"Not fast enough," Quinn said. "Two hours, maybe one."

Daschka made a face. "Damn."

"Not fast enough for what?" Aric asked.

"Not fast enough for us to split up," Daschka growled. "We've got two targets, and only one ship to chase them with. Means we have to flip a coin."

"If we're going to follow the main fleet, we need to mesh out right away," Cho Ming warned. "Otherwise, we're going to lose them."

"I know," Daschka said. "Let me think."

For a minute he stared out at the stars outside the canopy. Then, abruptly, he stirred from his musings and reached for his control board. "Okay, decision made," he said, keying in a course change. "Our best chance of finding the Zhirrzh and Mrachanis doing the morris dance together is where our wounded wolves have gone to ground. So that's where we go."

There was another thunk, and the tunnel illusion, and they were once again meshed out. "Okay," Daschka said. "ETA at the rendezvous is about an hour twenty. You two get back down and do whatever you have to to get that Corvine buttoned up. Cho Ming, you'd better go help them."

"I have a question first," Aric said. "How did the Zhirrzh know when we had meshed out and therefore wouldn't be able to spot their course change?"

Daschka shrugged. "Seems pretty obvious. The Mrachanis have wake-trail detectors; the Zhirrzh have instantaneous communication. QED."

"In other words, you're saying that the Mrachanis over at that system have to have a Zhirrzh ship with them," Aric said.

"Or else the Zhirrzh have given them their communication technique," Cho Ming said. "What's your point?"

"Two points," Aric said. "One, that this is enough evidence to implicate the Mrachanis as collaborators without having to go take a look ourselves. We can head back right now and blow the whistle."

Daschka shook his head. "Inference hardly counts as proof."

"Even under martial law?"

"Even then."

Aric grimaced. "All right, then, point number two. If the Mrachanis and Zhirrzh are collaborating, then they're onto us. They've seen us here, and they'll see us coming toward them. And they'll be ready for us."

"But they won't know exactly where we're going to mesh in," Cho Ming pointed out. "Not accurately enough for an ambush."

"We don't know that," Aric said. "The Zhirrzh managed a pretty impressive pinpoint mesh-in when Quinn and I were out searching for Pheylan. We don't know everything they can do."

"We're NorCoord Intelligence, Cavanagh," Daschka reminded him. "It's our job to occasionally stick our heads in the lion's mouth."

"It's my job, too," Quinn added quietly. "I'm sorry, Mr. Cavanagh, but I agree with them."

Aric sighed. If he somehow managed to live through all of this, he promised himself, he was never, ever going to leave his nice, safe CavTronics desk again. "It's not Cavanagh when we're flying, Maestro," he reminded Quinn morosely. "It's El Dorado, remember? Come on, let's go get that Corvine buttoned up."

"The Mrach transport craft have met with the five warships of the Trillsnake force at Rendezvous One," the Elder reported. "The connections have been successfully completed on two of them; the other three are not yet finished. The Mrachanis estimate two more tentharcs to completion."

Cvv-panav nodded, making another note on his reader. "What about the others?"

"The Compelling is nearly to its rendezvous point," another of the group of Elders circling around him said, moving forward. "The ship commander has no knowledge of whether the Mrachanis are there yet."

"They are," a third Elder confirmed. "The Dhaa'devastator is there already and is being tethered to its Mrach transport craft."

"Good," Cvv-panav said, making another note. Many cyclics ago he could remember cursing the ancestors for moving the Dhaa'rr homeland away from Oaccanv and the true center of Zhirrzh power. Now, finally, he understood the wisdom of that decision. Only on Dharanv, surrounded exclusively by Dhaa'rr Elders, could such a conversation as this be truly private.

One by one the Elders communicating with the other Dhaa'rr warships made their reports. "That leaves only the warships from the Phormbi attack," he said at last. "What about them?"

"All three have arrived safely at Rendezvous Five," an Elder told him. "Two groups of the transport craft have arrived; the third group is on its way."

"I see," Cvv-panav said, making a final note. That rendezvous point had been set up more or less at the last beat, so it made sense that the Mrachanis were running a little behind.

"But there's a potential complication," the Elder went on. "The Mrachanis have detected a Human-Conqueror spacecraft following the Phormbi warships."

Cvv-panav felt his midlight pupils narrow. "What sort of spacecraft?"

"They claim it is not a warship, but only a small cargo craft," the Elder said.

"Following our warships?" Cvv-panav snorted. "Not likely. Small or not, it's some kind of Human-Conqueror warship."

"The ship commanders agree," the Elder said. "The Mrachanis have stated that eight transport craft will be adequate to pull the Tireless, so the ship commanders have ordered the other two craft sent away in hopes of persuading the Human-Conqueror warrior that the rendezvous is merely a Mrach meeting point or mining center."

"A reasonable plan," Cvv-panav said. "Go see if it worked."

"I obey." The Elder vanished.

Cvv-panav glowered down at his reader. The Human-Conquerors were welcome to follow the rest of the Phormbi warships all the way back to Oaccanv if they felt like it. But he did not want them poking around his attack forces. Particularly not the warships at Rendezvous Five. He'd gone to considerable trouble to mask what he was doing with those ships from Supreme Commander Prm-jevev; he had no interest in having to dodge Human-Conquerors, too.

The Elder returned. "I'm sorry, Speaker Cvv-panav," he said. "The Mrachanis say the Human-Conqueror craft has altered course toward Rendezvous Five."

With an effort Cvv-panav refrained from cursing. Words weren't going to help now. "Do they say how long it will be until the craft arrives?"

"They estimate less than a tentharc," the Elder said. "Longer if the Human-Conqueror leaves the tunnel-line to use his detector."

That all-but-magic method of detecting spacecraft at the distances between stars. Some fullarc very soon he would have to pry that secret away from the Mrachanis. "Then the solution is obvious," Cvv-panav said. "The work must be completed and the warships moved before the Human-Conqueror arrives."

The Elder stared at him. "In less than a tentharc? But—"

"I don't want arguments," Cvv-panav cut him off. "Nor do I want excuses. We are the Dhaa'rr; and it will be done."

The Elder's tongue flicked. "Understood, Speaker Cvv-panav."

He vanished. "And if they fail?" another of the Elders asked quietly.

Cvv-panav focused on him. A very old Elder, this one, who'd been a warrior during the Third Eldership War five hundred cyclics ago. The war where the erosion of Dhaa'rr sovereignty had first begun, surrendered to the idealists of the embryonic Overclan Seating. "They won't fail," he told the Elder. "Because they know that with this victory over the Human-Conquerors the resurgence of the Dhaa'rr clan will begin."