And when news of the postponement spread, along with the undercurrent of confusion and subdued alarm which accompanied it, even the dullest Americans began to sense that something was amiss—-that real life had somehow crept onto the peaceful shores of their island. And nearly all were aware of a strange thrill of fear as their President finally stepped before the cameras on July 15, looking not at all like himself.
* * *
On June 24, the day that Hayes received the President's reply, the Third Fleet was once again preparing to go into action. The coordinates (and victim) of their next attack had already been decided upon, known only to the General Staff, and to the scientists in charge of constructing the star gate. All the myriad ships—-destroyer groups, flotillas and task forces, still intact—-were once more huddled within the massive body of the Supercarrier 'Dreadnought', itself nearly forty kilometers from stem to stern.
The mother vessel, with all its destructive children tucked up inside, and therefore vulnerable (relatively speaking) to sudden attack, had been positioned by her masters in the place that this was least likely to occur—-a distant orbit around the sea planet Goethe, where Alliance ships moved constantly, ready to repel any attempt at a counter-stroke by the Coalition. The entrance to the star gate was being constructed outside the extremities of the system, far beyond the considerable pull of the massive star, Athena.
Though the two capitalist fleets remained in constant contact, it was understood that there would be no mutual effort or coordinated defense once the Dreadnought left the system. The two sides had gotten what they wanted: the Belgians and Swiss the riches of the colonies, as well as the threat of a powerful ally, and the Commonwealth, an easy victory with a minimum of casualties. Thus the thief and the bully would part.
Both sides, meanwhile, were concerned (at least Hayes pretended to be) by the external calm and relative inaction on the part of the Coalition, and the still more ominous silence of Soviet Space. In his more lucid moments the Secretary realized the strength of his ultimate foe: that a great bear waited for him deep in the woods, and that killing it, even with the full weight of the Commonwealth behind him, would be no easy task. But for now he feared nothing and no one.
ONE STEP AT A TIME, he told himself. One step at a time.
*
It was late afternoon, U.C. Earth time, though that measure seemed quite meaningless while circling a planet of turbulent seas two hundred times Earth's mass, dotted with tiny islands rising thousands of feet above the wrack, itself revolving around a sun not to be spoken in the same breath with our own.
Leif Janson felt this lapse of human significance acutely, as he paced back and forth in Communications Room One, waiting for the approaching message from the diminutive planet which had spawned him. Even aboard the Dreadnought, dwarfed as it was by everything around it, this feeling of smallness and mock importance would not leave him.