Rowan: There are women Councillors Jeff: None with much more than an empathetical Talent and your report has frightened them from even the most discreet of direct contact. The W & I modules were only deployed to pacify the non-aggressive element in the Council.
Rowan: What :f Leviathan is duplicitous?
Jeff laughed. What? Do you mean they"d respond sweetly to the Welcome and Ident: and then launch missiles once we let them advance "in peace?" Isthia, considering: The Many is definitely not as devious as that. Single-minded is what those things are! The Many all thinking along the same line. Destroying what is in the way of their objective.
The other women in the Watch concurred immediately.
Isthia: And where is Mauli?
Jeff: Resting. Which she needed, and an example that I should follow. Now, while I have the time.
Jeff was back in the Tower when the first Welcome message was ignored. There were ten in the string, each comprising sounds, signals, and signs that were thought to have universal significance.
He hauled Rowan and Isthia away from what he called "their compulsive watching". He made them both sleep in the way that they had once forced him to rest and ignored their protests when they awoke.
"My squadron has taken up positions behind Deneb"s moons," he told his mother and his wife as he watched them consume the hearty meal he had prepared for them.
"It gives them a psychological sense of security!" He grinned.
"Even the male complement on board all three destroyers are believers now! And Leviathan has pa.s.sed into the Denebian system proper, closing fast on the minefield." He rubbed his hands together, his blue eyes sparkling with antic.i.p.ation.
Isthia regarded the Rowan drolly. "They"re all alike!" "I beg to differ, Isthia," the Rowan replied with great dignity, "this one has a few redeeming features." "Yes, he has learned a thing or two from us, hasn"t he?
And I don"t mean cooking." "Why didn"t you think to arrange a sleeping facility here, Mother?" Jeff asked as they "ported back to the Tower. The watch was just changing, but the outgoing crew showed no signs of dispersing to their homes.
Besseva: What is really needed is enough seating for those who don"t wish to miss the action shortly to begin.
Isthia: Oh, is that all? Stacked metal chairs arrived on the landing. Need more?
Rakella answered this time: About a dozen more, cups, and say a case of a caffeine beverage and several of fruit juices. It"s going to be exciting and we"ll need to keep blood sugar levels up.
As well, the Rowan thought, entering the building, that the west section was empty of equipment for it shortly became a spectators"
gallery. They were quiet and their presence supportive. Jeff sat at the console where screens linked up the three reconnaissance ships and two of the closer dreadnoughts, the Moscow and the London.
Once she was settled in her couch, the Rowan nodded to Isthia and the two women, their minds strengthened by the gestalt, reached out into s.p.a.ce. Unerringly now they perceived the intruder. It had reached the last of the Welcome devices.
Isthia: Well, that"s that.
Rakella, tentatively: Maybe they just didn"t understand any of the programs.
Isthia: That"s immaterial. A pointed attempt to make communications deserves the courtesy of some response.
Rowan: So much for the pacifist Councillors" good intentions.
Reidinger, gently insinuating an ironic voice in both minds: It was worth a try, wasn"t it?
Isthia, giving a mental shudder: I suppose it salves conscience and looks good on the record.
Reidinger: There was rather a large segment of our populations that bet that the intruder would shoot the devices up.
Jeff: Thereby establishing a clearly hostile intent!
Isthia: I keep telling you that hostile intent has already been unequivocably established! Those beings are really alien.
Jeff: Who"s taking bets about their firing on the mines?
Whoops! I never laid any credit on that bet!
In the next few moments the screens were hectic with reports from the dreadnoughts and the smaller courier ships. The seeded mines were being demolished but not by Leviathan. Scanners now registered the appearance of mobile units, originating from Leviathan and speeding toward the mines.
The Rowan and Jeff simultaneously: Same sort of craft we destroyed two years ago!
Reidinger: Score a point for Talent! Fleet took nine seconds longer to identify. ZAMBIA and her sister ships are demanding the chance to retaliate!
The Rowan and Isthia: Do NOT permit them to engage!
The Rowan: We"ll need their minds!
Reidinger: You figured it out then, Angharad?
The Rowan: I did indeed! But Leviathan must get close enough to hit the gravity well before it can be swung away from Deneb VIH Jeff, grimly: And we wait?
Reidinger, equally as grim but with such a strong vein of a.s.surance that the Rowan could feel Jeff relax: We wait for the right moment!
Jeff composed a graphic display, the Fleet deployment and the Leviathan"s mobile units, added the now measurable speed, ma.s.s, and composition of the invader, and grunted when the projection appeared.
"Closing too b.l.o.o.d.y d.a.m.ned fast. And if this master strategy of yours doesn"t work?" Reidinger: Fleet elements have already destroyed or disabled seven of the fifteen destroyers Leviathan sent out.
We"ve sustained some casualties.
When he paused for too long, Jeff asked sharply: And they"re beetles, aren"t they? More of those d.a.m.ned beetles!
Reidinger: So the initial unconfirmed reports suggest.
Jeff let out a wild yell, startling everyone in the Tower.
"They"ll be making statues to your long ear, Mother," he cried, hauling her into his arms and whirling her about.
Isthia swatted futilely at him but his ebullience did much to lighten the tension in the Tower. "Silly boy!
Hearing was the easy part!" She pulled herself out of his arms, but not before giving his face an affectionate caress.
The eyes of everyone in the Tower turned to the graph and the inexorable progress of the Leviathan past the cold and sterile outer planets of the Denebian system.
Reidinger, righteous but sad: Two of our destroyers were wiped out. Got too close to the Leviathan when they chased its defenders back. Then it sent seeking missiles in the direction of the dreadnoughts. All sustained damage, fortunately none have been crippled.
Jeff: Does the Fleet still believe in the potency of its weaponry?
Reidinger with a snort: Moscow and London are bracketing the intruder and have launched their first salvos.
Isthia: They have to be seen to try, Jeff Stop that pacing.
My nerves are bad enough without you clamping about like that.
The Rowan: Save your energy, love. Talent has the big guns and you"re the bombardier!
Jeff"s eyes sparkled and his grin was pure malice. I figured it out. A bit slow, perhaps, but this local yokel finally caught on.
I think, and the Rowan paused dramatically, you got past Reidinger"s shield and sneaked a peek.
Jeff, wearing an innocent expression: I? Invade our Master"s privacey? I"m good but I"m not that good!
The Rowan laughed aloud. "I think you"re better than good, love.
If you"d waited, you"d"ve figured out what Reidinger has in mind."
It wasn"t easy for anyone in the Tower to wait, watching the invader making its way deeper and deeper into Denebian s.p.a.ce, knowing that the intersection of the planet"s...o...b..t and Leviathan"s path was steadily approaching. Isthia sent people home to rest, ordered food brought in, revised the Watch rota, sent Jeff and the Rowan to the Farm to sleep.
She arrived at the Farm and sent them back to a.s.sume command.
Additional squadrons were dispatched to harry Leviathan. Though many strikes were made on the surface of the planetoid, the hits had no discernible effect on its inexorable path.
The Rowan, on a thin band to Isthia: Those mothers must feel pretty invincible by now.
Isthia: I sense that they are aware of the attacks.
The Rowan: And smug! I dislike that att.i.tude.
Besseva: It will suit our purpose.
The hours dragged and the Rowan began to realize subjectively how Jeff must have felt during that first contact.
Jeff: b.l.o.o.d.y useless is how I felt.
The Rowan: That"s not how you came across to me.
Jeff, giving her his special smile as he swiveled his chair around to her: And how did I come across to you?
The Rowan regarded him for a long moment, smiling tantalizingly.
Busy. Preoccupied. Annoyed with bureaucratic inefficiencey.
Jeff said aloud, fidgeting, "I wish I was busy right now!
Even a little bureaucratic inefficiency to maul would be a relief!" He sat bolt upright when he glanced at the monitor. "Hey, that thing has slowed. It"s going to go into orbit around us!" "Why?"
Isthia wanted to know. "I will not believe its intentions are pacific !" Jeff was busily adding equations to the graph. "No, not in that orbit. Just far enough away for its missiles to be effective and too far for any retaliation from the ground if we had any missiles of any kind. Ruddy b.i.t.c.hes are going to pound h.e.l.l out of us again!" No, they"re not! Reidinger"s mental alert was almost anticlimactic when it echoed through the minds of everyone in the Tower. Angharad Gwin-Raven, the A focus is yours. Gather it! Jeff Raven, collect the B focus, Prepare!
With a single look of exchanged love, the Rowan and Jeff lay supine on their conformable couches and relaxed their bodies. They didn"t notice Rakella motioning for medical orderlies to attend them.
Capella came querulously into the Rowan"s mind first: This is becoming a habit: twice in as many years. Really! I do trust that we can dispose of this intrusive type for once and all.
The Rowan: That is the intention! The Rowan also read how nervous Capella was under the guise of complaint.
She felt vulnerable, a sensation which the Talented rarely entertained. To herself, the Rowan realized how much she had learned of herself, and others, in the two years since the first merge.
With Capella came the surge of all the female Talents of her system. Then the T-2 Jedizaira at the Betelgeuse Station added her strength; Maharanjani from Altair and, among those who joined from her native planet, the Rowan felt the touch of her stepsister and welcomed her.
Earth"s Talents, Elizara leading as she was familiar with the Rowan"s mind, swelled the force greater. Procyon sort of stumbled into the focus, apologizing but Piastera was a T-3 and, with Guzman as Prime, had had little chance to do much merging off-planet.
Other minds joined in large and small groupings, led by T-2s or T-4s, tentatively at first, then melding in more comfort as they were integrated into the whole of female Talent throughout the Nine-Star League. Their determination to halt the invaders vibrated more fiercely than the force that opposed them. The Denebians came in last, Isthia, Rakella, and Besseva down to young Sarjie, thrilled to be admitted into this experience. Then all were swallowed up in the final consolidation of the Rowan merge.
Reidinger, and his voice seemed nearly a whisper to the totality that the Rowan had become: Now, Angharad, now!
The Raven merge is available!
Blazoned in the ma.s.s mind was the graph on the Tower"s screen and steadily the Rowan merge moved out toward the invader. Like a laser stabbing through s.p.a.ce, the Rowan-mind gathered speed and reached the planetoid. Various elements of the Rowan-mind noted composition, ma.s.s, confirmed that Leviathan had been made from a dead world, now a darkness reverberating with noisy machinery and the scuttling of myriad creatures, whose minimal understanding responded to commands directed at them from the central point in the cavernous vessel.
The Rowan-mind: The "Many" are sixteen but some do not emanate much strength. We interrupt and distract the "Many" NOW!
There could be no defense against such a shaft of pure mental energy and the "Many" struggled briefly, withered and collapsed into mindlessness under the intensity of the force directed against them.
The Jeff-focus shouted: NOW! And every kinetic male Talent was joined with full gestalt from all available generators to divert Leviathan on to its final trajectory straight toward Deneb"s primary.
Later, in the many years of discussion provoked by an event which lasted six hours, it would be seen as the most perfect example of mind over matter: ineluctably simple when compared to weapon technology or the complexity of s.p.a.ceship drives. Once the Rowan-mind merge distracted and destroyed the minds of the huge, female reproducers, Leviathan lost its directive force: the diverse subordinates aimlessly continued in the routines for which they had been genetically designed, movements that had become pointless.
Then the Jeff-mind merge exerted the kinetic energy to deflect Leviathan from its intended orbit above Deneb VIII. Together both mind merges concentrated on speeding Leviathan on its new course. When the gravitic pull of Deneb"s sun caught the planetoid, the mind merges released it.
Leviathan"s plunge into the solar incandescence created a brief flare in the corona, recorded as the finale to this astounding exercise.
The Raven-merge: That"s what we should have done with the first attackers.
The Rowan-merge: We did warn them!
Slowly the individual minds retreated from their focus slowly because the ma.s.s elation of success had bordered on exquisite ecstasy, too sweet not to savor; slowly because the communion of so many minds was in itself a rare and unique experience. Thanks were given and received.
Farewells were tender between those who had just met; reluctant between old friends, united once again. The last withdrawals were almost painful and the Rowan felt totally drained, her mind barren and echoing after such a surfeit.
"Easy, Rowan," said Rakella in a muted voice. Even so the Rowan winced weakly. "Just drift. Jeff"s fine. Dean"s with him. You"ll both recover after a good, long sleep." I"m here, Jeff said and although he was still on the couch not a scant half meter from her, his tone was a whisper.
This was a much longer affair than the first one. Sleep! I"ll love you later.
"I want the pair of you asleep by the time I count three," Isthia said, her doughty self.
That"s not fair, the Rowan thought despite a hideous pounding in her reverberatingly empty head.
Why"s fair?! One, two, three!