Phoebe, too, and we did some catching up; but I still came back early. My being away made us both antsy.
Kathry asked again a year later. I said, 'What I did on Earth was not like this. The difference is, on Earth I'm dull. Here—am I dull?'
'You're fascinating. You won't talk about the ARM, so you're fascinating and mysterious. I can't believe you'd be dull just because of where you are. Why did you leave, really?'
So I said, 'There was a woman.'
'What was she like?'
'She was smarter than me. I was a little dull for her. So she left, and that would have been okay. But she came back to my best friend.' I shifted uncomfortably and said, 'Not that they drove me off Earth.'
'No?'
'No. I've got everything I once had herding construction robots on Earth, plus one thing I wasn't bright enough to miss. I lost my sense of purpose when I left the ARM.'
I noticed that Myron was listening. Sylvia was watching the holo walls, the three that showed the face of Mercury: rocks blazing like coals in fading twilight, with only the robots and the lasers to give the illusion of life. The fourth we kept changing. Just then it showed a view up the trunk into the waving branches of the tremendous redwood they've been growing for three hundred years, in Hovestraydt City on the Moon.
'These are the good times,' I said. 'You have to notice, or they'll go right past. We're holding the stars together. Notice how much dancing we do? On Earth I'd be too old and creaky for that—Sylvia,
Sylvia was shaking my shoulder. I heard it as soon as I stopped talking:
Starscape glowed within the fourth holo wall. Something came out of nowhere, moving hellishly fast, and stopped so quickly that it might have been a toy. It was egg-shaped, studded with what I remembered as weapons.
Phoebe won't have made her move yet. The warcats will have to be deep in the solar system before her asteroid mining setup can be any deterrent. Then one or another warcat ship will find streams of slag sprayed across its path, impacting at comet speeds.
By now Anton must know whether the ARM actually has plans to repel an interstellar invasion.
Me, I've already done my part. I worked on the computer shortly after I first arrived. Nobody's tampered with it since. The dime disk is in place.
We kept the program relatively simple. Until and unless the warcats destroy something that's being pushed by a laser from Mercury, nothing will happen. The warcats must condemn themselves. Then the affected laser will lock onto the warcat ship… and so will every Mercury laser that's getting sunlight. Twenty seconds, then the system goes back to normal until another target disappears.
If the warcats can be persuaded that Sol system is defended, maybe they'll give us time to build defenses.
Asteroid miners dig deep for fear of solar storms and meteors. Phoebe might survive. We might survive here too, with shielding built to block the hellish sun, and laser cannon to battle incoming ships. But that's not the way to bet.
We might get one ship.
It might be worth doing.
THE ASTEROID QUEEN
J.E. Pournelle & S.M. Stirling
Prologue
Three billion years before the birth of Buddha, the Thrint ruled the galaxy and ten thousand intelligent species. The Thrint were not great technologists or mighty warriors; as a master race, they were distinctly third rate. They had no need to be more. They had the Power, an irresistible mental hypnosis more powerful than any weapon. Their Tnuctipun slaves had only cunning, but in the generations-long savagery of the Revolt, that proved nearly enough to break the Slaver Empire. It was a war fought without even the concept of mercy, one which could only end when either the Thrint or tnuctipun species were extinct and tnuctipun technology was winning… But the Thrint had one last use for the Power, one last command that would blanket all the worlds that had been theirs. It was the most comprehensive campaign of genocide in all history, destroying even its perpetrators. It was not, however, quite complete…
'Master! Master! What shall we do?' The Chief Slave of the orbital habitat wailed, wringing the boneless digits of its hands together. It recoiled as the thrint rounded on it, teeth bared in carnivore reflex. There was only a day or so to go before Suicide Time, when every sophont in the galaxy would die. The master of Orbital Supervisory Station Seven-1Z-A did not intend to be among them. Any delay was a mortal threat, and this twelve-decicredit specimen dared—
'DIE, SLAVE!' Dnivtopun screamed mentally, lashing out with the Power. The slave obeyed instantly, of course. Unfortunately, so did several dozen others nearby, including the zengaborni pilot who was just passing through the airlock on its way to the escape spaceship.
'Must you always take me so literally!' Dnivtopun bellowed, kicking out at the silvery-furred form that lay across the entrance lock to the docking chamber.
It rolled and slid through a puddle of its body wastes, and a cold chill made Dnivtopun curl the eating-tendrils on either side of his needle-toothed mouth into hard knots. I should not have done that, he thought. A proverb from the ancient 'Wisdom of Thrintun' went through his mind; haste is not speed. That was a difficult concept to grasp, but he had had many hours of empty time for meditation here. Forcing himself to calm, he looked around. The corridor was bare metal, rather shabby; only slaves came down here, normally. Not that his own quarters were all that much better. Dnivtopun was the youngest son of a long line of no more than moderately successful thrint; his post as Overseer of the food-producing planet below was a sinecure from an uncle.
At least it kept me out of the War, he mused with relief. The tnuctipun revolt had spanned most of the last hundred years, and nine-tenths of the thrint species had died in it. The War was lost…
Dnivtopun appreciated the urge for revenge that had led the last survivors on Homeworld to build a psionic amplifier big enough to blanket the galaxy with a suicide command, but he had not been personal witness to the genocidal fury of the tnuctipun assaults; revenge would be much sweeter if he were there to see it.
Other slaves came shuffling down the corridor with a gravity-skid, and loaded the bodies. One proffered an electropad; Dnivtopun began laboriously checking the list of loaded supplies against his initial entries.
'Ah, Master?'
'Yes?'
'That function key?'
The thrint scowled and punched it. 'All in order,' he said, and looked up as the ready-light beside the liftshaft at the end of the corridor pinged. It was his wives, and the chattering horde of their children. 'SILENCE,' he commanded. They froze; there was a slight hesitation from some of the older males, old enough to have developed a rudimentary shield. They would come to the Power at puberty… but none would be ready to challenge their Sire for some time after that. 'GO ON BOARD. GO TO YOUR QUARTERS. STAY THERE.' It was best to keep the commands simple, since thrintun females were too dull-witted to understand more than the most basic verbal orders. He turned to follow them.
'Master?' the thrint rotated his neckless torso back towards the slave. 'Master, what shall we do until you
