Geary sat back, resting his chin on one fist as he thought. “If this is right, it reinforces the idea that the Dancers think they know exactly what they’re doing to reach their goal. To complete the pattern they desire. But we still don’t know what that goal is, and we don’t know what specific things they are planning to get us to do what they need. Not knowing what they want means we might react to their prodding in a way they haven’t predicted and don’t expect. A way that might be disastrous.”

  The others around the table nodded. “We have to find out more of what their goal is,” Charban said. “But the one thing they’ve made clear is that they won’t tell us that.”

  “It would change the outcome,” Lieutenant Jamenson said. “Knowing that would alter our actions.”

  “But,” Geary said, “they inadvertently told us some important things when they answered Dr. Cresida’s questions. Maybe if we ask more questions about things that aren’t about the Dancers’ goals, that aren’t specifically about them as a species, they’ll tell us more that indirectly helps us understand them and what they want.”

  “That is a surprisingly good suggestion,” Dr. Cresida said.

  “You’re welcome,” Geary said. “Your contributions have been invaluable, Doctor. We owe you a great deal for a major insight into how the Dancers think.”

  “It’s still a theory,” Dr. Cresida said. “Umm . . . you’re welcome.”

  “Do you have any suggestions for what to do next?” Charban asked her.

  “The most important thing to do would probably involve a fatal accident involving Dr. Macadams,” Cresida said. “He’s a rigid, ideological roadblock to progress in dealing with the Dancers.”

  “A fatal accident?” Geary asked, too surprised to look shocked.

  “Hasn’t that option occurred to you?”

  “I admit that it has a few times, but I’m a little surprised to hear it coming from you.”

  “I am experienced in the field of academics,” Dr. Cresida said. “Competition among professors can be brutal. Are you saying you couldn’t arrange it?”

  “Well . . .”

  “I’m joking,” Dr. Cresida said with another tiny smile.

  “Joking or not,” Geary said, “I have reason to believe Dr. Macadams has already encountered some difficulties of his own. He may not be as big a roadblock anymore.”

  “He’s not dead, though?” General Charban asked, sounding disappointed.

  “Probably not,” Geary said. “Dr. Cresida, will you continue to work with the others here on trying to understand the Dancers?” She wasn’t, strictly speaking, under his command. He couldn’t order her to do anything unless it pertained to the safety of others.

  To his relief, Dr. Cresida nodded.

  “This problem intrigues me,” she said. “I am willing to work with my colleagues to try to develop more questions aimed at gaining indirect knowledge of the Dancers.”

  “Colleagues?” John Senn grinned. “I’m not used to hearing that word. Am I really a colleague?”

  “Yes,” Cresida said. “Even though you are but an historian. ‘A friend should bear their friend’s infirmities.’ ”

  Lieutenant Jamenson gazed at her in astonishment. “You’re quoting Shakespeare?”

  “ ‘I contain multitudes,’ ” Dr. Cresida said, her expression totally serious.

  With time closing down to when they’d leave the hypernet, Geary and Desjani left the others to continue the discussion. As they walked down the passageway Tanya suddenly spoke up, her voice wistful. “There were times in there where Dr. Cresida felt more like her sister, Jaylen. She’s a lot easier to like when that happens.”

  “I never had a chance to get to know Jaylen Cresida all that well,” Geary said.

  “It’s your loss, believe me. Jaylen was interested in everything. And when you were around her that sort of rubbed off a bit, and you found yourself looking up stuff like indigenous peoples’ mythologies back on Old Earth. I wonder what she and Dr. Cresida were like as girls. They probably sat around discussing Shakespeare and . . . what was that guy’s name . . . Einstein.” Desjani looked back toward the conference room. “How do you suppose she figured out that bit about the Dancers? Because it’s great. I freely admit that. But how is it she can understand intelligent aliens better than our experts?”

  “Maybe because she’s not an expert,” Geary said, giving a sidelong look at one portion of bulkhead as they passed. The spots damaged by Desjani’s shots at the intruder in a stealth suit had all been repaired, leaving no sign of the event. Ensign Duellos had said she’d had no advance knowledge that an assassin would target him. He desperately wanted to believe that. “I admit to wondering how humanity had developed experts on intelligent aliens when we just confirmed their existence a few years ago. But Dr. Cresida wasn’t trained in that, so she came into this without any preconceived theories, or models, she might say. All she wanted was the Dancers’ answers to some questions in quantum mechanics. But she was well-rounded enough to spot a lot more in the answers than the Dancers may have intended.”

  “She was right about Macadams, too,” Desjani conceded. “I’m glad you think he’s being sidelined, and I’d love to hear what you did to bring that about. Please don’t claim you know nothing about it. But since he’s still a threat in being I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding volunteers if you want to bring about that fatal accident for him.”

  “Very funny. As soon as we leave the hypernet I need to talk to Ambassador Rycerz about this.”

  “Good idea,” Desjani said, nodding to Master Chief Gioninni as he came down the passageway before putting two fingers to her eyes and pointing them at the master chief. Gioninni affected an expression of affronted innocence as he passed them. “Ambassador Rycerz will probably enthusiastically endorse the fatal accident idea for Macadams.”

  “Tanya . . .”

  “Yes, Admiral. I’ll make sure comms is ready to link you to Boundless on a secure circuit as soon as we drop out of jump. Oh, Master Chief!”

  Gioninni turned and snapped a brisk salute. “Yes, Captain?”

  “If you wanted to hide something and you had your choice of any type of ship in the fleet to hide it on, which type would you pick?”

  “Captain!” Master Chief Gioninni feigned bafflement at the question. “Why would I—?”

  “Just assume you want to, Master Chief,” Desjani said. “What type of ship?”

  “A battleship, of course,” Gioninni said. “Really big. Lots of compartments, lots of storage. Speaking purely theoretically, you understand, Captain.”

  “I do,” Desjani said. “Thank you, Master Chief.” As a relieved Gioninni continued on his way, she looked at Geary. “We’ve been telling everybody to search Boundless.”

  “Which is also big and full of compartments and storage,” Geary said. “It never occurred to us to search any of the battleships.” He shook his head. “But I don’t know how to do that without tipping off the wrong people.”

  “No,” Desjani conceded. “Anything . . . inappropriate . . . would be hidden from a routine inspection. But, like you said, it never occurred to us that we might be wrong to focus on Boundless.” She paused, frowning. “And that makes me wonder about one other thing.” Desjani glanced backward again toward the compartment holding the alien-modified transmitter. “When Dr. Cresida said the Dancers saw the universe in a way that was wrong, she said they might not have any choice. That they saw it in the way they had to see it.”

  “Right,” Geary said. “And?”

  “That implies we do the same thing. Like with Boundless and our battleships. What is it humans have to see when we look at the universe, things that other species might look at and wonder how we could get it so wrong? And just like humans can see and accept quantum uncertainty where the Dancers can’t, what might the Dancers be seeing that we’re not?”

  He inhaled sharply as the implications hit him. “That’s a very good and a very disturbing question. I wonder why Dr. Cresida didn’t think of it?”

  “I think she did,” Desjani said. “But she avoided bringing it up because saying that might have made us defensively question her other ideas. Dr. Cresida might not seem like she understands people, but when it comes to getting them to think, she knows what she’s doing.” Tanya’s lips twisted in a self-mocking smile. “Maybe that’s also what sentient species do. We learn how to get other members of our species to do things we want.”

  “That’s not something I was ever very good at,” Geary said.

  “Is that what you think?” She shook her head, still smiling. “At least you know how to listen to those better at it than you, then.”

  * * *

  AN hour later the fleet left the Dancer hypernet. Unlike leaving jump, which temporarily scrambled human brains, leaving the hypernet was not simply painless but impossible to feel. One moment the fleet’s displays showed literally nothing outside the ships, and the next the stars flared brightly all around.

  “Wherever they took us looks big,” Desjani commented, her eyes on her display.

  Geary nodded wordlessly as he also watched data rapidly appearing. The first thing he took note of was how many Dancer ships were near the hypernet gate and thus near his fleet. He’d have to pay particular attention from now on to any Dancers within weapons range of any of his battleships. But the closest Dancer ships were the four that had escorted them here through the Dancer hypernet, and those were already accelerating onto a new vector, fortuitously opening the distance between themselves and the human ships.

  The second thing was something usually far down the priority list when arriving in a new star system, which was checking the status updates pouring in from his own ships to show any internal events or changes during the transit. To his relief, Warspite reported no significant events. Ensign Duellos was still all right.

  Reassured on both of those counts, Geary turned his attention to this star system. The information being compiled by the fleet’s sensors supported the hope that this would be an important Dancer-controlled star system. The hypernet gate they’d arrived at was, as usual for such gates, positioned a good distance from the star, four and a half light hours out in this case. Twelve planets, two of them habitable, though one was at extremes for humanlike life-forms, and hundreds of orbiting facilities ranging from city-sized to smaller factories and even smaller single-use habitats. Hundreds of ships wove their ways between worlds and orbiting facilities, or were moving from or toward the three jump points the star system held.

  There was too little known about the Dancers to be able to extrapolate a firm number from all of that, but the fleet’s systems offered up a guess. “Population at least five billion,” Geary said. “If this isn’t the Dancers’ capital, it’s something close to that in importance. Ambassador Rycerz must be very happy.” Reminded by that, he touched his controls to send the ambassador the summary he’d thrown together of what Dr. Cresida had suggested about how the Dancers thought.

  He still hadn’t decided how, or how much, he’d tell the ambassador about the conspiracy within the fleet.

  An alert sounded as the sensors keyed on something unexpected. A different group of spaceships was coming into view of the fleet from where it was orbiting one of the star system’s gas giant worlds. “Taon?”

  “Looks like it,” Desjani said. “Six of them. All of them the smaller ones about the size of our light cruisers.”

  “Should we try to send them a message again?” Geary asked, speaking as much to himself as to Desjani.

  “Isn’t that the ambassador’s call, Admiral?”

  “It is.”

  A call from General Charban came in. “Admiral, the Dancer ships with us have sent us a message requesting that we follow them in-system.”

  “Tell them we’ll be happy to do so,” Geary said, relieved to hear that the fleet wouldn’t again be stuck in a distant orbit while the Dancers decided what to do with them. “As soon as they steady on a vector, we’ll match it.”

  Shortly thereafter, Geary ordered the fleet to turn “starboard” toward the star, and slightly “up” toward the plane in which the planet’s stars orbited. The Dancers were leading them on a vector that formed a broad arc swooping through the star system until it intersected in its orbit the Dancer-inhabited planet seven and a half light minutes from the star. The Dancer ships escorting them continued moving at point zero eight light speed, so Geary kept his ships at that velocity as well, not trying to close the distance opened by the Dancers’ earlier maneuvers. No one should notice or comment on that since protocol for being escorted by alien spacecraft hadn’t exactly been firmed up yet.

  “On this vector it will be fifty-seven hours until we reach the planet,” Lieutenant Castries reported.

  Roughly two and a half days. Two and a half days to wonder when and how the conspirators would act. And to wonder how many Dancer ships would be passing near whatever orbit the four escorting ships led Geary’s fleet to.

  With nothing left to do on the bridge, Geary headed for his stateroom. To his surprise, Desjani followed. It wasn’t like her to leave the bridge so soon after arriving in a new star system. “What’s happening?”

  “Nothing, yet,” she said. “I hate giving the other guy the initiative. Waiting to see what they’ll do.”

  “Me, too,” Geary said. “But what else can we do?”

  “I talked to someone about that,” Desjani said. She looked behind her.

  Kommodor Bradamont had also been on the bridge of Dauntless for the arrival here, and now was following Geary and Desjani at a discreet distance. “You told her?” Geary said, surprised. “Why didn’t you ask me first?”

  “I used my initiative while you were busy with other things,” Desjani said.

  Frowning, unhappy at having Bradamont brought into this without his approval beforehand, Geary led the way into his stateroom.

  Before he could say anything, Desjani nodded to Bradamont. “Tell him, Honore.”

  “First of all, Admiral,” Bradamont said, “thank you for trusting me with this information. I’m glad that you realize I am still loyal to the best interests of the Alliance.”

  Geary managed not to shoot a glare at Desjani for not letting him know that Bradamont thought he’d agreed to this. “This is a very difficult situation,” he finally said.

  “I think I can help,” Kommodor Bradamont said.

  Mentally climbing down off his high horse, Geary gestured to a seat. “Please do so.”

  He and Bradamont sat facing each other, while Tanya Desjani chose to remain standing. “I guess this does feel like something from a drama about Syndics,” Geary said.

  “More than you realize,” Bradamont replied. “Unless the Alliance fleet has changed a great deal since I left it, odds are your errant battleship commanders are a minority among the battleships. So unless they plan to martyr themselves as part of starting a war with the Dancers, they’ll want to have plausible cover for their actions and a means to not just neutralize the other battleships but to bring in with them commanders who would not knowingly commit actions contrary to your orders.”

  “Knowingly?” Geary asked, keying on that word.

  “I was told all about certain things I needed to watch for when I was given command within Midway’s forces. The Syndicate has a long-standing problem with what they call False Face Operations. When someone wants to discredit another Syndicate officer or leader, or manufacture evidence to use against someone, they’ll create false orders or other documents, including videos created to apparently show that person giving the false orders.” Bradamont paused. “This malware that’s going to be employed. I think, based on similar situations among the Syndicate that I was briefed on, that it will only be employed against those ships believed likely to not follow the false orders. Dreadnaught, for example. Or Colossus. And Dauntless, of course, to silence you during that critical time after the false orders are sent. The hope will be that enough other ships will fall for the false orders and help carry them out.”

  “Giving the people who started it cover among the ones who acted because they thought the orders were real,” Desjani said.

  “Exactly,” Bradamont said. “But you don’t have to wait for them to decide it’s time to act. You can set up things so it looks like the perfect time for them to act, when in fact you’re trying to trigger their actions at the time of your choosing.” She smiled. “Hideki . . . excuse me, Colonel Rogero told me of a time when General Drakon suspected he was about to be set up by a False Face Op. He staged an accident that supposedly incapacitated him, and when the saboteurs set off the False Face he was there monitoring everything, able to immediately counteract the fake orders, and nail those who’d sought to take him out.”

  Geary nodded, frowning again, this time in thought. “How would we set up that bait in this case?”

  Kommodor Bradamont rubbed the back of her neck as she considered the question. “You’d have to arrange some means of plausibly being out of contact for a while, and you’d have to set it up well in advance. These are battleship captains. They’re not going to jump quickly on a momentary advantage. They have to have plenty of advance notice so they can decide to act and put their plans in motion.”

  Desjani laughed. “Sure. All we have to do is set it up so the admiral will apparently be out of contact with the fleet for a while, and make it look like we planned for that to happen well in advance.”

  “I never said it’d be easy,” Bradamont said. “Someone already tried to kill him, though. Maybe say another assassin hurt him badly . . . ?”

  Geary shook his head. “That might generate a lot of additional problems. And if all of the assassins have come from the same source, they’d know they hadn’t done it and might be extra suspicious. Nonetheless, I’m grateful for your warning and your advice. If anything else occurs to you, please contact me.”