Timothy Zahn

The Big Picture

THE southwest corner of the black fortress wavered in the scope image, its clean lines obscured by distance, a rapid-moving line of wispy clouds, and the distortion that came from the natural turbulence of Minkta's planetary atmosphere. From Defender Fifty-Five's synchronous orbit twenty-two thousand miles above the surface, Jims Harking reflected, there was a lot of distance and atmosphere to look through.

But the clouds, at least, he could do something about. He watched the image on his monitor, finger poised over the "shoot" button; and as the trailing edge of the cloud patch swept past, he gave the key a light tap.

And that was it for his shift. Four hundred and thirty high-magnification photos, covering the entire Sjonntae outpost and much of the surrounding terrain, all painstakingly set up and shot over the past eight hours.

As he'd done during his previous eight-hour shift. And the one before that, and the one before that.

Leaning tiredly back in his seat, Harking tapped the scrub key. The last photo, still displayed on his monitor, quickly sharpened as the sophisticated computer programs cleaned as much of the distance and atmosphere from the image as they could.

And with the scrubbing Harking now could see that there were also two figures in the photo, standing just outside the door at that corner of the fortress. Sjonntae, undoubtedly; the aliens never let the indigenous population get that close to their outpost.

Possibly looking up in the direction of the human space station high overhead.

Probably laughing at it.

Harking glared at the photo, trying to work up at least a stirring of hatred for the Sjonntae. But there was nothing there. He'd already expended all the emotion he had on the aliens, all the anger and hatred and fear that a single human psyche could generate. All that was left now was the cold, bitter logic of survival.

Perhaps that was all humanity itself had left. With a sigh, he touched the key that would send the scrubbed photo into the hopper with the rest of the shift's work. The analysts would spend their next shift poring over all of it, trying yet again to find a way through the damper field that protected the fortress from attack. A subtle pattern in Sjonntae personnel movements, perhaps, or some clue in animal activity that might indicate where the vulnerable whorl in the field might be located. Something that would help break the desperate war of attrition Earth found itself in.

Behind him, the door slid open. "Shift change, Ensign Harking," Jorm Tsu gave the official greeting as he stepped into the room. "I relieve you from your station."

"Shift change, aye," Harking gave the official response, pushing back his chair and standing up. "I give you my station."

Tsu stepped past him and sat down. "So," he said, the formalities concluded. "Anything new?"

"Is there ever?" Harking countered. "I saw what looked like a confrontation between an overseer and a group of slaves, and I saw a couple of Sjonntae outside the fortress who were probably giving us a one-finger salute. Otherwise, it was pretty quiet."

"Mm," Tsu said. "What happened with the slaves?"

Harking shrugged. "I don't know. By the time I finished the pattern and got back to that area, they were all gone."

"At least they weren't all lying there dead."

"Unless the survivors took the bodies away with them," Harking pointed out.

"Maybe," Tsu agreed. "But that would at least indicate the Sjonntae hadn't killed more than a third of them. It takes two live bodies to carry one dead one, right?"

Harking grimaced. The logic of survival. "Right," he conceded. "I didn't notice any drag marks either."

"Must not have been a really serious confrontation, then," Tsu concluded. "Either that, or the overseer was feeling generous today."

Harking shook his head, this time trying to work up some emotion for the hapless native beings down there who had been enslaved by the Sjonntae. But he didn't have anything left for them either. "There must be something we can send down to help them," he ground out. "Some kind of weapon that'll work in the middle of the Shadow field."

Tsu snorted. "Hey, you invent one and the war will be over in a week," he pointed out. "But what are you going to use? Technology's what draws the Shadows; and any weapon worth a damn against the Sjonntae will have to have some technology to it."

"I know, I know," Harking said, an edge of impatience stirring within him. Like everyone else in the Expansion, he'd gone over this whole thing a thousand times. Any weapon more advanced than a crossbow gathered the inexplicable, insubstantial Shadows around it. And in the presence of enough Shadow, sentient beings became desperately ill.

In the presence of more than enough Shadow, they died.

"What about explosives?" he suggested. "I seem to remember hearing a news report a while back about them using explosive crossbow bolts on Heimdal and Canis Seven. I never heard how it came out, though."

Tsu shrugged. "It worked fine for a time, only then the Sjonntae got explosives sniffers set up. They're probably still using them, at least off and on. Problem is, that kind of weapon only works against individual Sjonntae soldiers."

"Right," Harking said, the brief twinge of hope fading away. "And we don't care all that much about killing single Sjonntae soldiers."

"They care about it," Tsu said dryly. "But as far as breaking the stalemant goes, we need to find a way to take out the heavier stuff."

Harking nodded. The frustrating thing was that the Shadows didn't bother the technology itself. They could send a self-guided nuclear missile down to the surface, and even though every Minkter within miles of the thing would die from the concentration of Shadow it would quickly gather around itself, the missile itself would function just fine.

Only there would be nothing useful for the missile to do. The damper field went all the way to the ground, with only living beings able to pass through it.

So they couldn't send weapons or useful equipment to the Minkters. They couldn't break the Sjonntae damper field, either from orbit or from the surface, unless they could find the whorl, the one spot where the field was weak enough for human weaponry to destroy it. And they couldn't find the whorl.

And so the fortress sat there, filled to the brim with intact Sjonntae technology they would never be able to pull apart and examine and find a defense against.

The logic of defeat.

"By the way," Tsu added as Harking turned toward the door, "the commander said for you to drop by after your shift."

Harking frowned. "Did she say why?"

"Not to me," Tsu said. "She seemed a little on the grumpy side, though."

"Probably a bad photo or something," Harking said sourly. "Thanks."

Commander Chakhaza was in her office near the station's battle command center. "Ensign," she nodded a greeting as he knocked on the open door. "Come in."

"Thank you," Harking said, tucking his folded cap under his arm and coming to attention exactly two paces from her desk. Humanity might be doomed to destruction, but there was no reason to be sloppy while it was happening.

"At ease," Chakhaza said. "Sit down."

"Thank you," Harking said, pulling down the visitor's jump seat and easing into it. Chakhaza never let anyone sit while she was chewing them out, which implied this wasn't about some screwup on his part.

She also never went out of her way to be this courteous to the lower ranks either. That implied this might be good news. Either that, or very, very bad news.

"How'd the session go?" she asked.

"Pretty routine," Harking said. Apparently, she'd decided to ease into the main topic through a side door. "The weather was mostly clear. I got some good shots, I think."

"Anything of interest going on?"

Harking shrugged. "Not really. I spotted a slave confrontation, but I didn't see any bodies when I got back to the spot, so I presume the overseer didn't kill anyone. Oh, and I caught a couple of patrols, too. Three Skyhawks each, flying standard formation. Again, it looked pretty routine."

"Good," Chakhaza said absently. "Tell me, have you ever heard of a woman named Laura Isis?"

Harking searched his memory. The name definitely seemed familiar- "Someone from Maintenance?" he hazarded.

Chakhaza shook her head. "News reporter."

"Oh, of course," Harking said, nodding as it suddenly clicked. He'd read her name or seen her face on a hundred different stories coming from the front lines of the war. The woman really got around. "What about her?"

"She's on her way."

Harking blinked. Minkta was about as far from the fighting as you could get and still be in theoretically disputed territory. "On her way here?"

"Yes," Chakhaza said, her expression suddenly unreadable. "She's found out about Lieutenant Ferrier."

An old knife Harking had thought long gone twisted itself gently into his gut. "Oh," he said, very quietly.

Something that almost looked like sympathy creased through the lines and scars on Chakhaza's face. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know what he meant to you. But Supreme Command has issued orders that we're to give her the whole story." She paused. "I thought you might prefer to be the one to handle the job."

Harking's first impulse was to turn it down flat. To have to go through all those bitter memories again ...

But if he didn't do it, someone else would. Someone who didn't know or understand the big picture, who might paint Abe Ferrier as an ambitious glory-grabber or a delusional lunatic. "Thank you, Commander," he said. "I'd be honored to speak with Ms. Isis."

Chakhaza gave a crisp nod. "Good. Her transport's due in thirty hours. Try to work her around your regular duty shift if you can; if she insists on setting her own timetable, let me know and I'll try to shuffle people around to accommodate you. Any questions?"

"No, ma'am," Harking said.

'Very well, then," Chakhaza said. Just as happy, Harking guessed, that she wouldn't be the one sweating it out in front of Ms. Isis' recorder.

Especially since she was the one who'd bought into Abe's plan in the first place. Had bought into it hook, line, and cautiously enthusiastic sinker. "Dismissed," she said. And had then sent him to his death.

Laura Isis was pretty much as Harking expected: mid-thirties, dark blonde, still petite but with a figure that time and gravity were starting to pull at. The quick smile and probing eyes were as he remembered from her various news appearances.

But there were also differences. Her hair wasn't as professionally coifed as it inevitably was on TV, her cheekbones not nearly as sharp, and her clothing far more casual. She was shorter than he would have guessed, too, barely coming up to the shoulder boards of his dress uniform, and that quick smile seemed somehow to have a hard edge to it.

And there was something oddly wrong with the left side of her face. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on... .

"Welcome to Defender Fifty-five, Ms. Isis," he greeted her as she passed her bag to one of the hatchway guards for inspection and came toward him. "I'm Ensign Jims Harking. Commander Chakhaza asked me to act as your liaison and assistant while you're on the station."

"Thank you," she said. "It's nice to be here on Elvie."

There must have been something in his face, because she smiled again. "Or do you use a different private name for your station?"

"No, Elvie is it," Harking said. "I was just surprised you knew it."

She shrugged slightly. "I've been hanging around the military since the war started," she reminded him. "And not just the upper brass. I know a lot about how the common soldiers and starmen think and behave. Did Commander Chakhaza tell you why I'm here?"

The abrupt change in topic didn't catch him by surprise; it was a technique he'd seen her use on camera many times. "Yes, ma'am, she did," he confirmed.

"And did she assign you to me because you know a lot about the Ferrier operation?" she went on. "Or because you know very little about it?"

He looked her straight in the eye. "She assigned me because Abe Ferrier was my friend."

"Ah." If she was taken aback by his response, it didn't show. "Good. I presume you have quarters set up for me?"

Harking had hoped to get the interview over with as quickly as possible, which would have let him start the process of putting the ghosts back to sleep that much earlier. Perversely, Isis decided she wanted a tour of the station first.

"... and this," he said as he gestured her into his usual duty station room, "is the Number One Photo Room. This is where we take all the high-mag telephotos of the Sjonntae outpost and vicinity for analysis. The telescopes themselves are through that door over there."

"Ah," Isis said, stepping in and looking around. "So this is the real nerve center of Elvie's mission, is it?"

Tsu, had he been on duty, would undoubtedly have made some unfortunate comment in response to that one. Fortunately, it was Cheryl Schmucker's shift, and all she did was lift a silent eyebrow in Marking's direction and then return to her work. "Hardly," Harking told Isis stiffly. "All we do here is take the photos. It's the analysis group's job to find a hole in the Sjonntae defenses."

"Of course." Isis looked around at the controls and monitors for a moment, then crossed toward the telescope room. Harking was ready, and got there in time to open the door for her.

Inside, it was like another world. The whole outer wall was floor-to-ceiling hullglass, with a dozen different telescopes lined up peering at various angles through it. Taking care not to touch or jostle anything, Isis stepped to the guard railing and leaned on it, gazing out at the silent black circle of the planet far below. It was full night down there, the darkness alleviated only by the clusters of mocking lights from the Sjonntae fortress and protected territory. To the far right, an edge of blue-green showed where the dawn line was beginning to creep across the landscape.

Dawn for the Minkters. The beginning of another day of servitude to their Sjonntae masters.

They hated them, the Minkters did. Hated them with the kind of passion only an enslaved people could generate. There had been at least four attempts at revolt during the time Defender Fifty-five had been up here. All had been easily crushed, of course. Organized crowds of Minkters whose only weapons were rocks, spears, and crossbows were no match for armed Sjonntae Sky-hawks. And each time the humans of Defender Elvie had watched in impotent rage. The only sky-to-ground weaponry the station had were its missiles, which would have indiscriminately killed attacker and defender alike.

Which was yet another reason Abe had pressed so hard to be allowed to go down there. The Minkters were certainly intelligent enough, but they were unschooled in the ways of mass warfare. If someone with military knowledge and training could get them organized—

"And have they?" Isis said into the memories.

"Have who what?" Harking asked.

"The analysis group," she said, "You said they were looking for a hole. Have they found one?"

Harking grimaced. "No."

"Why not?" Isis asked. "You've been here for almost three years. What's the problem?"

A diplomatic answer was probably called for, but Harking was fresh out of stock. "The same problem that's been killing almost a thousand humans a day since this damn thing started," he told her bluntly. "Between the damper field and the Shadows, they've got about as impenetrable a planetary defense as you could ever come up with."

"Damper fields always have a whorl somewhere in them," Isis countered. "A dead spot you can put a missile into."

Harking drew back a little. "How do you know that?" he demanded.

She snorted. "What do you think I've been doing the past four years on the line? Sitting on my hands?"

"That's top secret information," Harking said stiffly. "We can't afford to let the Sjonntae know we know about that weakness."

She sighed. "Relax. If Supreme Command didn't think I was trustworthy, they certainly wouldn't let me roam around loose this way. I was just trying to examine all the possibilities."

"Trust me, we've done that," Harking growled. "Over ana over again. We can't find the whorl from up here; and without it, we can't knock down the damping field and get into the fortress."

"What about from lower down?" she asked. "Could you send a fighter loaded with sensors in for a closer look?"

Harking shook his head. "The Shadows reach all the way up to the lower stratosphere," he said. "That means the thing would have to be unmanned; and unmanned remotes are like a free lunch to Sjonntae fighters."

"Saturation bombing, then," Isis persisted. "Hit the whole damper field at once."

"Too much area," Harking told her. "Sjonntae planetary fields aren't nearly as neat and compact as the ones they wrap their warships in. This one sprawls out over about twenty thousand square kilometers, covering the outpost itself plus a huge buffer zone. Add to that the fact that a missile would have to hit within a hundred meters of the whorl to take down the field, and you can see why we can't simply rain fire and expect to get anything out of it."

"Bottom line: you can't do it from up here," Isis murmured, her face unreadable in the glow of the sunlight peeking around the edge of the planet. "And so Lieutenant Ferrier sold you on this plan of trying it from the surface."

And there it was, exactly as Harking had predicted. "It wasn't like that at all," he snapped back at her. "Abe had thought it through, all the way down to the last detail. It was a good plan, with a good chance of succeeding. And it beat the hell out of sitting up here watching the Sjonntae go about their daily routine and doing nothing about it."

He ran out of breath and stopped. "That's quite a speech," Isis commented. If she was offended, it didn't show in her voice. How long have you had it ready to go?"

Again Harking thought about being diplomatic. Again it didn't seem worth the trouble. "Since I heard you were coming here to investigate this," he told her candidly. "I knew you'd be all set to fork Abe onto the barbecue for this."

I'm not here to fork anyone onto anything," she said calmly. "But you have to face facts, the foremost being that the best minds in the Expansion have been wrestling with this problem tor over ten years. What made Lieutenant Ferrier think he could succeed where so many other similar ploys have failed?"

"Several reasons," Harking said. "The foremost being that Abe's family was part of the original contact team that spent five years negotiating deals between the Minkters and the Expansion. He speaks the language, looks enough like them to fit in, and has a lot of friends."

"I understand all that," Isis said. "But what did he expect to accomplish once he was down there? Any technology and weaponry he could bring would draw Shadow so quickly that he'd never get a chance to use it."

She gestured out toward the planet. "For that matter, how could he even get down there? A drop capsule would probably attract so much Shadow on its way in that he'd be dead before he hit the surface."

"He had that covered," Harking insisted. "He had everything covered. He rode a drop capsule in only to the upper atmosphere, then did the rest of the way down via hang glider and parachute. All his equipment went down in separate capsules, spaced out so they wouldn't draw as much Shadow. And it worked—he got down okay."

"How do you know?"

"He signaled us," Harking told her. "He had a tight-beam radio with a simple speaking-tube arrangement so he could use it without having to get too close. He said he was down, that he'd made contact with the Minkters, and that he'd get back to us as soon as he located the whorl."

"Only he never did," Isis said. "Did he?"

"Not yet," Harking said firmly. "But he will."

Isis turned away from her contemplation of the universe to look up into his face. "You really think so?" she asked quietly.

Harking looked away from that gaze, his throat aching. "He'll find it," he said. "The Minkters will figure it out. And when they do, he'll get the location to us."

"How?" Isis asked. "The Sjonntae found the radio, didn't they?"

"Of course they did," Harking growled. "We all expected them to. They don't seem affected by the Shadows, for whatever reason. But Abe had other ways of communicating with us. He had mirrors, colored signal flags—a whole trunkful of nice low-tech stuff. And he knew we'd be watching. We've covered the villages, the valleys—every place he might signal from. We just have to be patient."

Isis sighed, just audibly. "It's been over a year, Mr. Harking," she reminded him quietly. "If he hasn't found a way by now ... the Sjonntae aren't stupid, you know. They know someone came in, and they have to know why he came. They're going to be watching the same villages and valleys as you are, trying to make sure he can't get any information back to you."

"He'll find a way," Harking insisted. "Abe knows what's at stake. He'll find a way, even if he has to write it on the grass in his own blood."

She didn't answer. But her words had already echoed the thought that had been digging at the edges of his own slipping confidence for months now.

Angrily, he shook the thought away. Abe Ferrier was the smartest, most resourceful man he'd ever known. He would find a way.

And he was still alive. He was.

"I hope he does," Isis said finally into the silence. "A lot of good men and women are dying out there on the line. We need to get hold of a Sjonntae base; and this outpost is still our best shot at doing that."

She straightened up. "It's been a long day," she said. "I'd like to return to my quarters now."

And to start composing her story? Harking felt a surge of contempt. Probably. Reporters like Laura Isis could ladle out carefully measured servings of emotion into their stories when it was convenient. He'd seen them do it. But down deep, he knew, they were as emotionally detached as the microphones that picked up the sound of their voices. Even a war of survival was nothing personal to them. Nothing but a good opportunity for fame and glory and career advancement.

The very things, he knew, that she was mentally accusing Abe Ferrier of.

First take the log out of your own eye, the old admonition echoed through his mind. But she never would. "Certainly," he managed, trying to keep his voice civil as he turned back to the door. "Follow me."

I don't know why you're surprised." Tsu commented, taking a long sip from his drink. "You knew reporters were soulless robots going in."

"Knowing and having it shoved in your face are two very different things," Harking countered, draining his own mug and punching for another drink. A waste of time, really; the bar was keeping track of his drinks and was steadily decreasing the amount of alcohol in each one. But maybe for once it would make a mistake, and he could actually drink enough to forget. At least for a little while.

"She covers the war every day," Tsu reminded him. "She can't get all misty-eyed over a single man who disappears over a half-forgotten planet."

Harking shook his head. "You didn't hear her, Jorm," he said. "It wasn't a matter of not caring about him. She was determined to prove he was either out for glory or a complete idiot for trying a stunt like that in the first place. All she cared about—all she cared about—was getting a good story out of him."

Tsu shrugged. "She didn't know him."

"And she's not going to, either," Harking said, pulling his drink off the conveyer as it passed and taking a long swallow. "Not the way she's going at it."

"Well, then, maybe you should do something about that," Tsu suggested.

"Such as?"

"I don't know," Tsu said with a shrug. "Sit her down and give her his life story, maybe. Make her see him the way you did."

"The way I do," Harking growled. "Don't talk about him as if he was dead. He's not, damn it."

"Hey, don't take it out on me," Tsu protested. "I'm not the one you're mad at."

"You're right," Harking said, draining his cup. Suddenly, the alcohol seemed to be flowing like fire through his veins. "I'll see you later."

"Where are you going?" Tsu asked suspiciously as he stood up. "Hey, Jims, don't be getting yourself in trouble. You hear me?"

There was more along the same lines, but Harking didn't wait to hear it. Striding from the lounge, he headed down the corridor toward officer country. If Isis thought he was going to just sit back while she maligned Abe on interstellar television, she was in for a surprise.

There was no answer when he buzzed her door. He buzzed a second and third time; and he was just about to start pounding his fist on the heavy panel when it finally slid open to reveal Laura Isis.

But it wasn't the same woman he had left barely two hours earlier. Her casual suit was gone, replaced by an old and sloppily tied robe. The bright, probing eyes were heavy with interrupted sleep.

And the neatly styled hair was now only neatly styled on the right side of her head. On the left side, where he'd thought he'd noticed something odd earlier, there was no hair at all. What was there was a crisscross pattern of angry red scars, slicing across the side of her head, cutting across her ear, and digging down along her cheek and neck.

Harking felt his mouth drop open, the alcohol-driven fire vanishing in that first stunned heartbeat. "Hello, Ensign," Isis said quietly. "Was there something you wanted?"

He shook his head, his voice refusing to operate, his eyes unable to look away. "No," he managed at last. "No. I'm ... I'm sorry."

She nodded, as if seeing past the words into his own, more invisible scars. "You'd better come in," she said, stepping back out of the way. "We need to talk."

Numbly, he complied. She closed the door, then brushed past him to sit down at the fold-down desk. "From past experience," she said as she gestured him to the guest jump seat, "I know I need to explain this before we go on to anything else." She pointed at her disfigured face.

"I'm sorry," Harking said as he sat down. Vaguely, he realized that wasn't exactly the proper thing to say, but his brain was still frozen on its rail and his mouth was free-ranging. "I mean—"

"It happened at the third battle off Suzerain," she said, mercifully cutting off the babbling. "The ship I was on was hit. Badly. We barely got away."

She lowered her eyes. "Many of the crew weren't as lucky as I was."

"It can be fixed, though," Harking said desperately. "Can't it?"

She shrugged. "So they tell me. Assuming the war doesn't kill us all and eliminate such trivial issues as cosmetic surgery."

"But then—" He gestured helplessly at her face.

"Why don't I go back to Earth and have it done?" she suggested.

"Well ... yes," Harking said. "I mean, your face is famous. It's on TV all the time."

"Because it would take six months," Isis told him. "I can't afford to take that much time off. Humanity can't afford for me to take that much time off."

In spite of himself, Harking felt his lip twist. "Humanity?" he demanded without thinking. "Or your career?"

The instant the words were out of his mouth he wished he could call them back. But to his surprise, she didn't take offense. "You don't understand," she said softly. "The career itself is irrelevant. It's what I can do with that career for the war effort that's so desperately needed."

"And what is it you do, exactly?" Harking asked darkly. "Report the day's slaughter in that cool, professional way you reporters all have?"

He nodded at her face. "Or has that made things a little more personal?"

"This war has always been personal for me," Isis countered, her eyes hardening a little. "That's the problem, really. It's personal for all of us."

She gestured to him. "Especially for those of you who are actually doing the fighting."

Harking shook his head. "You've lost me."

"You take this war personally, Ensign," she said. "Like everyone else, you're tightly focused on your own little corner of it. To you, that corner is the most important thing in the entire universe."

"That's what keeps us alive," Harking growled. "Most of us don't have time for deep philosophical discussions on the issues of the day. We shoot, or we duck, or we die."

"Of course you do," Isis said. "But that's not what I meant. I'm talking about focusing in so tightly that you can't see the whole of what's happening out there."

Harking snorted. "That's the generals' job. Bottom feeders like us just do what we're told."

"Yes, that's how it traditionally works," Isis agreed. "But we can't afford to hold onto traditions like that. Not anymore." She took a deep breath. "You may not know it, out here on the edge of things, but the Expansion is losing this war."

"We're not that far off the map," Harking said stiffly. "We do get regular news feeds."

"Exactly," Isis said, giving him a tight smile. "And after you hear the news, what then? Do you discuss how the Supreme Command is doing? Speculate on how the Sjonntae can be beaten? Argue about tactics and strategies?"

"Well, sure," Harking said, frowning. "Shouldn't we?"

"Of course you should," she agreed. "That's the point. We need to tap into every resource we've got if we're going to win this thing; and that includes getting every human being working on the problem of victory. But the generals don't have time to go into depth on what's happening with each line unit or every far-flung command."

She touched her recorder, sitting by her elbow on the desk. "That's where we in the news come in. We do have the time to dig into the stories and tie events together in a real-time way that your superiors and order-lines can't possibly do. Our job is to pick up as many pieces as we can, scatter them all across the Expansion, and hope that someone will see how two or three of those pieces fit together in a way that no one's ever noticed before. Do you understand?"

Harking nodded, feeling ashamed of his earlier thoughts. "Sure," he said. "The big picture. That's what you're feeding us: the big picture. Is that why you want me to dissect Abe and his mission for you?"

She nodded back. "Even if he failed, reporting on what he did—exactly what he did—may give someone else an idea of something new to try. Because he was right: if we're going to capture enough Sjonntae technology to study, this is the place to do it. Out here, where there's no fighting and hardly even any traffic. And where their main battle force can't get to quickly enough to interfere if we manage to crack it."

"Try no traffic at all," Harking said with a sniff. "They haven't

sent a single ship in the entire three years we've been in place. It's like they're just sitting there thumbing their butts at us, knowing we can't do a thing to bother them."

"They are definitely arrogant SOBs," Isis agreed. "And too much arrogance can be a weakness. Let's see if we can find a way to turn that against them."

"Yeah," Harking said. "Though as someone once said, it ain't bragging if you can do it."

He stood up. "I apologize for the intrusion, Ms. Isis. And for ... other things."

"No problem," she assured him. "I would like to talk more with you about Lieutenant Ferrier and his mission, though."

"Of course," Harking said. "I go on duty in an hour, but we can talk while I take my photos if that's okay with you. Just come up whenever you're ready."

"I'll be there," she said.

"Good." Harking started to the door—

"Just one more thing," she said.

He turned back, mentally bracing himself. "Yes?"

Her face was very still. "Abe Ferrier wasn't just your friend, was he? He was something more."

Harking took a deep breath. "He was my cousin," he told her. Was, the word echoed through his mind. Was. "The only family I had left."

Without waiting for a reply, he turned and left.

The motorized telescope mounts on the far side of the door could be heard humming softly as Harking sent the lens pointing toward the next spot on the grid. "So he had had some commando training, at least?" Isis asked.

"Some," Harking said, watching his screen. The view flashed through a variety of different colors as the telescope tracked across contrasting strips of farmland, then slowed and settled in on the east end of a reasonably large village twenty kilometers south of the fortress. The village seemed to be home to most of the landscape and maintenance slaves for the southern part of the Sjonntae buffer zone, and it was here that Abe had hoped to eventually end up. Sixty kilometers inside the damper field, and under the watchful eye of the Sjonntae slave masters, he had hoped it would be the last place they would look for an enemy spy.

Had he ever made it? If so, Harking and the other photographers had never spotted him. Certainly they hadn't seen any mirror flashes or semaphore or colored signal flags.

Or maybe he was indeed there, but was just being cautious, After all, as Isis had pointed out, the Sjonntae knew someone had infiltrated. If they hadn't caught him yet, they would still be on alert for anything out of the ordinary.

A trio of Skyhawks flew across the edge of the image, underlining his thought as they passed with lazy alertness low over the village rooftops. Ground-hugging Skyhawk activity had definitely shown an uptick during the year since Abe had gone in. Were they still looking for the infiltrator?

Or had they already found and executed him, and all these surveillance flights were merely to make sure the upstart humans didn't try it again?

"Did you know that grommets in cheese sauce make a great appetizer?"

Harking blinked up at Isis. "What?"

"Just wanted to see if you were still paying attention," she said blandly. Then she sobered. "I'm distracting you, aren't I? I'm sorry."

"That's okay," Harking assured her. "I'm just ... I was thinking about Abe."

"I understand." Isis shut off her recorder. "You know, I've never seen Minkta during the daytime. Even my ship came in from the darkside."

"That's standard procedure," Harking said. "Sjonntae get less active after dark, and Sector Command has this fond hope that they won't notice and catalog our supply runs if we sneak in during the night."

" 'Fond' and 'hope' being the operative words," Isis agreed. "But I'd still like to see it."

Harking gestured to his monitor. "Have a look."

"I was thinking more of the overall grand vista," she said, gesturing toward the room housing the telescopes. "The big picture, as it were. May I?"

Harking hesitated, then nodded. "I suppose," he told her. "Just don't touch anything."

"I won't." Crossing the room, she opened the door and stepped gingerly through.

Harking sighed as the door closed behind her. Graceful exit or not, it was pretty obvious that the only reason she'd left was to give him a chance to pull himself back together. There was certainly nothing exciting she'd be able to see from this distance that she hadn't seen a hundred times before on a hundred other blue-green worlds. Come on, Harking, get on the program here, he ordered himself viciously. If he could just push his feelings aside long enough to get this interview over with, he could then get Laura Isis off his back and off the station-

Across the room, the door opened abruptly. "Can you zoom out?" Isis demanded as she hurried into the room.

Harking felt himself tense. Isis had left the room calm and soothing and professional; now, abruptly, the air around her seemed to be hissing with static electricity. "What?" he asked.

"Can you zoom these things out?" she repeated, jerking a thumb back at the telescopes. "And can you clear away cloud interference?"

"Yes, to both," Harking said cautiously.

"Do it," Isis ordered, breathing hard, her eyes flashing with something he couldn't identify as she stepped to his side. "The area to the southeast of the fortress."

Harking frowned. "Why?"

"I saw something," she said "Or maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me." She gestured at his panel. "Just do it."

Abe? But how could she possibly have seen a single man from this height? "And you said to zoom out?"

Her lips compressed. "Definitely zoom out."

Silently, Harking reset the coordinates and keyed for the zoom-out. Isis was standing very close to him, her right arm almost touching his shoulder. He could hear her carefully controlled breathing, the nervous tension beneath the control, and wondered just what in the hell was going on. The telescope settled on the designated area, and with a series of clicks began to zoom out from its close-range setting... .

And suddenly, he saw it.

He dived for the controls, freezing the image. "Oh, my God," he breathed.

For a long moment neither of them spoke. Then, beside him, he felt Isis stir. "The big picture," she murmured. "We've thought about it, talked about it, even argued about it. We've just never bothered to look at it."

"No," Harking said, thinking of all the photos he'd taken over the past few months as he gazed at the monitor. All those close-in, tight-range photos ... "But then, neither have the Sjonntae," he added. "While we've been staring down, looking for mirrors and signal flags, they've been flying low over the farms and villages, looking for the same thing."

"Yes," Isis said. "And Abe Ferrier fooled us all."

Harking nodded, gazing at the monitor. The varying colors of the fields, planted apparently randomly with their different crops, formed a subtle pattern, with no sharp or obvious lines for a passing Skyhawk to note with interest or suspicion.

But from Defender Fifty-five, and the ability to take in a hundred thousand square kilometers at a glance, the human eye had no difficulty filling in the disguising gaps and reading the message Abe and the Minkter farmers had so painstakingly prepared for them:

204° 55'52" W

38° 40'42"

"You know where that is?" Isis asked quietly.

"About thirty kilometers north of the fortress," Harking said. "Rocky area. Even if we'd been able to get instruments close enough through all the Shadow, we'd have had a hard time spotting it."

Taking a deep breath, he keyed the intercom. "Commander Chakhaza, this is Harking in Number One Photo," he said. "You need to get up here right away."

He smiled tightly at Isis. "And," he added, "you might want to wake up the missile crews."

Content

Timothy Zahn
The Big Picture