running that one by Zee.”
“I would if I could,” I said, laughing a little.
Zee was in no shape to answer much of anything these days.
“Well, Alex, you can,” Mindon said. “I saw him just the other day.”
“You’re kidding me!”
“Swear to God. He served in the Guard, you know. They called him up again when this expedition was being put together.”
“But they couldn’t,” I said. “He’s, he’s, well, you know.”
“He works down in Hydroponics. Helps fix some of the fresh veggies we’ve been having, I understand.”
Eating salad in a zero-G environment was always a challenge, but having the newly-grown greens available was well worth the effort.
“It’s like Old Home Week up here,” I said. “All of the people that I knew during the War keep reappearing suddenly. I heard the other day that Reverend Lesley’s still alive. She’s apparently serving on the flagship.”
“Really? I always thought she might be an interesting one to meet, from what you told me.”
“You’re certainly welcome to her. She’s almost as bad as that blasted fortune teller, Madame Stavroula, who keeps turning up in my life like a bad Penelope.”
Mindon stopped his pumping for a moment, and gazed at me very intently.
“You know, actually, Alex, I’ve run into her recently,” he said. “She’s not half bad. ‘Stavroula’s just a stage name, you know.”
“Well, I could have guessed that one.”
“Yeah, but her real name, oddly enough, is Nomsah.”
“Nomsah.” I ran it over my tongue. “You know, Min, that one sounds very familiar somehow.”
“She says that her father was Greek and one of her grandmothers or someone way-back-when was African, deriving originally from a mixed bloodline somewhere on Providence Island, wherever that is. Anyway, they had this tradition on both sides of her family of what she calls ‘cheiromanteia’ or something like that. The women were frequently ‘moiraia gynaika,’ which can apparently be interpreted in a number of different ways.”
“Hey, I met her!” I suddenly clapped my hands and nearly lost my balance as a result. “Twice! The first time was in her guise as a palm reader, several years before the War, and the second time was during the conflict, when we were both stuck one night in a hotel on Nob Hill. She looked and acted completely different. I just never made the connection before. Amazing!”
“She has that ability to morph herself into whatever anyone wants to see,” Mindon said.
Suddenly an alarm sounded.
“The ship is under attack! This is not a drill! Remain where you are and secure yourselves immediately! All airtight doors will automatically close in ten seconds.”
The entrance porthole to the gym suddenly slid shut with a loud bang and a click.
“Now what?” I asked. “Another exercise?”
Night and day for weeks now, Colonel Timlett had been running the vessel through its paces. Even without the dreams, I wouldn’t have gotten much sleep, I think.
“I don’t think so,” Mindon said, dismounting and pulling himself over to a chair, where he strapped himself in. The vessel suddenly began to rumble with a distant but distinct thudding.
“Those sound like our laser cannons to me.”
“Cripes,” I said, pulling myself across the room and also securing myself to one of the exercise chairs.
The Armageddon shuddered once with a deep-set trembling that signaled an impact somewhere on its massive frame.
“A hit!” Mindon said.
There were two more quivers that we could register before the “All Clear” signal was given.
I immediately headed for my cabin, where I found Becky and Mellie safe and secure, watching the ship’s communications channel.
“What are they saying?” I asked.
“Somehow they lobbed a rock several hundred feet in diameter at the fleet,” she replied, “and we didn’t detect it until now. One of our ‘Interference Runners’ hit it squarely and blew it to bits, the remnants peppering the Armageddon and several other ships. The Rapace was badly damaged; they say it’ll have to be stripped and abandoned. They lost at least half their crew through massive depressurization.”
“What about us?”
“We’re OK, all of us,” she said, turning around and smiling at me. She had one arm around Mellie’s waist, holding her in place. “The ship’s OK and we’re OK, Alex.”
CHAPTER NINE
FAREWELL, EARTH’S BLISS
Chance favors only the mind that’s prepared.
—Louis Pasteur
Alex Smith, 31 Bi-July, Mars Year vii
U.S.S. Armageddon, in Orbit Around Planet Mars
Different elements of the main fleet actually arrived on Mars station in various stages, as had previously been planned. Some of the ships had augmented their ion drives with chemical or nuclear rockets, or had lighter payloads, deliberately to allow them to dock earlier than the huge transport vessels.
Among these were the great circular Warstations, heavily armored craft with thick hull plating and numerous offensive weapons; these were designed to be parked permanently over the planet in stationary orbit, spaced out evenly around the globe. They would provide cover for the arrival of our main fleet, and also take an integral part in the ongoing military operations that would commence soon thereafter. In theory, at least, the entire surface of Mars could be scanned simultaneously from the heavens once the stations were deployed.
A second group of advance ships consisted of the Interference Runners, which had been sent out in front of the fleet to defend it from just such an attack as had occurred recently. These unmanned craft were filled with explosives, and were intended to ram and blow up anything physical that the Martians might heave our way. Once they reached Mars proper, they would be used to bombard selective targets on the surface, and thus gradually be used up.
Also deployed in advance of the fleet were a few strange-looking cylinders that would eventually be unfolded at one end, opening up faces that looked almost like giant metallic umbrellas. The surfaces on the outside of these ships were so polished that they reflected back to their source nearly 100% of all the visible light waves they received. This was one major defense against the amplified Martian sting-rays, enough, we hoped, to allow the Warstations to find and target the surface emplacements generating the rays before they could do any actual damage to our ships.
The fleet had to be deployed in a certain sequence in order to be effective. We intended
