Cavanagh felt a hard knot in his stomach. The mental image of the gravely dignified Klyveress ci Yyatoor dying amid the wreckage of one of her worlds was an oddly distressing one. "Isn't there any way to stop it?"
"Not a chance," Bronski said flatly. "If it's a long-term campaign, we might be able to cut it short, but probably not. My point is that we need to consider Conquerors One to be a done deal, and to concentrate all our efforts on figuring out Conquerors Two. That's the one we might still have a chance of stopping. Understood?"
Cavanagh nodded. "Understood."
"All right." Turning back around, Bronski keyed in the drive. "The game starts here. Let's play."
22
"The sentries at Post Two first spotted it about half an hour ago," Takara told Holloway as the two of them climbed carefully down the sloping and treacherously tanglevined ground just outside the encampment's northern perimeter. "They thought at first that it was chasing something, or else that it had been injured. Nightbear Raille brought it down, took one look, and called it in."
The animal was lying half-propped up against a tree, one of its sharp-edged horns wedged into a leaf cluster. Three men-two Peacekeepers and a civilian-were standing in a silent group around it. "Okay, let's have it," Holloway said. "Doctor?"
"Nightbear was right, Colonel," the doctor said. "It's halucine disease."
"Terrific," Holloway said. "All right, give me the bottom line."
"It's bad enough," the doctor said. "But it's not as bad as it could be. The halucine virus is waterborne, but it's easily neutralized or filtered. Even if any gets through, it has only a mild effect on most humans." His lips compressed briefly as he gestured down toward the dead razorhorn. "Where it's going to hurt is the game animals."
Holloway shifted his attention to the tall black-haired civilian hunter. "Any chance of tracking it back to where it picked up the virus, Nightbear? Maybe we can wipe out this batch before it spreads."
"We can try, Colonel," Nightbear said, shaking his head. "But I don't think it'll help. The scent's already in the air."
"What scent?" Takara asked.
"The altered scent of a sick razorhorn," the doctor explained. "In individual animals, it attracts predators and warns other razorhorns away. But if you get enough of them giving off the same diseased smell, it'll drive everything out of the affected area. Predator and prey both."
And the wind was blowing hard from the northeast, sending the aroma straight across the civilian bivouac area. "How soon before that happens?"
"It's already happening," Nightbear said. "The hunters have already noticed a decline in their take."
"The trappers, too," the doctor added. "I checked their numbers for the past five days. It's not too bad so far, but it's definitely there. And definitely going to get worse."
Holloway grimaced. "How long before the epidemic runs its course?"
"The last halucine outbreak in this section of the continent drove the razorhorns out of about an eight-thousand-square-kilometer area for four months," the doctor said. "The virus itself disappeared after about two, but it took another two for the animals to wander their way back again."
Holloway chewed at the inside of his cheek. Four months. And it was only three months until the beginning of winter. "All right," he said. "Nightbear, you go to the leaders of the hunting and trapping teams and get them working double time-we need to take whatever we can before the game heads off for greener pastures. Doctor, I want you to try to analyze the altered scent from this animal, see if you can come up with some way to neutralize it or cover it up. And get some teams out to the nearby streams and find out where the contamination's coming from. We might as well kill off as much of the virus as we can find."
"Yes, sir," the doctor said. "Come on, gentlemen, let's get this animal up to the encampment."
Holloway gestured to Takara, and together they headed back up the slope. "This isn't going to help," Takara commented in a low voice as they climbed. "And I think you know it. Sooner or later we're going to have no choice but to pull up stakes and get out of here."
"You have no idea what you're saying, Fuji," Holloway said. "Move twenty-five thousand civilians at least fifty kilometers across mountainous territory? And under enemy observation and probable enemy fire?"
"I didn't say I liked the idea," Takara said soberly. "I hate to think how many people we're going to lose along the way. But the longer we postpone it, the bigger the risk that we'll hit winter without a food supply built up. We do that, and we'll be guaranteeing slow starvation for all of us."
Holloway looked up at the sentry post above them, part of the perimeter of the refuge they'd worked so hard to put together. "I should have insisted they all leave," he said. "Even if we'd had to throw them bodily onto the ships."
"There wasn't enough space on the ships for all of them, Cass," Takara said. "Even if every flight here before the Zhirrzh hit had gone out full. We'd still have had at least ten thousand left."
Holloway's comm buzzed. "Ten to one it's more good news," he said sourly, pulling out the comm and flicking it on. "Holloway."
"Crane, sir," Crane's voice came. "Spotter One just picked up an aerial explosion southwest of the base."
Holloway threw a frown at Takara. As far as they'd seen, the Zhirrzh didn't use explosives. "What kind of explosion?"
"Gasperi's running an analysis on the blast spectrum," Crane said. "But all indications are that it was either a missile or a spacecraft."
A cold chill ran up Holloway's back. A spacecraft? "Get that analysis done fast," he ordered. "We'll be right there."
"Commander Cavanagh?"
Pheylan started awake. "Yes, Max?"
"We've reached the Dorcas system, Commander," the computer said. "We'll be meshing in in approximately ten minutes."
"Thank you," Pheylan said, unstrapping his sleep webbing and rubbing at his eyes. "Do we have any idea where the Peacekeepers might have holed up?"
"We have no definite information," Max said. "However, I have a general focus area based on the vectors of the supply flights I observed while Dr. Cavanagh and I were waiting for Commander Masefield's Copperhead unit to arrive."
A display came on, showing the area around the main village. "There are numerous possible bivouac sites in the mountains to the east," Max went on. "If we can get within visual range of them, the Peacekeepers should be able to do the rest."
"Let's hope they're on their toes," Pheylan said, retrieving the survival pack he'd prepared from its locker and strapping it on. "And that the Zhirrzh aren't on theirs. You sure this mesh-in plan is going to work?"
"The theory itself is perfectly sound," Max said. "The distances themselves can be calculated precisely, and Dorcas's average atmospheric density at our chosen mesh-in altitude is well within safety margins. However, as is generally the case with real-world situations, there are likely to be variables the theory does not take into account."
"Translation: we're throwing dice on this," Pheylan said.
"Our odds are considerably better than that," Max assured him, sounding almost huffy. "I wouldn't have agreed to it if I thought it was overly dangerous."
"Loaded dice, then," Pheylan corrected dryly, pulling out a jump seat and beginning to strap himself in. "It's still a damn sight safer than meshing in where we'd have to run the gauntlet of Zhirrzh ships."
"We can still abort and go elsewhere," Max reminded him. "We have sufficient fuel to go anywhere in the Commonwealth."
"Convince me my family's safely off Dorcas and you've got a deal." Pheylan checked his restraints and nodded. "Ready. Give me a countdown."
The minutes passed, and soon it was time. Pheylan braced himself, watching the displays as Max's countdown ran to zero-
He was prepared for the standard jolt that always seemed to accompany mesh-in while riding in a small craft. He was not prepared for the thunderous blast that slammed the fueler back like a toy and threw him hard against his restraints. "Max!" he shouted over
the sudden pummeling.
"Under control," Max called back. On the status board a dozen warning lights flashed red; returned to green or amber as Max rerouted systems or shut them down. "A quantum hysteresis in the core caused mesh-in to be eighty point six meters lower into the atmosphere than planned. The turbulence itself is due to conduction resonance with the planetary magnetic field and is normal for this procedure."
"Terrific," Pheylan muttered, getting a grip on his restraints with one hand and keying for a sensor scan of the area with the other. The whole object of this exercise had been to mesh in beneath the Zhirrzh blockade ships. If that hadn't worked, the ride was likely to get a whole lot rougher.
He stiffened. There was one now, above and east of him: the distinctive linked-hexagon configuration of a Zhirrzh ship. "Got one," he snapped.
"I have it," Max confirmed. "Bearing one-one-two by six-four-one, distance four hundred eighty-two kilometers."
Pheylan braced himself. This wasn't going to be fun, but with an enemy ship this close they had no choice. "Drop us," he ordered. "Straight down and in."
"Acknowledged."
For an agonizing heartbeat nothing happened. Pheylan stared at the distant Zhirrzh warship, waiting for the flashes of laser light that would mean he'd been spotted and was under attack. The linked hexagons weren't much more than a bumpy blur at this distance, but he could imagine it rotating lazily around to bring its weapons to bear....
Then, with a jolt that again crushed him against his restraints, the fueler fired a burst directly along their vector, slowing them down and interrupting the rhythm of the resonant turbulence.
And with its forward momentum cut abruptly in half, the fueler plunged down toward the ground six hundred klicks below.
Pheylan swallowed hard.I meant to do that, he reminded himself tautly, his full attention still on the Zhirrzh ship. So far it hadn't reacted, but any surprise at his maneuver wouldn't last long. The fueler had to be hidden behind a thick shield of atmosphere before they recovered and started firing.
The trick being to get to safety under that shield without building up so much downward speed that they couldn't stop at all.
They were starting to get into real atmosphere now, and he could hear the faint friction whine beginning to build up along the outer hull. The Zhirrzh ship still hadn't reacted, and for the first time Pheylan risked taking a look at the displays showing the view beneath them.
It wasn't encouraging. There was a solid floor of clouds below, completely masking the terrain. Worse, straight ahead along their flight path he could see the telltale swirl of a massive tropical hurricane. The weather would be churning down there. "Max, do you know where we are?"
"I have a rough idea," the computer said. "Based on the elapsed time since our last visit, coupled with Dorcas's listed rotational data, I believe us to be approximately nine thousand four hundred kilometers southwest of the mountains where we expect to find the Peacekeeper forces."
Pheylan glanced at the vector-data display, did a quick mental calculation. "We're going to need some more forward momentum," he said.
"Confirmed," Max said. "But the atmosphere above us is still too thin for proper laser protection. I'd prefer to wait until we were no higher than sixty kilometers before leveling into horizontal flight."
Pheylan pursed his lips. Flying this crate like an aircar would burn fuel at a prodigious rate, which would mean dipping into the supply he'd been hoping to deliver to Colonel Holloway. But less fuel was better than no fuel at all, which was what they'd get if he was shot down. "Fine," he said. "But no lower than sixty klicks."
"Yes, Commander."
The screeching from the outer hull was still increasing, and Pheylan could now feel a slight rise in temperature of the air around him. Still the Zhirrzh ship falling rapidly away above him hadn't reacted. Could they have missed seeing him entirely? "Max, can we get any readings on that Zhirrzh ship up there?" he asked.
"He's out of the range of the fueler's passive sensors," Max said. "Shall I try the active sensors?"
Pheylan felt his stomach tighten, remembering how the Zhirrzh ships after theJutland battle had used the honeycomb escape pods' emergency radio beacons to lock in their lasers. The active sensors used similar electromagnetic wavelengths. "Better not," he said. "No other enemy ships or vehicles out there?"
"None that I can detect."
Pheylan began to breathe a little easier. Maybe-just maybe-they'd gotten away with this.
They reached the sixty-klick mark, and Pheylan began to feel pressure against his chest as Max used the edge-effect airfoils to ease the fueler into more or less horizontal flight. "We've leveled off at fifteen kilometers," Max reported a few minutes later. "What speed shall I maintain?"
Pheylan took a quick look at the displays. The combination of the curving descent plus their original insertion vector had cut the distance to the Peacekeeper mountains to a little over five thousand klicks. A long four and a half hours away if they kept it subsonic; but considering that the fueler hadn't been designed for extended atmospheric flight, going supersonic would probably be begging for trouble. "Keep it below Mach 1, but as close as you can without getting into turbulence problems," he told the computer. "And drop our altitude another five klicks-edge-effect airfoils work better in denser air."
"Acknowledged.
Pheylan spent the first hour watching the external displays, shifting his attention from one to the next, waiting tensely for signs of the pursuit or intercept. He had no idea whether the Zhirrzh presence here was confined to a relatively small beachhead or whether they'd spread out over half the hemisphere by now; but wherever they were, eventually they'd have to show up. The closer he was able to get to the Peacekeeper enclave, the better his chances of getting air or ground support from them.
Assuming, of course, that the Zhirrzh hadn't already destroyed them.
No enemy aircraft showed up during the second hour either, but much of Pheylan's attention during that time was distracted by the necessity of getting the fueler past an impressively long line of thunderstorm cells. Possibly part of the same system that included the hurricane he'd spotted on their way in, the storms lay scattered across his path like nature's own aerial land mines. The fueler could have lifted over them, but with their fuel level already dropping faster than Pheylan liked, he opted instead to let Max thread them between the thunderheads. Fortunately, the computer was up to the task, and they made it with little more than occasional buffeting to mark their passage.
After that the flight settled down into something almost routine. It was becoming clear that the Zhirrzh hadn't overextended themselves there-though, to be fair, Pheylan could remember nothing in the Dorcas catalog that would offer any military incentives for an invader. If they were still confined to the areas the Commonwealth colonists had carved out-and if that blockade ship up there really hadn't spotted him-there was a fair chance he could at least get into communication range of the Peacekeepers before he was spotted.
They were about an hour and a little under eleven hundred klicks out from their target mountains when the first signs of trouble appeared.
It started as a faint sizzling sound, like meat on an open-fire grill in the distance, accompanied by a slight drooping of the fueler's starboard side. "Max?" Pheylan asked, frowning at the status board. The whole line of lights under the AIRFOIL heading had begun to flicker uncertainly between green and red.
"The airfoils are losing charge capacity," Max said. "I'm attempting to degauss and restart them, one at a time."
The fueler dipped again, this time to port, this time noticeably deeper. "How long does the procedure take?"
"In a maintenance shop it would normally take three hours," Max said. "There are shortcuts, though, for emergencies. None of them recommended, I might add, but under the circumstances I don't think we have many other options."
"Not many, no," Pheylan agreed tightly, checking the location display. They were still well out of the lin
e-of-sight range they'd need to signal Holloway with either the fueler's laser or radio. And considering how and where they'd meshed in, there was a good chance the Peacekeepers didn't even know they were there. "We need to find a way to signal Holloway before we go down. What's the best in-atmosphere range we can get out of our Shrike missiles?"
"That number isn't listed in the specifications," Max said. "From this altitude, launched at optimum angle, I estimate they have a range of approximately six hundred eighty kilometers."
Pheylan grimaced. Not nearly far enough to be seen from mountains a thousand klicks away. "How much farther can we get before the airfoils fail completely?"
"Unknown," Max said. "I estimate a probability of point five that we can go another two to three hundred kilometers before we have to put down. But we'll be losing altitude before then."