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“Nice to see your spirits are
up,” Iris commented.

“Spirits!” Rebbert echoed. “That
reminds me. They won’t let me drink either.”

“Such are the sacrifices we must
make for the sake of health,” Park told him wryly.

“Bah!” Rebbert growled. “You want
a turn?”

“Looks like fun,” Park chuckled
as one of the other men handle him a sawed-off broom.

“It would be, if it wasn’t part
of my therapy,” Rebbert complained. “Go ahead and take a shot.”

“What are the rules?” Park asked.

“Closest to the center of the
target wins five points,” Rebbert explained. “All other shots that end up on
the target are worth one point. You’re allowed, no, encouraged to use your
shots to knock all opponents out of the target. Points are scored at the end of
a round. You get two shots per round. Winner of a round shoots first on the
next one.”

“Sounds fairly straight forward,”
Park shrugged as they started a fresh round of play.

“Father,” Dannet tried again.
“Why did Mahten say your situation was grim?”

“Did he?” Rebbert asked.

“Actually,” Marisea put in, “he said
you were in a terrible state.”

“Hah!” Rebbert laughed. “He
would! He wants me to be a happy, quiet patient obeying all my doctors and not
making trouble by doing the work I was born to. The man’s job is to keep the
Manor running, not keep me in bed.”

“Perhaps the doctors put him up
to it,” Dannet suggested.

“I wouldn’t put that past them,”
Rebbert admitted. “Oh, good shot, Park!”

“It’s kind of like curling,” Park
commented, “except the pieces aren’t so massive.”

“Curling?” Rebbert asked as he
sized up a shot.

“It’s played on a perfectly
smooth ice surface,” Park explained, “and the pieces are generally about 40
pounds or so and made of granite. The players take turns throwing the stones
and the other use brooms to fine tune their course on the ice. It’s more
complex than that, but that’s the gist.”

“Sounds interesting,” Rebbet
nodded. “Maybe I’ll try it after my new limbs have been attached. So what
brings you all here?”

“I would have thought that was
obvious,” Park replied, catching a shocked look on Dannet’s face. Rebbert might
have been making light of his wounds, but if he had to travel in an induced
coma, that could not have been as minor as he tried to pretend. “We came to see
you. An old friend gets hurt and it’s just natural another friend to go to see
how he was doing.”

“Nice of you, but I’m doing
fine,” Rebbert lied. “Or I would be if I were allowed the time to get all my
work done.”

“Then perhaps Dannet can help you
catch up,” Melise told him.

“Yes!” Rebbert replied happily.
“That might get the doctors off my back. If they think he’s doing the work they
might let me in my own office longer.”

“I meant that he could actually
help do the work,” Melise specified. “Not just serve as a chance to work behind
your doctors’ backs.”

“Oh,” Rebbet thought about that.
“Yes, that would work too.”

“I was lucky,” Rebbert told Park
several hours later when they were able to meet alone on a wide porch
overlooking the manor’s estate. The sun was setting and casting a bright
orangey glow on everything. “Did you know Pakha Grintz was killed in the
attack?”

“We heard,” Park confirmed. “I
got a full list of casualties before I left Earth. I lost a lot of friends in
that attack.”

“We both did,” Rebbert replied.
“The Diet, what was left of it, voted to abandon Owatino as the capital of the
Alliance. For the duration the Diet will move from time to time to various
members worlds. The next session will be on Felina.”

“Grintz’s world,” Park nodded. “I
assume that’s not coincidental.”

“Nothing the Diet does is by
coincidence,” Rebbert replied, “You know that. The Pakha Grintz’s son, Montz,
insisted we do this to honor his father’s memory and while everyone would like
the honor, he spoke up first. It’s not my first choice, Felina is so tightly
bound up in its Code of Behavior we’re all going to have to tip-toe around when
not in session.”

“Hire native guides, then,” Park
suggested. “Have a Felinan on your staff to help you avoid major the faux pas.”

“Fo pas?” Rebbert asked.

“The translator stuttered, did
it?” Park commented. “It’s just a term, in yet another old Earth language, that
means an embarrassing blunder in etiquette.”

“You have a special phrase just
for that?” Rebbert asked.

“It was said that a people in the
past who lived in a land where it snowed almost all year round had over 50
words for snow,” Park replied.

“Yeah?” Rebbert asked
skeptically, “I’ll bet most of those words were profane.”

“Well, that was an apocryphal
story,” Park admitted. “The tongue of the people I referred to did not really
have any more distinct word roots for snow than, say, my native language,
English. They did have an interesting number of modifiers for those words they
had, so there were more ways to neatly describe snow with a single word.

“In any case the phrase, ‘faux
pas,” was adopted into many other languages because it neatly described a
situation that was pretty much universal,” Park concluded.

“On Felina, there are probably
fifty words for ‘faux pas,” Rebbert chuckled.

“Could be,” Park nodded, “but if
you hire local consultants, I imagine you’ll avoid committing one or two of
them and if I know one thing about Felinans, it’s that they do understand how
difficult it is to always adhere to their code, especially for outsiders. So
long as delegates and their staff members make a concerted attempt to not break
the Code, the Felinans will understand.”

“Of course,” Rebbert nodded. “I
think that too is a part of their Code or maybe I should hire an Atackack as a
consultant. According to Grintz, they understand the Code on an almost
instinctive level.”

“Maybe,” Park allowed, “but I
doubt the average Atackack will understand why you do not. So the Diet will
meet on Felina. Is that going on now?”

“Some delegates may already or on
their ways. I understand Prime Seradore went there directly from Owatino,”
Rebbert informed him. “As one of the uninjured, he felt there was a lot he
could do to help the Felinans prepare for the foreign onslaught. However, it
will be a few weeks before they bring the Diet into session again.”

“And why do we feel Felina is a
more secure location than Owatino?” Park asked.

“You know what Felinans look
like,” Rebbert replied. “They’re large and furry. Much furrier than most
humans. They need that fur, of course.”

“Why’s that?” Park asked.

“I hear they have fifty different
words for snow,” Rebbert chuckled and turned for a moment to observe the
sunset. The sun was just on the horizon now and bright red, a vivid color that
was reflected off the high clouds. “It’s a cold world. Makes me wonder why
anyone would have chosen to live there in the first place.”

“I understand Felina is one of
the oldest human worlds so far as records go,” Park commented. “I might be
wrong, but as humans began to colonize other worlds it seems reasonable to
assume they couldn’t be too picky about the available worlds. Terraforming is a
long and expensive process and can take millions of years. Felina was
habitable, if cold, from the get-go. It was faster to splice the genes of their
children than to convert a planet.”

“That is probably why most
unusual human types are the way they are,” Rebbert shrugged. “It explains my
green complexion, although I know Dennsee was a converted world, but an early
one.”

“Didn’t quite have the process
down at the time?” Park asked.

“Indeed,” Rebbert nodded. “More
recent conversions have required fewer genetic adaptations for the colonists.”

“All right,” Park nodded, “So why
is Felina safer than Owatino?”

“Outsiders are more easily spotted,”
Rebbert pointed out. “The Diet is large, but we can keep track of our members
and their staffs. Other non-Felinans on the planet are going to stick out like
a sore thumb, especially if they look like the Premm.”

“I look like a Premm,” Park
pointed out, “at least visually.”

“Yes, as do some from others of
our member worlds,” Rebbert agreed, “but you’ve worked out ways to detect
Premm. I’ll have our people
 
refine those
methods to pass other Premm-like species, if possible. I understand that even
without your detectors, two Premm agents have been caught and arrested trying
to enter Felina. With your detectors, we should be safe from another suicide
attack.”

“You have more faith in
technology that’s a quarter of a billion years old than I do,” Park commented.

“You Pirates have a reputation
for magic, Park,” Rebbert laughed.

“Well, I don’t know for certain
that screening will prevent all such suicide attacks,” Park told him. “This is
a new thing for you, but it’s an old story for me. All our precautions will do
is force the Premm to be more creative in their attacks. There’s a way around
any form of security.”

“You’re being amazingly
pessimistic for you, Park.”

“Not at all,” Park shook his
head, “just realistic. We had terrorists in our time before stasis. There are a
few things you have to keep in mind. First of all, the primary goal of
terrorism is to terrorize. Killing a specific target is one thing, but that’s
assassination. A terrorist killing is far more effective when done in a
spectacular manner and when the target has deep significance. The attack on the
Diet was not just an attempt to kill the men and women within, but it was a
symbolic attack on all the member worlds at once. It was designed to strike at
the hearts of all people.

“However,” Park continued, “while
the Diet is of great symbolic significance, suicide attacks on people just
going from place to place in the course of their daily business can be even
more terrifying and I think it is just a matter of time before that occurs to
the Premm if we don’t find a way to stop them first.

“The target is not always as
important as the fact that survivors are intimidated,” Park went on. “In the
long run such tactics ultimately fail. The people who use them are desperate
and usually have no other way to attack, but in the short run terrorism can be
very effective. So my question is, do the Premm think they can intimidate the
entire Alliance or is this a distraction of some sort?”

“A distraction from what?”
Rebbert asked.

“We know the Dark Ships are back
after three years,” Park pointed out. “My old ship,
Independent
spotted and chased one of them and the defense force at
Owatino was attacked. The one I saw may have just been scouting around, but the
ones at Owatino may have been a test.”

“A test of what?” Rebbert asked
concernedly.

“Our defenses, of course,” Park
replied. “They had three years to improve their ships and weapons. So have we,
but it’s hard to defend against something you’ve never seen. The ship we chased
was harder to spot even with our sensors which were always better than the
standard ones the Alliance uses.”

“Used,” Rebbert replied. “We’ve
been converting to the new Pirate scanners as some worlds are calling them. You
say the Dark Ships can evade those devices now too?”

“It takes a bit of fiddling to
keep them in sight,” Park told him. “Their signature is fainter than it used to
be and you can get false or misleading positives if you aren’t careful. The
best way to prevent an attack, though is to hit them first.”

“Hit who?” Rebbert argued. “We
don’t know where the Dark Ship aliens come from and there is still no positive
proof the Premm are involved with them. They continually deny any such
accusation and also the Premm Council denies any association with these suicide
bombers, claiming these are disturbed individuals, not agents of the Premm.”

“You know better than that,” Park
replied.

“I do,” Rebbert nodded, “but a
few individual fanatics are not proof that the Premm Worlds are attacking us.”

“I’m not proposing we take the
Premm to court,” Park retorted.

“No, but you are proposing to
take the Alliance to war,” Rebbert responded.

“We’re already at war,” Park shot
back.

“The Diet never declared it,”
Rebbert insisted, “nor did the Premm.”

“You’re confusing political
niceties with reality,” Park told him. “Back in my time, well, the time before
I went into stasis, my nation had not actually declared war in over a century
and a quarter. Somehow we managed to fight in quite a few real wars anyway. A
Declaration makes it official, I guess, but the fighting goes on regardless.
The Premm have attacked us… they have engaged in acts of war. We need to fight
back.”

“Usually one matches tactic for
tactic,” Rebbert replied with a slight smile on his face. “Do you propose we
send suicide squads to the Premm Worlds?”

“Of course not,” Park shook his
head emphatically. “That would not only be despicable, but would accomplish
nothing. Didn’t you hear what I said about the uselessness of terrorism in the
long run? Besides, we don’t have the fanaticism required to commit suicide like
that.
 
The Premm have fighting ships
though, don’t they? More than any three Alliance worlds as I recall and that
was three years ago. So far we’ve been fighting the Dark Ships only. What
happens when the Premm fight alongside their allies?”

“The Diet will never condone an
fleet action like that against the Premm worlds unless they and the Dark Ships
aliens attack us openly,” Rebbert told him.

“The Dark Ships have already
attacked openly,” Park argued. “If the Premm haven’t done so yet, it’s only
because they are hoping to win a bloodless victory, risking only the lives of
their allies. But they are certainly sending out the Dark Ship aliens aren’t
they?”