"That concludes the overview," he said. "There are no major revisions to the schedule to report. The h-beam boosters are currently being fitted by the Thuriens, and the first assault elements should commence moving out from Earth, on time, at eighteen hundred hours today. Current indications are that the full force will complete its assembly outside the enemy star system three days from now as planned. The force will then reenter h-space and be accelerated to reexit into normal space at a velocity that will move it to Jevlen in twenty-two hours. Therefore we should be going into action four days from now. Good luck to you all. Individual unit assignments, timetabling, and call signs will follow immediately. Remain on standby." The image vanished.

"Excellent," Danchekker murmured.

"The next thing I need to start working on is some surveillance data from Earth to back it all up," VISAR said. "But first I need some reference information on contemporary Terran military hardware and installations. Can you get it beamed in through McClusky?"

"Give me a line," Caldwell said. "I’ll get something moving right away." He turned his head away and stared grimly for a few seconds at another view, constructed from VISAR’s locally collected data, of the pattern of Jevlenese warships positioned around Thurien. "Any news about the Shapieron yet?" he asked.

"Nothing," VISAR told him. Its tone was neutral.

An image in the form of a frame enclosing the features of the controller at McClusky appeared in the air a few feet in front of Caldwell’s face. Caldwell turned his head away from the view of the Jevlenese threat and returned his attention to the matter at hand.

Chapter Thirty-Three

"Damn! Damn! Damn!" Niels Sverenssen hammered savagely at the touchboard of the datagrid terminal, then brought his fist down heavily on top of the unit as the screen remained dead. He turned away and marched furiously toward the L-shaped central room. "Vickers!" he shouted. "Where are you, for God’s sake? I thought those confounded dataphone people were supposed to be here by now."

Vickers, the heavily built and swarthy chief of Sverenssen’s domestic staff, appeared from one of the passages. "I only returned ten minutes ago. They said they’d be right over."

"Well, why aren’t they?" Sverenssen demanded irritably. "I have calls waiting that must be made immediately. The service must be restored at once."

Vickers shrugged. "I already told ’em that. What else was I supposed to do?"

Sverenssen began massaging a fist with his other hand and pacing to and fro, cursing beneath his breath. "Why do such things always have to happen at a time like this? What kinds of buffoon are unable to maintain a simple communications service competently? Oh, the whole thing is intolerable!"

The first faint hum of an approaching aircar drifted in from the direction of the window. Vickers cocked his head to listen for a second, then walked over to peer out through one of the sliding glass panels that formed part of a wall. "It’s a cab," he said over his shoulder, "coming down over the roof." They heard the cab land on the other side of the house, in the front driveway. The door chime sounded shortly afterward, followed by the footsteps of one of the maids as she hurried to the front hallway. He heard a muted exchange of female voices, and a few moments later the maid ushered in a smiling Lyn Garland. Sverenssen’s mouth dropped open in a mixture of surprise and dismay.

"Niels!" she exclaimed. "I tried to call you, but you seem to be having problems with the line. I thought you wouldn’t mind me showing up, anyway. I’ve been thinking about what you said. You know, maybe you were right. I thought maybe we could patch things up a little." Her hand was resting casually on the top of her shoulder bag as she spoke. Sverenssen was not inside the communications room, which was the one thing Colonel Shearer had insisted on before he could move in. Inside the top of the bag, Lyn’s finger found the button on the microtransmitter and pressed it three times.

"Oh, not now!" Sverenssen groaned. "You should know better than to barge in like this. I am an extremely busy man, and I have things to attend to. Anyway, I thought I made myself perfectly clear on the not-so-memorable occasion of our last meeting. Good day. Vickers, kindly show Miss Garland back to her cab."

"This way," Vickers said, taking a step forward and nodding his head toward where the maid was still hovering.

"Oh, but you did," Lyn said, looking at Sverenssen and ignoring Vickers. "You made it very clear. And I was being so silly, wasn’t I, just like you said. But now I’ve had a chance to think about it, it sounds so-"

"Get her out of here," Sverenssen muttered, turning away. "I don’t have time to waste listening to any inane female prattling today." Vickers gripped Lyn’s upper arm and steered her firmly back along the corridor to the front hall while the maid ran on ahead to hold the door open. The cab was still there. Just as they reached the door, a Southern New England Dataphones repair truck rounded the bend in the driveway and drew up in front of the house, halting so close to the cab that the ladders slung on its side overhung and blocked its ascent path.

The cabbie wound down his window and leaned out to yell in the direction of the front end of the truck. "Hey, asshole! Who taught ya ta drive dat thing? How the hell am I supposed ta get outa here?" Two repairmen had jumped out of the passenger-side door of the truck, and another was emerging from the rear. The truck’s engine came to life again in a series of laboring electric whines, then shuddered and died.

"I’ve got problems," a voice shouted through the open driver’s window of the truck. "The same thing happened just now when we left the office."

"Well, do something with the goddam thing, willya. I’ve got a living ta make."

Vickers had released Lyn’s arm and was growling profanities beneath his breath. With what was going on in the driveway, neither he nor the maid noticed her backing quietly away across the hall.

"Back up for Chrissakes. What’s the matter? Don’t you know how to reverse a cab?"

"How can I back up? Don’t those look like flowers behind me to you? You need lenses or sump’n?"

Another technician was coming out of the back of the truck. There were already more of them than would have been sent on a simple domestic repair job, but Vickers and the maid were too preoccupied with the argument to register the fact for a few vital seconds. Also they failed to notice the sound of air engines growing steadily louder from beyond the treetops flanking the driveway.

When Lyn reappeared in the corner room Sverenssen was on the far side at one of the windows, peering out and upward as sound deluged the house suddenly, seemingly from all directions. All in the same moment, two Army assault landers dropped into sight from above and came down on the terrace by the pool with khaki-clad figures already bursting from their doors, explosions and the sounds of shattering glass came from the upper part of the house, and there was a brief glimpse of Vickers and the maid being bowled over by more figures pouring into the front hall before additional concussions followed by clouds of smoke blotted out the view along the corridor.

Lyn snatched the respirator from her bag, clamped it over her face and eyes, and snapped its retaining band into position behind her head just as the barrage of stun grenades and gas bombs crashed in through the ground-floor windows of the house. Detonations and smoke were everywhere, punctuated by shouting, splintering glass, the thuds of doors being smashed down, and a few scattered shots. One of the domestics appeared in the archway that led through to the main stairs, gesticulating frantically upward and behind him. "They’re on the roof! There’s soldiers coming in off the roof! They’re-" The rest was drowned by more explosions, and he was engulfed by a cloud of smoke and gas erupting behind him.