His listeners could hear the calm and smiling competence in Charley's voice. "A vector in progress, you see. Now we Provos are on a vector which will soon intersect the vector of the Wyzhnyny armada. And when those vectors intersect, they will result in a spray of new vectors.
"My greatest advantage as battle master is, I am able to sense the relevant vectors-and their probabilistic futures. Some vectors remain fixed over long periods of time: a planet in its orbit, a comet in its orbit. Eventually they may intersect, but very probably they will not. It would be useful to know in advance.
"Many other vectors are very erratic, like a spoiled child unrestrained in a toy store. Even those I can often foresee with some confidence. And while I do these things intuitively, I know them consciously."
The admiral listened intently. Charley had never brought up these things to him, though by hindsight they'd been apparent in his gaming.
"Mostly," Charley continued, "I can't project them very far. Many intersect with too many other effective vectors. Human and alien choices, and of course chaos functions, can cause vectors to change, and give rise to new vectors. But I am generally a few steps ahead of events, and that is a very important advantage.
"Beyond that, I coordinate factors and data very very well. Not as precisely as a shipsmind, but on a higher level. For what is termed `intuition' in an artificial intelligence is simply the use of stochastic processes to extrapolate beyond or around areas of weak or ambiguous data. Human intuition can go well beyond that."
Soong listened while Charley wrapped up his talk. Among other things, the savant knew when to stop. When he was done, the admiral added a few closing comments, then ended the session. It seemed to him they'd pulled it off. Or Charley had. Over the next day or so he'd know absolutely, one way or the other, by fleet performance.
Meanwhile Altai's shipsmind had uploaded the contents of its upgraded battlecomp to the rest of the fleet. And when the all-hands session was over, the admiral called for a command conference on the closed command frequency. A few hours later, the force was ready to begin simulation drills.
The simdrills went so well that three days later the force began "steel drills." In these the battle groups moved physically in space while Altai's battlecomp threw sequences of enemy responses at them. From his battle command station on the bridge, Charley rattled off rapid shorthand instructions to shipsmind, instructions forwarded by radio to the rest of the force, which fought as separate but coordinated battle groups.
In F-space, maneuvers were as limited as ever; one thing Charley couldn't do was cancel inertia. But by anticipating "enemy responses," he permitted individual battle groups to transit from F-space to warpspace with minimal losses. And his control and coordination of beam fire and torpedo attacks against enemy movements was deadly.
It was all pretend, of course, but the Provo crews had gained a large degree of optimism, and an enthusiasm that made the whole venture exciting. Even the "losses" of Provo warships did not greatly cool them. They were, they told each other, going to teach the Wyzhnyny the cost of bringing war to human space.
Alvaro Soong was not as optimistic. The drills had been as realistic as possible, short of shooting at each other. But it was still a limited reality, because Wyzhnyny weaponry, tactics, nerve-even the number of their warships-was unknown.
Which was, he reminded himself, the main reason he'd been sent there, he and his Provos. At the least, he needed to maintain engagement long enough to forward a definitive picture of Wyzhnyny battle capacities to War House. To inflict substantive damage would be a bonus.
Chapter 45
A Time of Truth
The armada had emerged from hyperspace so often in this galaxy, it had become routine, and no longer drew Quanshuk to the bridge or to his feet. He watched from the AG couch in his quarters.
"… five, four, three, two, one… "
Stars exploded onto the screen, but their beauty no longer lifted him. Even the question-would one of its planets be habitable?-had long since become routine. The armada emerged every shipsday or two-at every star whose isogravs suggested any possibility of a habitable planet. Usually staying only long enough to discover there wasn't one. Sometimes five minutes was enough. Sometimes they sent a Survey ship for a closer look. When one seemed clearly habitable, they stayed several days, and left with a sense of accomplishment. But after so many, even that was routine now.
This emergence came during shipsnight, and Quanshuk closed his eyes again. The bridge would call him if…
His comm yammered, and he jerked wide awake. "This is the admiral," he answered.
"Your lordship, there is something you need to see. Perhaps on the bridge?"
The voice was that of Captain Kruts, the Meadowlands' master. "I'll be there momentarily," Quanshuk answered.
"Shall I notify Chief Scholar Qonits and Admiral Tualurog, your lordship?"
"At your discretion."
The admiral jabbed a key, then got stiffly to his feet, his arthritic joints complaining. He was medicated, always, but not so strongly as to banish pain. He was grand admiral, and would not risk dulling his mind.
At first, after getting up, he didn't walk well. He carried himself well-torso erect, long head high-but his steps were short and painful. Qonits caught up with him at the entry to the bridge, and they went in together.
Kruts was waiting for them, and pointed at the large screen centered in the monitor array on the bridge's forward bulkhead. It showed a compressed representation of the system, with the conventional armada icon, and other icons marking planets. Two others-flashing orange lights-marked detected sources of technical electronics.
Two sources. One was the second planet. The other was in the near fringe, its system azimuth 134 degrees from the armada's. Quanshuk stepped quickly to his admiral's station, and called for an enlarged view of the fringe source. Or cluster of sources, for that's how the monitor showed them. At nearly nine light-hours distance, there was no visual resolution. A sidebar numbered them, however: 230 individual sources-230 ships.
Quanshuk frowned. Two hundred thirty. Why were they here? They were far too few to do battle with him.
Then it struck him. Turning, he scanned the bridge crew. "An evacuation fleet," he said, then elaborated. "On most of the human worlds we've come to, much of the population had clearly been evacuated. Very probably we're looking at an evacuation fleet." He turned to his chief scholar. "Wouldn't you say, Qonits?"
"Indeed, my lord, that would explain them."
The chief scholar looked less than sure of it. But then, being skeptical was part of a scholar's job.
In the Provo force, an electronic bosun's pipe shrilled through the corridors and compartments of the Altai and every other manned ship. Followed by shipsvoice: "Now hear this! Now hear this! All hands report to mustering stations by 1022 hours. All hands to mustering stations by 1022 hours." Then the sequence repeated. Every hand knew; this was it: the time of truth. "All hands" calls were infrequent. To repeat it like this…
Ten-twenty-two; in ten minutes.
To top it off, after a few seconds music began to issue from the ships' speakers. Music! That was different. The admiralty had established "instant tradition" for its new fleet, including an "unofficial" fleet theme, dubbed "Spacing Off to Dilly Doo." Dilly Doo being a planet in a very old, off-color space tale-a sort of Valhalla where spacers supposedly went when they died, to binge and bawd. The recording-by the pipes and drums of the Caledonian Regimental Band-dated from before space flight. Its name then had been "Scotland the Brave," something few spacers were aware of.