"I obey," the Elder said, and vanished.

"Come on," Thrr-mezaz said to Klnn-vavgi, picking up his pace toward their headquarters building.

And wondering if his second in command had noticed yet the frightening implications of the Shamanv attack. Either the enemy had taken a Zhirrzh prisoner and made him talk, or had found and deciphered the optronic data from a Zhirrzh combat recorder—

Or had a workable method for tracking spacecraft through the tunnel-line between stars.

Only two fullarcs ago Klnn-vavgi had speculated the enemy might have such impossible technology. Ten fullarcs before that Thrr-gilag had half-jokingly suggested the same thing.

Perhaps both had been right. And if so, it put a sudden new edge of urgency onto this war. Thanks to the Human-Conqueror recorder they'd recovered from the wreckage of that first battle, Warrior Command had till now had the advantage of knowing the locations of their enemies' worlds and bases, while the Zhirrzh worlds had remained hidden away in the vastness of space. Now, suddenly, that advantage was gone. The Human-Conquerors could now stab the war straight back into the faces of the Zhirrzh.

Could begin to live up to the name the Mrachanis had given them. The name Conquerors.

"We're in trouble, Thrr-mezaz," Klnn-vavgi said quietly from beside him. "With CIRCE, and now this, we're in trouble."

3

The information given to me at 09:20:21 was that I would be testifying before the inquiry board assembling in Conference Room Three of the Edo Peacekeeper base. My in-built caution requires me to confirm that I have indeed linked to the proper location. The contact trace takes me 0.02 second, and I am indeed able to confirm that I have been linked to the properly designated interface terminal. In the process I also discover that a Corbaline Type 74-D-6 encryption has been established in the data line. This too is as expected.