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"Then I order you to change your priorities."

"You cannot, any more than you could order me to kill Chairman Wenceslas." OX turned his golden eye sensors to the Queen. "Taking you to Theroc is our best opportunity to save you and your child."

Peter said, "We could go through another Klikiss transportal, like Prince Daniel did."

Estarra's eyes pleaded with him. "It's got to be Theroc, Peter. My people can protect us, and we can use it as our new base of leadership."

Peter knew she was right. "If we went somewhere else, we wouldn't be doing anything but hiding. The human race needs more from us than that." He swallowed the lump that was forming in his throat, knowing exactly what OX would do. He also knew that the tears in his wife's eyes were for him, for their baby, for Earth . . . and for OX.

"The Chairman will notice we're gone any moment now. If any of those warglobes break through, they'll hit the Palace District first. We have to go right away--and hope this derelict is small enough not to get shot down by either side once we reach space."

In a voice that sounded almost optimistic, OX said, "I will attempt to retain at least a few of my memories of you, if storage space allows."

Before the King could say anything to stop him, before he could consider another solution to the impossible problem, OX turned to the alien ship's controls. Hacking into the library of stored information culled from the work teams and stored on all the datapacks Cain had given them, the old Teacher compy stood rigid, only a few systems twitching as centuries of experiences drained away to be rewritten by a deluge of necessary data.

Peter's heart wrenched and he blinked back tears as he grasped how much the Teacher compy was losing, emptying everything that he held dear just to be filled with the cold equations necessary to understand hydrogue engineering. The Teacher compy was a historical treasure. He wondered if the Hansa had made a backup download at any point, just to preserve OX's memory files. He doubted that Basil would have gone out of his way for that. He wouldn't have considered it relevant.

After an interminable moment, OX turned to them with a blank and disengaged demeanor. "King Peter, Queen Estarra." His synthesized voice was flat. "I am ready. Do you wish to depart now?"

Peter and Estarra both knew they had just lost one of their only friends in the political quagmire of the Hansa. "Yes," Peter answered, his throat tight with emotion. "Please get us out of here."

The compy focused on the control panels, flowing crystal grids, and jagged protrusions grown out of the diamond framework. Power systems thrummed through the curved derelict, transferring energy through the structural lattice. The small sphere sealed itself and lifted up into the embattled night.

129

BENETO

Twenty verdani battleships came out of the cold emptiness of space and swooped down toward Earth. Beneto's human ancestors had departed from the home planet centuries ago in their generation ship, hoping for a new place to settle. They had never expected it to end like this.

And he did not intend to let it end, even if he was no longer human. His flesh had perished years ago on Corvus Landing, and in dying he had let his soul fall into the verdani mind. Now that he was part of this incredible organic craft, Beneto and his hundreds of fellow treeships were strong enough to conquer the ancient enemy.

"The verdani have awaited this battle for ten thousand years," he said through telink to all green priests, all pilots. "And these ships are our greatest weapons. Now we must finish our enemies, as we should have done long ago."

His wooden flesh was fused with the heartwood; his arms were branches kilometers long; his roots trailed out like antenna strands. His rigid verdani body was stronger and more massive than anything his imagination had ever prepared him for. Seeing the mayhem and destruction around Earth, he hoped that the gigantic treeships would turn the tide of the battle. With only a thought,