wondered not for the first time if there was one. Sure as hell not the corrupt sewer of Ross 248 that he’d been born on.

“Sir,” Liskeard said, “we’re bringing it in. Do you want to do the benediction?”

Garvin jolted back to the bridge of the ship.

“Yeh. Yeh, sorry.” He took a microphone.

“This is Gaffer Jaansma.” He’d decided to start using the title before they entered the Grimaldi system, figuring it was time to get the troops used to it.

“From here on out, all of you who aren’t civilians are now. For the love of Harriet’s Crucifixion, don’t go around in step or counting cadence.

“You’ve all been briefed on who we are… more or less amateur circus buffs who’ve fallen into money, and are trying to give peace a chance by making people happy and laughing, and maybe are curious about whatever happened to the Confederation.

“You don’t have to look moronic when you say that. The people we’ll encounter will already think you’re a skid short of an even landing for looking for what is obviously big trouble.

“From here on out, things should get interesting.”

He keyed the mike off and looked at Njangu, grinning broadly.

“Damn, but this is gonna be fun.”

Garvin might have been awash in sentiment, but that didn’t make him altogether a fool.’ The two aksai followed within Big Bertha’s radar shadow until the behemoth landed, then orbited closely overhead. The Nana boats were ready for an instant launch, and certain unobtrusive compartments, normally kept sealed, were now open and their 35mm chainguns, firing depleted uranium rounds at 6000rpm, and the smallish one meter long Shrikes, which could be launched at anything and guided by anyone, were ready.

But nothing warlike happened, and so Garvin, and an assemblage of his more impressive people, from

Ben Dill to Njangu to Monique Lir went down the wide gangway after the lock opened.

Waiting were a dozen or more lifters, some circus-colored, others nondescript, two loudly claiming the holo stations they had been dispatched by.

About forty men and women waited, most as excited as Garvin. They were also somewhat unusual in appearance, Lir noticed. Three had elaborate tattoos showing on their bare arms, one was almost as big as Ben Dill, another woman had a rather remarkable beard, and two, including one journoh with a holo recorder, were midgets.

One woman, distinguished-looking, very long-haired, wearing tanned, fringed leathers, came forward.

“We welcome Big Bertha” she said formally. “I hope you will find what you’re seeking here on Gri-maldi. I am Agar-Robertes, and people have given me the title of Gaffer, one of several on this world. That’s an ancient term that means-“

“I know what it means,” Garvin said. “I’m Gaffer Jaansma.”

The woman lifted her eyebrows.

“Of the Jaansmas?”

“I am Garvin,” Garvin said. “My mother was Clyte, my father Frahnk, my uncle Hahrl. Before that-“

“Stop,” the woman said. “You’ve been kicking sawdust longer than any of us.”

Garvin inclined his head.

“Son of a bitch,” Njangu managed sotto voce to Dill. “The bastard’s for real about this circus stuff!”

“That is quite a ship you own,” Agar-Robertes said looking up at the looming behemoth. “Might I ask your cargo?”

“We have little at present,” Garvin said. “Which is why we came to Grimaldi. We intend to build a circus, and seek women, men, nonhumans, animals.”

“Then the time has come round again,” Agar-Robertes said reverently amid a babble from the other men and women of Grimaldi. “When it is safe for circuses, it is safe for all.”

Garvin made a face.

“I wish I could say you’re right. We’ve had encounters since we left our native worlds to suggest the time is not here, not yet.”

“Still,” Agar-Robertes said. “It might be a beginning.

“And you won’t lack for prospective troupers. We’re so stricken we’ve gone beyond entertaining each other.” She lowered her voice. “Some of us have even been forced to take flatty jobsV

The people of Grimaldi took the Cumbrians to their hearts and homes. The Big Bertha was given a parking slot on a corner of the field, the aksai and other ships moved into revetments for maintenance, and the circus itself sprawled out around the ship.

The tent was set up, the midway a long fat finger in front of the main tent, and the other “tents”-the mess tent, the clown tent, all actually prefab shelters- around it.

Some of the crew and troupers decided they could do without living aboard unless they had to, and made arrangements with the locals. Garvin didn’t care, as long as everyone was present for his work shift.

It would also be good, he knew, for the Cumbrians to experience another culture than the one they’d been born into… and the Grimaldians were a bit unusual.

Some of the population, including the original settlers, were circus workers, as many of them strong-backs, clerical, or computer sorts as freaks and performers. Others were retirees, vacationers who’d been trapped when the Confederation collapsed, circus fans or settlers who seemed to have chosen Grimaldi with a dart and a star chart.

All shared a common belief in individual freedom, although, as one put it, “Yer rights end at my nose.”

Seemingly incongruously, almost all desperately missed the Confederation. But one explained to Njangu, “It’s best to have some kind of law and order. Makes travel easier, and keeps you from getting mugged after you’ve run your con and are trying to get out of town with the snide.”

Njangu was starting to understand what Garvin had missed for so many years… but still hadn’t the foggiest why Jaansma was still with the military.

Nor why he was, either.

“What in the name of God’s holiest dildo is that?” Njangu asked suspiciously, staring at the huge pile of off-white heavy cloth, leather reinforcements, iron eyes, and heavy line.

“It’s a tent,” Garvin said. “A real tent.”

“Which you use for what?”

“We’re going to be the best damned circus ever… or, anyway, the best one still flitting around this galaxy,” Garvin said. “So, when we can, we’ll set up under canvas.”

“Why? We’ve got a perfectly good ship that unfolds like one of those paper sculptures… ory… eerie… you know. Sushimi. All safe and warm, and nice lanes to the cages and quarters.”

“Because nothing smells more like a circus than canvas,” Garvin said. “And roasting groundnuts and popcorn and… and elephant shit.”

“I’ll be sure to tell Jasith your favorite smells,” Njangu said. “It’ll thrill her no end and probably spark a new line of perfumes from the Mellusin empire.”

Not that Njangu was very successful in maintaining his own usual superciliousness.

Maev came around a corner, and found him buried in a mass of little people, some dwarves, most perfect scale replicas of “normal” humans.

They were shouting something about contract scale, and he was trying to argue, with a rather beatific look on his face.

Maev crept back round her corner and never mentioned it to Yoshitaro.

“We’ve got a serious problem,” Garvin said. “Sid-down, have a drink, and help me out.”

“A better invite has seldom been spoke,” Njangu said, and sat down in front of Jaansma’s desk. He pulled the bottle over, poured into a glass, drank.

“Whoo. What’s that? Exhaust wash?”

“Close,” Garvin said. “Triple-run alcohol our fearless, peerless engine department came up with. Try another hit. It grows on you.”

“Yeh,” Njangu said. “Like fungus.” But he obeyed. “Now, what’s the problem?”

“Every circus has got to have a theme that everything sort of centers around, from the pretty women in the spec… that’s the spectacle, the pageant that opens things… to the blowoff. The costumes should be designed sorta around that theme.”

“Mmmh.” Njangu considered.

“It sort of helps if it’s kind of wallowy and sentimental.”

“Oh. Easy, then. Refill me,” Yoshitaro said.

Garvin obeyed.

“This shit does improve with usage,” Njangu admitted. “But I still think it’d be best injected, so your throat doesn’t have to take all the damage.

“You want a theme… you got a theme. Even fits in with our tippy-top secret mission. Call it, oh, Many Worlds Together.

“You can hit that oF tocsin of the Confederation and how we all miss it, put people in any kinda costume you want… even look to see if there’s ever been any nudist worlds… and go from there.”

“Why Njangu Yoshitaro,” Garvin said. “Sometimes I suspect you of genius. Intelligence, even.”

“Took you long enough.”

* * *

“Uh, boss, what’s going on?” Darod Montagna asked Njangu. They were outside Big Bertha, and a high, circular fence had been put up, using one of the ship’s fins for a base. Inside the fence were Garvin and Ben Dill.

“Our fearless leader is about to negotiate for a bear.”

“A what?”

“Some kind of ancient animal… supposedly goes all the way back to Earth,” Njangu said. “I looked the creature up, and it was listed as a fine animal who left everybody alone, but if you messed with it, it messed back on an all-out basis. Garvin thinks he’s got to have one.”

“Why? What do they do? Or is eating people going to be a sideshow?”

“If they’re well trained, Garvin told me,” Njangu explained, “a bear will ride two-wheelers, dance, do a little tumbling… just about anything a rather stupid man can be taught.”

“Why do we need one?”

“Because,” Njangu said, ” a circus just…”

And Montagna finished the now shopworn phrase:

“… isn’t a circus without a bear. Or a bunch of tumblers. Or whatever else the gaffer comes up with.”

“So, anyway,” Njangu went on, “it turns out there’s this nuthead back in the hills who raises real bears. Agar-Robertes suggested we buy a couple of robot bears, but not our Garvin. He’s gotta have the real thing.

“Look. This has got to be the bear-breeder.”

The lifter wandering toward the field looked as if it had been crashed on a weekly basis for some time. In the open back was a large cage, holding a very large, very dark brown, furry animal with very large claws and teeth.

“Yeets,” Darod said. “Scares me just looking at him. Anybody bring a blaster?”

“Garvin said the trainer told him the bear was as gentle as a baby.”

The animal in the back roared so loudly the cage bars rattled.

“What kind of baby?” she wondered aloud.

“Nobody said.”

The lifter grounded, and a rather hairy man got out. He greeted Garvin, introduced himself as Eneas, and limped to the back of the cage.

“This ‘ere’s Li’l Doni,” he said. “Cutest li’l thing I ever did see. Got two more back’t’ th’ ranch just like her, if you want real star power.”

Njangu was holding back a snicker.

“Star power?” he muttered.

“You said she was gentle,” Garvin said, eyeing a ragged scar down the trainer’s arm.

” ‘At was her mother’s doin’,” Eneas said. “On’y thing Doni’s ever did’t’ me was break m’ leg, an’ that was my fault. Mostly.

“Here. Lemme let ‘er out, you c’n see for yourself.”

Garvin was seeing for himself that Li’l Doni was not only in a cage, but had chains around her upper legs. Eneas opened the cage, and Doni rolled out, snarling, came to her feet, and snapped both chains.

She growled, took a swipe at Eneas, who sensibly dived under the lifter.

Doni saw Ben Dill, and charged after him. Dill followed Eneas. That left Garvin, and Doni went for him. There wasn’t room enough under the lift for three, and so Garvin climbed, later swearing he levitated, to the top of the cage.

Doni, in command of the theater, snarled three times around the lift, considered a side window, and smashed it casually.

Njangu was laughing so hard he had to hold himself up against the ship’s fin.

Li’l Doni spotted Yoshitaro, and, roaring rampage, charged the fence. She banged off it once, then went up and over it as if it was a ladder.

Njangu Yoshitaro went up Big Bertha’s fin as if it also were a ladder.

Darod Montagna found business back inside the ship, closing the lock behind her.

Eventually Eneas came out from under his lift, found more chains, and Li’l Doni vanished from the circus’s life.

Three days later, Njangu invoiced for the lease of two robot bears. He insisted on naming one of them Li’l Doni.

The music conductor was named Raf Aterton, and Njangu swore he had to be the reincarnation of at least six generals and two dictators. He was silver-haired, slender, severe in countenance, and brooked no argument from any of the forty musicians the circus had taken on. His voice sounded soft, but somehow carried from one end of the spaceport to the other.

“All of you will now listen very closely. You’ve got sheet music in front of you. The piece is the ‘Confederation Peace March’. You will learn it until you can play it in your sleep, as some of you have been functioning already, I’ve noticed.

“This is the most important part of being on the show. The ‘Peace March’ is the sign of trouble. Fire. The cats on a rampage. A big clem, a catastrophe.

“When it’s played, all the muscle on the show will start looking to solve the problem, however they can. If we’re under canvas, all the animals will get out, right then, as will the kinkers.

“The talent is priceless, and you, my ham-fingered men and women are not. So after everyone’s altered, you’ll join the roustabouts in solving the problem.”

“Question, sir,” a synthesizer toggler asked. “What if we’re in the ship and something happens?”

“Hit the tune, then get out of the ship. Or follow orders if Gaffer Jaansma’s around.”

“And if we’re in space?”

“Now that,” Aterton mused, “could be a bit of a poser.”

The woman spun lazily twice high above the net, as a man released the trapeze, and twisted across the open air. Their catcher extended long tentacles, caught them both, sent them flying higher into the air, then had them once more, and they were back at their perch.

” ‘Kay,” Ben Dill said. “Half the troupe’s human or looks it, anyway. What species are those octopot-lookin’ types?”

“They call themselves ra’felan,” Garvin said. “The troupe master says they’ve got about the same intelligence as a low-normal human.”

“Interestin’,” Erik Penwyth drawled. “With half a dozen legs to punch buttons with, and no particular intelligence, we ought to recruit ‘em as pilots.”

“Watchit,” Dill warned.

The ra’felan had rather tubular bodies, with tentacles dangling at paired intervals. Their eyes bulged ominously from the center body.

“Can they talk?” Dill asked.

“If spoken to politely,” Garvin said.

“Both you bastards are being cute today,” Dill complained.

“I assume you signed them,” Penwyth said, ignoring Dill.

The ra’felan swung back and forth on his trapeze three times, then jumped straight up, toward a rope that crossed between the two high poles. He… or she, or it, for Garvin never found out their sexes, if any, went tentacle over tentacle on the rope across to the other pole, then hooked a trapeze, swung once, and somersaulted down, spinning, into the net.

“Damned straight I did,” Garvin said fervently. “You should’ve been here a couple of minutes ago, when they were throwing ten people around like they were paper aircraft.”

“If they were real fishies,” Dill said, “y’ think they’d be working for scale? See, now I’m getting to your level.”

“I say again my last about pilots,” Penwyth said. “Except p’raps, I was overly kindly about their intelligence being low-normal.”

“Hit it, maestro, it’s doors, and the crowd’s a turna-way,” Garvin shouted. He was resplendent in white formal wear of ancient times, including a tall white hat, black boots, and a black whip.

Aterton obeyed, and music boomed through the hold, and Garvin touched his throat mike.

“Men, women, children of all ages… Welcome, welcome, welcome, to the Circus of Galactic Delights. I’m your host for the show. Now, what we’ll have first…”

Half a dozen clowns tumbled into view, began assaulting Garvin in various ways, some trying to drench him with water, others to push him over a kneeling clown, still others throwing rotten vegetables. But all missed, and he drove them away with his whip.

“Sorry, sorry, but we’ve got these strange ones who’re completely out of control with us…” Garvin lowered his voice, cut out of his spiel. “When we get a full complement, we’ll have carpet clowns working the stands. Next will come the spec, with all kinds of women on lifts, on horses, on elephants if we get elephants, the candy butchers working the stands, the cats coming through…

“Maestro, sorry to put you through this, but we’ll need bits for each act as they enter.”

“Of course,” Aterton said haughtily. “I, at least, know my business and am hardly a first-of-Mayer.”

Garvin made a face, decided to let it pass.

“Then, after the spec goes out the back door of the tent, or the hold, or the amphitheater… I don’t have the foggiest where we’ll be playing… then we’ll have the first act, which’U be something I haven’t decided on, maybe some flyers, maybe have some little people working the ground, maybe some pongers, ‘though I haven’t seen nearly enough acrobats.” He seemed quite at home amid the confusion.

“Earth cats?” Garvin asked.

“At one time,” the chubby, rather prissy man with a moustache said, a bit mournfully. “Since then, they’ve apparently mutated… and the perihelion of the species are with Doctor Emton’s Phantastic Felines, Who’ll Make You Wonder If You’re Really Superior and Dazzle You. A Fine Act for the Whole Family.”

Garvin looked skeptically at the six lean but well-brushed animals sitting on his desk. They regarded him with equal dispassion.

“Ticonderoga,” Emton said. “Insect. On picture. Catch it for him.”

He pointed at Garvin, but made no other move.

A cat leapt suddenly from the desk up to the mounted holo of Jasith, caught a bug, bit once, and dropped it daintily in Garvin’s lap.

“Interesting,” Garvin said. “But more suitable for a sideshow. Which we aren’t.”

“Pyramid,” Emton said, and three cats moved together, two more jumped on their backs, and the third completed the figure.

“Play ball,” he said, taking a small red ball from his pocket, and tossing it at them. The pyramid disassembled, the cats formed a ring, and began passing it back and forth.

“Hmm,” Garvin said. “We will have projection screens so the audience can see what’s going on… maybe something with the clowns?”

“Clowns,” Emton said, and the six cats stood on their paws, walked about, then sprang cartwheels.

“I’m afraid not,” Garvin said.

“Oh. Oh. Very well,” Emton said, and got up. His cats sprang back into the two carriers he’d brought in.