And Killeen found her—a distant dot that sparkled amber and yellow as Abraham’s Star began to cut through the shrouding clouds that hung over his shoulder, filling a quarter of the sky. The brooding mass had lightened from ebony to muted gray as it thinned. Shredded fingers of starshine cut the spaces around Argo. And Gianini sped toward the mech, using the sudden rise of brilliance at her back to mask her approach.

A tactic. A stratagem. A life.

A necessary risk, because the mech was too far away to hit with their weapons, which were designed for battles fought on land. Argo herself carried no weaponry, no defenses.

—I’ll hit it with microwave and IR, then the higher stuff.—Gianini’s voice was steady, almost unconcerned.

Killeen did not dare reply, and had ordered Cermo not to allow any transmissions from Argo, lest they attract the mech’s attention in the ship’s direction. Gianini’s directed transmissions back could not alert the mech vehicle, though.

As they had calculated, Abraham’s Star began to brim with waxy radiance. Rays refracted through Killeen’s helmet, sprinkling yellow across his lined face. He found he was clenching and unclenching his hands futilely.

Do it now, he thought. Now!

—Firing.—

He strained, but could see no change in either the dot that was Gianini or the dark point where the mech moved against the blue background glow of a molecular cloud.

—I can’t see any effect.—

Killeen grimaced. He wanted to give an order, if only to release his own tension. But what would he say? To be careful? A stupid, empty nattering. And even sending it might endanger her.

—Closing pretty fast.—

Gianini was a softening yellow dot approaching a vague darkness. Action in space had an eerie, dead-silent quality that unnerved Killeen. Death came sliding ballistically into the fragile shells that encased moist life.

Starshine from behind him swelled and blared and struck hard shadows across Argo’s hull. He felt how empty and barren space was, how it sucked human action into its infinite perspectives. Gianini was a single point among a countless plethora of similar meaningless points.

He shook off the thought, aching to do something, to be running and yelling and firing in the midst of a suddenly joined battle that he could feel.

But above him the dots coalesced in utter silence. That was all. No fervor, nothing solid, no sure reality.

Burnished sunlight raked the hull around him. Time ticked on. He squinted at the sky and tried to read meaning into mere twitches of random radiance.

—Well, if that don’t damn all.—

What? he thought. His heart leaped to hear Gianini’s voice, but her slow, almost lazy words could mean anything.

—This thing’s had its balls cut off. Ruined. All those antennas and launchers we saw in closeup, ’member? Their power source is all blowed away. Nothin’ here that works ’cept for some drive chambers and a mainmind. Guess that’s what led it our way.—

Killeen felt a breath he had been holding forever rush out of his chest. He chanced a transmission. “You’re sure it can’t shoot?”

—Naysay. Somethin’ pranged it good. A real mess it is here.—

“Back off, then.”

—You want I should skrag the mainmind?—

“Yeasay. Leave a charge on it.”

—Doin’ that now.—

“Get clean clear before you blow it.”

—I’ll put it close, be sure.—

“No contact, just leave it—”

Killeen’s ears screamed the horrible sound of circuit ringing—a long high oscillating twang as a load of electrical energy bled off into space, acting as an involuntary antenna as raw power surged through it.

“Gianini! Gianini! Answer!”

Nothing. The ringing wail steepled down into low frequencies, an ebbing, mournful song—and was gone.

“Cermo! Suit trace!”

—Getting nothing.—Cermo’s voice was firm and even and had the feel of being held that way no matter what.

“Damn—the mainmind.”

—Figure it was on a trigger mine?—

“Must’ve.”

—Still nothing.—

“Damn!”

—Maybe the burst just knocked out her comm.—

“Let’s hope. Send the backup.”

Cermo ordered a crewman out to recon the mech vehicle. But the man found Gianini floating away from the wrecked craft, her systems blown, her body already cold and stiff in the unforgiving vacuum.

THREE

Killeen walked stiffly down the ceramo-corridors of the Argo, his face as unyielding as the walls. The operation against the mech was a success, in the sense that a plausible threat to the ship was removed. They had detonated the charge Gianini had left behind on the mech, and it had blown the vehicle into a dozen pieces.

But in fact it had been no true danger, and Killeen had lost a crewwoman discovering that fact.

As he replayed their conversation in his mind he was sure he could have said or done nothing more, but the result was the same—a second’s carelessness, some pointless close approach to the mainmind of the vehicle, had fried Gianini. And had lessened Family Bishop that much more, by one irreplaceable individual.

Numbering fewer than two hundred, they were perilously close to the minimum range of genotypes which a colony needed. Any fewer, and future generations would spiral downward, weighed by genetic deficiencies.

This much Killeen knew, without understanding even a smattering of the underlying science. Argo’s computers held what they called “DNA database operations.” There was a lab for biowork. But Family Bishop had no Aspects who knew how to prune genes. Basic bioengineering was of marginal use. He had no time and even less inclination to make more of such issues.

But Gianini, lost Gianini—he could not so brusquely dismiss her memory by seeing her as simply a valuable carrier of genetic information. She had been vibrant, hardworking, able—and now she was nothing. She had been chipstored a year ago, so her abilities survived as a spectral legacy. But her ghostly Aspect might not be revived for centuries.

Killeen would not forget her. He could not.

As he marched stiffly to his daily rounds—delayed by the assault—he forced the somber thoughts away from him. There was time for that later.

You are acting wisely. A commander can feel remorse and can question his own orders—but he should never be seen to be doing that by his crew.

Killeen gritted his teeth. A sour bile settled in his mouth and would not go away.

His Ling Aspect was a good guide in all this, but he still disliked the calm, sure way the ancient Cap’n laid out the precepts of leadership. The world was more complex, more darkly crosscurrented, than Ling ever allowed.

You assume too much. I knew all the tides that sweep you, when I was clothed in flesh. But they are often hindrances, not helps.

“I’ll keep my ‘hindrances,’ little Aspect!”

Killeen pushed Ling away. He had a role to fulfill now and the small chorus of microminds that he felt calling to him could be of no help. He had followed Ling’s advice and decided to continue with the regular ship’s day, despite the drama of the assault. Returning to ordinary routine, as though such events were within the normal course of a ship’s life, would help settle the crew.

So he had told Cermo to carry on as planned. Only now did he realize what that implied.

Killeen rounded a corner and walked toward the open bay where the crew of the morning’s watch waited. Halfway there Cermo greeted him with, “Punishment hour, sir?”

Killeen stopped himself from clenching his jaws and nodded, recalling the offense from yesterday.

Cermo had caught a crewwoman in the engine module. Without conferring with his Cap’n, Cermo had hauled her—a stringy, black-haired woman named Radanan—unceremoniously out into the lifezone, barking out his relish at the catch. The deed was publicly exposed before Killeen had a chance to find other means to deal with it. He had been forced to support his officer in the name of discipline; his Ling Aspect had drilled that principle into him.