Nira touched her close-cropped hair, and the stubbly fuzz fell out like grains of pollen. Even her eyebrows and eyelashes dropped away.

In her mind now, she could hear the trees like constant companions, an organic database and a half-sleeping mind all around her. It would always be there for her. She would never experience utter silence and aloneness again. The knowledge felt glorious, the infinite thoughts and memories … along with the terrible fear of an impending disaster. How was she to deal with it all?

With rapid footsteps and a determined expression on her face, Nira raced back to the settlement where she could at last join the other green priests as a full member of their order. And she had to warn them of the danger the worldforest had shown her.

When Nira breathlessly described her awesome vision to Yarrod, though, the green priests around him simply nodded. Their faces showed bleak foreboding.

“We already know,” Yarrod said.

33: GENERAL KURT LANYAN

33GENERAL KURT LANYAN

Because he was the commander of the Earth Defense Forces, General Kurt Lanyan could use the full facilities of the war simulations room any time he wished. Filled with computers, holographic projectors, interactive systems, and detailed navigational charts, the sealed chamber was the most sophisticated and expensive room on the entire Mars EDF base for Grid 1.

In here, with all the resources and intelligence data compiled over nearly two centuries of interaction with the Ildiran Empire, Lanyan could get his answers … or at least make reasonable guesses. Many questions remained about the culture, habits, reactions, and secrets of the alien civilization, and the General wanted to be prepared for any possibility.

During early Terran expansion into the solar system, before humans had access to the Ildiran stardrive, the EDF had taken possession of Mars as its sole property. The lifeless red planet had become a training base and military headquarters, oper-

ated as an outpost and staging area. The rugged Martian landscape provided any number of obstacle courses and survival scenarios. The thin atmosphere allowed Remoras to simulate aerial maneuvers with an easy switch over to space combat in the vacuum above. Lanyan loved it here.

After giving orders that he was not to be disturbed, the General had sealed himself into the war simulations room. He called up the complex virtual systems he had developed from years of testing, toying with possibilities, modifying results with every scrap of data he could acquire about the aliens. He wished Basil Wenceslas would send out more spies, but Lanyan would make do with the available intelligence. It was enough to run plenty of scenarios.