They turned and began walking slowly back across the apron toward the mess hail.
Many light-years away, the Shapieron slipped quietly out of orbit above Thurien. For a little over a day VISAR tracked it to beyond the Gistar system and monitored its transfer through h-space to a point just outside JEVEX’s zone of control on the fringe of the Jevlenese star system. The power and control beams to the two unmanned decoy ships sent with it were promptly jammed, and while they drifted helplessly on the edge of JEvEx-space, the Shapieron continued moving inward and vanished from the view of VISAR’s instruments into the cloak of impenetrabifity that surrounded the enemy star.
chapter thirty
The construction floating in space was in the form of a hollow square. It measured over five hundred miles along a side. From each of its corners a bar, twenty miles thick, extended diagonally inward to support the two-hundred-mile-diameter sphere held in the center. The surfaces of the outer square bristled with angular protuberances, sections of ribbing, and domed superstructures, all etched harshly in black and shades of metallic gray, and immense windings girded parts of the central sphere and its supporting members. Receding away into space behind it, a line of identical objects spaced at two-thousand-mile intervals diminished in size with distance until they were lost in the background of stars.
Imares Broghuilio, formerly Premier of the Jevlenese faction of Thurien and now Overlord of the recently proclaimed Independent Protectorate of Jevienese Worlds, stood in his black Supreme Military Commander’s uniform, his arms folded across his chest, and scowled out at the scene from inside a blisterdome on the hull of a spacecraft riding several thousand miles off. Low to one side, the dark, rugged sphere of the planet Uttan hung as a crescent against the blackness, appearing the size of a tennis ball held at arm’s length. Wylott and a number of generals from various commands of the Jevlenese military were standing behind him with Estordu and a handful of civilian advisors. To one side, not looking very happy, were Niels Sverenssen and Feylon Turl, technical coordinator of the quadriflexor construction program.
Broghuilio waved an arm at the scene outside. “We have been forced to revise our timetables just as drastically and in just as little time,” he said curtly, glaring at Turl. “I expect you to do at least as well.”
“But engineering on this scale can’t be accelerated by that kind of factor simply by ordering it to be,” Turl protested. “We are still short by fifty units. It will take two years at least, even with round-the-clock shifts in all critical-”
“Two years is unacceptable,” Broghuillo said flatly. “rye given
you our requirement, and I want your confirmation, today, that it will be met as stipulated. Tell me what can be done for a change. The Protectorate is now operating on a war economy, and whatever resources are needed will be made available.”
“It isn’t simply a question of production resources,” Turl insisted. “The power to transfer that number of quadriflexors to the target won’t be available for two years. Crallort’s latest estimates show that-”
“Crallort has been removed,” Broghuilio informed him. “That office is now under military control. The generator battery will be expanded under an emergency program that is already in effect, and the power requirement will be met as stipulated.”
“I-” Turl began, but Broghuilio cut him off with an impatient motion of his hand.
“You have until twenty-four hours from now to discuss the revisions with your staff. I shall expect you at the Directorate of Strategic Planning on Jevlen at that time to report. I will not expect to hear lame excuses. Do I make myself understood?”
“Yes, Excellency,” Turl mumbled.
Subvocally Broghuilio instructed JEVEX to remind him later in the day to review possible candidates for Turl’s replacement at Uttan, then turned his eyes contemptuously toward Sverenssen. “And it appears that my ‘able lieutenant’ who was supposed to have had th~ situation on Earth ‘well under control’ is equally incompetent,” he sneered. “Well, what have you been able to find out? How did the Thuriens manage to communicate with Terrans right under your noses? Where is their facility located? What is your plan to eliminate it? How did they penetrate your operation? Who has been betraying it? I hope you have good answers, Sverenssen.”