Greystroke was no exception, and the momentary stumble was a source of great vexation to him, for he tried to school himself against it. It irritated him that an illusion would catch him up.
He was a young man the color of his name, so average in appearance and demeanor that he had achieved an operational sort of invisibility. This could be advantageous for a journeyman Hound. When he desired so, he could remain unnoticed for a very long time. “Cu!” he said.
Fir Li scrolled a page on his viewer. “Something unusual.” Fir Li’s voice was a bass rumble, something between a growl and the grinding of rocks.
“Aye, Cu.”
“But not an emergency at the crossing, or I would have been summoned by the alarms.”
“Aye, Cu.”
The Hound scrolled another page on the reader. “Traffic control, then. A ship on our side of the Rift approaching the Interchange, but not a typical merchant or you’d not disturb my rest at all.”
“Cu, the pickets have detected the bow waves of a large fleet coming up the Palisades.”
The Hound was about to turn another page, but paused in thought for a moment. “A fleet,” he said. “How many ships?”
“The swift-boat counted twenty. All corvette class.”
The Hound bobbed his head side to side. “Too small for a colony fleet; too many for a survey expedition. A war has started somewhere.” He turned off his viewer and stood gracefully from his chair. “I will be in the command center shortly. Such a grand fleet, I must dress for the occasion.”
The command center in the heart of Hot Gates was a broad, ovoid room, the dome of which was a display screen of impressive and subtle scope. Staff were arranged by units and sections around the room’s circumference—clerks manning the consoles, department heads standing inboard from them at podiums.
Greystroke entered, fastening a red-and-gold dress jacket. “Point Traffic,” he said, “alert me when you spot Cerenkov glow from the Parkway exit. Swift-boats are fast, but that fleet won’t be too far behind.”
The supervisor in charge of Sapphire Point Navigation and Tracking Section acknowledged. “Timer says four metric minutes until arrival.”
“I assume they’re heading for the Silk Road. Communications, hail their commodore as soon as they are subluminal. And Fire Control?”
“Aye, Pup?” The captain of Battle Management Section turned at her podium.
“We’ve gotten no swifties from Hanseatic Point, but we cannot discount the chance that a Confederate fleet has forced the crossing west of us. If so, they’ll come off the ramp firing. Be alert.”
“On it,” said Fire Control; and she directed her staff to key off Traffic’s bearings.
“Customs,” Greystroke said dryly, “prepare for maximum likelihood.”
The supervisor of Customs Section grinned as he set his screens. “Maximum likelihood; minimum impact. Boring.”
“Boring,” said the Hound of Fir Li as he entered through his personal door, “but preferable to the more exciting alternatives.” He wore a tight-fitting suit woven of thread-of-gold, bearing no insignia of rank and but a single decoration: the red-and-blue lapel ribbon of the Appreciation of Valency. It was the only one he ever wore. He strode through a chorus of greetings to the dais in the center of the room and stood behind the rails, gripping them with both hands. “Status?”
“Two metric minutes,” said Traffic.
“Cu,” said Greystroke. “Squadron is dispersed and all ships on amber alert.”
The Hound nodded. “Sensors, dome view. Palisades at focal.”
The ceiling dome darkened to the outside night. To the right and rear of the command station: the emptiness of the Rift. To the left, the frontier stars of the League with the haze of the Periphery beyond them. At the forward focal point, enclosed in red-line crosshairs, the exit from the Parkway. Invisible, an anomaly in n-space, limned in false colors so as to resemble the mouth of a tunnel.
“Ninety beats,” said Traffic. “Sir, a swifty exiting the Parkway.”
“Message from incoming fleet,” said Comm. “Screening for viruses. Clean.”
“Play it.”
A window opened on the dome display just to the right of the crosshairs, revealing a flat-faced man with thin black moustaches and hair done up in greased braids that fell past his shoulders. His skin was pale with a greenish cast. Studs, rings, and gems graced every feature of his face, though effecting no discernible improvement on any of them. A golden torque encircled his neck. A ruby was set in the center of his forehead.
“G’day, to youse, yer honors,” the apparition said, with an easy confidence and a predatory smile. “Don’t be a-frightened at our little outing here, youse. We’re just passing through Sapphire Point. Welcome to it, sez I. Oh, yeah. I hight the Molnar khan Matsumo, me; chairman of the Kinlé Hadramoo out of th’ Cynthia Cluster. We’ve twenny ships exiting th’ Parkway, an’ makin’ cut-off to th’ Silk Road. No reason to go waving yer weapons all about, youse. Oh. And nothing to declare,” he added with a smile.
“Fleet exiting!” called Traffic.
“Hold all fire,” ordered the Hound.
“He didn’t say where he was bound,” Greystroke murmured to his chief.
“I noticed, Pup.” Then, louder, “Comm, put me through. What’s the time lag?”
“A grossbeat.”
“Metric time, if you please, Mr. Lazlo.”
“Sorry, sir. One-point-um-three, now.”
“Compress and squirt, then. ‘Intruder fleet, this is His Majesty’s battle cruiser, ULS Hot Gates, Sapphire Point Squadron; Cu na Fir Li commanding. This is interdicted space, and authorization is required for transit. Do you have a visa?’” A wave of laughter rippled across the bridge.
“Let me blast them,” said Fire Control. “Please?”
Na Fir Li shook his head. The Cynthians had twenty ships, all corvettes. Hot Gates and her support ships could take any one of them easily, perhaps any five of them; but she could not take all twenty. The Squadron expected to die when the Confederacy crossed the Rift; but there was no reason to die to enforce League commercial regulations on some back-cluster pirate fleet.
The reply packet came, and once more the Molnar showed his teeth. “I’m impressed such an important boy as yourself is standing by to wave at me as I pass through. And dressed so pretty, youse. Sorry ’bout th’ visa, me. Nobody told me, not even th’ late ICC factor. An’ I thought he told me everything he knew before he passed on. Ha ha!” Muffled laughter was heard in the background.
“Where away?” Fir Li asked.
The reply came sooner, as the Cynthian fleet’s trajectory brought it nearer the Squadron. “Oh, some folk need a civics lesson, and we’re to be th’ tutors.” The Molnar had a diamond stud embedded in his top right incisor. When he grinned, it flashed. “There’s been a bit of a dust-up there and they need a strong hand to set them right.”
“You’re going to raid a planet!” Fir Li said.
“Well, we won’t stay longer ’n we need to make our point! Oh. And to tell the ICC people there that they need a new factor on Cynthia Prime. Poor fella’s heart gave out. Cracking on and blinding, he was, how the ICC would settle things in Cynthia, now that they had the Twister.” The Molnar sat straighter in the viewscreen. “Maybe he didn’t know th’ insult was mortal, him bein’ an outlander, and all; but that don’t excuse him saying it. He learned better. Ha ha! So, I figger, once we have this Twister thing, we’ll be safe from th’ ICC. Don’t know why you doggies don’t go barking after them and their threatening free folk and all.”