"Probably tryin' to distract us," Freddy said in one of the rare intervals he was off duty. Commodore Renner kept Freddy Townsend busy. When he did get a break, he often used the opportunity to talk to Horace Bury; and when that happened, Joyce invited herself into the party.
"They've scattered their fleet," Joyce said. "Some of the ships used all their power and now can't keep up. Why would they do that, Freddy?"
Freddy said, "I can tell you what they're doing, but why is out of my department. You'll be famous even if you don't know why."
Horace Bury chuckled. "I should instruct my brokers to invest in your network. You will have the highest ratings in Imperial history, I think."
"A few weeks ago I would have resented your saying that," Joyce said. "And even more resented it if you'd actually bought stock in IBC."
"And now?"
Joyce shrugged. "It's your ship, and we're all on it."
"Besides, his brokers will already have made the investments," Glenda Ruth said.
"Cautiously. They'll buy too little," Bury said. "After all, it was not certain that we would be bringing Miss Trujillo to the Mote."
"Or that we'd come out alive," Joyce said.
"Well, if we don't, it won't matter if the investment's no good," Freddy said.
"Oh, Freddy, that's silly," Glenda Ruth said. "His Excellency- "Acceleration warning. "Action stations."
"Oh, Lor', what now?" Freddy demanded.
"It's a big mess of junk under high velocity," Renner said.
Most of the leading Khanate ships were in deceleration mode at high thrust. Most of them. A few were burning fuel at a prodigious rate and converting that to energy beamed at Sinbad; and out of the glare of that beam came a dark mass on a collision course.
"We'll have to dodge," Freddy said. Sinbad began to turn.
"Yeah. Horace, Group A ran up to maximum velocity and then stripped their ships. It could be mostly fuel tanks. Freddy's turning the ship."
"It won't cost us too much fuel."
"No, but I should- Atropos calling, good." Joyce heard Renner setting a direction for the other ship. Sinbad and Atropos would diverge.
Four minutes later-the lightspeed gap-Group A's junk pile pulled into two masses. They'd armed it with motors. Freddy spoke of raping his lizard; Renner called Atropos and ordered a laser barrage.
Four minutes later the junk pile flared with the light of Atropos's barrage. An instant later it flashed a hundred times as bright! The camera overloaded and burned out before Freddy could enfold Sinbad in the Langston Field. Glenda Ruth was cowering with an arm over her eyes, and Joyce was waiting for glowing spots to disappear. She knew better than to interrupt Freddy or Kevin.
Freddy spoke anyway. "They had a mirror. The clever little nightmares waited for our beam and then threw it back at us. It's way dimmer now, but they're still throwing sunlight at us. It's nothing, Glenda Ruth. Just another goddamn nuisance attack."
And more to understand. Medina Alliance ships trailed the Khanate fleet, darted in toward it with a reckless expenditure of resources, fired lasers and missiles, then darted away again, fuel gone, coasting away from the battle to be rescued by unarmed ships from other clans.
"Another major development," Joyce dictated. "There's a big fleet, two hundred ships and more, trailing the Khanate war fleet. They're rescuing ships that run out of fuel. Khanate and Alliance ships alike, they're retrieving stragglers. We thought they were Khanate allies, but they're not. They're neutrals.
"We've changed Mote politics like nothing else in their history. A hundred families and clans in cooperation, hundreds more gathering their strength, but all of them staying uncommitted.
"Our Motie allies say this is a good sign.
"Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo, Imperial Post-Tribune Syndicate."
"We are ninety minutes from the Alderson point everyone calls the Crazy Eddie point. The Moties are getting nervous. No one likes Jump shock much, but our Motie friends really dread it. We can hope the prospect makes the Khanate Warriors nervous.
"The situation is this: Sinbad and Atropos are on course for the Jump point and decelerating. The leading elements of a war fleet from Byzantium, the most powerful of our allies, have already reached the Crazy Eddie point and are standing by for orders.
"Meanwhile, things are happening in the pursuing fleet." Joyce zoomed in on a screen.
The structure they'd been calling Khanate B was under heavy deceleration. The tremendous junk pile was no longer a single object. The bright sparks of fusion drives were separating in pairs.
Another screen showed a blurry picture relayed from Atropos: two Khanate ships docked and remained docked until one reconstructed ship began to decelerate, leaving part of its mass as debris.
"We don't know what this means," Joyce said. Reporterspeak for I don't know. Kevin and Freddy had given over arguing about it, but Renner had taken time off to talk with Bury. Marooned face up in a water bed at high gee, Horace Bury could at least use the entertainment. Joyce turned the camera on them; they didn't notice.
"So what have we got?" Renner said. "Group A boosted to high velocity, coasted, and is now under deceleration. Classic. They'd get to the Crazy Eddie point about the same time we do, but we can fix that."
Bury wasn't asking, so Joyce did. "How?"
Renner's glance showed his irritation. "Low thrust deceleration now, high thrust later, brings us in sooner. They can't play that game. They're at max thrust with no spare fuel."
"But high thrust-"
"As Allah wills, Joyce. What of Group 13, Kevin?"
"Aye, there's the rub. They never turned off their drives. They did low thrust forever, right up to midpoint turnover, and dropped mass every step of the way. Fuel tanks, Engineers, that mirror thing, who knows? It looks like they'll get to the Crazy Eddie point just behind Group A, but with plenty of fuel to spare. If we miss our Jump, I'd say we're dead. So, we're forced to jump."
"If so, Kevin, they've made themselves very vulnerable to Medina. The Medina forces will face seven hundred Khanate ships strung in a long line. Is this a winning strategy? They must do more than silence all human voices. They must control the Sister. When the Empire comes again, the Khanate must speak first."
"You're missing something," said Glenda Ruth Blaine.
An odd source, but- Kevin said, "Okay. What?"
"I don't know." She perched on the edge of the water bed and scratched behind Ali Baba's ear. "But they're Warriors. They're following a Master's orders, but that doesn't make them silly. Remember their mission and look again."
Cynthia knew how to prepare Turkish coffee. Bury sipped his and said, "Fuel matters here. The Khanate ships are depleted. Are we? Base Six is following us, of course."
"They'll be a hundred and ten hours late. They can rescue any ship that ran dry, but that doesn't help us fight. Still, we could refuel from a Medina ship. I don't think we even need to, And we'll go through the Crazy Eddie point at three hundred per, just like last time, with the East India ships to triangulate for us."
"Ah!"
Cynthia snapped alert. "Excellency?"
"I'm all right, Cynthia. Kevin, the debris. The mass, the junk left over when two ships merged at a thousand klicks per second. Set Atropos to tracking the course of the junk. You'll find that a mass equivalent to over a hundred spacecraft is on course to pass straight through the Crazy Eddie point just when we would like to do that."
"Okay, lie down already. Freddy?"
"I'm on it." Freddy Townsend was working his control board hard. A screen lit: Rawlins's talker.
Now why am I less scared than I was? Renner wondered. Because my people are getting the right answers? No, more; because Horace Bury's mind is alive and alert.
While Freddy was at work, Renner said, "Omar, I need that debris blocked somehow. The only ships that have to go through the Crazy Eddie point are Atropos and Sinbad. Will you inform Medina's Masters?"