Harry Turtledove: 3 x T

"Sounds sensible to me," he said. "People who borrow trouble usually end up repaying it at high interest." He yawned. "I wouldn't mind going into cold sleep myself. I'm far enough behind on the regular sort that I guess that's the only way I'm likely to catch up. Shall we try to gain on what we can?"

"When going to sleep sounds like a better idea than going to bed, does that mean the romance is starting to fade?" Jennifer asked. Greenberg had just pulled his shirt off over his head. He bunched it up and threw it at her. She tossed it aside, undressed, and settled down on her foam pad. She didn't care about romance right this second, only about how tired she was. Greenberg told the computer to turn down the lights. Sleep hit her like a club.

The communicator hauled Jennifer and Greenberg back to life after about five hours of sleep?just enough to leave them both painfully aware they needed more. A Foitani voice roared from the speaker. "Answer, humans," the translator supplied.

"What is it now, Voskop W Wurd?" Jennifer asked, rubbing her eyes and thinking wistfully of coffee.

"This is not Voskop W Wurd. This is Yulvot L Reat. The warleader ordered me to evaluate your concept of scientific lying."

Jennifer wondered whether the translator was hiccuping or whether Voskop W Wurd had given that name to the Middle English literature as he assigned it to his subordinate. That didn't really matter. "What do you think of it, Yulvot W Reat?"

"To my surprise, I find myself quite impressed," the Rof Golani Foitan answered. "It serves to make extrapolation palatable, and by extension even speculates logically about the consequences of propositions known to be false, something I had not imagined possible."

"Then you think it might let you find a way to live with the kwopillot aboard the Vengeance? " Jennifer asked hopefully.

"It might let us look for a way," Yulvot L Reat said. "I take that for progress. So will the warleader Voskop W Wurd, since we never imagined?"

Yulvot L Reat's voice vanished from the speaker. A moment later, that of a different Foitan replaced it. "Humans, this is Solut Mek Kem. We have detected ships emerging from hyperdrive in this system. Your presence compromises Vengeance 's defenses, to say nothing of the fact that your drive energies could be used as a suicide weapon against us. You will leave immediately."

"Of course, Solut Mek Kem," Greenberg said. "I'll order the computer to?"

"Look in the viewscreen," Jennifer said. Greenberg did. His eyes got wide. There was the Vengeance, some kilometers away and visibly shrinking. When Solut Mek Kem said immediately, he didn't fool around.

"One of these days, I'll see if our instruments picked up any clue of how they just did that," Greenberg said. "Right now, though, I think the smartest thing to do is put as much distance between us and the Vengeance as we can."

Jennifer did not argue with him. The Vengeance, at the moment, was the biggest target in the Gilver system. No, the second biggest?Gilver itself was still down there. "Can we monitor traffic between the ship and the ground?" she asked.

"Good idea," Greenberg said.

The first signal the Harold Meeker picked up was almost strong enough to overload its receiver. "Solut Mek Kem aboard Vengeance, calling the base on Gilver. We will act for our own defense only for a period of two rotations of Gilver, in which time you are to persuade your newly arrived ships to break off combat so that we and your leaders may extrapolate ways in which we need not destroy each other. If they continue to attack thereafter, we shall fight as we see fit. Be informed and be warned."

"We did it!" Jennifer exclaimed.

"We may have done it," Greenberg said, less optimistically. "Let's see what Pawasar Pawasar Ras thinks of the offer."

The answer was not long in coming. "Incoming Foitani fleet, hold your fire," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said. "This is Pawasar Pawasar Ras on Gilver. I speak without coercion of any sort. Know that the Suicide Wars arose out of conflict between our sort of Foitani and kwopillot. Know also that if we and they fail to come to terms now, the Suicide Wars will return; earthgrip will hold sway over us all, and it shall be as if our race had never existed. Let us talk and explore other ways before we fight."

A louder, shriller voice followed that of Pawasar Pawasar Ras. "I, Voskop W Wurd, Warleader of Rof Golan, declare the time for fighting is not yet?and who would dare coerce a warleader? Hear me and obey, my brethren of Rof Golan!"

"Do you think they'll listen?" Jennifer asked.

"I don't know." Greenberg glanced toward the radar. So did Jennifer. The screen was full of ships. All of them were headed straight toward Gilver, or rather toward the Vengeance, which hung above the planet in a synchronous orbit that held it right above the precinct of the Great Unknown?and the Foitani research station. He looked at the radar plot again and shook his head. "I don't intend to wait around and find out, either. Computer, initiate hyperdrive acceleration sequence, vector exactly opposite that of those approaching ships."

"Initiating," the computer said.

If Greenberg had hoped to sneak out of the brewing fight while no one was paying attention to the Harold Meeker, that hope lasted less than a minute. A Foitani voice came from the communicator. "Human ship, this is Solut Mek Kem. Why are you abandoning this solar system? Answer immediately or face the consequences."

When a Foitan said face the consequences, he meant dig your grave and jump in. Greenberg said, "When you pushed us away from your ship, Solut Mek Kem, you left us sitting right next door to you as the modern Foitani head in on an attack run. We can't defend ourselves; this is a trader, not a warship. This isn't our war, anyhow. If you were in our position, what would you do?"

"Extrapolate, please," Jennifer added, knowing the only way Foitani usually put on other people's shoes was after those other people had no further use for them.

No answer came from Solut Mek Kem. Jennifer found she was grinding her teeth, made herself stop, then found she was grinding them again. Vengeance could swat the Harold Meeker out of the sky like a man swatting a gnat.

"Weapon homing!" the computer shrieked.

"It's not the Vengeance, " Greenberg said after a quick look at the radar tank. "It's from one of the ships that just came into the system."

"Can we get into hyperdrive before it catches us?" Jennifer asked:

"No," he and the computer replied at the same time.

Jennifer went over to the radar tank and watched the missile close. Others trailed it, but they did not count; the Harold Meeker would hit hyperdrive kick-in velocity before they reached it. That first one, though… some Foitani pilot, not knowing what the fleeing ship was, had been fast on the trigger?too fast.

Then, without warning, the missile ceased to be. Greenberg shouted and pounded his fist against his thigh. "Human ship Harold Meeker to Vengeance, " Jennifer said. "Thank you." Still no answer came. Less than half a minute later, the Harold Meeker flashed into hyperdrive.

Snow clung to the ground wherever there was shadow. The distant mountains were cloaked in white halfway down from their peaks; a glacier came forth from them onto the nearer plains like a frozen tongue sticking out. Musk oxen and the larger dots that were mammoths moved slowly across those plains.

Jennifer shivered. The synthetic furs and hides she was wearing were not as warm as the real things. Her arms were bare; gooseflesh prickled up on them as she watched. Her breath came smoky from her nostrils. "They'd better hurry up, before I freeze to death," she said, making a miniature fogbank around her head with the words.