The groan came again. Broghuilio mustered his energies, winced as his head lifted from the deck plates, and hauled himself up sufficiently to turn and sit with his back against the base of a console. Wylott, the former Jevlenese Secretary of the Exterior, since appointed Commanding General of new Federation's military forces, was hunched over in one of the operator-station seats, holding his face in his hands. A trickle of blood had run down from between his fingers onto his sleeve. Broguilio brought a hand up to feel his own face and his beard. He found nothing wet or sticky. Garwain Estordu, the scientific advisor who had been with them, was lying along an aisle between cabinets and equipment panels, still unconscious. Around them, the captain and other members of the crew who had been in the vicinity were either motionless in assorted crumpled and splayed positions, or slowly beginning to move and show signs of life. "Full evaluation not possible at this time," the computer that had spoken before reported. "Matrix and system files have been disrupted. Necessary to run deep-scan diagnostics, repair linkages, and reconstruct. Acknowledgment requested… Repeat, acknowledgment requested… Proceeding."

Broghuilio registered the situation dully. His eyes drifted upward to take in the main display screen overlooking the bridge deck. It was showing a view of space and stars. So at least that much was still working… To one side of center was the disk of a planet. It was not Jevlen. Nor was it Uttan. It wasn't a world that Broghuilio recalled seeing before at all.

There was no doubt about it. The planet was Minerva, accompanied by its moon. The spectrum, size, and mass of the parent star, something like three hundred million miles away, were identical to that of Sol, and then a telescopic survey of the surroundings had picked out Jupiter. The star pattern was as projected from that point in space-except that it had to be corrected to allow for the passage of fifty thousand years. There was no signal of any kind to indicate any presence of the Thurien h-grid, and nothing on any of their communications, navigation, or data bands. Nor should there be. There was no Thurien presence in this part of the Galaxy. VISAR, as such, didn't yet exist. The Jevlenese ships were back at Minerva, before the time of its destruction.

Even Broghuilio was too numbed by the realization slowly seeping into his brain to show much of his customary bellicosity. "How is this possible?" he whispered to Estordu, now recovered sufficiently to sit in one of the crew stations, but still shaky.

The scientist ran his gaze over the displays for the umpteenth time as if a part of his mind still retained a hope that their message might have changed somehow. "What we entered was a total dislocation of spacetime. It has jumped us to another region of the quantum totality. I can't tell you how. Nothing in physics has ever predicted anything like it."

"So how do we get back?" Broghuilio demanded.

Estordu shook his head bleakly. "The energy concentration that it took could only be created by systems with the capacity of VISAR and JEVEX focusing through the h-grid. There is nothing like that here. We have no way of getting back." Broghuilio's face colored and began to swell. "You can shout as much as you want, Excellency, but it won't change anything," Estordu said. "What we should be thinking about are the options we have here. There is no other choice."

Such talk from the normally obsequious Estordu was so out of character and unexpected that Broghuilio stopped as he was about to speak, deflated, and for a moment just stared. Maybe Estordu was still more traumatized than he showed. The Captain and other officers within hearing, and other members of Broguilio's staff who had appeared, digested the information somberly.

Wylott had a mild gash on one cheek but nothing worse apart from a bruise or two. "So we are without primary h-grid power?" he concluded. "Just the auxiliary system?"

"So it appears, General," the captain said.

"We will need to put down somewhere soon," Wylott observed.

A barb congratulating Wylott on his brilliance began forming reflexively on Broghuilio's lips, but then died. Sarcasm would get them nowhere. "Captain, convey the situation to the commanders of the other vessels," he ordered. "Have them stand by for further instructions."

"Aye, aye, Excellency."

Broghuilio paced across the floor to stand staring up at the main display, still showing the view of Minerva, while he thought. He still needed to keep a hand on one of the consoles to steady himself, he found. He wished now that he had made the effort to learn as much as was known about precataclysm Minerva when the opportunity had been there. But he had concentrated on the Earth surveillance program, managing the information reported to the Thuriens, and secretly building up the Jevlenese military capability. His face was turned toward the future, he had been fond of telling his subordinates. What was past was past and didn't concern him. The words had an ironic ring to them now.

He had talked about Earth as the new power base of the Cerians, but that was more for the propaganda value. He really didn't know that much about the Cerians, other than that they were one of the two superpowers whose eventual catastrophic war had destroyed Minerva. The Thuriens had taken the survivors of the other side, Lambia, back to their own part of the Galaxy, eventually installing them on Jevlen. That made the Jevlenese "Lambians"; it followed that the Cerians were the enemy. Broghuilio's historical analysis and any ideology stemming from it had never really gone a lot deeper than that. He looked at the moon, half lit behind Minerva's disk.

"JEVEX." The prompt was a mental reflex. There was no response. Of course, JEVEX wasn't there. He turned his head to speak over his shoulder. "Advisor Estordu. What can you tell me about the Lunarians' technical capabilities at this time? Military organization and weapons capability in particular."

"The most we have to go on is the events of the final war-which obviously hasn't happened yet. But even by that time, the phase they were at was still primitive-rudimentary nuclear and beam weapons; off-planet capability just sufficient to contest near space and establish long-range bombardment installations on their moon, and some robot surveys sent to Earth. But indication are that most of the advances necessary to produce even that occurred toward the end, as militarization on both sides accelerated."

"So they're probably still in the early stages down on Minerva," Broghuilio said, his eyes still fixed on the screen. "They aren't present on the moon to any significant degree yet."

"Possibly so, Excellency. A telescopic survey of the surface would tell us more. Also a profile of communications traffic."

Broghuilio stared up at the image for a minute or so longer. Although ostensibly Jevlen-based transports, his five ships were fitted with armaments that the Thuriens never knew about. Also, they were still holding cargos of the kinds of weapons that he had been bringing in from Uttan as part of his buildup. Between them they were carrying somewhere between two thousand and three thousand of his supporters, most of them trained and with experience of the war games staged in remote places-the exact number was uncertain, due to the haste in evacuating from Jevlen. He turned, his hands clasped behind his back. "Very well. You have all had time to consider the situation," he told his aides. "What plan do you recommend?" He looked at Estordu.

"What? I… That is…"

Broghilio's eyes shifted to Wylott. "General?"

"Well, it's hardly… I mean, in view of the suddenness of the changed situation."