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completely uneventful.”
    “Yes, we lost three and it may not be over yet….Doctor, excuse any discourtesy, but I’d like to get the rest of the convoy landed and then we can talk. Agreed?”
    “Of course. I’ll instruct my staff to make arrangements direct with the convoy leader. We’ll meet later, I hope.”
    “Yes, I’ll look forward to it.”
    Copeland shut the channel, and looked round at the unmoving silhouettes of his Bridge officers.
    “I don’t have to remind you,” he reminded them, “that we’re not finished yet. Something caused those malfunctions. I believe it was Her. We’re still at battle stations. If She moves, it’ll be now.”
    There was another wave of static.
    “Signals, what is that?”
    “Just more electrical discharges from the planet, Captain.”
    “As strong as that?”
    “….Yes, Captain.”
    “Convoy leader to Wulf . Convoy leader to Wulf .”
    Copeland realised the chair arm screen had come to life without his having noticed; he had been preoccupied.
    “Yes , what is it?”
    “I now have landing clearance from Doctor Khan’s staff. I need your permission to group the convoy and start landing procedures.”
    “Go ahead. We’ll remain on standby until the last one is down.”
    “I have your permission to go ahead?”
    “I just told you.”
    Another wave of static.
    “So I have your permission to go ahead.”
    Muttering, Copeland closed the comm link. Reminding himself not to relax for an instant, he relaxed for an instant and watched the forward screen. Slowly and solemnly, as solemnly as only mindless things could manage, the twenty-eight assemblies of spheres and girders were jerking and shuffling into a tight line ahead, the manned lead freighter marshalling and fussing them. A few minutes passed, punctuated by occasional bursts of static and an icily polite argument between the convoy leader and the Landing staff at Khan’s over the length of intervals between the freighters’ individual landings. This was something Copeland expected; it had happened with each of the previous convoys. The freighters were so large that ground around each one needed to be cleared before the next could be allowed down, since once they landed they would never fly again. Copeland, lulled by the detail of the argument, almost hotsoaking in it, started thinking things like Khan sounds OK, I’ve never met her, I’ll enjoy meeting her , so that the slowly gathering emergency did not immediately register.
    It did not register when the convoy leader took seven minutes to get the freighters into landing formation, an operation which should have taken less than five. It did not register when the communications interference mounted gradually from being an exception to becoming the rule. It registered only when, for the third time, the freighters’ remote guidance systems malfunctioned.
    And this time, it was all of them. The entire formation broke, and freighters cartwheeled solemnly across the screen as if from the centre of an unseen explosion.
     
    “Captain,” Signals said, “we have a ….”
    “Convoy leader to Wulf ! Convoy leader to Wulf !”
    “…a strong override signal. Those freighters are being jammed. It’s coming from…”
    “Khan to Copeland. Captain, we have an emergency.”
    “Coming from where? The planet?”
    “No, Captain, from the moon. Planetside.”
    Copeland swore and hit the alarms.
    “Convoy leader to Wulf . Convoy leader to Wulf .”
    “Somebody, shut him up… Weapons, stand by. Scanners, pinpoint that signal. Pilot and Engineering, ready for immediate move.”
    “Khan to Copeland. Captain, we have an emergency.”
    “Doctor, it’s Her. You bet it’s an emergency. This is the biggest emergency you’ve ever had.”
    “But how? Where?”
    “Just over your horizon. How, I don’t know. That comes later. Your people missed Her, and so did we until now.”
    “Captain, handle this any way you like, but I need those freighters.”
    “Been there all