Chapter FOUR

The meeting hall was roughly triangular, the rows of form-fit seats molded into the deck which sloped downward toward a slightly raised platform jammed into a corner. Alongside the platform a meter-wide view tank rose from the deck to merge with the overhead. A single cable snaked from the view tank's base and disappeared into the nearby bulkhead.

The six inmates entered, milled about, silent, their features without expressions. In their own time, they each took seats, several empties apart. The first three rows remained vacant.

Hodak broke the silence. "The Blue Plate Special the Looie gave didn't sound right," he growled. "I want to know more about what he was gettin' at with that crack about our schedule 'being different'."

Adari turned, eyebrows raised, to stare at him thoughtfully. She nodded slowly and turned back to join the others to focus on a figure perched on a high stool beside the view tank.

He looked tall, despite his being seated. A slate-gray uniform covered him from neck to ankles; his feet shod in high-top deck slippers that matched the shade of his garment. He wore no insignia. Long, crowded features and tawny space-worn skin formed a face of planes and angles. His hairless head and long hands looked like they might have been hacked from a block of Mercurian tuscanite and left to weather for a few million years in the sun's glare.

The hall quieted. Satisfied that he had their attention, the man stood. The mere suggestion of height, seated, did not do him justice. He unfolded like an articulated, mechanical crane. Fully extended, his towering frame rose more than two meters from heels to naked, gleaming scalp.

His first words took Hodak's challenge.

"You will know, Hodak." His voice was soft, and carried the gravity of authority.

His eyes moved from one to the other.

"What I say here applies to all of you," he said. "I will not answer all of your questions, but you will be told all you need to know at this time."

He stepped down toward them from the dais, halting inside the curve of the first row of seats.

"I am Ram Xindral," he said, "your orientation lecturer, your trainer and, should you need one, your counselor. I am also your Control. Take specific note of the term 'control'. It has only one meaning: you are in a prison, but from here on take no orders from prison staff. You take your orders only from me; I am not 'prison' staff."

"What the hell!"

Hodak again, bouncing up, down, up again. Adari, her mouth open in surprise and alarm, also stood, paused, and moved to stand beside Hodak. Zolan remained seated, his hooded eyes on Xindral. Kumiko shifted position slightly and stared vacantly at the deck. Myra remained motionless, her face also closed. Brad, brows drawn into a frown, crossed his arms, waiting.

"Hah! This sure as hell isn't the standard orientation lecture for new inmates." Adari's jeering laugh burst from her in a sardonic cascade.

"No, Adari, it isn't," Ram said with a smile, "but hear me out."

The hall was suddenly charged with tension and wariness. Hodak remained on his feet, bent forward, hands gripping the back of the seat in front of him, challenge in his eyes.

Xindral clasped his hands behind his back. The gesture tightened his frame and seemed to increase his height. He faced away from them, strode back to stand beside the view tank and turned. Hodak grunted, sat, muttered under his breath; Adari took the seat alongside, leaned in toward Hodak, listened to him mumble, and grinned, nudged and nodded.

"Details later," Xindral continued. "Let's get this first part over with. I'll talk. Cut in with questions if you must, and bitch if it helps; we'll get to know each other better. If you take off on a tangent, so be it. I'll go along, within limits. I didn't expect this to be a monologue, by far. It'll take a while, but you'll get the information I intend you to have."

An uneasy shifting about ensued. The prisoners weren't buying. Brad sensed the apprehension in the others that he felt in himself. Xindral's opening remarks along with his aura projected formidable power despite his slender frame.

"Before we continue," Xindral said, "know that you are not quartered in the penal section of the station. The usual new arrivals don't get this sort of attention. Furthermore, the lectures given to them are confined to station routines. Their processing includes a few tests that are evaluated for basic intelligence and skills. It helps the staff assign them to shops, rehab training, and eventually for return to the outside world. You're not that lucky."

Xindral's last words jolted Hodak back on to his feet.

"Look, whoever the hell you are," he rumbled, jabbing a stubby finger at Xindral, "let's cut out the crap about our luck. First the Looie, now you, puttin' on this mystery act with fancy hints that don't make sense. You said we're allowed to ask questions. OK, here's one: am I an inmate in this prison or not?"

"You are, and you aren't," Xindral shrugged. "That's my answer at this time. As we talk, the picture will clear."

Xindral's face flexed into a grin.

The animosity in the hall was palpable, exacerbated by Xindral's evasive response to a fair question. As Hodak grumbled his way back down into his seat the elongated figure drew a flat, palm-sized control from a sheath fastened to his belt and pressed an embedded key.

The view tank's haze cleared to the standard solar schematic. The scene faded, replaced by a ring of tiny multicolored lights: the Asteroid Belt.

"This display is tailored to the general run of inmates processed through orientation, just to give them an idea where they are. Their familiarity with deep space is often limited, so station lectures start with fundamentals. We'll pass on this."

Brad tensed at Xindral's choice of words, and sensed the others had been similarly alerted. He glanced sideways. His companions, as he, stared at one another as if seeing them for the first time. Were they of a kind?

Xindral continued as if he hadn't noticed.

"A footnote," he said. "The Belt's been cleared of almost all rocks and swarms, plus the big ones that we couldn't use for outposts. As you may recall from your school days, it wasn't easy hauling micro-spunnel terminals around the Belt and ramming rocks into the hoppers for transfer to meltdown and refining above Venus.

"In short, the big space sweeps of five to eight hundred years ago cleared away most of the residue in Belt orbits that had no beneficial purpose and were a hazard to traffic. The Belt was a good source for minerals — while it lasted."

He paused to key the instrument in his hand.

"That's done," he said. "What's left are only a few of the big asteroids, like Ceres. They serve both regions as Solar Spacetrack Centers, communications relays, search and rescue operations, space lanes debris collection teams, urgent care hospitals, and for spunnel gateways management."

As he spoke the ring of lights in the tank flickered. Another ring formed, evenly spaced rods, each glowing a contrasting color.

"The Guardian Stations," Xindral said, "have been in position for more than six centuries. Twenty stations; no more are planned."

The tank zoomed in on five of the twenty rods in a quarter segment of the full orbit; the rods expanded to form slowly rotating cylinders.

"The Guardians are apportioned among four generally equal sectors, any one of which serves the quadrant that it happens to transit at the time. Responsibilities and missions overlap, and are passed along from the station moving out of a quadrant to the one entering it along the common orbital path. Using standard and hyperspace omnidirectional surveillance, each station's primary job is to monitor its sector: inward toward the Sun, and outward to the rim and beyond as far as our technical capabilities extend. The service areas change constantly in keeping with the alignments and dynamics of planets and their satellites, traffic-lane management, neutralizing debris intrusions, and conventional and spunnel teleport maintenance."

Xindral folded himself back on to the high stool as he spoke.

"After the political separation of the Inner and Outer Regions these Guardian Stations reverted to us by the treaty. Formally, they serve only the Inner Region's jurisdictions. Informally, however, the stations cover the entire system; to do otherwise would bring about enormous disruptions and disasters in space traffic and communications.

"The Guardians' functions include standard and spunnel communications, disaster relief, search and rescue of distressed spacecraft, intercepting and diverting comets-of-hazard, meteors, debris and other threats to traffic in the space-ways that serve the Inner Region's space colonies needs. Often the Outer Region's folks help when their interests are involved; just as often they don't. It's one of the prices we pay for this political breach, and one of the most frustrating."

Zolan turned to aim a remark at Adari. She giggled and elbowed Hodak. He growled and twisted away. Kumiko's eyes lifted from the deck to lazily roam the blank overhead.

Myra's face openly played non-listener. Brad continued to observe Xindral closely, glancing occasionally at the tank.

Aware that he was losing his audience, Xindral paused and stood quietly for a moment.

"Do my words bore you?" He leaned forward to take them all in. His voice, still soft, nevertheless exposed a cutting edge.

Zolan looked at Xindral as he contemptuously gave the tank the back of his hand.

"Who're you trying to kid?" His challenge was cast low, tight. "I don't know about the rest of these folks. I haven't asked any of them about themselves, nor have they tried to check me out. But you wouldn't have brought us together without first investigating us for whatever your purpose might be. For example; you must know I'm a space communicator. So, frankly, your rambling on like this not only bores me, its phoniness is clear and insulting."

Hodak slapped his knee and laughed. He pointed at
Zolan, then wagged his finger at Ram.

"Comm isn't my beat," he said. Thumbing over his shoulder at Zolan, he added, "but what he said goes for me."

Xindral brushed the keys on the control and returned it to its case. The view tank faded as he fixed his eyes on Zolan.

"Yes, Zolan, I am familiar with your background." Shifting to Hodak, "Yours, too." His glance widened to include the others, "as I am with the backgrounds of you all."

In response, the prisoners silently glared defiance.

"Zolan's observation is correct and on point," Xindral said, ignoring their disdain. "We're not fooling one another. Simply stated, you have much in common. You are professional space men and space women, and highly qualified at that. Your skills and resourcefulness remain with you and I am aware of them."

Slouchers straightened. Hodak and Adari looked around and their faces broke into grins, which were returned. Tension remained, but subtly altered.

"A couple of points," said Xindral. "First, you are all from sunside of the Belt and you are not known, as far as my sources can determine, where I don't want you to be. Second, together, you represent a cross-section of space professions and experience vital to the success of an important and urgent task. What you are going to be asked to do will place your lives at risk. You will need to rely on each other, personally and professionally, under difficult circumstances."

Brad had enough.

"Now let's just wait a minute!"

Brad was on his feet, instantly joined by the others.

Xindral, head cocked slightly to one side, sat and listened.

"Zolan said it first," said Brad. "None of us speaks for the others, so what I say is for myself. Who are you to force me — us — into a life-risk situation?"

The words, tightened in long-suppressed rage, spewed forth.

"You just counted off a couple of 'points'." Brad raised his hand, index finger raised. "Now here's one for you. I'm here because I was convicted of a so-called offense against society. No way do I consider myself a criminal; furthermore, I don't know if these others," motioning in their direction, "consider themselves criminals or not. Again, I say, not my business. I'm here to serve a prison sentence, and that doesn't include doing odd jobs where my life goes on the line."

Brad and Xindral faced each other across tension-charged space. The momentary confrontation passed, Brad, obviously fed up with Xindral's evasions, crossed his arms across his chest and waited. The tall man studied him.

"Your point is well made," he said. "You have forced the issue forward, and your challenge must be answered before we go much further. Here are a few of the pieces. Think about them."

He stepped back on to the platform and took his seat.

"You were selected only after a searching investigation into your backgrounds," he said. "We considered your records, personalities, and your capabilities: phys and psy, professional skills, job performance, resiliency, whatever the task I assign to you will likely call for.

"You are now a UIPS task group, for want of a better designation. One of you will be appointed Commander. You will be given a job to do. You will depend on each other in most difficult circumstances: your records for reliability under stress were among the selection criteria. You were acceptable.

"As to your appointment, that was made by an authority outside this station, actually, outside the Correctional Service of which this penal institution is a part. From the time you were moved into the holding cells for transfer here, you came under the jurisdiction of a Ministry that is involved with the most vital interests of the UIPS. The specifics of your mission will be covered in our next session."

"The hell you say." Hodak bounced again. "You're still dangling us on a string. Lay the whole bit out. Now!"

Nods and grunts followed Hodak's demand.

"Very well," Xindral said, after a short pause. "Actually, there's no reason to delay your marching orders."

His voice flattened.

"By direction of the President of the United Inner
Planetary System you are appointed to the Strategic
Penetrations Detachment of the Ministry of
Intelligence. Your unit identifier is 'Sentinels'.
Your unit commander is Brad Curtin, present.

"Copies of your orders are in a secured file in the Ministry of Intelligence. A copy is temporarily posted in your core compartment. When you read it, note that all requests for release or reassignment are denied."

Xindral folded back into his normal, slightly bowed posture. His audience, frozen, stared at him blankly.

"That's it for now." Xindral ordered, the flatness gone. "Return to your compartment and report back here in an hour. Brad, please stand by."

Chapter FIVE

His jaws clamped tight, eyes glaring, Brad sensed his companions rise to their feet around him. Kumiko first, stood and wordlessly glided to the closed passage portal. Her back to the others, she waited for the panel to clear. Zolan, on his feet, mouth agape, stared at Xindral.

Adari, still seated, gawked in bewildered disbelief from Xindral to Brad to Hodak. Hodak glowered, gestured rudely and cursed furiously and loudly. Myra stood, silent behind an icy mask. Xindral, perched on his stool, arms in his lap, impassively observed their reactions.

The scene held for several seconds. Xindral broke the silence.

"Your formal orientation and training begins when you return. First I must speak with your Commander. Please excuse us."

He turned and touched a disk on the bulkhead. The entryway cleared and Jenkins appeared.

"Escort our friends back to their compartment,
Jenks. Commander Curtin will remain with me.
Return the group in an hour."

"Yes, sir."

Myra, Adari, Hodak and Zolan milled about for a moment, then joined Kumiko at the portal. Passing through, they spoke and gestured animatedly to each other. The portal clouded over.

Xindral hefted his stool forward, placed it alongside Brad, and folded his long frame onto it facing the view tank.

"Just so you know, Brad," he said gently, bridging the silence between them, "those of us who work in Strategic Penetrations carry no formal rank. If we did, yours would be the equivalent of a Lieutenant Commander in the United Inner Planetary System Space Force. Mine would be a notch or so above."

He shifted his frame about and bent a long leg to bring his foot up to the lower rung. His tone shifted into neutral. Cool.

"My friends call me Ram. OK?"

Brad nodded, eyeing him. Ram drew back a bit and contemplated the control in his grasp. After a moment he stroked the keys. A rainbow of colors swirled and drifted off, replaced by an ash-gray sphere. Planet Pluto spread across half the tank with its flat stretches of methane frost broken by low, jagged chasms, hillocks and craters. Charon and the Slingshot Logistics Depot hung off near the edge of the tank's flattened top.

Brad glanced at the scene, and back to Ram.

"Brad," Ram spoke slowly, quietly, "a trite expression, repeated all too often during our history, is 'humankind now faces its greatest crisis'. The statement has been declared so often across the ages that it's lost meaning, obviously because it changes in context and perception from one event, century or millennium to the next. I suppose those who said it, believed it. Nevertheless, even if the term 'crisis' never really applied in the past, it does in these times for humankind's destiny.

"The deficits in our nonrenewable assets, and the many other natural substances we depend on, if not resolved within the next few centuries, could force us back into caves, and I don't use that word 'figuratively'. Ceramics, composites, and other substitutes are fine as far as they go, but they do only a tiny part of the job.

"We'll soon be running short of substitutes for our substitutes. Building bigger and better colonies in space over the past thousand years or so has consumed far more of our resources than expected. Earth is almost barren and many space colonies in both regions can no longer meet existing needs fromtheir regions, let alone those of the future.

"In short, our dispersed civilizations must have access to sources for minerals and other industrial substances, not only now but in perpetuity, in order to survive and evolve. Our species isn't built to accept inactivity or slipping backward. If we don't move on to something new and challenging, then we'll drift into extinction. You've heard this all dozens of times; I won't dwell on it further."

Ram stood, paced, and turned his head to keep Brad in sight as he paced and reversed direction. Brad's eyes fixed on the view tank and stayed there. There was nothing new in Ram's words, so far.

"Slingshot schedules are in their most critical phase. We have a launch window for the Extractor. It's not much of a window. If we miss it, Slingshot fails. It's that simple. The launch cannot be aborted; there'll be no second chance. People across the system, by the millions, are committed to the schedule. You, and your crew now serve in that legion."

"What's going on here?" Brad cut in. "Are you telling me we've been pressed into this job with no choice of our own?"

His anger showing, Brad thumbed over his shoulder toward the entryway, then at his chest.

"Tell me, Ram," Brad demanded, "how did it happen that we six, three men and three women, are here at this time for this purpose?"

"We'll get to that in time." Ram said, "I've reviewed your trial record, but I'd like to hear it from you — straight. What happened?"

Brad stared at Ram for several seconds, obviously making up his mind. Finally, he shrugged, and contemplated his hands.

"Well, then you know I was Captain of a space freighter," he began. "My job was to transport high-mass mining equipment, ores and refined stuff between Mercury, Venus and Luna.

"When this mess happened, we were Luna-bound with a full load of worn out track-layers, rock-crushers, drill robots, filters and other tools in the forward and aft storage bays, and ingots well-secured in stress-certified compartments. The ship was at capacity, but within legal limits. Mass and balance had been certified by Space Traffic Control before they cleared us from Venus orbit. The ship was in order.

"We were only about twenty-million kay from the Luna Space Traffic Control Zone, but still in max drive. Plenty of time to kick-in vector and deceleration programs."

Brad paused, shifted position, rubbed his jaws, sighed deeply, glanced sideways at Xindral and, his voice tighter, continued.

"That's when that strung-out jock in a space-buggy took us on for a game of 'chicken'.

"The buggy was a single-seater, tiny, barely ten meters bow to stern, but the way she whipped around us, it was plain to my duty officer that she was charged by a micro deep space drive. My duty officer hit the alarm; I got to the bridge within ten seconds after the buggy's first pass.

"I checked our status and proximity-to-mass in vicinity; then my ship's scope analyses of the buggy's thrust and gyrations. She was obviously overpowered for mass, especially in the confined lanes plowed by slow freighters like mine.

"My three-hundred-meter freighter with all storage bays packed bulkhead to bulkhead with high mass, is barely maneuverable under the best of circumstances. Evasive action against some hot shot in a souped up space-buggy was out of the question.

"It got worse. Not only did the jock ignore my warnings; he lined up alongside my bridge and danced on his thrusters. He flipped from relative vertical to horizontal, then corkscrewed us lengthwise fore to aft and back. To add insult, he whirled his buggy on its tail like a damn dervish, right alongside where I stood on my bridge and then cut across my bow. That hotshot was one good pilot, I'll grant him that.

"After a minute or so of that, the buggy circled my ship, close. The pilot probably liked what he saw, because he surface-snaked us again bow to stern. That must have been boring; he peeled away, tore ahead a quarter-million kay, skewed around, and came straight at my bow, curdling space. When collision was just about unavoidable, he did an up and over. In doing that, he cut us much too close, snapped off a dozen masts, sensors and nav guides.

"The jock must have gone berserk; he took us on for full 'chicken'. He shot ahead about a million kay, flip-flopped, and came at us head-to-head, taunting us with his collision signals. Our computer showed him as boosting all the way."

Another long pause. Brad looked directly at Xindral.

"We collided, head on," he said. "That brightly colored, beautiful little flitter buried itself deep in our forward cargo bay. My rescue team went in, but we knew ahead of time what we'd find. It was there: chunks of metal, shards of bone, and scraps of flesh splattered on mining gear, rock-crushers, and other odd pieces of equipment.

"The Space Guard hearings were followed by a quick trial. The jock was the son of a politician, so here I am."

Brad looked away, then back at Ram.

"Your turn," he said. "What's the story on how we became the 'chosen'?"

"The selection was certainly not random," Ram stood and stretched to his full height as he spoke. "Despite the billions of citizens in the UIPS, we're all tagged and catalogued. It's a simple job for the computers to correlate any unique manpower requirements the government might have to the UIPS index, cross-check phys-psy profiles, professions and technical skills plus experience, competence, reliability and anything else that we crank in as rating factors. You mentioned 'three men and three women'; your mission can not exclude gender compatibility consistent with the prevailing psychosocial construct — this is what we are.

"In my line of work, our data bank produces an optimal selection of personalities, skills and identities for the best possible teams we might need to support our contingency plans. Old stuff; we've been doing that throughout history. Why you folks? The computer selected you, showed where each of you was located and why, and that you were all, shall we say, relatively unknown and available. None of you will be missed."

Brad and Ram locked eyes as Ram added, "As far as the mission goes, you and your colleagues were sent here for confinement and rehab, whatever the reason and however rehab was to be done. It's just that your team has been diverted. Coddling and other amenities of confinement are not part of our program. If you feel you're being treated unfairly, that's unfortunate. We need every qualified man and woman we can get. The prime requisite is that the team, meaning you and your colleagues, have and share the intelligence, initiative, guts and whatever else it takes to do the job."

"That's another point right there," Brad shot back. "You've assigned us a mission, you tell us it's dangerous, and then add, as an aside, you've judged us up to it, whatever in hell that's supposed to mean. But let me tell you, if I'm the guy to run it, I want to know a lot more. I've got to have confidence each team member will be there when the chips are down. So, what can I expect?"

For a moment, Ram gazed shrewdly at Brad. His eyes twinkled, and his features mustered a sly grin.

"You seem to have slipped into the role of team
Commander," he said.

Brad looked away, hesitated a moment, and rubbed his jaw thoughtfully.

"Well," he said, "I agree with what you've said about the mess we're in. No question in my mind that Slingshot is our only option. Obviously, I have nothing else on my schedule. Just doing time in this tin can would be a bore. But that doesn't justify your pushing me — us — around. OK, that's said, let's get back to my crew. I'll not pry where I've no business to, but who are they?"

"Their psychological profiles are available to you," said Ram. "I agree, you'll know all you need to know about them to get the job done. I can give you a quick rundown on each now, if you wish."

"I do."

"Myra is a logistician and a Medic certified to Level 4 in space-related trauma, physical and psychological. She was Med-Exec to a research team in a mini-tank town off Venus. Somehow, she got involved with the leader of a gang running controlled substances around the Inner Region. When the net was pulled in, there she was. Tried as an accessory and judged guilty. Nowhere near criminal in my judgment. She's quite bitter because she was used, and then convicted and sentenced on what she feels are false charges."

"I understand her bitterness."

"Nothing we can do. Your engineer, Hodak, is a damned good heavy-duty spacecraft maintenance engineer. Also lots of experience on a broad range of space support equipment used in surface ops. He's been all over the Inner Region, and worked on Ceres where he was the spaceport's Chief of Maintenance for about ten years. Got into a fight off Mars while on R & R and killed a guy. Convicted of manslaughter. He's an expert in the martial arts and in using exotic weapons. Space-wise."

"Understood. Next?"

"Zolan. As he said, a communicator and, I might add, from way back. As a child, he was classified 'gifted' and treated accordingly by the system. At the age of twelve, he came up with design refinements for spunnel cracking and transmission that raised eyebrows among the top pros in the field. His skill caused his downfall: he was convicted of illegally penetrating and modifying a database that was integrating a highly sensitive project. Just enjoying the challenge, he claimed. The project engineer didn't get wise until too late. During the trial he told off his former bosses; called them incompetent and not qualified to pass judgment on him or his work. Anyhow, he got a couple of years to cool off."

"Does this job call for his kind of communications expertise?"

"Yes, and more. Zolan is an extremely important asset for your mission. You'll agree, I think, when we get to your orders and the operation. I should add that, when your training is over, you will all be good communicators. But Zolan is at the hub."

"That leaves Adari and Kumiko. What's their input?"

"Adari is your navigator. She knows both Regions like the palm of her hand, and her record shows she's well versed in nav for the entire system. She got drunk on duty and borrowed the ship's recreation funds without permission to have a gambling holiday on Luna's Station Vegas. She returned broke as well as hung over. To add to her problems, some joker on Vegas gave her a whiff of Titan's deep strata gas. Almost blew her mind, but she's OK now. Spent a year in hospital on Guardian 18. No permanent damage. Now, she's doing time on the funds charge. Excellent navigator and gutsy."

"Kumiko?"

"Ah, little Kumiko," Ram smiled. "Last, but far from least. Kumiko is a former officer of the UIPS Space Force and an expert in space armaments. She can break down entire systems, and repair and reassemble them, blindfolded, from micro-miniatures to the big stuff. For some reason, her talent made her rather defiant of authority. Took manual control of her ship's guns when her patrol's sensors tagged unknowns inbound across no-mans-land sunside of the Jovian orbit. The unknowns were under a heavy screen and wouldn't cooperate with the Space Guard's self-identification requirements. Her Commander told her to punch a tiny hole in the screens, just enough to identify.

"Instead, she not only blew the screens away, she scorched the bow of a UIPS cruiser on a classified mission. The cruiser was out-of-line, of course; they should have responded to the query; protocols call for them to do so. But Kumiko went too far. She was forced to resign from the Service, and offered a choice to either join a penetration team to the Outer Region or work in an arsenal under tight supervision. She made her choice."

"Quite a group."

"All different, yet six of a kind," he said. "None
of you, by far, are hardened offenders of the law.
The crimes you were convicted of were, how shall
I put it, less than deliberately malicious."

"Hah!" Brad's bitter snort curdled in his gullet.

Xindral shrugged. His manner changed; tightened.
He motioned toward the view tank.

"Let's get on with it, Brad," he said. "There's a lot we need to cover."

Chapter SIX

Brad leaned back, drew his legs in and stretched them straight, heels to the deck. His eyes followed Ram to the dais and as he turned to face him.

"You and your crew will start intensive training in intelligence operations using our most advanced methods. It will cover infiltration, interrogation, psychological defenses against psychic probes and other means that might be used to acquire information from you, under duress or otherwise. You will absorb intelligence countermeasures and counter-countermeasures, identification of military spacecraft and weapons used by both the UIPS and INOR, analysis of our military capabilities and those of our adversaries, covert communications through conventional, unconventional and spunnel channels, and other tricks of the trade. Your quick reaction reflexes will be enhanced through means that will not be apparent to you."

"What does that last part mean?"

"I'll get to it. First, your mission. Your escape from this Station has been arranged. The pieces are being moved into place. Your immediate destination is tanktown Coldfield on Planet Pluto."

The view tank's image of Pluto expanded as did the gray-black contrasts of the planet's surface. A white light in a mottled area blinked, drawing Brad's momentary attention. His eyes returned to Ram.

"Your initial field of operations is centered in Coldfield," Ram pointed to the light. "Where you go from there depends on the contacts you develop and how well you exploit each opportunity. The tank town has a permanent population of about fifty thousand plus about ten thousand transients. Mix with the transients for starters."

"Get to the mission, Ram," Brad cut Xindral short.

Ram sighed. "We've sent a succession of formal diplomatic missions to INOR," he said, "including a few to the renegades that now run Planet Pluto. We've asked them repeatedly to not interfere with the Slingshot program. We've emphasized to each INOR government that Slingshot is as important to them as it is to us. They're not listening. We're still pressing diplomatic means, meanwhile, our logistics is being disrupted by Pluto's President Narval's hoodlums."

"How does this team fit in?"

"If we send in a military force to sweep away these scoundrels, our action will be seen as an imperialist intrusion into the Outer Region. It will create such resentment among the governments out there that the Slingshot schedule cannot help but suffer serious harm. Getting INOR's cooperation will also become more difficult than ever.

"Maybe, if we gather enough hard evidence of a conspiracy and confront them with it, they'll change their ways. Right now, they're blaming the attacks on partisans over whom they say they have no control. We don't buy that. We need you to gather and send confirmations to us and, while you're doing that, disrupt the plans and weapons being marshaled against us. Use whatever initiatives you can devise on site. Go where you need to, do whatever it takes to frustrate our adversaries."

"What happens if we fail?"

"Failure is unacceptable. As long as you or any of your people are alive and useful to us we'll get through to you and we'll expect you to keep us current on developments."

"Big order."

"Yes, it is."

"I am, or rather, I was, skipper of a space freighter," Brad said, tenting his hands. "I know almost nothing of military operations, intelligence gathering, and especially covert actions, whatever those might entail. I'm not familiar with space weapons except for garden-variety small arms. Other than Kumiko, I gather that the members of this team are not experts in the weapons and explosives we are likely to encounter or use. You're sending us in against a rough crowd, from the way you describe them. Aren't you risking a lot on us?"

"Absolutely."

"I refuse."

"You're not being given the choice. Neither are the others."

"I can withhold my cooperation."

"I repeat, Brad, you have no choice."

Ram paused, eyeball to eyeball with Brad, whose eyes had gone cold. Ram's voice went as flat as when he had read the group their orders.

"You will be psychologically adjusted as you progress through this indoctrination. The 'adjustment', for want of a better term, is necessary for several reasons. It applies to the entire team."

Brad stared.

"What does that mean?"

"Just that we can't afford to let normal human weaknesses and scruples interfere the mission."

"The hell you say," Brad raised his voice. "You're telling me we're expendable?"

"You're in covert intelligence work, Brad, and you'll be in the enemy's camp. Doesn't that answer your question?"

"Come on, dammit."

Meeting Brad's eyes, Ram shrugged.

"Each of you will be full to the brim with motivational boosters to keep you oriented to the mission. You won't stray, whatever the temptations. We'll install undetectable barriers against psychic probes; then there are…"

"Damn you, Ram." Brad cut in, his voice crackling with rage. "You sons of bitches are going to robotize us. Expendable is bad enough; you're programming us into suicide."

"Not quite, Brad. Hear me out."

Ram paced restlessly as he spoke, his tall, slender frame swaying, his head changing direction to maintain eye contact.

Brad rose and stood erect, legs apart, fists on hips, fury pouring out in his body language.

"Your team has just been assembled," Ram said, "yet we don't have a moment to lose to get you in place and operational. Orientation and training will allow no more than four sleeps. The special knowledge and skills each you needs for this mission will be implanted into your conscious and subconscious minds, and, as it suits our needs, into your survival instincts. We have a long history at this game."

Brad rose and strode angrily up the aisle to the door and pressed the panel that would slide it open. The panel did not function. Other than raise his eyes to follow him to the door, Ram continued talking as if Brad had remained nearby. After a moment's hesitation, Brad returned to his seat. Ram paused and gazed at Brad sympathetically.

"If you're all going to operate like a well-lubed machine, without appearing to be doing so," he said, "you'll need all the gimmicks we can hang on to each of you."

Ram shrugged and went on, "News of your escape will be broadcast system-wide; all part of the cover. They'll be suspicious for quite a while, but you've got to infiltrate, despite the risks.

"The mission has many subtleties; you must all understand how they interact. Above all, you must never, despite the most extreme interrogation, betray the mission. In that sense, yes, you are expendable. Small comfort, I know, but insurance against betrayal will entail a simple psy-mod."

"Is there to be a complex one?"

"Yes."

"Let's have it all, man."

"If you are to join these terrorists, pirates, or whatever they are, your characters must be suitable to blend with theirs. On the one hand, you will be loyal to each other and to us; on the other, you, and I mean each of you, will lie, cheat, bribe, subvert, sabotage, and kill for the mission, and if it serves our greater purpose, act convincingly against us. That's one complex psy-mod."

"There's more?"

"There's communications and one other. About comm, off-planet messages from Planet Pluto, especially through spunnel channels, are under the tight control of Pluto's insurgent government. Transmission facilities are under constant heavy guard. You'll all be checked out by the Pluto's security people to make sure none of you are carrying prohibited comm gear or are otherwise wired."

"The 'other'."

"Last resort. It's need-to-know, if and when needed. When you become aware of the crisis to which it applies it will surface in your consciousness and in the mind of one other member of your team. You'll each know what to do."

"Sounds like a jolly crowd."

Ram grinned.

"I'm sure you'll all have a party. Back to comm: the Log Depot and the Terminal work sites have spunnel centers. Zolan will have the access codes to the Log Depot. At all costs, keep the construction site from becoming involved in this intelligence operation. If word got out that we used the Terminals for covert intelligence or military transmissions, the Outer Region governments would blow their collective tops. We can rationalize using the Log Depot if we experience piracy and harassment of our transports and citizens. It'll be extremely dangerous to go beyond that."

"No chance of using the Pluto comm center?"
Brad asked.

"Don't count on it." Ram replied grimly.

"What happens afterward, assuming that we survive? Also, can what you're doing to each of us be reversed so that we can return to what, for us, would be normal?"

"In the order you raise them: first, after this is over you will all be free citizens, records cleared, and we'll help you to return to your former lives, or reasonably close to what they were; second, the mods are reversible and you will all be de-programmed.

"You mention survival, Brad. You may be searching for assurance that you'll come through alive. I can't give you that assurance, for you or for your team. In all sincerity, I think that you and your team have less than an even chance for survival. Understand then, the name of the game is dare, but not stupidly."