“Um-m-m.” Saracoglu rubbed his massive chin. Bristles made a scratchy sound; as hard as he had been at work, he kept forgetting to put on fresh inhibitor after a depilation. “You’ll hit Laura first?”

“Yes, of course. Not with the whole armada. Well split, approximately into thirds. The detached sections will proceed slowly toward Hru and Khrau, but not attack until Laura has been reduced. The force should be ample in all three systems, but I want to get the feel of Ythrian tactics — and, too, make sure they haven’t some unpleasant surprise tucked under their tailfeathers.”

“They might,” Saracoglu said. “You know our intelligence on them leaves much to be desired. The problems of spying on nonhumans — And Ythrian traitors are almost impossible to find, competent ones completely impossible.”

“I still don’t see why you couldn’t get agents into that mostly human settlement at Laura.”

“We did, Admiral, we did. But in a set of small, close-knit communities they could accomplish nothing except report what was publicly available to see. You must realize, Avalonian humans no longer think, talk, even walk quite like any Imperial humans. Imitating them isn’t feasible. And, again, deplorably few can be bought.

Furthermore, the Avalonian Admiralty is excellent on security measures. The second in command, chap named Holm, seems to have made several extended trips through the Empire, official and unofficial, in earlier days. I understand he did advanced study at one of our academies. He knows our methods.”

“I understand he’s caused not just the Lauran fleet but the planetary defenses to be enormously increased, these past years,” Cajal said. “Yes, we must certainly take care of him first.”

— That had been weeks ago. On this day (clock concept in unending starry night) the Terrans neared their enemy, Cajal sat alone in the middle of the superdreadnaught Valenderay. Communication screens surrounded him, and humming silence, and radial kilometers of metal, machinery, weapons, armor, energies, through which passed several thousand living beings. But he was, for this moment, conscious only of what lay outside. A viewscreen showed him: darkness, diamond hordes, and Laura, tiny at nineteen astronomical units’ remove but gold and shining, shining.

The ships had gone out of hyperdrive and were accelerating sunward on gravity thrust. Most were far ahead of the flag vessel. A meeting with the defenders could be looked for at any minute.

Cajal’s mouth tightened downward at the right corner. He was a tall man, gaunt, blade-nosed, his widow’s peak hair and pointed beard black though he neared his sixties. His uniform was as plain as his rank allowed.

He had been chain-smoking. Now he pulled the latest cigaret from a scorched mouth and ground it out as if it were vermin. Why can’t I endure these final waits? he thought. Because I will be safe while 1 send men to war?

His glance turned to a picture of his dead wife, standing before their house among the high trees of Vera F6. He moved to animate but, instead, switched on a recorder.

Music awoke, a piece he and she had loved, well-nigh forgotten on Terra but ageless in its triumphant serenity, Bach’s Fassacaglia. He leaned back, closed his eyes and let it heal him. Man’s duty in this life, he thought, is to choose the lesser evil.

A buzz snapped him to alertness. The features of his chief executive captain filled a screen and stated, “Sir, we have received and confirmed a report of initial hostilities from Vanguard Squadron Three. No details.”

“Very good, Citizen Feinberg,” Cajal said. “Let me have any hard information immediately.”

It would soon come flooding in, beyond the capacity of a live brain. Then it must be filtered through an intricate complex of subordinates and their computers, and he could merely hope the digests which reached him bore some significant relationship to reality. But those earliest direct accounts were always subtly helpful, as if the tone of a battle were set at its beginning.

“Aye, sir.” The screen blanked.

Cajal turned off the music. “Farewell for now,” he whispered, and rose. There was one other personal item in the room, a crucifix. He removed his bonnet, knelt, and signed himself. “Father, forgive us what we are about to do,” he begged. “Father, have mercy on all who die. All.”

“Word received, Marchwarden,” the Ythrian voice announced. “Contact with Terrans, about 12 a.u out, direction of the Spears. Firing commenced on both, sides, but seemingly no losses yet.”

“My thanks. Please keep me informed.” Daniel Holm turned off the intercom.

“As if it were any use for me to know!” he groaned.

His mind ran through the calculation. Light, radio, neutrinos take about eight minutes to cross an astronomical unit. The news was more than an hour and a half old. That initial, exploratory fire-touch of a few small craft might well be ended already, the fragments of the vanquished whirling away on crazy orbits while the victors burned fuel as if their engines held miniature suns, trying to regain a kinetic velocity that would let them regroup. Or if other units on either side were not too distant, they might have joined in, sowing warheads wider and wider across space.

He spoke an obscenity and beat fist on palm. “If we could hypercommunicate—” But that wasn’t practical. The “instantaneous” pulses of a vessel quantum-jumping around nature’s speed limit could be modulated to send a message a light-year or so — however, not this deep in a star’s distorting gravitational field, where you risked annihilation if you tried to travel nonrelativistically — of course, you could get away with it if you were absolutely sure of your tuning, but nobody was in wartime — and anyhow, given that capability, the Terrans would be a still worse foe, fighting them would be hopeless rather than half hopeless — why am I rehearsing this muck?

“And Ferune’s there and I’m here!”

He sprang from his desk, stamped to the window and stood staring. A cigar fumed volcanic between his teeth. The day beyond was insultingly beautiful. An autumn breeze carried odors of salt up from the bay, which glittered and danced under Laura and heaven; and it bore scents from the gardens it passed, brilliant around their houses. North-shore hills lay in a blue haze of distance. Overhead skimmed wings. He didn’t notice.

Rowena came to him. “You knew you had to stay, dear,” she said. She was still auburn-haired, still slim and erect in her coverall.

“Yeh. Backup. Logistic, computer, communications support. And maybe Ferune understands space warfare better, but I’m the one who really built the planetary defense. We agreed, months back. No dishonor to me, that I do the sensible thing.” Holm swung toward his wife. He caught her around the waist. “But oh, God, Ro, I didn’t think it’d be this hard!”

She drew his head down onto her shoulder and stroked the grizzled hair.

Ferune of Mistwood had planned to bring his own mate along. Whan; had traveled beside him throughout a long naval career, birthed and raised their children on the homeships that accompanied every Ythrian fleet, drilled and led gun crews. But she fell sick and the medics weren’t quite able to ram her through to recovery before the onslaught came. You grow old, puzzlingly so. He missed her sternness.

But he was too busy to dwell on their goodbyes. More and more reports were arriving at his flagship. A pattern was beginning to emerge.

“Observe,” he said. The computers had just corrected the display tank according, to the latest data. It indicated sun, planets, and color-coded sparks which stood for ships. “Combats here, here, here. Elsewhere, neutrino emissions reaching our detectors, cross-correlations getting made, fixes being obtained.”

“Foully thin information,” said the feathers and attitude of his aide.