Freskel-Gar frowned in annoyance. "Is that human who wanted to talk to it still out there?" he asked. "The one called Hunt."
"Yes, Your Highness."
"Bring him back in."
The colonel went out to the ante-room and came back with Hunt. Using signs and words, the engineering chief explained the problem. Hunt turned to the grille that was connected to the channel being relayed through the shuttle.
"ZORAC?"
"Yes, Vic?" a voice replied.
ZORAC integrated the data from its external sensors to compose a representation of the five Jevlenese vessels closing in around the Shapieron to command it from all sides. As instructed by Garuth before he and the others evacuated the ship, ZORAC had opened the main docking bay doors. As it watched, processing and evaluating the incoming data, three things happened simultaneously.
A communications processor forwarded a message received via the probe positioned to provide a signal path around the Moon. It was an acknowledgment from the Lambian embassy in Osserbruk, the Cerian capital. This was ZORAC's latest try at getting through to the Cerian President's Office, after its attempt via the National Aerospace Directorate hadn't worked.
Vic Hunt reappeared, after a long delay, on the channel to the shuttle that had landed in Melthis.
And the Jevlenese leader, Broghuilio, initiated contact over the link that Garuth had told ZORAC to keep open to the Jevlenese flagship. "I am calling the Shapieron."
"Shapieron. I hear you," ZORAC replied.
"Am I talking to the ship's controlling AI?"
"You are."
"We are about to come aboard, as was previously advised."
"I understand."
"Confirm that the vessel had been evacuated of all occupants."
"Confirmed." They were now in the surface lander that had withdrawn far outside the screen of Jevlenese ships. Garuth had yielded to the threat of violence against those down on the surface. ZORAC concluded that bioforms had their built-in operating directives too.
Broghuilio appeared less sure of the fact, however. ZORAC read the expression, pattern of muscles tensions, and intonations of voice that it had learned to associate with human uncertainty and apprehension. "I just wish to remind you of the fate of the Thurien devices that appeared here immediately before the Shapieron," Broghuilio said. "The weapons responsible are trained on your ship, and also on the lander that is standing off outside the limit. We expect to be received aboard the Shapieron without interference or any clever surprises. I hope the implications are clear. Do I make myself understood?"
"Perfectly."
ZORAC had no surprises waiting. Even if it had conceived any, with the Ganymeans and their human friends in jeopardy it would have been unable to act on it.
Frenda Vesni sat listening to Negrikof bellowing in the next room. She had just put a call through from a secretary at the Lambian embassy in Osserbruk, saying that a message purporting to be from an alien spacecraft in the vicinity of Minerva had warned that President Harzin's plane was going to be shot down. Ironically, the Lambian had ended up being routed through to the same desk as the alert from NAD earlier.
"Look, what is this? Doesn't anyone have any sense of discrimination left anymore?… No, I don't take it seriously… Because we've had it going on all day. There's some hackers loose who are having what they think is fun, and that people like you and me have got nothing better to do… No, because if I did that every time…"
Another indicator flashed on Vesni's desk. The head and shoulders appeared of a man in Army uniform. "This is Frenda Vesni."
"Is that Intel Dir? I was told I need to speak with Zumo Negrikof. It's very urgent."
"He's on a call to the Lambian embassy right at this minute. I'm his second. Can I help you?"
"I'm not sure it can wait. I really need to talk to someone in the President's Office, but I was told we have to go through you. Can you interrupt him, please?"
"What's it about?
"I'm with Chief of Staff Headquarters. We've received a warning through one of our locations that has contacts in Lambia that the plane that's on its way here with the President and the Lambian King aboard is in imminent danger. The President's Office has direct contact with the plane and also with ground control. They need to know."
Vesni turned her head for a moment. Negrikof was still yelling. If this had come through on its own, she would have let Negrikof deal with it. But there had been three warnings now. And this one wasn't claiming to be a talking starship. Her terms of office authorized her to act on her own initiative if her chief were unavailable and it was a matter of national security or an emergency. Well, this certainly qualified. She thought about the probable reaction from Negrikof if it turned out to be a hoax or a misunderstanding of something. Then she weighed that against the consequences if the warning was genuine. She took a deep breath. There were times in life when you just had to hope you were right.
"Taking all the details would just lose more time," she said. "I'll connect you through to the President's Office directly."
In the Lambian communications room, the views being sent back by ZORAC of the five Jevlenese ships positioned around the Shapieron were distributed across several screens. A daughter craft of some kind was detaching from one of them. It was obvious to Hunt now. The Jevlenese had to have been on the Moon somewhere. His spirits sagged as he watched. Even at this early stage, the alliance between Broghuilio and Freskel-Gar had proved itself durable enough and flexible enough to seize a new opportunity when it presented itself, virtually without even faltering in their stride. Now they had a functioning starship as well as Jevlenese weaponry. So much for the mission and its hope of averting a planetary war. About the only consolation Hunt could see was that at least this way, the advantage would be so devastatingly to one side that it might be over sooner, without spreading to dimensions that would engulf the whole of Minerva. So the mission might have created a new reality after all that was at least an improvement, if not the ideal they had hoped for. And that was something, for with the beacons gone and the Shapieron now taken over by Broghuilio, it was beginning to look very much as if they might be stuck in it.
He stared at the images of the Jevlenese craft seen from the Shapieron, hanging seemingly motionless in the void against the background of stars. Different stars-not a pattern that would have been visible from the Solar System of the time that he belonged to in a different universe. How many ships and constructions against a backdrop of space had he seen since that first trip from Earth to take part in the investigation after the discovery of "Charlie" on the Moon?
The last time had been when he went out physically to MP2 with Chien to observe the first tests involving on-board bubble generation out at the Gate. The blunt, boxy shapes of the Jevlenese vessels reminded him of the raft that it had been installed on. They'd thought they had the convergence problem solved, only to have it reappear once more when the local bubble at the raft was detached. That had been their second encounter with convergence-induced craziness-involving not virtual objects that time, but real ones. The versions of the raft multiplying and vanishing before their eyes had been solid, material bodies. The bubble had to be deactivated after stabilization to suppress the effect.
Convergence suppression. The words repeated themselves in Hunt's mind. Something insistent was trying to make itself heard from his unconscious. Something significant.