A Deepness in the Sky

Jau followed his broad gesture. Over the years, Jau had realized that Trinli's theatrics were a cover...but sometimes they reached out and plucked at your soul. TheInvisible Hand looked quite starworthy, hundred meter after hundred meter of curving hull sweeping off into the distance, streamlined for speeds and environments at the limit of all human accomplishment. And beyond the stern rings—1.5 million kilometers beyond—the disk of Arachna showed pale and dim.A First Contact, and I will bethe Pilot Manager. Jau should have been a proud man... .

Jau's last day before departure was busy, filled with final checks and provisioning. There would be more than a hundred zipheads and staff. Jau didn't learn just which specialties were represented, but it was obvious that the Podmasters wanted to manipulate the Spiders' networks intensively, without the ten-second time delay of L1 operations. That was reasonable. Saving the Spiders from themselves would involve some incredible frauds, perhaps the taking over of entire strategic weapons systems.

Jau was coming off his shift when Kal Omo appeared at Xin's little office just off theHand' s bridge.

"One more job, Pilot Manager." Omo's narrow face broke into a humorless grin. "Call it overtime."

They took a taxi down to the rockpile, but not to Hammerfest. Around the arc of Diamond One, embedded in ice and diamond, was the entrance to L1-A. Two other taxis were already moored by the arsenal's lock.

"You've studied theHand' s weapon fittings, Pilot Manager?"

"Yes." Xin had studied everything about theHand, except Brughel's private quarters. "But surely a Qeng Ho would be more familiar—"

Omo shook his head. "This isn't appropriate work for a Peddler, not even Mr. Trinli." It took some seconds to get through the main lock security, but once inside they had a clear passage into the weapons area. Here they were confronted by the noise of fitting machines and cutters. The squat ovoids racked along the walls were marked with the weapons glyph—the ancient Qeng Ho symbol for nukes and directed-energy weapons. For years, the gossip had speculated just how much survived at L1-A. Now Jau could see for himself.

Omo led him down a crawl line past unmarked cabinets. There was no consensual imagery in L1-A. And this was one of the few places left at L1 that did not use the Qeng Ho localizers. The automation here was simple and foolproof. They passed Rei Ciret, supervising a gang of zipheads in the construction of some kind of launch rack. "We'll be moving most of these weapons to theInvisible Hand, Mr. Xin. Over the years we've cobbled together parts, tried to make as many deliverable devices as possible. We've done the best we could, but without depot facilities, that's not a hell of a lot." He waved at what looked like Qeng Ho drive units mated to Emergent tactical nukes. "Count 'em. Eighteen short-range nukes. In the cabinets we have the guts of a dozen weapon lasers."

"I—I don't understand, Podsergeant. You're an armsmen. You have your own specialists. What need is there for—"

"—For a Pilot Manager to be concerned with such things?" Again the humorless smile. "To save the Spider civilization, it's entirely possible that we'll have to use these things, from theInvisible Hand in low orbit. The fitting and engagement sequences will be very important to your pilots."

Xin nodded. He'd been over some of this. The most likely start of a planet-killer war was the current crisis at the Spiders' south pole. After they arrived, they'd be in position over that site every fifty-three hundred seconds, with near-constant coverage from smaller vehicles. Tomas Nau had already announced about the lasers. As for the nukes...maybe they could help with bluffing.

The podsergeant continued the tour, pointing out the limitations of each resurrected device. Most of the weapons were shaped charges, and Omo's zipheads had converted them into crude digger bombs. "...and we'll have most of the network zipheads on board theHand. They'll supply fire-control information for your maneuvers; we may have to make substantial orbit changes depending on the targets."

Omo talked with an ordnanceman's enthusiasm, and quickly left Jau with no place to hide. For a year, Jau had watched the preparations with increasing fear; there were details that could not be disguised from him. But for every treacherous possibility, there had always been some reasonable explanation. He had held to those "reasonable explanations" so fiercely. They allowed him to feel a shred of decency; they made it possible for him to laugh with Rita as they planned what the future would be like with the Spiders, and with children she and he would have.

The horror must have shown on Jau's face. Omo stopped his parade of murderous revelation, and turned to looked at him. Jau asked, "Why...?"