Two small specks of brightness against a great black sphere, Repulse and Dawn matched speed with the AI battleglobe, maintaining position between it and Terra.
"Big," said Captain P'Qal, looking at the image of the battleglobe filling his main screen.
"Big?" said S'Tat, looking at the captain. "It's a monster! Give me ten of those things and I'll break through Line and storm K'Ronar."
"Why hasn't it fired yet?" said Captain S'Yatan, face small but distinct in P'Qal's commscreen.
"Maybe they don't have anything small enough to stop us with," said P'Qal wryly.
"Let's play this out, Number One," he continued, turning to the first officer. "By the book. Challenge and stand by all weapons."
S'Tat nodded and turned to her console. "Confederation cruiser Repulse to unknown vessel. Identify and prepare to be boarded."
Silence, then a burst of static as the main screen flickered. The image of the battleglobe vanished, replaced by that of a smiling young man in brown K'Ronarin duty uniform, commander's pips on his collar. "You did say board, Commander?"
"Identify," said S'Tat tightly.
The man shrugged. "Sure. Commander T'Lei K'Raoda, attached AI battleglobe Devastator under the command of Colonel R'Gal, K'Ronarin Fleet Counterintelligence Corps, with other indigenous personnel as prize crew."
P'Qal was out of the command chair, staring incredulously at the screen. "You're telling us you took that mother, Commander? Captured that thing?"
"Yes, sir."
"And your previous ship?" said the captain.
"L'Aal-class cruiser Implacable under Captain His Excellency H'Nar L'Wrona."
P'Qal sat back down. "What the seven hells is going on here, K'Raoda? Implacable'^ corsair-listed-shoot-without-challenge. And where's your commodore, D'Trelna, who now owes me 432,581 credits, including accrued interest, from a b'kana game on S'Htar?"
"You know the commodore, sir?" said K'Raoda.
P'Qal nodded. "Shipped together as merchanteers for a few years. And we were in the same reserve unit on S'Htar, before the war."
"What about our skipcomm relay?" said S'Tat. "Taking a little target practice with your new toy?"
"We thought it best to talk with you before you sounded invasion alert," said K'Raoda. "Both the AIs and Fleet are after us."
"We are Fleet," grumbled P'Qal.
"I know, sir. Please come aboard." K'Raoda glanced offscan. "Vector in on homer frequency AAlRed. You can land on n-gravs right next to the operations tower."
"We'll be logging that as a boarding, of course," said P'Qal.
"Of course, sir," said K'Raoda. "You'll be just in time for dinner."
S'Rel spoke into his communicator. "R'Gal is on board?"
"In command," said the voice. "It's a battleglobe, all right-Devastator-Binor's flagship."
"His no longer, it seems," said S'Rel. "Get us a shuttle up there. Now. I'm at CIA headquarters. Have New York clear it through Washington-set down on the roof. And bring everyone in our unit. I think we may be going home."
Pocketing his communicator, S'Rel turned to find Sutherland staring at him across the desk. "Just what are you, S'Rel?" said the CIA director quietly, fingertips templed before his chin. "AI battleglobes have been seen only once in this galactic epoch-a mercifully brief appearance. Almost nothing's known about them, yet one shows up after lunch on a warm August day and you're familiar with its command history."
"Fleet doesn't tell all its secrets, Bill," said S'Rel with a shrug. "No government does, as you well know."
"Bullshit, buddy," said Sutherland, standing. "While you were supervising the cleanup of our Amazon village, I took two squads on a last sweep of the area. Just for the hell of it, I decided to have another look at that anaconda. And guess what? It must have just been killed before I shot it-crushed. What I saw and reacted to were its death throes."
"So?" said the K'Ronarin.
"So what are you, S'Rel?" continued Sutherland calmly. "Not human, certainly. Not a S'Cotar or the alarms would be ringing. That leaves only one known possibility."
S'Rel leaped the desk-an effortless, standing broad jump, done with only a slight flexing of the knees, the landing soft and silent. "An AI, right, Bill?" he said as Sutherland pressed against the glass wall, face as white as the ceiling tiles.
"God deliver us from monsters," whispered the CIA director.
Laughing, S'Rel stepped back a pace. "You're a paunchy, middle-aged bureaucrat, Sutherland," he said. "But you have style and you have guts." He held out his hand. "Welcome to the Revolt."
"Well, we've boarded her," said S'Tat as Repulse settled onto the steel surface of the battleglobe. Two miles long and of proportional length and breadth, the K'Ronarin ship was just another machine on the bleak, airless surface of the machine fortress: fusion batteries with cannon half the cruiser's length, ugly black snouts pointing toward the shimmering blue of the shield; instrument pods and the domes of missile turrets, the largest of them the height of Repulse, interspacing the fusion batteries in row after serried row all the way to the horizon.
"Nice place," said Captain P'Qal, watching the outside scan move across the bridge's main screen. "That, I gather, is the operations tower," he said, as the scan stopped, holding on the great black structure dwarfing the hull structures. Square and windowless, it seemed almost to touch the shield.
"What's that on the top?" said S'Tat, frowning as she zoomed the scan. A stiff duraplast flag leaped into focus-silver and black, with a single golden dagger lying horizontally in its middle. "That looks familiar," she said uncertainly.
"It's the battle flag of our Confederation," said P'Qal. "Find out if they're sending someone to get us, or if we have to walk. And tell S'Yatan to maintain position."
They sent someone to get them: K'Raoda. He arrived in a transit tube that extended its serpentine self from the sheer wall of the tower to the cruiser's emergency bridge access. "Sorry about this," he said, leading P'Qal and S'Yatan through the luminescent green tube. "There're selective atmospheric controls, but they took hits in the fighting -we've been busy repairing the fusion batteries and power leads."
P'Qal shook his head, not sure which had impressed him more about K'Raoda-the boyish features and easy grin or the crimson-hung silver Valor Medal around the Commander's neck. The captain shook his head. "Amazing."
A few moments later they entered the tower and began trudging up a broad circular ramp, passing men and women in K'Ronarin uniform who nodded hastily and hurried by, distracted, or ignored the newcomers, intent on battle repairs.
Every level bore signs of recent combat: walls and floors gouged by the black gashes of blaster hits, shattered instrument alcoves, and here and there, missed in the hurried cleanup, the shattered remains of what must have been complex mobile machinery-AIs? wondered P'Qal. He was about to ask when they topped the ramp and reached the heart of the battleglobe, the bridge of the operations tower.
The armored double doors that had once guarded the bridge were all but gone-a perfectly symmetrical hole having devoured most of the battlesteel. "Glad we missed this fight, Number One," said P'Qal as they followed K'Raoda through the blast hole and onto a walkway that circled the bridge.
They stood looking out over a great round room, consoles everywhere, rimmed by armor glass with a view of the bleak surface of the battleglobe and Repulse, nestled between those massive fusion batteries. About fifty crew manned the consoles, P'Qal guessed. He leaned over the railing for a better look.
"Wouldn't do that if I were you, Captain," said a new voice. "It's pretty weak in places."
P'Qal stepped back and turned toward the speaker. Wiry-framed, about forty-five, with a receding hairline and dark, intelligent eyes, a man wearing the insignia of a colonel of Fleet Counterintelligence stepped down from the access ladder to the left of the doorway. "Welcome to Devastator, Captain, Commander. My name's R'Gal."
P'Qal's communicator beeped. "Yes?" he said, rising from his chair and moving back a few meters.
"There's a Fleet omega-class shuttle coming toward you from Terra," reported Captain S'Yatan. "IDs as Embassy craft."
"We're expecting it," said P'Qal. "Perhaps we can have a real conversation when it gets here-we've been sipping t'ata and listening to Colonel R'Gal's anecdotes since we arrived." He glanced at R'Gal, chatting quietly with S'Tat. High and musical, the laugh rang faintly from the steel walls of R'Gal's quarters.
"Everything all right?" said S'Yatan.
"Knives at our throats and tinglers on our gonads," said P'Qal.
"Very well. Will check back as arranged."
P'Qal pocketed his communicator and returned to his chair. "Shuttle coming in from Terra," he said as R'Gal and S'Tat looked at him. "Maybe then you'll tell us what you're doing here. If not…"
R'Gal held up a hand. "I know. You'll have to arrest us all and take our vessel in tow." He said it straight-faced. "Be assured, Captain, we're not here to see Ginza at night.
"More t'ata, Commander?"
Designed and built by AIs, the only facilities for humans on board Devastator were as prisoners, eighteen levels beneath the operations tower. The sleeping quarters were small and the bathrooms smaller. The lavatory sinks had no plugs and gave only reluctantly of a small flow of tepid water, something John cursed each time he tried to shave, as he was doing now.
"Pssst. Harrison."
But for the invention of the safety razor, John would probably have slit his own throat. The appearance of a six-foot, four legged green insectoid behind one in the bathroom tends to evoke a violent response. As it was, the Terran shrieked and whirled, razor en garde.
"You look absurd," said Guan-Sharick. "A hairy, towel-clad primate threatening a teleki-netic lifeform with a foam-tipped shaver." The insectoid's form shimmered and vanished, replaced by that of a jumpsuit-clad blonde, seated on the toilet. "That better?" said Guan-Sharick.
John glared at the transmute. "I thought you went with Implacable when we parted, back in the Ghost Quadrant."
"Guess again," said the blonde.
"And why the green bug display? I thought it was finally resolved that you were human?"
"I don't think it was ever said that I was human," said Guan-Sharick. "What was was that I'm not a biofab."
The Terran gestured imperiously with the razor. "Out."
They stepped into the living quarters. Cutting torches and some clever use of available materials had converted five small cells into a reasonably commodious, sparsely furnished two-room suite.
"The lovely Zahava not at home?" said the transmute, peering through the doorway into the living room.
"No," said John, reaching for his pants. "Do you mind?"
"Idiocy," said the blonde, turning away from him.
"Okay," said Harrison after a moment, tucking in his shirt. "What do you want?"
The blonde turned. "You know we've entered the Terran system?"
"So? We're not landing."
"R'Gal needs the cooperation of the insystem commander to access the portal to the AI universe."
John nodded.
"I'm confident he'll get it, one way or the other," said the transmute, sitting down on the double bed. "Then this ship has to go through an intervening universe to reach the AI empire."
"So what?" said the Terran. "It's just a matter of recalibrating the portal device and proceeding on to our objective-isn't it?" he added, as the blonde shook her head.
"At that point, the portal device will have exhausted its potential," said Guan-Sharick.
"It will require recharging from the available resources of that intervening universe. Specifically, at least one ton of plutonium