Timothy Zahn - Spinneret

Allerton was still staring blackly at the camera when Saleh cut off the connection.

Meredith had guessed the political ripples of the M'zarch attack would take a month to return to Astra; but in fact the ships started arriving barely ten days after the incident. Three warships from the Orspham Empire were first, hulking monstrosities that completely dwarfed the Rooshrike corvets which escorted them in from the border. The Whissst arrived a few days later, their ships much smaller and reminding Meredith of nothing so much as large, steel-plated pretzels. The Ctencri sent no warships, but the flying warehouse they brought was a gadgeteer's delight, judging by the catalogue they transmitted groundside. As each race arrived Meredith did his best to send properly courteous greetings, and to gratefully acknowledge their offers of assistance and defense without actually accepting any of them.

"I feel like an Exxon heir at a gold diggers' convention," he grumbled to Major Barner one afternoon in the latter's Crosse office. He seemed to be spending a lot of time in people's offices lately; the thought of all the radio monitors overhead had made him increasingly leery of the phone for anything but the most innocuous conversations. "You can practically hear dollar signs dropping every time one of them calls down."

"Except with the Orspham," Barner noted. "They seem more interested in finding a M'zarch ship to shoot up. Have you figured out yet what you're going to do about all of them?"

Meredith grimaced. "Not yet. It's obvious we're going to need some protection, if only to keep the M'zarch from taking another crack at us. The only problem is making sure the guards we pick don't decide at some point that robbery would pay better." He shook his head. "Never mind that for now. We can afford to string them along for a while longer. Did you really want me here to discuss the harvesting, or is this more from Hafner's people?"

"The latter." Barner unfolded a map and indicated the new areas of crosshatching.

"They've eliminated three more hills and most of the ridge that overhangs that end of the Dead Sea."

"Um. Still using that sonic echoing gadget Brown's people cobbled together?"

"And hoping slabs of cable material don't play games with sound waves as well as electric fields, yes. So far nothing that looks like a cavity has shown up."

"Have they talked to Dr. Chang's team about that? I don't know if they've done any sonic studies on the cable, but they should be able to rig up something."

"Probably could." Barner hesitated. "I don't really think Hafner's people want Chang in on this, though."

"The hell with what they want," Meredith growled. "We've got a set of experts here and we're going to use them. What does Hafner think this is, some new version of keep-away?"

"I don't think Dr. Hafner cares that much, himself. But some of his people—well, resent the way Chang just came in and took over up at the cable site."

For an instant Meredith remembered how Captain Witzany had reacted to that same event. "This whole place better start remembering that Astra is a territory of the United States, not some free and independent country. You'll send a messenger to Chang this afternoon to ask about the cable's sonic characteristics."

He caught the objection in Barner's eyes and mentally backed up a step. "You don't have to tell him why we want the information, though."

"That'll help." Bamer pushed the map to one side, replacing it with a sheaf of photo enlargements. "Dr. Hafner also took an extensive set of photos of the area and suggested we try shape analysis on the hills. I think it might be worth a try."

"Yeah." Meredith picked up the top photo, glanced at the one beneath it.

"Unfortunately, it would mean putting all this on the computer, and I'm still not sure I want to risk that."

Barner shrugged. "I'll admit my knowledge of computers is limited, but it seems to me that if you tore out the entire remote-access system the thing should be secure enough. No one's going to eavesdrop on buried fiberop cables from thirty thousand kilometers, and the machine itself should be adequately shielded."

" 'Should be' is about as far as I get, too. Given our truly abysmal ignorance of the local state of the art in such things, it's not very reassuring." The colonel dropped the photo back onto the stack. "You might as well put all these into your boobyproofed file. I'm going to have to get back to Unie—some son of silly resolution Carmen Olivero told me the council was taking up this afternoon. Keep me informed on Hafner's progress."

"Yes, sir."

Heading back outside, Meredith paused beside his car and peered for a moment toward the south. Two harvesters were visible in the fields, working to bring in the meager crop. Nearly thirty percent of the plants had died under the shock of having their trace metals twice yanked out of their soil. / hope the Celeritas is bringing plenty of extra food, he thought, climbing behind the wheel and starting the car. And lots of spare fuel, too.

The last speech—Perez's, as usual—was already in progress when Meredith finally showed up, choosing a chair by the door instead of joining the others at the table. Carmen shot a brief look of annoyance his direction and then returned her attention to Perez and the other faces around the table. The outcome, unfortunately, was no longer really in doubt. From previous speeches and the accompanying applause, it was clear that at least six of the ten councillors were strongly in favor of Perez's resolution, and of the four remaining only two were definitely against. She'd hoped to at least get a tie situation, where she would have the deciding vote, but it was obviously not going to happen.

Perez sat down, and Carmen waited for the applause to ran its course. "Further comments?" she asked. "Then we'll proceed directly to a vote. All in favor … ?"

The tally was a solid seven to three. Suppressing a grimace, Carmen turned to Meredith. "Colonel, the Council of Astra calls on you to issue an order barring all but Astran citizens from approach or examination of Mt. Olympus, the cable lying north of Wright, and all alien technology and artifacts that may be subsequently uncovered. Specifically, this order is to include both those members of Dr.

Chang's group already on Astra and the various alien representatives currently in this solar system."

"Request denied," Meredith said briskly. "Any other business you want me here for?"

A ripple of displeasure went around the table, and Carmen braced herself for the inevitable outburst. But Perez kept his poise.

"I'm afraid you don't understand, Colonel," he said calmly. "This is one resolution you're not going to simply sweep away into a corner somewhere. We've done our homework on this one: I have petitions signed by seventy-two percent of the inhabitants of Ceres that support this resolution, and other councillors have similar proofs of support from their districts. The Spinneret belongs to Astra, Colonel, and neither you nor the faceless bureaucrats in Washington are going to take it away from us."

Meredith regarded him coolly. "You have a remarkably poor memory for certain facts of life, Perez, such as those dealing with your citizenship and my authority here. I'm at perfect liberty to ignore anything you or your seventy-two percent have to say—and if you get rude about it I can toss the lot of you into detention."

Perez didn't bat an eye. "It wouldn't be nearly as neat and tidy as you make it sound. If you don't throw Chang's group out immediately, I can guarantee there will be rioting—and this time I won't be trying to hold anyone back."

Meredith didn't move or change expression, but suddenly Carmen had the uncomfortable feeling that perhaps Perez had pushed the colonel a shade too far.