“Don’t look at me.” Adam grunted. “I’m just the hired hand who arranges shipment.”

“Bradley?” Paula asked.

“I had devised a scheme to give the planet its revenge. It requires a great deal of sophisticated force field technology to implement.”

“How does force field technology kill the Starflyer? Do you trap it inside one?”

“Oh no, the planet’s revenge is designed to destroy the Marie Celeste. I intended to release it when we knew the Starflyer was on its way back. Without its ship, it will be truly marooned on Far Away. It can’t go home, and it can’t return to the Commonwealth. We can hunt it down and kill it.”

“So if it does get through the wormhole to Far Away ahead of us, will the Guardians be able to release this revenge scheme?”

“Possibly; though without the equipment we’ve brought it will be weaker than I would like. And of course the data you and Senator Burnelli retrieved from Kazimir is extremely important.”

“As far as we could determine, it was just meteorological information from Mars.”

“You determined right, my dear. We intend to channel Far Away’s weather at the Marie Celeste. As well as being extremely effective against that brute machine, it is fitting to give Far Away the chance for retribution. It was the flare bomb released by the Marie Celeste which came so close to totally annihilating the entire planetary biosphere.”

“Weather?” Paula frowned, even she couldn’t work out the variables in that puzzle. “You’re going to use the weather against a starship?”

“Yes. Did you know the Halgarth Dynasty commands the lion’s share of force field sales in the Commonwealth because of the systems given to them by the Starflyer in the guise of Institute research?”

“I know they’re the market leaders, yes.”

“It was inevitable, really. The Marie Celeste traveled through space at near relativistic velocity for hundreds of years. It had to have superb force fields to survive such a punishing environment. That makes it extremely difficult for us to attack. It would certainly be impervious to fusion bombs, even if we wanted to employ them on Far Away. The kind of modern, sophisticated weapons powerful enough to break the Marie Celeste’s force field are essentially impossible to obtain. They are simply not available on the black market. Their manufacture would be even more difficult. The Commonwealth has an effective monitoring network in place for dual use manufacturing systems, which even Adam would have trouble circumventing.”

“So how do you use weather when our best weapons are ineffective?”

“We generate a superstorm, and use force field–derived mechanisms to steer it. Far Away is blessed with a rather unique meteorological system, partly due to its size, partly its geography. A major storm evolves out over the Hondu Ocean every night, and blows in across the Grand Triad. That will become our powerhouse; we have evolved a mechanism to amplify that and direct it onto the Marie Celeste. In theory, I should add. Nobody has ever put such an idea into practice before.”

“Mars has storms,” Paula said abruptly. “Big storms.”

“Well done, Investigator. Mars is subject to planetary storms that last months, sometimes years. It also shares Far Away’s low gravity, which makes it the closest match in the Commonwealth. The data we collected there will be invaluable for our control routines.”

“Do you really think you can control the weather?”

“A better description would be to aggravate it and direct it. And yes, we believe it is possible; for a short while at least, and that is all we ask.”

“It will require a phenomenal amount of energy. Even I can see that.”

“Yes. That’s taken care of.”

Paula wanted to point out flaws, it seemed such a bizarre notion, not one you should depend on to bring a hundred-thirty-year-old crusade to its climax; but she didn’t know enough about the procedures Johansson had dreamed up. It just had to be taken on faith. “Assuming you can direct a superstorm, and I’m still skeptical about that, what use will that be against a starship whose force fields can protect it against nuclear weapons?”

“Its size is its downfall,” Bradley said intently. “We intend to initiate the planet’s revenge while the Marie Celeste remains on the ground, where it is most vulnerable. The superstorm will be powerful enough to pick it up and fling it to its destruction. And the beauty is, if its force fields are switched on, the surface area they will present to the storm is even larger, while the overall mass remains the same—which makes it even easier for the winds to pick it up and smash it.”

“I see the logic,” Paula said. “I’m just not convinced about the practicality.”

Johansson slumped down. “We’ll probably never know now.”

“I’ve been thinking about our arrival at Port Evergreen,” Paula said. “Do you have any more of those reconnaissance drones?”

“Two in each armored car,” Adam told her.

“We need to try to launch them when we get within their flight range of Port Evergreen.”

Adam gazed down the length of the cargo hold. “Should be fun.”

They were a hundred kilometers out from Port Evergreen when Wilson took the Carbon Goose down to a kilometer above the water.

“Are you ready?” he asked Adam, who was in the armored car closest to the rear loading ramp.

“Systems engaged. The drones are ready to fly.”

“Stand by: depressurizing.” Wilson’s lime-green virtual hands swept over control symbols.

“No effect on stability,” Oscar reported from the copilot’s chair.

“Anything on radar?” They’d switched their own radar off now they were close to their destination. If the two Carbon Goose planes the Starflyer had taken were still using their radar, the signals should be detectable.

“Nothing,” Oscar said. “I guess the Starflyer’s planes are down.”

“Damn, I almost want to make a sweep just to find out.”

“This is our only advantage,” Oscar said. “It doesn’t know we’re coming.”

“Not much of an advantage.”

“It’s the only one in town,” Anna pointed out.

“Okay, let’s stick with the plan,” Wilson said. His displays were showing him the lower cargo hold was now pressure-equalized. “Opening the hold doors now,” he told Adam.

They were all bracing themselves for the giant plane to judder. It never happened. The only way Wilson could even tell the doors were opening was through his virtual vision display.

“Launching,” Adam said. “One away. Wow, that’s a tumble. Looking good, the array is pulling it out of the dive. Leveling off. Okay, launching two.”

Wilson closed the doors, then took the Carbon Goose down to three hundred meters. It was as low as he dared go without any sort of radar to check how far they really were above the sea. The altitude should help them get closer to Port Evergreen before they were detected.

Everyone on board accessed the secure signal from the drones as they raced on ahead. Infrared showed a faint outline of the sheer rock island as they closed on Port Evergreen. Brighter, salmon-pink patches glowed above the waterline, nestled in the broad dip in the cliff.

“They’re down,” Adam said.

“Plenty of activity there,” Morton said. “I can see movement.”

“Vehicles, I think,” Paula said. “The heat is coming from their engines.”

The picture resolution built rapidly as the drones closed in. Both the Carbon Goose planes were easy to distinguish, parked just above the sea, their turbines glowing like small suns. Some way back from the water, the six huts and long temporary accommodation building registered a few degrees above the ambient temperature; the lone hangar only showed up on the grainy light amplification scan. The curving generator building was an all-over ginger hue, with a shimmer of silver light oozing out through its pressure curtain. Eight large trucks were on the ground just in front of it, their combustion engines on. The drones could even pick up the carbon monoxide fumes squirting out of the exhaust pipes. Three of them had heated trailers, big oblong boxes protected by force fields.