“I’m sorry I was so hard on you so many times, old chap. But you were such a damnably good target.”

  “A librarian.” Hawkins flung sand toward the rippling sea. “And the rest of us prize suckers.”

  “I said I was sorry. I can’t be anything else.”

  “Hell.” Hawkins looked at the ground. “Forget it. You’re a damn good checkers player. Damn good.”

  Heath sighed. “It was fun while it lasted, don’t you know.”

  “So was this, but it is over.” Iranaputra turned to regard the sea. “I did not think when I agreed to help out the kitchen supervisor with a recalcitrant piece of machinery that it would lead to this.”

  “The Chakans.” Hawkins eyed the Autothor. “I wonder if the bastards mean what they say when they claim they’ll let us go.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Heath. “We’ve no choice.”

  “Ah,” the Autothor blurted unexpectedly, “so that’s it!” Everyone flinched as it soared ceilingward, emitting a miniature sonic boom and exploding in size until it had tripled, quadrupled its dimensions. As those below gaped, its color deepened, becoming a richer, purer shade of blue, until it had taken on the aspect of a turquoise sun dominating the pseudo-sky overhead. The perpetual sunset over the artificial ocean went from pink and gold to blue and gold while the azure effulgence turned the grains of emerald sand underfoot an exquisite blue-green, so that the beach seemed suddenly paved with a billion tiny aquamarines.

  Gelmann slid down her Autothor-manufactured sunshades while her companions scrambled to slip their own in place. “Well, aren’t you the sudden show-off. What’s going on?”

  The now massive, throbbing blue ellipse blazed ebulliently. “I have just reintegrated a critical portion of memory. It is not precisely a revelation, but temporality has become demonstrably less confusing!”

  “Wow,” Hawkins muttered diffidently. “I’m so excited.”

  The Autothor spun madly, throwing off splinters of galvanic turquoise. “It is, it is! I am, I am!”

  Shimoda had to use a hand to shield his eyes in spite of the protection afforded by his shades. “Am what?” he shouted skyward.

  “I remember my designer’s purpose. I recall what I was built for. I remember what I am.”

  “We’re so pleased for you,” the sardonic Hawkins yelled. “But is it going to do us any good?”

  “I think so.” Still whirling wildly, the blue ellipse plummeted exuberantly toward the water. Its voice had fallen an octave. “I am … a warship! See?”

  The holomagic image reappeared. Once again they saw the four Chaka craft hovering in formation alongside the bulk of the Drex vessel. One launched something from its underside. An intense beam of coherent purplish light erupted from a blister in the artifact’s side. It intercepted the launched object, which promptly exploded in a brief but intense fireball.

  “That is very interesting.” Iranaputra was talking as much to himself as to his friends. “A laser of such amplitude is of course impossible. So it cannot be a laser.”

  The serving robot was squatting on its treads. All four arms were busily engaged in the construction of an impressively detailed sand castle. “Obviously it’s beyond your comprehension. As all of this is.”

  “I have succeeded in reactivating a small portion of my armory,” the Autothor proclaimed. “I shall now attempt to dissuade the impolite from additional assaults upon our person.”

  Instantly space outside the Drex vessel was filled with multiple types of energy beam, neutron-compacted explosives, hot plasma, shaped charges traveling just below tachyspeed, molecular bond disrupters, and for good measure, a half dozen spatially circumscribed thermonuclear implosion bombs. Subsequent to this understated overreaction and as soon as their watering eyes managed to refocus, Iranaputra and his companions could see that the four Chakan hostiles which had been threatening them a moment earlier had been reduced to a few drifting clouds of hot metallic gas, several amorphous blobs of rapidly cooling metal, and two cartons of service regulation Chakan military underwear which had perversely managed to survive the otherwise utter annihilation.

  “Gee,” Gelmann murmured into the stunned silence which followed the ravening devastation, “I don’t think they’ll be bothering us anymore, I shouldn’t need to point out.”

  “A most impressive demonstration,” Heath agreed.

  The Autothor contracted as it descended toward them, while maintaining its new, more intense coloration. “I didn’t intend quite so extreme a reaction. I merely wanted to warn them.”

  “At this point I think an apology would be moot,” Hawkins murmured. “Chalk it down to experience.”

  “I shall. I feel less confused already.”

  “I wonder,” said Shimoda thoughtfully, “what kind of enemy these Drex needed a ship like this to confront?”

  “I don’t know.” The Autothor pitched slightly. “That portion of my memory has not resurfaced within my cortex. I know only that I was not used. Instead I was constructed in secret and then hidden on the most out-of-the-way, backward, meaningless little world my designers could locate.”

  “How flattering,” Hawkins noted.

  “Then what happened?” Shimoda asked curiously.

  “As I said, I don’t know. They did not return, or activate me from a distance. Perhaps I was simply forgotten.”

  “These Drex would have to have one helluva rotten memory to forget about something like you,” Hawkins commented. “Something must’ve happened. Maybe this mysterious enemy of theirs got the upper hand.”

  “We’ll probably never know,” said Shimoda.

  “If we are lucky.” Iranaputra shuddered slightly.

  XIV

  The First Federal Federation fleet of over a hundred ships had emerged from tachyspace halfway between Earth and Luna in a brilliantly organized quindratic, twenty vessels to a position, just in time to witness the utter obliteration of the Chakan task force by a variety of alien weaponry breathtaking in its thoroughness and implication. The fleet’s analysts barely had time to steady their stomachs before they set to work in a hasty attempt to explicate the energies involved.

  The emotions of the fleet’s officers were in a state of controlled turmoil. They had come prepared to deal with an oversize but innocuous artifact of possible Keiretsu design inhabited by five elderly humans of undistinguished lineage and achievement. Instead they found themselves confronting a highly active vessel larger than anything humankind had ever built, equipped with energized weapons systems whose limits could only be imagined and whose builders self-evidently did not hail from Ronin, Shintaro, or any of the Keiretsu worlds.

  Chakans were reputable fighters known for the simplicity of their tactics and sophistication of their equipment, yet a few moments of apocalyptic alien fury had obliterated ships and soldiers as thoroughly as moths in a volcano.

  Admiral Sobran was considering this as his chief battle engineer handed him a printout. She had her visionup visor shoved back atop her head and there was disbelief in her expression.

  “You’re not gonna believe this, sir.”

  “After what I just saw I’ll believe anything, Major.” He took the plastic sheet, read.

  He was wrong.

  “This has got to be a mistake.” Beneath thick white brows, his eyes continued to roam over the words and figures.

  “That’s what we thought, sir, but we’ve got confirmation already from the battle centers on board the Gettysburg and the Matamoros.”

  “I know the damn thing’s big.” The admiral waved a hand in the direction of the room-sized holomag that occupied the center of the command dome, wherein drifted a representation of a portion of the moon’s surface as well as the glistening, silvery cathedral-shape of the alien craft. “But this kind of energy is inconceivable. It’s just a ship like ours. Not an ambulating nova.”

  “According to the readouts, its hypothesized ultimate output of destructive energy falls somewhere in between, sir.”

  Sobran frowned. “Open-ended parameters of such scale could be regarded as less than helpful to someone in my present position, Major.”

  The engineer essayed a wan smile. “I know that, sir. We’re working to narrow them as rapidly as possible.”

  Communications demanded his attention. “Admiral, we’ve picked up a major tachyspace disturbance well beyond the Sol magnetosphere. Coordinates to follow. Preliminary particle-wave patterns point to the approach of a large number of vessels.”

  “Well, that’s not unexpected,” Sobran muttered half to himself. “Any idea where they’re from?”

  “We’re being mirror-scanned,” his communications people informed him. “Obviously they know we’re here. Wave patterns are consistent with traditional Keiretsu formations.”

  The federation admiral considered the situation phlegmatically. He’d hoped to have a little more time to prepare prior to the arrival of another major force. Clearly that was not to be. On the other hand, he reminded himself, he had infinitely more time remaining to him than did the Chakans. Everything, as the ancient saying went, was relative.

  He smiled to himself. Perhaps the Keiretsu would emerge from tachyspace and head straight for the artifact. That would be interesting. Also unlikely. The Keiretsu captains would take careful stock of the situation and caucus before moving. If anything, their approach would be more deliberate than his own.

  “Any idea how many?” he inquired of Spatial Analysis.

  “Too early to tell, sir,” came the reply. “However, the disturbance is consistent with numbers roughly approximate to our own.”

  Sobran nodded. The Keiretsu could put together a force of that magnitude on short notice, just as the Federals had. He gained some satisfaction from the knowledge that the Keis would be surprised to learn they had been beaten to Sol. They didn’t like to be second.

  Nevertheless, Admiral Hiroshigi was the picture of courtesy when his image finally appeared on the flagship’s vid. Sobran knew his counterpart by reputation. Hiroshigi was tall and downright skinny, rather like a scarecrow constantly bemoaning a shortage of fresh stuffing. His long face was further lengthened by a perpetually mournful expression that would not change even while he was apologetically cutting an opponent to pieces. Behind that homey visage lay the mind of a superb tactician. He would no more launch a blind attack on the artifact than Sobran would.

  The Keiretsu fleet emerged from tachyspace in the vicinity of Mars and proceeded Earthward at a studious clip, to take up a position equivalent to that of the Federals but a judicious distance away. There were now more than two hundred warships of varying size and destructive capability occupying the region between the Homeworld and its moon. Their presence vexed Earth Orbital Operations no end.

  “Good day to you, Admiral Sobran,” Hiroshigi said.

  “Hapimix to you too, Hiro.” Sobran gave his equal a wide smile.

  Hiroshigi was so nervous he passed over the usual formalities. “We recorded the deployment of destructive energies at an unreasonable distance. I am concerned.”

  “Wasn’t us. Chakans got here before us. Four ships. You know the Chakans. They went right after the artifact. It is an alien artifact, by the way. If you’ve been monitoring what’s been happening here, you should be convinced of that now. I know I am.”

  “What happened?”

  “The artifact responded.”

  Hiroshigi was silent for a moment. “I see.”

  Sobran was giving away nothing the Keiretsu admiral wouldn’t be able to find out for himself in short order. Besides, the Federals and the Keis weren’t at war. Both fleets had been hastily assembled and sent screaming through tachyspace toward Earth in hopes of securing eventual commercial advantage, not conquest. Hopefully things wouldn’t get out of hand. Sobran intended to do his utmost to ensure they would not, and he was confident Hiroshigi felt the same way.

  His counterpart conversed with someone out of view, then readdressed a pickup. “I am informed that the amount of energy expended was far beyond that needed to interdict a mere four ships.”

  “No kidding. Tell that to the artifact.”

  “We have heard that the artifact communicates with five elderly humans it has taken on board. I must confess that originally this was thought to be part of some elaborate Federal ploy. In light of recent discoveries this clearly is not so.”

  “We thought the same of you.”

  “What of this mysterious five?”

  “We’ve had no contact with the artifact yet.” Sobran smiled dourly. “The nature of its sole response to date leaves me feeling kind of apprehensive. You could move in and try to contact it. We know that the Chakans did. I’d be happy to give you their former coordinates.”

  “Thank you.” Hiroshigi smiled thinly. “We will maintain our present position while we consider how best to proceed.”

  Sobran’s battle engineer gestured for him to bend over, out of pickup range. “We have a third fleet approaching, sir. Much smaller. Ten to twenty vessels maximum. From the nature of their scanning we believe them to be Candombleans.”

  The admiral nodded absently. No doubt the Eeck would soon arrive in strength, as would the Victoria League and anyone else with a ship or two to spare. They didn’t worry him. Hiroshigi was the one who mattered here.

  “We intend to do the same,” Sobran informed his opposite number as he straightened in his chair. “Thus far the artifact has only reacted defensively, but we have no idea of what its actual capabilities may be. Until the Chakans arrived no one even knew it was armed. Given the extent of the demonstration we witnessed, I don’t want to be the one to test its limits.”

  “Nor I,” Hiroshigi admitted.

  “Therefore, I propose temporary cooperation: sharing of data, prior notification of movements, and so on. It might prevent an anxious moment.”

  Hiroshigi consulted briefly off-pickup, nodded when he reappeared. “It is agreed.”

  “Good. The appearance of the FFF and the Keiretsu working together should be enough to forestall any hasty maneuvers on the part of other league forces. No one wants to provoke this thing.”

  “Excuse me, sir.” His battle engineer had been listening intently to the broadcast unit fitted to her right ear. “We have a problem.”

  Sobran frowned irritably and excused himself from Hiroshigi’s view. “What?”

  The battle engineer hesitated. “It seems that all the entertainment systems on board have self-activated and are broadcasting twentieth-century music at maximum volume.”

  The admiral was not pleased. “Is that any reason for interrupting an upper-level interfleet conference?”

  “It’s not just the flagship, sir. The same thing is happening on every other ship in the fleet.”

  Sobran blinked. “Interesting coincidence.”

  “That’s not all, sir. All automatic clothes washing and cleaning facilities have been activated, even though I’m told nearly all are empty.”

  Before the admiral could reply a junior engineer appeared at the base of the command chair. “Sir, we have a life-support problem. All centrally controlled toilets are flushing repeatedly and we can’t get Biocon to stop it. If it continues, ship recycling systems will be severely extended.”

  “Admiral Sobran?”

  He turned back to the screen. Hiroshigi’s expression had not changed. “Sorry. We have some on-board glitches.”

  “Ah, you too?” The Keiretsu commander had developed a slight tic above his left eye. “Ours commenced the instant we emerged from tachyspace. Our engineers are very puzzled. The AI-related problems that have been troubling everyone, you know.”

  “I certainly do.” Another junior engineer had arrived, out of breath and anxious. “I’m afraid I have to ask you to excuse me again, Hiro.”

  The Kei nodded accommodatingly. “I understand.” He turned away. “It appears I also have interruptions to deal with.”

  Sobran leaned over and sighed heavily. “What is it this time? Food preparation? Someone’s battle visor playing erovids? Chemical synthesization turning out candy instead of medicinals?”

  “No, sir. It’s the shuttles.”

  “What about the shuttles?”

  “They’re launching, sir! Not only from the flagship but from every vessel in the fleet. And we can’t stop them.”

  Sobran considered. There were two dozen of the small, self-contained craft aboard, able to transport personnel between ships or from orbit to surface, or to evacuate the crew in case of battle damage or other emergency. And each one of them had an AI interface.

  “Shut ’em down.”

  “We can’t, sir. We tried, but as you know they’re all independently powered and guided. Standard safety redundancy factor.” She took a deep breath. “The Lincoln and the Red Cloud have already lost all their shuttle capacity.” She went quiet for a moment, listening to her earpiece. “There go two more of our own.”

  “Where?” Sobran demanded to know, wondering just when it was that he’d lost control and exactly what the hell was going on. “Where are they going?” Everyone within earshot had turned from their console or station to listen and stare.

  “Toward the artifact, sir,” the junior engineer finally divulged. “They’re all roaring pell-mell toward the artifact. And they’re doing something else.”

  “What else? What more could they do?” Sobran had unpleasant visions of trying to conduct an operation with an evacuation capacity of zero.

  “I’m not sure, sir. Just a moment …” She listened again, then gazed up at him. “They’re broadcasting, sir. Slightly different language, but similar in content. Apparently they’re praying.”

  The admiral straightened in his chair. Deep in thought, he turned back toward his pickup, his eyes returning to the vid. Hiroshigi was barely visible as he bobbed in and out of view. Apparently he was yelling at someone below the pickup’s effective range. After a few moments of this disorganized activity the vid simply went blank. No formal tendering of dissolution, no friendly farewells, no diplomatic goodbyes; nothing. It was very un-Kei.