Eric Flint - Threshold

Hohenheim breathed a sigh of relief, glancing at Fitzgerald. If the Ares vessel had been moving faster-had accelerated, rather than decelerated, strongly-the mission would have been almost certainly at an end, and probably his career with it. It seemed, however, that theNebula Storm had no special tricks available to decelerate at Saturn, and therefore, even with the loss caused by the reversal of thrust on their Oberst Maneuver, there was a good chance that they could still beat the Ares vessel to Enceladus. It would just be a much, much closer race. He studied the viewscreen. This deep in Jupiter's magnetosphere, theNebula Storm 's captive nebula was vastly compacted, only a few tens of kilometers across; the vessel appeared as a tiny dot of light. "Any sign of communication?" "Not yet, General. Do you wish to initiate contact?" "In a moment. Let us take a closer look at our competition and see how they are doing from the outside." LaPointe brought the powerful telescopes of theOdin into play. The view dissolved, then reformed, the dusty-plasma sail of the vessel now filling a large portion of the screen. LaPointe gave a faint French curse of disbelief as the image came into focus.

TheNebula Storm 's sail was no longer an abstract mixture of light and fog; a great shield-shape was formed from the dust and plasma, a huge badge with a rising sun behind some tall building and the number "714" at the bottom. At almost the same moment, theOdin 's speakers blared out with a simple fanfare, four emphatic notes followed by five more, and A.J. Baker's voice filled the bridge. "Odin, this is the Ares-IRI vesselNebula Storm. You have the right to remain silent, but I don't think it will do you much good. Instead, I think you'd better talk to our captain. Captain?" "General Hohenheim, this is Captain Jacqueline Secord. Are you receiving me?" Hohenheim's mind was racing furiously.

"The right to remain silent" was a phrase familiar to almost anyone who had followed any American entertainment, especially police dramas.

The implications… "Odinreceives you, Captain," he answered. To shape the material of the sail that way… He did not believe it could be done simply with the magnetic fields, even assuming the aliens' control mechanisms were indeed advanced. The material of the sail itself would have to be mobile, which now made all too much sense. "Am I to assume, from your rather unexpectedly confrontational contact, that you are responsible forOdin 's current difficulties?"

"We are, in fact," Secord answered. "My overly melodramatic sensor engineer will take the credit for much of that, of course." "Captain Secord," Hohenheim said carefully, "such actions are clearly an assault upon my vessel. Is it truly your intention to attack the European Union and, in effect, declare war between a small corporation and a U.N. agency and one of the most powerful political units on Earth?" Secord's smile was not comforting. "General, it was not Ares or the IRI which began this. And as of this very conversation, I now have incontrovertible evidence that the E.U., or at least some components of it associated with the final design and outfitting ofOdin, have deliberately and with malice aforethought armed theOdin with a weapon-a coilgun-capable of firing projectiles at meteoric speeds. Combined with other evidence, we have sufficient justification to state with conviction that it was an attack byOdin, and not a meteor, which disabled the power station on Ceres and led to the injury and very nearly the death of one of Ares' personnel." Hohenheim felt the grim weight of the trapped descend upon him-but at the same time, a paradoxical lightening of his heart. "I see." "Do you deny these charges?" The general shook his head. "I would be a fool to do so, Captain Secord. If you had sufficient control of my vessel to force us to do what we have done, it would seem obvious you must have the evidence you mention. Yes, Odin did indeed fire a single projectile at Ceres. Is it your intention that we now proceed back to Earth?" "That is one possible path," Secord said. "However, we don't think that this is the best choice for all concerned." "What are you proposing, Captain?" "A compromise, General. One that should have been done the moment Dr. LaPointe discovered the Enceladus connection. A joint venture, with Ares, the IRI, and the E.U. having equal shares of the discoveries, and perhaps even with E.U. personnel making the first landfall on Enceladus." She spread her hands in a pacific gesture. "We reallydon't want enemies, General. We are, as you implied, not nearly large enough to play with the big boys if they get rough. Certainly we could get you dragged back and arrested. But that would still be so completely embarrassing to the E.U. that we would be lucky to ever get any cooperation from them ever again-at least for years. And we don't have the resources to explore, catalogue, and properly exploit another alien installation, anyway. We've been running on a shoestring ever since this thing began." She laughed, and the sound made the bands of tension around the general's chest loosen for the first time in months. "Hell, look at our expedition here, flying after you in a sixty-five-million-year-old antique. We can't afford this kind of crap, and neither can the human race." General Hohenheim nodded thoughtfully, vaguely aware that Anthony LaPointe seemed to have slumped back in relief at his console. "I presume that this logic was what convinced Horst to cooperate with you?" "Horst?" For a moment, Jackie Secord looked completely taken aback. Then she laughed. "Oh, no, poor Horst! You thinkhe sabotaged your systems?" The general blinked. The connection had seemed obvious, as well as the methodology he could have pieced together: signals hidden within the main transmissions, with Horst having the key in his own head or personal data unit. But her reaction… "Then how, please, did you manage to suborn my own systems? No member of Ares has ever been on boardOdin , and, in fact, if you had managed to infiltrate the systems prior to our departure, this chase would never have been necessary." A.J.

Baker's image joined Jackie's on the screen. "Thank Madeline Fathom for the idea, General, and me for my Faerie Dust, which is allover your ship." Anthony LaPointe sat up suddenly. "My God!" A.J. chuckled.

"Yeah, I think you just caught on." Hohenheim understood suddenly.

"Your supposed drive failure. It projected your Faerie Dust towardOdin , and eventually caught up with us." Hohenheim saw the sensor expert's grin widen. "And then, when you were close enough, you initiated contact to gather data and program the maneuver. And by now your Dust is spread throughout the main systems." It made sense. Horst Eberhart had been as blameless in this as he had been in the attack on Ceres.

It appeared both sides would owe the earnest engineer an apology. "It seems that you do indeed hold all the cards. So, I agree in principle, Captain Secord. What would be the terms of this agreement?" "I am not a lawyer, General. The agreement would be based on the one currently existing between the IRI and Ares Corporation, which has been very satisfactory so far. The only additional stipulation is this." She looked suddenly stern, a judge passing sentence. "The people directly responsible for the attack on Ceres will be arrested and, whenever practical, sent back to Earth for punishment. And you and your crew will provide full statements as to their actions and complicity." And so ends my career. Well, it will be in a good cause. And I will at least be able to look at myself in the mirror."I will allow you to choose the exact level of guilt that this encompasses, Captain. But I agree to your terms." "Level of guilt?" Hohenheim shrugged. "Such actions are taken by, and known to, different people at different times, and the responsibility for actions can be direct or indirect.