According to the records, Birhat's trees should be mostly evergreens, but while there were trees, they appeared exclusively deciduous, and there were other things: leafy, fern-like things and strange, kilometer-long creepers with cypress-knee rhizomes and upstanding plumes of foliage. Nothing like that was supposed to grow on Birhat, and the local fauna was even worse.

Like Earth, Birhat had belonged to the mammals, and there were mammals down there, if not the right ones. Unfortunately, there were other things, too, especially in the equatorial belt. One was nearly a dead ringer for an under-sized Stegosaurus, and another one (a big, nasty looking son-of-a-bitch) seemed to combine the more objectionable aspects of Tyrannosaurus and a four-horned Triceratops. Then there were the birds. None of them seemed quite right, and he knew the big Pterodactyl-like raptors shouldn't be here.

It was, he thought, the most God-awful, scrambled excuse for a bio-system he'd ever heard of, and none of it—not a single plant, animal, saurian, or bird they'd yet examined—belonged here.

If it puzzled him, it was driving Cohanna batty. The senior biosciences officer was buried in her office with Dahak, trying to make sense of her instrument readings and snarling at any soul incautious enough to disturb her.

At least the sadly-eroded mountains and seas were where they were supposed to be, loosely speaking, and there were still some clusters of buildings. They were weather-battered ruins (not surprisingly given the worn-away look of the mountain ranges) liberally coated in greenery, but they were there. Not that it helped; most were as badly wrecked as Keerah's had been, and there was nothing—absolutely nothing—where Fleet Central was supposed to be.

Yet some of the Bia System's puzzles offered Colin hope. One of them floated a few thousand kilometers from Dahak, serenely orbiting the improbability which had once been the Imperium's capital, and he turned his head to study it anew, tugging at the end of his nose to help himself think.

The enigmatic structure was even bigger than Dahak, which was a sobering thought, for a quarter of Dahak's colossal tonnage was committed to propulsion. This thing—whatever it was—clearly wasn't intended to move, which made all of its mass available for other things. Like the weapon systems Dahak's scanners had picked up. Lots of weapon systems. Missile launchers, energy weapons, and launch bays for fighters and sublight parasites Nergal's size or bigger. Yet for all its gargantuan firepower, much of its tonnage was obviously committed to something else... but what?

Worse, it was also the source of the core tap Dahak had detected. Even now, that energy sink roared away within it, sucking in all that tremendous power. Presumably it meant to do something with it, but as yet it had shown no signs of exactly what that was. It hadn't even spoken to Dahak, despite his polite queries for information. It just sat there, being there.

"Captain?"

"Yes, Dahak?"

"I believe I have determined the function of that installation."

"Well?"

"I believe, sir, that it is Fleet Central."

"I thought Fleet Central was on the planet!"

"So it was, fifty-one thousand years ago. I have, however, been carrying out systematic scans, and I have located the installation's core computer. It is, indeed, a combination of energy-state and solid-state engineering. It is also approximately three-hundred-fifty-point-two kilometers in diameter."

"Eeep!" Colin whipped around to stare at Jiltanith, but for once she looked as stunned as he felt. Dear God, he thought faintly. Dear, sweet God. If Vlad and Dahak's projections about the capabilities of energy-state computer science were correct, that thing was... it was...

"I beg your pardon, sir?" Dahak said courteously.

"Uh... never mind. Continue your report."

"There is very little more to report. The size of its computer core, coupled with its obvious defensive capability, indicates that it must, at the very least, have been the central command complex for the Bia System. Given that Birhat remained the capital of the Empire as it had been of the Imperium, this certainly suggests that it was also Fleet Central."

"I... see. And it still isn't responding to your hails?"

"It is not. And even the Empire's computers should have noticed us by now."

"Could it have done so and chosen to ignore us?"

"The possibility exists, but while it is probable Fleet procedures have changed, we were challenged and we did reply. That should have initiated an automatic request for data core transmission from any newly-arrived unit."

"Even if there's no human crew aboard?"

"Sir," Dahak said with the patience of one trying not to be insubordinate to a dense superior, "we were challenged, which indicates the initiation of an automatic sequence of some sort. And, sir, Fleet Central should not have permitted a vessel of Dahak's size and firepower to close to this proximity without assuring itself that the vessel in question truly was what it claimed to be. Since no information has been exchanged, there is no way Fleet Central could know my response to its challenge was genuine. Hence we should at the very least be targeted by its weapons until we provide a satisfactory account of ourselves, yet that installation has not even objected to my scanning it. Fleet Central would never permit an unknown unit to do that."

"All right, I'll accept that—even if that does seem to be exactly what it's doing—and God knows I don't want to piss it off, but sooner or later we'll have to get some sort of response out of it. Any suggestions?"

"As I have explained," Dahak said even more patiently, "we should already have elicited a response."

"I know that," Colin replied, equally patiently, "but we haven't. Isn't there any sort of emergency override procedure?"

"No, sir, there is not. None was ever required."

"Damn it, do you mean to tell me there's no way to talk to it if it doesn't respond to your hails?"

There was a pause lengthy enough to raise Colin's eyebrows. He was about to repeat his question when his electronic henchman finally answered.

"There might be one way," Dahak said with such manifest reluctance Colin felt an instant twinge of anxiety.

"Well, spit it out!"

"We might attempt physical access, but I would not recommend doing so."

"What? Why not?"

"Because, Captain, access to Fleet Central was highly restricted. Without express instructions from its command crew to its security systems, only two types of individuals might demand entrance without being fired upon."

"Oh?" Colin felt a sudden queasiness and was quite pleased he'd managed to sound so calm. "And what two types might that be?"

"Flag officers and commanders of capital ships of Battle Fleet."

"Which means..." Colin said slowly.

"Which means," Dahak told him, "that the only member of this crew who might make the attempt is you."

He looked up and saw Jiltanith staring at him in horror.