Heechee Rendezvous Part 6

Captain's crew was well trained. When the data had been accepted, and filtered through the ma.s.sed minds, and tabulated, and summarized, the specialists prepared their reports. White-Noise was the navigator. It was his responsibility to take position fixes on all reported sources and update the ship locator file. Shoe was the communications officer, busiest of all-except perhaps for Mongrel, the integrator, who flew from board to board, whispering to the ma.s.sed minds and suggesting cross-checks and correlations. Neither Burst, the black-hole-piercer specialist, nor Twice herself whose skill was in remote handling of slaved equipment, were needed for their specialties at this time, so they backed up the others, as did Captain, the ribbed muscles of his face twisting like serpents as he waited for the consolidated reports.

Mongrel was fond of her Captain, too, and so she gave him the least threatening ones first.

First, there was the fact that Gateway ships had been found and used. Well, there was nothing wrong with that! It was part of the plan, although it was disconcerting to have it happen so soon.

Second, there was the fact that the Food Factory had been found, and the artifact humans called Heechee Heaven. These were old messages, now decades old. Also not serious. Also disconcerting-quite disconcerting, because Heechee Heaven had been designed to trap any ships that docked there, and for two-way contact to have been established meant a quite unexpected sophistication among these upstart bipeds.

Third, there was a message from the sailship people, and that made the tendons in Captain's face writhe faster. Finding a ship in a solar system was one thing-locating one in interstellar s.p.a.ce was distressingly impressive.

There is a possible slight confusion here that I should eliminate. Robinette (and all the rest of the human race) called these people Heechee. Of course, they didn't call themselves that, any more than native Americans called themselves Indians or the African Khoi-San tribes called themselves Hottentots and Bushmen. What the Heechee in fact called themselves was the intelligent ones. But that proves little. So does h.o.m.o sapiens.

And fourth- Fourth was White-Noise's plot of the present whereabouts of all known Heechee vessels now operated by human beings, and when Captain saw that he squeaked with rage and shock. "Plot it against banned s.p.a.ces!" he commanded. And as soon as the datafans were in place and the combined images appeared, the tendons in his cheeks trembled like plucked harpstrings. "They are exploring black holes," he said, his voice thin.

White-Noise nodded. "There is more," he said. "Some of the vessels carry order disruptors. They can penetrate."

And Mongrel the integrator added: "And it does not seem that they understand the danger signs."

Having given their reports, the rest of the crew waited politely. It was Captain's problem now. They hoped very much that he was going to be able to handle it.

The female named Twice was not exactly in love with Captain, because it wasn't time for that yet, but she knew she would be. Quite soon. Within the next few days, most likely. So in addition to her concern for this astonishing and frightening news, there was also her concern for Captain. He was the one who had his upper lip in the pincer. Although it was not yet time, she reached out and placed her lean hand over his. So deep in thought was Captain that he didn't even notice, but patted it absently.

Shoe made the sniffling sound that was the Heechee equivalent of clearing his throat before asking, "Do you want to establish contact with the ma.s.sed minds?"

"Not now," hissed Captain, rubbing his ribcage with his free fist. It made a grating noise, loud in the stillness of the cabin. What Captain really wanted to do was to go back into his black hole in the core of the Galaxy and pull the stars up over his head. That was not possible. Next best would be to flee back to that same safe, friendly core and report to higher authority. Higher authority could then make the decisions. They could be the ones to deal with the ma.s.sed minds of the ancestors, who would be eager to interfere. They could decide what to do about it-if possible, with some other Heechee captain and crew actually dispatched to this terrible swift s.p.a.ce to carry out their orders. That was a possible option, but Captain was too well trained to allow himself so easy a way out. He was the one on the scene. Therefore he was the one who should make the first swift responses. If they were wrong-well, pity poor Captain! There would be consequences. Shunning, at least, though that was only for minor offenses. For graver ones there was the equivalent of being kicked upstairs-and Captain was not eager to join that mighty ma.s.s of stored minds that were all of his ancestors.

He hissed worriedly and made his decisions. "Inform the ma.s.sed minds," he ordered.

"Just inform? Not request recommendations?" asked Shoe.

Firmly, "Just inform. Prepare a penetrating drone and send it back to base with a duplicate of all data." This was to Twice, who released his hand and began the task of activating and programming a small message vessel. And finally, to White-Noise: "Set course for the sailship interception point."

It was not the Heechee custom to salute on receiving an order. It was also not the Heechee custom to argue about it, and it was a measure of the confusion in the ship that White-Noise asked, "Are you sure that's what we should do?"

"Do it," said Captain, shrugging irritably.

Actually, it was not a shrug but a quick, violent contraction of his hard, globular abdomen. Twice found herself staring admiringly at that fetching little bulge and at the way the tough, long strings of tendon from shoulder to wrist stood out from the arm itself. Why, your fingers would almost meet as you clung to it!

With a start she realized that her time of loving was closer than she had thought. What an inconvenience! Captain would be as annoyed as she, since they had had plans for a very special day and a half. Twice opened her mouth to tell him, then closed it again. It was no time to trouble him with that; he was completing the thought processes that ridged his cheek muscles and made him scowl, and beginning to give orders.

Captain had plenty of resources to draw on. There were more than a thousand cleverly cached Heechee artifacts scattered around the Galaxy. Not the ones that were meant to be found sooner or later, like Gateway; these were concealed under the exterior appearance of unpromising asteroids in inaccessible orbits, or between stars, or among cl.u.s.ters of other objects in dust swarms and gas clouds. "Twice," he ordered without looking at her, "activate a command ship. We will rendezvous with it at the sailship point."

She was upset, he observed. He was sorry but not surprised-come down to that, he was upset himself! He returned to the command seat and lowered the bones of his pelvis onto the projecting Y-f.l.a.n.g.es, his life-support pouch fitting neatly into the angle they enclosed.

And became aware that his communications officer was standing over him, face working worriedly. "Yes, Shoe? What is it?"

Shoe's biceps flexed deferentially. "The-" he stammered. "They- The a.s.sa.s.sins-"

Captain felt an electric shock of fear. "The a.s.sa.s.sins?"

"I think there is a danger that they will be disturbed," said Shoe dismally. "The aboriginals are conversing by zero-speed radio."

"Conversing? You mean transmitting messages? Who are you talking about-ma.s.sed minds!" Captain shouted, leaping out of the seat again. "You mean the aboriginals are sending messages at galactic distances?"

Shoe hung his head. "I am afraid so, Captain. Of course, I do not yet know what they are saying-but there is a great volume of communication."

Captain shook his wrists feebly to signal that he wanted to hear no more. Sending messages! Across the Galaxy! Where anyone might hear! Where, especially, the certain parties the Heechee hoped would not be disturbed at all might well hear. And react to. "Establish translation matrices with the minds," he ordered, and dismally returned to his seat.

The mission was jinxed. Captain no longer had hopes of an idle pleasure cruise, or even of the satisfaction of a minor task well accomplished. The big question in his mind was whether he could get through the next few days.

Still, soon they would transship into the shark-shaped command vessel, fastest of the Heechee fleet, filled with technology. Then his options would increase. Not only was it larger and faster; it carried a number of devices not present on his little penetrator-ship. A TPT. Hole cutters like the ones his ancestors had used to scoop out the Gateway asteroid and the warrens under the surface of Venus. A device to reach into black holes to see what could be plucked out-he shuddered. Please the ma.s.sed minds of the ancestors, that one they would not have to use! But he would have it. And he would have a thousand other useful bits of equipment- a.s.suming, that was, that the ship was still functioning and would meet them at the rendezvous.

The artifacts the Heechee had left behind were powerful, strong, and long-lasting. Bar accidents, they were built to last for at least ten million years.

But you could not bar all accidents. A nearby supernova, a malfunctioning part, even a chance collision with some other object-you could harden the artifacts against almost all hazards, but in infinite astronomical time "almost all" is little better than "none."

And if the command ship happened to have failed? And if there were no other that Twice could locate and bring to the rendezvous?

The Heechee learned fairly early in their technological phase to store the intelligences of dead or dying Heechee in inorganic systems. That was how the Dead Men came to be stored to provide company for the boy Wan, and it was an application of that technology that produced Robin's Here After company. For the Heechee (if I may venture a possibly not unbiased opinion) it may have been a mistake. Since they were able to use the dead minds of Heechee ancestors to store and process data, they were not very good at true artificial-intelligence systems, capable of far greater power and flexibility. Like-welt-like me.

Captain allowed himself to let the depression sink into his mind. There were too many ifs. And the consequences of each of them too unpleasant to face.

It was not unusual for Captain, or any other Heechee, to be depressed. They had earned it fairly.

When Napoleon's Grand Army crawled back from Moscow their enemies were small hara.s.sing cavalry bands, the Russian winter-and despair.

When Hitler's Wehrmacht repeated the same trek thirteen decades later, the main threats were the Soviet tanks and artillery, the Russian winter-and, again, despair. They retreated in better order and with more destruction to their foes. But not with more despair, or less.

Every retreat is a kind of funeral cortege, and the thing that has died is confidence. The Heechee had confidently expected to win a galaxy. When they found they must lose, and began their immense, star-spanning retreat to the core, the magnitude of their defeat was huger than any that humans had ever known, and the despair seeped into all of their souls.

The Heechee were playing a most complicated game. One could call it a team sport, except that few of the players were allowed to be aware that they were on a team at all. The strategies were limited, but the final goal of the game was certain. If they managed to survive as a race, they would win.

But so many pieces moved on that board! And the Heechee had so little control. They could start the game. After that, if they interfered directly they exposed themselves. That was when the game became perilous.

It was now Captain's turn to play, and he knew the risks he ran. He could be the player who lost the game for the Heechee once and for all.

His first task was to preserve the Heechee hiding place as long as possible, which meant doing something about the sailship people.

That was the least of his worries, for the second task was the one that counted. The stolen ship carried equipment that could penetrate even the skin around the Heechee hidey-hole. It could not enter. But it could peer within, and that was bad. Worse, the same equipment could penetrate almost any event discontinuity, even the one that the Heechee themselves dared not enter. The one that they prayed would never be breached, since within it rested the thing they most terribly feared.

So Captain sat there at the controls of his ship, while the glowing silicate cloud that surrounded the core dwindled behind them. Meanwhile, Twice was beginning to show signs of the strain that would shortly press her to her limits; and meanwhile, the cold, sludgy sailship people crept through their long, slow lives; and meanwhile, the one human-manned craft in the universe that could do anything about it approached yet another black hole . .

And meanwhile, those other players on the great board, Audee Walthers and Janie Yee-xing, watched their stack of chips slowly disappearing as they waited to make their own private gamble.

11 Meeting in Rotterdam

There he stood, this fellow with a face like a tan avocado, blocking my way. I identified the expression before I recognized the face. The expression was obstinacy, irritation, fatigue. The face that displayed them belonged to Audee Walthers, Jr., who (my secretarial program had not failed to tell me) had been trying to get in touch with me for several days. "h.e.l.lo, Audee," I said, really very cordially, shaking his hand and nodding to the pretty Oriental-looking young woman beside him, "it's great to see you again! Are you staying at this hotel? Wonderful! Listen, I've got to run, but let's have dinner-set it up with the concierge, will you? I'll be back in a couple of hours." And I smiled at him, and smiled at the young woman, and left them standing there.

Now I don't pretend that was really good manners, but as it happens I actually was in a hurry, and besides, my gut was giving me fits. I put Essie in a cab going one way and caught another to take me to the court. Of course, if I had known then what he was waiting to tell me, I might have been more forthcoming with Walthers. But I didn't know what I was walking away from.

Or what I was walking toward, for that matter.

For the last little bit I actually did walk, because traffic was more than normally snarled. There was a parade getting ready to march, as well as the normal congestion around the International Palace of Justice. The Palace is a forty-story skysc.r.a.per, sunk on caissons into the soapy soil of Rotterdam. On the outside it dominates half the city. On the inside it's all scarlet drapes and one-way gla.s.s, the very model of a modern international tribunal. it is not a place where you go to to plead to a parking ticket.

It is not a place where individual human beings are considered very much at all, in fact, and if I had any vanity, which I do, I would preen myself on the fact that the lawsuit in which I was technically one of the defendants actually had fourteen different parties at interest, and four of them were sovereign states. I even had a suite of rooms reserved for my private use in the Palace itself, because all parties at interest did. But I didn't go there right away. It was nearly eleven o'clock and therefore at least an even chance that the court would have started its session for the day, so I smiled and pushed my way right into the hearing room. It was crowded. It was always crowded, because there were celebrities to be seen at the hearings. In my vanity I had thought I was one of them, and I expected heads to turn when I came in. No heads. No turning. Everybody was watching half a dozen skinny, bearded persons in dashikis and sandals, sitting in a corral at the plaintiffs' end of the room, drinking c.o.kes and giggling among themselves. The Old Ones. You didn't see them every day. I gawked at them like everybody else, until there was a touch on my arm and I turned to see Maitre Ijsinger, my flesh-and-blood lawyer, gazing reprovingly at me. "You are late, Mijuheer Broadhead," he whispered. "The Court will have noticed your absence."

Since the Court was busy whispering and arguing among themselves over, I gathered, the question of whether the diary of the first prospector to locate a Heechee tunnel on Venus should be admitted as evidence, I doubted that. But you don't pay a lawyer as much as I was paying Maitre Ijsinger to argue with him.

Of course, there was no legal reason for me to pay him at all. As much as the case was about anything, it was about a motion on the part of the Empire of j.a.pan to dissolve the Gateway Corporation. I came into it, as a

The Heechee, thinking that the australopithecines they discovered when they first visited the Earth would ultimately evolve a technological civilization, decided to preserve a colony of them in a sort of zoo. Their descendants were "the Old Ones." Of course, that was a wrong guess on the part of the Heechee. Australopithecus never achieved intelligence, only extinction. It was a sobering reflection for human beings to realize that the so-called Heechee Heaven, later rechristened the S. Va. Broadhead-far the largest and most sophisticated starship the human race had ever seen-was in fact only a sort of monkey cage.

major stockholder in the S. Ya.'s charter business, because the Bolivians had brought suit to have the charter revoked on the grounds that the financing of the colonists amounted to a "return to slavery." The colonists were called indentured servants, and I, among others, had been called a wicked exploiter of human misery. What were the Old Ones doing there? Why, they were parties at interest, too, because they claimed that the S. Ya. was their property-they and their ancestors had lived there for hundreds of thousands of years. Their position in the court was a little complicated. They were wards of the government of Tanzania, because that's where their ancestral Earth home had been decreed to be, but Tanzania wasn't represented in the courtroom. Tanzania was boycotting the Palace of Justice because of an unfavorable decision over their sea-bottom missiles the year before, so its affairs were being handled by Paraguay-which was actually taking an interest mostly because of a border dispute with Brazil, which in turn was present as host to the headquarters of the Gateway Corp. You follow all this? Well, I didn't, but that was why I hired Maitre Ijsinger.

If I let myself get personally involved in every lousy multimillion dollar lawsuit, I'd spend all my time in court. I've got too much to do with the remainder of my life for that, so in the normal course of events I would have let the lawyers fight it out and spent my time more profitably, chatting with Albert Einstein or wading along the Tappan Sea with my wife. However, there were special reasons for being here. I saw one of them, half asleep, on a leather chair near the Old Ones. "I think I'll see if Joe Kwiatkowski wants a cup of coffee," I told Ijsinger.

Kwiatkowski was a Pole, representing the East Europe Economic Community, and one of the plaintiffs in the case. Ijsinger turned pale. "He's an adversary!" he hissed.

"He's also an old friend," I told him, exaggerating the facts of the case only slightly-he had been a Gateway prospector, too, and we'd had drinks over old times before.

"There are no friends in a court action of this magnitude," Ijsinger informed me, but I only smiled at him and leaned forward to hiss at Kwiatkowski, who came along willingly enough once he was awake.

"I should not be here with you, Robin," he rumbled once we were in my fifteenth-floor suite. "Especially for coffee! Don't you got something to put in it?"

Well, I had-slivovitz, and from his favorite Cracow distillery, too. And Kampuchean cigars, the brand he liked, and salt herring and biscuits to go with them all.

The court was built over a little ca.n.a.l off the Maas River, and you could smell the water. Because I had managed to get a window open, you could hear the boats going through under the building's arch and traffic from the tunnel under the Maas a quarter kilometer away. I opened the window a little wider because of Kwiatkowski's cigar, and saw the flags and bands in the side streets. "What are they parading for today?" I asked.

He brushed the question aside. "Because armies like parades," he grunted. "Now, no fooling around, Robin. I know what you want and it is impossible."

"What I want," I said, "is for the Eeek to help wipe out the terrorists with the s.p.a.ceship, which is obviously in the interest of everybody. You tell me that's impossible. Fine, I accept that, but why is it impossible?"

"Because you know nothing of politics. You think the E.E.E.C. can go to the Paraguayans and say, 'Listen, go and make a deal with Brazil, say you will be more flexible on this border dispute if they will pool their information with the Americans so the terrorist s.p.a.ceship can be trapped.'"

"Yes," I said, "that is exactly what I think."

"And you are wrong. They will not listen."

"The Eeek," I said patiently, having been well briefed for this purpose by my data-retrieval system, Albert, "is Paraguay's biggest trading partner. If you whistle they jump."

"In most cases, yes. In this case, no. The key to the situation is the Republic of Kampuchea. They have with Paraguay private arrangements. About these I will say nothing, except that they have been approved at the highest level. More coffee," he added, holding out his coffee cup, "and this time, please, not so much coffee in it."

I did not ask Kwiatkowski what the "private arrangements" were because, if he had been willing to tell me, he would not have called them private. I didn't have to. They were military. All the "private arrangements" governments were making with each other these days were military, and if I had not been sweating about the terrorists I would have been sweating about the crazy way the world's duly ordained governments were behaving. But one thing at a time.

So, on Albert's advice, I got a lawyer from Malaysia into my private parlor next, and after her a missionary from Canada, and then a general in the Albanian Air Force, and for each one I had some bait to dangle. Albert told me what levers to pull and what gla.s.s beads to offer the natives-an extra allotment of colonization pa.s.sages here, a "charitable" contribution there. Sometimes all it took was a smile. Rotterdam was the place to do it, because ever since the Palace was moved from The Hague, The Hague having been pretty well messed up in the troubles the last time some joker was fooling with a TPT, you could find anyone you wanted in Rotterdam. All kinds of people. All colors, all s.e.xes, hi all kinds of costumes, from Ecuadorian lawyers in miniskirts to Marshall Islands thermal-energy barons in sarongs and shark's-teeth necklaces. Whether I was making progress or not was hard to say, but at half-past twelve, my belly telling me that it was going to hurt in a serious way if I didn't put some food in it, I knocked off for the morning. I thought longingly of our nice quiet hotel suite with a nice lukewarm steak from room service and my shoes off, but I had promised to meet Essie at her place of business. So I told Albert to prepare an estimate of what I had accomplished and recommendations about what I should do next, and fought my way to a cab.

You can't miss one of Essie's fast-food franchises. The glowing blue Heechee-metal arches are in just about every country of the world. As the Boss she had a roped-off section on the balcony reserved for us, and she met me coming up the stairs with a kiss, a frown, and a dilemma. "Robin! Listen! They want here to serve mayonnaise with the French fries. Should I allow?"

I kissed her back, but I was peering over her shoulder to see what unG.o.dly messes were being set out on our tables. "That's really up to you," I told her.

"Yes, of course, is up to me. But is important, Robin! Have taken great care in meticulous duplication of true pommes-frites, you know. Now mayonnaise?" Then she stepped back and gave me a more thorough look, and her expression changed. "So tired! So many lines in the face! Robin, how are you feeling?"

I gave her my most charming smile. "Just hungry, my dear," I cried, and gazed with deceitful enthusiasm at the plates before me. "Say! That looks good, what is it, a taco?"

"Is chapatti," she said with pride. "Taco is over there. Also blini. See how you like, then." So, of course, I had to taste them all, and it was not at all what my belly had asked for. The taco, the chapatti, the rice b.a.l.l.s with sour fish sauce, the stuff that tasted, more than anything else, like boiled barley. They were not any of them my cup of tea. But they were all edible.

They were also all gifts of the Heechee. The great insight the Heechee had given us was that most of living tissue, including yours and mine, is made up of just four elements: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen- C H 0 N-CHON-food. Since that is also what the gases that comprise the best part of a comet are made of, they built their Food Factory out in the Oort cloud, where our Sun's comets hang waiting for a star to shake them loose and send them in to be pretty in our sky.

CHON isn't all of it. You need a few other elements. Sulfur's the most important, maybe, then perhaps sodium, magnesium, phosphorus, chlorine, pota.s.sium, calcium-not to mention the odd dash of cobalt to make vitamin B-l2, chromium for glucose tolerance, iodine for the thyroid, and lithium, fluorine, a.r.s.enic, selenium, molybdenum, cadmium, and tin for the h.e.l.l of it. You probably need the whole periodic table at least as traces, but most of the elements in quant.i.ties so small that you don't have to worry about adding them to the stew. They show up as contaminants whether you want them or not. So Essie's food chemists cooked up batches of sugar and spice and everything nice and produced food for everybody-not only what would keep them alive, but pretty much what they wanted to eat, wherefore the chapattis and the rice b.a.l.l.s. You can make anything out of CHON-food if you stir it up right. Among the other things Essie was making out of it was a lot of money, and that turned out to be a game she delighted to play.

So when I finally settled down with something my stomach didn't resist-it looked like a hamburger and tasted like an avocado salad with bacon bits in it, and Essie had named it the Big Chon-Essie was up and down every minute. Checking the temperature of the infra-red warming lights, looking for grease under the dishwashing machines, tasting the desserts, raising h.e.l.l because the milkshakes were too thin.

I had Essie's word that nothing in her chain would hurt anybody, though my stomach had less confidence in her word than I did. I didn't like the noise from the street outside-was it the parade?-but outside of that I was as close to comfortable as I was likely to get just then. Relaxed enough to appreciate a turnaround in our status. When Essie and I go out in public, people look at us, and usually I'm the one they look at. Not here. In Essie's franchise stores, Essie was the star. Outside the pa.s.sersby were gathering to watch the parade. Inside no employee gave it a glance. They went about their jobs with all their back muscles tense, and all the surrept.i.tious glances they sneaked went in the same direction, to the great lady boss. Well, not very ladylike, really; Essie has had the benefit of a quarter-century's tuition in the English language from an expert- me-but when she gets excited it's "nekulturny" and "khuligans!" all over the place.

I moved to the second-floor window to look out at the parade. It was coming straight down Weena, ten abreast, with bands and shouting and placards. Nuisance. Maybe worse than a nuisance. Across the street, in front of the station, there was a scuffle, with cops and placards, rearmers against pacifists. You couldn't tell which was which from the way they clubbed each other with the placards, and Essie, rejoining me and picking up her own Big Chon, glanced at them and shook her head. "How's sandwich?" she demanded.

"Fine," I said, with my mouth full of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, plus trace elements. She gave me a speak-louder look. "I said it's fine," I amplified.

"I couldn't hear you with all that noise," she complained, licking her lips-she liked what she sold.

I jerked my head toward the parade. "I don't know if this is so good," I said.

"I think not," she agreed, looking with distaste at a company of what I think they call Zouaves-anyway, dark-skinned marchers in uniform. I couldn't see their national patches, but each one of them was carrying a rapid-fire shoulder weapon and playing tricks with it: spinning it around, bouncing the b.u.t.tplate against the pavement and making it spring back into his hands, all without breaking stride.

"Maybe we'd better start back to the court," I said.

She reached over and picked up the last crumb of my sandwich. Some Russian women melt down into spheres of fat when they get past forty, and some shrink and shrivel. Not Essie. She still had the straight back and narrow waist that first caught my eye. "Perhaps we should," she said, beginning to gather up her computer programs, each on its own datafan. "Have seen enough uniforms as a child, do not specially want to see all these now."

"You can't really have much of a parade without uniforms."

"Not just parade. Look. On sidewalks, too." And it was true, about one man or woman in four was wearing some sort of uniform. It was a little surprising, because it had crept up on me. Of course, every country had always had some sort of armed forces, but they were just sort of kept in a closet, like a home fire extinguisher. People never actually saw them. But now people did, more and more.

"Still," she said, conscientiously sweeping CHON crumbs off the table onto the disposable platelet and looking for the waste hamper, "you must be quite tired and we had better go. Give me your trash, please."

I waited for her at the door, and she was frowning when she joined me. "Receptacle was almost full. In manual it is set forth clearly, empty at sixty-percent point-what will they do if large party leaves at once? I should go back and instruct manager-oh, h.e.l.l," she cried, her expression changing. "Have forgotten my programs!" And she dashed back up the stairs to where she had left her datafans.

I stood in the door, waiting for her, my eyes on the parade. It was quite disgusting! There were actual weapons going by, antiaircraft missile launchers and armored vehicles; and behind a bagpipe band was a company of the tommygun twirlers. I felt the door move behind me and stepped aside out of the way just as Essie pushed it open. "I found, Robin," she said, smiling and holding the thick sheaf of fans up as I turned toward her.