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“Exactly.”

“Is that even possible?”

“You’ve changed the brains of countless brainboxes personally. Reprogramming and rewiring
structural synapses is not as easy in an organic subject, but it is not any more difficult
than, for example, rebuilding a human foot using hamburger as a base material.”

I peered at him thoughtfully. I was beginning to believe he was serious. Could it
really be possible to erase an instinctual fear from the mind of a living being? I
supposed that if you knew exactly where to look, and what synapse to destroy, and
you had an impossibly tiny surgeon…

“It’s freaky, but I’ll give you that one,” I said. “Still, I don’t think the Centaurs
will go for it. They’ve already refused to undergo nanotization treatments. Why would
they agree to this abomination performed upon their very minds?”

“I’ve already asked them. In these delicate situations, I’ve found that careful wording
is critical to receptivity in biotic subjects.”

“They said yes?”

“Yes. They agreed to go through the process as I described it. I told them it would
make them braver, and thus would confer honor upon any warrior who agreed to undertake
the baths. After ruminating for many hours, they volunteered.”

“How many volunteered?”

“As far as I can determine…all of them.”

I sat back, stunned. The whole herd—
all
of the herds—were willing to undergo microbial treatments to change their mentalities?
It was stunning.

“Okay,” I said, nodding. “You’ve got me seriously considering this course of action.
I don’t like how you’ve circumvented the command of chain, but I’m going to overlook
that.”

“You often give speeches on the topic of personal initiative.”

“Yes, yes,” I said, “okay, I’m going to give you that one. But there are other practical
considerations. How will we arm these new space-troops?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Marvin said, “but don’t we have a large surplus of kits
outfitted for Centaur ground troops? With rebreather units and nanocloth coverage,
they could become vacuum-ready.”

I squinted at him. “What about delivering these troops to the battlefield? We can’t
fit them into my gunboats.”

“We have a surplus of empty transport craft at the moment, do we not?”

I nodded and squeezed the last drops out of my beer. Marvin’s cameras zoomed in on
my hands, my face—everything. I knew he was trying to determine the verdict from my
slightest gesture. I tried hard not to let him know what I was thinking ahead of time.
I hoped the suspense was killing him.

“All right,” I said at last. “Set up your baths. Breed your microbes. I don’t know
how you will produce enough of them in time, but that’s your problem.”

“That will not be difficult. A tiny injection into the prefrontal cortex is all that’s
required. No more than a single milliliter of fluid per subject.”

“You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you Marvin?”

“Yes Colonel Riggs, I believe that I have.”

-23-

The following days were a whirlwind of activity. We posted scout ships on the other
side of the rings at either end of the Eden system. They had orders to sit just on
the other side of the ring, watching for anything unexpected. These border guards
were crucial, as they could give us advanced warning of any imminent attack. If anything
showed up in the system, they had plenty of time to withdraw and transmit their report
back in the Eden system.

So far, my scouts hadn’t seen any enemy activity. It was quiet in space, but the rings
were agitated. The increased level of traffic going through the rings was dramatic—and
annoying. We could monitor the level and frequency of the traffic, but could not determine
what was being said or who was talking. Perhaps saying these transmissions were bothering
me was an understatement: They were driving me bananas. I knew that someone was talking
to someone else about invading Eden—but I didn’t have any details. We had the option
to jam the signals at any time, but we were still trying to figure out what was being
said. It was a maddening situation.

I didn’t want to give up the chance to listen in on the chatter by jamming it and
thus revealing our knowledge of the technology, but at the same time I didn’t want
them to keep communicating freely at our expense. It was a classic strategic dilemma,
one I’d studied in books long ago in what now seemed like my distant past. Should
a commander sacrifice a current tactical advantage in order to gain a future, potentially
greater advantage? There was no perfect answer, and whatever the leader did, he was
bound to feel stressed in the present.

Back in the Mideast wars, I’d been a reserve officer, and I’d done my tour. I’d read
up on military strategy, as only seemed logical for any officer in a war zone. One
legendary case I remembered vividly had once befallen Winston Churchill. In charge
of defending England against Germany in a vicious air campaign, he’d been breaking
the enemy codes for some time. After the war, members of the code-breaking group claimed
they’d warned him of an attack against the city of Coventry, but in order to keep
Germany from being tipped-off  about the broken code, Churchill had not ordered the
English defenses to center on the doomed city.

If Churchill really had made that fateful decision so long ago, I felt for him now,
many long years later. Every day I delayed and didn’t order the jamming of the rings,
I felt a drumbeat in my head. I had no real idea what the final outcome of this delay
would be. Although Marvin and a dozen others tried to break the code, we hadn’t managed
to do it yet, raising the grim possibility that I was letting my enemies converse
without anything to show for it.

On the sixth day after Captain Sarin and her flotilla of refugees had joined us, I
called a meeting of my senior staff to discuss our next move. I was no longer willing
to let it all ride and hope for the best. I felt an overwhelming urge to
do
something.

“I suspect the weak link in our code-breaking department is Marvin himself,” Miklos
said. “He is also probably the only one who can achieve success.”

“Explain,” I said, making an impatient gesture. Miklos had a way of talking around
things, and today I wanted direct answers.

“Well sir,” he began, “the problem is simple enough: he’s distracted with his primordial
soup and the Centaurs he’s been injecting with the vile stuff. Most of his test subjects
have died by the way, Colonel.”

“I’m well aware of that. Are you suggesting I call off his experiments? Is the code-breaking
more important than the addition of thousands of space-borne infantry to our defenses?”

Miklos shrugged. “They are both hypotheticals. I’d rather deal in realities.”

I glowered and reached for a cup of coffee.

“Sir,” said Kwon, hunkering forward over the table. “I say we let the robot work on
the Centaurs, not the codes. What good is the code? We know they are coming at us
from both ends of the system. Who cares about the details? To win the battle, we need
more troops. If the robot makes thousands of fighters, nothing else matters.”

I nodded, appreciating Kwon’s point of view. “Down to Earth advice as usual, Kwon,”
I said. “But you’re correct as well, Miklos. We are dealing in hypotheticals. I recall,
however, that the atomic bomb was once a crazy theory. So were jet aircraft and radar
towers. The outcome of a major war is often affected by technological developments,
and this one is no different.”

Miklos looked tired, and somewhat annoyed. “So, what are we to do about it? What are
your orders, sir?”

“I’ve been thinking, and I believe it’s time to look outside the box for answers.
I’ve come up with a plan that may greatly enhance our odds of survival in this coming
conflict.”

They all looked at me expectantly. Sandra was the only one that looked worried, the
rest appeared merely curious. I guess that’s because she knew me the best.

“I’m going to meet with the Blues again,” I said. “I think it’s pretty clear they’re
somehow involved in all these transmissions. If I go to their world and talk to them
about their position in this conflict, I might be able to convince them to stop helping
the Macros and whoever else they’re talking to.”

“Are you going to convince them with a few nukes, sir?” Kwon asked excitedly. “Nukes
can be very convincing!”

I laughed. “I was hoping a more diplomatic approach would work.”

Kwon frowned, sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. If it didn’t involve blowing
things up, it was all a waste of time to him.

“Okay,” I said, looking around at the doubtful faces, “maybe it won’t work. But that
isn’t the only purpose for going there. If I confront them and let drop certain pieces
of data, they’re likely to report it via the rings. This will give us two important
advantages: First of all, if traffic spikes, we know the Blues are likely behind it.
Remember, we can’t detect the transmissions except at the rings themselves, so we
can’t be sure who’s sending the messages. The transmissions could be coming from the
Centaurs, for all we know. But I think it’s safe to assume the Blues are doing it.”

 Sandra leaned forward. I could tell right away she wasn’t keen on my idea. “Is this
scheme more important than the life of our top commander?”

“The Blues didn’t harm me the last time I went down there. I think I’ll be all right.
Besides, I’m the only person in Star Force that’s been altered to take the pressure
on their world.”

“Okay, let’s say I buy that—which I don’t. What’s the second thing we can gain from
this adventure, Kyle?”

“The second thing is a seed I plan to plant. I’ll tell them something specific, giving
us a marker. Then, when they retransmit it, we’ll be able to look at the message with
foreknowledge concerning the contents. In order to break any code, it helps a great
deal to know what at least part of the message says.”

Several heads were nodding, but not Sandra’s. After the meeting broke up, she followed
me into the corridor and grabbed my arm. I was too strong for her now, and broke free
easily. She followed me toward my quarters, pouting.

“I don’t want you to go down into that soup again,” she said. “That planet almost
killed you the last time. Now, the Blues are open enemies. They might decide to finish
you off if their world doesn’t do it for them.”

“I don’t think they operate that way,” I said, removing my nanocloth crewman’s suit
and beginning to assemble my armor.

She watched me with growing alarm on her face. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m suiting up,” I said, “I’ve got a destroyer waiting at the aft dock. Don’t worry,
I’ll be back before you know it.”

Sandra kicked me then, aiming for a sensitive region. Fortunately, I had my under-armor
on and I was ready for the move. I grabbed her ankle and felt the shock run up my
arm. A normal man would have broken the bones in his hand—if he could have moved fast
enough to catch that flashing foot in the first place. In my case, I only grunted.

“You have to stop doing that,” I said. “It’s insubordination.”

She hugged me a moment later, powerfully. I hugged her back, liking this treatment
much better. I took a second to smell her hair and feel her body pressed up against
me. I found both sensations pleasant. After a few long seconds, she disengaged herself
from my arms and walked out.

“Fine,” she said, turning around in the airlock, “go get yourself killed again. I
don’t care. I won’t sit up all night for you. Not this time.”

Then she was gone. I smiled after her, knowing Sandra was still Sandra. I knew she
would wait up for me every night until I returned. It was comforting, in a way, to
know someone back home cared if I came back or not.

The nanites usually took care of adjusting and sealing my form-fitting armor, but
sometimes there was a fold that just didn’t feel right. Smoothing out every stiff
wrinkle I could find, I finished adjusting my armor and headed for the airlock.

The ship I had left waiting for me was the destroyer
Actium
, which had once been my command ship before we’d built
Nostradamus
. When I was finally in my ship and I undocked from the cruiser, I felt better. Getting
into trouble on my own was a vacation for me. I enjoyed leaving all the troubles of
my office behind for a while.

As I approached the Blue’s homeworld, I transmitted a steady drumbeat of entreaties.
They no longer had a screening group of Nano ships hovering over the planet’s atmosphere
to stop me. That was due to some of my trickery in the past, of course. I hoped they
weren’t still upset about that.

Actium
was a fast ship, faster than anything else I had available other than the cruiser
itself. That’s why I’d chosen her. Flying it solo wasn’t easy in combat, but on a
scouting mission like this it should work out just fine.

One thing that worried me as I approached the Blues’ homeworld was their general lack
of response to my entreaties. I knew they were capable of receiving radio messages
from us—after all, they were using more advanced tech to talk to our enemies right
now via the rings. But they didn’t seem terribly interested in striking up a conversation
with me. I told myself it didn’t matter and flew closer and closer to their gas giant.
Soon, it filled my vision and seemed impossibly huge.