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orange juice to hide his amazement.

  These creatures consumed food that had been alive! Who knew; perhaps they consumed things that still were alive! He shuddered and reminded himself that this was only the juice of a plant, but his self-control was tested thoroughly.

  Here was something those three imbecile spies hadn't mentioned, or had perhaps omitted from their reports on purpose, or had even failed to realize. Zentraedi food, of course, was synthesized from its chemical constituents; that was as it had always been, by the decree of the Robotech Masters. To eat living or once-living food was to risk the consumption of rudimentary energies somewhat related to Protoculture.

  Exedore finished the glass so as to give no hint of what he was thinking-fearing. It crossed his mind that perhaps these men were testing him. If so, he would reveal nothing.

  "That was very refreshing," he enthused.

  The ensign gave him a bright smile. "Here, have another." She picked up the empty and gave him a full one from her tray.

  "If you insist," he said lightly.

  Gloval was rubbing his dark mustache. To Maistroff, he said, "I think we're missing some people, aren't we?"

  "Some." The colonel nodded. "But they should be arriving any minute now. In fact, this may be them."

  He was indicating the door signal. Max and Miriya entered, both in RDF uniform. Max snapped off a sharp salute. "Sir. Reporting as ordered."

  Exedore was on his feet, the drink put aside. "Ah! Hello, Quadrono Leader!"

  She gasped as she turned to him and saluted by reflex. "I'm sorry, sir; I didn't realize you were the emissary."

  He shrugged to say it was unimportant. "I found your pairing ritual-marriage?-quite...provocative."

  She didn't know what to say. "You are probably wondering why we did

  it."

  "Yes, just as you're no doubt wondering what 1 am doing here. And this

  must be the male half of your pair."

  Suddenly Miriya looked young and a little forlorn, standing before the great genius of her race, the Eldest, the repository of all Zentraedi lore. "Ah, that's right, sir."

  "Gee, y' don't sound too thrilled about it," Max murmured. He almost gave in to his impulse to take her in his arms and kiss her, top brass or no, and remind her emphatically of what their pairing really meant.

  But just then Rick Hunter reported as ordered, saluting. Then he spied Max, who was in a bit of a snit. "Hey, you don't look so good," Rick confided.

  Exedore was still on his feet. Now, he pointed at Rick and Max, yelling, "That's it!" He clucked to himself. "The micronization process must have affected my memory! You're two of the hostages from Dolza's flagship, aren't you?"

  "Does somebody want to tell me what's going on here?" Rick asked slowly.

  "This time the circumstances are a bit different," Exedore rattled on excitedly. "But tell me: How did you and the others manage to escape? Was it some hidden Micronian power?"

  What had really happened was that Max had come aboard in a Battloid disguised in a Zentraedi uniform, but Rick wasn't sure he should let that particular cat out of the bag. He didn't see Gloval or the others giving him any help, so he improvised, "Uh, I guess you could say that."

  The frail little emissary sat, fingering his jaw. "Hm, another one of your military secrets." It was all so confusing and illogical, even to him. Who

  knew what eons of eating live food had done to these creatures?

  The door signaled again, and Gloval said, "Here are the others now." Rico, Bron, and Konda filed into the hearing chamber. They caught sight of him and cringed as he gave them a death's-head smile.

  "It's Minister Exedore!" they all yelped at once, looking like mice facing a hungry lynx.

  "I did not expect to see the instigators of our mass defection show up here today," he remarked.

  Trembling, Rico drew himself up. "Your Excellency, it wasn't our fault!" "That's right! It was just something that we couldn't help!" Konda put

  in. And the stout Bron maintained, "We had no control, sir!"

  Exedore brushed that aside with a prim flick of his fingers. "You may relax. I have no intention of harming you."

  The breath they let out was audible as they wilted with relief. When everyone was seated, Colonel Maistroff said, "Captain Gloval, the ship's computer will record the proceedings."

  Gloval squared his cap away. "Very good; let us begin." To Exedore he said, "Minister, we are unclear as to the exact purpose of your mission here. You've told us very little so far. Won't you please enlighten us?"

  Exedore's eyes swept across them. "Your curiosity is understandable, but-not everyone is present yet, Captain."

  "What?" Maistroff growled under his breath.

  "We would like to know more about two of your kind, gentlemen. The first possesses powers and fighting skills that are truly extraordinary, and there is a female who is the core of your psychological assault."

  "Incredible," mumbled Gloval, watching Exedore.

  Colonel Maistroff had read some of the defector debriefing reports. In an aside to Gloval he said, "I think he means that movie, Little White Dragon. They must've seen it too, and think Lynn-Kyle's movie stunts were for real."

  Little White Dragon was the first feature film produced on the SDF-1. It featured Lynn-Kyle in some spectacular stunts and fights, downing

  ferocious giants with his fighting arts and using a death beam that he could shoot from his hand thanks to an enchanted medallion.

  "There is clearly a misunderstanding here," Gloval told Maistroff. To Exedore he declared, "I can't think of anyone who would be at the core of a psychological assault. It would be helpful if you could be more specific about this female."

  Exedore blinked at him with bulging, pinpoint-pupiled eyes. "She appears to be performing some kind of ritual. A strange little chant."

  Bron leaned over to his fellow ex-spies. "Do you think he means-" "No! He couldn't!" Konda whispered.

  "Sure he could!" snarled Rico.

  "You know," Exedore said impatiently. And he rose to stand next to the witness chair, strike a coquettish pose, and sing:

  Stage fright, go 'way, This is my big day!

  Rick groaned, not wanting to be the first to say anything. If he wasn't seeing what he thought he was seeing, Colonel Maistroff would probably report him to the flight surgeon and get him grounded on a mental.

  But the three spies burst out, "He is talking about Minmei!"

  Exedore went on singing "Stage Fright" with a terrible, cracking falsetto that was seriously off key. He struck poses and postures that looked like he was auditioning for Yum-Yum in an amateur production of The Mikado.

  Gloval drew his head down into his high, rolled jacket collar like a turtle, making a low sound. "I do not believe this."

  "They must think Minmei's singing is a weapon of some kind," Maistroff observed.

  "Have the girl brought here," Gloval ordered. "And her cousin as well." Then he tried to figure out what the most direct and yet diplomatic method would be for asking the emissary to please stop singing.

  As soon as Minmei appeared in the doorway, Exedore cried, "That's her!

  Yes!"

  She stood looking around like a startled deer. A moment later, Kyle slouched into the room, sulking and hostile, saying, "I'm getting tired of being pushed around by the military."

  "Now," Minmei said in a tired voice, "would someone mind explaining why it was so important for us to come here?"

  She was as beautiful as ever, delicate and haunting as a princess from a fairy tale; try as he would, Rick couldn't keep the familiar longing from welling up in him.

  Kyle stepped before her as if to shield her from harm, glaring all around. "Don't expect any answers from them. They only care about their fascist war schemes; they don't care about people, and they-"

  "Enough of this nonsense!" Gloval thundered, and even the truculent Lynn-Kyle was a bit intimidated. Exedore thought how like the great Breetai this Micronian commander was.
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  "You will answer our questions," Gloval said to the two of them. "These proceedings are strictly classified, and if you mention them to anyone, I will personally see that you rue this day. You will give us your total cooperation. Do you both understand?"

  "Yes." Minmei nodded. When Kyle stood unspeaking, unresponsive, she put a hand to his shoulder. "They need our cooperation. Hostility won't do us any good, don't you see?"

  Gloval had turned to Exedore; he let his irritation show in his voice. "Now, Mr. Minister, if you would kindly tell us what your mission here is all about?" He began stoking up a favorite meerschaum.

  "All in its proper sequence," Exedore said earnestly. "But I assure you: My reason for being here is of crucial importance for you as well as for the Zentraedi."

  Gloval puffed out a blue cloud that his officers tried to ignore. Reading

  this alien's mind is impossible, he reflected. The song and dance had convinced him of that. I'll just have to wait and hear him out.

  In the UEDC's subterranean complex, Lisa Hayes sat at the end of long rows of techs who were manning monitor screens. All attention was focused on the SDF-1; Lisa had gotten the impression, in subtle ways, that the world rulers were chewing their nails, waiting to see what would happen.

  She had stopped wishing that she was back onboard to help in what was going on; it hurt too much. The emergency, the shortage of good officers, the dangers of space travel during the current hostilities, the fact that she had had access to classified UEDC information, her value as an intelligence source-her father had a dozen justifications for keeping her right where she was, and there was little she could do about it.

  Now, she stared up at her own master console. The more she learned about the Grand Cannon, the more convinced she was that it would serve little purpose except to get the Zentraedi angrier.

  She started, realizing that her father had come in to bend down near her. The other technical officers and enlisted ratings kept diligently at their work; it was unwise to be seen letting one's attention stray when Admiral Hayes was around.

  She was beginning to understand that her father wasn't a popular officer. She had never found it easy to make friends, and now that she was known as the admiral's daughter, she was effectively frozen out.

  She removed her headset in time to hear him say, "How do you like your new job? Everything okay?"

  "Fine, fine," she lied, and attempted to smile. "I understand that the SDF-1 and the Zentraedi fleet have reached a cease-fire agreement."

  "That's what I hear," her father said noncommittally.

  She tried to sound as upbeat as she could. "Well, if things keep going this way, maybe we won't have to use the Grand Cannon, after all.

  "It's possible, but I doubt it."

  She turned away, dropping her eyes in discouragement. They were all

  so blind down here in their little rabbit warren! Then she felt his hand on her shoulder.

  "Listen, Lisa. We can't trust the Zentraedi; we have to prove what we can do."

  It would do no good to tell him again that the SDF-1's main gun was easily a match for the Grand Cannon, and it hadn't kept the Zentraedi from waging their war. The UEDC planners, engineers, and rulers had too much at stake and only scoffed when she tried to make the point.

  He saw she wasn't going to yield the point; she simply gave up arguing it for the time being. He turned to go, saying, "I have work to do. If anything comes up, I'll be in the central core."

  "Yes, sir," Lisa said wearily.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I was close enough to Lang in those days to be certain that he had no confidential knowledge of the hidden Protoculture source to which Exedore was referring. Had he but known the secret of those great, sealed reflex furnaces, he might have formulated an immortal update to Einstein's remark: Protoculture doesn't play dice with the universe, but It certainly knows how to palm an ace at the crucial moment!

  Dr. Lazlo Zand,

  On Earth As It Is in Hell: Recollections of the Robotech War

  "Officer Lynn-Kyle, what is your military rank?" Exedore asked in the vaulted hearing chamber.

  Kyle gave him a surly look. "I'm a civilian."

  Exedore made a brief, mocking chuckle. "With your superpowers? I doubt it."

  Kyle bared his teeth at the alien. "I have no idea what you're talking about!"

  Exedore looked around, confused. He was satisfied that these Micronians were doing their best to, to "level with" him, as Colonel Maistroff had put it on the way over.

  Gloval intervened. "Mr. Minister, he's telling the truth. This man possesses no superpowers. For that matter, none of us in this room possess the powers you're referring to."

  Gloval was taking a gamble. The bluff of human superpowers hadn't made the enemy go away and couldn't be sustained for very long. But there was something murky about the whole war, something that made him suspect that a basic breakdown in communication was responsible for the whole thing. It was time for someone to try to get to the bottom of it.

  "But-we saw him on our monitors," Exedore protested.

  "Oh, that was a movie, merely a form of entertainment," Gloval replied,

  scratching his head to try to think how to explain better. "It's not true; it's...simply for enjoyment."

  Exedore decided to table that for now; he knew the enjoyment he found in the ancient lore and history of the Zentraedi, but those were factual. "Then what about your energy barrier and destruction waves?"

  "These are merely defensive and offensive weapons based on technology discovered in this ship when it originally crashed on Earth."

  "Ah, but you've forgotten the Protoculture!" Exedore said slyly. "The great genius of the Robotech Masters' race, Zor, hid the secrets of Protoculture and its last great manufacturing source in this vessel before he dispatched it here."

  Now, at last, Gloval was seeing some of the aliens' cards, and he was sure the talks were worth it. All the questions of who the Robotech Masters were, who Zor was and why he had picked Earth, had to be set aside, intriguing as they were. The life of the human race might be measurable in hours, even minutes.

  Gloval opened a comfne. "I think we're ready for Dr. Lang now."

  Lang entered, the greatest mind of his time, an intellect worthy to sit with Newton and Einstein and yet a man frustrated by the many mysteries of Robotechnology. He had been monitoring the exchanges in a waiting room and was eager to talk to Exedore.

  The Zentraedi, Minmei and Kyle, and the others there who had never seen Lang before got a bit of a shock and understood why he shunned the limelight. Normal-looking in every other way, the man had eyes that seemed to be all dark, liquid iris-no pupil or white.

  Gloval remembered that day well, hours after the SDF-1's crash in 1999, when he, Lang, and a few others had first boarded the smoking wreck. They had discovered an astounding technology, fearsome mecha guardians, and bewildering time paradoxes.

  They had also discovered a recorded warning that they couldn't fathom. And Lang, yielding to an unquenchable thirst for more knowledge, more interface, had somehow subjected himself to direct contact with whatever it

  was that animated the ship. That was when his eyes changed, when he himself became different, as if he were hearing celestial music. Nevertheless, it was his genius that had allowed the rebuilding of the SDF-1 and the construction of the Robotech Defense Force.

  Now, Lang said to Exedore, "We've heard Protoculture mentioned many times, Emissary. Will you tell me now what it is?"

  Exedore's brows shot up. "You mean you still insist that you Micronians don't know? Protoculture is the most powerful energy source in the universe."

  Lang's deep, dark eyes bored into him. "I have been able to find nothing of that nature in this vessel, and I've been searching since your fleet first arrived in the solar system. But I believe I know what has happened. Will you come with me, please?"

  Gloval rose but told the others, "You will all kindly remain here, please."


  The jeep was waiting, and the trip through the huge passages and byways of the battle fortress took only a few minutes. Very shortly they were in the engineering section, just forward of the huge reflex engines that were the ship's power plant.

  They were in a large compartment that had once held the ship's spacefold apparatus. Now there was some leftover machinery from the pin-point barrier system that had been the ship's main defensive weapon on its precarious trip across the solar system. As there had been for years, there were also the lights.

  "When the Zentraedi first attacked Earth, we made our spacefold jump to get to safety," Lang was explaining. "We had no time to experiment, no time to test. A jump that was meant to take us beyond our moon's orbit took us instead to the orbit of Pluto."

  "I remember well," Exedore said, scratching his cheek, staring at the giant, almost-empty compartment.

  "You made the jump too close to the planetary surface; we were convinced that you were suicidal."

  "You gave us no choice," Gloval said in a low voice, thinking back to the appalling devastation and loss of life that day. He did his best to put it from his mind.

  "But in the wake of the jump," Lang went on, "the spacefold apparatus just...disappeared. Utterly! Simply faded from view and was never seen again. And in its place were those."

  Lang meant the lights: darting, glowing sparks, fireflies and tiny comets that swarmed and drifted through the space where the spacefold apparatus had once been. Exedore turned to him. "May I borrow some of those instruments you've brought, Doctor?"

  It took only a little time to prove his suspicions. "Ah, yes: definite residual Protoculture signature here, but the Matrix is gone. And I detect no other great manufacturing mass, only the lesser animating charges of your weapons and the reflex furnaces."

  Exedore lowered the detector numbly. "The secrets of Zor, gone! This long war fought for nothing!"

  Lang patted Exedore's shoulder commiseratingly. "Perhaps someday we will find it again; who can say?"