Bass notes rolled through the deck. Metal rang.

Something felt for purchase on the Argo’s outer skin.

Killeen switched to his shielded comm frequency and whispered the code: “Hoyea! Hoyea!”

He patched a line in from Shibo’s control survey. It bloomed in his left eye, a view uphull from the lifezone bubbles. Against the Argo’ burned and nicked hull, those moist, filmy swellings seemed like abnormal growths run wild. From small slits in the opalescent bubbles came quick, darting figures. They shot downward, through the roiling waves of electro-luminescence, and into the protecting grooves of the disk.

Killeen blinked twice and got a view looking forward. Long, tubular mechs had appeared from somewhere and were moving rapidly toward the airlocks of the Argo. He nodded to himself, seeing only the flexing forms that flew to meet them.

Good timing. They would be at the locks in a few moments, undoubtedly sent by the mechmind to take advantage of the momentary human rituals.

So the mechs in this station knew something of humans—enough, at least, to recognize them as enemies. That could be useful. Killeen had learned certain patterns of thought from the Mantis, oblique ways of viewing humanity. Mech ways were now more intelligible, though no less hateful.

These station mechs were probably following the orders of the Mantis, sent before the Argo lifted from Snowglade. Whatever the intention of the Mantis in sending Argo here, the Family was united on one point—they would destroy whatever agency tried to control them. They had smashed the small mechs aboard Argo immediately after liftoff. At the slightest sign of interference they would attack the station. Some thought the Mantis’s plans may have been benign, but they were a minority.

Killeen stood amid the fading revelry of the Family, seeing and hearing nothing except the silent drama beyond the hull.

“Arm!” he whispered over comm. Ringing clicks answered him.

Slender, coiling forms now neared the main and side locks of the Argo. Killeen waited until the first made contact. It wriggled, forming a hoop around the lock door. Killeen saw small borers fork out, bite into Argo’s hull. The others had reached their locks, were settled—

“Fire!” Beside each lock the planted mines exploded. Each made a billowing blue-shot cloud that ripped through the mech bodies, shredding them.

Killeen allowed himself a smile. This first blow had gone well, but now there would be lives at risk with every turn of events. He became aware that the assembly room had grown silent, pensive, watching him. He blinked, dispelling the outside visions. Cermo stood at his elbow. He breathed in luxuriantly, pierced by the strange pulsing pleasure of being again, after so long, in the thick of action.

“Posts!” he shouted. “Form the star!”

NINE

Airless, silent, the metallic landscape rose against the distant mottled black like a gleaming promise of perfect order. Watching the view, Killeen thought it amusing that his job was to smash such smug geometric certainty, to bring living chaos.

He stood in the control vault, Shibo at his side. This was the first time he had commanded an intricate movement of the Family without actually being there, participating. Family Bishop had a long tradition of Cap’ns who fought and risked and died with their fellow Family. Now, operating from a true ship for the first time in long ages, that was impossible. Only from here could he monitor all the small teams who swarmed over the tower, seeking the mainmind.

The shifting scene on the main screen was a direct feed from the all-scanner on Toby’s back. Killeen’s eyes narrowed at each flicker of fresh movement on the disk plain, letting his own reflexes respond to the images. His hands tightened, unclasped, tightened again.

Shibo looked at Killeen shrewdly. “You told Cermo, pick Toby?”

“Naysay.”

“Truly?” She seemed surprised.

“I ’spect Cermo chose Toby ’cause he’s quick. Sure, some crew’ll see this as pure favor. But if I overruled him, showed any interference for Toby…”

“I see.”

“It’s a tradeoff. This scanner slows you down, makes you easier to hit. But—”

“It gives you a chance to warn him if he’s missing something.”

His mouth twisted with irritation. “Naysay! I was going to say, it puts him in the second skirmish line.”

“Which is safer.”

“Course.”

He turned to see Shibo’s silent wry smile. He was about to bark a challenge at her when he paused, made himself step out of his Cap’n persona, and found himself making his “um-hmm” of grudging amusement. She understood him perfectly, and when they were alone was unwilling to let him get away with the Cap’n role completely. He was about to kiss her—which was easier for him than speaking—when the screen above shifted.

Toby was striding quickly across the disk plain, having trouble finding boot-grip. He was down in one of the myriad open-topped “streets” that crisscrossed the disk, for unfathomable purposes. The tower loomed directly overhead, larger than the eye could take in.

What had caught Killeen’s attention was Toby’s long leap out of the “street,” which had protected him so far. He rose to the tower side, applied his magnetic coupler, and was drawn with a harsh clank to the studded tower wall.

Two other suited figures joined him. They raced along the wall, letting their boots seize and thrust. A thick-lipped opening appeared over the horizon of the tower’s curve. The three dropped down it. Killeen saw that one was Besen, her white teeth the only feature visible inside her helmet amid the yellow sunlit glare.

A sizzling report echoed. Something spat microwave bursts at them from a side passage. Low-level mechs always imagined they could kill with mech weapons, never realizing that organic forms could shut out the electromagnetic spectrum and still function quite independently.

Killeen was glad he had sent them in with their inboard receivers completely dead, except for the link through Toby’s all-scanner. Toby and Besen surged after the bulky mechs and blew neat holes in each.

The squad twisted deeply into the tower. They worked without crosstalk, giving the mechs no electromag-tag. A hard yellow glow beckoned down a narrow tunnel and Toby did not hesitate to plunge after it.

Killeen drew back, the lines of his face deepening, but he said nothing. Momentarily he turned to tracking the other squads, giving maneuvering orders.

The attack was going exceedingly well. The squads flanked and parried and thrust with agile verve. The mechs were inept and uncoordinated, once their initial plan failed. They probably planned to humble Argo with a show of force. These were guard forces, not fighters.

Well ordered, however. I suggest you be careful as the line progresses into the interior. A slow defense can nevertheless draw the swift, unthinking attacker into a trap.

This interjection from his Ling Aspect reminded Killeen to order the side squads to attack the comm lines they met. They responded quickly and severed several obvious lines. Killeen worried about the nonobvious ones. His Ling Aspect seized this opportunity to hold forth.

You display a tendency toward far too clipped and brief orders, I have noticed. The great ancient generals kept their heads, remember, and did not allow the disorder of battle to affect clarity. For example, a land general of far-ancient days, named Iron Wellington, was directing a grand battle called Waterloo when he saw a fire threaten to break his troops’ line. He sent a note which read, “I see that fire has communicated from the haystack to the roof of the chateau. After they will have fallen in, occupy the ruined walls inside of the garden, particularly if it should be possible for the enemy to pass through the embers to the inside of the house.” Graceful, accurate—and all written while on horseback under enemy fire, in the midst of a raging military crisis. That should be your aim.