Jory Yokosuka, her one piece of luggage slung over her shoulder, gazed about eagerly, getting her first close look at Fifty Fifty, looking out through a port while she was riding a shuttle down from the cruiser that had carried her from Port Diamond along with Field Marshal Yamanim.

Seen at close range, the place looked every bit as eerie as it had from space.

And then the shuttle had touched down, and she was out of doors, blinking in Fifty Fifty's peculiar light, which seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The guidebook said that until you got used to it, the natural illumination here had a way of seeming either too bright or too dim.

The immediate strong impression was one of swarming human activity. There, arranged in revetments, ready presumably for a fast liftoff, were dozens, no, scores of the livecrewed fighting machines that would form an important part of the defense when the attack came. She was going to have to learn a great many technicalities, in a hurry, if she was to do more than a merely acceptable job here.

Lieutenant Duane, who had served as Jory's guide aboard ship, persisted gallantly in trying to extend the relationship somehow, but she brushed him off. While handsome, he was not her type and she was here on business.

Jory continued to be excited and pleased by the prospect of working with the famous Jay Nash. But all of the people she met in the first minute after her arrival were intent on their own jobs, and none would or could tell her exactly where the great man was.

She descended the landing ramp, was passed quickly and efficiently through a military checkpoint, and then paused amid a scene of furious activity, looking around her uncertainly. The rolling land between the landing field where she was standing and the near horizon, was all brightly lit - a natural glow, but looking very much like that produced by the most elegant electrical indirects. Barren hills and valleys, mostly a yellowish sandy color, striped with darker gray and brown. Here and there Jory spotted a green tinge, a scattered puff and swirl of what looked like vegetation - but she'd understood that there were no native life forms. Something to find out about. In one low-lying spot she thought she saw reflecting water, but she supposed that could be some kind of a mirage.

Here on the atoll, as on Earth and Uhao, and everywhere else in the newly threatened Home Sector, it was evident even to a newcomer that many things had changed in a short time. And here, where the berserkers were expected as if they had sent an announcement of their plans ahead of them, the alteration was far more drastic.

Jory knew that for perhaps two weeks before Field Marshal Yamanim and his small entourage had arrived on this low-profile and hurried visit, a massive effort had been under way with the goal of fortifying the atoll. Deep underground it was really two objects, two islandlike projections into normal space, though the bifurcation was buried, down out of human sight. From the angle of one approaching the atoll in normal space, or actually standing on it, it looked like only one, and could be so treated. The habitable portion was about a kilometer in diameter. Some called it an atoll, and some a reef.

As she understood the recent military history, a few months ago, before the raid on Port Diamond, the garrison here had been quite small, composed of about a hundred volunteer Solarian military people. But those days were gone. Weeks ago the garrison had plunged into an intensive effort at fortification, and officers and enlistees alike were putting in plenty of overtime.

Another sizable ship had landed soon after Jory's shuttle, settling through atmosphere with only a whisper of sound, and people in uniform, not waiting for robots but carrying their own military baggage, were soon streaming down its ramp. Selected reinforcements were still coming in, and the garrison now totaled about three thousand people. The human force was helping and directing an approximately equal number of robots - none of which, as far as the visitor could see, had anything even vaguely anthropomorphic about them.

Adjoining the main landing field, and the assortment of buildings strung out along the field's edge, stretched a kind of parade ground or common, much flatter than most of the surrounding terrain. This space looked, thought Jory, as if at some time in the past it had been used for occasional reviews and ceremonies. Right now it looked anything but ceremonial, filling up with shelters and equipment. A number of small fighting ships, most of them behind individual screens or revetments, were parked or docked on it.

The habitable portion of the atoll , reiterated Jory's pocket guide, comprises the surface of a slightly oblate spheroid, about a kilometer in diameter.

Coming to the book's description of the apparent sky, Jory looked up at the real thing. A score or more of defensive satellites, smaller, more easily transportable versions of those that guarded Earth and other full-sized worlds, had recently been set in orbit here. Around the spherical speck of Fifty Fifty, the orbits were much tighter, faster; some were so low as to be only glistening blurs.

Another such defensive machine was being launched even as Jory watched. Some kind of tender or transport hauling it up off the launching pad.

Even before the cruiser had landed, everyone aboard had been told that full-body armor was now required to be kept in reach of everyone on the atoll. Colonel Shanga, it seemed, was going to be very strict about this. Jory had not been a full minute off the ship before she had to arrange this, which was required before she could do anything else.

The armorer's shop beside the field was doing a booming business. A wide choice of sizes, and a fair variety of styles and equipment were available. She was not a total stranger to body armor, but her brief experience had not been enough to allow her to get comfortable with the system.

In addition a new insignia had to be painted or pasted in several places on the armor, identifying her first as a civilian, then as a member of Nash's crew. A robot that was standing by took care of this chore efficiently.

Equipped at last with a new suit of personal armor, which made a bulky bundle atop her meager store of other possessions, the whole trundled along after her by a patient baggage robot, Jory soon succeeded in locating Jay Nash's secretary, a stocky, red-haired woman named Millie Prow, with whom she had once had a phone conversation back on Port Diamond. Ms. Prow was still in civilian clothes, but seemed to have somehow retained her function as buffer between the great man and the rest of the world.

The sign over the front door of the low structure proclaimed the specific military jargon, a series of letters and numbers, that the new arrival had been told to look for.

"Himself will be back inside the hour," said Ms. Prow, leaning over a kind of counter, as soon as the two women had introduced themselves. "And he's expecting you."

Himself ? Jory wondered silently. It was a long time since she'd heard anyone, outside of some kind of ethnic melodrama, use the word as a name.

Ms. Prow efficiently took care of the task of assigning Jory her quarters. All the new housing was being dug underground, so the settlement was considerably bigger than it had looked at first.

When she found the dugout to which she had been assigned, she rejoiced that at least it was not so far beneath the surface as to make it hard to dash up now and then and take a look around. She had the feeling that she might want to do that at least once or twice during an attack; her recording and observing hardware was among the best stuff of its kind, but there was no substitute for personal immersion in an event.

This housing unit, like most of the others on the atoll, was low-ceilinged, three or four paces square, with a small semiprivate latrine and shower adjoining. Two double-decker bunks and four capacious lockers. The walls, floor, and overhead were of the hardened stuff of the atoll, like sandstone transformed into the best concrete.

She took possession of one of the available bunks and the locker next to it in the small dorm room, and resumed her search for her boss. Here in quarters it was allowed to take one's armor off, though it was recommended to wear it all except for the helmet at most times. When she went out again, she planned to bring along a robot to trundle after her with the bulky suit. The great majority of the people she had so far encountered on the surface were similarly equipped.

Going out again, asking more or less at random for directions as to where the famous director could be found, she discovered by chance that some of the aides who were familiar with the man called him "Pappy" - but not to his face.

And they said he was in the bar.

"The bar?"

Her informant nodded casually. Not wanting to sound like the utter newcomer she was, she didn't ask for details.

No one told her where the bar was, but there weren't that many buildings big enough to qualify.

It was a low, undistinguished building, devoid of any advertising or other indication of its function: sided with imported wood, and with a settled look of having been in place here for some years. The windows were opaque, at least from the outside, and there was no sign that the place was occupied at all, except for a row of armor-laden personal robots standing patiently outside. Jory, abandoning, her own burdened attendant there, was reminded of horses at a hitching rail.

The front door offered no clue as to what might lie behind it, and the journalist briefly considered knocking. Rejecting this plan as a sign of weakness, she discovered that the panel yielded to a firm push. When closed, the portal must have been an effective sound barrier, for immediately noise came welling out.

Standing just inside, she looked around incredulously. "This is a bar?" She hadn't really believed in its existence until now.

"That's what it looks like, lady."

And indeed it did. And smelled. And sounded.

The man who had already spoken to Jory now told her that this was the only public bar the atoll had ever boasted. A sign, bearing the graphic of a pointing finger, informed her that the next saloon was a truly vast number of light-years in that direction. No doubt this establishment had a name, but maybe that was some kind of military secret. It vaguely surprised the journalist to find the place still open, serving men and women who evidently chose to spend their precious off-duty time this way; so far it had not been thought necessary to declare the place off-limits to the military. But it wasn't crowded; evidently few people had much time for relaxation.

Approaching the long, dark-wood counter lined with stools and rails, Jory caught the attention of one of the two human attendants who were being kept busy behind it, long enough to ask a question. She was told that the place would be closed when it seemed that attack was imminent.

Ordering the mildest drink she could think of that had any kick to it at all, she peered around through the dim, cavelike, noisy atmosphere, hazed with the output of several recreational appliances. And there he was, on the far side of the room, readily identifiable by his artificial eye and other features. That had to be the man she had come looking for.

Nash and a few associates or hangers-on, their numbers augmented by a cohort of stray civilians, were sitting drinking at a table. All she could hear of their talk at this distance was one man bemoaning the lack of other such establishments on Fifty Fifty.

Abandoning the bar stool she had appropriated only a moment earlier, Jory moved closer.

Her first close look at Nash's artificial eye reminded her of her robots' lenses. She wondered why a man would choose to wear a thing like that in his face, instead of one of the naturalistic models that were readily available. Drawing attention to oneself was of course the most obvious reason. Giving her new boss the benefit of the doubt, she supposed that possibly the design served some special medical or technical purpose.

Meanwhile Nash was getting a fair amount, but by no means all, of the other patrons' attention. He was achieving this, whether intentionally or not, by pounding a fist on the table, meanwhile shouting abuse at someone who was evidently another of his workers. The man, sitting three or four chairs away at the same large table, looked pale and disconcerted. He couldn't seem to find much to say in his own defense.

From the little Jory could overhear, he sounded like one who had determined to go home, retreat to Uhao - or even farther - on the next available ship. Jory stared at the man's face, which was familiar to her from a dozen popular entertainments. She recognized him immediately as one of Nash's stock company of actors.

Jory, slowly making her way closer, half expected the two men to come to blows, but apparently no one else did, and in a moment they were grumbling at each other in low voices again.

By this time the great man had transferred his anger from his former associate, and was cussing out the high politicians who had allowed the defenses of this base, and of the home-worlds in general, to deteriorate to such a state.

Someone, very likely one of the civilian bartenders grown weary of shouted arguments, had evidently called up entertainment, for now a kind of stirring, primitive-sounding music began to drown out the dispute. To Jory it sounded like an instrumental recording of some Templar battle chant.

Nash, as Jory quickly became convinced in the course of their first talk, was unlike anyone she had met before, part dramatist, part journalist, part other things that were harder to define. Now that she could get a closer look at his artificial eye, she thought that the design probably incorporated a camera function. Certainly it included a small light, which ought to be useful for close-up photography.

As she sat opposite her new boss in the bar he turned the light on from time to time, ostensibly to see her better. More likely, she thought, the real reason was to call attention to the device.

He had a glass before him at his table, but the contents appeared to be nothing stronger than beer.

He was red haired, middle-aged by contemporary standards for an Earthman, somewhere over the century mark but under one hundred and fifty. Hale and active, and somewhat above average height, a shade under two meters tall. Half out of uniform, wearing a civilian hat. Tunic and trousers rumpled. He was the most unmilitary-seeming man, Jory decided, that she could recall ever meeting in uniform.

The man worked hard at his job, Jory had heard, but he considered that a large part of his job was self-promotion. His current assignment, which he had lobbied hard to get, was the making of a kind of holographic documentary of the berserker attack, now considered inevitable, on the atoll.

Nash had a lieutenant commander's rank, and the appropriate insignia pinned on his collar or lapels, but as far as Jory could tell he currently had no duties or responsibilities other than those of an observer.

When she had finished introducing herself, and had accepted the chair that he stood to offer her with elaborate politeness (he was even a little taller than she had thought) she waited a decent interval, then asked, "I'm not quite clear, sir - are you here as a military officer, or a civilian?" She felt reasonably confident of the answer, but wanted to hear how he was going to put it.

"I'm in uniform," he growled at her. "I've got the right to wear it."

In fact everyone said that Colonel Shanga, who was commanding ground troops and machines on the atoll, was more than willing to have Nash performing the job of live observer when the attack came. The skills that had won the great director interstellar awards for holographic drama, famed for the live recording of complicated, sprawling scenes, ought to serve him well in live reporting of a battle.

She looked around, but there was no sign of Colonel Shanga in the bar. Or of any other officer with a rank as high as Nash's.

As Jory recalled, at least half of Nash's many fictional dramas took place on one frontier planet or another. They were not her favorite form of entertainment, but she had seen one or two on holostage and had mildly enjoyed them.

Nash stared at her, his face gradually brightening, as if he approved of what he saw. He gave the impression that he had forgotten about hiring this particular person, but now was glad to be reminded. More likely he pretended that was the situation. For a moment it seemed to Jory that he was on the verge of telling her to go home - or somewhere else.

But he needed her, or someone like her, for this job, or thought he did. She had been trained on, and was experienced in using, all the right equipment.

Her credentials, or resume, which she had sent to Nash, and which he perhaps dug out of a pocket and looked at now, showed that she could handle the equipment, the multiple linked recorders, about as well as anyone. Better than anyone else available.

He looked up. "Combat experience?"

"None." The answer came automatically, but as soon as she thought about it, she realized that it was technically incorrect. "Oh, well, unless you count being shot at on a transport." She named a distant sector of the settled corner of the Galaxy. "Some kind of astrogational error, and we found ourselves in the wrong place. At least one berserker took a couple of shots at us, and our captain didn't wait around to make sure how many there were."

Nash glowered at her for a moment without comment. Then he said, "Looks like the crew might be a little shorthanded when the great day comes." It was evident, from scraps of earlier conversation she'd overheard, that one or two of the people the great man had brought with him from Earth, as civilian employees, were getting cold feet at the prospect of a berserker attack, and had decided to take ship for home. He was scornful of such an attitude, which he considered unprofessional when such a marvelous opportunity beckoned.

"Good riddance to 'em, I say." Looking Jory up and down, he brightened somewhat. "Sure and it's glad I am to have your sweet self with me on this day." His artificial left eye extended its central lens slightly in her direction. The thing appeared to be just slightly loose in its fleshy socket, giving him a thoroughly repulsive appearance.

"And I'm glad to be here."

"You going to stick with me when the shooting starts?" The question came in a half-belligerent growl. Somehow he got the impression that he felt guilty about subjecting a woman to the perils of combat. Not that he had yet experienced them himself.

Jory needed no time at all to think that one over. "When the shooting starts I'm going to be here on Fifty Fifty, since that's what the job calls for." She sipped her drink. "As for being with you, I don't know what personal plans you've made for that occasion."

Someone down the bar, or at one of the adjoining tables, smothered a laugh.

Nash let go Jory's hand, turned his head and glared, then grumbled something. But when he turned back to Jory he did not seem seriously displeased.

Toward the end of the interview, he seized Jory's right hand in both of his, and pressed it fervently, as if sealing a bargain. His right eye was twinkling, his left behaving itself.

Presently she left the bar, and moved on to try to talk to Colonel Shanga. She found him a professional military man of middle age, like the majority of his troops a specialist in ground combat, and at the moment hard at work in his dug-in headquarters, too busy to give her more than a few words.