“Well, naturally. I compute a higher likelihood of ultimate success if we followed a strategy of…no matter now.”

Diaz leaned forward. His heart slammed. “So this is a command ship,” he exclaimed “I thought so.”

The blue eyes weighed him with care. “If I give any further information,” Rostock said—softly, but the muscles tightened along his jaw—“you must accept the conditions I set forth.”

“I do,” Diaz got out.

“I realize that you do so in the hope of passing on the secret to your countrymen,” Rostock said. “You may as well forget about that. You won’t get the chance.”

“Then why do you want to tell me? You won’t make a Unie out of me, General.” The words sounded too stuck up, Diaz decided. “That is, I respect your people and so forth, but…uh…my loyalties lie elsewhere”

“Agreed. I don’t hope or plan to change them. At least, not in an easterly direction.” Rostock drew hard on his cigarette, let smoke stream from his nostrils, and squinted through it. “The microphone is turned down,” he remarked. “We cannot be overheard unless we shout. I must warn you, if you make any attempt to reveal what I am about to say to you to any of my own people, I shall not merely deny it but order you sent out the airlock. It is that important.”

Diaz rubbed his hands on his trousers. The palms were wet. “Okay,” he said.

“Not that I mean to browbeat you, Captain,” said Rostock hastily. “What I offer is friendship. In the end, maybe, peace.” He sat a while longer, looking at the wall, before his glance shifted back to Diaz. Suppose you begin the discussion. Ask me what you like.”

“Uh…” Diaz floundered about, as if he’d been leaning on a door that was thrown open. “Uh…well, was I right? Is this a command ship?”

“Yes. It performs every function of a flag dreadnaught, except that it seldom engages in direct combat. The tactical advantages are obvious. A smaller, lighter vessel can get about much more readily, hence be a correspondingly more effective directrix. Furthermore, if due caution is exercised, we are not likely to be detected and fired at. The massive armament of a dreadnaught is chiefly to stave off the missiles that can annihilate the command post within. Ships of this class avoid that whole problem by avoiding attack in the first place.”

“But your computer! You, you must have developed a combat computer as…small and rugged as an autopilot… I thought miniaturization was our specialty.”

Rostock laughed.

“And you’d still need a large human staff,” Diaz protested. “Bigger than the whole crew of this ship!

“Wouldn’t you?” he finished weakly.

Rostock shook his head. “No.” His smile faded. “Not under this new system. I am the computer.”

“What?”

“Look.” Rostock pulled off his hood.

The head beneath was hairless, not shaved but depilated. A dozen silvery plates were set into it, flush with the scalp; in them were plug outlets. Rostock pointed toward the office. “The rest of me is in there,” he said. “I need only set the jacks into the appropriate points of myself, and I become…no, not part of the computer. It becomes part of me.”