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  “Here in the middle of the twenty-first century there are four major ones,” Vaivan said, ticking them off on her long fingers. “One’s the Tripartite Coalition that consists of people from the Americas, Europa, and Japan. Then there’s the Socialist Hegonomy, a collection of political power groups who aren’t socialists but state capitalists; they’re large enough to be viable even if their lack of economic efficiency will never permit them to be on top. The Petroleum Confederation of PetroFed is the remnant of OPEC that still possesses of an enormous amount of well-invested capital generated by the defunct petroleum cartel of seventy years ago.”

  Her brother added, “The biggest unknown is the so-called ‘Yellow Peril’ in mainland China. They lost Space War One, and they’ve spent the decades since developing their technology base. They may now be in control of their population and food situations. That means they might be a candidate for future top group, although they don’t have the energy resources right now to do it.”

  “Then there’s the Commonwealth,” I observed, “on the way up.”

  “We’ll never be the top group.” Wahak shook his head. “We’re like the Dutch: too few people.”

  “But you’re using high technology in a low-profile manner,” I continued. “That gives you leverage you couldn’t otherwise possess in spite of your small size.”

  Vaivan said, “The only leverage we have is alliances with other small power groups who don’t threaten each other.”

  “Which you appear to have,” I observed, “if my analysis of the people who were on the telenet tonight is correct.”

  “You’re learning,” Alichin replied.

  Vaivan suddenly held up her hand for silence. “Did you hear it?”

  “Hear what?” I asked.

  “Listen!”There came a muffled “thunk” followed shortly by another one. A pause, then a quiet rattle like a brief rain shower falling on the roof.

  “Out!” Vaivan suddenly shouted in a voice much louder than I thought she was capable of. “Everybody out of the Center! Now! Move!”

  She was on her feet, had her brother by the arm, and was on her way toward the porch surrounding the Center.

  I followed without asking questions. There’s a time for talk and a time for action. Talk time was over. I didn’t know what the small noises were. Vaivan apparently did.

  Once outside, Ali and Vaivan put distance between them and the building. Again, I followed suit. I got the fleeting impression that lots of other people were also fleeing the building.

  Karederu Center blew up in a strange explosion.

  There was a blast of heat and a muffled, low-order boom. I knew there’d be a shock wave, so I hit the grass.

  One of the Vamori women was running beside me. As I went down, I took her with me, shielding her with my body against the heat, the blast, and the flying debris.

  I felt the sharp point of a small knife low on my torso in a place where I don’t like knives to be sticking me because I hoped to have children some day.

  “Let me go, or you’ll lose them!” the quiet feminine voice came in my ear.

  She meant it, so I rolled onto the lawn.

  I’d pulled down and landed atop Tsaya Stoak, the shy young thing who’d served wine.

  She wasn’t a bit shy with that little dirk in her hand!

  “Sorry, I was just trying to shield you,” I attempted to explain.

  “Oh, no!” It was both an expletive and a moan of disbelief as she looked behind us. I turned my head.

  Karederu Center was fully engulfed in flames that towered in a huge column toward the night sky, thundering with a roar like a waterfall. The center of the building collapsed on itself.

  It had happened fast. It had to have been arson. Although there’d been some wood in Karederu Center, a lot of Commonwealth structural plastic such as glasfiber had been used in its construction as well. Modern resins won’t normally burn, but they’ll melt and serve as a binder to other fuels if the fire gets hot enough fast enough. This one had.

  Alichin and Vaivan sat together on the grass not two meters from us. Vaivan had a shocked look on her face that stripped away her beauty and replaced it with a mask of horror. The intelligence expert was appalled at the extent and ruthlessness of the violence that could accompany the intrigue of her area of expertise.

  Ali’s expression was hard and determined, and it was he who recovered his wits first.

  “Everyone! Head count! And let’s get in as close as we can to see if anybody’s caught inside!” he yelled above the roar of the flames.

  A cry came, “Where’s The General?”

  “Oh, no! He’s got an arthritic hip!” Tsaya Stoak exclaimed. “He can’t move as fast as we did!” She leaped to her feet, but Alichin was up before she was and moving cautiously toward the engulfed Karederu Center, his arm held before his face to help shield him from the intense heat.

  A short, stocky form suddenly raced through the group of people on the lawn. He had a blanket or shawl over one arm and he’d pulled his white shirt up from his back to cover his head.

  “Omer! Stay out of there!” It was Vaivan who recognized the Kazakh.

  “I see The General!” came the muffled shout in reply. And Omer Astrabadi threw himself into the inferno.

  Ali was right behind him.

  I watched transfixed until Vaivan shouted, “Get water hoses! Get water on them and around them!”

  Nobody could exist long in or close to that holocaust. But both Ali and Omer were out in seconds. They carried and dragged a form between them. Ali’s shirt was on fire.

  I got to them first and pulled Ali away from The General’s body. He resisted, but I tore him loose and rolled him on the ground. Others rushed up to help Omer.

  I got Ali’s fires extinguished. He was grimacing in pain but didn’t cry out or whimper.

  Someone had turned on the lawn sprinklers so that a mist of water covered us. Somebody else had found water hoses and was playing them over those of us who were close to the flaming building.

  Ali was badly burned over his shoulders and torso where his shirt had caught afire.

  Luckily, it had been made of Commonwealth cotton which just burned. If it had been made of artificial fibers, it would have melted to his skin.

  “Easy, easy!” I told Ali. “We’ve got The General.”

  “How is he? He looked bad,” Ali managed to grunt between short gasps.

  I got under his right arm and picked him up. “We’re too close. Let’s get back where it’s cooler.”

  Five people had carried The General across the water-sprayed lawn to a spot under a walkway floodlight. I followed with Ali who was in great pain from his burns by now.

  Tsaya Stoak stepped up to Ali, tore away the remains of his burned shirt, and began to look him over.

  “Don’t touch him!” I tried to tell her. “You could infect those burned areas! Get a doctor!”

  “I am a doctor!” Tsaya yelled back. “I’m both an M. D. and a witch doctor!”

  In spite of what Tsaya said, I was tremendously relieved.

  “Only first degree burns,” Tsaya remarked. “About twenty percent of your body, Ali.” She ran her hands over his neck and shoulders, then placed her fingertips on both sides of Ali’s neck. I didn’t see what she did, but for an instant she seemed to be intensely concentrating on Ali. “Better?” she asked.”Yes. I’m all right if nothing touches those burns.”

  “I’ll start therapy as soon as I take care of The General,” Tsaya told him and turned to where the old man lay on a collection of cloths and blankets.

  “How is he? He looked bad to Omer and me,” Ali said.

  There was no mistaking the gravity of Tsaya Stoak’s tone. “The General has second and third degree burns over about eighty percent of his body. If we don’t act fast, he’ll die.”

  Chapter 5

  Special Solution

  “Where’s the nearest burn trauma hospital?” I asked. General Vamori was an old man, I di
dn’t know how good his heart was and it was obvious that his extensive burns would require the finest biotech facilities. I didn’t think the Commonwealth had them.

  “Vamori Free Space Port,” Omer replied.

  Of course! A space port would have facilities to handle very complex burn cases.

  But it was Tsaya Stoak who broke in, “No, I want him in the Haeberle Clinic at Ell-Five. Easier on his cardiovascular system and easier to rejuvenate the burned areas without keloid tissue.”

  “Besides,” Vaivan said, “he’s going to be safer there if we’re the target of terrorism.”

  “This isn’t real terrorism,” I pointed out. “Everything that happened today was harassment—fortunate if it worked but inconsequential if it didn’t.”

  Fire control aerodynes were circling the area discharging suppressant gases through their vaporizers. Other aerodynes bearing the blue hex-kreutz of medevac began settling to the ground.

  In spite of his burns, Ali seemed to be suffering little pain. He began to organize things.

  “Wahak, get medics to bring a pyro trauma tank here! Omer, get on the comm and alert Vamori-Free so that Tuito or the Tonolia, whichever’s on dirt, can lift for Ell-Five ass-ap. Four…No, make that five aboard. Omer, you fly. Vaivan, you and Wahak will have to pull things together here and get our comm center back in operation.”

  “We’ll switch to Vershatets,” Vaivan noted. “More secure.”

  Ali looked up at me from where he was kneeling beside his grandfather. “Sandy, are you with us? Make up your mind now!”

  “Do I have any choice?” I fired back. I didn’t know who’d been responsible for the three incidents today, but I liked these people. I liked their openness and their unwillingness to knuckle under to coercion. Pacifists they weren’t. Traders, merchants, and creators they were. In some ways, they resembled other peoples who’d refused to bow down to threatsfrom bigger groups—my own ancestors in Philadelphia in 1776, the French Maquis, the Afghans, the Poles, the Afrikaans, the Mongolians, some of whom had won and some of whom had lost but had fought to the end nonetheless.

  They could use me.

  But they badly needed the leadership of the man who lay mortally burned on the ground beside Ali .

  Time to fish or cut bait. Choose your partners and form squares.

  “I’m in. We’ll discuss details later.”

  It was the quickest and simplest decision I’d ever made. In the long run, it bound me more than any formal oath I’d ever taken.

  “Can you find your way back to my cottage?” Ali wanted to know.

  I ran the memory recall. “Yes.”

  “Get the aerodyne parked out back and get it over here. Start code is one-one-two-zero-zero-one. Mnemonic: the founding date of the Commonwealth. All our vehicles, including spacecraft, will respond to that start code, even overriding their everyday start codes.”

  “I’m not sure I can fly it. What kind is it?”

  “Mitsubishi Victoria six-three-hundred.”

  That aerodyne was the Flying Ford of the world, about as universal as an air hauler could be.

  I found it where Ali said it would be. The alky-fuel tanks were full. While the turbine was coming up to heat, I ran the preflight checks. It was important to make sure that the slot valves—especially the attitude system—operated properly because they controlled the lift generated by Coanda Effect on the directly blown surfaces. Most people have never seen an aerodyne except in the Smithsonian or the Deutchesmuzeum, but they were all we had for vee-stoll flight before lift drives existed.

  The inferno of Karederu Center had been extinguished by the time I got back. I set down without even stirring the grass about ten meters from where The General was surrounded by Tsaya, Ali, and the rest.

  The General was now totally immersed in the liquid of the pyro trauma tank with tubes, hoses, and connections coming out to provide his life support. Ali had liquid compresses and synflesh dressings over his burns. I tried to be helpful, but it was Ali who supervised the loading of the aerodyne.

  As four medtechs put The General’s tank aboard, Vaivan walked up to Ali and me. She was carrying a familiar object.

  “Crossbow,” I identified it.

  “That’s what I thought,” Ali added.

  “We got the team of two,” Vaivan said. “They’re Ilkans.”

  “The crossbow came from Kalihol,” Ali remarked as he looked it over.

  “And some of their equipment is Chibka,” Vaivan added.

  “Nice neighbors you’ve got,” I said.

  Vaivan looked at the crossbow. “Everything they used is perfectly legal to possess in the Commonwealth. Pyroaerosols using cee-oh-two capsules for misting a hundred milliliter of alky. Incense punk for an ignition source. Both capable of being strapped to a crossbow bolt, and the crossbows powerful enough to launch the loads a hundred meters from the road over the barrier and onto the roof of the Center.”

  Damned simple! Almost any flammable liquid could be aerosoled easily. Dispersed aerosols would lay right down on the roof surface within seconds. Then all it took was the arrival of the bolts carrying the punk. Vapor explosives are nasty.

  “Who sent them?” Ali asked his sister.

  Vaivan looked grim. “Probably never find out.”

  “Vaivan, send what’s left back to the respective countries,” Omer Astrabadi suggested.

  “Do it so it is not known how the remains got there but so there is no question about who they were.”

  “I’m quite capable of conducting counter-terrorist operations, Omer.” Beneath the beautiful and cultured exterior of Vaivan Teaq lay something quite different. And I wouldn’t put it past Commonwealth women, either. My brief contact with them convinced me the females were the vicious ones. Controlled, yes, but capable of powerful and effective action if required. Alichin Vamori seemed considerably less capable of deliberate violence than his sister. Maybe it was a sex-linked genetic characteristic. I understood why Vaivan Vamori Teaq was in charge of the security of Landlimo Corporation…and who knows what other organizations in this tightly interwoven operation.

  I didn’t ask questions at that point. I’d find out soon enough. I was with them, and I was glad to be. I didn’t want to be considered an opponent.

  The Tripartite Coalition and whatever other power groups had decided to crack the whip over these people were certain to learn the hard way that they’d enraged a tiger. It was either going to be long and bloody…or short and even bloodier.

  “Omer, are you all right?” Ali wanted to know.

  “Da,” the Mad Russian Space Jockey replied. “I went into the fire with my white shirt pulled over me to protect me—is called a Baikonur Fire Safety Suit.”

  “Sandy, fly the aerodyne. Omer, navigate because you know the route and the Vamori-Free layout,” Ali directed. “Tsaya’s already aboard with The General. Let’s go! Vaivan, Wahak, see you on the net!”

  The aerodyne acted a lot differently with four more people aboard. In spite of the fact that I was hyped-up with adrenalin, I could tell I was getting fatigued because some of my reflexes weren’t as fast as they should have been. With an additional load of almost 400 kilograms, the aerodyne took a lot more slot flow to break ground, and, once out of ground effect and clearing the trees, it frisbeed as its stability computer felt out the correct control responses and altered the control program accordingly. I managed to keep it right side up.”Climb to a hundred meters. Come to a magnetic heading of zero-four-seven,” Omer instructed me. “That’s high enough to clear towers and buildings. Press to maximum cruise.”

  I queried the computer concerning maximum permissible airspeed with the present load. The answer came to 209 klicks per hour and told me what power settings and slot openings would enable that.

  The lights of Topawa slid underneath us.

  “Get a course line set up on the computer and presented on my HUD,” I told him. “I’m not going to fly with my head in the cockpit through the traffic we�
��re sure to have around the Space Port.”

  “You’ll get what you ask for,” Omer promised. Within three seconds, the data flashed on the windscreen head-up display in front of me.

  “Topawa Track, Mitsubishi seven-one-four, medical emergency, over Topawa at one-zero-zero, heading zero-four-seven, going to Area Seven-three, Vamori-Free,” Omer spoke on the comm to air traffic control.

  “Seven-one-four, contact and track. Seven-one-four is cleared to Area Seven-three, Vamori Free Space Port, present heading. Maintain one hundred meters. We’re clearing your corridor now.”

  “Seven-one-four, acknowledged.”

  “Traffic one o’clock going to twelve o’clock, two clicks, altitude confirmed at five zero zero.”

  “Tally ho!”

  This was a time when I thanked the system for working properly because I was fatigued, flying an unfamiliar vehicle, and under pressure.

  As we cleared the urban area of Topawa and headed out over the darkened countryside toward the far glow that had to be the lights of Vamori Free Sport Port, Omer advised me, “Follow the road.” The lights of the vehicles on the highway formed a necklace of brightness that pointed along our course.

  Alichin leaned forward between our front seats. “Omer, Wahak couldn’t get a crew for the Tonolia on short notice. The crews are on holiday leave. Can you handle it?”

  “With some help,” Omer Astrabadi replied curtly.

  “I’m in no condition to help you tonight. Tsaya’s pain block won’t last much longer, and I’ll have to let her use chemical pain suppression. That’ll destroy my mental alertness. You’ll have to pilot.”

  “I say again: I need help. The Toreva Class packets can’t be flown easily with only one pilot.”

  “Sandy, you’ll have to co-pilot the Tonolia.”

  “I’m not certificated for that class, Ali,” I told him.

  “Certification be damned! The ship’s registered in the Commonwealth, and the Commonwealth will ex post facto certificate you.”

  “I’ll need a check-out.”

  “How much?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been in the Toreva Class.”

  “Yankee,” Omer said to me with a grin under his huge mustache, “I thought you were a hot jock from the U.S. Aerospace Force who says its pilots can fly anything that’ll get off the ground.”