"One will manifest himself," said Moby Dick. "And if not, you can still plunder the Democracy six ways to Sunday."
"That's more or less my own line of thought," said Virgil. "We're been spending too much time searching and not enough plundering."
"Shut up," said Dante.
"Just what the hell is your problem, Rhymer?" demanded Virgil angrily.
"We need a diversion," said Dante to no one in particular.
"What are you talking about?"
"September Morn."
"Forget her. You saw Tweedledee and Tweedledum. There ain't no way you're going to get her back without five billion credits. Either the planet antes up or she's dead meat."
"Shut up."
"Fuck you!" snapped Virgil. "Now that I know what you've been thinking about, I don't feel any need to kowtow to you. Even if you steal her back, all you've done is sign a death warrant for the whole goddamned planet."
"You're a fool," said Dante.
The Indian looked annoyed. "Maybe you should talk to the whale here, since that's all either of you can say to me."
"Do you really think you can rescue her without catastrophic repercussions?" asked Moby Dick.
"Of course," said Dante distractedly. "Avoiding repercussions is the easy part."
"No more drinks for him," said Virgil. "He's had enough."
"Shut up," said Moby Dick.
"Are you guys brothers?" said Virgil disgustedly.
"Go out back and molest one of the servo-mechs," said Moby Dick. "I'll let you know if you're needed."
Virgil stared at him. "You're kidding, right?"
"Am I smiling?" replied the albino.
"I never had a servo-mech before," said Virgil. "How does one . . . ah . . . ?"
"You're a creative sort of pervert. You'll figure it out."
Virgil got to his feet. "Talk some sense into him while I'm gone." He headed off toward the back door, and a moment later was out of the building.
Moby Dick ordered his chair to glide closer to Dante's. Once there he laid a hand on the poet's shoulder. "Take a break, Rhymer. All you're going to do is give yourself a headache. There's no way to beat the Tweedle."
"Oh, I know how to do that," said Dante distractedly. "It's the other details I'm having trouble with."
The albino stared at him. "You really think you know how to defeat them?"
"Yeah—but I have to go to Kabal III first."
"Go back? Why?"
"I've got to get September Morn off the world before I do anything else." Dante paused, still staring at his untouched drink. "That's the tricky part. Everything else follows from that."
"If you know how to kill Tweedledee and Tweedledum, kill 'em first and then get the girl."
Dante shook his head. "I can't."
"I don't suppose you'd care to tell me why?"
"Wait until I work it all out," said Dante. "Damn! I wish Matilda was here. She can spot the flaws in a scheme quicker than anyone."
"So send for her."
"It'll take her seven or eight days to get out here, and if I'm wrong, we don't have time to come up with a different scheme. They gave Hadrian 20 days to come up with the money—and that was two days ago."
"You can talk to her on the subspace radio," suggested Moby Dick.
"I will, once I work out all the details."
"Just how the hell many details are there? Either you can rescue her or you can't."
Dante finally looked up, as if paying attention to him for the first time. "You don't understand," he said at last.
"Enlighten me."
"Rescuing September Morn is just the first step."
"And killing the aliens is the last, I know."
Dante shook his head. "No, that's just another step along the way."
"What the hell are you talking about?" asked Moby Dick.
"I came out here to accomplish something," said Dante. "I've been so busy trying to do it piecemeal that I lost sight of the whole."
"All right," said Moby Dick. "I know better than to argue with a genius when he's working."
"I'm no genius," said Dante. "I'm just a guy who doesn't want to go back to being Danny Briggs."
"Who's Danny Briggs?"
"An unimportant thief who never did a memorable thing in his life."
There was a brief silence.
"You mentioned a diversion before," said the albino. "What kind of diversion? Is there some way I can help?"
"I need something or someone that can entice the Tweedles a few hundred miles from their fortress," replied Dante. He grimaced. "That's going under the assumption that they can't teleport. If they can change locations instantaneously, then I can't save her."
"Or kill them."
Dante looked annoyed. "Killing them is the easy part."
"There are a couple of million corpses strewn around the Frontier that would disagree about killing them being the easy part," said Moby Dick.
"They went about it wrong," said Dante. "If I can get them 300 miles away, maybe they won't see me land. Even if they can teleport, they have to have a reason to do so. If they're far enough away, they won't have one."
"We can fly low and drop some explosives 300 miles away," said the albino. "Or 500, or 800, if that's what you want."
Dante shook his head. "Then they'll come after the ship. I have to get them to leave the fortress and give me time to get September Morn out."
Suddenly Moby Dick smiled. "I think I've got the solution to your problems."
Dante looked at him expectantly.
"Did you ever hear of Deuteronomy Priest?" continued the huge man.
"No."
"He preaches all over the Inner Frontier. Last I heard, maybe three weeks ago, he wasn't too far from here. I think I can have him on Hadrian in two Standard days, maybe less if his preaching has taken him in this direction."
"Then what?"
The albino grinned. "Then we turn him loose on Kabal III."
"There's got to be more to it than that," said Dante. "Tell me about this Deuteronomy Priest."
"He's a hellfire-and-damnation preacher the likes of which I'll wager you've never seen. Used to be a male prostitute, of all things. Then he got the call, and now no sinner is safe from his ministrations, which mostly take the form of rather unpleasant predictions about the particularly nasty afterlife awaiting you if you don't repent." Moby Dick paused. "And since almost no alien has ever been baptized, they've become his special project."
"Let me get this straight," said Dante. "He's a preacher. He's not a bounty hunter, like legend says Father William was. He doesn't carry weapons, just invectives?"
"You got it," said Moby Dick. "if we land him next to the fortress, they'll probably kill him before his ship touches down. At any rate, you won't be able to sneak in." Suddenly he grinned again. "But what if we program his ship to land a thousand miles away, give it a state of the art communication system, something that'll carry his voice a hundred miles or more, and tell him to start preaching?"
"The Tweedle would want to see what the hell's going on," continued Dante excitedly. "And once he got there, he'd probably be more curious than deadly. He'd want to know what this guy is carrying on about before he kills him." He closed his eyes, did some quick calculations, then looked at the albino. "Even if the Tweedles can get there in five minutes, if Priest can keep them amused or interested or even just curious for another five minutes before they kill him or leave him alone, that's bought me a quarter of an hour. If we monitor them, I can land when they're halfway to Priest. The fortress isn't that big. I'll bring sensors, she can yell, one way or another I can find her in a couple of minutes, and I can blast her out of any cell she's in." Suddenly he frowned. "Only one problem. Will the Tweedle show up on our ship's sensors? Is he so alien that it won't be able to read where he's at? After all, Silvermane's ship didn't find any sign of life when we landed."