His attention returned to the monitor.
"Why?" I asked. I was feeling a mixture of relief and fear.
His expression wished me away. After a moment, he touched his keyboard. "I’ll show you," he said.
One of the screens—I had to move the bottle to get a good look— dissolved to a concentric ring display, across which eight or nine trace lights blinked. "Ilyanda is at the center. Or, rather the Station is. The range runs out to about a half billion kilometers. You’re looking at a mute fleet. Capital ships and battle cruisers." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"What’s happening, Miss Lee," he continued, "is that the Navy is about to blow hell out of the sons of bitches." His jaw tightened, and a splinter of light appeared in his eyes. "At last.
"It’s been a long time coming. They’ve been driving us before them for three years. But today belongs to us." He raised his empty glass in a jeering salute toward the ceiling.
"I’m glad you were able to get people away," I said into the stillness.
He tilted his head in my direction. "Sim wouldn’t have had it any other way."
"I never thought the war would come here." Another blip appeared on the screen. "I don’t understand it," I said. "Ilyanda 's neutral. And I didn’t think we were near the fighting."
"Kindrel there are no neutrals in this war. You’ve just been letting others do your fighting for you." His voice was not entirely devoid of contempt.
"Ilyanda’s at peace!" I shot back, though it seemed rather academic just then. I stared at him, into his eyes, expecting him to flinch. But I saw only hatred. "Or at least it was," I continued.
"No one’s at peace," he said. "No one’s been at peace for a long time." His voice was very cold, and he bit the words off.
"They’re only here," I said, "because you are, aren’t they?"
He smiled. "Yes," he said. "They want us," He gripped the edges of his chair, propped his chin on his fist, and laughed at me. "You’re judging us! You know, you people are really impossible. The only reason you’re not dead or in chains is because we’ve been dying to give you a chance to ride around in your goddam boat I"
"My God," I gasped, remembering the missing shuttle. "Is that why the redeye never got here?"
"Don’t worry about it," he said. "It was never coming."
I shook my head. "You’re wrong. I overheard some radio traffic shortly after midnight. They were still on schedule then."
"They were never coming," he repeated. "We’ve done everything we could to make this place, this entire world, appear normal."
"Why?" I asked.
"You have the consolation of knowing we are about to turn the war around. The mutes are finally going to get hurt!" His eyes glowed, and I shuddered.
"You led them here," I said.
"Yes." He was on his feet now. "We led them here. We’ve led them into hell. They think Christopher Sim is on the space station. And they want him very badly." He refilled his glass. "Sim has never had the firepower to fight this war. He’s been trying to hold off an armada with a few dozen light frigates." Olander’s face twisted. It was a frightening aspect. "But he’s done a job on the bastards. Anyone else would have been overwhelmed right at the start. But Sim: sometimes I wonder whether he’s human."
Or you, I thought. My fingers brushed the laser.
"Maybe it would be best if you left," he said tonelessly.
I made no move to go. "Why here? Why Ilyanda?"
"We tried to pick a system where the population was small enough to be moved."
I smothered an obscenity. "Did we get to vote on this? Or did Sim just ride in and issue orders?"
"Damn you," he whispered. "You haven’t any idea at all what this is about, do you? A million people have died in this war so far. The mutes have burned Cormoral and taken the City on the Crag and Far Mordaigne. They’ve overrun a dozen systems, and the entire frontier is on the edge of collapse." He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "They don’t like human beings very much, Miss Lee. And I don’t think they plan for any of us to be around when it’s over."
"We started the war," I objected.
"That’s easy to say. You don’t know what was going on. But it doesn’t matter now anyway. We’re long past drawing fine lines. The killing won’t stop until we’ve driven the bastards back where they came from." He switched displays to a status report. "They’re closing on the Station now." His lips curled into a vindictive leer. "A sizable chunk of their fleet is already within range. And more arriving all the time." He smiled malevolently, and I can remember thinking that I had never before come face to face with anyone so completely evil He was really enjoying himself.
"You said Sim doesn’t have much firepower—"
"He doesn’t."
"Then how—?"
A shadow crossed his face. He hesitated, and looked away toward the monitors. "The Station’s shields have gone up," he said. "No, there’s nothing up there of ours except a couple of destroyers. They’re automated, and the Station’s abandoned." The blinking lights on the battle display had increased to a dozen. Some had moved within the inner ring. "All they can see are the destroyers, and something they think is Corsarius in dock with its hull laid open. And the bastards are still keeping their distance. But it won’t make any difference!"
"Corsarius!" I said. "Sim’s ship?"
"It’s a big moment for them. They’re thinking right now they’re going to take him and end the war." He squinted at the graphics.
I was beginning to suspect it was time to take his advice and make for the wharf, get the Meredith, and head back to the southern hemisphere. Until everything settled down.
"The destroyers are opening up," he said. "But they won’t even slow the mutes down."
"Why bother?"
"We had to give them some opposition. Keep them from thinking too much."
"Olander," I asked, "if you have no ships up there, what’s this all about? How does Sim expect to destroy anything?"
"He won V. But you and I will Kindrel. You and I will inflict such a wound on the mutes tonight that the sons of bitches will never forget!"
Two monitors went suddenly blank. The images returned, swirls of characters blinking frantically. He leaned forward and frowned. "The Station’s taken a hit." He reached toward me, a friendly, soothing gesture, but I stayed away from him.
"And what are you and I going to do to them?" I asked.
"Kindrel, we are going to stop the sunrise."
I found that remark a bit murky, and I said so.
"We’re going to catch them all," he said. "Everything they’ve got here, everything out to the half-billion-kilometer ring, will be incinerated. Beyond that, if they see right away what’s happening and get a running start, they have a chance." He glanced toward the computer. A red lamp glowed on the keyboard. "We have an old Tyrolean freighter, loaded with antimatter. It’s waiting for a command from me."
"To do what?"
His eyes slid shut, and I could no longer read his expression. "To materialize inside your sun." He hung each word in the still air. "We are going to insert it at the sun’s core." A bead of sweat rolled down his chin. "The result, we think, will be—" he paused and grinned, "— moderately explosive."
I could almost have believed there was no world beyond that bar. We’d retreated into the dark, Olander and I and the monitors and the background music and the stone nymphs. All of us.
"A nova?" I asked. My voice must have been barely audible. "You’re trying to induce a nova?"
"No. Not a true nova."
"But the effect—"
"—will be the same." He looked eminently satisfied. "It’s a revolutionary technique. Involves some major breakthroughs in navigation. It isn’t easy, you know, to bring this off. Never been done before."