Maslovic thought it over. "You know, Macouri said something like that. He said that the way you insure people's absolute faithfulness is to have them be scared of something so awful that even death and torture are preferable. So if those three were really put in danger of their lives, in fear of even staying among their own people, it would make it far easier for them to turn their backs on family, friends, the only land they ever knew. Makes sense. And you said that young girls weren't the usual travelers?"

"Nope. Mostly men. Some women, but not them type."

"Then that has to be it. Which begs the next question: what makes those three unique enough and valuable enough to go to all that trouble and expense?"

Chung looked over at the sergeant. "You did the research on those weird alien stones?"

"Enough, after I got the captain's lead," Maslovic told her. "Why?"

"Any reports of people with them coming up with strange powers? Any revolutions or crimes of the century? Any major suicides or murders, for that matter, out of statistical norms?"

"No. None that I can think of. Darch, you did a lot of that. Anything?"

"Nothing."

"We're all ears, then, Lieutenant."

She shifted in her seat, a loner unused to this kind of central role. "I am, as much as anything, more than just a human. I'm a human cyborg interface module. I am only truly whole and one when I'm united with a ship or other piece of piloted hardware like the van. But if we put those controls on any of you, even with extensive training, the best you'd do would be okay. You would never combine as one with the machines as I do almost as a matter of course. You would simply use the interface to give orders faster, to control the machinery. The captain, I think, knows what I mean if you all do not."

The old man nodded. "Aye. I've handled them things now and then but I don't like 'em."

"Well, aren't there a fair number of rich people like Macouri with those stones? Some sort of status symbol?"

"Yes, okay."

"And even more, I bet, in the hands of government and scientific researchers. Brilliant people, I'm talking about. And not a one of them, or any three of them, could take over and control a naval cruiser's main computer. A computer using proprietary languages and codes, impossibly complex, and a device for which they'd have no knowledge of nor understanding of how it worked. And these three illiterate farm girls from nowhere just do it like it's second nature. You see what I mean? Even I would have a lot of trouble handling that kind of complex interface, not to mention disabling all the protections, breaking through all those complex firewalls and security traps. Only the Admiralty together manage that, and they knew what it is and how it works and all the codes and bypasses."

"Power," Maslovic muttered aloud, thinking.

"Huh?"

"That's what old Georgi said it was all about. Power. I wonder how they found out that these girls had that kind of gift?"

Murphy had an idea. "You got plenty of money in this devil cult, and you felt that presence, that whatever it is, slowly emerge when you studied the stones. So did I. It's so real, so scary, you could easily see demons and build a cult out of it. So their recruiters bring one or even a few with 'em, all paid for with the rich leadership's money, and they go to the strictest, most fundamentalist, socially repressive places in the colonies. Why, hell, they'd have no trouble finding converts among the young malcontents and with that effect from them stones, well, you see what happens and how it goes. And maybe one gets left with the leader of the cult or coven or whatever they call it so they'll always have their own demon."

"Sounds reasonable," Maslovic said. "Go on. You're doing fine."

"And along come these three unhappy farm girls, probably gonna be forced into arranged marriages and break their backs with work and havin' babies and all, and for some reason the stones react to them and them to the stones in a way nobody's seen before. Maybe they have, but I bet it's really rare. Power they can't tap in these not terribly bright but terribly unhappy young lasses. But the recruiters, the leaders, they know what it's all about. You stumble on the ultimate weapon, but the thing's on automatic and just fires randomly in all directions. Dangerous to all. But if you pick it up and treat it good and point it careful like, then it's your weapon. Sarge, you give most of the prisoners a whole bag of them stones and I bet not much happens. But you give one each to the three, and you put 'em together in the same room so they can act as one, and I think you got, well, some kind of biological amplifier. Now your three young ladies, under your control, can take over whole damned planets."

"Okay, but why Barnum's World?"

"Well, possibly just because Macouri was livin' there and already had a lot of influence and knew the lay of the land and who in the authorities can be counted on to look the other way. And when you got a city maintained by central automated computers, much like a ship like this one is, it's a wonderful test. Let's take over and reprogram the computers. Let's become the sole authority and power in Port Bainbridge. If it works, then you go on. Lots more worlds out there with far more people."

"Then why get them out of town so quickly?" Broz asked him. "It seems to me you'd want them there."

"Not until you had them under your control, and with them three I think it would take a while for anybody to get 'em under control. Until then, you risk tippin' your hand early, like discoverin' who it was that was chargin' all sorts of fancy stuff on invalid but accepted credit accounts. Their power's so natural they hardly even realized they was doin' it. No use in alerting the smart boys in authority until you were ready to take over their city. But you get 'em off in the swamps with folks like the woman in charge of much of the computer security for New Bainbridge, and you practice. Now you can spread your filthy religion and your naked power in a nice, safe, controlled progression. It was wheelbarrows they had me smugglin'. You put it to 'em. Macouri and his gang, that is. I bet they'll give it away if it's you tellin' them."

Maslovic looked at the others. "What do you think? Honest answers, please. If we put this to them, it'll have to be from total conviction. We want them to believe that one of the others cracked and bragged so they'll feel free to fill in the blanks. Darch?"

"Smacks a lot of mysticism to me," the tech responded. "All my life I been hearing friend-of-a-friend stories about telepaths and telekinesis and all sorts of psychic powers. Never actually met one myself, nor seen a convincing demonstration. The idea that three stupid little twits can just waltz in to where one of these stones is and suddenly cause it to be the amplifier to enormous power… I don't know."

"But you've seen it! We all saw it!" Broz pointed out. "Right here. It took our best efforts for days to execute a parallel system switch without crashing the ship. Otherwise who knows what nasty little worms they might have left in our main computers. And Captain Murphy said it, too-that a city like that one back there isn't much different than a ship like this."

"But the kind of specialized knowledge and skills needed to hack the system are way beyond what I can accept as intuitive. Nobody gets that kind of information from evolution," Darch maintained. "Those systems are so complex they're designed by computers even larger and more complex than the ones they build. If not a conscious plot against us, where did it come from?"

"Possibly from the devices, for that's almost certainly what they really are," Maslovic replied. "Or from the intelligence that made them. Possibly more machine than animal itself. Not from Hell, which I am not at all sure exists, but from someone, somewhere. Too faint to be more than a jolt to us. Our brains interpret the attempt at feeding into us, controlling us, as some kind of presence, some kind of powerful and, yes, evil presence, but no more. It shows up randomly and it looks back at you, or at least that's what it feels like it's doing. Something in the girls' brains, maybe only when they're all together, is more sensitive. It can amplify what's coming through. And thus the 'demon' connects in the same way the lieutenant here connects to her ship. Where do they get it from there? Who knows? Possibly from us. Possibly from our machines, constantly communicating through the very air and empty space we occupy. I don't know how those things work, but whoever or whatever is behind them has been waiting for the likes of those three for some time. Magic, mystical stones of power made in a way we can't duplicate even now. Magic is science we haven't figured out yet."