“Acknowledged,” the station said a few seconds later. “Beginning transmission.”

Roman leaned forward, mentally crossing his fingers. If this wasn’t, in fact, some kind of orders—

TO RESEARCH SHIP AMITY, SOLOMON: FROM COMMANDER

STARFORCE BORDERSHIPS EXTENSION, PRE-PYAT:

:::URGENT-ONE:::URGENT-ONE:::URGENT-ONE::: HUMAN/TAMPLISSTA STUDY TEAM AT NCL 9862 OVERDUE. AMITY TO

PROCEED IMMEDIATELY PREPYAT; CONTINUE ON TO 9862 WITH

RESEARCH SHIPS ATLANTIS, STARSEEKER, AND JNANA IN TOW.

FURTHER INFORMATION AVAILABLE FROM RESEARCH SHIPS.

VICE-ADMIRAL MARCOSA, COMBOREX, PREPYAT CODE/ VER

*@7882//53

2:16 GMT///ESD 6 MAY 2336

Roman read the message twice, a cold chill settling into his stomach. There was something wrong here. Something very wrong…

“Any orders, sir?” the bridge officer’s voice prompted. From her tone, it was clear she was desperately hoping there were some.

Roman took a deep breath. “Alert the Handler,” he told her. “We’re Jumping to Prepyat as soon as he and Sleipnir are ready. Number One web crew to start prepping their equipment—we’ll be taking three ships in tow, and we’ll need to run tether lines to them.” He hesitated. “And wake Lieutenant Kennedy. Tell her I want her dressed and on the bridge in fifteen minutes.”

The three ships were grouped tightly together a hundred meters away from the Amity, holding to an almost perfect zero-vee-relative as the two web boats moved among them fixing tether lines. Standing on the velgrip beside the command station, Kennedy studied the activity on Roman’s display. “Opinion, Lieutenant?”

Roman asked her quietly.

“I’d say no doubt, sir,” she shook her head. “Even at this distance you can see that the missile tubes haven’t been sealed. And that ion projector just under the main sensor bulge on the Atlantis would never have been left on a surplused ship.

Legalities aside, the things are just too expensive to give away.”

Roman nodded. Her conclusions, unfortunately, jibed with his own. “So what we really have here is an unmarked military task force.”

“Yes, sir. If I had to guess, I’d say the Atlantis is either a destroyer or light cruiser, and the other two are converted and possibly beefed-up corvettes.”

Firepower, and to spare. “What about the 9862 system itself? Dug up anything on that yet?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, leaning over his shoulder to tap a few keys on his console. A

chart appeared on Roman’s helm display, with the star marked in flashing brackets.

“It’s a blue-white giant, about six hundred light-years from the Cordonale. Pretty undistinguished, as far as I can see from what little we’ve got on it. No mention of any visits to the system; no indication, for that matter, that anybody’s ever so much as had a passing interest in the place.”

“Until now,” Roman said, tapping the data listing on the display. “I note the star’s very similar in size and magnitude to the one the shark chased us away from.

Coincidence?”

“It could be a yishyar,” Kennedy agreed. “I guess well know for sure in a couple of hours.”

Roman’s radio crackled. “Web One to Amity. All finished here; we’re coming in.”

“Acknowledged,” Roman said, and switched to the comm laser. “Amity to Atlantis; come in.”

“Atlantis; Captain Lekander,” the calm—and very military—voice came back promptly. The face on the screen was an excellent match to the voice. “What’s our status, Amity?”

“My web boats will be back in about ten minutes,” Roman told him. “At that point we’ll be ready whenever you are.”

“Good,” Lekander said briskly. “I’m not sure what you were told, Captain, but here’s the scenerio. A research team running on a very precise schedule has come up almost six hours overdue. We’re going in to find out what happened to them.”

“Pretending to be a civilian research team?” Roman asked mildly.

Lekander’s face didn’t change. “It was thought your Tampies might balk at ferrying military ships,” he said. “That’s not important. What is important is that you understand you’re here strictly as transport; you will not—repeat not—get involved in whatever happens once we reach the system. You will sit tight until we’re ready to go, observe everything that happens, and stay out of it. For the observing part, we’ll be sending over a boat containing a high-power telescope/recorder when we reach 9862. The sitting-tight part is your responsibility.”

Roman locked eyes with him. “And if there turn out to be vultures in the system?”

he asked bluntly.

“If you feel you’re in immediate danger,” Lekander said stolidly, “you’re authorized to Jump to the 66802 system—about two light-years away—and wait for us to rendezvous with you on Mitsuushi. Otherwise, we should have no problem clearing the vultures off you before we leave.”

Roman nodded, a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. “That assumes,” he said quietly, “that you will be leaving.”

Lekander’s face cracked, just slightly, into a tight smile. “Don’t worry,” he said.

“We’ll be leaving, all right.” He paused. “But the boat I’ll be sending you will also have an AA-26 midrange sub-nuke torpedo aboard. Just in case.”

Sleipnir Jumped, the task force disengaged from their tether lines and headed off, and Amity’s crew set about unpacking Lekander’s telescope/recorder from the boat Atlantis had sent across.

They also unpacked the sub-nuke torpedo and mounted it and its launcher to the outer hull. Just in case.

And when that was done, and the telescope was tracking the departing fusion tracks, there was nothing to do but wait. For hours and hours…

“They certainly seem to know where they’re going,” Kennedy said, leaning back in the helm chair and watching the task force’s progress. “There’s nothing of a search pattern about their course—they’re just heading straight across into the asteroids.”

“Must have a beacon on the missing ship,” Marlowe agreed, studying his own displays. “Damned if I can pick up the signal, though.”

“Probably a split-wave,” Kennedy told him. “Or something equally private. I’d guess they’re doing a minimum-time course, Captain; as soon as they make turnover we’ll be able to figure their endpoint.”

“Can’t we do that now?” Ferrol asked. “We should at least be able to track along their projected path.”

“I’m already doing that,” Marlowe said. “So far, I haven’t found anything that could be a ship.”

For a moment the bridge was silent. Roman thought about how the shark had tried to tear Amity apart… “They could be behind an asteroid,” he reminded them. “Let’s not assume the worst until—”

“Movement!” Marlowe snapped. “Portside of the task force, maybe four hundred kilometers away.”

“They see it,” Kennedy added. “They’re altering course—blasting lateral to swing around toward it. Breaking formation… they’re going for it.”

“Give me some more power on this scope, Marlowe,” Roman ordered, straining to make out the form that was now definitely picking up speed toward the circling task force. “I can’t tell if that’s a shark or a space horse.”

“One second, Captain—these damned controls are twitchy.” The view shimmered, gave an eye-wrenching jerk, steadied and enlarged—

“Holy mother,” someone murmured.

Roman found his voice. “What’s the scale on that?”

“Measures out to almost twenty-six hundred meters,” Marlowe said grimly. “About thirty percent longer than the one we fought, with just over twice its volume.”

And if telekinetic strength indeed scaled with volume… Roman clamped down hard on the almost overpowering urge to send out a comm laser warning. A waste of time, or worse: Lekander would certainly know what his force was up against, and the last thing he needed was extra distractions. “Any sign of vultures?” he asked instead.

“Not that I can see,” Marlowe said. “Definitely no optical nets, anyway, at least not so far. Must recognize that they’re not space horses.”