The name was vaguely familiar. "They provide one of the spices you use in cooking, don't they?"
He nodded. "I found these growing inside the fence after Dr. Eisenstadt's people decided they didn't need me and buried me out of the way back here. Tricky sort of plant to harvest, actually—something we discovered the first time we tried it." He gestured at five fat leaf-like structures at the top of one of the plants. "These are the spice pods," he identified them. "What happens is that, as winter approaches, the plant's entire supply of nutrients—its life-force, if you will—is drawn into the seeds in these pods. By the time the process is complete, the plant has become a dead stalk, and at that point the next wind just blows it apart, scattering the seeds all over the landscape. The trick for the gardener is to wait long enough to get the maximum yield, yet not so long that the wind destroys the harvest."
I looked at the plant, seeing the analogy he was making. "Perhaps it's now time for the Halo of God to scatter," I suggested.
"Oh, they'll scatter, all right," he sighed. "But not as viable seeds. They're too young, most of them, to withstand something this hard."
"You think it'll be harder on them than Aaron Balaam darMaupine was on us?" I countered, suddenly angry at his defeatist attitude. "The Watchers have been considered little better than dormant traitors by much of the Patri and colonies for the past two decades. Yet we survive."
He smiled bitterly. "You were old and established, and faced suspicion and hatred. We are young, and face ridicule. Which do you think the human spirit can more easily withstand?"
I knew the answer to that one. All too well. "Don't underestimate them," I said instead. "They may be stronger than you think."
His gaze drifted to the security fence. "I should be out there with them," he murmured. "Preparing them for this."
I took a deep breath. "You may be of more value here."
He shrugged. "I'm of no use at all. Shepherd Zagorin seems to be—" He broke off, eyes shifting back to me as his brain belatedly noticed the tone of my comment. "Has something happened to her?"
"No, she's fine," I assured him. "She's still handling all the contact work, but she seems to be acclimating to it well."
He snorted. "There's no need for her to be doing all of it alone," he growled. "They fixed my heart and brain weeks ago—I'm perfectly capable of taking some of that load off her."
"I know, sir. That's why I'm going to ask you to contact the thunderheads for me."
His sense was startled, then cautious. "Why me?"
"Because I can't use Shepherd Zagorin." I braced myself; this was likely to be painful. "What do you know about what's happening?"
His forehead furrowed slightly. "The thunderheads are intelligent, with what seems to be a complete society, though we don't yet understand how it works. There's also a fleet of sublight spaceships a little under a light-year from Solitaire and due to reach us in about seventeen years."
"Did you know the Patri is planning to destroy that fleet?"
The skin around his eyes tightened, his sense turning to horror. "God save us all," he murmured. "But... why?"
"Because we're afraid of them," I said simply.
He licked his lips, and I could see him struggling with the enormity of it. "How do they intend to... do it?"
I grimaced. "A hundred ninety-two of Collet's biggest rocheoids are going to be fitted with Mjollnir lacings and tethered to tugboats equipped with Deadman Switches," I told him, my stomach tightening as it always did at the thought of it. "Zombis will be put aboard, and the thunderheads will guide them to points directly in front of each of the ships. Too close, of course, for the aliens to veer or take any kind of countermeasure."
For a long moment Adams was silent. I watched, also in silence, as he slowly forced his horror back. "How will they know how close they'll have to get?" he asked.
I nodded. "The same thought occurred to me. Apparently the thunderheads know more about this than they'll say."
"They know who the Invaders are, then." It wasn't a question.
"I'm certain of it," I agreed. "But they won't tell us anything."
He thought about that. "What is it you want to ask them?"
"I want to know how to communicate with the aliens," I said. "If we can talk to them, maybe we can figure out what's going on here, as well as what side of this confrontation we should be on."
He gazed steadily at me. "And what makes you think there is a side we should be on?"
I blinked, the question catching me off-guard. "We have to take a stand on this somewhere."
"Do we?" he demanded. " 'Blessed are the peacemakers'—or had you forgotten that?"
I clenched my teeth against a rush of anger... anger tinged uncomfortably with guilt. "Are you suggesting I've forgotten the goals of my faith?"
"Have you?" he asked bluntly.
The emphatic denial I'd planned died in my throat. "If eight years in Lord Kelsey-Ramos's business world didn't break me," I ground out, "a couple of months here certainly didn't."
A faint, sad smile touched his lips. "The business world of Lord Kelsey-Ramos is one of the acquisition of money and the stabbing of competitors in the back," he said quietly. "Here, you've been offered a chance to use your talents to explore a part of God's universe. Which world do you think it would be easier for you to fit comfortably into?"
"Neither," I retorted, feeling uncomfortably on the defensive. To even suggest I could be so easily seduced by the secular world was utterly absurd, even insulting. "And anyway, that's beside the point. The point is that unless we can find an alternative, the Pravilo is going to snuff out a great many intelligent lives."
He nodded, but I could see that the issue of my path was merely being shelved, not abandoned. "So why won't they let you talk to the thunderheads?"
With some effort, I forced myself back to business. "They probably would, actually, if that's all I was going to do," I told him. "But I'm going to have to do more than just talk. I'm going to have to reveal to the thunderheads that we know a secret about them."
Adams's frowned. "What kind of secret?"
"One that shows they aren't the poor, picked-on victims they've been pretending to be. That they deliberately drew us to Solitaire system in hopes of embroiling us in this dispute with the aliens."
"Interesting," Adams murmured. He pondered for a moment. "You don't think revealing that will make trouble?"
I shook my head. "The thunderheads almost certainly know by now that we know it. And in the two weeks since Lord Kelsey-Ramos figured it out they haven't shown any signs of being particularly worried." Which, if that was true, meant that its use as a lever might well be vanishingly small. But there was nothing left for me but the grasping of such straws.
For another moment Adams gazed at me, his sense a kaleidoscope of indecision and thought and the weighing of possibilities. Then, abruptly, it cleared; and he nodded briskly. "All right. Are you ready?"
The quickness of the decision surprised me. "Well, yes, but you aren't. We'll need to get some of the drugs they've been using to prepare Shepherd Zagorin."
"And you have access to these drugs?" he asked pointedly.
"I can get them," I insisted. "We can't risk the kind of trouble you had the first time."
"Why not?" he countered. "I lasted several minutes then, and with my rebuilt heart and cerebral circulatory system I shouldn't be in even that much danger this time."