[132] Silence and stars. Is Moonhorn ashamed? Poor being. But dangerous, because dutiful.
“We don’t want to disrupt your work, or anything like that,” Valen continued. “We absolutely don’t want a battle. Nor do you, madam. In spite of everything, you are civilized too.”—no matter those aspects of your society that drove Orichalc to seek refuge, and caused you to conceal these wonders. “Can’t we compromise?”
Silence again. Lissa’s knuckles whitened above the weapons console.
“It appears we must,” said Moonhorn, and Lissa’s hands lifted through weightlessness to catch at tears.
XXIV
AGAIN Dagmar decelerated toward her destination.
Valen, Lissa, and Orichalc entered the saloon together. The physicists were already there, aquiver. Esker leaped to his feet. “Well?” he cried.
“We have leave to proceed.” Valen told them.
Elif gusted out a breath. Noel and Tessa raised a cheer. “Marvelous!” Esker jubilated. “Oh, milady—” He saw her face more closely and broke off.
Valen moved to the head of the table. His companions flanked him. “It was a tough bargaining session,” the woman said.
“I know,” Tessa mumbled. “It went on and on. And when boost came back, and we didn’t know where we were bound—”
“You’ll have your shot at our target,” said Valen. He sat down. The rest who were standing did likewise. Orichalc crouched on the bench. The captain’s gaze sought Esker.
“I couldn’t push my opposite number, Dominator Moonhorn, too hard,” he went on. “She must have been given considerable discretion and choice. That’s usual for Confederacy officers in the field. And mainly, no reinforcements could reach her in time. Even if somebody withdrew to hyperbeam distance and called, and they jumped at once, it’d take them too long to cross the normal-drive distance. The black holes would already have met, and meanwhile we could be playing hob with the Susaians on the scene. And in fact, Dagmar hasn’t detected any new arrivals, which she could do. Still, Moonhorn surely received orders not to give away the store.”
“An officer of the Confederacy who shows cowardice is [134] strangled,” Orichalc said. “One who shows poor judgment is ruined. Over and above these considerations is nest-honor.”
“So I mustn’t leave her with no choice but to attack,” Valen continued. “That would mean a certainty of heavy loss to the Susaians and a better than fifty percent chance of losing everything; though if we won, we might still be crippled. And while the political repercussions wouldn’t be catastrophic, they’d be troublesome. On the other hand, Moonhorn couldn’t, wouldn’t meekly stand aside and let us take all the forbidden fruit we might.
“The fact that we had already taken a good deal, and passed it on to Asborg, weighed heavily. What I had to do was give Moonhorn a way to cut her side’s losses. We dickered—”
Esker’s fist smote the table. “Will you get to the point?” he yelled. “What did you agree to?”
Valen squared his shoulders. “No cooperation, no information exchange,” he said. “That was too much to hope for. But we may take station at the minimum safe distance you want. Congratulations; they’d arrived at almost the identical figure, and had more and better numbers to work with. They have four live-crewed ships there, on the two orthogonal axes you described.
“We must not come any nearer to either axis than—the Susaian units equal about one million kilometers. We must not enter the orbital plane of the black holes at all.”
“What?” Esker sprang back to his feet. He leaned across the table, shuddering. “Why, you— That plane’s where the most vital observations— You clotbrain! Didn’t you ever listen to me? A rotating black hole drags the inertial frame with it. Those two have opposite spins, differently oriented. Cancellations, additions—the whole tendency will be for things to happen, unprecedented things, exactly in that mutual plane—and you threw this away for us!”
“Quiet!” Valen shouted. Into the rage that choked and sputtered at him, he explained in a voice gone flat: “I did know. So did Moonhorn. I asked for a place farther out on the. axis in the plane, or at least somewhere in it. She refused. We went around [135] and around, with me offering different versions, and always it ended in refusal. I couldn’t stop to consult with you, if I’d wanted to. Frankly, I was amazed to get what I did. The minimum radius, only a million kilometers north of the plane. Not quite twenty minutes of arc to sight down along. Does it make any serious difference?”