Chapter 9 — SURRENDER

We wasted no time organizing for our encounter with the next pirate band, for those pirates were considerably stronger than the Carolines, and we did not want to give them much time to prepare. They were the Solomons, whose specialty was gambling. Their leader had adopted the name Straight, evidently relating to one of the winning configurations of the card game of poker, but he had the reputation of being straight in his dealings, too. This was essential for his business, for the gamblers had to have the trust of their clients, and the violation of understandings was not conducive to that. Straight was a pirate, and he had killed ruthlessly in the defense of his turf, but he kept his word. Mondy's research indicated that though the Solomons were one of the weaker bands in terms of hardware, they were perhaps the most competently led.

"Damn, I feel him." Emerald muttered. "I feel Straight taking my measure, and I don't mean my bust line! He's getting set to make a real fool of me in battle. I've got to come up with something good!"

"He shouldn't know it's you he's dealing with," I said. "I'm the Task Force Commander, and there's no hint of strategic or tactical genius in my evaluation. He should hold my ability in righteous contempt, especially since that last battle seemed like sheer chance."

Emerald bit her lip, "More truth to that last than I like! One thing's sure: I'm not going to put us in a ship in the battle! In fact, I'm not going to risk any ships if I can help it."

How nice it would be to win a battle and not have to notify the families of our losses! "How can you fight a battle without ships?" I asked.

"With drones," she said firmly. "They are the space-age analogue of the ancient airplanes, and in many respects their operation is similar. They are short range, so must have either a planetary base—better, a planetoid base, to avoid a punishing gravity well—or a carrier ship. But given that base, their effect can be devastating. In fact, a sufficient force of drones can dominate a given sector of space."

"There's our answer," I suggested. "Send in the HC and wipe the Solomons out." I knew it couldn't be that simple, but I was curious what she planned. That prior battle had made me nervous. We could have taken much worse losses than we had, thanks to mischance—and mischance is part of war.

"Unh-uh! They've got drones, too—more than we do. We've got to nullify them so we can bring our ships into play, and they've got almost as many ships as we do."

"But you have a notion," I prompted her. I was familiar with her mannerisms, as with her body.

"I have a notion," she agreed. "If it works, we'll wipe them out. But if they catch on, it'll be an even battle."

"We can't afford an even battle," I reminded her. "We have four more bands to snap after this one."

"Don't I know it! That resupply fleet better not be late!"

She referred to the converted tanker coming from Jupiter on a secret schedule. It would bring food, ammunition, and CT fuel to restock what we had used. Supplies, as Commander Phist assured us, were the lifeline of a fleet in space. If anything happened to that ship, we would soon be hurting. In the bad old days of planetbound Earth, marching armies lived off the land, meaning they plundered the countryside. Sometimes they were more trouble to their friends than to their enemies. The Jupiter Navy paid its own way, as a matter of policy. But that meant we were dependent on our supply ships. The moment that tanker arrived, we would proceed to the battle with the Solomons. Meanwhile, we checked the situation in the Caroline notch of the Belt. The pirates had ruled it, but they were not the only residents. There were regular settlers who farmed and mined and worked, staking out individual planetoids, some no larger than boulders. A colonist would set up a bubble-tent for air and a solar-focusing lens for energy—and presto: That boulder was halfway terraformed. Of course, it was a rough and ready and lonely frontier life with a relatively high rate of attrition; Belt colonists might not be physically impressive, but emotionally they were metal-hard. For a time, several planets had exiled their criminals to the Belt; it had been a handy way to get rid of them without having to go through the social awkwardness of killing them. Unfortunately those criminals had prospered and become the pirates that I was now attempting to eradicate.

If I speak of the Belt as if it is crowded with rocks, that is only relative; it would generally require a good telescope even to see the nearest neighboring rock from any one fragment. But though the Belt was actually a monstrous torus including more actual space than existed in all the Solar System inside the orbit of Mars, so that its thousands of planetoids and hundreds of thousands of motes were thinly spaced, they seemed much thicker to ships traveling at interplanetary velocities. A pirate ship could spring out from any one of them. Any rock at all is a nuisance to a spaceship, even if it's twenty light-seconds away, for it just might be on collision course.

The main base of the Carolines was a small city-bubble named Bright Hope. Perhaps that had been literal, at its founding; it had long since become cruel irony. The people there met us with fear, not joy of deliverance from the pirate yoke, and this perplexed me. Why should the sight of a Naval uniform cause them to retreat into tight-lipped silence?

At first we assumed they were afraid of reprisals, despite our reassurance. But ones we knew were victims of the pirates were the same. They did whatever we asked but would not speak. Impatient with this, I dressed in civilian clothes and took Isobel Brinker to the local free tavern.

The "free" did not refer to the beverages served; they were expensive. It referred to the human interactions. Anyone could speak freely here without consequence. It did not matter what he said, or whether it was true or false, serious or humorous, consequential or irrelevant; he had a right to utter it. No one had to listen, but no one had the right to bar him from talking or deliberately drown him out. People were armed but only with stunners. It was all right to take offense and to challenge a person to a duel, and victory with the stunner was considered vindication. But information presented in the free zone was privileged; a person could not carry a grudge or insult beyond this region. I realize this may sound ludicrous to a planetary person who has not seen it in action, and certainly there were violations, but it was a surprisingly effective system for the widely divergent personalities and cultures of the Belt. We had a variant of it in the Navy where enlisted personnel could let off steam by talking, bragging, or cussing out officers, and on occasion the officers were there and cussed them back, but it was all "off the record." Here among pirates it tended to be more violent, but we of the Navy were familiar with the principle. I knew this was the one place I could learn what I wanted. Here, people would talk without fear.

I took Brinker, the former pirate captain, because I needed a bodyguard. I was, after all, a potential target, and some pirates were less honorable than others. I also needed a woman. Not for sex; my interest in this older woman was hardly of that nature, and I had indeed seen to it that no man touched her. It was for appearance, so that I would not be solicited by local women for sex or by men for companionship. I wanted simply to talk and listen, without being unduly vulnerable. Brinker had agreed to serve me, and she was doing so; she had proved herself to be an extremely efficient computer technician and an intelligent woman. I still did not like her personally and had not forgiven her for the deaths of my refugee companions fourteen years before, but I respected her nature. She had blinding speed and unerring aim with laser or stunner—that was the bodyguard aspect—without seeming to be a bodyguard. She also was conversant with pirate ways, and that was important; I had such an inherent antipathy to pirates that I risked a blunder and needed spot advice. And as it happened, I did want to talk to her about a certain matter.

We took a shuttle to the dome of Bright Hope. It was anchored to a stone fragment hardly larger than itself, but, of course, far more massive. The planetoid spun, and the dome bestrode its axis. Thus this was a circular settlement, like those of Leda; the city floor was a band around its hull where centrifugal force was one gee. The dome was oriented on the sun, leaving the planetoid in shadow. Thus, inside, the focused sunlight came always from the seeming horizon, and there was no night. The residents simply shut off the light from their houses when it was time for night, and slept while the light continued to charge their home-energy reservoirs. It was a primitive system, but effective.

Sergeant Heller accompanied us but remained with the shuttle. I would signal if I needed him. Brinker and I walked to the tavern. She was in a dress that enhanced her spare figure appropriately, while I wore Jupiter civvies—hardly more anonymous here than my captain's uniform. Anonymity was not the point; no stranger could be anonymous here. I was merely signaling that this was not an official trip.

The tavern was surprisingly large, and there were perhaps a hundred men and women in it. Evidently this was the main social nexus of Bright Hope. We showed our stunners to the clerk at the entry, whose eyes widened as he recognized me. "You know what you're getting into, Cap'n?" he asked.

I nodded, accepted back my stunner, and waited while he checked Blinker's. The point of the check was not to disarm customers but to make sure that their weapons could not harm the premises or precipitate blood feuds on the premises. Then we entered and found seats at a central table.

I looked around. This place could have been taken from a page of thousand-year-past history. There was no automation in view; the crude wooden tables were served by human waitresses, or more correctly, bar girls. The customers were informally, even raggedly, garbed in simple trousers, shirts, and boots, the women in low- and high-cut dresses. The beverage of choice was ale, foaming in big pewter mugs.

I concealed my reaction. In the Juclip, wood was a precious commodity, because of the space and time it required to grow it, and home-brewed intoxicants hardly existed, since the commercial processors were so much more efficient. Here in the Belt the sunlight was more concentrated and anchorages for domes common, so farming of all types, including tree farming, was relatively simple. Thus wood was cheaper than artificial material, and it showed.

A waitress arrived with steins of ale for us. We hadn't ordered; it seemed this was standard. We paid, and Brinker reminded me to pay a little extra; this was a "tip," a gratuity to the waitress for her service. I had heard of such a thing but never before experienced it; Brinker was already helping me.

The floor show commenced: dusky-skinned young women with full breasts and skirts formed of grass. Grass! Nowhere in the Juclip did grass like that grow! The girls were of Melanesian stock, as were many folk in the Belt, and they did their best to preserve fragments of the historical culture they identified with. Watching them move their bodies, I mentally applauded their cultural effort. I suppose the commander of a Jupiter Task Force is supposed to be above noticing such an elementary thing as sex appeal in natives, but I was between marriages and quite tired of the Tail. These local women were of course off limits to Navy personnel, by my own order, because venereal disease did indeed exist in this undisciplined region of space. But psychologically this made them forbidden fruit, and in any event there is something about a well-moved grass skirt....

I forced my attention, if not my eyes, to business. "As you know," I murmured to Brinker, "we have gained a ship."

"And lost two," she said. "You're lucky you didn't wipe yourself out."

"Yes. Inexperience was very nearly disastrous. I need an experienced captain for the new ship—one I can trust."

She gazed at me. "You are asking for a recommendation?"

"No. Can I trust you with such a ship?"

"I am a pirate. You know that."

"My staff advised me to be open-minded about pirates," I said. "It is not easy. I did not want to hire you, but you have served well. You could serve better. I am prepared to provide you with the means to escape my command and revert to your old ways—if you undertake not to do so. Will you serve me as the captain of a fighting ship?"

Brinker was a hard, controlled woman, but now her eyes shone with tears. "Yes," she said. "For such a command—body, mind, and soul."

That, from this particular person, was the ultimate commitment. "I will settle for loyalty," I said. "The Navy way. Discipline by the book."

"Yes."

"And it ends when the mission does, without record. You are, after all, a civilian, without security clearance."

"Yes." Her secret past remained secret, officially.

"I will see to the assignment," I said.

She shook her head ruefully. "I think this is the first time in my life I have said yes to any man three times in succession."

"It is the first time I have given a fighting ship to a pirate." But my talent told me this was the proper gesture. It was command that lured Brinker, not piracy. And I knew she could do the job. This assignment could save many lives.

A tall, elegant man of about forty approached our table, trailing a woman and a girl. He paused, glancing at me. "May we join you, stranger?" he inquired politely in English.

"Happy to have you, stranger," I responded, aware that in this region stranger was equivalent to mister or sir. "If you don't find it crowded."

"Cozy, not crowded," he said with a smile, fetching chairs from the nearby tables and fitting them around ours. He and his companions sat down. It was tight but feasible. "I thought you might like information, and I possess the best."

"Yes," I agreed. "Let me introduce myself. I am—"

"Let's keep it anonymous for the present," he interrupted with a smile. "Or at least on a first-name basis."

Already I was reading him. This was no casual encounter! He was a highly disciplined man who recognized me and had sought me out. "As you prefer, stranger. I am Hope, and my companion is Isobel."

"Charmed," he said. "I am Straight; this is my wife, Flush, and my daughter Roulette."

Straight! But I damped down my reaction. "How quaint," I said. "Your family is like mine, with symbolic names. I have sisters named Faith and Spirit."

Straight smiled pleasantly. "Indeed! I was certain we would get along."

The waitress arrived again. She glanced at Straight and almost dropped her tray of ale. "At ease, wench!" Roulette snapped. The waitress recovered herself and set down three new mugs. Straight paid her generously and with flair, as if long accustomed to this. Then he refocused on me. "I'm sure you have questions, Hope. Perhaps I can be of service."

Questions! An understatement! But still I kept it quiet. "As a matter of fact I do," I agreed. "I am concerned that the natives here seem hostile or fearful of the Navy, when it should be otherwise. But they won't say why."

"Elementary, Hope! The Navy is here only for a moment; the pirates are eternal. When the Navy departs, the pirates will return—and take reprisals against any colonists who collaborated with the enemy."

I knocked my forehead with the heel of my hand. "Of course! Why didn't I think of that?"

"Because you are not a pirate, Captain."

I nodded. "And you are." Yes, we knew each other's identities!

"Piracy has a long tradition in the Belt, Hope," he said blandly. "The Carolines are famous for their coconut-toddy orgies—another tradition. There are other points of interest, such as the huge stone coins, or the ruins left by a mysterious alien civilization. Tradition is important, where law is not."

"Oh?" I asked, interested. "Nonhuman artifacts?" In the tavern, music was starting, and some couples were dancing.

"My daughter is fascinated by those ruins," he said.

"Tell him about them, Rue."

"I'd as soon kiss a snake," Roulette said.

I looked at her more carefully. She was stunningly beautiful, like a female jaguar, with red hair and deep gray eyes and fine lines, and righteous anger fairly radiated from her as she glared at me. She was not pretending; she hated me, and her father knew it.

"You don't like him?" Straight inquired mildly of his daughter. "How can that be, when you don't even know him?" My question exactly!

She made a facial gesture as of spitting. "I know what he is!"

"I doubt it," Straight said. "Ask him to dance with you."

"That isn't necessary," I said quickly.

"Ah, but it is," Straight said. "It is never wise to judge a person without proper knowledge of him. My daughter obeys me until another man breaks her will." He looked at, Roulette, and his face hardened abruptly.

Roulette flushed. She jumped up, her chair crashing to the floor behind her, her right hand flashing into her blouse and emerging with a small stunner. Then she froze, for Blinker's stunner was pointed at Roulette's left eye. None of the rest of us had moved.

Roulette's flush receded. Slowly she put away her weapon; it seemed she had a holster under her left armpit. "Would you care to dance, stranger?" she asked me.

Now I was thoroughly intrigued. "Certainly, Roulette," I agreed, standing. I knew that Brinker would cover my rear, as it were; I have never seen a faster draw or more accurate aim than hers.

Roulette turned abruptly and walked with me to the dance area. She was graceful indeed, in motion. Behind, I heard Straight say: "You did not learn that move in the Navy, Isobel."

"Perhaps not," Brinker agreed wryly.

We reached the dance floor, and Roulette turned to enter my arms. Her figure was like that of the proverbial hourglass, with a remarkably generous bosom and a waist so tiny I wondered whether she constricted it with a corset. But when I put my hand on it, her flesh was soft, not rigid, and her waist was supple. Her shape was genuine.

The so-called ballroom dancing was one of the arts I had mastered in Basic Training; the Navy did not leave such things to chance. I was familiar with the moves, and my talent enabled me to pick up her variations, but I hardly needed to, for she was skilled and light on her feet. I had danced with many women but none like this. She was caviar.

"Why do you hate me?" I asked into her fragrant hair.

"Because you come to destroy my father," she answered, her body tensing.

"Why, then, does he seek me out?"

"He is a clever man. He always understands his enemies."

More interesting yet! "Why does he throw us together?"

"That is too horrible to contemplate!" Again she tensed; she meant it.

"What horror is this?"

Her dance step did not falter, but she turned her lovely face to gaze into my eyes with such muted yet intense rage that I was daunted. Truly she hated me! "Your very touch appalls me," she murmured.

"I have no designs on you," I said. "We do not mix with the natives in that manner."

"I have killed two men who tried to, as you so quaintly put it, mix."

What continued to bother me was that she was serious. She spoke of murder as if it were justified, and she felt justified. "They tried to force it?" I asked.

"One thought I was bluffing; I gutted him with my knife. The other thought I was unconscious; I severed his spinal column at the neck."

"I saw my older sister raped," I said. "When she was as old as you are now. She was beautiful, as you are—not as pronounced of figure, but of a lovely face and an innocent mind. If I had had a knife, I would have done as you did. But the pirates had disarmed me and tied me. As it was, I swore to extirpate piracy from the system."

Her reaction surprised me. "Where was her own knife?"

"She didn't carry one. She regarded weapons as unfeminine. They held her down and did it."

She stiffened again. Her whole body reflected the swift passions of her mind. "Several? Who?"

"Pirates of the Juclip. Their leader was known as the Horse."

"Where is he now?"

"Dead, I believe. My younger sister blinded and castrated him, and probably his own men killed him. We set them adrift in space."

"I like your little sister." Then she shifted moods again, mercurially. Her left hand came up and clubbed me on the side of the head. Reading her blow, I shifted away from it, so the impact was less than it seemed.

"Damn you!" she cried as she struck. Then she tore away and strode back to the table.

There was a smattering of applause from the adjacent tables. "I saw you didn't goose her," a man said. "So it must've been what you whispered in her ear. What's your secret?"

"I have a certain way with words," I said wryly, and walked to the table. Roulette was strange indeed! She had killed men who had assaulted her, and approved my sister's mode of vengeance against a rapist. She had just begun to soften toward me, then reacted savagely, as angry at herself as at me.

Ah, there was the key! She didn't want to like me, or anything relating to me! She wanted to maintain her original hatred, and I had made that difficult. Her father was a pirate, and she hated all who opposed him. Yet her father evinced none of this emotion himself; to him, it was more like playing a game of skill with a respected opponent.

Ironically, I now understood Roulette's attitude well enough. I felt the same way—about pirates. My situation, and my advisers, were requiring me to modify my rage against the breed, and I didn't like that. A prejudice is always most comfortable when undisturbed.

"I regret I upset your daughter," I said as I resumed my seat.

Straight smiled. "Few men stir Rue's emotion as you have."

"And the others are dead," I agreed.

"They were not worthy of her."

"So it seems." I changed the subject. "May we exchange introductions now?"

"By all means. I am the leader of the Solomons."

The pirate band we planned to tackle next. "And I am the Commander of the Jupiter Naval Task Force, whose mission it is to eliminate the piracy of the Belt."

"Not merely the incursion of the Marianas?"

"As you point out, a temporary presence at one location does not eliminate the threat to it. To protect Jupiter's long-term interests I must destroy all piracy here."

"So it seems we must do battle," Straight said. "I really prefer to conduct my business in peace."

"It is an illegal business."

"True. But that is because interplanetary law is not always responsive to the needs of the people. My organization serves such a need, and serves it well. We are, in fact, a legitimate business in every respect except for the technicality of an outdated law. Many of our clients are important figures in their governments, and few have cause to complain."

"Unfortunately, another band overstepped the bounds of interplanetary propriety," I pointed out. "It is foolish to spit in the face of the Colossus."

"Agreed. But that is the Marianas band, noted for arrogance and indiscretion. That band and its kindred perhaps require disciplining. But why move against others who have not overstepped and are not likely to do so?"

He was making uncomfortable sense. "Jupiter does not distinguish between pirates. Too often before, Jupiter has dealt with specific annoyances when, in fact, they were but symptoms of a larger malady. This time we propose to deal with the malady, though it may require the excision of some healthy flesh as well as the diseased."

"I perceive the logic." He shrugged regretfully. "Can you be sure that you are not placing your mission in peril by tackling more than you may need to? I do not seek this battle."

"You are too competent to leave at my rear," I said.

"Shall we then establish reasonable terms of encounter? There is no sense harming more people or wasting more hardware than necessary."

"I agree. How about a region of space outside the inhabited Belt, off the Solar Ecliptic, so that no settlements are affected?"

"Excellent. Two fleets in space, alone. Shall we say in forty-eight hours?"

"Agreed."

Straight glanced at his silent wife. I saw now that though she was more heavyset than her daughter, she had similar bones. She would have been a phenomenal figure, in her prime, but twenty years of comfortable living had fleshed her out too much. That offered an insight into Straight's family life. "Shall we go home, my dear? Our business here seems to have been concluded."

They departed. "That man is dangerous," Brinker said.

"So is his daughter! We'd better get back to the ship ourselves."

We did so. As we traveled, Brinker briefed me on another aspect of pirate diplomacy. "Straight is trying to vamp you with his daughter."

"I noticed. And she is having none of it."

"Not necessarily. You have to appreciate the pirate mode of courtship."

"Courtship? That girl hates men!"

"No. She is strongly attracted to you. She hates herself for it, because she perceives love as a weakness, a submission. Pirate men don't love, they rape; pirate women don't seduce, they fight. Sex is a battlefield."

"You are in a position to know," I said doubtfully. "Is that what turned you off it?"

She grimaced. "Partly. But mainly, my love of command was greater than my interest in sex or romance. It remains so."

"What are the details of pirate courtship?"

"The groom kidnaps the bride and rapes her. She is given a knife. If she doesn't kill him then, she is his. That's the essence. The details differ from clan to clan."

"Roulette says she has killed two suitors."

"Surely she has. That girl's a hellion."

"Why, then, would her father introduce her to me? I'm not going to kidnap her and rape her!"

"The courtship convention is often honored more in the forms than in the reality. If you defeat Straight in battle, his daughter might be worth a considerable price."

"I wouldn't buy her either!"

"But if you wanted her, you wouldn't kill her father. A pirate would, but not a Navy man. She's his life insurance."

"But I don't want her!"

She glanced sidelong at me. "Don't you?"

I reconsidered. "Damn it, I do want her. Sexually, at any rate. I never saw a better-formed woman, and I'm sick of the Tail. But that doesn't mean I'd let that affect my campaign strategy."

"Straight evidently is gambling that it will. Also, he may feel you are a good match for her. He doesn't want war, he wants legitimacy. Many pirates are similar. I am. He's covering all his bets."

I shook my head. "I don't like being covered."

"I know the feeling."

I was troubled, but at the moment I had pressing other matters to attend to. Soon we were consulting with my staff. "Brinker will command the captured pirate destroyer on a de facto basis," I told Sergeant Smith. "Cobble together a competent crew in a hurry."

"Yes, sir." He got on it, taking Brinker with him.

"We're going to meet the Solomons in battle in deep space in forty-eight hours," I said to the others. "Make the preparations." Actually, two days would not get us out of the Belt, but the principle of avoiding a settled region remained.

"But our supply ship arrives in thirty-six hours," Spirit protested. "That won't give us enough time to organize."

"We'll locate a vacant planetoid and use it as a temporary supply base," Emerald said. Obviously she had a specific planetoid in mind, as such things were not to be found just like that. If I seem to suggest that things fell into place for us conveniently, that is only because my staff arranged it so. "Our lesser ships will be able to protect that with the pincushion defense." She turned to me. "You agree, sir?"

I grasped for an answer, as I hadn't been paying full attention. "I suppose so."

"You have something more important on your mind, sir?"

"No," I said, embarrassed.

"A woman?"

"Ridiculous!"

"Tell us about her," Emerald urged mischievously. "You haven't had a really good woman since you had me." I saw Juana smile obliquely at that, but she said nothing.

I sighed. "It seems a pirate chief is trying to fix me up with his daughter, for political reasons. Covering his bets."

"A pirate wench?" Spirit asked. "Is she clean?"

"This one would be," I said. Then I reacted against the mere supposition. "It's ludicrous! She has killed two men who wanted her."

"That fatal appeal," Emerald said. "I must remember it."

"Not this marriage!" Mondy objected, and they laughed. The two of them had grown closer in the past few days.

They returned to the details of strategy while I tried to shake off my own foolishness. So Roulette had a body of amazing proportions; why should that matter to me? Juana was as pretty as anyone, and—but that wasn't the point. Juana was no longer supposed to be of interest to me in that way, and neither was Emerald. I was looking for novelty; and that, indeed, Roulette was. Novelty and forbidden fruit. A pirate wench was certainly not for a Navy captain!

Sergeant Smith returned with Brinker. "I have set it up, sir. If you will just sign this waiver—"

"Waiver?"

"She's a civilian employee, sir. For her to command a Navy ship—it's irregular."

"She will not command a Navy ship," I pointed out. "It is a captured pirate vessel; and anyway, this is to be mostly off the record." Nevertheless, I signed the waiver. If trouble came of this, the blame should be mine, not his.

Brinker started to go, but I stopped her. "Sit in on the strategy session, Captain. You may have input."

"Yes, sir," she said gratefully.

Emerald leaned toward her. "What does she look like?"

Brinker was startled, glancing at me. "My staff has will and mischief of its own, Little Foot," I said with resignation. That was Brinker's song-nickname: the foot with no man to shoe it. "Satisfy their curiosity, so we can get on with business."

Brinker nodded. Then she made a gesture with her two hands, the classic hourglass shape. "Eighteen. Fire-hair. Face would launch a thousand ships. Imperious. Deadly."

There was appreciative laughter. "No wonder he wants her!" Mondy exclaimed. "There's nothing like that in this task force!"

Emerald slammed a backhand into his chest. It was her way of showing affection. She was not ashamed to show it, now.

 

We met the Solomon fleet at the designated spot in space. Emerald had planned carefully, protecting each major ship with several escorts. She knew from Mondy's research that the Solomons had three cruisers and a carrier with fifty drones, and a number of support ships; unless we used our battleship, we would be overmatched. But their ships were old, not as fast as ours, and their observation equipment was obsolete; at any reasonable distance, they would be able to detect our ships only as shapeless blips. Since we were doing battle in open space, this seemed to be no disadvantage; they did not need to track from any distance or to distinguish ships from possible Belt fragments; they could use visual identification up close. With their superior force of drones, they could saturate our defense and put us in immediate difficulty. Yet Emerald, instead of concentrating our force to overpower them, split it in two. She sent one cruiser, three destroyers, the carrier, and all six of our tugs to meet the enemy fleet, keeping the rest of our fleet back.

I did not want to interfere, but I could not make sense of this. "Why split the fleet?" I demanded.

"The supply convoy is late," she explained. "That leaves us all right on food and fuel, since the battle with the Carolines was brief and there was not much maneuvering. But after this battle we'll be low on ammunition, so—"

"Low on ammunition? We should have plenty!"

"Not after double-loading the drones. So we'll have to establish a defensive base for them, where the supply tanker comes."

"Double-loading the drones? They'll be too heavy to accelerate properly!"

"Yes. That's why we're clustering them with the tugs. The tugs can goose them up to speed."

"Clustered? Those drones can only fire straight forward! If you cluster five of them together, they'll fire five shots at the same target when one is enough! No wonder we'll run short of ammunition! And what of the tugs? They aren't fighting ships! The enemy drones will come up on them and destroy them the moment our drones leave them behind."

"I don't think so," she said with a smile. "They'll be boosting our drones backward, so ours will be able to cover what's behind."

"Backward! Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"I'd better," she said wryly. "Your career depends on it."

I turned away, ill at ease. I was no strategist, which was why she had the job, but this certainly seemed like nonsense to me. Nevertheless, I shut my mouth and watched my screen. The Sawfish had set course for the projected supply-base planetoid; we would arrive there soon after the battle commenced. The supply ship, behind schedule—such delays were endemic in the Navy!—would arrive twelve hours later. I hoped our backward drones had not been blasted out of space by then, and the Hempstone Crater with them. I had never heard of a battle order as strange as this!

The Solomons' fleet was ready, but evidently Straight was as perplexed as I about the lineup. The pirates seemed to hesitate; then their fleet, too, divided, half of it going to meet ours, the other half moving slowly to intercept our battleship where they perceived it to be heading, beyond the planetoid. "Good enough," Emerald remarked.

"But if we land on that deserted rock while they remain in space," I said, "we'll be unable to get spaceborne without getting blasted!" Now I wished we had arranged to do battle in true deep space, a few light-days out of the Belt. "But they will be unable to come in after us there," she said. "The pincushion is virtually impregnable when the fleets are nearly even."

I retreated to silence again. Emerald was supposed to be a strategic genius, but little of that had shown so far, and this arrangement seemed nonsensical. Why allow ourselves to be pinned on a planetoid? It was like a position in the game of checkers, with one king pinning the enemy's king to the edge of the board; the pinned king was indeed impregnable in its bastion, but it could not escape it. It was better to be in the center of the board with free movement; this was elementary.

But I had not paid proper attention to the strategy discussion and did not want to ask too many ignorant questions. The rest of the staff seemed high on this plan, so there had to be something to it. I was, in effect, a casualty of the pirate's daughter Roulette; I had been distracted by foolish thoughts of her when I should have been paying individual, undivided attention to the staff meeting. If I had been planning strategy myself, my fleet would be in a bad situation now, and it did not please me to realize that the cunning pirate Straight had probably planned it exactly that way. Damn that divinely shaped girl! And damn me for being distracted by that shape. I had been too long between wives.

Now the pirate half-fleet swerved at low velocity, coming around behind our fleet. Good God, we were already giving them the advantage of position! The cruisers could fire in any direction, but the drones were far more limited. The drones were now taking off in clusters, angling out from the carrier, and the superior force of drones from the larger pirate carrier was starting in pursuit. What did Emerald think she was doing?

The essence of the problem was this: Drones and small ships, destroyers included, had to fire forward, for their drive jets were in the rear, and their stabilizing spin prevented side firing. So in order to fire at a craft coming up from behind, a drone had to cut its acceleration, damp its spin, rotate in place, point backward, resume its stabilizing spin, resume its acceleration, and fire. The process required several minutes, and, of course, it made the ship a sitting duck for that period. That had been our problem in the Discovered Check, during the last battle. Our drones, double loaded, would be clumsier, and take longer to turn. So they would have to flee instead, and once they were well away from the rest of the fleet, the enemy drones could perform their own turning maneuver and orient directly on our fleet.

This, too, about drones: They were remote controlled. They were expendable. So they could be sent charging in to swamp a ship's defenses. Half of them might be shot down, but if just one of them scored on a cruiser, the pirates would be ahead, for a hundred drones were not worth more than one cruiser. The cruiser was crewed with living, trained people, while the drones were merely machines, operated by trained personnel in the carrier, one to a drone. To the operator, it was like being aboard the drone; his control was immediate, but when the drone was destroyed, the operator survived. Thus drones were very popular battle instruments, but they used a lot of fuel and required a lot of upkeep, so the Navy used them sparingly. Carriers were vulnerable when their drones were lost, so had to have strong escort fleets. And if a carrier was taken out, all its drones went dead in space. One lucky shot could completely reverse the progress of a battle. So the fact was, the age of carriers was passing as planet-sited missiles became more sophisticated; the Navy just didn't feel it expedient to recognize that yet. The old order of "carrier admirals" remained in power but perhaps not for much longer.

However, for this limited action against the pirate band, the drones of a carrier were a potent force, if properly managed. Things were suitably primitive in the Belt.

Still, Emerald's effort worried me. If the enemy took our drones out of commission, our whole fleet would be in trouble.

The pirates closed on our drones from behind, accelerating at higher gee, coming near firing range. I winced. "Now," I heard Emerald murmur.

Then our drone clusters separated into their component drones and leaped backward at the enemy drones. Abruptly, the region blossomed with explosions: The enemy drones were being blasted out of space.

Then I remembered: those tugs, accelerating our clusters backward. When our drones separated and accelerated on their own, they were already aimed at the enemy. No delay for turning. Suddenly it all made sense.

"Sixty percent casualty to enemy craft, estimated," a technician reported.

Spirit stood, stretching her arms. "Congratulations, Emerald; you've done it. We now have a sufficient advantage in drones."

Emerald was obviously pleased but suppressed it. "The battle is not yet over."

Maybe not, but the Solomons' striking arm had been truncated. Their fifty drones had been reduced to twenty without loss of any of our twenty-eight. We could now go after their carrier and quite possibly take it out before their remaining drones could turn and return.

Juana arrived. "News, sir."

"What is it?" I asked.

"New pirate fleet has been sighted. Estimated time of arrival: 2200 hours."

"Another fleet?" I demanded. "Whose?"

"Fiji. Two cruisers, ten destroyers."

"No carrier?"

"No carrier, sir. It appears to be a fast-moving raider force."

I pondered. We had more large ships but fewer destroyers. We could probably stop the Fiji pirate raid, but not while we were locked in battle with the Solomons. As it was, this new fleet meant disaster.

I consulted hastily with Emerald. "Damn!" she swore. "We can't handle two fleets together! We'll have to go into the pincushion defense with our whole fleet. That's the only way we can hold them off."

"Do it, then," I agreed. First we had to save our hides, then tackle new pirates.

As it happened, we were already headed for the planetoid, and so were our drones. We could complete our landing on it before the Solomons could prevent us.

But Straight, canny tactician that he was, found a way to nullify part of our effort. He diverted part of his force to intercept our incoming supply ship. We couldn't go to its rescue without becoming vulnerable to the Fiji fleet approaching from the other direction.

The supply ship and its escorts decelerated, staying clear; the pirates couldn't catch it without exposing their flank to us, but they had effectively balked its rendezvous with the planetoid. It was a kind of impasse.

We held a hasty staff meeting to consider the new situation. "We need those supplies," Commander Phist said, concerned. "We're low on ammunition and fuel now."

"We can't get them," Emerald said. "I had something in mind for the Solomons, but we aren't set up to deal with a fleet at our rear."

"You're making what may be an unwarranted assumption," Commander Repro said. "How do you know the Fijis are coming to help the Solomons?"

Mondy's eyes widened. "You're right! The Fijis are the scum of the Belt; they don't ally to anyone! They come in to pick up the pieces."

Now Emerald came alive. "Of course! They saw us gearing for battle with the Solomons, so they figure whoever wins will be so weakened that they can mop up the remainder. They're probably right."

Repro turned to me. "Sir, we have a difficult decision. I believe it would facilitate our discussion if you would let us thrash it out alone."

Startled, I glanced around at the others. "You don't want me participating?"

"You high again?" Emerald demanded of Repro. "You don't just kick the Task Force Commander out of a staff meeting!"

Repro waved a hand. "My mind is sharp enough at the moment, thank you, Rising Moon." He turned to me. "Indulge me, sir, if you will."

He was up to something. He was the one who had literally dreamed up this present organization; behind the addiction he retained a devious and penetrating mind. He understood people as well as I did, albeit in a different fashion. "I shall return in half an hour," I said, rising and departing.

I was curious what was afoot, but it was my policy to allow my officers to function in their own manner whenever possible. I knew I was no genius in any of their specialties; if they could plan a campaign better without me, so be it. I trusted them to do what they honestly deemed appropriate. Yet I wondered what insight Repro, a psychologist and propagandist, could have on a battle in space.

I made a routine inspection of the ship, verifying that things were in order. I like to think that my seeming unconcern lent confidence to the personnel; they knew that something was going on but could not believe it was serious when I wasn't bothering with the staff meeting. I wondered whether that could have been what Repro had in mind; he was, after all, also the Morale Officer. I decided that could not be it; why have a staff meeting at all, if reassurance was the only purpose? Beautiful Dreamer had something specific to present.

Meanwhile, we were rendezvousing with the planetoid, decelerating for our landing. A ship the mass of the Sawfish could not land on a true planet; the stress of gee would break it up. But a planetoid like this had so little gee that we would have to anchor our ships to it. The pirates would not dare approach until they got into a solid formation, and by that time we'd have our landing. The pincushion was what it sounded like: a ball of rock with ships sticking out all around like pins, able to fire in every direction. Enemy approach was almost impossible because of the massed firepower of the anchored ships.

But that cutoff of our supply ship was worrisome indeed. The waging of war in space requires enormous amounts of CT fuel; the drones are especially demanding in that respect, because of their high acceleration. We could finish the battle we were in, but the Fiji fleet would find us virtually dead in space. Our lifeline had been cut. I couldn't really blame Emerald for this; no one could have predicted the intervention of a third fleet at this time, though it certainly made piratical sense in retrospect. There were sharks out here in the Belt, feeding on each other's wounded carcasses. We were suddenly in trouble, and I didn't like it at all. This was, after all, no practice exercise with rubber knives; our lives were on the line, not to mention our pride. We could be about to suffer the very fate projected for us by the politicians of Jupiter.

I returned to the staff meeting when my uneasy half-hour exile expired. "Have you worked everything out?" I inquired somewhat wryly.

They were serious and somewhat nervous; I picked up the emanations. It was as though they were the members of a jury about to deliver a verdict of guilty, and not easy about it. Strange indeed!

"Sir, we have thrashed this out," Spirit said, speaking with atypical formality. "We have concluded that our best course is to proffer our surrender to the Solomons' fleet."

I felt faint. I found my gee-couch and sank into it.

"Please say again?"

"Straight is a halfway decent man," Spirit continued. "He generally keeps his word, and he's not bloodthirsty. Go to him under flag of truce and present our situation. We could hold out here with the pincushion, leaving the Solomons to meet the Fiji fleet alone. If he will give us safe passage to our supply ship, we will vacate this base, which is the only usable one in this region, and allow him to take it. He will then be able to use the pincushion himself to hold off the Fijis, while we can return to Jupiter, having failed our mission. We'll have to provide him hostages, of course; he can choose among us for them, and ransom us back to Jupiter in due course."

I found my voice. "How can you recommend such a thing! We aren't even in serious trouble, as long as we hold this rock!"

Mondy spoke. "Sir, we have analyzed this to our satisfaction. We are not set up to withstand an extended siege, which is what we'll face after the Fijis drive the Solomons away. In the end we'll have to capitulate from hunger and power depletion, unless we can get our supplies, and it is much, much better to deal with Straight. We are being realistic. We can save all our lives and equipment this way."

At the expense of the mission! I looked at each in turn. All of them were serious, yet there was something they were concealing from me. "Now look," I said. "I'm not going to proffer surrender while you lay a trap! I don't like this notion at all, but I won't deal in dishonor."

"No trap, sir," Emerald said. "Commander Repro has made an excellent if unusual case, and we agree. You must go to Straight with our offer."

Again I looked at them. There was no banter, no nicknaming. I had never seen them, as a group, so nervous yet united. They definitely were not giving up, yet they really did want me to surrender to the pirate.

I had assembled this excellent staff, under Repro's guidance, and Repro himself was the agent here. I trusted his judgment of these officers. They knew better than I did what was required. I could overrule them, for I was the Commander; the final responsibility was mine. But I was reluctant to do that. "You won't explain?" I asked.

"After this crisis passes, sir, we will explain," Spirit said.

I sighed. "I hope you have not lost your collective wits! All of us will be court-martialed for pusillanimity when we are ransomed back to Jupiter. All of our careers will be finished."

"But we will suffer no further losses," Emerald said. "We are thinking not of pride but of the greatest good."

I turned away, unwilling to believe it. My staff—united in defeat when we had won the first part of the engagement? I had sworn to extirpate piracy from the face of the System; how could they expect me to capitulate? My whole will was toward the destruction of the pirate power—or death in the attempt. Simple surrender the moment the going got tough? Surrender?! There would not only be a court-martial, there would be a scandal; and I would be the leading witness for the prosecution.

Yet I had to do it. I could not go against their collective judgment without violating my belief in my own talent, and I knew my sister would not betray me. She, like the others, sincerely believed this was the best course. But I was angry and perplexed. This made no sense I could see.

I signaled the Solomons' command cruiser. "Captain Hubris requests clearance for one ship for personal parley."

There was some dickering with intermediaries, then Straight himself came onscreen. He was dressed informally, as if on vacation; I would not have figured him for either pirate or military commander if I had not encountered him before. "Parley, Captain?"

I was not going to do this thing on the air! "I will come to you under white flag. Just don't shoot my transport vessel out of space."

He considered briefly. "I'll send a ship to pick you up."

Smart counter! His own ship would not be booby-trapped. A pirate had to consider pirate devices. "Agreed."

I gave the order, so that our gunners would let his ship pass. It turned out to be a mere gunboat, hardly enough to threaten our battleship but surely a terror against farmers on the rock fragments of the Belt. I boarded alone; a bodyguard would have been pointless here.

In due course I arrived at the pirate cruiser. It was elaborate inside but not in the manner of a fighting ship. It was a gambling den with lush carpets and fancy lounges and games of chance of many kinds. It wouldn't be much use in battle, especially not against a competent Navy cruiser. The Solomons were not in as strong a position as it had seemed.

And my staff wanted me to surrender.

I was conducted to the gambler's office. "Parley?" Straight repeated.

I came immediately to the point. "My staff advises me that I must bargain with you on terms of surrender."

He smiled. "Captain, you pulled a very nice maneuver there with the drones. But we are hardly ready to surrender."

"Not you. Us."

An eyebrow elevated. "You—to me?"

"We're low on fuel and ammunition. You have blocked off our resupply ship. The Fiji fleet is approaching. We prefer to surrender to you, rather than be starved out by them. All we ask is safe passage for our ships through your line so they can return to Jupiter without losses."

He shook his head. "Surely you don't expect me to accept that at face value."

I grimaced. "I hardly accept it myself. But I trust my staff, and my staff informs me that this is the best way out of an untenable situation. If we do further battle, the Fijis will wipe out our remnants, and that would not be good for either of our fleets."

"True. But we could separate without fighting. I never sought this battle."

"If we could trust each other," I said. "My staff evidently feels we can't."

Straight shook his head. "There is little honor among pirates. If I lost power, the Solomons would quickly fragment, until some other leader arose, probably after a good deal of violence. And I would lose power if I made a suspicious deal with the Jupiter Navy. I can't retreat; the wolves I face in the Belt are worse than those of the Navy."

"My staff probably understands that." I made a gesture of impotence. "So it seems I must surrender. It is not of my choosing or liking. It means the end of my career, and the abrogation of my oath." I spoke bitterly; how could my staff do this to me?

Straight nodded. "I understand that. I think I would have preferred to finish our battle. You realize we would have to take hostages: you and your leading officers."

"Yes. And ransom us back to Jupiter."

"We could use the leverage of the hostages to force complete surrender of your ships."

"Would such honor as you have permit that?"

It was his turn to grimace. "No. I am regarded as a fool in some quarters. I am a businessman, and my business depends on the validity of my word. Otherwise my wealthy clients would desert me."

"So it is feasible for us to surrender to you, rather than to another band. I would have preferred some other course."

He looked at the ceiling. "I remember courting Flush. She was the most beautiful wench in the Belt in those days. I raided her dome and carried her away and raped her that night. Oh, how she fought! I bear the scars of her nails and teeth yet." He showed his forearm where indeed there were scars.

I looked at him, startled. What had this to do with the subject of surrender?

"My aunt, who never liked me, gave her a blade," he continued. "But when Flush had it at my throat, she did not use it. And so she was mine, in the pirate fashion, and I have trusted her with my life ever since."

"She had the knife, but surrendered to you," I said, not certain I had made the correct connection. He was definitely telling me something important, but I could not yet fathom what.

"And her clan joined mine when they saw she was mine, and they have been loyal throughout. I never raped her again, never had to. Of course, we put out word that she fought me for two years, in the bedroom, until she was gravid with Rue, but that was a matter of protocol, so there was no dishonor on her clan."

"You seem like a happy family," I said, somewhat taken aback. This was not the sort of news one gave an enemy.

"As such things go. We honor the tradition."

I shook my head. "No offense intended, but that tradition is foreign to me."

"It is best to understand your enemy." He shrugged. "Give me a little time to ponder your offer. Roulette will entertain you in the interim."

"I don't gamble," I said.

"You are gambling now."

Touché! He smiled as he touched a button on his desk. In a moment his daughter appeared. She wore a bright red blouse and dark red skirt. The combination reminded me of fresh blood and old blood. Yet she was as strikingly beautiful as ever, and though I condemned my masculine foolishness, I knew I wanted her. "Entertain our guest for a while," Straight told her.

Roulette fired a glance of anger at me but indicated the door. I followed her out, my emotions mixed. Again, Straight was putting me with his daughter, again against her will. But to what point? He no longer needed to dangle such bait or to evoke my interest in her to protect his situation. There could be no future in our relationship. The situation had already given Straight victory.

She led me to a game room. It was filled with gambling machines of every type. Some were old-fashioned pinballs, a staple for centuries, in which a ball rolled and bounced around in a chamber, causing ascending numeric scores. Others were the historical one-armed bandits, whose windows showed simple designs of fruits and objects; the correct combination resulted in a payoff of coins. Still others were electronic video games, with all manner of trick devices of animation and challenge. We took one that showed two space fleets about to engage in battle. Roulette took one fleet, I the other. The fleets charged each other, under our control, and the dexterity and strategy of the players determined their success.

Sad to say, Roulette tromped me. "You must have been practicing this!" I protested.

"Haven't you?" she asked acerbically.

That stopped me. I was a Naval fleet commander; couldn't I manage my mock fleet adequately? Yet I was here to surrender; perhaps that was answer enough. "The truth is, I am not expert in tactics," I said. "It is my position to command the officers who are expert, so that we form an efficient team. I'm really a figurehead,"

She gazed at me with mixed surprise and contempt. "My father's no figurehead! He is our team. He directs the battle. He supervises everything. And he has trained me to do it, too."

Now I was surprised. "You can direct a fleet in battle—a real fleet, not just a game fleet?"

"I was directing our fleet when our drones met yours." She grimaced. "You decimated us. Who directed that ploy?"

"Her name is Lieutenant Commander Emerald Sheller. She—"

"She?"

"Yes. She is our strategist, my former wife."

"You use women in positions of power?"

"Of course. We go by qualification and competence, not sex."

"Not sex? But you cast her aside when you tired of her."

"No. The situation separated us. We remain friends."

Something changed in her. "I'd like to meet her."

"You will. Your father will surely select her as a hostage."

"A hostage." She considered a moment, then turned on me a look of absolute fury as sudden and inexplicable as the one she had made the last time we met. I could read emotions but not always the causes of them. "God, I should kill you now!"

Anyone would have been surprised by this. She was sincere. She did not strike me as emotionally unbalanced, though she was certainly volatile. She believed she had reason to hate me.

So I inquired, as I usually do. "Why?"

She strode off without answer. I followed, covertly admiring her figure and her movements. Intellectually I knew it was ridiculous to desire this fiery creature, eleven years my junior, but intellect was not the motivating force. Straight met us at his office door. "I have decided," he said. "We shall not accept your surrender."

"You insist on fighting? It is pointless while the Fijis—"

"As is flight; they would merely pursue, knowing us to be in a weakened state because of the decimation of our drones. It is necessary to deal with the Fijis firmly." His lips twitched, and I knew he was thinking of the manner he dealt with all things. "Firm" could mean anything from an admonition to destruction in space. "So we shall surrender to you."

"What?"

"You lack fuel and ammunition, but your supply ship is bringing those. We lack ammunition and food; we were not able to supply our fleet on short notice for an extended campaign. Feed us, and we'll surrender."

"No food?" I asked, bemused.

"I'll send my daughter with you as the first hostage. You may select others in due course. Just so long as we get it done before the Fijis arrive."

"But—why?"

"You have honor," Straight said. "We can trust you not to murder us. That's a good deal more than we can say for the Fijis."

"But you wouldn't have to face them if—"

"If we had your surrender? No, as I explained, we cannot retreat, and we don't have enough power at the moment to defeat them. We might get the supplies we need from you, but we could not use your hardware against them; your surrender is basically a device for safe conduct, not a commitment to fight a battle for a pirate band. But if the authority is yours, you will fight them, and we may be able to save our skins."

"I—I'll have to consult my staff," I said.

"By all means. Our boat will take you and Rue back now. But I'm sure your staff already knows."

I had never felt this stupid before. "They knew?"

"That's why they sent you. They knew I would not yield to any demand for surrender, so they reversed it, forcing my hand. They didn't tell you, because it had to be an honest offer; I can tell the difference. They outplayed me, just as they outplayed my daughter on the drone encounter. You must have one hell of a team, and one hell of a psychologist among them."

I looked at Roulette. "You knew!" I said, almost accusingly. "That's why you were so angry!"

"I guessed," she said grimly. "I can read signals, too, and I know my father. He'd never let surrender interfere with his larger plans." She shrugged beautifully. "Well, come on, Captain; the damned thing's done and I'm hoist."

And so the surrender was arranged, and a mind-bendingly beautiful girl came into my power.