The amusement of a few minutes earlier had drained from Hunt’s face as he listened. He had tried, Caldwell had tried, and Heller had tried, but still he couldn’t escape the lingering discomfort that perhaps they could have tried harder still. Now that Danchekker had voiced them, he recognized the same thoughts that he had been suppressing. "We should have gone with them," he said in a heavy voice. "We should have made Gregg bully them into it."
"I doubt that it would have made any difference," Danchekker said. "Couldn’t you see that Garuth had a personal score to settle with Broghuilio? He didn’t want anybody else involved as a matter of principle. Calazar knew it too. Nothing we could have said would have made any difference."
"I guess you’re right." Hunt sighed. He looked toward Taurus again, stared at it for a while, then suddenly snapped out of his reverie and looked from side to side at the others. "It’s getting cold," he said. "Let’s go inside and get some coffee."
They turned and began walking slowly back across the apron toward the mess hall.
Many light-years away, the Shapieron slipped quietly out of orbit above Thurien. For a little over a day VISAR tracked it to beyond the Gistar system and monitored its transfer through h-space to a point just outside JEVEX’s zone of control on the fringe of the Jevlenese star system. The power and control beams to the two unmanned decoy ships sent with it were promptly jammed, and while they drifted helplessly on the edge of JEVEX-space, the Shapieron continued moving inward and vanished from the view of VISAR’s instruments into the cloak of impenetrabifity that surrounded the enemy star.
Chapter Thirty
The construction floating in space was in the form of a hollow square. It measured over five hundred miles along a side. From each of its corners a bar, twenty miles thick, extended diagonally inward to support the two-hundred-mile-diameter sphere held in the center. The surfaces of the outer square bristled with angular protuberances, sections of ribbing, and domed superstructures, all etched harshly in black and shades of metallic gray, and immense windings girded parts of the central sphere and its supporting members. Receding away into space behind it, a line of identical objects spaced at two-thousand-mile intervals diminished in size with distance until they were lost in the background of stars.
Imares Broghuilio, formerly Premier of the Jevlenese faction of Thurien and now Overlord of the recently proclaimed Independent Protectorate of Jevlenese Worlds, stood in his black Supreme Military Commander’s uniform, his arms folded across his chest, and scowled out at the scene from inside a blisterdome on the hull of a spacecraft riding several thousand miles off. Low to one side, the dark, rugged sphere of the planet Uttan hung as a crescent against the blackness, appearing the size of a tennis ball held at arm’s length. Wylott and a number of generals from various commands of the Jevlenese military were standing behind him with Estordu and a handful of civilian advisors. To one side, not looking very happy, were Niels Sverenssen and Feylon Turl, technical coordinator of the quadriflexor construction program.
Broghuilio waved an arm at the scene outside. "We have been forced to revise our timetables just as drastically and in just as little time," he said curtly, glaring at Turl. "I expect you to do at least as well."
"But engineering on this scale can’t be accelerated by that kind of factor simply by ordering it to be," Turl protested. "We are still short by fifty units. It will take two years at least, even with round-the-clock shifts in all critical-"
"Two years is unacceptable," Broghuillo said flatly. "I’ve given you our requirement, and I want your confirmation, today, that it will be met as stipulated. Tell me what can be done for a change. The Protectorate is now operating on a war economy, and whatever resources are needed will be made available."
"It isn’t simply a question of production resources," Turl insisted. "The power to transfer that number of quadriflexors to the target won’t be available for two years. Crallort’s latest estimates show that-"
"Crallort has been removed," Broghuilio informed him. "That office is now under military control. The generator battery will be expanded under an emergency program that is already in effect, and the power requirement will be met as stipulated."
"I-" Turl began, but Broghuilio cut him off with an impatient motion of his hand.
"You have until twenty-four hours from now to discuss the revisions with your staff. I shall expect you at the Directorate of Strategic Planning on Jevlen at that time to report. I will not expect to hear lame excuses. Do I make myself understood?"
"Yes, Excellency," Turl mumbled.
Subvocally Broghuilio instructed JEVEX to remind him later in the day to review possible candidates for Turl’s replacement at Uttan, then turned his eyes contemptuously toward Sverenssen. "And it appears that my ‘able lieutenant’ who was supposed to have had the situation on Earth ‘well under control’ is equally incompetent," he sneered. "Well, what have you been able to find out? How did the Thuriens manage to communicate with Terrans right under your noses? Where is their facility located? What is your plan to eliminate it? How did they penetrate your operation? Who has been betraying it? I hope you have good answers, Sverenssen."
"I must protest," Sverenssen said in a shocked voice. "Yes, I admit that the Thuriens did establish a link somehow. But the accusation that we have allowed our operation to be penetrated is without foundation. There is no evidence to-"
"Then you are either blind or stupid!" Broghuilio spat. "I was there, in Thurios. You were not. I tell you they knew everything. The Terrans must have turned half the imbeciles in your organization and had them working against us for years. How long have they had a link on Earth direct into VISAR?"
"We. . . . have not been able to ascertain that yet, Excellency," Sverenssen admitted.
"Obviously since long before they started anything on Farside," Broghuilio said. "The whole Bruno operation was a faзade to fool you and keep you occupied, and you swallowed every inch of it." He screwed up his face and mimicked a fawning tone. "‘We have gained complete control, Excellency,’ I was told. Pah!" Broghuilio slammed a fist into his other palm. "Control! They were manipulating you like a puppet. They probably have been for years. Overlord of Earth? You’d be a laughingstock trying to govern a kindergarten." Sverenssen paled, and his jaw strained, but he said nothing.
Broghuilio raised his arms in front of the rest of the company as if inviting them to witness his predicament. "You see what I have to contend with-imbecile engineers and imbecile agents. And what of you? Clearly the enemy will not sit idly by and do nothing while we complete our preparations. But we are told that it will take two years. Thus we have a problem situation that demands some form of action now, while we retain the initiative. What are your plans?"
Some of the generals looked uncertainly at one another. Eventually Wylott replied hesitantly, "We are still analyzing the latest developments. The situation calls for a complete revision of every-"
"Never mind your academic analyses and evaluations. Do you have firm plans drawn up for offensive action, now , to secure our position while the quadriflexor program is being completed?"
"No, but we’ve never-"
"The general does not have a plan," Broghuilio told the rest of them. "You see-on all sides I have to deal with imbeciles. But fortunately for all of us, I do have a plan. Our weapons production program here at Uttan has begun showing results, has it not? We have ships, armaments, and sufficient generating capacity to transfer them to Gistar at once, while the Thuriens have nothing. It is a time for boldness."