Shimoda had to use a hand to shield his eyes in spite of the protection afforded by his shades. “Am what?” he shouted skyward.

“I remember my designer’s purpose. I recall what I was built for. I remember what I am.”

“We’re so pleased for you,” the sardonic Hawkins yelled. “But is it going to do us any good?”

“I think so.” Still whirling wildly, the blue ellipse plummeted exuberantly toward the water. Its voice had fallen an octave. “I am … a warship! See?”

The holomagic image reappeared. Once again they saw the four Chaka craft hovering in formation alongside the bulk of the Drex vessel. One launched something from its underside. An intense beam of coherent purplish light erupted from a blister in the artifact’s side. It intercepted the launched object, which promptly exploded in a brief but intense fireball.

“That is very interesting.” Iranaputra was talking as much to himself as to his friends. “A laser of such amplitude is of course impossible. So it cannot be a laser.”

The serving robot was squatting on its treads. All four arms were busily engaged in the construction of an impressively detailed sand castle. “Obviously it’s beyond your comprehension. As all of this is.”

“I have succeeded in reactivating a small portion of my armory,” the Autothor proclaimed. “I shall now attempt to dissuade the impolite from additional assaults upon our person.”

Instantly space outside the Drex vessel was filled with multiple types of energy beam, neutron-compacted explosives, hot plasma, shaped charges traveling just below tachyspeed, molecular bond disrupters, and for good measure, a half dozen spatially circumscribed thermonuclear implosion bombs. Subsequent to this understated overreaction and as soon as their watering eyes managed to refocus, Iranaputra and his companions could see that the four Chakan hostiles which had been threatening them a moment earlier had been reduced to a few drifting clouds of hot metallic gas, several amorphous blobs of rapidly cooling metal, and two cartons of service regulation Chakan military underwear which had perversely managed to survive the otherwise utter annihilation.

“Gee,” Gelmann murmured into the stunned silence which followed the ravening devastation, “I don’t think they’ll be bothering us anymore, I shouldn’t need to point out.”

“A most impressive demonstration,” Heath agreed.

The Autothor contracted as it descended toward them, while maintaining its new, more intense coloration. “I didn’t intend quite so extreme a reaction. I merely wanted to warn them.”

“At this point I think an apology would be moot,” Hawkins murmured. “Chalk it down to experience.”

“I shall. I feel less confused already.”

“I wonder,” said Shimoda thoughtfully, “what kind of enemy these Drex needed a ship like this to confront?”

“I don’t know.” The Autothor pitched slightly. “That portion of my memory has not resurfaced within my cortex. I know only that I was not used. Instead I was constructed in secret and then hidden on the most out-of-the-way, backward, meaningless little world my designers could locate.”

“How flattering,” Hawkins noted.

“Then what happened?” Shimoda asked curiously.

“As I said, I don’t know. They did not return, or activate me from a distance. Perhaps I was simply forgotten.”

“These Drex would have to have one helluva rotten memory to forget about something like you,” Hawkins commented. “Something must’ve happened. Maybe this mysterious enemy of theirs got the upper hand.”

“We’ll probably never know,” said Shimoda.

“If we are lucky.” Iranaputra shuddered slightly.

XIV

The First Federal Federation fleet of over a hundred ships had emerged from tachyspace halfway between Earth and Luna in a brilliantly organized quindratic, twenty vessels to a position, just in time to witness the utter obliteration of the Chakan task force by a variety of alien weaponry breathtaking in its thoroughness and implication. The fleet’s analysts barely had time to steady their stomachs before they set to work in a hasty attempt to explicate the energies involved.

The emotions of the fleet’s officers were in a state of controlled turmoil. They had come prepared to deal with an oversize but innocuous artifact of possible Keiretsu design inhabited by five elderly humans of undistinguished lineage and achievement. Instead they found themselves confronting a highly active vessel larger than anything humankind had ever built, equipped with energized weapons systems whose limits could only be imagined and whose builders self-evidently did not hail from Ronin, Shintaro, or any of the Keiretsu worlds.

Chakans were reputable fighters known for the simplicity of their tactics and sophistication of their equipment, yet a few moments of apocalyptic alien fury had obliterated ships and soldiers as thoroughly as moths in a volcano.

Admiral Sobran was considering this as his chief battle engineer handed him a printout. She had her visionup visor shoved back atop her head and there was disbelief in her expression.

“You’re not gonna believe this, sir.”

“After what I just saw I’ll believe anything, Major.” He took the plastic sheet, read.

He was wrong.

“This has got to be a mistake.” Beneath thick white brows, his eyes continued to roam over the words and figures.

“That’s what we thought, sir, but we’ve got confirmation already from the battle centers on board the Gettysburg and the Matamoros.”

“I know the damn thing’s big.” The admiral waved a hand in the direction of the room-sized holomag that occupied the center of the command dome, wherein drifted a representation of a portion of the moon’s surface as well as the glistening, silvery cathedral-shape of the alien craft. “But this kind of energy is inconceivable. It’s just a ship like ours. Not an ambulating nova.”

“According to the readouts, its hypothesized ultimate output of destructive energy falls somewhere in between, sir.”

Sobran frowned. “Open-ended parameters of such scale could be regarded as less than helpful to someone in my present position, Major.”

The engineer essayed a wan smile. “I know that, sir. We’re working to narrow them as rapidly as possible.”

Communications demanded his attention. “Admiral, we’ve picked up a major tachyspace disturbance well beyond the Sol magnetosphere. Coordinates to follow. Preliminary particle-wave patterns point to the approach of a large number of vessels.”

“Well, that’s not unexpected,” Sobran muttered half to himself. “Any idea where they’re from?”

“We’re being mirror-scanned,” his communications people informed him. “Obviously they know we’re here. Wave patterns are consistent with traditional Keiretsu formations.”

The federation admiral considered the situation phlegmatically. He’d hoped to have a little more time to prepare prior to the arrival of another major force. Clearly that was not to be. On the other hand, he reminded himself, he had infinitely more time remaining to him than did the Chakans. Everything, as the ancient saying went, was relative.

He smiled to himself. Perhaps the Keiretsu would emerge from tachyspace and head straight for the artifact. That would be interesting. Also unlikely. The Keiretsu captains would take careful stock of the situation and caucus before moving. If anything, their approach would be more deliberate than his own.

“Any idea how many?” he inquired of Spatial Analysis.

“Too early to tell, sir,” came the reply. “However, the disturbance is consistent with numbers roughly approximate to our own.”

Sobran nodded. The Keiretsu could put together a force of that magnitude on short notice, just as the Federals had. He gained some satisfaction from the knowledge that the Keis would be surprised to learn they had been beaten to Sol. They didn’t like to be second.

Nevertheless, Admiral Hiroshigi was the picture of courtesy when his image finally appeared on the flagship’s vid. Sobran knew his counterpart by reputation. Hiroshigi was tall and downright skinny, rather like a scarecrow constantly bemoaning a shortage of fresh stuffing. His long face was further lengthened by a perpetually mournful expression that would not change even while he was apologetically cutting an opponent to pieces. Behind that homey visage lay the mind of a superb tactician. He would no more launch a blind attack on the artifact than Sobran would.

The Keiretsu fleet emerged from tachyspace in the vicinity of Mars and proceeded Earthward at a studious clip, to take up a position equivalent to that of the Federals but a judicious distance away. There were now more than two hundred warships of varying size and destructive capability occupying the region between the Homeworld and its moon. Their presence vexed Earth Orbital Operations no end.

“Good day to you, Admiral Sobran,” Hiroshigi said.

“Hapimix to you too, Hiro.” Sobran gave his equal a wide smile.

Hiroshigi was so nervous he passed over the usual formalities. “We recorded the deployment of destructive energies at an unreasonable distance. I am concerned.”

“Wasn’t us. Chakans got here before us. Four ships. You know the Chakans. They went right after the artifact. It is an alien artifact, by the way. If you’ve been monitoring what’s been happening here, you should be convinced of that now. I know I am.”