Thank you for your interest in freeing books, especially Parasite Puppeteers.  I appreciate what you're doing to make this possible. It gives me the encouragement (and resources) to continue writing more books, and it also gives encouragement to this effort to set books free.  You are free to download Parasite Puppeteers without any payment if you want, and I will be happy if you do, but you also have the option of making a small contribution if you choose.  That would also make me happy.-)

Thank you again for your interest and support.

rjb

You can use Unglue.it to help to thank the creators for making Parasite Puppeteers free. The amount is up to you.

Click here to thank the creators

Thank you for your interest in freeing books, especially Parasite Puppeteers.  I appreciate what you're doing to make this possible. It gives me the encouragement (and resources) to continue writing more books, and it also gives encouragement to this effort to set books free.  You are free to download Parasite Puppeteers without any payment if you want, and I will be happy if you do, but you also have the option of making a small contribution if you choose.  That would also make me happy.-)

Thank you again for your interest and support.

rjb

You can use Unglue.it to help to thank the creators for making Parasite Puppeteers free. The amount is up to you.

Click here to thank the creators

Parasite Puppeteers

by Jim Bowering

copyright 2015 Jim Bowering

Creative Commons Attribution and Share-Alike

for Kevin

ISBN 978-0-9919532-4-0 (epub)

ISBN 978-0-9919532-5-7 (pdf)

Contents

- One – They Wake Up

- Two – Tea and Biscuits

- Three – One Chore at a Time

- Four – Vacuum

- Five – They Explore

- Six – Nobody There

- Seven - Laika

- Eight – The Statues

- Nine – The Assembly

- Ten – Good-Bye Orange

- Eleven – Preparing the Message

- Twelve – Sending the Message

- Thirteen – Umbra and Penumbra

- Fourteen – Whispering Gallery

- Fifteen – Another Shadow

- Sixteen – The Tonsure

- Seventeen – Change of Plans

- Eighteen – Don't Shoot

- Nineteen – Going Home

- Twenty – Smarter Down Here

- Twenty-One – Stanton's Pair

- Twenty-Two – Pharos

- Twenty-Three – Epiphenomena

- Twenty-Four – Split Beams

- Twenty-Five – Space is Big

- Twenty-Six – Closer to the Fire

- Twenty-Seven – Lucid Dreams

- Twenty-Eight – Just Visiting

- Twenty-Nine - Departure

- Thirty – Cutting the Corner

- Thirty-One – Feeling Different

- Thirty-Two – Going Home

- Thirty-Three – Shapes

- Thirty-Four – Too Many Auras

- Thirty-Five – Relics

- Thirty-Six - Parasite Puppeteers

- Thirty-Seven - Under the Skin

- Thirty-Eight - First Contact

- Thirty-Nine – Pursued by Fire

- Forty – Communication

- Forty-One – Motives

- Forty-Two – The Cutting

- Forty-Three – Just a Few Questions

- Forty-Four – I'll Show You Mine

- Forty-Five – The Law of Property

- Forty-Six – Cellmates

- Forty-Seven – They Always Win

- Forty-Eight – The Transformation

- Forty-Nine – The Armada

- Fifty – Showdown

- Fifty-One – Master of the Prime

- Fifty-Two – A Mat Divided

- Fifty-Three – Stranded

- Fifty-Four - Savage Joy

- Fifty-Five – A Pretty Puzzle

One – They Wake Up

“I see the gray light,” said Elgin.

“Me too,” said Frances.  “See you up there.”

He lost contact with her in the gray, as they each made their own ascent.  The comet was waking them up again, so it must be time.  As he navigated the confusion of returning perceptions, he was able to maintain the thread of his consciousness.  After thousands of years and many hibernation cycles, he'd got the hang of it.

The discovery of consciousness in deep hibernation was a big help there.  After Frances discovered it, Elgin found that practice brought him slowly closer to continuous awareness.  Now there was just a blink of blankness when he made the transition each way between the two different time scales.  In hibernation, while his mind was sharing the nano tool computer with Fran, they experienced time at the rate of one minute for each twenty years of comet time.  This time they'd spent a nice three hours together.

The first time, those many centuries ago when he was going down to see if she was there, they'd only had a minute.  He didn't want to waste any of it but he knew it was best if she heard it from him, so he told her she was a saint.

“A saint?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.  “I don't want to use our whole minute on it, but I wanted you to be prepared.”

“We've only got a minute?”

“Yes.  There's a difference in the times,” he said.  “It's a lot slower down here.  I'll explain it all when we're up there.”

“Okay,” she said.  She looked in his brown eyes.  “What's this about saints?” she asked.

He sighed.  “It's the Francesians,” he said.  “I've just met them myself.  They've named their theology after you and made you their saint.”

She hesitated.  “Francesians?” she asked.  “What does that mean?”

“It's not bad,” he said.  “They're a small sect.”  He pulled a face.  “I'm a saint, too.”

“You too?  Who else?  And how do you feel about it?”

“Nobody else that I know of.”  He frowned.  “I'm afraid I told them off.”

“Really?  Should I ask?”  She was supressing a grin.

“Well . . .” he said reluctantly.  She was looking at him so he had to finish.  “I guess I told them to wait until we were dead so we couldn't contradict them.”

Her laughter was still ringing when the gray light came.

Two – Tea and Biscuits

When they got up there was so much to do, so much to talk about.  First on everyone's list was telling Frances that Buzzard had figured out the problem and that she should be all right this time.  Naturally the Doctor had to qualify that.  He agreed that she was probably cured and that she could probably count on having a completely normal waking this time.  But he was compelled to add that they couldn't be sure until she actually managed it.  What they didn't talk about was that everyone would harbor a grain of doubt and uncertainty for many years, and even many wakings, because there had been so many disappointments in the past.

Fran didn't let that stop her enjoyment of being up and among her friends once again, and Elgin didn't let his anxiety cloud the moment either.  If this didn't work out and she was taken from them again, then they would deal with it as they had done before.  Meanwhile, they both tacitly agreed that they would act as if she was back to normal.  They would move back into their apartment, on the yellow wall, next to the orange, and get back to living their lives.

They were right to be optimistic.  They had a full twenty year waking of good health, and were able to get a lot of good work done.  They had plenty of work to do because they and their companion, Orange Comet, both decided to reduce their waking populations to conserve resources for the crossing.  Since they calculated that it would take seven thousand years to enter the Oort Cloud of the neighboring star, they had to be practical.  The reduced population of only two hundred active wakers meant that there was plenty of work to go around.

On Green Comet, with its population of ten thousand, the new regime meant that each person would be awake for twenty years out of each thousand now, rather than out of each hundred.  Orange Comet's population was only four thousand, so they were up for twenty years out of each four hundred.  Never the ones to miss an opportunity, they would be able to see whether the people of Orange Comet would age and die any sooner than the people of Green Comet.  Both populations had the benefit of the nano tools working on their bodies in the hibernariums, but this would show whether Green's extra time down, or Orange's extra time up made any difference.  Naturally, once Fran's telomere procedure proved out, the potential for indefinite longevity added another angle to the experiment.

Once they got settled in and they'd had a nice visit, the six were sitting on the balcony overlooking the Square, eating biscuits and drinking iceberry tea.  Fran said, “I like that it's square now.  It seems more natural.”

“I know what you mean,” said Galatea.  “It never seemed right before when it was shaped like a shoebox.”

They made comfortable noises of agreement while they enjoyed the grand proportions of it.  No one spoke while they sipped and nibbled.  Everyone appreciated how special the moment was, to be together again here after everything.  The original Five.  The hand that held off annihilation.  Plus one more, Galatea, who had finally got Stanton to see that her gruff ways were signs of love.

But not everyone was there.  “I just wish Buzzard and Maria could be here,” murmured Fran.  “Then it would be perfect.”

No one jumped in to explain.  She knew what it had cost Buzzard to help her, and she didn't need to hear it again.  He needed a good long hibernation to repair the damage he'd done with his obsessive pursuit of her cure, and Maria wasn't going to let him do it alone.

Fran said, “They're probably together right now, having a nice talk.”  She looked at the Doctor.  “You set them up, right?”

“Yes,” he said, “but it's too early to tell if it's working.”

“I suppose,” said Fran, “but I don't see any reason why not.”  She looked at the Doctor, whose bald head reflected the Square's skylighting as he nodded his agreement.  “It's the same setup as Elgin and I had, right?”

“That's right,” said the Doctor.  “It should work, and if I had to guess right now, I'd say it probably is.”  He shrugged, smiling at himself.  “But, you know,” he said, “it's just probabilities.”

They laughed along with him.  They knew his cautious, sceptical nature.  “We know, Doctor,” said Nigel, his laughing eyes bright and clear.  “Certainties are hard to come by in your business.”  He blinked theatrically, focusing on the people and things around him, making his regained vision obvious.  “How many times did I hear you say that I would probably get my sight back, but that there were no guarantees?”

“Well, it was true,” insisted the Doctor.  “The probability was high, but it did not equal one.”  He couldn't help grinning back at everyone.  They knew him well, but so did he.  His fastidiousness in this area was easy to make fun of, but they all knew it would never change.  It was part of his nature to treat his patients and their conditions with clear-eyed honesty, and they wouldn't want it any other way.

“Anyway, Doctor,” said Fran, “how long do you think it will be before Buzzard can get up?”

“Well,” he said, pausing for effect, “that's hard to say.”  After the laughter and groans, he said, “Buzzard's wakings were getting shorter and his sleeps were getting longer while he worked on your telomere problem.  What he needs now is a good long spell in the Hibernarium.”  He looked out over the Square and thought for a moment, then nodded.  “He might as well stay there until next time we get up.”

“A thousand years?” asked Fran, surprised.

“He probably doesn't need a thousand years,” said the Doctor, “but he needs more than ten or twenty.  So, since I'm sure we all want to be there when he wakes up,” they all agreed emphatically, “he might as well stay down.”

Stanton spoke up.  “I'll miss the bugger,” he said, contemplating a full waking without him, “but it's for the best.”  Galatea patted his arm while he cleared a sudden huskiness out of his voice.  “Better to have him healthy,” he said.  “And it's not as if we're going to notice the time passing once we're in hibernation.”

“Not much time, anyway,” said Fran, thinking of the slow consciousness they could now expect down there.  “Say, Doctor,” she said, “would it be possible for more than two people to share?”

The Doctor looked at her in open-mouthed shock.  “Oh, for goodness sake,” he said, but he was thinking about it.

Three – One Chore at a Time

They put in their twenty years, and it was good.  It would have been better with Buzzard and Maria, but it wasn't so bad when they knew they were going to see them again.

There was a lot to do.  They had to re-engineer their systems to serve one tenth of the population.  They closed off some areas and settled inward, making their village smaller, preparing for the long crossing.  Orange Comet was doing the same, and they contacted each other at least once a day, exchanging messages with a twenty-four hour lag.  The frustration over the lag no doubt contributed to the discovery of a way to communicate instantaneously.

Once they realized it they knew they should have seen it right away.  Back when they used the cosmic ray method to talk with each other without being discovered by the Visitor, all the gold atoms they used were bound by quantum entanglement.  Anything that happened to one of them would be instantly observed by the rest.  At the time, the recipient only needed to retrieve one atom to have the whole message, so they didn't bother with the others.  Now, using the Rosetta Protocol, they sent a cosmic ray message to Orange Comet, holding back some of the gold atoms in confinement on Green.  When Orange deciphered the message, they collected as many of the atoms as they could find and put them in confinement on their comet.  Now they found that they could send messages back and forth simply by changing the state of their own atoms.  The other comet would see their atoms change immediately and a conversation could ensue.

That was the theory anyway.  In practice there were a lot of technical puzzles that they had to solve.  Their first detectors were too simple to support a complex data stream, and their input methods weren't much better.  They managed a data rate at the beginning that would barely have accommodated a proficient Morse code operator.  It was better than waiting, though, and large, complex messages could still be sent by radio.  Eventually, within their first waking, they improved it to the point where they could maintain a continuous connection with real-time audio and video.

They kept in close contact down the years.  It was surprising what a difference it made, having a companion on the long, slow crossing.  It was a comfort to know that they weren't alone out there in the cold void between the stars.  They had someone they could talk to, share experiences with.  In a way it gave them a village twice the size.  That wasn't only good for psychological purposes, either.  It also gave them twice the mental resources for solving problems, as well as two distinct ways of looking at them.  It was the cometary equivalent of two heads being better than one.

The six of them worked out their twenty year stint, then went down for nine hundred eighty years of hibernation.  The comet carried on, a small village with continually changing inhabitants creeping slowly across interstellar space.  When they got up again, Buzzard and Maria were there.  Buzzard was well.  The rest and rehabilitation had done him good, and he was his old self again.  That is, he was the happy, smiling Buzzard of old, his face often illuminated by delight.  But he had also regained the confidence and maturity he had after defeating the Visitor's scout.  Maria wore an expression of beatific satisfaction.

From then on the eight of them stayed on the same schedule, sleeping and waking together.  Their arrangement wasn't unique.  It was replicated by other groups that didn't want to be broken up, whether families or other circles of friends like themselves.  It was common enough that the planning committee looked into it to make sure that it wouldn't cause any problems. They took it up on one of the rare occasions when Winston agreed to chair the planning committee.  They might have wanted him to take the job on every waking, but he insisted that he needed to do other things.  He wanted to avoid the danger of an assumption that the chair belonged to him.  That kind of thinking would lead to trouble, as might any permanent cliques of wakers if they became too large.

To avoid that, the planning committee instituted procedures that would ensure continual mixing of the population.  Small groups of friends or relatives, not much bigger than the eight, were fine to keep together, but at all times the great majority of the wakers would be heterogeneous.  There were still problems when two or more cliques were up at the same time, and tribal impulses could lead to vindictiveness and conflict, but there was always a large majority of disinterested citizens to quell it.

It was that kind of fine tuning that kept things fresh, or at least as fresh as they could be in those circumstances.  When your community exists essentially the same for thousands of years, it's easy for things to get stale.  It was mitigated by the fact that no one had to put up with it for more than twenty years at a time, as well as the constant turnover of citizenry.  They needed more, though, and one thing that helped a great deal was the ongoing search for comets that they could capture to add to their resources.

When they picked up their second one, there was some debate about how they would attach it.  Should they add it to the one that was already there?  Maybe they should stick it on the opposite side of the big comet.  They finally decided to put it sixty degrees away from the first one, resulting in a configuration similar to a water molecule, with one big oxygen atom and two smaller hydrogen atoms.  Given the primordial nature of water, as well as its ubiquity in their lives and in the very substance of their comet, they found deep satisfaction in their choice.

This was how they crossed interstellar space.  Not with rockets blasting, but quietly, one chore at a time.  And this was what Elgin and Frances expected to find when they came up after their three hour visit.  They expected to find the people quietly preparing for their next chore, only this was a big one.  This would be the biggest thing to happen on Green Comet since they defeated the Scout and left their own star.  Elgin and Frances had opted out of the waking rotation for a few cycles, choosing to stay in hibernation for thirty-six hundred years.  Now the big moment was here, and they were being brought up to take part in it.

They were expecting to wake into an atmosphere of purpose and anticipation.  That's why they found it so confusing.

Four – Vacuum

Waking from hibernation was easier than it used to be.  For one thing, it was two days now instead of four.  Their techniques were refined and their technologies improved such that, by the end of the second day, most people were up and about.  In addition to that, people tended to be less confused and disoriented because of their nearly continuous consciousness, thanks to the nano tools.

So, in spite of the explosions of color in the gray light, and the tiny sounds gathering down by his eardrums, Elgin was able to maintain a coherent awareness throughout.  That made it more perplexing when he realized that something was missing, and even more alarming when he realized there was no minder.  He was being tended entirely by machines.

The process of re-animating still involved cycling in and out of sleep, and he found he could perceive a little more each time he woke up.  He gradually became aware that he was sharing the recovery room not only with Fran, but with three other people as well.  Through their disjointed senses, and by their various croakings and garglings, they were able to establish that they were five.  It was the original five.  The Hand.  For some reason they were being brought up together.  And yet there was no one here.

Elgin could see in his peripheral vision that something was moving.  It wasn't Frances, in the bed next to him.  She was lying still, and he could somehow tell that her attention was focused in the same direction as his.  He relaxed his vision and allowed it to get a general image of his whole field of view, and he was able to locate the motion beyond the foot of her bed and across the floor on the other side of the room.  It was Stanton's bed and he was definitely moving.

Although waking was easier than it used to be, there were still problems.  The most persistent and most serious was vertigo.  About the end of the first day of recovery and well into the second, at the time that they were regaining full mobility, vertigo took over.  It wasn't as bad as it used to be.  It wasn't terrifying and it wasn't completely debilitating, but it still made things extremely difficult.  That's why it took over ten minutes for Elgin to turn his eyes and his head, one millimeter at a time, in Stanton's direction.

He wasn't moving randomly or aimlessly.  Stanton had one leg out of bed, its foot reaching and groping for the floor.  He was lying flat on his back, with his head on his pillow and his eyes squeezed shut.  The only thing moving was the leg, with its questing foot.

Finally it reached the floor, and once it got a good, solid grip the other leg started moving.  In another half hour Stanton had both feet stuck firmly to the floor, and after a brief rest, he began pulling his body out of bed.  That was a painful process to watch, as he repeatedly suffered violent vertigo.

All his progress was nearly undone when one of the minder robots appeared and tried to put him back into bed.  He struggled mightily, pushing at it with his arms and legs, growling inarticulately, until it stopped.  After a few minutes of rigid immobility, his eyes screwed fiercely shut, Stanton resumed his struggle.

Elgin realized he must have dozed off when, apparently from one moment to the next, Stanton moved from the bed to the middle of the floor.  He gave himself a nasty bout of vertigo when he automatically turned his head to look.  When he was able to open his eyes again, he could see that Stanton had his shut.  He had his hands stretched out in front of him, reaching blindly, while his feet slowly, methodically, unstuck and moved forward in tiny steps.

At last Elgin saw what he was up to.  He was headed for the doorway and the control and display panel beside it.  At this rate he should be there within an hour, even though he had to fend off his minder every time he stopped to rest.

It was easier for Elgin to keep his eyes open than it was for Stanton, because he wasn't moving.  Every time Stanton opened his eyes to navigate, he swayed dizzily and had to stop, arms thrown out, until he regained his balance.  Elgin saw his chance to help, and when Stanton looked as if he was going to have to take another look, he said, “Right, ten,” to let him know that he needed to turn right ten degrees.  At least he meant to say, “Right, ten,” but it came out so garbled that even he couldn't understand it.

He kept saying it, forcing his throat and tongue to obey him.  Each time it got a little better, and finally Stanton closed one fist, thumb erect, and slowly rotated his body ten degrees to the right.  Then he resumed his slow, tiny steps in the right direction.  Elgin continued to provide guidance, and when Stanton got close to the door he said, “Two meters,” repeating it until it sounded almost like he intended.

At last Stanton reached the wall.  By the sense of touch he located the panel and got his hands on either side of it.  Then he stood there, feet spread and planted on the floor, hands gripping the wall, while he breathed calmly and prepared himself.  When he was ready, he opened his eyes and tried to read the panel.  It took about ten minutes before he could settle down his vision enough to see it, then settle down his brain enough to understand. He tried several times to say it clearly enough, but they finally heard him say, “Vacuum.”

“Oh,” Elgin heard from behind him.  It was Frances, and he barely caught himself before he turned to look at her.  He didn't need to see her to understand her, though.  Somehow she managed to get sentences of meaning into that one syllable.  And he heard the music in it, so he knew she was right.  The fact that there was vacuum outside their door meant that the situation they were being awakened into was going to be bad.

Stanton stayed locked in position until he was ready to move again, then he called, “Minder.”  The little robot that he had been fending off as it hovered around him moved tentatively closer, but didn't try to touch him.  He held out one arm and said, “Bed,” and his minder gently pulled him back across the room and tucked him in.  He let out a great sigh and fell into a deep sleep.

Elgin had been able to turn his head almost as fast as Stanton was pulled across the room, and by the time his friend dropped off, he'd turned it the rest of the way to look at Frances.  She took a while to bring her face around from watching Stanton, and when he saw her expression he knew she was worried.  Given the consistent accuracy of her intuition, he was worried too.

As the rest of their second day passed, so did their vertigo.  Their voices rapidly improved too, so even before they were able to get out of bed, they were able to talk almost normally.  The fact that they all had the same questions and none of them had the answers didn't stop them.  The Doctor summed it up when he said, “The lack of people and the presence of vacuum doesn't look good, but there's nothing we can do about it now.”  They murmured their agreement, and he concluded, “What I want to know is why we were wakened.  Why the five of us?”

That was a good question.  Why them?  And was it only them?  Could there be other rooms with other people waking up?  If so, why weren't they being told that?  The more they thought about it, the more they were sure that it was only them.  Only the five of them had been brought up, and apparently there was no one else here who could talk to them.  Only machines, and they had no conversational skills.

“The Five,” said Fran.  Into the attentive silence she added, “One hand against annihilation.”  She let them think about that, then explained.  “The last time we were together like this was when we faced down the Scout.  Now, I think Green Comet is in danger again, and someone, or something, has chosen us to deal with it.”

That rang a bell with Elgin.  Why else would the five of them be brought out of hibernation in this odd way?  His sense of right told him that she probably had it right.  But there was something that wasn't right, and he told her, “But we're not just five anymore, are we?”

“No,” she said, “we're not.  But whoever, or whatever, made the decision still thinks of us that way.”

“Then we need to bring them up, too,” said Elgin.  “Buzzard and Maria and Galatea.”

She was thinking about it, and it looked as if she was going to agree with him, but the Doctor butted in.  “No,” he said firmly.  They all looked at him, and he went on to explain.  “I mean yes, we should wake them up.  They belong here with us.”  He was adamant, though.  “But not until we know what's going on.”

They all agreed with that.  They wanted their friends with them, but they needed to know what would be in store for them first.  They needed to know if there would be a point to it.

Five – They Explore

As soon as they were able, they got up and found out what the rest of their room could tell them.  If the main door had vacuum on the other side, were there any other exits, for instance.  Stanton was up first.  Rather than taking it out of him, his excursion seemed to help.  He was followed by Nigel, then Fran and Elgin together and finally the Doctor.

Stanton concentrated on the equipment in the room, especially the terminal, so it was Nigel who found the second exit.  He followed one of the little robots into the alcove where they stayed when not in use, and found a small door at the back of it.  With his unparalleled experience at surface excursions, gained during fourteen years of searching for the Scout's spy, he quickly scanned the control panel to see what was on the other side.

“It's an airlock,” he told the others back in the room.  “Rather, not a real airlock like you'd find at the surface.”  He used his hands to try to show them.  “I think someone has set up an ad hoc one, using a room on the other side of that door.”

“But,” said the Doctor, “why would anyone make an airlock in the middle of the comet?”

“I don't know why,” said Nigel, “but it might mean that these rooms are the only part of Green Comet that's not a vacuum.”

“Then where . . .” began the Doctor, but he never finished.  It was obvious to everyone by now that there was no one out there.

They were all thinking that, but none of them wanted to say it.  Elgin looked at Fran and saw sadness in her face.  If he wasn't sure before, he was now.  They had to assume something terrible had happened and, somehow, the two hundred wakers were no longer there.

It was Fran who spoke first.  She said, “There's nothing more we can learn here, I think.”  She looked at Stanton.  “Unless you've found anything?”

He'd been on the terminal, running systems analyses and trying to learn about the comet with remote sensors.  He shook his head.  “Nobody is answering my calls anywhere.  All the systems I've checked are either shut down or they're not functioning for some other, unknown reason.”  He kept his eyes on the display in front of him.  “I haven't found any air anywhere, and all the temperature readings are cold.  Outer space cold.  It's as if someone turned everything off and flushed it out.”  He pointed at one red light on his readout and said in an unbelieving tone, “The main hatch, the big one, is hanging wide open.”  He shook his head.  “It's never open.”

No one could think of anything to say.  Elgin looked at Frances, and she turned her face toward him, but she didn't meet his eyes.  She was looking in his direction, but she was focused over his left shoulder, past his wing top.  Elgin glanced over his shoulder, but there was nothing there to hold her attention.  When he looked back, she was back, and he could see that she'd thought of something.  She looked at Stanton.

“Have you checked to see if the radio's working?  Or the cosmic rays?”  As he turned to his terminal she said, “We need to get hold of Orange.  Maybe they know what happened.”

Stanton said, “I've got the radio.”  He concentrated on his readouts, then said, “I'm going to need to work on it.  It's drifted and I'm going to need to recalibrate it.  Get it aimed right again.”

“That's promising,” said Fran.  “What about the cosmic rays?”

Stanton shook his head again.  “I can't do that from here.  You have to be right there.”

“Can you tell if it's still okay?”

“Well,” he said, “I can tell it's powered down, but that's all.”  He looked at her.  “It should be okay, though.  The gold atoms should still be entangled.  It's just a matter of getting the equipment running again, but I have to be there for that.”

“Okay,” she said, “concentrate on getting the radio working.  Meanwhile,” she turned to Nigel, “we should find out what's beyond that door.”

“I can tell you quite a bit already,” said Nigel.  “It's got normal air pressure, the usual percentages of oxygen and nitrogen, and no toxic components.”  He frowned.  “At least, none that are known to the detectors.”  He shook his head and shrugged.  “I guess there's nothing we can do about unknown ones anyway.”

“No,” said Fran.  “This whole thing is one big unknown.  Every time we do something, we'll be taking a chance.”

“Right,” said Nigel.  “So, as far as I could tell, the air out there is the same as the air in here.  And the temperature is normal, too.”

Fran looked at Elgin and the Doctor.  Stanton's head was still bent over his terminal.  “What do you think?” she asked.  “Should we open it?”

“Yes,” said Elgin.  “Definitely.”

“It might be risky,” said the Doctor, “but we've got to find out what's going on here.”  He looked around the room.  “I don't think we were wakened to stay in here.”

“Me neither,” said Fran.  “Nigel, will you do the honors?”

Nigel took one last look at the panel, just to be sure, then put his hand on the control.  “Here goes,” he said, and pressed.  The door swung smoothly inward and lights came on in the room beyond.  He surreptitiously released the breath he was holding and stepped through.

The others followed, then they stood and looked around.  The room was small.  On their left was another door, and against the wall on their right was a large storage cabinet.  Nigel went to the door and studied its panel.  “Vacuum,” he said, confirming their suspicions.  They really did seem to be in a small bubble of air and warmth, surrounded by cold and vacuum.

The only other thing to look at in the room was the cabinet.  Elgin went over and opened it, swinging the doors wide and stepping back so they could all see clearly.  Hanging there, as much as anything can hang in microgravity, were five pressure suits.  That made sense.  There were five of them and this was an airlock after all.  But their eyes were drawn to the bags covering the hands and feet of the suits.  None of them had seen anything like that before.  Elgin stepped closer and examined the black and yellow tape applied liberally to hold the bags on.  He reached for it.

“Don't,” said Nigel.  “That's emergency repair tape.”

Elgin leaned in and closely examined the suits, but he couldn't see any damage that would justify the tape.  “There's nothing wrong with them,” he said.  “Why would someone tape bags over the hands and feet?”  He looked at Fran.

They all looked at her, instinctively expecting that the answer would come from her, if there was one.  She turned her palms up.  “I don't know,” she said, “but we have to assume there's a good reason.”  They all nodded and she added, “Someone went to the trouble of setting this up.”  She stared at the suits, thinking.  “But they did it in a hurry.”  She pointed.  “They used much more tape than they had to, if they'd taken their time.”

Elgin said, “You're right.”  He pulled the hand of one of the suits closer to his face.  “This is quite sloppy.  They've just made up for it with more wraps.”

“It's not just that, though, now that I think of it.”  She gestured to indicate not just the airlock and the pressure suits, but their recovery room.  “Everything seems hasty.  They brought us out of hibernation, or maybe arranged for the robots to do it.  They prepared these two rooms, but nothing else.”  She put her fists on her hips.  “And no explanation.  No message, other than those bags.”

“And the vacuum,” said the Doctor.  “Maybe they didn't intend it, but I think the vacuum is a message, too.”

“That's right,” said Fran.  They all looked at the outer airlock door, which looked mundane, but which seemed to be bulging with secrets.  She turned and led the way back into the recovery room, where they closed the door and congregated around Stanton at his terminal.

When he looked up, Fran asked, “Have you learned anything?”

He shook his head.  “Just more of the same.”  He gestured at rows of red lights on his display.  “As far as I can tell, every door in Green Comet is open.”

“Every one?”

“Well, I haven't checked them all yet,” he said, “but so far, yes.  It looks as if someone has deliberately opened Green Comet up.  Like they wanted to be sure it would flush out completely.”

“So the vacuum is definitely not an accident,” she said pensively, her eyes unfocusing.  They knew the signs and they waited.  Soon enough she was back.  “Whoever set this up,” she said, “was in a terrible hurry.”  They nodded.  “They were afraid of something, or something was happening too fast for them to do it properly.”  She looked around the room, stopping at the door to the airlock, which she stared at.  Finally she stirred.  “We have to go out there,” she said.  “Whoever set this up wanted us to put on those suits and go out there.”  She nodded sharply.  “We need to explore.”

Six – Nobody There

“Let me go first.”  Nigel moved toward the airlock.

“Of course Nigel,” said Fran, moving to follow him.

“No,” said Nigel, “I mean let me go out there alone.”  He had stopped and turned to face her.  “I have the most experience in a pressure suit.  If there's something out there, I have the best chance.”  They all objected, arguing that they should all go together, to support each other, but Nigel insisted.  “There's probably nothing out there.  I doubt if anything will happen.  But if it does, then it's better to lose only one of us.  Better for us, and better for Green Comet.”

Fran was nodding.  They all were.  “You're right,” she said.  “You go first.  We'll wait in the airlock in our suits, ready to come to your rescue.”

“But,” said Nigel, “if something gets me when I open the outer airlock door, then it will get all of you too.  You should stay in the recovery room.”

“If that happened, then we'd be trapped in here with no access to our suits,” said Fran.  “No, it's better to face that tiny risk and be able to help you if necessary.”

It didn't take him long to see that she was right.  “Okay,” he said, “we'll all suit up together, then I'll go out and do some reconnaissance.”

Twenty minutes later Stanton was closing the airlock door behind him, and standing by in his suit with the other three.  That is, they would have been standing if not for the bags on their feet.  With the setae in their boots and gloves made ineffective, they were at the mercy of whatever momentum they picked up, so they drifted around bumping into things until they found something they could hang onto.

“This is going to take some getting used to,” said Elgin.

“Yes,” said Fran.  “And it really drives home the point.  There must be a very good reason for these bags.”

Nigel spoke from the other side of the door.  “There'd better be.”  They heard him grunt and mutter.  “I had no idea how much I relied on the grips in the gloves and boots.  I'm all over the place out here.”  More faint sounds of struggle.  “I'm going to have to relearn everything, before I run out of propellant.”  Finally, “Ah.  Something to hold onto.”

Fran said, “What is it, Nigel?  What's out there?”

“It looks like some equipment was set up just outside the door,” said Nigel.  “It looks like lights.  No, not ordinary lights.  These are ultraviolet lights.”  They listened to his breathing for a few seconds, then, “It looks like a makeshift decontamination station.”

Fran looked at the bags on her hands.  “Interesting,” she said.  “Is there anything else?”

“No,” said Nigel, “not that I can see.”  They heard him moving.  “I'm going to go up the corridor.”

“Is there just the one?” asked Fran.

“Yes,” said Nigel.  “It looks like we're at the end of a long corridor.”  They listened to his breath, then, “Man, it's dark in here.”

“Darker than outside,” asked Fran, “when you were hunting the Spy?”

“Well, that was pretty dark, too,” said Nigel, “but at least there was starlight out there.  In here, there are the walls to reflect my lights, but it still seems darker.”

Fran shivered.  “Can you see anything at all?”

“Just the corridor,” said Nigel.  “There are no doorways on either side, just blank walls.  Oh, and the occasional snowdrift.”

Stanton spoke up.  “How far do you think you've gone, Nigel?”

“About a hundred meters.  I'm trying to keep my speed down.”

“Okay,” said Stanton.  “That confirms our location, I think.  Or it will if the corridor goes on like this.  The Hibernarium is at the end of a kilometer long corridor.  The only one that long on the comet with no side openings.”

“A kilometer?” said Nigel.  “Okay, I'm going to push up my speed.  I have a feeling we're not going to find anything in here.”

“Be careful though, Nigel,” said Fran.

“Don't worry, Fran.  I have a lot of experience with making haste carefully.”  They could hear the smile in his voice, then they just heard him breathing rhythmically for a couple of minutes before it changed, presumably as he stopped.  “I'm coming out into a major corridor now,” he said.  After a moment he added, “There's nothing out here, either.”

“Okay,” said Stanton, “If you went to the left, you'd come to the Square in about five kilometers.”

“Alright,” said Nigel.

“Wait,” said Fran.  “We're coming now.”

“But I haven't found anything yet,” said Nigel.

“No,” said Fran, “but you're getting too far away.”  Her voice sounded normal, but they still heard the concern in it.  “Wait for us there.  We should stick together from here on.”

Nigel was in exploring mode and wanted to keep going, but he could see the wisdom in what she said.  “Okay,” he said.  “I'll just look around here while I wait.”

“Good,” said Fran.  “We should only be a few minutes.”  The air was already out of the airlock, so all they had to do was open the door and go.

They had a quick look at the UV lights and decided that Nigel was right.  Someone had set up a makeshift decontamination station right outside their door.  Once again Fran looked at the bags on her hands, and she was beginning to form an idea.

Even with four sets of lights, they could still see what Nigel meant about the darkness.  It seemed to push in wherever their surroundings weren't directly illuminated.  When they turned to fly down the corridor, it felt as if it was closing in behind them.  No one said anything about it.  They just flew quietly for the two or three minutes it took to come to the junction.  When they emerged, they saw Nigel approaching from their right.

“I thought I'd have a look while I waited,” he said.  “I found a side corridor with some rooms off of it.”  He shook his head.  “There was nothing, other than bits of snow.  And all the doors were open.”  He emphasized, “Not just the outer doors.  Every door I saw was open.  Even cabinet doors.”

They pondered that for a moment, then Stanton said, “That makes a kind of sense.  We saw that the doors were open, along with the main hatch, as if they were trying to flush the place out.  If that's true then it would make sense to open inner doors, too.  And even cabinet doors.”

“The question is,” said the Doctor, “what were they so desperate to flush out?”

“Poison?” suggested Stanton.  “Maybe they had some kind of toxic gas leak.”

“An infestation, or an invasion?”  They turned to stare at Nigel and he gamely explained.  “Maybe when we caught the Spy and the crabs, they weren't the only ones.”  They looked sceptical.  “Maybe there was another form factor that we didn't find and it's been replicating for all these centuries.”

They all protested its likelihood, except Fran, who said, “It's a possibility and until we know, we'd better keep it as one.”

“She's right,” said Elgin, and that settled it.  So, as they turned left and headed in the direction of the Square, they kept an eye out for malevolent mechanoids.

In this larger corridor the darkness didn't seem to press in so much.  Even though their lights tended more to get lost in the larger space, the effect wasn't so oppressive.  Their apprehension gave way to simple alertness in the ten minutes it took to fly to the fork, where they could go left for the Square or right for the flashball gallery.

“Which way?” said Fran.

“Square,” they all replied together.  Then Stanton added, “We need to have a look at the Square, but then I think we really need to go and find out why the main hatch is open.”

“Yes, we should,” said Fran, so they went left, heading for the Square.  They flew in silence, each with their own thoughts.  They felt intuitively that if they were going to find anything, any evidence, any people, it would be there.  Imagining what that might be stifled the urge for conversation.  Would there be anything there?  Some grisly scene?  Bodies of their dead fellow citizens?

The reality was both a relief and a disappointment.  They didn't find what they feared, but then they didn't find anything at all.  The statues in the center of the vast space caught their breath as, just for a moment, they looked as if they might be real people.  With the distance and their lights' dancing shadows, they looked as if they were moving.  The five of them froze, then laughed nervously at themselves as their hearts knocked and fluttered.

Even though their lights did more to emphasize the darkness than to illuminate it, it didn't take long to convince themselves that there was nothing of interest in the Square.  Of course, they couldn't be sure that all of the shops and apartments were also empty, but they had the sense that they most likely were.  They had seen enough here, and now it was time to head up to the surface and check out the hatch.

They flew more or less five abreast as long as they were in the larger corridors, but as they ascended and the passages got smaller, they felt more comfortable dropping down to pairs.  By unspoken consensus, Nigel went alone in front, with Fran and Elgin next and Stanton and the Doctor bringing up the rear.  This time they felt no hesitation about talking.

“Has anyone come up with a plausible explanation yet?” asked Fran.

No one had, but Nigel had an observation.  “I feel as if there's no one here,” he said, then laughed at himself.  “Talk about stating the obvious, eh?  As if anyone could survive in this cold and vacuum.”  He tried to think of how he could make himself clear.  “I mean,” he said, “it's like those years I spent searching for the Spy.  Most of the time I felt nothing, but during the last few weeks everything was different.  I had a feeling that something was there.”  He flew silently for a few seconds, then finished with, “This feels more like those years of nothing.”

They didn't argue with him because, when they looked at it, they knew that they felt the same way.  Their quest subtly changed then.  No longer was there any pretense of searching.  Now it was strictly about figuring out what happened.

When they got to the loading bay they weren't surprised, therefore, to find it deserted.  Both airlock doors, the one from the corridor and the one into the bay, were open.  The main hatch, as reported by the instruments, was wide open, giving them a great view of the galaxy.  Nigel flew over to the opening, but the rest of them hung back.  There was something about that much exposure, that lack of containment, that felt dangerous.

It didn't seem to bother Nigel, though.  He flew right across the cavernous bay and out the hatch, where he stopped and looked in all directions.  “Nothing,” he said, still turning slowly.  “But I can see the bubble from here.”  A kilometer away he could see a dome of ice bulging above the surface.  It was the top half of a hollow sphere of ice, half embedded in the comet.  The observation bubble, designed and built by Stanton.  “I'm going to go have a look,” he said, disappearing beyond the edge of the opening.

“Wait up,” said Stanton.  “I'm coming with you.”

Nigel's head popped back into the opening.  “Okay,” he said.

“Me too,” said Fran.  “Come on Elgin.  Doctor.  Let's stick together.”  The three of them trailed after Stanton, the Doctor last.  When they got there the Doctor couldn't bring himself to go outside.  He could get halfway out, but only by hanging onto the edge.

“I'm sorry,” he said.  “I seem to be stuck here.”  He didn't want to look at them.  “You guys go ahead.”

Nigel came over and wrapped his arms around him.  “Let go, Doctor,” he said.  “I've got you.”  When the Doctor managed to make himself let go, Nigel put him into a prone position, stretched out and facing down, then pulled him out over the ground.  “Fly like this,” he said, “close to the ground.”  He let go then, and the Doctor instinctively spread his hands and feet.  “That's good,” he said, “now fly forward.  Just a little flap.”  The Doctor, his wings bound snugly by the pressure suit, imagined giving a little flap and the suit's thrusters pushed him forward.  Nigel kept his voice calm.  “That's right, puff and glide,” he said.  “You're doing great.  Just don't look up and you won't fall off the comet.”

“That's what it is!” said the Doctor.  “I feel like I'm going to fall, but up into the sky.”  He gave another puff and they all began moving in the direction of Stanton's bubble.

“I know,” said Nigel.  “It was the same for me when I started searching for the Spy.  I had to force myself to come out here.  Luckily I had someone show me this trick, and I used to try to fool myself that I was still inside.  That there was a roof over my back.”

The Doctor said, “Yes, that does help.”  He was able to draw in his hands and feet and assume a more graceful flying pose.  “You got over it, though, didn't you?  You seem fine now.”

“No,” said Nigel, “I never got over it.  Not completely.”  He stayed close to the Doctor, within reach, to help him feel safe.  “I still get a strong pang of panic every time.”

“Really?” said the Doctor.  “You felt this fear every time you went out?”  After a moment he said, “If you can do this for fourteen years, then surely I can do it for fifteen minutes.”

Nigel smiled and said, “That's the spirit, Doc.”

Fran, Elgin and Stanton weren't having any such problems.  They were flying along upright, taking in the view.  Most spectacular was the galaxy, of course, with its bright, dense center to their left and up.  It was beautiful.  The frozen fire against the impossible black, and the dark shrouds of dust accentuating the brilliance of billions of stars.  That was spectacular, but more interesting was the glinting dome of Stanton's bubble.

Their eyes were repeatedly drawn down from the spectacle of the sky to the more mundane appearance of a fifteen meter ball of ice.  The view was something, but it was far away.  The bubble was right here and more important.  It might tell them something about their situation, while the stars would be unchanged for millennia.

It wasn't to be, though.  When they got there the bubble was empty.  There was nothing there to tell them anything.  Nothing and no one.  No bodies.  Using their lights they could see that the small door at the back of the sphere was open.

“This doesn't tell us much, does it?” said Fran.  “Does anything stand out for you, Nigel?”

He drew on his deep experience, looking around, opening his senses to anything out of place.  In the end he said, “No.  I don't see anything.”

“Mm-hm,” said Fran, not surprised.  “Anyone else?”

They all said no.

“I thought so,” said Fran.  She hovered there, looking into the empty bubble, then she turned around, scanning the whole horizon.  There was nothing to see other than the big hatch, wide open and lying on the ground.  “I don't think we're going to find anything here,” she said.  “We should go back and start a systematic search.”

They headed back to the opening, no further ahead than they were before they began.

Seven - Laika

On the way back to the Square, Stanton said, “This sure isn't what I expected to find when I woke up this time.”

That earned him an appreciative, though muted, chuckle from his companions.  “I know what you mean,” said Fran.  “Elgin and I thought it was time.”  She looked at him and he nodded.  “When we saw the gray light, we just assumed the three hours was up.”

“Me too,” said Stanton, while Nigel and the Doctor made noises of agreement.  “But in hindsight it seems shorter.”

“It was almost exactly two hours,” said Nigel.  When no one spoke he said, “I got really good at estimating time when I was looking for the Spy.  These suits have a limited capacity, both for propellant and for life support.”

“Of course,” said the Doctor.  “You would have had to be constantly aware of that.  You wouldn't want to be caught running out of air on the far side of the comet.”

“That's right,” said Nigel.  “Of course we have the gauges and alarms, but you tend to develop your own sense of it.  Right now, for instance, we have about ten hours left.”  He caught the Doctor's eye and winked at him.  “It would be more,” he said, “but you used up a little more propellant than you needed to out there.”

The Doctor laughed at himself.  “Not just propellant,” he said.  “I think I was hyperventilating, too.”

That evoked another round of chuckles, then Stanton said, “Two hours, eh?  That means we were only down for twenty-four hundred years.  Nowhere near time yet.”

“No,” said Fran as they arrived at the Square.  “Not something we even remotely need to think about now.”  They pulled up just inside the Square, flanked by two massive red columns.  They all looked at the statues again, then their lights swung over and went questing for the far, yellow end.  They gathered just above the shops, over to the left against the orange wall, at an apartment they all knew well.  Fran cleared her throat and said, “When this is over, I want to sit on that balcony and have tea and biscuits.”

After a moment of silent agreement she said briskly, “We should split up.  I think we've established that there's nothing here, so we can take a chance and speed things up.”

“Agreed,” said Stanton and Nigel together, and Elgin said, “Yes, that sounds right.”

“Okay,” said Fran, “Nigel and I will go to the planning room.  Stanton, you and Elgin check out engineering.  And Doctor, see what you can find at the hospital.”

That sounded reasonable to everyone.  Three important areas, and each suited to their expertise.  They were moving off in their separate directions when Nigel said, “Set your radios to local.  It can be really confusing to hear people talking about things you can't see.”

When they got about a hundred meters apart, before Elgin and Stanton reached their exit, their conversations became local.  Elgin said, “Are you worried about what we're going to find?”

Stanton didn't hear him properly, his mind already at the shop.  “Pardon?” he said.

“I can't stop thinking about what we're going to find,” said Elgin.  “This isn't like the other places we searched.  This is personal.”  He partially turned toward Stanton, flying crab-wise, and said, “How about you?”

Stanton said, “I know what you mean.  I'm not worried, really, just anxious to see.”

Elgin nodded and they were quiet the rest of the way.  They flew between two green columns, down a corridor to the doorway of their shop.  They glanced at each other and Stanton went first through the open door.  Stanton's office door was also open, as was every single compartment in the huge drafting table, and every drawer and cabinet in the place.  There was no other sign of whoever it was who opened them all, though.  There were no more clues to the mystery of the deserted comet.

As they crossed the room and went into Stanton's office, he said, “This is spooky alright.”  He snorted and added, “Imagine what it must be like for the Doctor.  He's got the hospital.”

“Yeah,” said Elgin, realizing.  “And he's alone, too.”

“We'll go help him when we're done here,” said Stanton as he searched his office.  “And I think we're about done.  Let's go.”

“Sure thing,” said Elgin, turning to leave.  “If you don't mind my asking though, what were you looking for?”  When Stanton didn't answer right away, he said, “You didn't just have a quick look.  I thought you were looking for something specific.”

Stanton said, “You're right, I was.  Do you remember that little glass ball I had on my desk?”

“Sure,” said Elgin.  “The pale yellow one.  I always wondered about that.”

“It was my personal memorial to Yellow Comet,” said Stanton.  “Something I could look at when I was remembering them.”

“Oh,” said Elgin.  “Anyone in particular?”

“Yes, but I'd rather not talk about it.”  He said it quietly, but so firmly that Elgin complied with no more questions.  “Anyway,” Stanton finished, “it looks like it's not here.”

“It must have got sucked right out when the place was evacuated,” said Elgin.

Whatever Stanton was going to say was cut off by the Doctor's voice, shaking with emotion as he said, “Everyone, come to the hospital.”

“We're on our way Doctor,” came Fran's voice immediately.  “What is it?”

“Just come,” said the Doctor, then he switched his radio back to local.

Elgin and Stanton rushed out of their shop and down the corridor to the Square, where they saw Fran and Nigel angling across it from their left.  They were heading for the opening in the orange side, opposite green and closest to yellow, that led to the Doctor's office and the hospital.  Their paths converged and met about halfway across.  Fran said, “Did you two find anything?”

“No,” said Elgin.  “Do you have any idea what's going on?”

“No,” said Fran.  They merged and flew on together.  “It must be something, though.  Something serious.”  Her voice got smaller.  “Did you hear him?  The way he sounded?”

“Yes,” he said.  “Not like you do, but I still heard it.”

They hurried on, between the orange columns, up the corridor past the Doctor's office, where they glanced as they went by, all the way to the hospital.  By now they were close enough to talk to the Doctor locally.  “We're in the hospital,” she said.  “Where are you?”

“In the isolation ward,” came the grim reply.

They quickly located that and flew down hallways to the inner recesses of the building.  When they found him, the Doctor turned and held his arms up, getting them to stop.  Then he waved them forward slowly and turned to show them something behind a thick pane of glass.  When their lights filled the room beyond they saw a glass case, and inside that, a person in a pressure suit.

The suit had bags covering its hands and feet, just like theirs, but other than that they couldn't tell anything about it.  They could see through its faceplate that there was someone in the suit, but they couldn't recognize them.  They couldn't have, the face was so swollen, the features so distorted.  Fran asked the Doctor, “Do you have any idea who this is?”

“No,” he said, “there's no indication.  But look at this.”  He pointed at something stuck to the wall beside the window.  A small device.

“That's a recorder,” said Nigel.  “We used them a lot outside.  They have a radio receiver.”

“Do you think,” Fran hesitated momentarily, then, “whoever that is left us a message?”  No one had said it out loud yet, but they all knew that the occupant of the suit was dead.

“That sounds right,” said Elgin.  “But why here, and what are they doing in that glass case?”

“That case is for containment of hazardous materials,” said the Doctor.  “See the armholes?”

They could.  There were holes where an operator could push their hands into gloves to manipulate things inside the case.  “Hazardous materials?” said Stanton.  “Someone put this body into a hazardous materials container?”

“That's what it looks like,” said the Doctor.

They stood looking at the body, wondering about that, then Fran said, “Well, if they left us a message then we'd better listen to it.”

They agreed and Nigel went to operate it.  It was a bit awkward with the bags on his hands, but they were pliable enough to allow him to push the buttons, which were a little large anyway for use in a pressure suit.  “There's still some charge in it,” he said.  “It looks as if it's run right to the end.”

“How much can it hold?” asked Stanton.

“Ten hours,” said Nigel.  “I used to use it as a reminder to start thinking about going in.”  He ran it back a little and played it, but it was silent.  He ran it back a little more.  Still silent.

“I think you might as well start it at the beginning, Nigel,” said Fran.

“Okay,” he said, and made it so.  They all jumped at the burst of loud, labored breathing, and he turned down the gain on the output.  It was quieter, but it was still uncomfortable to listen to.  The occupant of the suit was panting, as if they had just finished running flat out.  It wasn't just the sound of exhaustion, though.  There was panic in it, and fear, and an edge of sadness in the gasping.

The breathing slowed, until it was under control.  “I don't know how long I've got,” they heard.  The voice was strained, as if the speaker was struggling to force it out.  “I'm dying!”  They lost her again for a minute or two, but she fought back until she could say, “This is Laika.  I'm dying and there's so much I need to tell you.”

“Laika!”  Elgin, Fran and Stanton all reacted together.  Fran said, “Then Van must be . . .”

“Van wouldn't let me in,” said Laika.  “He wouldn't let me in!”  She sobbed loudly, but choked it back.  “I'm sorry,” she said.  “I held it together for so long.  I didn't cry.  I didn't cry once while I was . . .”

They waited while she cried now, in long, wracking sobs.  Elgin looked at Fran and saw her empathic sadness overcoming her.  He went to her and put an arm around her.  “I know,” he said.

She was blinking and shaking her head, trying to get the tears out of her eyes.  “Take my advice,” she said, “and never cry in one of these suits.”  With her hand ineffectually trying to help through the faceplate, she blotted her face on the absorbant pads at the sides of her helmet.  Elgin gave her a squeeze.

Laika came back again.  “I've got to do this,” she said.  “I didn't get this far to fall apart now.”  Her voice became hard and fierce, almost angry.  “This is too important to waste on self indulgence.”  She took a couple of sharp breaths.  “Okay.  I was outside inspecting our external structures.  The seal around the hatch and so on.”  She sounded as if she was speaking through a clenched jaw.  “I was alone.  It was a simple job and I was done in about six hours.”  She paused.

Nigel said, “That sounds about right.”

When she spoke again, Laika was quieter.  “When I tried to come back in, I couldn't get out of the airlock.  The inside door wouldn't open.”  She took several deep breaths.  “Van had locked it and he wouldn't let me in.”  Her voice broke and they lost her again for a while.

“Could he do that?” Fran asked Nigel.

“Yes,” he said.  “It's possible to lock the inner door so it can't be opened from the outside.”

Laika was back.  “I knew he was there.  I heard his voice.  But at first he didn't make any sense.”  She swallowed, then continued, her voice shaking.  “He just kept saying over and over that he loved me,” she said.  “I love you.  I love you.”  She faded into a whisper, then was silent for a short while.  “Finally he had a moment of clarity and he told me what happened.”

It started about two hours after she went out, as far as she could figure it out.  It must have been at the hospital, because the doctors were among the earliest deaths.  Maybe one of them was the first to get sick, or maybe someone felt ill and went to get help.  The first person died within three hours, and everyone they'd been near was already very sick.  The pathogen was obviously airborne and incredibly virulent.

“Van saw what was happening, and he felt himself catching it,” said Laika.  “He knew I'd be coming back in soon and he rushed up to the hatch to lock me out.”  Her voice was choked off by tears again, and they had to endure some minutes of her pain.

Elgin said, “Is that possible, Doctor?  Could something spread that fast?  And kill that fast?”

“Theoretically, I suppose,” said the Doctor.  “I can't say much without examining a patient and putting some samples under a microscope, but in a small, closed environment like this, yes, it's just possible that just the right mutation could do this.”

Laika had herself under control again.  “By the time I got there,” she said, “he was . . .”  She swallowed hard a few times.  “He was near the end.  One minute he knew what was happening and the next he had no idea.  He would know who I was and then he acted as if he was afraid of me.”

That made them wonder what was in store for them.  Would they witness a similar deterioration in Laika?  Would she be able to finish her story before they lost her?  Fran hugged herself and squeezed more tightly under Elgin's arm.

“I could have gone out and found another way in,” said Laika, “but I didn't want to leave Van.  I stayed there in the airlock, talking to him through the door.  I tried to convince him to let me in.  I promised I would keep my suit on.”  She expelled an exasperated breath through her nose.  “He locked me out to protect me, but by then he didn't trust me.”  She sighed.  “This sickness does something to your mind.  I can feel it myself.”  They were left for a moment to wonder what she was feeling.  “Why didn't Van just call me on the radio?  Why did he wait for me to come in?  Now that I can feel it, it makes perfect sense to me.”

They all looked at the Doctor, who nodded grimly, his expression stony behind his faceplate.

Laika laughed.  “Why didn't I leave you a message at the Hibernarium?  Why didn't I leave you some better clues?”  She laughed again, sardonic and bitter.  “First, I had a lot of work to do, so it could wait.  Things kept coming up that were more important, so I put it off.  Eventually, it began to feel as if I shouldn't tell you.  As if that would jeopardize things somehow.”  One more laugh.  “Fortunately I had a lucid moment, and I set up this recorder.”

Elgin glanced at Fran and saw a small smile trying to push up through the grief.  She looked at him and he saw some relief in her eyes.  He felt his own face relax.

“Van let me in at last.”  Laika's voice sounded tired.  “He made me promise to keep my suit on.  Made me swear it out loud.”  She told them the whole story then.  How after she went out, people began getting sick.  How they died within hours of showing symptoms.  All of them.  Van told her of the panic and desperation that swept the comet along with the sickness.  “Then he got sick,” she said.  “It took awhile to notice, and a little longer to admit it, but then he went straight up and locked me out.”  Sadly and proudly she said, “He thought it was the only way to save me, and the comet itself.

“I was able to hold him as he died,” said Laika quietly.  “I held him and I promised that I would do whatever it took to protect the comet.”  And she did.  When her lover died, she put his body in the loading bay, and flew down into the comet to look for more.  “I found every one,” she said.  “I checked the census and made sure that I didn't miss anyone.”  Her voice got even quieter.  “A few of them were still alive and I left them for later.  I tried to comfort them, but I couldn't.  I felt like I had to hurry, so most of them I left to die alone.”  She had to stop talking again.

When she was able to continue, she said, “The worst was the children.  It was so sad.  I found some clinging to their parents' bodies.  Others were hiding under their beds or in closets.”  She took a deep, ragged breath and released it in a long sigh.

In an exhausted monotone, she quickly finished her story.  When she had all the bodies in the loading bay, she sealed herself in the airlock and opened the big hatch, letting the outrushing air carry them away.  “I talked to them first,” she said.  “I told them we'd never forget them and that we'd survive and carry on in their memory.”

That all took a few days, which meant she had to have somewhere that she could take off her pressure suit and replenish its consumables.  “I used some rooms that were sealed off from the rest of the comet.  Down by the Hibernarium, where you woke up.”  She set up the ad hoc UV decontamination station and got into the routine of sleeping there, and going out every day to do her grisly duty.  “Everything was going fine,” she said.  “I cleared all the bodies out and started an orderly shutdown of the comet's systems.”  She directly addressed Stanton.  “I hope I did all right,” she told him.

“Yes,” he said.  He cleared his throat.  “Yes, you did.”

“Then I started to feel sick.  At first I thought it was just exhaustion.  That I was working myself too hard.  Or maybe I was having a reaction to the stress.”  They heard her sardonic laugh again.  “No such luck.  I'd been infected.”  Her breathing quickened and her speech became hurried and clipped.  “I knew I didn't have much time.  I thoroughly disinfected your rooms and then I ran all over the place making sure everything was okay.  I cursed my foolishness when I figured out how I infected myself.”

It was the setae on the boots and the gloves of her pressure suit.  By chance, some bacteria got in amongst them and were protected from the UV radiation.  “That's when I put the bags on,” she said.  “And on your suits.”  Her voice became earnest, almost cross.  “Don't take them off!” she said.  “Don't you dare.”

Fran looked at the bags on her hands again.  “Don't worry Laika,” she said, “we won't.”

“When I'd done everything I could think of, I came here.  I set up the recorder and put it outside this room, so I couldn't get at it in case I got paranoid like the others.”  She was business-like now, simply relating the facts.  She said to the Doctor, “I thought it would be good if you had a specimen to work with.  Our doctors died before they could do anything.”

The Doctor, impressed by her resourcefulness and moved by her courage, said, “It is good.  You did the right thing.”

“I brought you five up because you saved us once before.”  They could hear her smiling at the thought.  “If I'd been thinking, I probably could have picked a more logical mix of people, but by then I was running on panic and instinct.”  Her voice was getting weaker and her breathing shallower.  “I think I'm going now,” she whispered.  “I can't see any more and I can't really tell if I'm talking out loud.”  With a burst of urgency she said, “When you're done with me.  With my body.  Send me outside.  Send me out with Van.  Please.  Please.”  She faded away and they could hear nothing but her labored breathing getting weaker and weaker.

They could have turned the machine off.  It was obvious that she had said all she could.  They wouldn't, though.  They stood and listened while she died, knowing it was their duty to her.  She had been alone then, and the least they could do was show their respect now, and honor her bravery.

Eight – The Statues

“Well, we did it again,” said the Doctor, running his hand back over his head as if in amazement.

“Checking to see if your hair's growing back, Doc?” asked Galatea.

Eight voices laughed, including the Doctor's, even though he was blushing.  He put his hand on his head again, miming a search for his missing hair, and gave everyone permission to laugh some more.  He winked at Galatea.

He was right, though.  They had done it again.  After listening to Laika's recording, the first thing they did was bring up the other three:  Galatea, Buzzard and Maria.  Then, on the Doctor's instructions, they brought up two of their best microbiologists and two more people to work as lab technicians.  He did the preliminary work, taking samples from Laika's body and culturing them, preparing everything for the experts.  He was sure it was a normally harmless bacterium turned pathogenic by a fluke combination of mutations, but it would be up to them to find the exact problem and decide what to do about it.

Until they did, no one else would be brought up.  Until they identified the problem and prescribed a solution, no one else would be put in danger.  So, while the four scientists worked in the lab, the eight of them worked slowly and methodically, disinfecting one room at a time.  They knew from experience that the microbe was susceptible to UV radiation.  It's what they used to decontaminate their pressure suits and, except for the setae problem that had killed Laika, it was more than adequately effective.

They closed the big hatch, which gave everyone an irrational sense of relief.  It didn't pose any danger to them, being open, and it wasn't accomplishing anything by being shut.  It wasn't as if there was anything out there that might get in through the open hatch.  And it wasn't needed to keep anything in, either.  They were pressurizing each room as they cleaned it, gradually growing their living space, but they weren't going to put air anywhere else until the problem was solved.  Still, closing the hatch made everyone feel better.

The Doctor looked down from the balcony at a small knot of people clustered in front of a display screen on the orange wall.  “That was a good idea,” he said, referring to the permanent public link with their sister comet.  “It's done wonders for morale.”

“Yes,” said Fran.  “I don't know why we didn't think of it before.  We've had the capability for a long time now.”

“I think it was just how we thought of it,” said Nigel.  “As a communication device, like radio.  Something that takes place in its own room, in the background.”  He tipped his head at the small crowd.  “It took something extraordinary to let us see it as a more social connection.”

They were quiet, contemplating their new future and what it took to make it possible.  When Green Comet was finally disinfected and once again fit for habitation, the people would have this open connection with Orange Comet's square.  Effectively, they would become one village.  They could only imagine what would come of it.

The job of disinfecting the comet was proceeding at a satisfactory pace.  Once the microbiologists identified the genetic mutations in the pathogen, it was a straightforward matter of devising a way to kill any spores that survived the evacuation.  Then they had to suggest a plan for preparing their immune systems for the emergence of any similar organisms, and a way to test the comet's microbiome for signs of future mutations.

The eradication of the pathogen was accomplished with a specially engineered bacteriophage.  Their artificial virus would infect the bacterial cell, altering its DNA to cause it to become bioluminescent.  Then it would multiply inside it before killing it as they burst out looking for more.

The bioluminescence made it easy to find the spots that needed cleaning.  First, they would pressurize the room and release the phage to do its work.  Next, they would treat it with UV.  Then the cleanup crew, in pressure suits complete with bags, just in case, could go in and remove the glowing remains.  After that they considered the space fit for habitation.  By now, the Square and all the shops and apartments on it were done and they were working their way outward.  They were already up to a population of one hundred, and the eight were beginning to think about going back down.

“Those biologists you picked worked out well, didn't they Doctor?” said Elgin.  “It didn't take them long to figure it out.”

“They sure did,” said the Doctor, “but all I did was pick the ones with the best credentials.”  His attention was caught by a group of people coming into the Square through the red end, laughing and jostling.  He assumed it was a cleanup crew coming off shift.  “I loved your idea of bringing up people who were due for their twenty percent for the cleanup crew.  It was brilliant.”

“Thanks,” said Elgin, grinning.  “I know how good it feels to have that obligation done.”  He was referring to the rule that everyone must spend twenty percent of their time working at undesirable jobs.  “I just helped them get around to it, that's all.”  He had interviewed them as they awoke.  “Most of them were glad to do it.  Wished they'd got around to it sooner, they said.  Those who weren't, I made crew bosses, reporting to me.”

“How did that turn out?” asked Stanton with a smirk.

“Not so bad,” laughed Elgin.  “Some of them even came around, eventually.  When they saw how serious it was, well, they got serious about it themselves.”

“What about the rest of them?”

“There were only two or three who never got it.  I demoted them and put someone who did in charge.”  He shook his head.  “One of them had the gall to complain about it.  He said, 'This isn't what I signed up for.'”  Eight heads were shaking now.

Down at the other end of the Square, the cleanup crew looked up at the apartment, as people did when they came in.  Seeing the balcony was occupied, they stopped horsing around and proceeded to their destination in an orderly fashion.

“That's too bad,” said Fran when she noticed it.  “It was nice to see a little exuberance at last.  It's been quite a grind.”

“Yes,” said Nigel.  “They need a chance to unwind.”

Elgin was watching the crew, his head minutely nodding.  “You're right,” he said.  “I'll find a way to let them know it's okay.”  He smiled.  “Maybe we need a little flashball.  How about an informal game here in the Square?”

“That's a great idea!” said Fran.

“It wouldn't be like a real game,” said Elgin.  “No shell to keep the ball in, for one thing.”  He looked around the Square, sizing up likely playing areas.  “It could be a pickup game, always going, with people joining and dropping out all the time.”

Fran saw him looking for a place to set it up and said, “How about right here?  In this corner.”  He eyed the area and her speculatively.  “Sure,” she said.  “It's about sixty meters from the corner to the first corridors.  I'm sure they could work with that.”

He was nodding his head now.  “Okay,” he said.  “It will be a little like using your galoshes for goalposts, but that's what we want anyway.  Just a bit of informal fun.”

“That's right,” she said.  “And we'll have the best seats in the house, too.”

He laughed at her.  They all did.  “Just coincidentally, of course,” he said.

“Of course,” she assured them all, her face radiating patently false sincerity.

They all enjoyed the moment, then Maria said, “Buzzard has something he wants to talk about.”  That made them realize how quiet he had been.  Normally he would have joined the chatter, especially when it got onto flashball, so their curiosity was aroused.  They focused on Buzzard.

He was having trouble getting started, opening and closing his mouth, his eyes darting around.  He looked into Maria's dark eyes for guidance.

She took his hand and said softly, “You were exploring.”

That steadied him and gave him a starting point.  “I was exploring,” he said.  “I went out to the reservoir.  The Swimming Hole.  I heard it plugged the corridor.  The water.  Plugged the corridor.”  During the evacuation, when the air was rushing out of the comet, the forty meter blob of water drifted to the opening and, while it froze, extruded into the corridor.  “It was interesting,” said Buzzard.  “I guess the water was being pushed from behind while it froze.  Very interesting fracture pattern.  Fracture planes.”

Maria squeezed his hand, bringing him back to the point of his story.

“Right, sorry,” he said sheepishly.  “I found something else.”  His voice was quiet.  “I found a hummingbird nest.  You know how we made protrusions for them to build nests?”  They all said they did.  “Well, I found one, and the nest was still there.  It must have been built really well, to stay in all that wind.”

Maria squeezed his hand again.

With his face serious, Buzzard said, “There was a bird in it.  A hummingbird.  Still in the nest.”  He swallowed.  “It was frozen solid.  Its feet were hanging on tight.  It had . . .”  He paused, swallowing again.  “It had two chicks under it.  It was protecting its babies.”

“Aw, Buzzard,” said Fran, saying out loud what they all felt.

“It was so brave,” he said.  “It reminded me of Laika.”

“Yes,” said Fran, “Laika.  She was brave.”  She got up and made the rounds with tea and biscuits.  “As the Doctor said, it looks like our job is done here.  We should be thinking of getting back to the Hibernarium.”  She turned and looked at the Square, particularly at its center, where four statues were grouped.  The original three of her and Elgin and Nigel had been joined by one of Buzzard, his fluid form captured so well that it looked as if it was about to swoop away.  “But there's one more thing I need to do before I go down.”  She pointed.  “We need another statue.”

“That's right,” said Elgin.  “Laika.”

Nine – The Assembly

Elgin and Frances jumped off their balcony and glided out across the Square.  A buzz swept through the assembled citizens as the two soared over their heads.  Everyone could see the clock, so they all knew how much time was left, but their arrival made it official.

They landed in the center of the Square, at the statues, where they were meeting the rest of the eight.  They could have met anywhere because the view would be equally good from any position, but the people wanted them there, in their midst.  In addition to the eight, this place of honor was also reserved for others instrumental in the planning and execution of this event.  Among them was Winston, once again head of the planning committee.

When Elgin and Frances landed, Winston was there to welcome them, both with words and warm embraces.  Such was the mood of this place at this time that even the normally reserved Winston was moved to express it.  Elgin felt a little awkward, not because of the open display, but because of his memory of what he did to Winston those many centuries ago when they were trying to deal with the arrival of the Visitor.

Frances had a plan then that required a radical sacrifice, and Winston was opposed to it.  Elgin's efforts on Fran's behalf, he now realized, might have been a little intense.  He'd been told his face did something.  Something scary.  Winston was only one of several people he frightened into early hibernation, and once he realized it he always felt uncomfortable around him.

With his large, wide mouth smiling, Winston clasped Elgin's hand and said, “I can tell by the look on your face that you're still worried about my early hibernation.”

Elgin, speechless, glanced at Fran, then down at his feet.

“Well, don't worry about it,” said Winston.  “It all worked out for the best.”  He could see it wasn't helping much, so he added, “Besides, it was just as much about me as you.”  He was encouraged when Elgin looked up, curious.  “Yes.  I think I knew instinctively that Frances was right, but my rational mind knew just as strongly that she was wrong.  I believe I was running away from that conflict as much as anything.”

Elgin's expression cleared a little, and he nodded.  “Thanks, Winston,” he said.  “That helps a lot, but I still feel bad.”  He shook his head.  “What bothers me is that I didn't know what was happening.  That I could cause such trouble without even realizing it.”

“Well,” said Winston, “that's between you and your conscience.  I can't do anything about that, but I just want you to know that I don't blame you at all.”

Elgin nodded again, accepting that, and took Winston's hand again.  “Thank you,” he said, “that really does help.”  Winston smiled and Fran slipped her arm through Elgin's, a look of quiet satisfaction on her face.  She was glad to see that resolving itself at last.

They found themselves looking at the statues.  Elgin's grimace on seeing his was habitual by now, and no longer held much emotion.  When he looked at Fran he saw that she was looking at her statue with a small, quizzical frown.  She saw him looking and asked, “Does it really look like me?”

“No,” he said.  “Well, yes, but it's wrong.”  He looked around for help.

Winston's chuckle rumbled up out of his chest.  “Elgin's right,” he said.  “It does look like you but it's wrong for the situation.”

“That's right!” said Elgin.  “You're supposed to be debating here and you didn't look like that during the debates.”

“Really?” said Fran.

Winston chuckled again.  “That doesn't look like the woman that I was debating against.  This is much too soft and kindly for that.”

Fran was shocked.  “Was I mean to you?”

“No!” said Winston.  “You were just determined.  You knew you were right and you had to save us.”

“That's right,” said Elgin.  “Determined is a good word.  You were resolved and energized.  Your face was hard like ice and full of fire at the same time.”

“Why didn't they show that in my statue, then?”

“I don't know,” said Elgin.  “Maybe they didn't want to frighten the children.”

Fran punched his shoulder and Winston laughed.

Elgin looked at Nigel's statue next, standing a ways off from theirs and looking at them.  At Fran, he reminded himself.  Nigel's statue was looking at Fran's statue with devotion and duty, which Elgin had finally realized was exactly right.  He nodded, and he felt Fran squeeze his arm.

Together they turned to look at Buzzard's statue, on the other side of theirs, and broke into wide smiles.  They heard Winston's rumble behind them, and knew he was looking too.  You couldn't help it.  When you looked at Buzzard's statue, you just felt happier.  Its face, with its delighted grin, was turned up.  Its wings were just beginning to open and it looked as if it was about to swoop away.  It was Buzzard, alright.

Finally, set back a few meters behind the others, was Laika's statue.  It had its feet planted firmly on the ground and a plain, no-nonsense expression on its face.  There had been some discussion, with an actual debate, about whether she should be wearing a pressure suit.  In the end they decided against it.  Something they did agree on, as suggested by Buzzard, was the hummingbird sitting on her shoulder.

Elgin and Frances stood there with Winston, the muted roar of the waiting crowd surrounding them as they thought about the past, and about the near future.

Ten – Good-Bye Orange

After Laika saved Green Comet, and they got the ball rolling on her statue, the eight went back down to finish their big sleep.  While they were sleeping, both before and after Laika, the paths of the two comets were diverging.  They had decided that it would be more efficient, and would increase their chances, if they headed for two different stars.

They chose the two closest neighbors to their old home star, one of which was more or less in the direction they were already headed, while the other was about ninety degrees over.  Their reasoning was that the Visitor, once finished with their star, would set out for another.  They didn't know which one it would be, but logic suggested it would be the nearest one, all else being equal.  The Visitor might include other criteria in its decision, such as the star's type or its proximity to other stars, but their choices were limited.  This is where they were and these were the stars within reach.

They had to make assumptions about the intentions of the Visitor's creators, and about how those intentions were being carried out by the deranged creation now.  They couldn't be sure how accurate the assumptions were, but they could be sure of one thing.  Judging by the Visitor's size, their star wasn't the first to be visited, and it wouldn't be the last.

It felt as if they were losing them.  They could feel Orange Comet getting farther away, inexorably, every day.  So it was surprising what little effect it had on their relationship.  They still had the same open, real-time communication through the displays in their squares, where people could go to talk face to face whenever they wanted.  But where once they could have crossed the space between them in twenty years or less, now they knew that would soon be impracticable.

That was why they gave everyone the chance before it was too late.  Over the course of one hibernation cycle, everyone on Green Comet was given the choice, during their waking, of emigrating to Orange.  They set a limit of three thousand, which would have equalized their populations at seven thousand, but in the end only two thousand went.  They had many reasons for wanting to go, but the most popular was to be with someone they'd met through the cosmic ray connection.  Some of the emigrants were Francesians, who went for their own reasons, but they were made just as welcome as everyone else.

Now their paths were diverging and the distance between them was growing.  Any bonds formed through the window, as they came to call it, would be forever virtual.  The connection between the comets was unchanged, but forever changed.

The window grew over the years.  What began as a screen not much more than two meters across was now sixty meters wide and five meters high.  It filled the space between the two sets of orange columns, from just above the shops up to the friezes that ran along the wall at the tops of the columns.  It made for a very large window onto Orange's square, which was replicated on their side.  The two squares became one big space, in all but one way.  You couldn't actually cross over, though the illusion was strong.

The displays were made of tiny, micrometer-sized machines.  They self-assembled, moving into position and linking together to form a continuous surface.  They made a functioning display at every stage of construction, just growing in area slowly over time.  It was a very high fidelity image, close enough to the real thing that two people conversing through the window could momentarily forget.  What really helped make that so was that they could both look directly into each other's eyes, just as they would in person.

The micro tools, which projected light to make an image, could also receive light.  Every one was both a tiny projector and a tiny camera.  By making the black pupils of the eyes of each person's image into cameras, it was easy to produce the illusion of talking to someone eye to eye.

Green Comet arrived at its destination first.  Decades of running a large thruster altered their trajectory and brought them to a stop at the boundary of the Oort Clouds of their old star and the new one.  Relative to the rest of the galaxy they were still moving, as were the two stars.  Relative to those stars they were fixed at a position on a direct line halfway between them.  Orange had a few thousand years of travelling to do before it could set up in a similar position on the way to its star.

Once established, Green began the next phase, which was to collect comets.  They got very good at detecting them, especially after they retrieved the first one and could set up a very long baseline telescope array.  It helped that they were searching more or less in the direction of the galaxy's dense center, and they had a bright background against which they could see their targets moving.  As they mapped them they found that the comets weren't randomly distributed.  They detected faint ribbons of slightly higher density separated by volumes of slightly emptier space.  It made predicting where they'd find them a little easier.

They gradually accumulated comets, mostly in the one kilometer range.  Really large comets, on the scale of Green and Orange, didn't seem to grow out here.  The majority were small, oddly shaped things, but there were enough of the ones they wanted that they could pick up one or two per century.  Their collection of comets grew and someone dubbed it Cloud City.  The name stuck.

They continued to watch their old star all this time.  There was always at least one telescope trained on it, and plenty of people ready to work on the instrument and the data it collected.  They watched as their star dimmed, losing about one percent of its brightness as it was obscured by a build-up of dust.  They attributed that to the Visitor as it plundered the system, raising a cloud of dust while it cracked moons and ground up asteroids.

“It makes you wonder what's going on there, doesn't it?” said Stanton as he and Elgin worked a shift on the telescope.

“It sure does,” said Elgin.  “I wouldn't mind going over there and having a look.”

Stanton laughed.  “Just pop over for a quick look, eh?”

Elgin laughed too, but said, “I'm serious though.  Once we're in a position to spare the time and resources, I think we should send a mission over.  Even if it's just robots.”

“Careful,” said Stanton.  “We know what happens when someone sends a robot out like that.”

They certainly did know.  Their planet, their entire species, save those on the two comets, were destroyed by one.  It was ravaging their old home so severely that it was raising enough dust to dim their star.  Elgin examined his feelings about that and was surprised to find that they were less intense than before.  There was still powerful regret and anger, but they were becoming removed, as if they were about something historical that happened to someone else.  He asked Stanton, “Do you still feel the same about it?”

“About what?” asked Stanton.  “The mindless machine that destroyed our world and drove us away from our star?”  He was being facetious, but there was a hard edge to it.

“Well, yes,” said Elgin.

“Put it this way,” said Stanton.  “If I had my hands on the engineers who built that machine, I probably wouldn't kill them now.”

“Probably?” said Elgin.

“Yes, but no promises,” said Stanton.  “I probably would have killed them before, but probably not now.  So no, I guess I don't feel the same about it.”

That was a different way of looking at it, but essentially the same feeling.  “Me neither,” said Elgin, but he was still puzzled.  “How can that happen, though?  It's still just as bad.”

“I know what you mean,” said Stanton.  “It's probably a self-defence mechanism.  If we carried all our feelings around forever at their full intensity . . .”  He shrugged.  “I don't think we'd last long.”

“No, I guess you're right.  That would be like a kind of insanity.”  Elgin frowned.  “But my feelings for Fran are just as strong as when we first met.  Stronger, even.”

Stanton winked at him.  “The Visitor happened a long time ago.  Fran is still happening.”

“That's right,” said Elgin, struck again by how lucky he was.

Green Comet separated from Orange Comet, crossed interstellar space, parked itself between their old star and the new one and began collecting comets, building Cloud City.  All the while, telescopes were trained on their old home, keeping tabs as best they could on the Visitor.  That's why they were so quick to detect the subtle changes, and hence prepared for the less subtle one.

Their telescopes were programmed to respond to the appearance of laser light, so when they spotted a well-known frequency of coherent photons, they sounded the alarm.  This was the signal they were waiting for.  The Visitor was on the move, and since the light was coming their way, so was it.  Given what they knew about the power of the laser, and the Visitor's light sail technology, it would be upon them in mere decades.

Eleven – Preparing the Message

The majority of the people in the Square had four arms, and most of them had bioluminescent blushes.  The bioglow was more prevalent than the altered limbs, even though they both were nearly universal when people first made the changes.  A sizeable minority ended up changing back and replacing their second arms with legs, while a much smaller minority reversed the bioluminescence.  Even though lower arms were much more useful and practical than legs, some people just couldn't get used to them.  When asked, they often rationalized their choice by saying, “What if we find a planet?  I'll need legs then.”  They were just rationalizing the choice already made by their emotions, though.  The truth was, they never felt comfortable with their new profile.

The resulting diversity meant that Elgin and Frances and the rest of the eight didn't stand out as unusual.  None of them had second arms or lights in their faces, but that wasn't something that turned heads.  Maybe it went against probability, that of eight people none had either enhancement, but it wasn't strange enough to be remarkable.

Galatea still thought about doing the arms.  They would be useful in her work, finishing and polishing their iceworks, but mostly she liked to tease Stanton about being able to hold onto him twice as hard.  It worked every time.  Buzzard and Maria sometimes talked about having the bioglow done, to better share their feelings with each other, but they never got around to it.  They didn't want to be the only ones.  The Doctor and Nigel had no good reason for it, and the Doctor, with all the skin exposed by his bald head, especially didn't need his blush illuminated.

It was noisy in the Square, with so many people sharing the anticipation.  Fortunately there was enough space in there to accommodate the sound pressure, and if they had been spread out evenly, it wouldn't have seemed loud at all.  But they were all down on the floor, crowded together for the show, and eight thousand people can be a noisy crowd.  Normal conversation can create quite a buzz, and voices raised by excitement can create a din.

The eight, ten now with Winston and another old acquaintance, Minder, had to form a circle and put their heads together to hold a conversation without shouting.  Minder, who was Elgin's minder for what might have been his most crucial waking, had kept both the bioluminescence and the lower arms.  Elgin made a point of greeting him and catching up, both of them wondering how they could have bumped into each other so rarely in several millennia.  Then Galatea horned in, wanting to talk about second hands, and Buzzard and Maria got close so they could have a look at Minder's bioglow.  With all the attention, he was able to demonstrate it repeatedly.

A soft gong chimed and the roar of conversation stopped abruptly as people turned to look at the display screens and the timer above them.  The public address system said, “Ten minutes to transmission.  Ten minutes.”  The gong sounded again.

The circle of friends looked at each other, their faces showing anticipation and apprehension, then they all turned to look at Buzzard.  He reacted with a nervous grin, drifting closer to Maria, who slipped her arm through his and held his hand.  He was in charge of the team tasked with aiming and synchronizing the transmitters, and they all wanted to be reassured yet again that everything was ready.

Frances smiled at him and spoke for everybody.  “Are you having any last minute thoughts?”

“About three per second,” he joked, smiling back at her, “but they're all things we already took care of.”  He looked around the circle.  “Don't worry,” he said.  “It's all done.  All ten.  All good.”

They were reassured.  That was the formula, the method that Buzzard used to verify the correctness of things.  He analyzed the plans and the numbers to a depth of detail the rest of them could only imagine, going through the most important things ten times before declaring them done.  This was after they were passed under Elgin's eye to see if they looked right.  It simply wasn't possible to test them any more rigorously.

Buzzard's crew had a complicated job.  Each of the thirty-one comets they collected was a part of the system they'd be using to send their message.  They all had to be synchronized so everything arrived at the same place at the same time.  That's where the thirty-one telescopes came in.  With the comets all arrayed within a one degree radius of the center line of the Visitor's flight path, they had what was effectively a single telescope with an enormous aperture.  It was good enough that, even with only starlight, they could image the Visitor for display in the Square.  Not a perfect image, but good enough, especially considering that it was still about two hundred million kilometers away.

In addition, there was also Green Comet itself, with its instruments, waiting two million kilometers off to the side.  With thirty-two of everything, spread out the way they were, and the target of their message moving at a tenth of the speed of light, this was a very complicated calculation.  Fortunately they didn't have to worry about the timing.  With every comet holding its share of their entangled gold atoms, all vibrating to exactly the same beat, they had the best clock ever seen.  It was as if all the comets were parts of the same machine.

It looked very complex, but Buzzard was able to be confident because their data were good and their equipment was precise.  “In the end,” he said, “it all came down to simple numbers, and it was just a matter of working them out.”

They all nodded sagely, and Stanton said, “Uh-huh.”

“Well, it did,” insisted Buzzard.  “It might have been complicated, but at its heart it was simple.”  They were smiling at him, obviously not about to take his word for that.  “Really,” he said.  “Anyone could have done it.  Anyone.  Simple.”

Fran finally took pity on him, changing the subject.  “When did you guys start calling the comets Cloud City?”

“I don't know,” said Buzzard, relieved.  “I know where I first heard it, but he doesn't remember where he heard it.  And no one's taking credit for inventing it.”

“That's too bad,” said Fran, “because it's perfect.”

“Well,” said Elgin, “maybe it's good that way.”

“How so?” asked Fran.

Elgin couldn't answer right away.  He had a sense that it was right, but he hadn't thought about how to justify it.  He shrugged.

“Maybe some things should just be a mystery,” ventured Minder, who blushed prodigiously when all eyes turned to him.

Elgin nodded.  “I think that's what I meant.  It sounds right.”

Fran agreed.  “It does,” she said.

Further discussion was cut off by the gong sounding again.  The voice said, “One minute to transmission.  One minute.”

The din got quieter, but there was still a buzz of tense conversation.  Everyone turned to look at the clock and the display screens, a big one showing a blurry image of the Visitor, and thirty-one smaller ones for the comets of Cloud City.  Some people were already counting down, and they could hear them on the other side of the window, in Orange's square, doing the same thing.

From the Orange side they could see Green's square through the sixty meter window, and the circle of friends gathered among the statues at its center.  They all knew Fran, perhaps more than some cared to, thanks to the Francesians, and everyone knew about the Five, although they couldn't all name them.  Only the most enthusiastic afficionados could name the full eight, and virtually no one knew who Winston and Minder were.

It wasn't possible for all six thousand of them to see through the window, so they had the same displays on the wall above it, and a clock keeping perfect time with Green's.  As the clock counted down the seconds, the people of Orange kept time with it and with the people chanting on the Green side.  More of them came in at thirty seconds, and beginning at ten they were all shouting the numbers in unison, strong echoes filling their squares.

When the clock struck zero, the only visible change was the appearance of thirty-two green lights indicating that all of the transmitters had worked as they should.  A lot of nervous laughter broke their expectant silence.

Twelve – Sending the Message

The Visitor was still ten light minutes away, or more accurately, eleven light minutes.  At one tenth of the speed of light, it would cover that eighteen million kilometers in the ten minutes it took their message to get there.  It was that kind of thing that complicated Buzzard's calculations.  He and his team had to ensure that the Visitor, moving at one tenth light speed, and their message, at almost the speed of light, arrived at the same place at the same time.  Even at one thousandth of a second, the Visitor would cover thirty kilometers in the duration of the message.

They had confirmation that the message was successfully sent.  All thirty-one parts from Cloud City and the one from Green Comet reported that they functioned exactly as planned, accurate to fourteen decimal places.  That should keep the results well within the margins they allowed themselves, but they wouldn't know for sure for another twenty minutes.  It would be ten minutes before the Visitor got the message, and another ten before they would learn of any reaction.

Everyone was up for this.  All eight thousand people on Green Comet and all six thousand on Orange were out of hibernation and gathered in their squares to witness their first response to the Visitor.  All they could do before, when the Visitor was destroying their world and killing their people, was hide and hope it wouldn't find them.  They had to stifle their grief and rage because it was the only way they could survive, and by then survival was the greatest victory they could expect.

Not now.  Not any more.  This stupid, insane machine couldn't be allowed to destroy any more worlds.  They were done hiding.  Green and Orange comets were going to put a stop to it, one way or another.  They had a message for the Visitor: its explorations must stop.  They had intercepted enough of its communications to analyze and decipher its language.  They knew now that it was a real language and not just information passing from one machine to another.  It was crude, showing no sophistication at all.  Its vocabulary was small.  If the immediate needs of the Visitor's mission weren't involved, there probably wasn't a word for it.  Even so, it exposed the self-centered and blindly entitled nature of its thinking.

The linguists were able to find their way back to its roots, when it was simple communication of information.  They could almost deduce the instructions given to the small robot when it was sent out to explore the stars.  They could see how the instructions grew and evolved, as the Visitor grew into a twenty kilometer long behemoth lumbering from star to star, its original mission mutated into an eternal cycle of discovery and destruction.  Now they were going to make this stand, directly between the Visitor and its next victim.  They were going to tell it, in its own language, that it had to stop.

Once again the gong sounded in both squares, and their perfectly synchronized public address systems said, “One minute to contact.  One minute.”

There was another countdown, but it wasn't as enthusiastic as the first one.  Elgin could hear more children's voices this time, as they carried on at full volume while many of the adults weren't participating.  He and his friends among the statues simply watched the clock, none of them besides Buzzard counting, and even he only came in at ten and not very loudly at that.

When the clock hit zero and flipped over to begin the final ten minutes, Elgin found himself staring at the displays of the comets.  Each one had a name under it.  Thirty-one names for the thirty-one people who surrendered to despair when the Visitor destroyed their home.  The thirty-one suicides.  Elgin felt their despair, and he once again felt the anger toward the Visitor, who caused it.  And the morbid pride when their bodies served in their bid for survival.  But he was feeling something else, too.  Was that guilt?  Why would he feel guilty?

Fran saw the question in his face.  “What's up?” she asked.

He pointed with his chin.  “It's those names,” he said.  “The people who died.”

“Yes,” she said, nodding.  “It always makes me feel sad to think of them.”  She sighed.  “If only we could have done more to help them.”

“That's it,” said Elgin.  “I feel bad that they killed themselves and I didn't do anything to stop it.”

“But we did,” said Fran.  “As soon as we saw what was happening, we set out to stop it.”  She looked at Winston, who campaigned with her to stop the wave of suicides.

“That's right,” said Winston.  “We did all we could.”

“I know we did,” said Elgin, “but I still feel bad.  I feel,” he shrugged, “guilty.”

“Oh, no,” said Fran.  “You have nothing to feel guilty about.”  She looked around for confirmation.

The Doctor cleared his throat.  “If I may,” he said.  With their permission he continued.  “There's something called suicide guilt.  People who were close to a suicide victim often end up blaming themselves for not preventing it, even when there was nothing they could have done.”

“But I wasn't particularly close to any of them,” said Elgin.

“You did get close to their families though, when you were transporting their bodies.”  He turned up his palms.  “I know it doesn't make any sense, but that's the way the mind works.”

Elgin nodded because it sounded right, but he still felt guilty.  “I wish I could have done more.  If I could have just talked to them.”

Winston chortled.  “That might have worked,” he said with a wink.  “You are a very persuasive speaker.”

Elgin blushed, reminded of his lack of subtlety.  “Okay, maybe I couldn't have done anything.”  He shrugged everything, shoulders and wings.  “It's just such a waste.”

Fran put her hand on his arm and said, “If we feel this bad, imagine what it's like for the people who were close to them.”  She gestured at the comets and the names high on the wall.  “That's why we're honoring their dead.  To help the ones they left behind.”

They all nodded and murmured their agreement.  As they looked at the names, they thought about the tragedy of lives cut short.  These thirty-one names stood in for the unthinkable calamity of losing their whole world and all its people.  And now, through these names, they were going to send a message to their killer.  The Visitor would find out that it hadn't got them all and, if it was capable of such emotions, it was going to wish it had.

One millisecond is not a very long message, but it contained all the intentions, all the feelings of the fourteen thousand people on both comets.  They were speaking for the thirty-one, and for the billions who died on their planet.  They were speaking for all the worlds destroyed by the Visitor before theirs, and all those that would come after.  This millisecond message might be the most important they'd ever sent.  It was certainly the most important the Visitor would ever receive.

The speakers on both comets went live and the voice said, “One minute to confirmation.  One minute.”

This countdown was as good as the first one, with most of them starting right away.  It got very loud at thirty seconds and deafening at ten.  Everyone was staring at the image of the Visitor as they counted down.  Everyone except Elgin.  He was looking at Frances.  She wasn't counting.  She was looking at the Visitor, a hard little smile on her lips.  Her aura of clear light was hard as diamond when she said, “Welcome to Cloud City.”

An instant after the clock reached zero, the image of the Visitor changed subtly.  It was blurry before, but the lines were true.  Now its outline seemed to fracture, and the image began to just perceptibly expand.  A cheer went up which quickly grew to a lusty roar.  All their pent up grief and rage poured out in a long howl of vengeance achieved.

The message was carried on thirty-two beams of iron molecules, spun up in particle accelerators to nearly the speed of light.  They slashed through the twenty kilometer length of the Visitor, and through the dozens of attack modules encrusted on it like barnacles.  Billions of trillions of iron particles transferred their relativistic energies into its structure in an instant.

It wasn't as satisfying as it could have been.  It wasn't blasted to smithereens in a great, wrenching fireball, with torn fragments hurtling off in all directions, as they would have preferred.  They had to be satisfied with the subtle changes in the shape of its image on the screen, and the knowledge that they had fatally crippled it.

Analysis of the data showed that there were at least a dozen explosions immediately after the particle beams struck the Visitor.  Nothing big enough to blow it apart, but enough to blow it open.  They deduced that it must have been carrying volatiles, either as fuel or for some other reason.  In the expanding cloud of debris they detected gases, including oxygen, hydrogen and methane.  Their spectroscopes also found minerals, like iron and aluminum, as if it was carrying valuable ores.

The debris field was expanding, but slowly in relation to the thirty thousand kilometers per second of its forward momentum.  In the one hundred minutes it took the remains of the Visitor to pass the uninhabited comets, the lighter, more rapidly expanding parts were far enough out to collide with them, while the more massive parts passed harmlessly between them.  A few of the smaller comets were utterly destroyed by the huge energies in the material that struck them, but most of them survived and a lot of salvage was collected that day.  Green Comet itself was safely outside the long, narrow cone of danger.

Even with the enormous difference in the masses of the Visitor and the particle beams, they were still carrying enough energy to very, very slightly retard its momentum.  The one thousand kilometer wide light sail, on the other hand, was not slowed down.  The laser beam was still pushing on it, causing an asymmetry in forces that resulted in the beginning of a long, slow tumble that the Visitor was helpless to correct.  By the time it went by the comets, one hundred minutes after it received the message, it had already rotated about one degree.

With the Visitor and its spreading debris field safely by, and no sign that it would ever recover, it was time to move on to the final matter.  They had another message to send, only this one would use radio and would convey meaning rather than destruction.  The meaning would be simple, to ensure no misunderstanding.

They had a series of official debates to decide the wording of it.  There were eloquent and impassioned arguments, and in the end the majority agreed that something short and clear would be best.  They couldn't be sure that there was anything there to receive the message.  As far as they knew, the Visitor they just destroyed was it, and all that remained back at their old star was an automated laser to provide its propulsion.  They might be sending their message in vain, and it would sail on through empty space forever, never heard by anyone.  But they still had to send it.

It wasn't going to be a message of entreaty.  They knew that the Visitor didn't respond to anything like that.  There would be no accusations, no justifications, no reasons of any kind.  They even resisted the urge to be clever, with wit and sarcasm, because they were sure the Visitor wouldn't even know they were being witty or sarcastic.  They were pretty sure there were no extra layers of meaning in its language.

The message was boiled down to ten words, aimed with a focussed beam as accurately as possible at the source of the laser beam.  It said, “We have destroyed your vessel.  Do not send any more.”

Then it was a matter of waiting six years, three for the message to get there, and three more for any reply to come back.  In the meantime they had a free power supply in the laser light, which they knew would stay on at least until its source found out it was no longer needed.

The tension in the squares relaxed with a communal sigh.  Frances looked at Elgin and they nodded at each other, smiling small, satisfied smiles.

Thirteen – Umbra and Penumbra

“That's something I've never seen before,” said Elgin.

“Me neither,” said Fran.  They both looked at Stanton, who shrugged and shook his head, muffin in one hand and coffee in the other.  Fran took a bite of her own muffin, savoring the burst of iceberry jam.

Stanton swallowed and said, “We never would have seen it if you hadn't had the idea of masking the Sun.”  He gestured at the monitor displaying the telescopes' image.  Where the Sun would have been, there was a black circle eliminating its overpowering glare.  With that gone they were able to see the much feebler glow of the dust that filled their old planetary system.

“I didn't actually have the idea,” said Fran.  “I just asked if there was a way we could see the dust better.”

“That's right,” said Elgin.  “Technically you had the idea, Stanton.”

“No,” said Stanton.  “All I did was come up with a way to make Fran's idea work.”  He popped the last of his muffin in his mouth, as if to show there was no more to say on the subject.

Fran laughed.  “Anyway,” she said, “it works like a charm.  This is just what I was hoping to see.”  She corrected herself.  “Not that I was expecting to see this.”

They used the telescopes every day.  It was part of the routine that developed during the crossing, to observe the star that once was their Sun.  The changes were incremental, to the point that their observations tended to become perfunctory.  When it always looked the same as the previous day, it was hard to find something new to say.

Then one day it changed.  Where the day before they were looking at a star, suddenly this day they were looking at their Sun.  They all felt it.  They all saw it immediately, once it was pointed out to them, although no one could give an entirely satisfactory explanation for the change.  A few months earlier the image of the star on their monitor had gone from being a single point to having some width.  Over the following days it slowly resolved itself into a disk, but it was still just a star.  Sometime between then and now though, it became their Sun.

As they got closer the image got better.  Beginning with the big gas giants, they were able to pick out the planets in their carefully calculated orbits.  It was looking more like home all the time, except for the dust.  That was when Fran got the idea that she'd like to have a better look at the dust.  Each step led inevitably to the next, and here they were looking at something remarkable.

The planets were casting shadows in the dust.  Elgin wasn't the only one to have never seen that.  No one had.

At this distance they couldn't really see the shadows themselves.  It was more of a statistical decrease in illumination at those areas of the dust field, which the computer could enhance for them.  It could match up the anomalies with the known positions of the planets, and show them what it would look like if they could see it.

“It's beautiful,” said Fran quietly.

They didn't answer, only thought of what happened to create this beauty.

When Elgin's mind came back to the present, he found himself looking toward the front of the Ball, as if he could see through the ice and the light sail to their old world.  He couldn't, of course.  He couldn't even see the ice at the front of their vessel, so artfully was its interior laid out and decorated.

The Ball was a sphere of ice, two hundred meters in diameter, with a shell two meters thick.  Its light sail, which could be let out to a size of ten kilometers, was attached by six cables, independently adjustable for steering and control.  There was minimal structural ice inside the Ball, most of that being accomplished with fabric.

Since the sail was directly in front of the Ball, pulling them along like a team of horses, that meant that the back of their vessel was continuously bathed in laser light.  Rather than being a problem, they made it part of their plan.  With refraction and modulation they could get light to any part of the Ball, in whatever color and intensity required.  Using light ducts and louvres they could turn night into day anywhere in the vessel, and by storing the surplus they built up a large reservoir of ready energy.  The two hundred ten people on this mission, thirty-five out of hibernation at all times, were comfortable and well taken care of.

The front, if a sphere can be said to have a front, was where they put the flashball court.  Thirty-five people could make two full teams, with three left over for referees, but there were usually half that number or fewer involved in their games.  With their schedule, someone had to be on duty and there was always someone sleeping.  It didn't matter, though.  Flashball was beautiful no matter how few were playing it.  Two people playing catch was something worth watching.  Even one person, if sufficiently skilled, could bounce the ball off the wall and create an entertaining routine.

The flashball court served double duty.  In addition to providing entertainment and a physical outlet, it also served as something of a bulkhead.  It was positioned at the front to give that little extra margin of safety should they run into anything.  If they collided with anything massive enough to breach their two meter thick outer shell, the flashball court could be sealed off to maintain their atmosphere.  In reality, if anything struck them with enough energy to put a hole through two meters of tough ice, they were probably finished anyway.  But they had to put it somewhere, so the ball within a ball might as well be put to some use, however improbable.

It wasn't entirely accurate to call their hull ice, even though it was frozen water.  Technically ice is crystalline, and the way the Ball was made, the temperature and the procedure, no crystals were allowed to form.  It was more proper to call it amorphous solid water.  Being an amorphous solid, it was really a glass.  The Ball was a sphere of water glass.

Travelling between the stars in a two hundred meter glass ball, looking at the shadows of planets cast in the dust raised by an insane machine consuming their onetime solar system.  And none of them felt it was too strange to be true.

Fourteen – Whispering Gallery

Stanton's bubble, poking half above the surface of the comet, was an excellent vantage point for watching the construction of the Ball.  Hovering in the bubble, Elgin and Frances, along with Stanton himself, could see it sitting on the surface like a gigantic crystal ball.  It was connected to the comet by the big hatch, allowing workers easy access.  They could evacuate it when they needed to work in a vacuum, or pressurize it and work in comfort.  Normally it was bustling with activity but now, late at night with just the standby lighting coming from the cargo bay, it looked silent and portentous.

“Read your fortune sir?” said Fran, her golden eyes staring deep into Stanton's dark brown ones.

The men laughed and Stanton said, “Not unless it includes a long journey across interstellar space in a big transparent ball.”

She gave them her best offended seer look and said, “You mock what you don't understand.  Typical of the small-minded.”  She tossed her head.  “You will see things on this journey to the stars that no one has seen before.  I wonder if you'll laugh then.”  She cocked an eyebrow.

“Actually,” said Stanton, “since we'll be getting closer to one particular star, this would better be called a journey from the stars, rather than to them.  But even that's not right.”

Fran maintained her haughty stance, chin raised defiantly, but she couldn't think of a rejoinder.  It ended with all of them laughing.

They came up to have this look at the Ball as its construction neared completion.  They'd just been inside it doing an inspection of the interior, then they popped down into the corridors and came over here for this view.  At about a kilometer, they could see the Ball's whole two hundred meter diameter in one glance.  At the top, which would be the front in flight, was the ball within a ball.  The repetition of lines, the arcs and curves of different sizes, made for very satisfying complexity and symmetry.

At the bottom, or the back, the transparency of the sphere was broken by a cluster of walls and cubicles.  This would be the business end of their vessel.  Here would be their control systems, most of their equipment, processing for life support, and a hibernarium for one hundred seventy-five people.  They took to calling that end of things the housekeeping end.

The large volume of space in between would be used for various activities, and would sort itself out as things evolved over time.  This is where they would use fabric for easily movable dividers, changing the layout as they learned what worked best.

Around the equator of the sphere were the six big winches that would control the hawsers attached to their light sail.  Since the Ball wouldn't be rotating it wouldn't have an axis or an equator in that technical sense, but with the way it was arranged, and with the circle of winches around it, it was natural to think of it that way.

They were in Stanton's bubble, a fifteen meter sphere that he made as a proof of concept.  After that he made Green Comet's flashball court, a hundred meter sphere that came to be called Stanton's ball.  When they destroyed the flashball court to hide from the Visitor, and then rebuilt it, it was still called Stanton's ball, although some wags called it Stanton's second ball.  Now there was this two hundred meter sphere, also built by Stanton.  They couldn't just call it Stanton's ball because that name was taken.  They couldn't call it Stanton's third ball because that sounded silly.  They settled on Stanton's big ball, and it would have been called that except that it made Stanton very grumpy each time he heard it.  That made everyone so uncomfortable that the name quickly became the Ball, and that settled it for good.

“What's left to do?” asked Fran.

Stanton and Elgin started together, talking over each other, then stopped together.  Elgin quickly deferred to Stanton, as chief engineer.  “Not much,” said Stanton.  “All major construction is complete.  All critical systems are installed.  What's left is finishing up the interior and checking that everything's working.”

“So the test crew can board it next month on schedule?”

“Should be no problem.  Calibration and stress testing under real conditions.”  Stanton wore a knowing smile.  “This is the part where we break it, while we can still fix it.”

“I understand,” said Fran, “why we have to test its breaking point.  Better here than three light years away.”  Stanton and Elgin nodded.  “Does it really have to take a year, though?  That seems a long time, when we could be well on our way earlier.”

Stanton shook his head.  “I'd rather have a hundred twenty years,” he said, “the full duration of the mission, but someone,” he looked at her, “campaigned against that.”  She blushed, looking innocent.  He winked at her.  “A year is my final offer.”

She smiled.  “It was worth a try.”  She looked at Elgin, who would have set out tomorrow if she wanted to.  “I guess we'll just have to wait.”

They were headed back down into the comet, ready to call it a night, when Fran asked them, “Has anyone else noticed that we're getting older?”

Elgin looked at Stanton, who looked just as perplexed as he was.  To Fran he said, “Of course we are.  We get twenty years older every time we're out of hibernation.”

“I know,” she said, “and then when we go back down it gets reversed and we're rejuvenated.”

“That's right,” said Stanton, “so we're perpetually about forty years old, physiologically.”

“That's the thing,” said Fran.  “I don't think we're staying at the same age any more.”

They self-consciously peered at each other, trying to see what she meant.  Elgin and Stanton shrugged.  They thought they looked the same as they ever had.  They looked at her, questions in their faces.

“I know,” she said.  “It's hard to see.  It's been so gradual that we didn't notice anything.”

“So how did you get onto it?” asked Elgin.  “Am I looking old?  You certainly don't.”

“As I said, it's not obvious.”  She thought for a moment while they flew automatically.  “I suppose it began when I overheard someone in the Square.  They were apologizing for some mix-up and said, 'I must be getting forgetful in my old age.'”

“People say that all the time,” said Elgin.  “It doesn't mean anything.”

“I know,” said Fran, “but it must have struck a chord because it got me thinking.  And once I started thinking that way, I started seeing more and more signs.”  She laughed at herself.  “That's when I started to worry that I was working with a self-fulfilling idea.”

“Yeah,” said Stanton, “I know what you mean.”

“So, instead of continuing my solitary investigation, staring at people's crow's-feet and so on, I decided to enlist some help.  I called on the Doctor.”

“Good choice,” said Elgin.

“Yes,” said Fran, “always.  And when I told him what I was thinking, he admitted that he was just beginning to notice the same thing.”

“Really?  The Doctor?”

“Yes, but it was still just a suspicion to him, too.  So he began looking at it seriously, doing extra tests on his patients as they came in.”

“Hey!” said Stanton.  “So that's what that was about.”  He looked at them.  “He did a couple of extra tests at my last checkup.  I didn't think anything about it at the time.”

“He's been doing it with everyone,” said Fran.

“So what did he find?” asked Elgin.

“Just what we suspected,” said Fran.  “We are getting older.  Our physiological age now seems to be about fifty years, instead of forty.”

They were quiet then, as they came out into one of the large, arterial corridors.  It was one of the orbitals, the main routes that connected distant parts in the comet.  They were curved, always disappearing downward ahead.  The curve had a constant radius from the center of the comet, and anyone travelling at the right speed would naturally follow the curve, orbiting the center.  Hence the name.

For Elgin they always brought back the memory of when he first met Frances.  He was at a planning committee meeting, standing in for Stanton, who'd sent him there, when she proposed the idea of the orbitals.  The idea was about to get brushed off when Elgin blurted that she was right.  His sense of rightness was certain of it, so he had to speak up, embarrassing himself and apparently endearing him to her.  He still thought of that as the luckiest day of his life.

Now, thinking about that and about what he'd just learned about everyone getting older, he was in a quiet state of mind, open to quiet perceptions.  In the dim lighting of the middle of the night, with no one around, no sounds, the air itself still and smooth, he heard the sound of a distant voice.  It was faint, almost below the threshold of hearing, but it was clear and pure.

They looked at each other, delighted and excited.  This was the mysterious singer.  Legendary already, seldom heard, almost mythical, the singer could sometimes be heard in the stillest part of the night, a voice carrying for kilometers down the long, curved corridors.  In the calm air, with the hard, smooth surfaces, sounds would carry as over a calm lake.  Only they would carry even better than that.  Over a lake there was the whole sky to attenuate the sound, while down the orbitals there were only the branching corridors to bleed it off.

“Have you ever seen her?” asked Fran in a low voice.

“No,” said Stanton, “and this is the first time I've heard it.”  He looked at Fran.  “How do you know it's a her?”

She shrugged.  “I don't, but everyone thinks it is.”

They listened for a while.  It was so distant, so quiet that they couldn't make out any words, but the tone seemed to carry the meaning.  It sounded melancholy, but supported by a foundation of hopefulness.  It did sound like a woman, but it could be a boy, or even a man with a good falsetto.

They drifted slowly toward one of the sides of the tunnel, as their ears instinctively sought the clearest sound.  It carried most effectively closer to the surface.  This reminded Elgin of the first time he was ever in the flashball court, when Stanton showed him its whispering gallery effect.  This was the same thing, only on a much bigger scale.  The mysterious singer was using the largest whispering gallery ever made.  Elgin wondered how far away she was, and naturally went on to wonder how far it could go.  If they continued one of these orbital corridors all the way around Green Comet, could the singer be heard on the opposite side?  Could they sing a note and most of a minute later hear themselves when it completed the circle?

Elgin was doing mental calculations of how much sound pressure you'd have to start with, and how much you might lose to branching corridors, trying to estimate if a person could sing with enough power to be heard all around the comet, when the singing stopped.  They waited, not talking, hardly breathing, but it didn't start up again.  After waiting another minute they moved on, heading for the Square and home and bed.  Their minds were full of the singer, and the nearly-completed Ball, and getting older.

Fifteen – Another Shadow

Fran found Elgin staring at nothing.  He was next to Buzzard, who was already at the telescope, but his mind was obviously somewhere else.  As she approached he looked up and smiled at her, but she could see that he was still far away.  Glancing at Buzzard's back and a corner of the telescope monitor, she saw no hints there, so she asked, “What's up?”

He was about to say, then his eyes moved away, a look of conflict in them.  She felt a chill.  “Should I be worried?” she asked.

That snapped him out of it.  “Oh, no,” he said.  He could bear almost anything, but not needlessly worrying her.  “It's nothing serious.”

She relaxed.  Now it was just a matter of curiosity rather than possible trouble.  Her curiosity was piqued, but there was no urgency.  She could find out what was on his mind in good time.  They would have a few minutes before the rest of the eight got here, and more time than they knew what to do with anyway.  They were only about a quarter of the way into the mission, and nobody was going anywhere.

Elgin wasn't going to wait, though.  He started trying to explain.  “Do you ever have moments when you suddenly remember where we are?”

“Where we are?” repeated Fran.

“Yes,” he said.  “Being here.  Doing this.”  He swept his arms, indicating everything.

“Well,” she said, “I'm pretty aware of where we are most of the time.”

His shoulders slumped and he looked around for inspiration.  “Okay,” he said, “Buzzard and I were just playing flashball, and now we're going to take one last look at some shadows in the dust of our one-time solar system, then we're going to reel in our light sail, flip the Ball over and catch a laser beam that Orange Comet began transmitting over four years ago.”  He turned up his palms and raised his eyebrows.

“I think I get it,” she said.  “When you think about it, this is a bizarre situation.”

“That's right,” he said, “but even that's not all of it.”  He looked in her eyes and put his hand over his solar plexus.  “When Buzzard turned on the monitor and I saw those shadows, I suddenly felt the Ball and everything disappear, and I was alone out here.  It felt really cold.”

Fran reached out and hugged him, trying to warm him up.  “Yes,” she said, “I do have those moments.  I know exactly what you mean.”  She squeezed him hard.  “I always come looking for a hug.”

Elgin thought that was a good idea, and he squeezed back.  “I know exactly what I'm going to do next time,” he said.

“You guys!”  It was Buzzard at the telescope.  “You guys!” he said again.

“What is it Buzzard?” said Fran as they hurried over.

Buzzard didn't say.  He just moved aside to let them see the monitor, then looked expectantly at Elgin.

Elgin saw it right away.  It was immediately apparent that something was wrong with the image, but he couldn't yet see what it was.  “What's wrong with it, Buzzard?”

Buzzard nodded sharply.  He knew Elgin would see it.  “Too many shadows,” he said.  “Too many.”

That was it.  As soon as he heard it, he knew it.  He got close to the display.  “Which one is it?”

Buzzard pointed, his long finger indicating an extra shadow out at the orbits of the gas giants.

“Ah,” said Elgin, “but why didn't we see it before?”  They bent over the monitor, heads together, and began the rapid exchange they always used when starting on a new problem.  Fran smiled, watching them together.  As the others arrived she explained what was going on.  Every one of them went for a look, then came back to wait with Fran.  Everyone except Stanton, who added his head to theirs in front of the monitor.

It didn't take them long.  The first thing they did was run the record back to see when the shadow showed up.  In its faint beginnings it was easily dismissed as an anomaly, but it grew until the computer had to include it in its simulation.  They could see that it was definitely something that was orbiting the Sun, in the same region and at the same rate as the gas giants.  And they could see that it went from casting no shadow at all, to making an increasingly large one.  The three of them spun a small cyclone of discussion, then stopped, nodding their agreement.  They elected Buzzard, as the discoverer, to explain.

“It's a disk,” he said, “making the shadow.  A disk.”

There was some surprised talk when they heard that.  It wasn't what they were expecting.  “So it's artificial then,” said Fran.

“No doubt,” said Buzzard.  “Definitely artificial.”  He demonstrated with his hands.  “Things this size, nature makes into spheres, not disks.”

“How big is it?” asked Maria, who'd just arrived.

“Hard to say,” said Buzzard.  “We need more information.  More data.”  He shrugged.  “As a first approximation, effay, five thousand kilometers in diameter.”  He glanced at Elgin, who nodded.

“Five thousand!” exclaimed Maria.  “That's the size of a large moon.”

“The largest,” said Buzzard, “but this is only a thin disk.  Not nearly as massive as a moon would be.”

Fran said, “The only other large disk we've seen like this was the Visitor's light sail, but it was only a thousand kilometers.”

Elgin laughed.  When she looked at him he said, “Only.”

She laughed too.  “I know,” she said, “but this is twenty-five times the size.”  She looked at Stanton.  “You don't suppose this is another light sail, do you?”

“That would be the most logical assumption.”  He glanced at the telescope display.  “We've never seen anything else like it, besides the Visitor's sail.”

That left them silent, thinking about what could need such a large sail.  The obvious answer was something twenty-five times the size of the Visitor itself, but their minds resisted contemplating that.  At twenty kilometers, the Visitor was already too big to reasonably be a spacecraft.

“Well,” said Fran, “there will be plenty of time to think about this.  We'd better get on with the maneuver.”

The laser at Green Comet had been pushing them, not directly toward their destination, but at an angle in the direction of Orange Comet, which sat about ninety degrees to the side.  Now, once they flipped over, they'd pick up a beam from Orange that would both slow them down and push them onto the right course.  They needed to travel at high speed as much as they could, to shorten the duration of the mission, but they needed to slow down enough that their old Sun could slingshot them back toward their starting point.  Once they swung around the star they could catch Orange's beam again, and with an angled sail, build their velocity for the return leg.  Then they would flip over again and brake on the laser from Green, ultimately, one hundred twenty years later, being back where they started.

It was simple in principle.  The theory was clear and unambiguous.  The calculations, though big and complex, resulted in definite answers.  There was no reason why it shouldn't work, and they weren't bothered by the fact that no one had ever done anything like it before.

Sixteen – The Tonsure

Frances and Elgin were headed for the Square.  They and Stanton were flying down from the hatch, where they did a final pre-departure inspection.  That went as they expected, with all systems checking out well within their optimal ranges.  The one year shakedown flight went fine, with only a few, mostly minor, glitches.  That didn't stop Stanton from giving Fran some significant looks, as his instinct for caution was borne out.  She graciously acknowledged that he was right, although she did point out that all the faults were found in the first few months and the rest of the year was smooth sailing.  Elgin just smiled and shook his head.

They stopped where a year before they heard the singer, just on the off-chance.  They waited, breathing softly, letting the air get calm and quiet, but they heard nothing.  They weren't surprised.  It was the wrong time of day for one thing.  The comet was alive with activity which put a tension and some inevitable disruption into the atmosphere.  If you listened closely you could hear faint echoes of the sounds of the busy Square.  The singer's notes would never carry far in those conditions.  And besides, they were sure she wouldn't be singing in the middle of the day, with so many people about.  She only ever did it late at night when the chance of discovery was low.  They shared a sheepish look, aware of their folly, but not deterred.  They felt lucky to have heard it once, and looked forward to hearing it again, so they went quiet and listened every time they went by this spot.

They were about to move on when they were passed by a group of Francesians on their way to the Square for the ceremony.  The entire group, as one, turned to face their saints as they flew by.  They ignored Stanton but made signs of obeisance and ritual adoration toward Elgin and Frances.  Elgin knew that it was all meant for Fran and that what came his way was only because he happened to be with her.  He was pretty sure that they regretted having made him a saint.  He knew they only did it because he was so close to their main saint, and they must feel chagrin given that everyone knew how he felt about them.  They tried to claim her for their own at a time when he wasn't sure if he would ever get her back, and they felt the edge of his anger.

As the Francesians turned and flew on, Elgin realized that there was something wrong with them.  He looked at his companions and saw immediately that they'd noticed too.  Fran looked sad and disappointed, and Stanton looked outraged.

“What is it?” he said.  “Something's wrong.  What is it?”

Fran wasn't going to speak.  He could see that.  So he looked at Stanton, whose mouth was compressed into a thin line.  “Stanton?” he said.

“Those,” Stanton struggled to find an appropriate word, “people,” he said finally, “are mocking Fran.”

“No they're not, Stanton,” she said softly.  She put her hand on his arm.  “They don't mean to mock me.”  Elgin was looking at her, his face a big question, so she said, “They don't mean any harm, Elgin.”

“Then what?” he said.  “I know there was something wrong, but I don't know what.”

She said, “They have a kind of a tonsure.”

“Tonsure?”

“Yes,” she said.  “It's an idiosyncratic way of cutting the hair.  Usually used to indicate membership in an exclusive group.”

“Well,” said Elgin, “they're all Francesians and they all cut their hair the same.  Is that it?”

“Not quite,” growled Stanton.

Elgin looked at him and back at her, still lost, so Fran raised a hand to her head and used a finger to trace the hairline above her brow.  “Oh!” said Elgin as it all came clear to him.

“Yeah,” muttered Stanton, “they've all shaved their hair to mimic hers.”  He looked like he wanted to spit.

Now that he saw it, Elgin didn't know how he could have missed it.  Fran had a slight widow's peak.  Two curves meeting in a shallow point above the middle of her forehead.  The Francesians had all been barbered to match it as closely as possible.  With that realization, Elgin's brow began to cloud.

Fran saw that and said, “No, please.  Don't let it spoil our day.”  She looked at Stanton.  “Both of you, please.  Let's not make it worse.”

The men looked at each other.  They knew she was right.  Getting angry would do no good.  If they did anything to the Francesians, it would just give them the persecution they needed to affirm their actions.  So, as hard as it was, they reined in their outrage and nodded their agreement.

“Good,” she said.  “Thank you.”  She smiled hopefully.  “Maybe if we ignore it, they'll get tired of it.  It's really pretty silly, isn't it?  How long could they possibly do it?”

“Right,” said Stanton.  “Maybe the fad will be over by the time we get back.”

“Yeah,” said Elgin.  “It's silly, as Fran says.  Maybe it will blow over.”

On that hopeful note they resumed their flight to the Square.  Outwardly they projected a hopeful air, but inwardly they knew it wouldn't be that simple.

A flash of color went by and Elgin watched a hummingbird fly for a patch of iceberries on the yellow wall.  He was on a dais, along with Fran and Stanton and others, in front of the green wall, a pair of clear, green ice pillars rising behind them.  They were being honored before embarking on their mission, and speeches were being made.  One hundred seventy-five of their crew were already in hibernation on the Ball, and most of the thirty-five who would begin on active duty were there making final preparations.  They didn't have much to do other than go through the checklists for the umpteenth time, but it had to be done, as did this ceremony.

Elgin was glad of the distraction.  The bird was so far away now that he only caught glimpses of it as it moved from one berry to the next.  But it allowed him to take his eyes away from the crowd, where the Francesians were gathered right down in front of the dais.  Now that he knew about them, their tonsures stood out like cartoon caricatures, and he was in danger of forgetting Fran's admonition to overlook them.  So he stared into the distance, ignoring them and letting the speeches wash over him unheard.

Not that he didn't appreciate the ceremony.  He knew the honor for what it was, and he was aware of the need for it.  The purpose it served, to mark the occasion and highlight the importance of what they were doing, was not lost on him.  He couldn't help it if speeches made him drowsy and prompted his mind to wander.

He did manage to pay attention to a couple of them, though.  He always hung on every word Fran said, and the fact that Stanton was speaking at all made that interesting.  He hated doing it and welcomed any excuse to avoid it, but he wasn't getting out of this one, so Stanton was standing on the dais giving the people his final report before departure.  Not a rousing speech, but a cold, dry report.

“As you know,” he said, “we've spent the last year stress-testing everything.”  They all nodded.  Anyone could have made this speech.  Or they could have got the information from the comet's database any time, but hearing it from Stanton himself made it seem more official.  “Other than a few glitches and some cases of finding better ways to do things, it all checked out pretty well as expected.”  They nodded again.

With the Ball tethered to Green Comet by ten kilometer long cables, they repeatedly tested the deployment and retrieval of the sail.  “The puffs of nitrogen gas inflated the sail just the way we wanted, and then it stiffened when the light hit it, giving us a nice flat surface.”  Nodding.  “We did the flipping maneuver so many times, I think I could do it in hibernation.”  Laughter and nodding.  “I'm ready to sign off on it.”  They gave him a nice round of applause as he made way for Fran.

The audience was relaxed and happy.  Standing in the Square, stuck to the floor by the setae on their feet, their bodies were free to sway in the microgravity.  Fran could see some small waves and ripples run through them, but nothing like that time long ago when they were swept by large waves.  That was a critical time, though, dangerous and uncertain, when the people had to decide something that could mean annihilation or survival.  They were concentrating so hard on her that they forgot their bodies, which were left free to sway like sea grass.

This ceremony was nothing like that.  While the mission was certainly important and potentially dangerous, it wasn't going to mean the life or death of Green Comet.  The people didn't have to make a big, distasteful decision.  All they had to do was wish the two hundred ten crew members well, and see them off on their journey.  And they were here today to listen to speeches and say a personal farewell to the five, and by extension the eight, who would be part of the first thirty-five crew members.

They'd heard Winston, a good speaker.  They'd listened to Stanton, not such a good speaker, but their chief engineer and the one to give them the facts.  Now they were going to hear Frances, who was able to tell them how they felt about it.  She wouldn't tell them how they should feel, rather she would express the feelings that were forming inside them, but which they hadn't yet recognized.

“We don't have to do this,” she was telling them.  “We could just stay home and save all the time and resources.”  They had uncertain looks on their faces, as if they were afraid she was going to take it away from them.  “But we're not doing this because we have to, are we?”  They shook their heads, some murmuring, “No.”  She smiled.  “No,” she said.  Her smile became a daring grin, which she encouraged them to share with her.  “We're doing this because we want to.”  Their backs straightened and their faces began to reflect her grin.  “We're doing this because we can.”  Her energy ignited their enthusiasm.  They swayed forward, cries of “Yes!” rising among them.  “We're doing this,” she finished, riding a surge of affirmation, “because we're Green Comet, and this is what we do!”

Amid a torrent of cheering and applause, they descended from the dais to join the people.  They were surrounded by an excited mob who wanted to be close to the source of their inspiration, to touch them, both taking and giving vital energy.  This good feeling would carry them well into the mission.

Seventeen – Change of Plans

“We have one hundred percent coverage.”  Elgin could hear cheering in the background on both comets, Orange and Green.  The same cheer that erupted in the Ball moments before.  “We're going to hitch over and get centered on the beam as soon as we confirm that all systems made it through the maneuver okay.”

“Congratulations,” said Winston who, like the eight, arranged to be out of hibernation for the critical phases of the mission.  “Well done everyone,” he said, including the people on Orange Comet who were tending the laser.

“We just point this thing where we're told,” said their representative.  “I think the honor should go to whoever is doing the calculations.”  She got affirmative noises from behind her.  “They're down to such a fine detail that we have to interpolate the last few decimal places.”

“That would be Buzzard,” said Elgin, tipping his head in Buzzard's direction.

She began some polite applause on Orange, which spread to Green and back to the Ball.  Buzzard was embarrassed but he couldn't stop grinning.  “It's only numbers,” he protested.  “Once you've got the numbers it pretty well works itself out.”  He put his arm around Maria, who had squeezed in close, smiling and shaking her head at the same time.  “Numbers.”

The maneuver had been as successful as they could have hoped.  Intercepting a beam of light projected four years earlier, as their own trajectory crossed it at an angle, was not a trivial problem.  It was made possible by their ability to predict the Ball's position with great accuracy, and they could do that because they shared the most accurate clock in the galaxy, as far as they knew.  With their entangled gold atoms all vibrating to the same beat, all the other calculations of time and position followed.

The Ball emitted an electromagnetic pulse every minute.  They all knew exactly when that was, so the time it took for the pulse to reach the comets gave a good known position for that time.  As the pulses and positions piled up, the Ball's trajectory became increasingly precise, and its predicted position easier to calculate.  As Buzzard said, by then it was just numbers.

Orange's laser was tracking the Ball's course about four years in the future.  That sounds tricky, and it is, but now that the Ball was on the beam it was a lot easier.  They could actively work to stay on it with small adjustments of their sail.  If they began to drift off course, they'd just angle the sail and let the laser pull them back on.  They were going to have to make more use of that strategy than they planned on, now.  The original plan was to swing around the Sun close to the orbit of their old planet, to check up on it.  Now they needed to change that.

Elgin told them about the extra shadow.  “The only thing we can think of is it must be a light sail,” he said.

“But five thousand kilometers?” said Winston.  “How big must the vessel be to need such a big sail?”

“About a hundred kilometers, according to Buzzard.”  Elgin let them digest that, then told them, “We were stunned, too.  That's why we waited until the maneuver was done, then took another look to be sure before telling you.”

Winston found his voice first.  “But what . . .”  He hesitated before finishing.  “Whatever this is, what is it for?”  His wide mouth opened and closed.  “Is it going to follow the Visitor?”  He looked alarmed.  “Have we got enough firepower to destroy something so large?”

“That's what we want to figure out,” said Elgin.  “We want to change course so we'll swing around the Sun out by it, instead of in by our planet.”

The woman on Orange Comet said, “But everything's programmed.  And it's all four years in advance.”  She shrugged, palms up.

“That's okay,” said Elgin.  “Buzzard says we can do it, especially since we're on the beam already.  If you begin the changes now, we can make the adjustments four years down the road.”  He looked at Buzzard, who nodded, and back at the woman, who was still looking doubtful.  “Let Buzzard talk to your people.  If they don't like it, fine, but we think they will.”  This wasn't Green Comet where everyone knew Buzzard.  They knew there was something special about him, of course, but they didn't have the direct experience that made him a legend on his own comet.  Elgin smiled at her.  “He says it's only numbers,” he said.  That made her smile back, recalling who'd given them the numbers for their recent success.

“Of course,” she said.  “It's certainly worth looking into, at least.”  She glanced sideways.  “We have a bit of a number wizard here, too.  I'll have him talk to Buzzard.”

“Good,” said Elgin.  “They can get the ball rolling on that, and . . .”  He was cut off by groans in all three places.  “What?”  he said, oblivious.

They laughed, thinking he was kidding, before Winston saw that he wasn't.  He said, “Get the ball rolling?  The Ball?” waggling his eyebrows.

Elgin got it and blushed sheepishly.  “Okay,” he said, “they can, uh, get started on that, while we finish up the fine tuning on the maneuver.”  He acknowledged the good-natured laughter.

Buzzard spent much of the next three days with Orange's numbers whiz.  “He's pretty smart,” he told them.  “Pretty smart.  His name is Archie.”

“Archie?” said Stanton.  “Is that short for something?”

“I don't know,” said Buzzard.  “Should I ask him?”

“No, never mind.  It just seems like a name that would be short for something, that's all.”

“It does,” said Buzzard, “now that I think of it.”  He nodded.  “I will ask him.  What it's short for.”

“All right,” said Stanton, smiling.  “Meanwhile, have you convinced him to help us change course?”

“Yes,” said Buzzard.  “He got that right away.  He can see that it's just numbers, too.”

“Oh.  So what have you been talking about?”

“The project.  We're working out the best way to do it.”  He looked as if he had more to say.

“What else, Buzzard?”

“Well,” said Buzzard, obviously looking for a way to say it, “he sees things, too.”  He shook his head.  That was wrong.  “Ratios.  Relationships.  The way things fit together.”  He frowned with growing frustration.  Every time he thought he had the beginning of an explanation, it turned out to be wrong.

Fran broke in, to everyone's relief.  “It's the special way you see things, isn't it,” she said.  When he nodded she added, “Archie understands.  He knows what you mean.”

“That's right,” said Buzzard, encouraged.  “I can just say things and he gets it.  I don't have to try to explain.”  The look on his face made them wonder how exasperating it must be to try to talk to them sometimes.  Relief and pleasure radiated from him, but no one took offense.  No one was envious of Archie, or jealous of Buzzard's pleasure.  Not even Maria.  She squeezed his arm and kissed his furry cheek, a happy smile illuminating her face.

Elgin was glad to see his friend so happy.  It was something like their own relationship, where Buzzard had been moved to say, “Elgin knows,” when he was understood.  This was different.  It was a matter of getting it, rather than understanding it.  This was before understanding, or underneath it, and Elgin was glad that Buzzard's peculiar mind had found a companion.  “So,” he said, “when are you going to have something for me to look at?”

“Tomorrow,” said Buzzard.  “We'll have a rough draft tomorrow.  You can look at it and see if it's right.  Then we'll go over it.  Ten times.”  He grinned.  “Archie does it ten times, too.”  He looked at Stanton.  “Then we'll give it to you.”

“Sounds good, Buzzard,” said Stanton.  “Take your time.  There's no rush.”

“We'll take our time,” said Buzzard.  “We'll make sure.  We have to get it right.  Get it right.”

It looked fine to Elgin.  His first glance told him it was right, but he hung onto it so he could have a good look.  Not only was it beautiful in its symmetry and exquisite detail, but this was the first time he'd seen anything by Archie.  He was used to Buzzard's work, and the solid, comfortable feeling of rightness he got from it.  Now he had a chance to compare it with this new person who, in Buzzard's own words, was “pretty smart.”

Much of the paper was indistinguishable, with their two styles subsumed into one, but parts of it were pure Buzzard and other parts were something else.  The two styles, Buzzard's and Archie's, were remarkably similar.  They both had the beautiful simplicity of something that's been whittled down to the essentials, but with an intriguing complexity.  In spite of that, Elgin found that he was able to tell them apart.  He would have found it difficult to explain the difference, but he could see it.  And he had to agree with Buzzard.  Archie did good work.

When Elgin surfaced he had a satisfied smile.  As always, he felt good after immersing himself in Buzzard's work, and today there was the added pleasure of discovering a new hand.  He handed the permapaper to Buzzard, saying, “You're right about your new friend.  He's good.”

Buzzard grinned.  “Is it all good?” he said.  “All good?”

“All good,” said Elgin.  “More than all good.”

“Good,” said Buzzard, nodding his head.  “Now Archie and I can do our final checks, and then give it to Stanton.”

“Ten times?” asked Elgin.

“Ten times,” said Buzzard.  “Ten each.  Ten for me and ten for Archie.  Twenty times.”

“Right,” said Elgin.  “Speaking of Archie, did you find out what it's short for?”

“Oh yeah, that's right.  I did.”  Buzzard smiled.  “Guess.”

“Oh,” said Elgin, “okay.  Uh.  Archibald?”

Buzzard laughed.  “No.”

“Archer?”

Buzzard shook his head.

Elgin frowned.  “This is hard.  There aren't very many.”

“It's one you know,” said Buzzard as a clue.

“One I know,” mused Elgin.  “One I know.”

“Think history,” said Buzzard.  “Ancient history.”

“Ancient history?”  The frown deepened.  Elgin shrugged and said, “Archaean?”

Buzzard burst into peals of laughter.  “Not quite that ancient,” he said.

“I give up,” Elgin said.  “Take pity on me.”

“Are you sure?” asked Buzzard.  “Because you're going to kick yourself.”

“Yes, I'm sure.  What is it?”

“It's Archimedes.”

Elgin clapped his hand to his forehead.  “Of course,” he said.  “A great mathematician.  What else?”

“Yeah,” said Buzzard.  “He made me guess, too.”

“I suppose you got it right away.”

“No,” said Buzzard.  “I guessed Archibald first, too.  But after that it was obvious.”

“Obvious to you, maybe.”

“Obvious to me,” agreed Buzzard.  He smirked at Elgin.  “Archaean?”

“Well, you said ancient history.”

They shared a companionable laugh, and went on to speculate about what they might find on their new route through their old solar system.

When they left their home thousands of years earlier, the comets were on orbits that were climbing up above the ecliptic, the plane on which all the planets orbited the Sun.  Now the Ball was approaching the system from above and would end up cutting through it at an angle of about thirty degrees, out around where the mysterious disk was orbiting.  Their trajectory would keep them within good telescope range of it for several months, time enough to learn what they needed to know.

Eighteen – Don't Shoot

“So, what about this aging thing?” asked Stanton, who was getting some shots of silver in his pelt.  He didn't mind seeing them amongst the dark brown fur, and Galatea said it made him look distinguished, but they were a reminder that their bodies were aging again.  After Buzzard solved Fran's telomere problem, and they were able to apply the technique to everyone, they all settled on an apparent physiological age of about forty.  Lately though, the aging seemed to be setting in again and most people were now presenting at roughly the age of fifty.

“We're making progress,” said Buzzard, who was in charge of it by default.  After his previous success it seemed only natural.  “We think we have the hypothalamus issue solved.  Or at least well on the way.”

“Hypothalamus?” asked Galatea.

“Yes,” said Buzzard.  “It's part of the brain.”

“I know,” said Galatea, “but what's it got to do with aging?”

“Oh,” said Buzzard, looking at the Doctor.  Buzzard knew what the hypothalamus did, down to the finest detail, but he knew from experience that he was no good at explaining things in a way that was helpful to most people.

The Doctor stepped in.  “It's part of our regulatory system,” he said.  “It produces hormones that are stored in the pituitary gland until needed.  Buzzard has figured out how that affects aging.”

“Not just me,” said Buzzard.  “Not just me.”  He looked at Maria and she gave him a nod of approval.

“I'm glad to hear that,” said Fran.  Buzzard had worked himself almost to death saving her life, and she felt responsible for that.  “I hope you're taking care of yourself.”

“Yes I am,” he said.  “Taking care of myself.”  He looked at Maria again.  “I don't get too focused on one thing, and I don't do it for too long at a time.  I'm not allowed to.”

Maria nodded again, her expression stern.  “I make sure of that,” she said.  Everyone chuckled.  They all knew her position on that.  “Last time,” she said to Fran, “when it was you, I couldn't do anything.  In truth, I don't think I really wanted to stop him.  Not deep down.”  They all understood that.  Love for Fran went without saying.  “But it was hard.  Too hard.  I wasn't sure I was ever going to get him back.”  She looked at him, her eyes brimming, and he looked back with a shy smile.  She drew a sharp breath.  “It's not going to happen again,” she promised.

“No,” said Fran.  “We can't let that happen.”  Looking at Buzzard she said, “So, how do you do it, then?”

“It's not just me,” he said.  “We're a team.  We divide up the work.”  He grinned.  “Archie too, now.”

“Archie?” said Fran.  That made her wonder.  “Is it happening over on Orange, too?”

“Yes,” said Buzzard.  “They didn't notice until I mentioned it.  When I asked Archie if he wanted to help.”

“It's about the same stage, then?”

“Yes.  Almost identical.”

“I see,” she said.  After a moment she said, “Archie is a lot like you, isn't he?”

“Yes.  Almost identical,” he joked.

She laughed, then turned serious again.  “That means that he might be susceptible to the same over-focus that got you, right?”

“That's right,” said Buzzard.  “I thought of that, and I told him.”  He frowned.  “He knows, but he doesn't really know.”  He looked at Maria again.  “Archie doesn't have anyone like Maria to help him, so I try to do it.”  He made a reaching, grasping motion.  “It's not easy, but I was able to get some people over there to keep an eye on him.”  He shrugged and let his hands fall loose.  “I think he's going to be okay.”

In the silence they all looked at the telescope monitor.  It was showing the object attached to the big sail.  The vessel.  Buzzard was right about the size.  It was about a hundred kilometers long.  Other than having a thinner profile, it looked just as they might have expected.  It looked like a bigger version of the Visitor.  Another section of the screen was showing the entire disk of the sail, with the vessel attached to it like an undersized stone on a ring.  A third section showed a small moon, no more than five hundred kilometers in diameter, showing scars of construction.  As they moved along and their angle of view changed, they were able to deduce that this must be the source of the giant laser.  It was probably what was pushing the Visitor before they destroyed it, and it looked as if it would be used to push this other thing.

The business end of the moon was pointed in the direction of the big sail, about a million kilometers away.  It was hard to tell where the sail was pointed because it wasn't perpendicular to the vessel, rather curving back aft.

“Light pressure,” said Buzzard.  “Light pressure will straighten it up.”

“That's right,” said Elgin.  “It will be under tension in operating mode.  To see where it's pointed we should look at . . . the vessel.”  He realized they didn't have a name for it yet.

They still thought of it as the Visitor, because they'd been using the name for so long, but the Visitor was destroyed.  Although the entire mechanical menace could be referred to generally as the Visitor, it didn't feel right to call this particular part that any more.  To them the real Visitor would always be the one that destroyed their world and killed their people.  The one that they thought was the ultimate source of their troubles, before they learned of this even bigger one.  Now it seemed the first Visitor was a mere derivative of this one.

“How about Visitor Prime?” suggested Frances.

Everyone nodded.  “That sounds right,” said Elgin.

“I like it,” said Stanton.

“Yes, it's good,” said Nigel, “unless there's another even bigger one coming.”

“Or what if this is just one, and there are more that went to other stars?”  said Galatea.

“If that's the case,” said Fran, “either of those things, then we have a lot more work cut out for us.”  The prospect might have been horrifying, but their reaction was not to despair.  As always, it was to reassess and prepare.

Everyone nodded again, determination settling on their faces.  “Visitor Prime it is then,” said Stanton, and they all agreed.  Naturally they abbreviated it almost immediately to Vee Prime, and that they shortened even further to V'.  And although it became normal practice to use V' in notation, in speech it came right down to Prime.

“What do you think it's going to do?” asked Galatea.

“It's hard to say,” said Stanton.  “The only precedent we have is the Visitor, and it must know we've destroyed that.”

“That's right,” said Nigel.  “Would it follow if it didn't have the Visitor to prepare the way?”

“Maybe for revenge?” ventured Galatea.

“I don't know if it would have feelings like revenge,” said Fran.  “No part of the Visitor has ever demonstrated anything like an emotion.”

“That's just it,” said Galatea.  “We don't know.  It could be preparing to head out to the next star, just as planned, and we'd have no way of knowing.”

“Or it might have decided to go to Orange's star, since ours was cut off,” said Nigel.  “Even without the Visitor, the Prime could carry on as before.”  He pointed at the monitor.  “It's got modules and scouts on it, just like the Visitor.  There's no reason why it couldn't.”  Nigel had spent fourteen years searching for one of the Visitor's surveillance units.  He had a good idea of its persistence.

There was a pause, then the Doctor spoke up.  “Maybe it's going to go back home,” he suggested.  He got no answer but a few amused smiles.  “Really,” he said.  “Maybe after we told it, in its own language, that we destroyed the Visitor,” he shrugged, “well, maybe it will just go home.”  He didn't sound very convinced himself.

“That would be nice,” said Stanton.  “That would be very nice.”  He didn't look convinced either.

“So,” said Fran, “here are the options.”  She winked at the Doctor.  “It might go home.”  He nodded at the unlikeliness of it.  “It might carry on to Green's star.  It might go to Orange's star.  It might go to some other star altogether.”  She was holding up four fingers.  “Or it might just stay here.”  She dropped her hand.  “Does that sound about right?”

Elgin said, “Yes it does.”

“Does any of them sound more right?” asked Fran.

“Not really,” said Elgin, “although some other random star sounds the least likely.”

“I agree,” said Fran, “so let's narrow it down to four possibilities.”

“Actually,” said Nigel, “if it's going to carry on, I don't think it would deviate from the original plan.  I don't think it would have that kind of flexibility.”

Fran looked at Elgin, who nodded.  “Okay, three,” she said.  “Green, home or here.”

That was better.  Now they had a small number of real situations to prepare for.  Green Comet could continue to accumulate comets and fit them with particle accelerators, to use if the Prime should decide to come their way.  Of course, Orange Comet would do the same, just in case.  If it went home, they wouldn't need to do anything.  And if it stayed here, that left them with something interesting to think about.  Would they try to devise a plan to destroy it, or would they leave it alone?  There was the matter of revenge, and then there were all the resources it had packed into a dense package.  Attacking it would be risky.  It had all those modules and scouts and a history of deadly efficiency.  But the rewards could be great.

It shouldn't have seen them.  They were small and space is big.  They were never going to come within ten million kilometers of the Prime, and Buzzard had calculated the odds of chance discovery to be negligible.  They were practically transparent, after all.

Buzzard was looking at the Prime, trying to figure out where it was pointing.  It wasn't that they thought there would be any significance to that.  Most likely it was just in a parking orbit around the Sun and its attitude was random.  He had his curiosity tweaked though, when Elgin mentioned it, and his instinct was to figure it out.  He collected a series of images taken as the Ball swung through perihelion, giving him different angles on it.  From there it was a straightforward procedure to plot the vessel's absolute position in space.  It was angled to be pointing slightly below the plane of the ecliptic.  An angle that rang a bell with Buzzard.  “You guys,” he said.  “You guys.”

When he had their attention he told them, “The Prime is pointing at the last star.”

“The last star?” asked Fran.

“Yes,” said Buzzard.  “The last one it came from.  Before it came here.  The last one.”

“It's pointed back where it came from?” she asked.

“No,” he said.  “Pointing at it.  At it.”  He looked at Stanton for help.  “They moved,” he said.

Stanton got it.  “All the stars have moved since then,” he explained to Fran.  “The stars are always moving.  The Prime is pointing at where that star is now.  Right, Buzzard?”

“That's right,” said Buzzard.  He grinned his delighted grin.  “Maybe the Doctor is right,” he said.  “Maybe it's going to go home.  When it's finished here.”

That prospect was so tempting that they immediately distrusted it.  If it were true it would be the best of all possibilities, so they resisted it.  It was too specific to be an accident, but they knew there could be many other reasons for the Prime's angle.

“That would be nice,” said Stanton, “but what are the odds?”  He was obviously sceptical.  “It's completely against what we know of its pattern.”

“Yes,” said Buzzard, deflating.  “You're probably right.”

“But,” said Maria, jumping to the defense of Buzzard's optimism, “maybe it has changed its pattern.  Maybe we changed its pattern when we destroyed the Visitor.”

“That's right,” said the Doctor, ever hopeful.  “And we sent that message, in its own language.  Who knows what that might have done?”

Stanton nodded, but he wasn't convinced.  “There could be a thousand reasons why it's pointed that way.  Maybe it's something it always does.  Going home?”  He shook his head.  “I'll believe it when I see it.”

That's when Buzzard saw the scout.  He was studying the Prime very closely, absorbing every detail as he worked out the simple matter of where it was pointing.  His brain took in all the information, sorting and arranging it automatically, so when something changed he was immediately aware of it.  It wasn't much of a change, but it was enough for Buzzard.  He zeroed in on it and increased the magnification, filling the screen with the bulk of the Prime's body.  It was mostly a blur of shadows and reflections in the distant light of the Sun, but one of the reflections was moving.  Some measurements and quick calculations gave Buzzard its approximate size relative to the Prime.  It was tiny by comparison.  Thirty meters isn't much next to a hundred kilometers, but it was enough to tell him that it was a vessel in the scout class.  A little more observation and calculation and he was able to guess the direction of the movement.

“You guys,” he said.  “You guys.”

Fran's fur stood up at the way he sounded.  “What is it, Buzzard?” she said quietly.

He indicated the monitor and said just as quietly, “I think we're being followed.”

That started a couple of hours of intense activity as they worked to confirm or negate his conclusion.  Stanton said, “Buzzard, you keep an eye out for more.  If you see anything else moving, let us know.”  Meanwhile they analyzed the thing he had found, confirming that it was moving, separate from the Prime.  They worked out its size, which was thirty meters as he'd said, and they plotted its trajectory.  It was on a course to intercept them.

“About a week,” said Nigel.  “At this rate, with the way it's accelerating, it should be within range in about a week.”

“Within range?” asked Fran.

“Yes,” said Nigel.  “From what we know of its destructive capabilities, it will be about a week before it's close enough to destroy us.”

Fran's vision went inward and silence settled on the eight of them, six of whom were remembering their most dangerous encounter with a scout, when it completely destroyed a large comet.  At that time they thought they'd lost Buzzard and they very nearly did lose Fran.  They had no doubt of the outcome if this scout caught up to them.

Stanton broke the silence.  “Is anything else moving, Buzzard?”

“No,” he said.  “That's all.  Just this one.”

That was a relief, anyway.  At least they would only have to deal with one deadly, murderous machine.

They weren't completely helpless.  They had a rail gun that could accelerate iron pellets up to speeds of thousands of meters per second.  They had calculated that a thousand half-centimeter balls of iron packing that much energy could disable a thirty meter scout, or even one of the hundred meter modules.  They started preparing that right away, even though the scout wouldn't be in range for a week.  At that point they didn't think they could be too prepared.

Even if they could only see this one vessel after them at the time, they couldn't be sure that others weren't closing in as well.  Buzzard spotted this one because he was concentrating on the right place at the right time.  Anything approaching from any other random direction might as well be invisible until it was much closer.  All they could do was set up their telescopes to cover the whole sphere of space around them, and program them to pick out anything that moved against it.  They kept one of the six main telescopes trained on their pursuer, along with their smaller spotter 'scope.

A week's worth of data was going to make aiming the rail gun easy.  After the scout got up to speed and settled on course, it became fixed in their field of view.  It was moving against the background of stars, but relative to the Ball the only thing that was changing was the distance between them.  As the data piled up, Buzzard was able to work the numbers down to the point where their accuracy exceeded the gun's ability.  After that it was just a matter of waiting until their target was close enough for an assured kill.  At least, as assured as they could be under the circumstances.

When the time came, the eight were there along with the rest of the thirty-five waking crew members.  They decided that the Ball could run itself for a while, and they could all be there for this important confrontation.  They considered waking up the other one hundred seventy-five hibernating crew members, but decided against it for logistical reasons.  The greater number wouldn't help, and might hinder their actions.

There wasn't as much action as they thought there might be.  The scout closed in on them for a week, locked in the center of their viewer, imperceptibly growing larger.  They'd watch it intently, wondering if it was ever going to change, then it would suddenly seem bigger, closer, more dangerous, in one quick jump.  Look away and there it would be when you looked back.

They continued to watch the whole sky, anticipating that other vessels would join the pursuit.  They shouldn't have been discovered at all, but now that they were they saw no reason why more of them wouldn't join the attack.  They had showed no hesitation before, when they were expunging the system of life, so why wouldn't they swarm in now?  But nothing showed up.  The sky remained empty, except for this one dogged pursuer.  They didn't stop looking, though.

With about two days left, the scout began to scan them with radar.  It was forty gigahertz, the same as before, but the power was much lower.  They were in no danger of being harmed by it, but it still awoke uncomfortable memories, especially for Elgin and Fran.  But this time it wasn't raking them with ionizing beams.  More like polite little pulses.

If there was any hope before, there was little doubt now.  It knew they were there.  This was no coincidence, with the scout just happening to be going the same way they were.  And after the radar it was unlikely they'd be mistaken for a natural object.  There was no possibility of being quiet and having it go away.  That being so, they turned on their own radar.  There was no sense pretending any more, so they might as well gather as much data as they could.  Whimsically, they matched the power and duration of its pulses, the difference being that their radar was at thirty-nine gigahertz, rather than forty.

Finally the distance between them was small enough that they could be quite sure of a successful shot.  Unfortunately, they knew that they were almost in range of the scout's energy weapons, too.  They couldn't delay any longer.

Stanton gave the order to charge up the rail gun and get the iron pellets spinning up to their launch speed.  While that was ramping up he asked Buzzard, “All set?”

At the monitor, his long-fingered hands hovering over the controls, Buzzard said, “All set.”

“On target?” asked Stanton.

“Locked on,” said Buzzard.  “Locked on to seven nines.”

“Good,” said Stanton.  One part in ten million should be good enough.  “Let me know if there's any change.”

“No change,” said Buzzard.  “The numbers haven't moved.”

Stanton nodded.  “Mm-hm.  Is the gun charged up?”

“Just reaching full charge,” said Buzzard.  “Still oscillating.”  They unconsciously leaned in toward him.  “Stabilizing.”  He nodded.  “Ready to go.  Ready.”

“Thank you,” said Stanton.  “Prepare to fire.”

“Ready to fire,” said Buzzard.  “Ready.”

They held their breath, leaning in even more.  This would be a historic moment in their confrontation with the Visitor.  One time they had hidden to escape.  Once they had ambushed it.  Now they were about to engage in direct, open action.  They didn't know if their weapon would be adequate or, if it was, what the repercussions would be.  Would their brave gesture bring down a storm of destruction on them?  Was this an act of futility?  They couldn't know, but they did know that they had to do it.  The alternative was to wait until the scout got close enough to destroy them.

Stanton drew a sharp breath, about to give the order, when Buzzard said, “Wait!  No!  Wait!  No, wait!”

Stanton let out his breath, along with everyone else.  “What is it, Buzzard?” he said patiently.

“It's changing,” he said.  “It's moving.  The numbers are changing.  They're moving.”  His hands were still over the controls, but the fingers were curled up.

Stanton didn't know what to make of that.  “What's going on?” he said.  The numbers hadn't changed for days.

“It's changing,” said Buzzard, extending one long finger to point at the numbers.

In the silence they heard the high-pitched hum of the rail gun transmitted through the shell of the Ball.  “Well,” said Stanton, “is it taking evasive action?”  That would be disastrous.  They couldn't get a clean shot if they had to constantly change their aim.

“I don't know,” said Buzzard, leaning in to peer at the changing display.  “No!” he said, suddenly seeing it.  “No.  It's breaking off.”

“Breaking off?”

“Yes,” said Buzzard, seeing it clearly now.  “It's breaking off.  Turning away.  It's not after us any more.”

He was right.  As they watched, it peeled off, turning back to its master.  It was no longer chasing them, and there was nothing else out there that posed a threat.  They slowly accepted the fact that they might be safe.

Nineteen – Going Home

“It broke off?”  Winston was astounded, his wide mouth agape.

“Yes,” said Stanton.  “We were about to shoot it full of holes when it turned around and went back.”  He could hear excited talk behind Winston, as well as in the background on Orange Comet.  “We don't know why,” he said.  “We have no idea what it means.”

Winston closed his mouth.  Along with everyone else on the comets, he'd been glued to the window, holding his breath while the Ball prepared to fire on the scout.  They'd seen it all, including the feed from the Ball's telescopes, so they knew what Stanton and the rest of the thirty-five knew.  It was so out of character though, with everything they knew about the Visitor, that they thought they must have missed something.  There must be something that the people on the Ball had seen that could explain it.

“Are you sure there's nothing?”  His eyes widened.  “Are you sure there's no other vessel coming?”  Maybe the scout was called off because there was a big module nearby, with more firepower.

“Not that we can see,” said Stanton.  “You've got the feeds from our whole-sky observations.  There's nothing there.”

Winston nodded.  As strange as it felt, he had to admit that the most plausible conclusion, given the information they had, was that the scout had been called off.  He would accept that conclusion, but he wouldn't really believe it.  He wouldn't be able to relax until the Ball was well clear of the system and on its way home.  The Visitor, the Prime, knew exactly where they were, as well as their trajectory.  It could get them any time it wanted.  He said, “I hope this is what it looks like.  Good luck and hurry home.  Our thoughts are with you.”

“Thanks,” said Stanton.  “We all appreciate that.  See you in sixty years.”

It didn't come after them.  They didn't know why, and they couldn't be sure it wouldn't, so they didn't let their guard down.  While they still felt as if they were within its domain, they kept their telescopes on a whole-sky watch.  Once beyond, they trained them all behind them.  Not once did they see anything threatening, or even suspicious.  There was the Prime, which never moved.  There was the laser moon, which showed some activity, as would be expected with the amount of construction going on there.  And they picked up the occasional smaller vessel moving about; scouts until they were too far away to see anything that small, and modules for awhile longer.  At no time did any of them seem to care about the Ball.

By unspoken consensus they stayed in alert mode, although with declining urgency, until they picked up the laser beam from Orange Comet.  Once they were in the hundred kilometer wide beam they felt as if that part of the mission was over.  Now that they were truly back in interstellar space, safely away from the Prime and all its minions, they turned their attention forward to the return home.

Over the next four years the laser beam would be gradually narrowed down to ten kilometers, to give them its full power.  Then, with angled sail, they would change their trajectory while building up their speed.  Their course would curve until they were headed straight for Green Comet.  Then it was clear sailing until it was time to flip over again, catching Green's laser which they would use for braking.

All that would take two more waking cycles for each crew member, and they'd be back where they started.  Mission accomplished.  Now they knew what was going on in their old solar system, and that's what they set out to find.  As with most answers though, it presented them with more questions.  The Prime was obviously preparing for something, but what?

There was more work ahead of them, no question.

Twenty – Smarter Down Here

“I feel smarter down here.”  Elgin was sharing hibernation with Frances.

“How so?” she asked.  Her face brightened and clarified while she was speaking, then began to slowly fade.

That fascinated Elgin.  He almost understood how his brain, or the nanotool replica of it, created this reality for him.  And how it needed specific input before it could show him specific images.  If Fran didn't speak for a while, her face faded into the background of rose and gold that he knew was her presence.  The rest of their surroundings was mostly featureless white light, with hints of color and shape depending on what they were talking about.

It was just the two of them this time.  Although the Doctor had worked out how to allow for three or more people to share hibernation, as requested by Fran, they saved that for longer sleeps.  Short ones like this were more trouble than it was worth.  With only about three minutes of subjective time, it was better to stick with two and save the confusion.

“Elgin?”

“Hm?” he said.  “Oh, right.”  He wondered if she could see him blush.  “Yes.  I feel smarter down here.  I can see things and understand things that I just don't get up there.”

“What kind of things?”

“Oh, well, take your imprinted genes, for example.  No matter how carefully and patiently the Doctor explained it, the best I ever had was a vague understanding.”  He imagined his hand indicating their milieu in a sweeping gesture.  “Down here I can almost see what he was trying to say.”

“I see,” she said, her face blossoming.  “Do you like it?”

“Yes,” he said.  “I love it.”  He grinned at her, again wondering what she actually saw.  “To understand the things that you guys sometimes talk about?  Yes, I like it.”

“If you like it,” she said, “we could spend more time down here.”  She spoke directly to the heart of it.  “We could spend all our time down here, if you want.”  Her face came completely into focus, showing its full depth of compassion.

It was tempting, but not that tempting.  “That would be nice,” he said, “especially if I could spend the time with you.”  He gazed at her face as it melted into the background.  “But I'd rather be really with you, even if it means having a dimmer bulb.”

She couldn't help but laugh, but she insisted, “You don't have a dim bulb, Elgin.”

“Well, apparently it's not as bright as it could be, if it can be brighter down here.”

“But what does it take to get that little bit of extra brightness?” asked Fran.  “If it takes twenty years of real time for one minute here, is that really brighter?”

“I don't know about that,” he said.  “I don't know how you'd measure that, or even if you could.  All I know is I feel smarter.”

Fran smiled.  “I'm glad you do.  And I'm glad you like it.  And I'm even more glad that you'd rather be really together up there.”  A thoughtful frown drew her brows down.  “I wonder if you were to think of something down here, whether you could remember it up there.”

“I wonder,” he said.

“Let's try it,” she said.  “Think of something that you understand here, but not there.”

“Like what?”

She laughed again.  “How would I know?”

“Right.” he said, “Of course.”  Now it was his turn to frown.  “Oh, I know.  The aging thing.”

“The aging thing?” she said.  “You've got that figured out?”

“Not figured out,” he said, “but I think I know what a part of it is.  If I could tell Buzzard, then he could figure it out.”

“Tell me,” she said, “then we can check it when we go up.”

“Okay,” he said, taking a moment to marshal his thoughts.  “Okay.  I've noticed that when our electronic and photonic equipment malfunctions . . .”

This time when Fran's face faded, it faded into the gray light.  Their three minutes were over.  It was time to go up.

Twenty-One – Stanton's Pair

“Well?” said Fran.

“Well what?” said Elgin.

They were working out on the proprioceptive re-integration apparatus, commonly called the “bike,” even though it didn't have pedals as such.  It was an isometric machine, where you would push with your feet while pulling with your hands, alternating from side to side.  It felt a little like pedalling a bike, and it was a lot easier to say.  Since Stanton's discovery during the Laika incident, they included exercise in the post hibernation recovery routine.  The common wisdom was that it re-introduced the parts of the body to each other, helping them to re-integrate.  The result was that the recovery process was down to not much more than a day, which was much better than the four days it took when Elgin first woke up in this room.

“Can you remember?” Fran asked.  She was working up a light sweat, and her breathing was accelerated.

“Remember?”  Elgin was concentrating on the exercise.  Left-right.  Left-right.

“Yes,” said Fran.  “In hibernation you said you had figured out part of the aging thing.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Elgin, slowing down.  It looked as if he might stop all together, but when he saw Fran continuing to work, he ramped it back up.  He asked, “Can you remember what I was talking about?”

“You didn't manage to say much before we were brought up,” she said, “but you were starting to say something about our electronic equipment malfunctioning.”  She pedalled a couple of beats.  “And photonic equipment.”

“Oh,” said Elgin.  “I remember saying that.”  He frowned so hard you might call it a scowl.  He shook his head and blew an exasperated breath.  “It's not coming to me.  See?” he said.  “Dim bulb.”

“Stop saying that,” said Fran.  She wasn't going to give up on it.  “When you were talking about it, I got the impression that it was something you observed up here.  Not down there where you feel smarter.”

“Oh,” said Elgin.  “Well, there is something I've noticed when we have an equipment failure, but I don't see how it could have anything to do with aging.”

“Try me.”

“Okay.  Quite often it's a faulty power supply.”  He looked at her and shrugged.

“Power supply,” said Fran, also shrugging.  “It doesn't mean anything to me either, but I still think you should run it by Buzzard.”

“Power supply?”  Buzzard looked at Stanton, then back at Elgin and Frances.

“Yes,” said Fran.  “While we were in hibernation, Elgin said he figured out part of the aging thing, but we were brought up before he could tell me.”

“I feel smarter down there,” said Elgin.

“But it had something to do with power supplies?” asked Stanton.

“Yes,” said Elgin.  “Like when we get an equipment failure, it's often a dodgy power supply.”  He looked at Buzzard.  “I don't know what it means any more, but Fran thought I should run it by you anyway.”

“Power supply,” said Buzzard, gazing into space.  He shook his head.  “Nothing's coming to me yet.  I'll keep thinking about it.”  He looked at Elgin.  “You feel smarter down there?”

“Yes,” said Elgin.

“That's funny,” said Buzzard.  “I feel less smart.”  They looked at Fran and Stanton.

“I feel the same,” said Stanton.

“Me too,” said Fran.

They all turned to look into space.  They were in Stanton's bubble, a fifteen meter ice sphere half buried in the surface of the comet.  Outside was one of a pair of two-hundred-meter spheres, and they were here to have a look at it as it neared completion.

It was sitting on the big hatch a kilometer away from them.  The other half of the pair was about sixty kilometers away, on the surface of another comet.  Technically, that comet was part of Green Comet now, like the two little comets that were already attached.  This new addition was big, though.  Closer in size to Green Comet itself.  And it wasn't stuck on like the others.  Instead, it was standing off one kilometer, joined by a transparent ice tube.  The greater Green Comet was now a dimer; two molecules joined to make one larger object.

The original Ball was sitting there, looking beautiful and grand and portentous as it had before.  It looked the same, but they knew it was changed to incorporate the necessary improvements and modifications that its first trip made apparent.  The second ball, on a similar hatch sixty kilometers away, was built from the ground up to incorporate the changes.  They were functionally identical but, as the engineer in charge told Stanton as she briefed him on the changes, you always prefer to have it built in.  Stanton, one engineer to another, knew what she meant.

“Has everyone seen enough here?” asked Stanton.  “Let's go look at the other one.”

Down into the comet they went, through smaller passageways that led to larger ones, past the Square via one of the orbitals, and finally into the corridor that took them outside.  The first kilometer was still within the comet, so it was just like any other large corridor.  Once they went past the bulkhead, though, with its recessed emergency pressure door, they came out into space.  Ahead they could see the massive bulge of the other comet, but in between, through the nearly perfect clarity of the ice, was a vertiginous gap.

Fran hesitated slightly, but kept moving.  She'd done this before and was comfortable with it, at least intellectually.  Underneath, a more conservative part of her wasn't yet ready to accept that it was safe, but she stifled its protests and dragged it out there.  After less than a minute, when they were halfway across, she stopped.

Elgin, who had been covertly watching her since she hesitated, stopped immediately.  Stanton and Buzzard flew on for a few meters and had to come back.  “What's up?” asked Elgin solicitously.

“Nothing,” she said.  “I just wanted to have a look.”  She turned slowly, taking it in.  Their view was dominated by the comets, which blocked most of it, but in between was spectacular.  Aside from venturing outside in a pressure suit, this was the most exposure they could get to the vacuum.  Although they could get more total sky in Stanton's bubble, they were still immersed in the body of the comet.  Here, even though the comets loomed on both sides, it still felt more like being outside.

Looking at the comets, Fran could tell by the way they curved away from her that the new one was smaller than the original.  “Have they figured out what they're going to do about that?” she asked Stanton.

“The difference in sizes, you mean?” he said.  He shook his head.  “Everyone has something to say about it.  I think the consensus is that they should be the same size.”

“For balance and symmetry,” she said.

“Yes,” he said, “but there are good arguments against it, too.  Like the effort required and the potential danger.”

“But we've never worried about effort and danger, have we?”

“No,” he laughed.  “Not if you've had anything to do with it.”

They all chuckled at her, then Buzzard said, “I hope we decide to build it up to the same size.”

“So it looks right?” asked Elgin.

“Yes,” said Buzzard.  “If it's going to be a dimer, then the two molecules should be identical.  The same.  Water molecules are the same.”  He looked at the horizon of the smaller comet, nodding his head.  Then he grinned.  “Besides,” he said, “it would mean a lot of work for Maria, operating her smasher.”

They all laughed, picturing her striding about the surface of the comet in her five meter tall exoskeleton.  She loved operating smashers, and that made Buzzard love them too.

“They could start by taking the two hydrogen atoms and spreading them out,” said Stanton.

Like Green Comet, the new one had two smaller comets attached, representing the two hydrogen atoms in a water molecule.

Buzzard said, “Yes, that's just about right.  That's just about the right amount of material.”

They were quiet for a while, thinking about that.  Stanton was thinking about the engineering problems, visualizing how he would go about solving them.  He was almost sorry he wouldn't be there for that, but he had something else to do.  Green Comet's engineering challenges would be in someone else's hands for now.  He turned and looked back down the tube, to the opening into their comet.  He was surprised by the sudden sense of loss and leaving.  And he was left wondering how things would be when they got back.  Would he still be Green Comet's chief engineer?  He turned away, shaking off those thoughts and feelings.  He had another mission now.  He could deal with this stuff later.  “Come on,” he said.  “Let's go have a look at Ball Two.”

The four of them got going again, flying across the gap between two huge comets.  That image made Fran wonder about another member of their crew.  She asked, “Does anyone know if the Doctor has been out here yet?”

“No,” said Elgin.  “Nigel has been working with him and he's getting more comfortable going out on the surface in a pressure suit, but he just can't get him to come out here.”

“Why not?” asked Stanton.  “This isn't as bad as being on the surface.”  He waved at the structure around them.  “It's completely enclosed and protected.  He wouldn't even need a suit.”

“I don't think it's that,” said Elgin.  “According to Nigel, the Doctor doesn't like the feeling of vulnerability and fragility.”

“Fragility?”

“Yes.  Two massive things and a tiny piece of glass holding them apart.”  Elgin brought his hands up to demonstrate.  “Nigel says he feels like the least little thing could snap this tube.”

“Snap this tube?” said Stanton.  “That's not going to happen.”

“I know,” said Elgin.

“This tube is stronger than the comets.”

“I know.”

“This tube, and all the built systems it's connected to, have more structural integrity than the comet material that they're embedded in.”

“I know,” said Elgin.  “The corridors branch into it like roots.  There's no rational reason for his fear.”  He shrugged, spreading his hands.

While they contemplated this irrationality, Fran said, “Maybe Nigel should get him to try coming out here in a suit.”

No one said anything for a minute, then Stanton shook his head and said, “You always come up with the answer that no one else would.”

Elgin was smiling proudly.  “And the one that's right.”

Buzzard laughed.  “Wearing a spacesuit indoors,” he said as they entered the comet.

The first kilometer was identical to the other side.  It was a stretch of new corridor that ran seamlessly from deep inside one comet to equally deep within  the other.  It was different from there on, though.  They started out in a section of orbital, but in a few kilometers that ran out and they were in utilitarian tunnels the rest of the way.

They came to the square, but couldn't go in because it was still under construction.  They stopped where a section of their corridor's wall allowed them a view, and watched the people working.  The square was roughed in and most of it was sealed off by ice, but that was it.  The workers were in suits, obviously still working in a vacuum.  There were no openings, no columns, no finishing touches of any kind.

Fran asked Stanton, “How long before it's usable?”

“At least a month,” he said.  “They have to finish sealing it, then there's the pressure test.  And they'll have to make at least one entrance and connect it to a functioning passageway.”  He looked at her.  “We'll be gone before it's done.”

They carried on down the corridor, which went for a few kilometers without any more branches or exits, and then simply stopped dead.  Here there was a connecting passageway that headed upward, the only reason the main corridor had been pushed this far, and up they went.  This small passage also had no branches and only one destination.  In minutes they came to its end, where there was a small door.  Buzzard opened it and they came out into another bubble.  There waiting for them were Galatea and Maria.

“You took your time,” said Galatea, while Maria greeted Buzzard with a quick hug and a kiss.

“We did a bit of sightseeing,” said Stanton.  “The tube and the new square.”  His eyes were drawn outside, where the second ball was sitting on the surface a kilometer away.  It looked just like the Ball, a two hundred meter sphere made of ice.  More accurately, it had a shell of water glass.  No crystals were allowed to form during its construction, so it couldn't properly be called ice.  But it was water, and it looked like ice, so everyone still thought of it as ice.

It was laid out the same as the Ball, with the clutter of construction in the bottom end and the flashball court at the top.  Stanton swung his head a hundred eighty degrees, to compare this ball to the original, but at sixty kilometers even a two hundred meter object is too small to make out details.  They could only see it at all because of the lights.  “How long have you been waiting?” he asked.

“Not long,” said Maria before Galatea could tease him.  “About ten or fifteen minutes.”  She looked at the ball.  “We were talking about the procedure,” she said.  Taking Buzzard's arm, she asked him, “Could you go through it one more time please?  As long as we're looking at it?”

“Sure,” he said, “okay.”  He glanced at Stanton.  “Right.  Well, you can see one of the two nitrogen rockets.”  She nodded.  “There's another one.  Two.”  She squeezed his arm.  “Okay.  Those will run at first.  For a few days.  To get us going.”  And so it went, with the rockets which were discarded after a few days, then the ion drive, which would run for months.  After that it would be just the light sail until they got there.

It would be the same as last time.  They would angle toward Orange Comet, then flip over and catch its beam.  That would push them back toward their destination while slowing them down enough for the star's gravity to sling them back toward home.  The difference was that this time there would be two balls travelling together, and one of them would be staying there.

Ball Two, as they were provisionally calling it, would be carrying a complement of eight hundred people.  Its mission was to establish itself in the outer reaches of the star's system, where they were sure they would find a plentiful supply of small orbiting bodies.  Ensured of adequate resources, they would set up the laser they were carrying, and provide the Ball with a good source of energy for the return trip.  They would be setting up the first true interstellar transport system.

As Buzzard was finishing his story, the door at the back of the bubble opened and out came Nigel and the Doctor, who was wearing a pressure suit.  “Hello everyone,” he said, smiling through his open faceplate.

They all greeted him and congratulated him on his accomplishment.  He turned to Frances and said, “Nigel tells me I have you to thank.  That this was your idea.”

She nodded graciously and said, “I might have thought of it Doctor, but you did it.”

Over a chorus of affirmation, the Doctor said, “It was still your idea.  Thank you.  Without you I would never have seen that amazing view.”  He chuckled nervously.  “Scary as hell, but amazing.”

They all laughed with him and their eyes strayed back to Ball Two.  As everyone quietly contemplated their coming voyage, Fran said, “Pretty soon we'll get to see what we saved from the Visitor.”

Twenty-Two – Pharos

“This is more like it,” said Elgin, lacing his fingers behind his head and leaning back in his chair.  He lifted his feet and crossed his ankles, which is easy to do in microgravity.

“What is?” asked Stanton.  They were in the Ball's control center, or rather, almost in it.  They were close enough that if anything happened, they'd be right there.  But they were out where they had a good view of the flashball game that was underway up front, and where they could see the window.  There was something satisfying about the window, with its prominent views of the squares in Green and Orange Comets, and of the interior of Ball Two.

Elgin relaxed and his body fell back to its normal attitude.  It took some effort to strike that “relaxed” pose he'd been in, but it felt good to stretch out once in a while.  He pointed in the general direction of Ball Two, sixty kilometers away on their starboard beam.  “It's good to be travelling as a pair again.  I have to admit, I was never completely comfortable being alone on that last trip.”

“Ah, right,” said Stanton.  “I know what you mean.  It's better to have company.”

About sixty meters away, the flashball streaked across most of the width of the court, with a sharp flash of white in mid-flight.  They gave a little cheer.  “Good one, Buzzard,” said Elgin.  Even at this distance they could recognize his unique style and physique.  But even if they couldn't, they'd have known by the white flash.  Buzzard wasn't the only one who could make the ball do that, but he was the only one here on the Ball.

Stanton said, “Has he got back to you about the mitochondria yet?”

“No,” said Elgin, “not really.”  The hibernation between launch and flip was long enough for him to remember what he meant by power supplies, and to tell Fran.  When they came up for the flip maneuver, Fran was able to tell Buzzard, but he wasn't able to make anything of it yet.  “He says the mitochondrial DNA is fine.  He hasn't been able to find anything wrong with it.”

“That's what he told me too,” said Stanton.  “I just wondered if he might have told you any more.”

“Did he tell you what he's planning next?”

“I don't think so.  What did he tell you?”

Elgin hesitated.  “Maybe I shouldn't tell you.  If he hasn't told you, maybe he's got his reasons.”

Stanton gave him a look.

“It's a bit off the wall,” said Elgin.  “He might not want to tell you until something comes of it.”

Stanton kept looking, and Elgin began to get nervous.

“Okay,” said Elgin, “it's not as if he actually asked me to not tell you.”

Stanton nodded, encouraging him to go on.

Elgin said, “He figured if I was thinking of the mitochondria as a power supply, then maybe he should too.  So, what's the first thing you do when you suspect the power supply?”

“You check the voltages,” said Stanton.

“That's right.  So Buzzard is trying to figure out how to do that test inside a cell.”

Stanton raised his eyebrows.  “I'm no biologist,” he said, “but I don't think you can just look at a dial.”

Elgin laughed.  “Buzzard's working with the Doctor.  They're talking about attaching bits of RNA to nanotools.”  He noted Stanton's quizzical look.  “I know,” he said, “but they seem to think it might work.”

Stanton nodded.  “They probably know what they're doing.”

“If anybody does, it would be them.”

The window chimed, drawing their attention.  “Ball One, this is Pharos, over,” it said.

Elgin and Stanton looked at each other.  “Pharos?” they said simultaneously as they went over.  They could see that it was just Sun Ra of Ball Two.  “Hey Sun,” said Elgin.  “What's up?”

“Hi Elgin.  Stanton,” said Sun Ra, beaming widely.  He was bursting with happiness and excitement.  “So, what do you think?”

“Think of what?” asked Elgin.

“Pharos,” said Sun Ra.  “Our new name.  What do you think of it?”

“New name?  You've renamed Ball Two to . . . Pharos, is it?”

“Pharos,” said Stanton.  “That's right.  The lighthouse.”  He nodded at Sun Ra.  “It's an excellent name.  I like it. Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” said Sun Ra.  “We wanted you guys to be the first to know.”

Elgin caught up.  “Ah.  The lighthouse Pharos.  Of course,” he said.  “I like it too.  It's very appropriate.”

“We thought so,” said Sun Ra.  “We had a debate and a vote, but it was obvious anyway.  Oh, and Pharos is the name of the island.”

“The island?”

“That the lighthouse stood on,” said Sun Ra.  “It was called Pharos, not just the lighthouse.”

“Really?” said Stanton.  “I didn't know that.”

There was a brief round of nodding, then Elgin asked, “What brought this on, anyway?  Why did you suddenly decide to change your name?”

“Oh, it wasn't sudden,” said Sun Ra.  “We decided years ago, well before the flip, but we thought it would be best if we made it official after.  To be more symbolic.”

“Symbolic?”

“Yes.  Symbolic of the change from our old lives to our new ones.”  He smiled at them, possibly a little abashed at sounding so grand.  “You know,” he said.  “Before, we were going away from Green Comet, but now we're approaching our new world.  Our new lives.”  He might have been embarrassed to say it, but you could tell he was proud, too.

“I see,” said Elgin, looking at Stanton.  They realized that this hadn't occurred to them.  While they knew that the people on Ball Two, Pharos, would be setting up a laser installation at the new star, they hadn't thought of it as permanent.  They knew it was, of course, but some part of them continued to assume that it wasn't.  That Pharos was on a mission just like the Ball, and would be returning just like them.  That was when it dawned on them that they were entering a new era.  They would be dividing up now, and spreading out.  “I see.”

When they called Green Comet to tell them, they got Winston.  When he heard, he said, “Ah, the lighthouse.  Good choice.”

Elgin, Stanton and Sun Ra all began at once.  They laughed and let Sun Ra do the honors.  “It's actually the island,” he said.

“Oh, right,” croaked Winston.  “I remember now.  Pharos was the island that the lighthouse was on.”  He nodded.  “It's still a good choice, though.”

“We think so,” smiled Sun Ra.  “The more we get used to it, the more we like it.”

They got much the same reaction when they called Orange Comet, although the first person they talked to there had never heard of Pharos.  They got someone who had, and this time Elgin and Stanton let Sun Ra explain the island thing by himself.

Just then Buzzard arrived from the flashball court, energized from his physical exertions.  His reaction was, “The island.  With the lighthouse.  That's good.  You're kind of like that.  Kind of like an island with a light on it.  That's really good.”

Elgin and Stanton looked at each other.  Of course he'd know that.  If Sun Ra was disappointed that he didn't get to explain again, he didn't let it show.  He thanked them for their kind words, unable to suppress a happy grin, then signed off and left the window.

Fran came rushing up, asking, “Is he still here?”

“No,” said Elgin.  “He just left.”

“Sun Ra,” she called, hurrying over to the window.  She put her face up close and looked both ways.  “Sun Ra?”  She spotted him and called out again, finally getting his attention.  “Ah, good,” she said as he turned and came back.  “I'm glad I caught you.”

“Hi, Fran,” he said as he reappeared in the window.  “What's up?”

“I just heard,” she said, “and I wanted to congratulate you.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“All of you.  Your whole community.  This is a big day for you.”

“Yes,” he said, looking thoughtful.  “You know, I knew it was something special, but until now, until you said it, I didn't realize how special.”  He grinned at her.  “Thank you again.”

“You're welcome,” she said.  “We're going to be saying all this again when we send an official note, of course, but I wanted to say something personally.”  She changed slightly, in her voice and her posture, and they knew she was speaking for everyone now.  She said, “Congratulations on your new name, Pharos.  You will always be a beacon in our minds.”

Sun Ra had changed too, almost giving the impression of standing at attention.  He smiled at the beacon reference, aware of how apropos it was.  He said, “Thank you, Fran.  You always know what to say.”  Still smiling, he nodded.  “I have a feeling this is going to be more official than all the official notes we might get.”

“I don't know about that,” she said.  “I just wanted to mark the day.”

“Well,” he said, winking at her, “consider it marked.”

She laughed and they observed the formalities before he left the window again.  When she turned around she saw Elgin looking at her adoringly, Stanton nodding sagely and Buzzard wearing a big delighted grin.  “What?” she said.  “I just wanted to let them know how I felt.”

“Right,” said Stanton, “and somehow you managed to say what we all felt.  Saying the perfect thing in a handful of words.”

“Piffle,” she said.  “I just said what anyone would have said.”

“Piffle?”

“Yes,” she said, blushing.  “Now, what were you talking about before all this?”

Stanton remembered.  “Elgin and I were talking about the aging thing.”

“That's right,” said Elgin.  “About what Buzzard and the Doctor were doing with nanotools.”

“And RNA,” added Stanton.

Fran turned to Buzzard.  “Nanotools and RNA?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.  He was winding down from the exercise and stimulation.  “We need to communicate with the mitochondrial DNA, and the Doctor thinks the RNA will do that.”

“Do you think there's something wrong with the DNA?”

“No,” he said.  “There's nothing wrong with it.  It seems completely normal.  We just need to measure its energy production.”

“And you can use RNA for that?”

“The Doctor says that DNA uses RNA to do what it does.  He's right.  I looked it up.”

“So you're thinking you can use the RNA on the nanotools to measure what's going on.”

“That's right,” said Buzzard.  He shrugged.  “That's the theory anyway.”

“You don't sound hopeful.”

“No, no,” he said, ”we'll get there, eventually.  It's just not as straightforward as the circadian clock and the suprachiasmic nucleus in the hypothalamus.”

“I'm glad that's straightforward to you,” said Fran.  They all laughed.

Twenty-Three – Epiphenomena

Her eyes were always the first to appear and the last to go.  “Elgin?”

He saw her face appear, eyes first.  “Yes, Rannie?”

She smiled.  “I love it when you call me that.”

“And I love it that you let me.”  He watched her face blend into the indistinct background.  When only her golden eyes remained, he said, “Was there something?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, her face blooming back.  “Do you have any thoughts on the mitochondria thing?”

“Yes,” he said.  “Since Buzzard says the DNA is okay, it must be something else.  Something that interprets what the DNA is saying, and puts it into effect.”

“Do you mean like RNA and enzymes?”

“No.  Well, I mean yes.  But not so specific.”

“But what else is there?”

“I don't know,” he said, “but I know there's something.  Some layer between the hereditary code and the physical results.”

She frowned.  “Biology was never my strong suit, but I'm pretty sure there's no other structure in there.”

“I know,” he said, “but there's something there.  Something mediating between the genome and the individual organism.”  He was frowning now, too.  “It's not the genome . . .”

Her eyes shone, flashing gold.  “The epigenome!” she said.  “The epigenome.  It's how the genome is expressed in each individual.”

“That's right!” he said, as it clicked into place.  He didn't know the term or exactly how it was supposed to work, but as soon as she said it, he knew it was right.

“That's what we can tell Buzzard, then,” she said.

“And I should be able to remember that myself,” he said.  “Epigenome.  Easy.”  After some thought he added, “I probably won't be able to explain it, but I should be able to remember it.”

She smiled at him.  “If there's a problem, I'll be there to help, Mister Dim Bulb.”

He was laughing as the gray light came.

Twenty-Four – Split Beams

“Elgin, come look at this.”  Fran was at the telescope monitor, looking at their destination.

Elgin left the window, where he'd been having a look at the Square back on Green Comet.  “What is it?” he asked, peering at the image.  “What's wrong with it?” he said when he saw it.  “Is it out of focus?”

“No,” she said, “that's as good as I can get it.”

His impulse was to try to adjust the image, but he didn't.  He knew it must be as good as it could be.  Fran spent a lot of time on the telescopes and it was unlikely that he could improve on her results.  Still, it was tempting to reach out and tweak it.

What he saw was a fuzzy dot.  She was looking at one of the planets orbiting their destination star.  It was the second one they'd found, a second gas giant nearly as massive as the first.  Once they found the first one they knew it would be simple to find the rest.  With their innate sense of gravitation, bred into them by having at least two comets in their sky for the last hundred thousand years, imagining the orbits of these planets was instinctual.

From the way these two were moving, and the way the star was being pulled around, they knew there was at least one more gas giant on an orbit farther out.  That was in addition to the expected population of smaller bodies.  Inside the orbit of the first and largest giant there were more potential orbits, but they might or might not be occupied, depending on the history of this system.

It would take time and a lot of observation to figure that out, and they would.  They had the advantage of getting closer to what they were observing with every passing day.  They knew that they would eventually have the system completely mapped, at least for the major planets, and surely for many of the minor bodies too.  But that would all come later.  For now there was this fuzzy dot, and the fuzzy bright spots on either side of it.

“Is that a glitch?” asked Elgin.

“No,” said Fran.  “I've run a complete diagnostic on the whole telescope system.  Everything is well within tolerances.”

Elgin leaned in closer.  The fuzzy dot looked fine.  It was just what it should be at this distance.  But the indistinct patterns bracketing it were all wrong.  “They can't be moons,” he said.  “They're as big as the planet.”

“No, they're definitely not moons.  Not unless moons grow.”

“Grow?”

“Yes.  Those patches are bigger than they were yesterday, when I first spotted them.”

Now Elgin was really intrigued.  As he stared at the image he realized something else.  The patches were on opposite sides of the planet, but not directly opposite.  “These can't be moons anyway.  Well, not unless we caught them at a special moment in their really weird orbits.”  He pointed.  “If they were real moons, they'd have the center of the planet between them.  These are off-center.”

“I thought there was something wrong with it,” said Fran.  “It seemed unbalanced somehow.  I was putting it down to the distance and the quality of the image.”

“It's definitely off-center,” said Elgin.

They were quiet, looking at the image, thinking about its mystery.  In an amused tone, Fran said, “They look kind of like wings.”

Elgin squinted, looking through his lashes.  “They do,” he said, chuckling.  “Maybe we've discovered a giant pixie that lives in outer space.”

Fran laughed out loud.  “Oh my,” she said.  “I hope it doesn't eat spaceships.”

They were up for the divergence.  The Ball and Pharos were planning to go to different parts of the system.  Pharos was heading for the outer system, to establish itself among the small bodies they knew would be out there.  They would decide on their destination as they gathered more information.  It might be the small rocky and icy planetesimals that they knew would be out beyond the big gas giants.  Or, if they found one or more smaller giants out there, they might have a good collection of resources in their trojan areas.  Either way, Pharos would set up shop and prepare their transport laser.

The Ball would be angling in toward the inner system.  There was room inside the big giant for a few more orbits, and they intended to go in there and see if those orbits were populated.  If they were, then they might find something analogous to their own planet.  If there was a wet, rocky planet in there where it was warm enough to have liquid water on the surface, then they had to see it.  If there wasn't, if everything in there was disrupted by the gravity of the giants, and was either thrown into the star or ejected from the system, then they would want to know that too.

“Do you think we'll find anything?” asked Elgin.

“In the inner system, you mean?” said Fran.

“Yes.”

“I think it's likely,” she said, “that there will be one or more planets in there.  But I suspect you want to speculate on the existence of life, right?”

He nodded.  “Yes.  It might be interesting to find more planets, but without life that's all it would be.”

“I know what you mean,” she said.  “We're on this mission to see what we saved when we destroyed the Visitor.  It would be less satisfying if it was nothing but a bunch of lifeless planets.”

“That's it exactly,” he said.  “It's satisfying to know that the Visitor won't destroy this system, or any system ever again.  That alone makes it worth the effort.”  He glanced at the telescope display, then raised his eyes to the front of the Ball, as if he could see the star and its planets.  “But if there's life there . . . if we saved a living system, it would mean so much more.”

They were interrupted by a call.  “Ball, this is Pharos, over.”  It was Sun Ra again.

“Hello Sun,” said Fran.

“Hello Fran.  Elgin.”  He was calm and friendly, but his expression was serious.

Fran picked up on it right away.  “What's wrong, Sun?”

He glanced over his shoulder, where there seemed to be an unusual amount of activity in the background.  “We've had an incident,” he said.

“Oh no!” she said.  “What is it?  Is everyone all right?”

“Everyone's okay,” he said, raising placating hands.  “It's nothing like that.  It's just . . .”  He paused, looking embarrassed.  “Well, we seem to have fallen off the beam.”

“Fallen off the beam?”  Fran and Elgin looked at each other, then back at Sun Ra.

He looked mortified.  “I know,” he said.  “We can't believe it either.”

Fran bit down all the obvious questions.  This wasn't the time to satisfy her curiosity, or to look for where to lay the blame.  She said, “How can we help?”

His face relaxed with gratitude.  “We need some help calculating the thrust vectors we need to get back on the beam.”

“Shouldn't that be straightforward?  I mean, you have your trajectory, and you know where the beam is.”  She saw his face fall.  “Of course we'll help you,” she said.  “I'm just wondering.”

“I know,” said Sun Ra.  “It should be straightforward, but there are complications and we need someone who can do it quickly.”  He frowned and looked away, distracted for a moment by the bustle around him.  He looked back.  “We can do the calculations ourselves, but we're drifting farther away from the beam all the time, and we'd rather get it done as soon as possible.”  He looked hopeful.  “We were thinking of Buzzard, and maybe Archie.”

“Of course,” said Fran.  “Send us a dump of all the data and we'll get started on it right way.”

“Right,” he said, beginning to send data that was obviously already assembled.  “And you'll give it to Buzzard?”

“We'll tell him about it,” said Fran.  “Whether he does it or not will be up to him.”  She saw alarm in his face and added, “Don't worry.  He's never let anyone down yet.  It's just that he and Archie are pretty busy with the aging thing.”

“Oh yeah,” he said.  “How's that going?”

“Pretty well, I think.  They were able to measure the energy output of the mitochondria, and they found that it's a little erratic.  They compared it to some reference cells that have been in cold storage all along.”

“Will they be able to repair that?”

“They should be able to.  They're studying the epigenome now, to see if there's any correlation.”  She smiled at Elgin.

“Well,” said Sun Ra, “if anyone can do it, they can.”

“That's right,” said Fran.  “Now, why don't you tell me what happened?  The sooner you do, the sooner we can get started.”

“Okay,” said Sun Ra.  “We didn't notice anything until it was too late.  The first thing we saw was when someone looked at the sail.  It was too dim.”

“So you were already slipping off the beam.”

“That's right.  So naturally we immediately started trying to tack back onto it, but the sail wasn't responding properly.”

“How so?” asked Fran.

“It wasn't taking the shape or the angle we were telling it to.”  Sun Ra shook his head.  “That's when we became aware that it was the wrong shape anyway.  It was wrong before we even did anything.”

“But how can that be?  Wouldn't your instruments have told you that?”

“That's the thing,” he said.  “Our instruments didn't tell us anything.  They were reporting that everything was optimal the whole time.”

“Your instruments are defective?”  Fran glanced at Elgin, who immediately began a full diagnostic of their own instruments.

“Yes, and once we realized that, we did a full series of visual measurements on the sail.  It turns out that one of the cables has stopped functioning.”

“And the instruments didn't report that either.”

“No!  We had no idea until it was too late.”

“Have you run the diagnostics?”

“Yes, and that's what makes it so hard.  They've found nothing.”

This time when she looked at Elgin, he rolled his eyes and got on the public address system.  He said, “Stanton to the control center.  Stanton.  To the control center, please.”

The Ball changed.  All the sounds of activity stopped.  All the little noises that they'd been hearing, the shouts in the flashball court, talking and laughter elsewhere, all stopped.  The Ball was as silent as it could be, with only the background sound of its functioning machinery still there.

Then the people began to show up.  Elgin might have called only Stanton, but everyone came.  Every member of the waking thirty-five crew who could leave their post was arriving at the control center.  You don't summon your chief engineer unless something is going on, and they all wanted to find out what that was.

When Stanton got there, Galatea was with him.  Buzzard and Maria had preceded them, and Nigel and the Doctor came in with the stragglers.  Stanton joined Elgin, who filled him in on what had happened so far, while Fran waved Buzzard over to talk to Sun Ra.

Buzzard riffled through the data sent by Sun Ra, while listening to him recount the sequence of events again.  Before long he was nodding, and by the time Sun Ra's story was done, Buzzard had a preliminary recommendation for a thrust vector.

“I'll be able to be more specific once I've had time to go over the numbers, but this will get you going in the right direction,” he said, nodding reassuringly.  “We'll get Orange Comet to widen its beam, and by the time that gets here, you should be sliding right into it.”

Stanton came over, glancing at the crowd of spectators on the way.  He joined Fran and Buzzard so he could talk to Sun Ra.  “Hello,” he said.  “I hear you've had a bit of trouble.”

“Yes, a bit,” said Sun Ra, who was now completely relaxed.  With Stanton there, he had pretty well everyone he'd have put on a list of the people he'd most want in a crisis.  He scanned the faces behind Stanton and saw Nigel and the Doctor.  They were all there.  The Five, who'd saved them from the Visitor.  One hand against annihilation.  Plus Buzzard.  Compared to what they faced before, this was nothing.  He smiled.  “I'm sure it's nothing to worry about.”

Stanton frowned.  “Of course it's something to worry about,” he said.  “If we can't get you back on that beam, then I don't know what we'll do.”  He looked around the Ball.  “Then there's the matter of your equipment failure,” he said, looking him in the eye.  “We have the same equipment.  Of course it's a problem.”

Sun Ra's face fell.  “I'm sorry,” he said.  “I didn't mean . . .”

Stanton waved him off.  “Never mind that,” he said.  “We're going to need as much data as possible.  We need to find and isolate the problem.  We'll need a complete dump of all your systems.”  He caught himself and softened it.  “We're going to get through this,” he said.  “We'll do it together.  You and us.  Green and Orange.  We'll find the problem and, if it's possible, we'll fix it.”

Fran and Buzzard had drifted away while Stanton talked to Sun Ra.  When they joined Elgin, Buzzard said, “It's good to keep their spirits up, but it won't be that simple.  It's not a sure thing.  Not a sure thing.”

Twenty-Five – Space is Big

“What was that?” said Buzzard.

“What?” said Archie.  “I didn't see anything.”

They were at the window, with a model of the problem between them.  The model wasn't only of the defective cable on Pharos' sail.  It included the sensor system and the diagnostic system.  It had lines and symbols showing where those systems went and how they interacted, with the cable, with each other, and with the rest of the vessel's systems.  It was fully annotated and color coded.  They could explode the view on any part of it or make it transparent if they wanted.  They were using all the aids to make it as simple as possible, but it was still complicated.  You might even call it a rat's nest, and Buzzard thought he saw a rat.

“Not in the cable,” he said.  “In the numbers.”

Alongside the model was a block of numbers representing the readouts as they ran the model through the recording of the real system.  It wasn't the first time through.  They'd run the simulation many times, trying to see where things had gone wrong.  It was a difficult exercise, and it wasn't made any easier by the knowledge that the recording contained false data.  It continued to report no faults when that was obviously not true.  The failure was proof of that.

Buzzard ran things back to where he saw the problem, then let it go again.  He nodded when he saw it, then marked off a block of time.  “See?” he said to Archie.

Archie shook his head, puzzled, then his eyes snapped wide.  “I see it,” he said.  “I see it.”

Archie and Buzzard were just about as different as you could imagine.  Buzzard's long, sinuous body and his open, expressive face continuously showed everyone what he was feeling.  Even staying in one place, he always seemed to be moving somehow, or at least about to.  He was open and friendly and usually smiling.  Children instinctively loved him, and they weren't the only ones.

Archie was small and compact.  He kept his body and his face under control.  His expressions, face and body, were contained, almost taut.  He rarely smiled, or showed much of any emotion on his face.  People didn't take to him.  Not that they were antagonistic or put off.  They would tell you that he was a fine person and not bad company.  They just had no inclination to seek out his company.

As different as they were, Archie and Buzzard were alike in one way, at least.  They both had a gift for recognizing and remembering patterns, and that's what they had here.  Buzzard took the numbers in the block of time he was showing Archie and did a search on them.  Sure enough, they got a hit right away.  As the search ran, they got hit after hit.  It turned out the sequence was repeating once per day.  Buzzard expanded the search to take in a full day of data, and once again got a series of perfect hits.  It's no wonder the people on Pharos didn't notice anything was wrong.  They kept getting the same good data on a slow loop.

“Why didn't anyone notice this?” asked Archie.

“It's pretty hard to see,” said Buzzard.

“But we saw it.”

Buzzard cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Okay, you saw it,” said Archie.  “But once you pointed it out, I saw it right away.”

“Of course you did, because you're like me.”  Buzzard gestured at the numbers.  “Most people wouldn't see it, or at least not for a long time.”

“I guess you're right,” said Archie.  “Not everyone is like us.”

“That's right,” said Buzzard.  “And besides, they wouldn't have been looking at these numbers anyway.  They'd have checked the readouts and the indicators, and this pattern might not show up there at all.”

“Why not?”  The brows on Archie's smooth face drew slightly closer together.

“An indicator might not change all day,” said Buzzard.  “It could be green the whole time, while the actual numbers go through the whole cycle.”

Archie's brow cleared.  “Of course,” he said.  “There'd be nothing to look for because there wouldn't be a pattern at all.”

“That's right,” said Buzzard, beginning to go through the numbers in detail.  “That's right.”

Archie joined him and together, on opposite sides of the window, these two very different men began to take apart the numbers.

“It's right in here,” said Buzzard, indicating the model.  He and Archie were showing everyone what they'd found.

From his side of the window, Archie said, “The sensor system went into a one day loop at this point, and began showing the same thing every day.”

Winston was at Green Comet's window.  “But why?” he said.  “Have you figured out what made it go into this loop?”  He was deeply concerned.  “Is it going to happen again?  Maybe to the Ball?”

“We don't know,” said Buzzard, “but we can't see any reason why it shouldn't.”  Seeing the alarm in Winston's face, he quickly added, “We don't think it will.  We think the combination of circumstances was so . . . rare . . . unique?”  He was stalled, trying to find the exact word.  He looked at Archie for help.

“It was a fluke,” said his diminutive friend.  “The chance of the same thing happening again in the same way is so small that it might as well be zero.  At least on time scales that are relevant to ephemeral beings like us.”

Winston nodded absently, then looked at Buzzard, who said, “Of course we'll want to supplement the sensor data with visual measurements, at least until the programmers isolate the piece of code that caused the problem.”  Winston began to look happier.  “We don't expect another problem,” said Buzzard, “but it's better to be safe than to be sorry.  Sorry.”

Winston nodded firmly at that.  “Of course,” he said.  “An abundance of caution at all times.”  Looking back and forth between the two, facing him from their separate sections of the window, he asked, “Did you find what caused it?”

“No,” said Buzzard, while Archie said “Yes,” at the same time.  Everyone laughed, although Archie's only showed as a slight creasing of his cheeks on either side of his mouth.  He deferred to Buzzard, who said, “We think we know what happened, what made it start looping, but only what triggered it.  We don't know what flaw in the code caused it.”  He looked at Archie, who nodded economically.

“I see,” said Winston.  “Can you tell us what triggered it, then?”

“Yes, we think so,” said Buzzard, and between them and their model, they explained how they thought the sensors were reporting a fault in the cable just as a daily diagnostic was beginning.  “And, by a big fluke, as Archie says, the system got confused and began sending the previous day's sensor data instead of the fault report.”

“That sounds highly unlikely,” said Winston.

“It is,” said Buzzard.  “It was.  Unlikely.  Highly.  Highly unlikely.”

Archie rescued him.  “We tried to calculate the likelihood with the data we have,” he said.  “It's so small it gets lost in the rounding and estimations.”  He tried an analogy.  “It's as if you were calculating the weight and balance of the Ball, and one of its dust motes moved.”  Seeing the usual blank faces, he shrugged.

Buzzard took over again.  “What Archie's saying is that the chance of it happening again is really small.  Really small.”

Winston said, “Ah.”  Then, “Do you mean it's unlikely to ever happen again?”

“Highly unlikely.”

“So, there's no point in tracking down the flaw?”

“No!” said Buzzard.  “I mean yes.  I mean we definitely need to correct the code.  We can't leave a known error in there.”  He looked horrified at the prospect.  “But we don't think we need to worry about starting up the system again before it's fixed.”

“Oh,” said Winston, “so Pharos could use it while we try to fix it.”

“Yes,” said Buzzard.  “A simple reboot should do it, according to our model.”

Winston looked at the people around him, those with him on Green Comet, and those in the window, and said, “Is there any objection to that?”  When there was none, he looked at Sun Ra in the window.  “It's up to the people on Pharos, Sun Ra.  You're the ones who live there.”

Sun Ra said, “I think we're ready.  If Buzzard and Archie say it's okay, then we're ready.”  He looked behind him and was supported by a loud affirmation.

“Alright then,” said Winston.  “You work it out with Buzzard and Archie, and good luck.  You have our best wishes.”

“Thank you, Winston,” said Sun Ra.  “Your support means a lot to us.”

Winston nodded briskly and gave a mild, “Harrumph.”  He said, “Of course.  Of course.  Meanwhile, we'll get to work on tracking down that error in the software.  I have an idea about that.”  Then he said, “Good day,” and turned and flew away from the window.

“And now,” said Fran, “at last, we can get back to the wings.”  She began setting up the telescopes to look at their mysterious planet.

Pharos was up and running, with all their systems functioning normally.  They'd repaired the faulty cable with its compromised sensor.  Their thrust vector was calculated, taking into account the shape and attitude of the sail when it pushed them off the beam.  Now it was just a matter of waiting and hoping that they would hit the expanded beam in four years, and they could get on with their flight.  And by then the faulty software code should have been found and fixed.  Winston's idea had been to have a contest, dividing up the code and parcelling it out to the contestants for deep analysis.  There was no shortage of eager participants.

So here they were, the eight of them gathered for a post-crisis analysis, and when that was done Fran fired up the telescopes.  The image was getting better and, as the planet orbited its star, the wings had got bigger.  She fine-tuned the focus.

Buzzard flew closer.  “Those aren't wings,” he said.  “They're rings.”

Once he said it, it was obvious to everyone, but it wasn't the obvious first thought.  Their old solar system had an example of a planet with rings, but it was only one and it was small and unremarkable.  Their lesser gas giant had a small collection of faint rings, most likely due to one of its moons breaking up under gravitational stress.  They understood the mechanism and they were aware that it would likely be repeated in other star systems, but they wouldn't have expected something this impressive.

“Buzzard's right,” said Elgin, “those are definitely rings.”

“Yes,” said Fran, “but look at the size of them.”

They all looked at them in silent awe.  Even at this low resolution, they could already see that the diameter of the rings would be many multiples of the diameter of the planet.  And over the next four years, while they waited to see if Pharos would find its way back onto its laser beam, they learned much more.  The closer they got, and the further the planet went around its star, the more they could see.  Fortunately, the planet and its rings were rotating on a tilted axis, and that gave them a changing perspective on them as they moved.

The diameter of the rings kept increasing as they built up their observational database, and they were sure that would continue as they got closer.  In addition, they began to see evidence of possible gaps in the rings.  Empty spaces between concentric rings of material.  They hypothesized that they showed either a sharp break in the orbital distance of materials of differing density, or that a moon was sweeping the lane clear.

“I wonder what they're made of,” said Fran, looking at her ringed planet as they stood watch.

“Could be anything, I guess,” said Elgin.  He was alternately watching the clock and the numbers showing the estimated positions of the Ball, Pharos and its light beam.  He also had a visual display, which showed Pharos methodically approaching the beam, looking just the way they planned it.  Not that anyone believed it would be that easy.  They knew it was just their best estimate.  Even the time when their sail was expected to make first contact with the beam was spread out over a one day window, and they were into that window now.

“I really wonder,” said Fran, “because, depending on what they're made of, these rings might be interesting for Pharos.”

That brought Elgin's head around.  “You mean as a place to go?”

“Yes,” said Fran.  “It's all laid out there, maybe even separated into different materials.  And then a planet that size is bound to have a lot of moons, too.  Plenty of resources.”

“You're right,” he said.  He glanced nervously at his display, then asked, “Have you tried the spectrometer?”

“Yes,” she said, “a few times.”  She shrugged.  “It shows almost all water.”

“Almost?”

“Over ninety-nine percent.  But I still don't know what the rest is.”

“Water's good.  They can always use water.”

“Yes.  And there might be enough other good stuff there, too.”

“You're right.  I think we should run it by them.”  He glanced at his display again.  “After.”

“Of course after,” she said.  After a moment she added, “It's not any good, is it?”

“No, it's good,” he said.  “It's fine.  We should tell Pharos.”

“But it's not right, is it?”

He admitted it.  “The rings aren't as right as the trojan points.  Sorry,” he said.

“Don't be sorry.  I'm glad I've got you to filter out my bad ideas.”

“It's not a bad idea,” he said.  “Just not as good.”

“That's what I meant,” she said with a smirk.

He laughed at her, then went back to his display.

She watched him for a few seconds, then asked, “Are you worried?”

He looked up.  “No,” he said.  “Not worried, really.”  He glanced at the display.  “The numbers are good.  The plan is good.  It feels right.”  Looking at her again, he said, “But even Buzzard says it's not a sure thing.”

The first half of the day wasn't so bad.  The window for making contact with the beam was a whole day, and no one expected it to happen right away.  But at the halfway point that changed.  Now half the time was gone and what was left was running out.  No one said anything to that effect, of course.  Everyone kept a confident smile on their face.  Everyone encouraging Pharos and Pharos reassuring everyone else.

“There's still plenty of time left,” said Sun Ra, smiling.  “We're not worried.”

“Of course not.”  Elgin and Winston and everyone else on the Ball and both comets smiled back, nodding their heads.  Everyone, that is, as a first approximation.  Effay, they were all wearing a brave face, but in reality not everyone was.  Buzzard, for one, was incapable of projecting a false emotion.  And Archie seldom expressed any emotion, and certainly wouldn't simulate one.  They, and a few others, wore neutral expressions at best.

This all made it hard for Fran, and her finely-tuned sense of empathy.  She was accustomed to dealing with the dissonance between what people were feeling and what they were showing.  That was her normal.  Here it was the buildup of the underlying anxieties that wore on her.  There was the natural fear of the people on Pharos, who might be lost forever if this didn't work.  There was the sense of responsibility in everyone who worked on solving the problem.  And, possibly worst, was the helpless impotence as they watched and waited.

They had contingency plans in case of failure.  With the resources they had available, they thought it might be possible to mount a rescue expedition and save some of the people on Pharos.  But given the lack of an adequate fleet of lifeboats, and the rapidly widening gap between the two balls, they could only save the wakers at best.  Everyone currently in hibernation would be lost.

As the day wore on she could expect it to get worse.  Their anxiety would increase as the time dwindled.  The false hope would get more brittle and fragile as their real hopes faded.  Already the most pessimistic among them were anticipating the bitter taste of failure and loss.  They were almost disappointed.

“There it is!” shouted Sun Ra.  “It's getting brighter!  The sail is getting brighter!”

Silence filled both balls and both comets as everyone held their breath.  They knew Sun Ra was reporting what his readouts were showing, because no one could have seen any change visually yet.  A few years ago, when they had more trust in their instruments, this might have been enough.  Now they just waited in suspicious silence.

“It's increasing,” said Sun Ra, excited but cautious.

There was a stirring on Pharos, then someone cried, “I see it!  I see it!”  Soon everyone there was shouting and cheering, and it quickly spread to the other places.  People were shaking hands and hugging and clapping each other on the back, celebrating success.  Really, celebrating a symbolic return from the dead.

“I'm releasing the rocket,” said Sun Ra, launching a small rocket that would fly a hundred kilometers ahead before exploding.  Its load of ice crystals would illuminate the laser beam, making it easier to get centered on it.

“Congratulations, Sun Ra,” said Fran.

He spun around to face them, his face shining with happy excitement.  “Thank you,” he said.  “Thank you all.”

She pointed with her head.  “Meet me at the window,” she said.

He said, “Okay,” and headed off to his right.  Fran also went to her right, still amused at how they could apparently go in opposite directions and end up in the same place.

She found a quiet spot on her window, which was practically filled up with people from everywhere, and made contact with Sun Ra.  Like her, he barely had room for his head and shoulders, but it was clear that he didn't mind the crowding and jostling.  He was grinning as he was bumped and squeezed.  “What's up?” he said.

“Are you aware of the planet with the rings?” she asked.

“You mean with the wings?” he said.

“Yes,” she said with only a small blush.

“Yes,” he said.  “It's beautiful.”

“Yes it is,” she said, “but we were wondering whether it might interest you as a destination.”

“Oh,” he said.  “Instead of the trojans.  We hadn't even thought of that.”

So she told him about the rings of mostly water, and the many moons.  More moons every time they looked, it seemed like.  And he listened, the noise around them fading as she talked.

Twenty-Six – Closer to the Fire

“It's probably best that they chose the trojans,” said Stanton.  “They've got lots of resources out there.”

“I know,” said Fran.

“They've already found that one planetesimal,” said Buzzard.  “It's almost three hundred kilometers in diameter.”

“I know,” said Fran.

“It's stratified and everything,” said Buzzard.  “It's got a core and a crust.”  Looking hopeful, he said, “It's spherical.”

Fran laughed.  “I know, you guys.  I'm glad they chose the trojans.  Really.”  She looked wistful.  “It's just that the ringed planet is so beautiful.”

“It sure is,” said Maria.  “I'd have chosen the rings over the trojans for that reason alone.”  She casually flipped a hand.  “I'm sure there'd be enough resources there, with all those moons.”  They'd found forty, and still counting.

Buzzard said, “And I'd go with you.”  He grinned.  “I bet most of those moons are spherical.  With crusts.  And cores.”

They all laughed.  They knew when Buzzard was making fun of himself.  Their eyes drifted back to the telescope display.  It was showing a blurry blob that they knew was another planetesimal, though that diminutive name almost didn't apply here.  This object was a thousand kilometers in diameter.  It was certainly stratified, with a crust and a core.  And it was probably covered with ice.  Talk about resources.

They were looking for a planet.  Their sense of gravity told them that there should be a planet there.  Between the gas giants and the star, there was room for five stable orbits.  With the four giants already discovered, this system could potentially have nine planets in total.  They'd found three of the inner five already.  The middle three.  They hadn't spotted the one closest to the star yet, and concluded that it was either missing or very small.  But they had found something on the fifth orbit out, closest to the massive inner giant.  The problem was, it was too small.  They knew instinctively that the planet on this orbit should be much more massive.

They all looked at Buzzard, who unconsciously drifted closer to Maria.  “What?” he said.

Fran saw what was happening and laughed.  “That's what you get for being so smart,” she teased.

Buzzard knew he was smart, but he still didn't know why they were looking at him.  “What?” he said again.

“Okay,” said Fran, “we all know that little planet should be bigger.  Naturally, we expect you to be able to tell us why it isn't.”

Buzzard had already run through a few possible reasons in his mind.  He didn't do it deliberately.  It just happened automatically as soon as something like this came up.  It didn't occur to him that it might not have happened in their minds the same way.  He hadn't said anything because he didn't want to state the obvious.

“Well,” he said, “I can think of a few.  A few.”  They looked at him expectantly, so he said, “First, it's possible that an object of the correct size did form on this orbit, but it was ejected for some reason.  Then, later, this little one was captured.”

Maria nodded.

Fran said, “That sounds reasonable.”

“Second,” said Buzzard, “maybe this zone was impoverished of material for some reason, so there was only enough to make this little thing.”

Everyone looked sceptical, but Galatea said, “Could happen.”

“Third, maybe it only had long enough to get this big, and then all the rest of the material was taken away somehow.”

This time even Galatea looked doubtful.

“Okay,” said Buzzard, “I don't think that's very likely either.  The first one, maybe.  The other two, not really.”

“So,” said Fran, “what do you really think?”

“I think something of the correct size did try to form here, but it was disrupted by the gravity of the giants, especially the biggest one in the next orbit out.”

That clicked with everyone.  It satisfied their sense of gravity.  Fran said, “They stirred things up so much that it could never settle down into a planet.”

“That's right,” said Buzzard.  “So I think this is only part of it.  Maybe the biggest part.  I think we should be looking for a ring of rubble.”

They did, and they found plenty of it in a wide ring all the way around the star.  They didn't find anything else as big as that first one, although there were a handful that were big enough to stand out.  Mostly though, it was just unremarkable rubble.  For every one with a diameter in the hundreds of kilometers, there were thousands well under one kilometer.  They still carefully mapped them, paying special attention to the orbits of the larger ones.  They wouldn't miss the chance to catalog such a bounty of resources, especially broken up and laid out for them like this.

They also found the missing planet on the orbit closest to the star.  At well under fifty million kilometers at perihelion, and only the size of a large moon, this little planet was only of academic interest.  It was a sterile little rock, blasted bare by the fierce radiation from its star.

The other three were more interesting.  There were two quite large ones on the next orbits out.  They were almost identical in mass, but radically different in appearance.  The first one was still too close to the star.  It was shrouded in toxic clouds and radiating like a beacon in the infrared.  Nothing there to interest comet people.  The next one was far more intriguing.  It was cooler, and the spectroscope showed the presence of water and oxygen.

The last planet, between the wet one and the rubble ring, looked promising, but it turned out to be disappointing.  If it had been a little more massive, and had a magnetic field, it might have held onto its atmosphere.  As it was, it was cold and much too dry to be fertile.

So they concentrated their attentions on the wet one.  The second planet in from the big giant.  Third, if you counted the failed one that now orbited in pieces.  During this ballistic part of their flight, with their sail folded and their trajectory controlled by gravity alone, they spent the bulk of their time studying the system.  Once they discovered it, most of that time went to the wet, rocky planet on the third orbit out from the star.  It reminded them of their own world, which they'd abandoned to the Visitor.  The closer they got, the more inviting it looked.  A pale blue beacon of water and air.  It filled them with nostalgic longing for home, and also with a fierce joy that they had at least been able to save this place from mindless destruction.

“Do you think,” mused Fran, gazing at the telescope display, “we could ever live there?”

“Oh yes,” said Maria.  “With all that water.  And the oxygen must mean that there's life.”

“That's right,” said Buzzard.  “If it wasn't continuously replenished, there wouldn't be so much oxygen in the atmosphere.”

“It doesn't necessarily have to be life,” cautioned Stanton.

“Oh, shut up, you,” said Galatea.

The Doctor, ever the pragmatist, said, “We'd need to bulk up.  With all that gravity, we're too frail now to even stand up.”  He nodded.  “And we'd have to lose these wings.”

The engineer in Stanton asserted itself.  “It would be a one way trip down.  We don't have the infrastructure to get back up again.”

“I thought I told you to shut up,” said Galatea.

He scowled at her, and Fran laughed.  “So,” she said, “if anyone wants to go there, and come back to tell about it, we'll have to build the infrastructure.”

“Right,” said Stanton.

“And,” she said to the Doctor, “they'd need to build themselves up first.”

“Yes,” he said.  “A lot.”

“Not impossible then,” she said.  “It should be easy for us.”

Stanton and the Doctor looked at each other and shrugged.

Now it was Elgin who laughed.  He didn't have to say anything.  Galatea smirked and winked at him, and he said to Fran, “If you want to go down there, we can come back after this mission and I'll go down with you.”  He threw himself horizontal and began trying to simulate push-ups.  Flipping over and working on sit-ups, he said, “I've just got to bulk up a little first.”

Fran and Galatea laughed, along with Buzzard and Maria.  It didn't take long for Stanton and the Doctor to join them.

Over the next year, as they approached the star and swung through perihelion, they had plenty of time to observe.  Naturally, they spent most of their time looking at the wet world, the third one out from the star.  They soon discovered that it had a moon orbiting it, an object of considerable size.  It was large compared to its parent body, in the same size range as the little, blasted planet closest to the star.

“You know,” said Nigel, “we might not have to go down to the planet itself.  We could observe it from its moon.”

Fran nodded.  “It would make a good observation platform.  Especially since it's tidally locked.”  She shook her head.  “But it's so dry.  And no atmosphere.”

“Ah,” said Nigel, “but look at the poles.  The spectroscope shows hydrogen there, most likely in water.”

“You think there's ice at the poles?”

“Yes I do,” he said.  “In cracks and fissures.”  He shrugged.  “It wouldn't be much on planetary scales, but I'd bet we could find enough to support an expedition.”

Fran liked that.  It was an eminently practical idea.  They could observe the planet for as long as they wanted, but without the inconvenience of having to land on it.  It would avoid the problem of all that gravity, and the difficulties it would impose.  But she shook her head again.  “That's a good idea, Nigel,” she said, “but we wouldn't be able to feel the planet's wet atmosphere on our faces.  Or smell the life in the damp soil.”

Nigel had no answer for that.  All he could do was stop and share the sharp pain of nostalgia with everyone.  He knew that their best bet was to stay in space.  That they could easily find all the resources they needed, and they could get them with a minimal expenditure of energy.  Whatever advantages a planet might offer, they were offset by the huge amounts of energy they'd spend getting down and up.  Because, what would be the point of going down there if they couldn't get off the planet again?  They lived in space now, as a species, and any visits to planets would be just visits.  To make it even more difficult, this planet was a little larger than their own world, with even more gravity.  Even if they built their bodies up to their original strength, they would still be too lightly built for this world.  They had the means and the technology to alter their bodies and make them suitable for this planet, but it would take more than a little nostalgia to drive them to those lengths.

They were coming down from above the ecliptic, in a long parabolic orbit.  They would pass through it at a shallow angle, at a point slightly outside the third planet's orbit.  This would allow them to spend many months within good viewing range of it, and they made good use of their time.

Their descending node was almost on the opposite side of the star, but the ascending node brought them within ten million kilometers of the planet.  It was a brief encounter, especially since their orbit was retrograde to the system.  The rapid relative motion complicated their observations, but with diligence and automation, they made the most of it.

“What's it like?”  Sun Ra was taking a break from their hectic schedule, setting up the laser.

“You're seeing what we're seeing,” said Fran.

“I know,” said Sun Ra.  “But you're right there.  You can look outside and see the planet.  And the star must be huge.”

“Yes it is,” said Fran.  “And hot.  We had to let the sail out part way to shade us, and that complicates the telescope alignment.”

“I'll bet.  But I guess it's better than melting.”

She laughed.  “There's not much chance of that.  It's the glare more than anything else.  It gets a little hotter in here, but we can easily dump the excess heat.”

“Still,” he said, “that's something to think about for next time.  There should be something besides the sail to use for shading.”

“What next time?”

He looked at her, astonished, and was about to protest when she grinned at him.  “You had me there,” he said.  “I couldn't believe what I was hearing.”

“Don't worry,” she said, “there will definitely be a next time.  Probably not here for us, though.”

He couldn't hide a brief look of disappointment, but he was well aware of the practicalities.  This was just one example of the isolation his people knew would come from their decision to take this mission.  They were well aware before they enrolled that it would mean being apart from everyone else.  At least for the first few decades, possibly centuries, Pharos would be a source of laser power for other peoples' travel.  And, at least until they built up their installation into some place worth visiting, those people would always be going somewhere else.  But he found that even having Fran in the same system felt kind of like a visit, and it made him sad to think she wouldn't be coming back.

Ever the optimist though, he said, “Never is a long time, Fran.  You'll probably be back some day.”

“You're right,” she said.  “We shouldn't really say never, should we?”

“No,” he said.  “You'll be back.  We'll keep the light on for you.”

She loved that image.  “Thank you,” she said.  “But with the window, what's the difference if we're a couple of billion kilometers apart, or one of us is on Orange Comet?”

He frowned.  There was no practical difference that he could think of.  “It's just different,” he said.

She nodded.  “I know what you mean.  It is different.”  She looked straight at Sun Ra.  “But I don't expect that's what you really wanted to talk about.  And I doubt you care about the star's glare, either.”  She brought up their best image of the planet.  “I think this is what you want to talk about.”

“Yes,” he said, looking at the image on his own monitor.  “What's it like?”

Now it was her turn to frown.  “Honestly,” she said, “we think there's something wrong with it.”

“What?” he said.

“A lot of things.  The oxygen content of the atmosphere is too low.  The carbon dioxide is too high.  The vegetation is wrong, too.  It's thin and patchy.”  She turned her palms up.  “Even the weather patterns don't look right.”

“Maybe that's normal for this planet,” said Sun Ra.

“We don't think so,” she said.  “Not with the amount of water it has.  And the amount of insolation.  It has everything it needs to be lush and fertile.”

“What do you think is going on, then?”

“We've been trying to figure that out,” said Fran.  “Oh, and there's all the iridium.”

“Iridium?”

“Yes.  It's everywhere we look.  Even in the atmosphere.”

“In the atmosphere?”  Sun Ra shook his head.  “Iridium is never in the atmosphere.  It's too heavy.”

“I know,” she said.  “We think it's being blown up in the big dust storms.  And that's something else.  There's far too much desert down there.”

Sun Ra was quiet, then he said, “You're right.  There is something wrong with that planet.”  He brightened.  “Hey!  Maybe it's the iridium.  Maybe it's too toxic.”

“You could be right,” she said, “but what's it doing there?”

“What do you mean?”

“What's it doing on the surface?  Wouldn't it have settled into the interior during the planet's formation?”

“Yes it would,” said a new voice, and they turned to see the others arriving.  They'd been in the flashball court, throwing the ball around, and they were brimming with energy.  Stanton continued, “The heavier elements do tend to settle during planet formation.  Sometimes they're brought up to the surface by tectonic activity, but only locally, never spread out evenly over the surface.”  Tipping his head at Buzzard, he said, “Buzzard knows what happened.”

Looking abashed, as always when singled out, Buzzard said, “Comets.  Or other bolides.  Comets or bolides.”

“Of course,” said Fran.

“Yes,” said Stanton.  “It's right.  It's so right that Elgin missed the ball when Buzzard said it.”

They all looked at him and Elgin chuckled self-consciously.  “It's true,” he said.  “It clicked, and I paused momentarily.  The ball went right by me.”

Fran nodded.  “That's pretty right,” she said, smiling at Elgin.  Frowning, she said, “It could be something else, though.”

The good-natured ribbing of Elgin stopped.  The Doctor, a patina of sweat shining on his bald head, said, “What kind of something else?”

“There was something else coming this way at a high velocity,” she said.  “Something that probably had a large amount of refined iridium on it.”

Buzzard said, “The Visitor!”

Fran saw Elgin's reaction and knew it was a viable idea.  Her eyes turned to the unhealthy planet on her monitor, sadness welling like tears.

Elgin glided over.  He nodded at Sun Ra in the monitor, putting his hand on Fran's back as he leaned in to look at the damaged planet.  “Do you think this was caused by the Visitor?”

She nodded.

“But what are the odds of that?  To hit something this small from that far away.  Isn't it more likely that it was a comet?”

She looked at him.  “What are the odds that a comet would have hit this planet just before we got here?”  She pointed at it.  “It's just recovering.  It must have happened about the time the dead Visitor was going by here.”

They looked at each other.  The odds seemed small in either case.  Too small for them to calculate.  They looked at Buzzard.

He jumped.  “The odds?”  He could easily calculate the odds of the Visitor striking this planet.  They had known speeds and positions.  But a comet?  They had no idea of their frequency here.  “We had a comet shower in our system, but comets seem to be rare here.  I need more information.”

Fortunately, they had plenty.  The moon was covered in impact craters to analyze.  It was harder to enumerate craters on the planet, since they tended to weather away, but their search did turn up one recent one.  It was a big one, mostly under water, near the equator.  Seeing it made the impact and ensuing destruction more real.

“Comets are rare here,” said Buzzard when he had enough data.  “They had a lot early on, but right now there are almost none.  Effay, zero.”  He gestured outside.  “We really haven't seen any since we got here.  Well, none big enough to do this.  We've seen a few small, short period ones, but this was a big one.”

“So, what are the odds?” said Stanton.

“Right.  The odds,” said Buzzard.  He shrugged, palms up.  “They're the same.”

“The same?”  They were shocked.  What were the odds of that?

“Well,” said Buzzard, “within a couple of orders of magnitude.  But that's within the estimation error.”  He shrugged again, unhappy with his inability to be more precise.

“So, we're back where we started,” said Stanton.  Then, seeing Buzzard's reaction, he said, “Never mind, Buzzard.  It's all you had to work with.”

“Thanks,” said Buzzard.  Then he brightened.  There was something he could be sure about.  “This couldn't have been the whole Visitor, though.  At a tenth of the speed of light, that much energy would have done much more damage.”

“So,” said Fran, “it was breaking up.  A spreading debris field.  That would increase the likelihood of an impact.”

“If this was the Visitor,” said Elgin.  “You're getting a little circular there.”

“Okay,” said Fran, “I admit it.  But if I'm right, it means one thing for sure.”

“What's that?”

“It looks as if we didn't save this system after all.”

“Not necessarily,” said Elgin.  “Comets might be rare here, but there are still the other bolides.”

“Yes,” said Buzzard.  “That belt of rubble that we saw on the way in would be a good source for those.”

“There you go,” said Elgin.

But Buzzard shook his head.  “I already factored those in.  Factored in.”

“Oh,” said Elgin.  “But that doesn't mean it was the Visitor.  The odds are still even.”

“Yes,” said Fran.  “I guess we'll never know.”

Twenty-Seven – Lucid Dreams

“It's funny,” said Elgin.

“Funny?” said Fran.

“Yes,” he said.  “It's funny down here.  Funny that it seems so real.  But unreal, too.”

“I know what you mean,” she said.  “I do feel like me.  I feel as if I think like me.”

“That's right,” he said.

“But I have no body, and neither do you.”  She looked around.  “There's nothing here.  Just some light and color, and your face.  Some of the time, anyway.”

He laughed.  “Here I am,” he said.  “That's funny, too.  I don't have a body, but I don't feel as if anything is missing, you know?”

“I do.  And I don't really miss the other senses, either.”  She modified that.  “I wouldn't mind hugging you and burying my nose in your fur, but vision and hearing and the sense of being seem to be enough.”

“It's kind of like a dream,” he said, “only more coherent.”

“Like lucid dreaming?”

“Yes!  Where you're dreaming, but you're awake in it.”

“That's right,” she said.  He could see her concentrating as her face slowly faded.  “Not quite, though,” she said, catching her eyes just in time.  “You can control lucid dreams.  If this was a lucid dream, I'd have my nose in your neck fur right now.”

Elgin could almost feel it, and he was about to tell her so when the light turned gray.  It felt early.

Twenty-Eight – Just Visiting

“I thought it felt early,” said Elgin.

“Me too,” said Fran.

“Minder,” he called.  When the little robot came over, they gave it their bikes.  It was time to leave the recovery room.

“I wonder what it will be like this time,” said Fran as they passed through the anteroom.

“What,” said Elgin, “Green Comet?”

“Sure,” she said, “the comet.  But I was thinking of the apartment.”

“I expect it will be fine,” he said.  “They always keep it up for us.”

“I know.”  She was quiet as they flew down the orbital, heading for the Square.  Finally she said, “Didn't you feel it last time?”

“Feel what?”

“I don't know how to describe it.  It was just a feeling, like . . .  Okay, last time we were there, I felt like a guest.  Like we were in a hotel instead of our own apartment.”

Elgin's confirming click surprised him.  Until now it hadn't occurred to him, but once she said it he knew it was right.  Now that he thought about it, he remembered feeling just the way she described it.  Like a guest in a hotel.  “I thought it was me,” he said.  “I thought I was just feeling the normal dislocation from hibernation, and from being away.”

“I think that's what it is, partly.  But I think there's more to it than that.”  She shook her head.  “Let's wait and see.”

They flew on, the floor of their curving corridor rolling continuously up in front of them.  Soon they came to an intersection, and they went left for the Square.  The right fork would have taken them to the flashball court, but that wasn't their destination today.  This morning they'd be meeting the rest of the eight at the apartment for some brainstorming, before going on to a planning meeting.

Their crewmates on the Ball woke them up early because something happened, and by now it was practically standard operating procedure to wake up the five of them.  It turned out that the Prime was moving, and no one wanted to be the one explaining why they hadn't brought them up when that was happening.

Fran, of course, wanted to change course immediately and go after it.  “Come on,” she said.  “It's getting away.”  Elgin was ready to go.  So was Maria.  And that meant Buzzard would be there.

Stanton, equally predictably, insisted that they needed to stop at Green Comet for a refit.  “We've been out a long time,” he said.  “The old Ball needs work.”

In the end, more cautious heads prevailed and they continued as planned.  They would stop and give the Ball a good going over.  The Five went back down, with instructions to leave them in hibernation until the Ball and its new companion were ready to go.

They were ready now, and so were Elgin and Frances.  It occurred to Elgin that no sooner were they back from their last mission than they were preparing for the next one.  He was thinking about that as they came out of the corridor and into the Square.  They stopped, drifting to the side to get out of traffic.  Looking at Fran, he could see that she was thinking too.

“You see it too, don't you?” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

Other than a few minor things, it still looked the same.  Each of the two hundred meter walls was pierced by two entrances, flanked by ice columns in the color of their side.  Opposite was the orange wall.  Far to the left, red.  Closer on the right, yellow.  Behind them was green.  On the orange wall was a huge window, showing the square of Orange Comet.

In the center of the local square, a little over a hundred meters away, was a grouping of five statues commemorating the heroes of Green Comet.  About two hundred meters away, low on the yellow wall, in the corner where it met orange, was their apartment.  It looked very much the same, but it seemed unfamiliar.

Elgin said, “Is it just us, or is it really that different?”

Fran said, “I'm sure it has a lot to do with us.  We have been away a lot, and we haven't spent much time here in between.”  She looked around, studied the people, who took no notice of them.  “But I think it's Green Comet, too.”

Elgin nodded, opening his wings.  “Let's go,” he said.  “At least our apartment should be . . .”  He didn't finish, remembering that last time it was almost like a hotel.  “At least it will be our apartment,” he said.  “We've got friends coming over.  It'll be like old times.”

Fran didn't say anything.  Just opened her wings and followed him.

They were gratified to see that the iceberry patch was still there.  It looked healthy from a distance, and as they got closer it looked even better.  They kept their eyes and ears open, hoping to catch a hummingbird feeding, but they had no such luck.  Without a word they stopped and picked a couple of berries, and lost themselves in the rush of smell and flavor.  Elgin saw the fur stand up on Fran's arms, and she gave a small shiver, floating there with her eyes closed.  He smiled, glad that she was able to enjoy such a simple pleasure.

Feeling good, they flew over to their balcony, only to see someone in one of the front rooms.  Maybe one of their guests had arrived early and was waiting for them.  As they went in through the window, Fran said, “Hello.”

The man, who they didn't recognize, glanced at them and went back to tidying up.  “We're not open today,” he said.  “I'm sorry.  You'll have to come back later.”

“Not open?” said Fran.

“No,” he said.  “We're closed until further notice.  The owners will be using it.”

“The owners?” said Fran.  “You mean Elgin and Frances?”

“Yes, Elgin and Frances,” he said, spinning around.  “Who do you . . .”  He stopped, mouth open and eyes widening, and stared at them.  He seemed to be frozen, so to help him out Elgin stepped in behind Fran's shoulder, cupping her back with his wing.  The man's eyes darted to the window, where he could see their statues in that exact pose in the middle of the Square.  When he looked back his eyes were wider than ever.  “It's you,” he whispered.

They smiled and nodded.

“But you're . . . I mean, it's not . . .”

Fran guessed.  “We're early?”

“Yes!” he said.  “The director said . . .”

“The director?”

“Yes!  Of the museum.  According to him, you're not supposed to be here for another two hours.”

“Museum?” said Fran and Elgin together.

“Yes!”  He was getting more agitated, not less, and finally he blurted, “Sorry!” and bolted out the window.  He flew in a beeline, and in less than ten seconds he was across the Square and out the red end.

They looked at each other.  “Museum?” they said again.

“Museum?” said several voices.

“That's what he said,” said Elgin, “then he jumped out the window and flew away.”

Out of the buzz and rumble of voices rose Galatea's laugh.  Practically a cackle, really.  “A museum, eh?”  She looked around.  “So what are we, then?  A diorama?”  She threw her head back and laughed at her own joke.

Everyone looked around, and she was right.  They did look like a diorama.  No one else was laughing, though.  They were looking at Fran and Elgin to see what they felt.  It was their home, after all.

Elgin and Fran looked at each other and grinned.  That freed Buzzard, who'd had to cover his mouth with both hands to stifle his giggles, and that allowed them all to let loose.  “Maybe we should make a placard,” said Fran, and that launched a round of hilarious suggestions for what it should say.

They were under full sail when Nigel spotted someone approaching the balcony.  They shushed themselves, feeling vaguely guilty, like boisterous children caught by an adult.  Fran and Elgin flew out there.

“Hello,” said Fran.  “Can we help you?”

The man was obviously finding it difficult, but he firmly overcame it and said, “I'm here to apologize.”

“For what?”  Fran glanced at Elgin, and back into the apartment, where everyone was trying to look serious.

“For the misunderstanding earlier.”

“Oh that,” she said.  “We'd already forgotten about that.”  She gestured inside.  “We're just having a nice visit with our friends.  Would you like to join us?  There's iceberry tea.”

“No,” he said, putting up his hands.  “I don't want to intrude.”

“It would be no intrusion,” she said.

He hesitated, then, “No.  I just wanted to apologize for the mix-up.”  He frowned.  “We'll have to make some changes.  We can't have you coming home and finding people in your apartment.”

She smiled.  “It wasn't that bad.  Really.  It doesn't bother us.”

“It's kind of you to say that, but it bothers me.”

Elgin cleared his throat.  “If you don't mind, the simplest thing might be to get everything done the day before.”

The museum director thought about that.  “That would cost us a whole day of use,” he said, “but you're right.”  He nodded.  “It's the right thing to do.  Besides, how often does it happen?”

“Right,” said Elgin.

The director seemed happy.  Resolving the situation gave him renewed energy.  “All right, then.  I'm glad that's taken care of.  And I'm glad to have met you at last.”  He turned to go.

“It's a pleasure to meet you too,” said Fran, stopping him.  “I have one question before you go.  How long has our apartment been a museum?”

“For about a hundred years,” he said.  “We got the idea when you were on this last mission.”

“A hundred years,” she repeated, looking at Elgin.  It didn't seem like a hundred years to them.

“Yes,” said their visitor.  “Everyone is still interested in you.”  He glanced inside.  “All of you, of course, but especially you two.  But you're never here.  You're away so much that you've become more of a legend than real people.  So we thought if people could visit your apartment, they might get a better sense of you.”

“I see,” said Fran, her eyes on the apartment, her mind elsewhere.

The director's eyes widened.  “I hope it's all right,” he said.  “I hope we haven't overstepped.”

“No,” said Fran.  “Not at all.  It was just a bit of a surprise, that's all.”

“Good,” he said.  “And next time there'll be no confusion.  We'll get everything done the day before.”  He nodded briskly.  “Good,” he said, turning to go.  “Until next time, then.”

“Next time,” said Fran, and they watched him fly away by the same route as the first man, only a bit slower.

“Who was that?” said Galatea.

“That was the museum director,” said Fran.

“What did he want?”

“He was apologizing for earlier.”

“I should hope so.”  Galatea looked disgusted.

“He said he hoped they hadn't overstepped, and that it wouldn't happen next time.”

“Next time?  You're letting them do it again?”  Stanton cleared his throat, but Galatea waved him off.  “There wouldn't be a next time if it was me.”

“I know,” laughed Fran, “but since we're away so much, how bad can it be?”

“People poking around your apartment?  Maybe it wouldn't bother you, but I wouldn't be able to put up with it.”

“You mean,” said Nigel, winking at Stanton, “your place hasn't been turned into a museum yet?”

Galatea stopped.  “It better not be,” she said, with a less positive emphasis.

Nigel said, “How would you know?”

She didn't answer, her gaze turning inward.  She didn't have any more to say about it, but they knew her apartment was in for an exhaustive inspection.  For the museum's sake, they hoped she didn't find one smudged fingerprint out of place.

Fran's expression was half gratitude and half admonishment, but Nigel just grinned at her.  She smiled and shook her head.  “Let's talk about something else,” she said.  “Did I hear that Orange's ball is ready to go?”

“Yes,” said Stanton.  “They're leaving tomorrow.”  He stopped and looked at Buzzard and Nigel.

Buzzard said, “Yes, tomorrow.  Tomorrow our time and their time.”

Nigel said, “They're synchronizing to our clock when they depart.”

“Just the ball, or all of Orange Comet?” said Stanton.

“Both,” said Nigel.  “And the ball they've sent to explore the solar system they were protecting.  Actually, two balls.  They're going to set up a lighthouse too, just like we did.  They're calling theirs Scintilla.”

“That's good,” said Stanton.  “We should all be on the same time.”

“Or it could get confusing,” said Fran.  “That's two comets and five balls now.”  She stopped.  “Well, three balls and two lighthouses.”

“And sure to be more by the time we get back,” said the Doctor.

“When we get back,” mused Fran, remembering the museum director's “Next time.”

“If we get back,” said Stanton.  They all looked at him.  It was something everyone had thought about, but he was the first to say it.  “Don't look at me,” he said.  “You all know it's true.  Chances are this is going to be a one way trip.”  He looked at Galatea, but she had no pithy response.  Even she wasn't going to criticize him for pointing it out this time.

“It's true,” said Fran.  “Chances are.  But not necessarily.”

The Doctor said, “You never know until you try.”

Everyone turned.  Galatea found her voice first.  “You, Doc?  What's the matter, are you running from the law or something?”

The Doctor nodded at her.  “Or something,” he said.

Her next question was cut off when they noticed some movement outside.  A small group of people was hovering indecisively just beyond the balcony, peering in at them.  It was easy to tell who they were by their tonsures, their hairlines carefully trimmed to emulate Fran's widow's peak.  Only now they weren't like hers except in the worst kind of caricature.  Time and obsession had driven their tribute to outlandish lengths, with the shaved arcs on either side of the peak extending almost back to the crowns of their heads.

Fran looked away, shocked, and Elgin roused himself to go out there, his face beginning to form its legendary mask.  The Doctor stopped him, his hand on his arm.  “Let me,” he said.

Elgin looked at Fran and she said, “Thank you, Doctor.”  She drew Elgin close to her and they watched the Doctor go out to meet the intruders.

They couldn't hear what was being said, but they could see the body language and facial expressions.  The Doctor made pleasant enquiries.  The Francesians' spokesperson was peremptory and dismissive, pointing at the apartment.  The Doctor continued to be polite while they got more agitated and agressive.  Finally the Doctor passed his hand slowly over his bald head and said something, while looking pointedly at their tonsures.  Their faces were perfect expressions of shocked silence, then they turned and flew away, radiating wounded dignity.

The Doctor was smiling when he came back in, but it was a sad smile.

“What did they want?” said Galatea.

The Doctor looked at her, then at Fran and Elgin.  He said, “They wanted to know how long it would be before they could visit their shrine.”

Elgin frowned, trying to figure out what that had to do with them.  Why would the Francesians need their permission to visit a shrine?  It was only when he saw Fran nodding that he got it.  “They're using our apartment as a shrine?”

“Yes,” said the Doctor.  “They told me that they're in some kind of dispute with the museum society over the rightful claim to it.”

“Rightful claim?”  Now it was Stanton's turn to frown.  “Who do they think they are?”

“The only True Believers, according to them,” said the Doctor.  “At least that's what they said when they demanded that we clear out.”  He looked at Fran.  “Except you.  They said you could stay.”

No one said anything to that.  They sat silently, contemplating this latest twist in their timeline.

Finally Galatea asked, “What did you say to make them leave in a huff?”

The Doctor laughed and put his hand on his head.  “I told them it looked as if they were trying to emulate me.”

They all laughed in a relieved burst, enjoying the slap at the Francesians' hubris and pretension.  “I hope,” said Fran, “that makes them reconsider their awful hairdos.  It looks fine on the Doctor, but on them it just looks silly.”

The laughter didn't last long, their mood thoroughly smothered by events.  They finished their iceberry tea, then Fran and Elgin saw their guests out to the balcony.  They'd been planning to sit out there and watch the Square for a while before the meeting, but no one wanted to do that now.  They said their good-byes and flew out across the Square, heading back to their own apartments, wondering how familiar they'd seem now.

Maria hugged Fran before leaving, Buzzard and Elgin hanging there awkwardly.  She knew how hard this must be for her.  As she and Buzzard left, Maria said, “See you at the planning meeting?”

“Yes, the meeting,” said Fran.  “See you there.”  They watched their friends fly away, then turned to go back in.  Rather than the familiar welcome feeling, now they found themselves looking forward to going out again.

The meeting went as expected.  Preparations on the Ball were nearly complete, and they'd be ready to leave within the next month.  Throughout the proceedings, the eight kept looking at each other.  You could tell that they all felt a little out of place here, as if the meeting could have gone on just as well without them.  They couldn't wait for it to be over.

When it ended Winston asked them to stay so he could talk to them.  Having nothing better to do, they stuck around.

Winston made small talk, asking them how they were, how did they feel about their impending departure, until Stanton said, “What did you really want to talk about, Winston?”

He was momentarily nonplussed, but he quickly recovered.  Clearing his throat, he said, “Do you guys feel different?”

That surprised them.  It didn't occur to them that someone who'd stayed on Green Comet might be feeling what they were feeling.  “Yes we do,” said Fran, “but we assumed it was just us.  We thought we felt like strangers because we were away so much.  Do you feel different too?”

Winston nodded, his wide mouth turned down.  Then he shook his head.  “Certainly not to the extent that you must.”  He looked at them all.  “I can only imagine what it must be like for you, but I can imagine it.  I get enough of the feeling to get a sense of it, but that's all.”  Speaking directly to Fran he said, “Maybe I'm beginning to feel like an anachronism, but at least I'm right here.  I'm still a part of Green Comet.”

Fran nodded.  “Meanwhile we're so much not part of it that they've turned our apartment into a museum.”

Winston opened his mouth, but he was cut off by Galatea.  “Yeah,” she said, “when did that happen?  How did you let it happen?”

“Gay!” said Stanton.  To Winston he said, “I'm sorry.  She can be a little blunt sometimes.”

“It's alright,” said Winston.  Looking embarrassed, he said, “I did let it happen.”  The admission and his appearance made them very uncomfortable.  They weren't sure they wanted to hear more, but he carried on.  “Not that I didn't try.  I argued hard for protecting your privacy.”  He couldn't look at them.  “I was overruled.  Outvoted.  They decided it wasn't an efficient use of resources to just leave your apartment empty and unused.”  Looking as if he'd been asked to swallow something bitter, he croaked, “Efficient!”

They wanted him to stop.  He was spoiling their memory of Winston as a powerful man, revered for his wisdom.  Fran reached out to touch his arm.  “We know, Winston,” she said.  “We understand.”  She patted his arm.  “You tried.”

“That's just it,” he muttered.  “I did try, but it wasn't good enough.  There was a time when the people listened to me, but now it feels as if they're just humoring me.”

That wounded Fran.  His pain was her pain.  She didn't have much to offer for it, but she said, “Have you considered coming with us?  We might be increasingly irrelevant, but at least we don't have our noses rubbed in it every day.”

He shook his head, sadly at first, then more certainly.  “No,” he said.  “Not that I haven't thought about it.  The idea is quite appealing right now.  But I've got to stay.  My duty is to Green Comet and I have to be here to try to maintain a connection between us originals and the growing new population.”

“It is growing, isn't it?” said Fran.

“Yes,” said Winston.  “There was a little bump after we took care of the Visitor, but it really started to take off when we started to add comets.  Especially the third one.”

“All that extra space and resources.”

“Yes.  And then Pharos took away eight hundred people, and that created a vacuum that had to be filled.”

They all nodded, thinking about all the changes, and more to come while they were away yet again.  It was probably best that Winston would be here to help Green Comet remember its past.  The Doctor wondered briefly whether he should stay behind too, but only briefly.  He knew he would regret that choice.  He belonged with the eight.  With Fran.  Out there on the edge of the unknown.  He'd be miserable if he stayed behind, but there was one thing going on here that he wouldn't mind seeing more of.  The children.  “Children,” he said.  “It must be nice to see so many children running around again.”

Winston's big mouth split into a wide smile.  “Yes!” he said.  “They make it all worthwhile.”

In their bedroom, the one furthest from the door, in the corner against the orange wall, Fran and Elgin were talking about the day.  Looking at the four colors of the Square's nightlights glowing in their ceiling, Elgin said, “So it's not just us.”

“Apparently not,” said Fran.  “I don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed.”

“I know what you mean,” said Elgin.  “I wouldn't want to be the only ones, but it means Green Comet is changing.”

“Yes, changing.  We can only hope for the better.”

“Or at least not for the worse.”

They were quiet, their eyes on the colors and their minds far away.  There was no avoiding the knowledge now, that they were sleeping in a museum.  And a shrine too, it seemed.  The Francesians, with their funny hairdos, performing who knows what kind of rituals in here.  Did they stay in the front rooms, or did they come right in here, into their private refuge?

Fran blew a frustrated breath.  “Let's not think about that,” she said.  “Let's talk about the mission.  Chasing the Prime.  We might be relics here, but there's still plenty to do out there.”

“Right,” said Elgin, “and maybe while we relics are away, Green Comet will get back to normal.”

“Normal,” said Fran.  “Right.”  They laughed.

Twenty-Nine - Departure

They had a good view of the third comet from the Ball.  As they pulled away from Green Comet they had a good look at it, attached to the original at a right angle to the second one.  Green Comet was now a trimer, forming an isosceles triangle.

The third comet wasn't as big as the other two yet.  They were still building it up, adding smaller comets as they got them.  It was a practical decision.  There just weren't that many big comets out there, and they didn't want to wait for one to come along.  As the chief engineer told Stanton, “There are a lot more small comets than there are big ones, so we might as well use what we can get.”

“There's no arguing with a power law, is there?” said Stanton.

“No, you're right about that.  And it's actually better in a way, too.”

“How so?”

“There's a lot more surface area on several small comets than there is on one larger one.  A lot more area to be struck by cosmic rays.”

“Ah,” said Stanton, “so more cyanide compounds.”

“Yes,” said the chief engineer.  “We get easy access to the carbon and nitrogen, and we get some free energy too.”

They could see all that as they slowly pulled away.  The third comet was already connected by a tube of ice, and they could see a couple of small comets on it.  Stanton told them that once their surfaces had been processed, the rest of the material would be arranged to build up the spherical shape they needed.  “They're still using our original method of driving the comets together, but they've got the closing speed way down,” he said.  “They can hardly feel it inside.”

“I guess they wouldn't want to break that tube, would they,” said the Doctor.

“Doctor,” said Stanton, the very expression of patience, “the tube is the last thing that would break.”

“I know,” said the Doctor.  “You keep telling me that, but it looks so thin compared to the comets.”  He turned his palms up.

“I know,” said Stanton.  “They do have to be careful, though.  If they hit too hard it could shift the comet, and then it would be skewed.  Fixing that would be a headache.”

“That almost happened with the second comet,” said Maria.  “I was talking to the smasher operators.  They said that after they spread out the first two hydrogen atoms, and they were adding two more, they drove the first one in too hard.”  She grinned.  “They told me it scared the hell out of everybody.”

“You can see why it would,” said the Doctor, looking at three huge comets joined by spindly looking tiny tubes.  Against the enormous emptiness of space surrounding them, he thought their fragility was obvious.

“Yes,” said Maria.  “So, after that they were more careful.”

Fran spoke up.  “Why don't they assemble the comet first, before attaching it?”

After the nodding of heads and the wry smiles, Elgin said, “Right again.”

“That's a good idea, Fran,” said Stanton.  “It wouldn't have to slow them down, either.  They could do most of the interior construction during assembly, then connect up the tube last.”  He nodded absently, his eyes on Green Comet.  “Right,” he said, “I'm going to call their chief.”

Their speed was slowly increasing under the thrust of their nitrogen rockets.  Before too long they could see themselves pulling away, their home visibly getting smaller behind them.  “Home,” thought Elgin.  “If that's my home, then why don't I feel it more?”

Fran pulled in next to him, slipping her arm around his waist, under his wings.  “Are you feeling what I'm feeling?” she said.

“Probably,” he said.  “Only more like not feeling.”

“Yes,” she said.  “More like.”

The first sixty years or so of this mission would be spent rendezvousing with Orange Comet's ball and catching the Prime's laser beam.  They'd be hitching a ride on that beam, using the Prime's own source of motive power to chase it down.

Shortly after departure they got a message from Orange's ball, with an official announcement.  Their ball now had a new name: Tainui.

“Tainui?” said Fran, looking at Elgin.  He shrugged.  So did Stanton and most of the others, but not all of them.

“The canoe,” said Buzzard.

“That's right,” said Orange.  “From when our ancestors were exploring the great ocean in canoes.”

“That's perfect,” said Buzzard.  “That's kind of like what we're doing now.”

“That's what we thought,” said Orange.  “Maybe it's time you gave your old ball a real name, too.”

Buzzard looked at Stanton.  They all did.  He was startled, but recovered quickly and said, “It's got a real name.  It's served us well with this name and we're not going to change it now.”

Everyone agreed with that.  It was the Ball, and they were used to it.  Besides, rational as they were, there was still the chance that it might be bad luck to change its name.  They'd been lucky so far and they didn't want to risk changing that, especially while in flight.  “We really love your name though,” said Fran.  “Tainui.”

The first part of this mission would be a straight run for the Prime's beam.  It should be easy to hit it, since it was five thousand kilometers across.  They'd be approaching it at an angle so they'd have to angle their sail as they got close, to curve their trajectory.  They wanted to be almost parallel to the beam when they entered it, so the curve would be almost asymptotic.  They couldn't run the risk of blowing right through, because there'd be no way of getting back.

Tainui's angle was less than the Ball's, which was good because they were starting from further away.  Needing to curve less, they could use more of their beam's power for straightaway speed.  It wouldn't get them all the way, but it would lessen the distance they'd be behind when they got there.  Once they were both on the beam they'd have plenty of light for maneuvering themselves into a closer formation.

As yet they weren't sure where they wanted to be on the Prime's beam.  Should they go to the center of it?  Why?  Maybe they'd want to be close to an edge.  If so, which one?  Did they want to be down close to the Prime, or up as far away as possible?  There was no way to know now, so they left it for later.

They slid smoothly onto the beam right on schedule, the beam from Green Comet switching off within the hour.  Even at the very shallow angle of insertion, they passed a quarter of the way through the Prime's beam before straightening out.  Now it was just a matter of catching up.  Since their sail to mass ratio was better than the Prime's, all they needed was time.

Tainui joined them less than a year later, but tens of millions of kilometers behind.  They maintained full sail while the Ball ran under reduced sail.  They were both gaining on the Prime, but Tainui was gaining on both of them.  They were hoping to be flying in close formation before the Prime had to do any maneuvering.

They knew which star the Prime was headed for.  They'd known that for thousands of years, ever since they identified it as the origin point of the Visitor.  Given that information, and the Prime's velocity, they thought they had a pretty good idea of when it would be doing its flip maneuver to catch a braking laser from its destination.  That's why they were surprised when it happened early.  They weren't on the beam two years when it shut off.

“Oh!” said Fran.

“I see,” said Elgin.

“That was close,” said Buzzard.

It was close.  Against all the vastness of space and time, two years isn't much.  If they had started their mission two years later, they'd have missed the beam altogether and there'd be nothing to stop them from sailing right out of the galaxy.  In about two hundred thousand years.

According to their calculations this wasn't supposed to happen for another ten years, at least.  “What's it up to?” said Stanton.  He was glaring suspiciously at the image of the Prime on their monitor.

Buzzard was looking at it too, and he was the first to notice.  “It's turning,” he said.

“Turning?” said Stanton.  “It's flipping?”

“It might be,” said Buzzard.  “Probably.  It looks like it.”

“Right,” said Stanton.  “Reel in the sail.  We need to prepare to flip as well.”

Buzzard started the routine to retract the sail, which would take about two hours.  Then he initiated an alert, so people could begin preparing for the flip maneuver.  Meanwhile he kept his eyes on the Prime, his brain running continuous calculations.  Finally he had something.  “It's not going to hit us,” he said.

“Hit us?” said Stanton.

“Yes,” said Buzzard.  “I mean no.  I mean it won't hit us.  The sail.  When it swings around.”

“Oh, right,” said Stanton.  After a moment's thought he said, “But we're going to run into it when it slows down.”

Buzzard nodded, shrugging.  “Better the sail than the armature,” he said.

“That's right,” said Elgin.  “That ring must be tough and rigid.  And no matter how light it is, it's still massive enough to damage our little ball.  But if the sail material is anything like ours, we'll probably go right through it.”

“Okay,” said Stanton.  He glanced aft.  “Tainui is going to have to go through it for sure though, isn't it?”

“No way around that, I don't think,” said Elgin.

Stanton nodded sharply.  “Buzzard,” he said, “is there any way we can duck through ahead of the sail?”

While Buzzard went back to the numbers, Elgin asked Stanton, “Why?”

“To give us the best chance,” said Stanton.  “It probably won't hurt us to go through the sail, but if it is a problem then at least one ball will be all right.”

Elgin sensed the rightness of it.  “That's why we have two balls anyway.  Redundancy as much as anything else.”

Buzzard had an answer.  “We can do it,” he said.  “We can duck through.”

“Good,” said Stanton.  “What will it take?”

“At the rate the Prime is turning, and given that its sail is folding down, we need to be through in twelve hours or less.”  Buzzard was using his hands to show the sail folding and turning.  “My estimate for the Prime's flip maneuver is about a day, and the sail is folding faster than that.”

“Ball, this is Tainui, over.”  It was Archie on Tainui.

“Tainui, this is the Ball.  Go ahead,” said Buzzard.

“Hi Buzzard,” said Archie.  “Are you going to jump through ahead of the sail?”

“Yes.  We were just discussing it.”

“Full ion drive and three excursion pods?”

“Yes, but I was going to suggest all six pods at half power.”

“Right.  Better distribution.”

“And less stress.”  Their conversation drilled down to ever finer details, using ever more terse language, until Stanton interrupted.

“So,” he said, “you're recommending that we use the ion drive at full power, supplemented by the pods at half power?”

“Yes,” they said together.

“Thank you,” said Stanton, turning to make it so.

Buzzard and Archie went back to their deep analysis as the Ball came alive with sound and motion.

It worked.  They were never in danger, but it was so slow that it was exciting.  For twelve hours they crept ahead while the sail swung after them like a gigantic flyswatter.

Once through they prepared their own sail for deployment, reasoning that there would soon be a braking laser coming from their destination.  There was, and it appeared just before the Prime completed its rotation.  It was just approaching its final attitude when its sail suddenly lit up and began rising toward the vertical.

Archie and Buzzard noticed at the same time.

“It's early,” said Buzzard.

“It's not square,” said Archie.

“Early?” said Stanton.

“Yes,” said Buzzard.  “It should have continued rotating for another half hour before it stopped.”

“It stopped early,” said Archie.  “It's not square.  The sail is still at an angle to the beam.”

“What's it up to?” said Stanton, but neither of them offered an explanation, so he said, “Whatever it's doing, we'd better match its angle.”

“But what if it's wrong?” said Galatea.  “What if it made a mistake?  Won't that just pull us off the beam?”

“We'll have plenty of time to see that happening,” said Stanton.  “Plenty of time to correct.”

“I suppose,” she said.

Once the sail was set and everything was squared away, Stanton called the eight together.  “We've got one more thing to do before Tainui gets here,” he said.

“What's that?” said Fran.

“The sail.  The Prime's sail, that is,” he said.  “We don't think Tainui's going to have much trouble tearing through it, right?”

“Right,” said Fran.

“But, as long as we have the time, why don't we make sure?”  They waited for him to finish.  “Why don't we go back to the sail and make an opening for Tainui to pass through, without tearing?”

“What,” said Galatea, “cut a big circle out of it?”

“I was thinking of a big square.”

“Circle.  Square.  How is that better than just letting it tear?  It still leaves a big hole.”

“Not if we do it right,” said Stanton.  “If I'm right, we can open it up to let them through, and then seal it up again.”

“What's the point of that?” said Galatea.

But Fran got it.  “Better to have the sail intact, right Stanton?  A hole that big could change the Prime's flight characteristics.”

“That's right, Fran,” he said.  “We're flying with the Prime now, so we might as well not make it any harder.”

“Right,” said Fran.  “And we still don't know why it tolerates us.  Why its scout didn't destroy us before, and why it seems to be ignoring us now.”

Buzzard said, “We're kind of like pilot fish.  On a shark.  Like pilot fish on a shark.”

“Exactly,” said Fran.  “The shark could kill them and eat them at any time, but it puts up with them.”

“And,” said Stanton, “it wouldn't hesitate to eat them if they gave it a reason.  So we should be good little pilot fish and not bother the shark too much.”

Buzzard laughed.  “A hundred kilometer space shark,” he said.

Chuckling, Stanton said, “Okay, Buzzard, you and Archie work out where Tainui will hit the sail.  Remember that it's sliding sideways because it's at an angle.”  Buzzard turned to talk to Archie, his mind already turned inward, probing the problem.  “The rest of us can make preparations.”  Stanton looked at Nigel.  “You and the Doctor go and prepare an excursion pod.  The rest of us can prepare ourselves.”  He looked toward the housekeeping end of the Ball.  “There's something I have to pick up before we go.”

The eight of them got themselves ready for the first ever excursion flight from a ball while on a mission.

Stanton handed Galatea a pair of shears.  “I thought I recognized this material,” he said.  “It's what we used to use before the microtools we use now.”

“So now we can snip a big square out of it?” she said.

“No,” he said.  “We're going to make a big cross.”  He called Nigel, standing off to the side in the pod.  “Tell Tainui to turn on their marker laser.”

“Right away,” said Nigel, and immediately a faint red cross appeared on the brilliant white sail.

“I don't see how it can reflect all the light on this side, and let it through from the other,” said Galatea.

“That's just the nature of this material,” said Stanton, punching a hole in it with his shears.  “It's too hard to explain right now.”  Once he started the cut he was able to continue it by just pushing the shears.  He and Galatea ran cuts about three meters along each of the four arms of the cross, then stopped.

Buzzard and Maria, Fran and Elgin took the four points of material and pushed them through to the dark side, where they hovered.

“Don't look at Tainui's laser,” said Stanton.  “It has to be pretty bright to show up here.”

“That's only about the fourth time you've told us,” said Galatea.

“Can't be too careful,” said Stanton.

“No, you can't,” said the Doctor from the pod.  “You listen to Stanton.”

Galatea rolled her eyes and everyone, except Stanton, said in unison, “Yes Doctor.”

“That's better,” said the Doctor, and you could hear Nigel laughing in the background.

Stanton and Galatea put their shears back to work and pushed their cuts out to the ends of the faint red lines, while the other four pulled their points away.  When the last two cuts were one hundred fifty meters long, and the material was pulled back out of the way, they had the big square Stanton was talking about.

“Okay, Nigel,” said Stanton, “tell them to turn off the laser.”

“Done,” said Nigel.

“How long?” said Stanton.

“Just under ten minutes.”

“Good.  Nothing to do but wait, then.”

Elgin took the time to have a good look around.  It was easy to pick out the other five people, even though most of them were well over two hundred meters away.  They all had small red lights flashing at the top of their backpacks.  Turning, he could also see Tainui, or at least its flashing lights.  There were six of them, one on the end of each cable stanchion.  He knew their sail was down and they were coming back end first.

Looking at the Prime's sail from this side was disorienting.  As Galatea pointed out earlier, while the light striking the other side was reflected, all the light on this side was transmitted.  That meant that you couldn't see this side of the sail.  The only way to tell it was there was by the blackness.  Through the hole they'd made he could see a field of stars, and on Tainui's side was a vast hemisphere of them, but between was a five thousand kilometer disk of nothing.

He looked across the hole and saw the tiny red light he knew was Frances.  To his left was Maria and opposite her was Buzzard.  Stanton and Galatea had ended up at opposite corners of the square.  Motion caught his eye to the right, and he could see a bright green light waving back and forth.  Elgin smiled.  Buzzard must have planned this.

He had, with Archie, who was at the wall on Buzzard's side of Tainui holding a flashing orange light.  They knew exactly where to look when they came within visual range.  Buzzard could see Archie, surprisingly close, as Tainui swept by at twenty meters per second.  He had an orange light in one hand, with the other raised to shoulder height in what, for him, was an exuberant wave.  Buzzard, of course, was waving exuberantly.  His green light was describing wide arcs.  He let go of his point so he could wave with his other hand, too.  He even did a couple of his trademark swoops.

Tainui swept through the hole with meters to spare on all sides, then immediately began to inflate its sail.  They knew that its ion drive was on, too.  They expected to match the Prime's velocity within a day, and then they'd work their way back close to the Ball.

Buzzard was whooping excitedly, and the others were adding their own exclamations of pride and accomplishment.  They knew that both balls would be celebrating loudly as well.  All that was left to do out here was to close and seal the hole.

It took longer to close than it did to open.  All they had to do was guide the edges as they brought them together, allowing them to re-establish their molecular bonds, but it was slow, meticulous work.  Stanton and Galatea were continually flying back and forth between their cuts, making sure the edges were meeting cleanly.  When the opening was down to a few meters they ducked back through and finished up where they started.  They waited while Galatea fussed over it, dissatisfied with the slight imperfection in the seal.  In spite of all their care, the edges must not have been lined up quite right, and that made for an unsightly lump where they all met.  No amount of smoothing was going to make it quite right, and Stanton finally had to drag her away.

“Come on, Gay,” he said.  “That's as good as it's going to get.”

She knew he was right so she allowed herself to be pulled away, but she couldn't stop herself from looking back, long after she could no longer see the imperfection.

Thirty – Cutting the Corner

“It's cutting the corner!”  Buzzard and Archie looked at each other and nodded.  They finally had enough observational data to figure out what the Prime was doing.  It was using its angled sail to curve its trajectory away from the original destination and toward another star.

“What's up?” asked Elgin, alerted by their outburst.

“It's cutting the corner,” said Buzzard.  “To the next star.  It's going to another star.”

Elgin got it right away.  “So it didn't come from this star,” he said, tipping his head toward the braking laser.  “It came from another one first.”

“That's right,” said Buzzard.  “At least one.”

Elgin's eyes widened.  “You think there could be more?”

“Could be,” said Buzzard.  “Can't tell yet.”

“I guess there is no way to tell, is there?”

Buzzard nodded.  “We'd have to know how fast it grew.  How many solar systems does it take to get this big?”

Elgin was nodding too.  “Not to mention the Visitor.  I don't imagine it was twenty kilometers long when the Makers sent it.”

“No.  And there's all the modules and scouts it had.”

“You're right.  Would the Makers have armed a von Neumann machine with so many weapons?  Why would they do that?”

Buzzard thought about that, then said, “They must have given the original machine some kind of weapons.  I mean, it couldn't have invented those itself, could it?”

That was right.  Elgin knew it, but he had trouble understanding why the Makers would put weapons on a von Neumann machine.  The modules and scouts and smaller units made sense.  They were undoubtedly extrapolations of smaller, specialized vehicles that came with the original.  The Visitor had simply followed that blueprint as it grew and evolved.  But the weapons?  If it was a robot spacecraft, with no living beings to protect, why the weapons?

Buzzard opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“What?” said Elgin.

“I don't know,” said Buzzard.  “I thought of something, but I'm not sure.  Not sure.”

“Run it by me,” said Elgin.

“Okay,” said Buzzard.  “What if they weren't weapons in the beginning?”

“Go ahead.”

“What if they were tools?  For prospecting and mining, say.  Von Neumann machines are supposed to replicate themselves and so on, right?  So they would need tools to do that.”

Buzzard might not have been sure, but Elgin was.  His sense of right lit it up like floodlights, and he could see it clearly.  The Visitor's weapons were as much an extrapolation of its original design as the modules and scouts were.  His elation was short-lived, though, as he remembered the result of that.

Buzzard absorbed his somber mood immediately, quenching the joy of solving the puzzle.

“Why the long faces?”  Fran arrived with coffee, a welcome interruption.

“We just figured something out,” said Elgin, taking a cup.  He held it to his nose and inhaled some of the vapor.

Buzzard did the same thing.  “Mm,” he said.  “We figured out why the Visitor had weapons.  Why its modules had weapons.  And its scouts.”

“Oh?” said Fran, taking a sip.  “I admit that's always bothered me, too.  Why would it need weapons in the first place?”

“Exactly,” said Buzzard, “so we figured they started out as tools.  The weapons.”

Fran looked at Elgin, who nodded.  “That makes sense,” she said.  “The robot couldn't invent anything new, but it was able to extrapolate from what it already had.”  She took another sip.  “Small auxiliary craft become modules and scouts, and tools become weapons.”  Now it was her turn to look somber.

They all sat, sipping their coffee and looking at nothing, until Archie spoke.  They'd almost forgotten he was there.  He said, “I think I've figured out the Prime's plan.”

He got their attention with that.  “Tell us,” said Fran.

“Certainly,” he said.  “We're all agreed that it's diverting from its original course to head toward another star, right?”

They all agreed with him.

“Good.  So, I think I've figured out the criteria it used when it was going the other way in the first place.”  He didn't wait to be asked to continue.  “I think that each time it was finished with one star, it always went to the next star that was closest at the time.”

“It was that simple?” said Fran.

“Yes,” said Archie.  “I ran our star charts back to that time, and I could see where our star and this star and the next one were then.”

“Of course,” said Fran.  “And it worked out that it always went to whatever star was closest at the time.”  She nodded.  “That explains why the Visitor chose the star we were protecting.”

“That's right,” said Archie.  “I've been able to extrapolate the Prime's path to four more stars after this next one.”

“That many,” said Fran.

“If it's going that far,” said Archie.  “Or it could be more, too.”

“And we can plot them just by whatever is the next closest star.”

“No,” said Archie.  “It's not the next closest star going this way.  It's what was the next closest star going the other way.  At the time.”

“Oh, right,” said Fran.  “Of course.”

“It's easier when you're looking at the charts,” said Archie.

“I hope so,” she said.  “I'm having trouble with the thousands-of-years-ago-from-the-opposite-direction part.”

Archie's smile put a little dimple in his cheek.  “I'll send over the model I'm using, if you like.  It shows it pretty well.”

“Oh, please do,” said Fran, moving over to the monitor.

While she and Archie conferred over the colorful images, Elgin and Buzzard went back to talking about the Prime.  Elgin said first, “I wonder why there aren't as many modules on the Prime as there were on the Visitor.”

“Maybe it didn't need them,” said Buzzard.  “Maybe because the Visitor was going first, it needed to carry more 'tools' than the Prime.  To prepare the way.”

Elgin nodded.  “And the Prime came in later and scooped up the loot.”

“Yes,” said Buzzard.  “And it has a few modules and scouts, and probably some weapons.  Modules and scouts and weapons.  It has them because it's based on the original von Neumann machine.”

“And that started out with the tools and ancillary craft.”

“Right.”

They were quiet for a while, watching Fran poring over Archie's model.  Finally Elgin said, “Do you think we could use them?  The Prime's modules and scouts.”

Buzzard looked at him, eyes wide.  “You mean take them and fly them around?”

“Yes.”

You could tell Buzzard was interested, but he said, “We're supposed to be good little pilot fish.  Stanton said.”

“I know,” said Elgin, “but what do you think?  Do you think we could?”

“Hypothetically?”

“Yes.  Just hypothetically.”

Buzzard grinned.  “Well, hypothetically,” he said, “yes I do.”

“You do?” said Elgin.  He narrowed his eyes.  “Have you already been thinking about this?”

Buzzard laughed.  “Yes,” he said.  “With Maria.”  He lowered his voice.  “She wants to try it.”

“She wants to fly a scout?”

“Yes.  Or a module, even.  She says she wants to try one on for size.  Try one on for size.”

Now Elgin laughed.  That certainly sounded like Maria.  “But how?” he said.  “I doubt if they're built for it.  There wouldn't be any place for a person to be.”

“Maria thinks she could wear it, like a smasher.”

“Ah,” said Elgin.  “Of course.  We build her a life support unit, and then hook it up to the vessel.”

“It would have controls like our pressure suits.  She'd be able to maneuver instinctively.”

“Right,” said Elgin as the idea blossomed in his mind.  He began to think about the engineering problems and the two of them were off and running.  When Fran turned around, they were lost to the world.

“No, I don't think so,” said Stanton.

Buzzard nodded and looked at Maria.  “Sorry,” he said.  “It's not a good idea after all.”

That wasn't good enough for Maria.  She looked at Stanton and said, “Why not?”

Stanton raised his eyebrows.  “The mission,” he said.  “We don't want to risk the mission.”

“What mission?” said Maria, raising her chin.

Stanton looked around.  “This mission.  The one we're on.”

“But what is it?  What is this mission we're on?”

Stanton hesitated, all their eyes on him.  He looked uncomfortable and Buzzard had to jump in.  “This mission,” he said.  “The mission, Maria.  The mission.”

Maria relented.  “Okay,” she said.  “The mission.  We're on this mission to discover, right?”

They all agreed with her.  Even Stanton nodded.

“We want to discover what the Prime is up to.  Where it's going.  Why it changed its behavior.  All that stuff.”

They all nodded, encouraging her to go on.

“Well, we're right here,” she said, pointing at the Prime, whose sail lit up half of their celestial sphere.  “It's right there.  We should be exploring.”

Everyone looked at Stanton, but while he was considering his response, Fran said, “I agree with Maria.”  When they all looked at her she said, “We can't pass up this opportunity.”

“But,” said Stanton, “what if we trigger a response?  What if it decides to destroy us?”

“We'll be careful,” said Fran, nodding at Maria.  “We'll take it in small steps.”

“Small steps?” said Stanton.  “I don't think stealing a module is a small step.”

“No, of course not,” said Fran.  “We'd have to work up to it.”  She glanced outside.  “Okay.  So far we've proved that just hanging around doesn't make it want to destroy us.  And neither does cutting a big hole in its sail.”

They all agreed with that.  Stanton said, “So, what are you thinking would be the next small step?”  When Maria and Buzzard grinned he said, “Not that I'm agreeing,” and they stifled their grins as best they could.

“Now that it's come up,” said Fran, “there is a practical matter that's been on my mind.”

“Go ahead.”

“It's all this maneuvering we're going to have to do.  I was talking to Archie and it looks like we have a few stars ahead of us.  That means a lot of maneuvers for the Prime, and a lot of jockeying by us to keep up.”

“Okay,” said Stanton.

“Right,” said Fran.  “Wouldn't it be more efficient if we just attached ourselves to it somehow?”

“Attached?”  Stanton was obviously not expecting that.  “You want us to attach ourselves to the Prime?”

“Yes,” said Fran, while Maria nodded vigorously.  “It would be so much more efficient because we wouldn't have to be flipping all the time.”

Stanton smiled in recognition.  “I should have known,” he said.  “If there's ever a choice between caution and recklessness —”

“Adventure,” said Fran.

“Between caution and adventure,” corrected Stanton, “then we always know which you will choose.”  He looked back and forth between Fran and Maria.  “And now you're training recruits.”

“That's not fair!” said Fran, but then she noticed that he was smiling.

Stanton sighed, shaking his head.  “This is what you call a small step?”

“Yes,” she said.  “The next logical step.”

He nodded, resigned.  “All right,” he said.  When he saw Buzzard's grin breaking out he added, “But it's not up to me.  We have to take a vote.”  He couldn't help but laugh at the sight of Buzzard struggling to nod seriously.

When they announced their proposal to the crews of the two balls, it was immediately apparent what the result of the vote would be.  When it was held it was so overwhelmingly in favor that, at least this time, no one doubted that it fairly represented the people currently in hibernation, too.

“I don't think we're going to be able to do anything from here,” said Stanton.

They were standing on one of the Prime's fourteen scouts, attached along with fourteen modules on its upper side.  There was no obvious way to get into the scout and there didn't appear to be any way to get at its belly, where it connected to its massive host.

“I think you're right,” said Elgin.  “It obviously hasn't been designed to carry passengers.”

“And the connections are hidden,” said Maria.  “They must be completely automatic, since nothing could get at them to do anything.”

“Unless they did it from the inside,” said Buzzard.  “From the inside.  Service robots could work from inside.”

They looked around, their lights sweeping the Prime's surface, where they could see it between the attached vessels.  It was uneven and discontinuous, and it looked as if there would be many ways to get under it.  It also looked dark and disorganized, as if the openings were there by happenstance rather than by design.

“I'm going to have a look,” said Maria, jumping off the scout and flying down to the surface.

“I'm coming with you,” said Buzzard.

“Not so fast,” said Stanton, going after them, followed by Elgin, Frances and Galatea.  “Don't get out of our sight.”

As a group they flew all the way around the thirty meter scout, looking for anything that would let them get under it.  There were plenty of gaps in the Prime's surface, but none of them went anywhere, petering out in a tangle of structural members.

“I guess you can't get there from here,” said Galatea.

Everyone laughed at the old joke, then Stanton said, “We should call it a day.  This is going to take some thought.”

On their way to the pod for the eighty kilometer flight back to the balls, Fran said, “Maybe we need to do this from the inside.  I mean really the inside.”

Elgin said, “Do you think there's a way in somewhere?”

“I'm sure there is,” she said.  “For service robots, as Buzzard said.  But I'm thinking of something else.”

“What?”  They were all watching her closely.

“Well,” she said, glancing at Stanton, “the Prime must control them somehow, right?”

“Now hold on,” said Stanton.  “You're not suggesting that we hack into its control system.”

“No, no,” she said.  As he relaxed she added, “Not right away.”

“Oh,” he said, “more small steps?”

“Exactly,” she said.

“Okay, what small step are you planning now?”

She looked up at the sail, which was a foreshortened black disk from their position near the front of the Prime.  “Energy,” she said.  “Now that we're no longer in the beam, we need a new energy source.”

Nobody spoke while they entered the pod.  The airlock could hold a maximum of four, so it took two cycles.  Once inside, though, with Nigel and the Doctor, they started right up again.

Stanton said, “This is your next small step?  Tapping into the Prime's energy grid?”

“Yes,” said Fran.  “We wouldn't need much, compared to something the size of the Prime.  I bet it would hardly notice us.”

“Oh,” said Stanton, “you're willing to bet on it.  How much?”

“I know it seems like a lot to risk, and it is.  But the actual risk is low.”  She looked around the compartment.  “It's been ignoring us so far.  I don't think we're as much as a gnat to it.”

“Yes!” said Elgin.  “That's right.  That feels right.”

Stanton glowered at him.  “And what makes you think it won't swat the gnat if it bites?  Because we're going to have to bite it if we're going to open it up and tap into its energy grid.”

“Not if we're careful,” Nigel said.  “I doubt if it has sensors on its whole surface.  We should have no problem getting in.”

“That's right,” said Maria.  “We'll be like a stealthy parasite.  It won't even know it's happening.”

Elgin stared at her.  “That's right.  That is perfectly right.  Like the gnat, only even more right.”  He looked at Stanton.  “We'll be like tiny parasites.  It won't even feel us.”

They argued all the way back to the balls, which took about an hour.  By the time they got there, everyone except Stanton was in favor of it.  He agreed that it should go to another vote, and again it was almost unanimous.  They immediately got to work planning, while crews explored the Prime's skin close to the balls, looking for the best place to open it up.

Thirty-One – Feeling Different

“Do you feel different?” said Elgin, as he watched her golden eyes disappear into the white light.

“Different?”  Her eyes came back, quizzical.

“Yes,” he said.  “I mean, everything is changing so much.  Our lives are nothing like they were before, when we first met.  Not to mention our lives before that.”

“I see,” she said.  “Yes, our lives are very different from what they used to be.”

“It's not just that,” he said.  “Lately, people don't treat us the way they used to.  It's like our old selves are historical figures, and we're these strange relatives who show up once in a while.”  He imagined spreading his hands.  “They've turned our apartment into a museum.”

“People are definitely treating us differently,” she said.

He gave an exasperated sigh.  “I feel different.  I feel like a different person.  When I think of the old Elgin, it's like he's a historical figure to me, too.”

“Oh,” said Fran.  “Now I see what you mean.  That kind of different.”  Nearly her whole face was showing, a tiny frown of concentration between her brows.  “Yes, I do feel different in that way.  Especially now that you point it out.”

“Sorry.  It's just been on my mind lately, and I was wondering if I was the only one.”

“No, you're not the only one.  I expect if we asked around that everyone would feel that way.”

“You're probably right.  I guess this must be the price we pay for living a long time.”

“Not the only price, I don't think.”  She paused, both of their faces dwindling.  “I think we're going to see increasing alienation between . . .”  She stopped again.  “I want to say generations, but that's not quite right, is it?”

“No.  We don't really have generations any more.”

“No, we don't.  I guess we'll have to find a new language for all this.”  She felt like shrugging, but had nothing to shrug with.  “I'm trying to imagine what it must be like for a young person today to try to relate to someone who was born over seven thousand years ago.  On a planet.”

“Yes,” said Elgin.  “It's no wonder they treat us like relics.”

She laughed.  “Hey, you old relic.  What are you doing out of the museum?”

“I made a break for it.  Do you want to run away with me?”

“Any time,” she said, as the light went gray.  “Anywhere.”

Thirty-Two – Going Home

“We're pretty sure it's going home.”  Stanton was at the window, talking to Winston on Green Comet.

“Back where the Visitor came from,” said Winston.  “That makes a kind of sense.  It does more to explain the Prime's behavior than anything else I can think of.”

“Like why it didn't destroy us when we explored our old star?”

“Maybe not that,” said Winston.  “Or why it tolerates you now.  But taking off in that direction instead of following the Visitor when, presumably, its whole purpose had been to follow.”

“I wonder if it took it as new instructions when we sent that message after destroying the Visitor.”

“'We've destroyed your vessel.  Don't send any more,'” quoted Winston.  “That could be it.  Instructions in its own language.  But incomplete instructions.”

“Incomplete?”

“Yes.  We told it what not to do, but not what to do.”

“That's right,” said Stanton.

“And without the Visitor to tell it what to do, it had to make its own instructions.”

“Without the Visitor to tell it what to do,” mused Stanton.  “I wonder if that explains things.”

“What things?”

“Everything,” said Stanton.  “Like why it tolerates us.”  He nodded decisively.  “I think that's it.  It was the Visitor that was crazy.  The Prime just hauled the loot.”

“And now, without the Visitor to lead it on, it's hauling it to the only other place it can think of.”  Winston was nodding too.

Stanton was distracted by something behind Winston.  There was something about the Square on Green Comet that wasn't quite right, but he couldn't identify the problem.  It looked normal, with people flying to and fro, alone or in groups.  They were all going about their business, and not paying Winston or him any mind.  They weren't doing anything to make him to take any notice, so what was it?

“Stanton.”  Winston was trying to get his attention.  “Hey, Stanton.”

“Hm?” said Stanton.  “Oh, right.  The only place it could think of.”

Winston laughed, a pleasant rumble.  “You didn't hear a thing I said, did you?”  When Stanton focused on him he said, “I was wondering about the size of the lasers.  The ones driving the Prime.  Wouldn't they have got bigger as it got bigger?”  When Stanton nodded he finished, “So won't they be getting smaller as you go back?  It won't be too long before they're too small, will it?”

Stanton nodded.  “We've thought of that,” he said.  “By our calculations, well, guesses really, the lasers are bigger than they should be.  The Prime must have sent instructions to build them up.”

“Oh,” said Winston, eyebrows high.  “After all these thousands of years, that old equipment is still working that well.  But, if the Prime sent instructions, wouldn't you have heard it?”

“It must have done it while we were still catching up.  We did catch some pulses of radio energy, but it must have used its big directional antenna, pointed away from us.”

“Okay,” said Winston, “that makes sense.”

“And then Archie pointed out that its sail has been getting brighter.”  Stanton shook his head.  “I don't know how he saw that.  It certainly isn't obvious.”

“Can't you just use a light meter and measure how bright it is?”

“It's not that easy.  We're down here at one edge of it, and at such a shallow angle to it.  And its other edge is five thousand kilometers away.”

“I see,” said Winston.  “How did Archie do it then?”

“He said he looked at the edge of the sail and noticed that some of it wasn't lighted up.  Then, over time, the part that wasn't bright got smaller.  He deduced that the laser must be getting bigger.”

“Logical as ever, isn't he?”

“Yes, it seems simple and logical after the fact, but it couldn't have been that easy.  For one thing, the part of the sail that isn't reflecting laser is reflecting stars, and it looks just like the star field beyond it.”

“Ah,” said Winston, “I see the problem.”

“Yes,” said Stanton.  “He did it, though.  He compared what he could see with what the star charts said should be there, and determined what was sail and what wasn't.  He says it was a simple calculation after that.”

“Right,” said Winston.  “Simple.”

Stanton smiled.  “He was able to estimate the growth rate of the laser, and that's what we're using for our projections.”

“How does it look?” said Winston.  “Does it look as if the lasers will grow quickly enough?”

“It's too close to call,” said Stanton.  “If this current laser, and all future lasers, can grow at the rate this one seems to be . . .”  He shrugged, palms up.

“So, you don't know.”  Winston looked worried.

“No,” said Stanton.  “We have to wait and see.”

“How's Winston?” said Fran.

“Worried,” said Stanton.

“About what?”

“About everything.  He's worried that the lasers won't grow fast enough.  He's worried that we've tapped into the Prime's control systems.”  Stanton gestured at the eight of them, in the cabin of a pod flying up to the front of the Prime.  “He's worried about Maria taking a scout for a spin.”

“That's understandable,” said Fran.  “His friends are doing dangerous things, and he's too far away to help.”

“I know,” said Stanton quietly.

“What is it?” said Fran.  “Something's on your mind.”

Stanton looked at her.  “It's probably nothing.”

“Try me.”

“But it's just something vague.  I can't put my finger on it.  I can't begin to say what it is.”

“Try to tell me what was happening when you first felt it.  Maybe it will trigger something.”

“Okay,” he said.  “I was talking to Winston and something seemed odd about the Square.”

“Something like what?”

“That's just it.  There wasn't anything.  It looked the same as ever.  People were just flying by, going about their business.”

“Just flying by?”

“Yes.”

“Not paying any attention to you and Winston?”

“That's right.”

She raised her eyebrows at him, willing him to get it.

And he did.  “Oh,” he said.  “That's what it was.  They weren't paying any attention to us.”

“Right,” she said.  “Where were the crowds of interested onlookers?”

They looked at each other, all eight of them, while it sank in.  It was the Doctor who said it.  “I guess we're not that interesting any more.”

Buzzard's face showed shock and hurt.  “How can they not be interested?  After everything we've done.  What Fran did.  She almost died.”  He looked at Maria.  “How can they not be interested?”

Maria smiled gently at him.  “Not interested, eh?”  She grinned wickedly.  “So, let's show them something interesting,” she said, closing her helmet.

He grinned right back at her.  “Yeah,” he said as he closed his own helmet, “let's show them.”

It wasn't just a figure of speech.  Today's experiment was being recorded and would be shown in the window in Green Comet's square, and simultaneously on Orange Comet, as well as Scintilla and Pharos, the lighthouses.  Everyone should be interested because this would be the first time they overrode the Prime's control systems to do something this drastic.  Although they had tapped into its power grid, and they were exploring its command and control circuitry, this was the first time they would usurp the Prime's authority and force it to undock one of its scouts.

Six of them exited the pod, in two cycles of the airlock, leaving Nigel and the Doctor on board.  The pod was standing on one of the modules, stuck on by its gecko feet, affording them an excellent view of the scout that Maria would be flying.  They could just make out the modifications integrated into the top of the scout, where she would link into it.  It was still a rough prototype.  Later, after modifications and more test flights, they planned to build a pressurized chamber for a small crew, but those were just plans.  For now, there was rigging where she could secure herself, and a link that adapted her pressure suit controls to the thirty meter vessel.

They watched as she climbed into the rigging, assisted by Buzzard.  They saw him securely strap her in and check that her data link was solid.  Then he backed away, right off the top of the scout and halfway back to them, clearing the way for her to separate and move away from the Prime.  She looked small on the massive bulk of the scout, perched on its back, directly above its center of gravity.

“We're all clear here, Maria,” said Stanton.  “Whenever you're ready.”

“I'm ready,” she said.  There were a few seconds of anticipation, then the scout's docking clamps opened with a surprising jolt that everyone except Buzzard felt through their feet.  The vessel moved just slightly when it was released and now, instead of looking like a part of the Prime, it looked loose and free.  Something about that made it look suddenly menacing.

“Oh,” said Fran, memories sparking fear and revulsion.

Elgin moved in close to her.  “It looks scary, doesn't it?”

“Yes,” she said.  “I hope . . .”

“Engaging separation thrusters,” said Maria, and the scout lifted away slowly.  That made it look worse.  Everyone was now having to deal with ugly memories of vessels like this destroying their world, and almost killing them.  Then Maria laughed.  “This is just like a smasher,” she said, “only better.”

It was just what they needed.  Just like that, things went from grief and menace to Maria having fun.  When the scout was well clear of everything she said, “Engaging lateral thrusters,” and began drifting away, out into open space.  Buzzard followed, like an escort, reminding everyone of the day he'd taught her how to use a smasher, when she was still a child.

At three hundred meters she stopped.  Once stationary she began experimenting with basic maneuvers.  Imagining that her wings were sculling in opposite directions, she rotated completely around her vertical axis.  “The yaw is satisfactory,” she said.  “Now the roll.”  She rotated smoothly around her longitudinal axis.  “Excellent.  Now pitch.”  Once around the lateral axis.  “Beautiful,” she said.  “It's very responsive.  It takes a while to get used to the inertia, but I feel almost natural already.”  She began a complicated move that combined pitch, yaw and roll, and left her facing directly away from the Prime.  She gave a satisfied laugh, acknowledging a discrete round of applause.  Then, in a voice tense with excitement, she said, “Now for some target practice.”

With soft pulses of radar she detected the target, a three meter sphere that they'd sent out there ten kilometers.  “I have the target,” she said.  “Now to check out the aiming system.”  One second later she said, “Locked on.”  Then, “Firing.”

Ten kilometers away the target exploded in a burst of fireworks.  Maria and Buzzard whooped almost simultaneously.  He said, “Beautiful shot!”

She said, “Beautiful fireworks, Buzzard.  Thanks for setting it up.”

“You're welcome,” he said.  “Now shoot the next one.”

“I'm on it,” she said.  This one was a hundred kilometers away, and still only three meters wide.  “Got it on radar.  Aiming.  Locked on.  Firing.”

There was another burst of fireworks, only bigger and more spectacular.  They both whooped again, and Buzzard did a couple of celebratory swoops.  The four on the module and the two in the pod joined in the cheering, along with everyone in both balls, and undoubtedly everybody back home, too.  Meanwhile, the Prime seemed to take no notice.

“You don't have to gloat,” said Stanton.  “I admit you were right.  The Prime didn't seem to mind.”  He looked out through the Ball's ice shell at the huge glowing sail.  “But we didn't know that for sure.”

“No we didn't,” said Fran.  “And we weren't gloating, Stanton.  We might tease you from time to time about it, but we wouldn't want to be without your cautious counsel.”  Everyone murmured their agreement.  “This isn't about gloating.  It's about celebrating.”

The excitement was over.  The congratulations from the comets and the lighthouses were done.  Now it was just the eight of them winding down in the quiet of the evening shift.  Buzzard, who was sitting close to Maria, said, “Celebrating.  We're celebrating.”  He turned to Maria.  “So,” he said, “how does it feel to be famous?”

“Shut up,” she said, blushing.  But you could see that she wasn't entirely displeased.

“No,” he said.  “You're famous now.  Did you see those kids in the Square?  They were practicing that three vector turn you did.”

She rolled her eyes.  “I never should have done that.  There was a much easier way to make that turn.”

“I know,” said Buzzard.  “A ninety degree yaw to the left.  But what fun is that?”  He smiled a big, proud smile.  “They're going to be calling that the Maria Turn.”

“No,” said Nigel.  “The Maria Spin.”

“Not quite,” said the Doctor.  “It will be the Maria Maneuver.  You really need the alliteration.”

Everyone agreed immediately that it had to be the Maria Maneuver.  It was obvious when something was right, even if you weren't Elgin.  They were all trying out its variations and permutations when Maria said, “All right.  That's enough now.  I'm sure it's not as big a deal as that.  Besides, half of those kids were doing Buzzard swoops, anyway.”

“That's right,” said Elgin.  He struck a prophet's pose and proclaimed, “The legend of Buzzard and Maria is born.  The wedding of The Swoop and The Maneuver.”

In the gales of laughter, Maria covered her face with her hands.  Buzzard put his arm around her, but he couldn't keep the great big grin off his face.

Galatea, in her own style of humor, said, “Oh, great.  Another legend.  That's all we need.”

They were interrupted by the radio.  “Ball, this is Tainui, over.”

Stanton got it.  “Tainui, this is the Ball.  Go ahead, Archie.”

“Hi, Stanton.  Oh, good.  I see you're all there.  Here, I have something to show you.”

An image of a star field came up on their monitor.  It looked quite ordinary, with a small, reddish star near the center.  “What are we looking at, Archie?” said Stanton.

“That red star is a red dwarf,” said Archie.  “It's the next star but one on our projected route.”

“Okay,” said Stanton.  “The next one after the one we're headed for now.  What about it?”

“I detected radio waves coming from it.”

“Radio waves.  Don't red dwarfs often emit radio waves?”

“Yes,” said Archie, “but these radio waves aren't natural.”

“Well then,” said Stanton, “the Prime must be talking to the laser installation there.  Telling it to prepare.”

“No,” said Archie.  “This isn't a signal coming from a laser installation.  This isn't a message being sent to the Prime at all.  It's not even in the same language.  And it's not being directed this way.”

“Then what is it?”

“I can't say for certain what it is,” said Archie.  “All I can say so far is that it appears to be incidental leakage.”

“Incidental leakage?  Do you mean someone is using radio technology there and we're picking up stray energy from it?”

“That is the most plausible explanation,” said Archie.

“I see,” said Stanton, looking around a circle of rapt faces.  “You keep on that, Archie.  Work with Buzzard.  See if you can figure out that language.”  He looked at the tiny red star on the monitor.  “Unless this is a big coincidence, I think this is the Prime's home.”

Thirty-Three – Shapes

“Do you see shapes?” said Buzzard.

“Shapes?” said Archie.

They were working on the Makers' language.  They'd discovered that, in addition to the weak, scattered and random voice broadcasts, there was a periodic transmission that was stronger and not random at all.  It hadn't taken them long to realize that it was probably coming from a rotating body, most likely a planet.  They hadn't yet figured out why someone was transmitting up into space, though.  They were better with numbers than they were with motives.

“Yes,” said Buzzard, “shapes.  When you're doing numbers.”

“No,” said Archie.  “Shapes?  What do you mean?”

“For numbers.  Each number has a shape.”  Buzzard was using his hands.  “When I put the shapes together they make another shape, and I know what the number is.”

Archie's eyes lit up.  “Ah.  I get it,” he said.  “No, I don't see shapes.”

“Well, how do you do it, then?  You're just as fast as I am.  There's no way you're calculating it that fast.”

“No,” said Archie, “I'm not calculating it.”  He looked at the monitor, which was showing the progress of the Ball's computer as it worked on their latest input.  The Makers' language was proving to be a tough problem.  “I see color,” he said.  “And light.  And texture.  It's hard to describe, but like you, I just know.”

The monitor beeped.  The analysis was done and the results were there, but it was the same as before.  The computer hadn't been able to parse the language in the voice broadcasts.  They were disappointed but not surprised.  The signal was weak and sporadic and full of noise.  There wasn't enough information yet for the computer to work with, not enough for them to devise an effective algorithm for it.  And it wasn't the kind of analysis that was amenable to their talent with numbers, so their shapes and colors and textures weren't doing them any good.

It didn't help that the Makers' language sounded, as Stanton put it, “. . . like a coffee maker on the home stretch.”  The snatches of it that they'd captured so far seemed to consist of a bubbling, gurgling, fluttering sound running over top of a low growling noise.

Buzzard said, “Even if we do figure this out, we're never going to be able to talk to these people.  I don't think our throats are capable of making those sounds.”

Archie smiled in agreement, but he said, “When we figure it out.”

Buzzard nodded.  They would figure it out.  It might take some time, but they would have this language down cold well before they needed it.  They would keep collecting data and extracting the information out of it and subjecting it to deep analysis until it gave up its secrets.  But they had done what they could with it for today.  Now it was time to move on to the mystery of that periodic signal.

There was no voice in the signal.  No burbling coffee pot to tantalize them with the promise of meaning.  If it did contain any information, then it was encoded into the transmission itself.  So far they had worked out that the signal was binary, with discrete pulses coming in a stream.  In the brief periods when it swept across their location, they could see that it was unlike the analogue signal that carried the alien voices.  This one was digital.

Then it abruptly stopped.  After a week of appearing a couple of times a day with clock-like predictability, one day it didn't show up.  They kept looking for it, hoping it would come back.  When it didn't, they were prepared to consign it to that class of phenomena that will never be explained.  But after it was absent for a week, it showed up again, exhibiting the same characteristics as before.

Buzzard and Archie looked at each other, then at nothing at all while their brains went to work.  Soon they looked at each other again, and this time you could tell they knew.

“It's orbiting something else,” said Archie.

“The star?” said Buzzard, shaking his head.

“No,” said Archie.  “Too close.”

“Right,” said Buzzard, “then it must be . . .”

They finished together.  “. . . a moon orbiting another planet.”

“No, we don't have the language figured out yet,” said Stanton.  “We don't have enough clean samples, and we don't have anything to compare them to, anyway.”

Winston said, “No, I suppose not.  I just thought that with both Buzzard and Archie working on it, it wouldn't matter.  I guess I've come to expect miracles from those two.”

“We nave no doubt that they'll get it eventually,” said Stanton.  “They said themselves that it's just a matter of time.  But right now they're more interested in the other problem.”

“The other signal?” said Winston.

“Yes.  The one that seems to be coming from the surface of a revolving body, straight up into space.”

“Why would anyone do that?” said Winston.

“Nobody knows,” said Stanton.  “Maybe when we figure that out, we'll know what it's all about.”

“Maybe,” said Winston, unconvinced.

Stanton looked over Winston's shoulder into the Square.  “What are they up to?” he said, pointing with his chin.

Winston turned to look.  It was a lone Francesian making his way across the Square, with his funny hair and his self-conscious posture.  The odd part was the line of children following him, perfectly mimicking his pious attitude.  He was pretending to not notice.

Winston turned back, chuckling softly.  “I shouldn't laugh,” he said, “but those kids are funny.”

“They like to do that, don't they?” said Stanton.  “I remember a bunch of kids following Buzzard around the Square after we joined the comets.”

Winston glanced over his shoulder and back, nodding.  “I remember that too,” he said.  “The first time we joined comets.  Before the Visitor arrived.”

“Yes,” said Stanton, and they both nodded for a while.

After a long silence, Winston said, “That's a long time ago.”

Stanton pulled himself back to the present.  “A lot of changes,” he said.  “But at least some things never change.  Kids are still kids, aren't they?”

“Yes,” said Winston, slowly.

“What?” said Stanton.  “Don't tell me that's changing too.”

Winston looked serious, his wide mouth a straight line.  “I think it is,” he said.  “I think they're getting smarter.”

“Smarter?  Do you mean they're born smarter?”

“Not exactly,” said Winston.  “And it's nothing you can measure easily, either.  They don't really do better on the standard cognitive tests than they always did.  But you can tell.  When you're with them.  You can tell they're making an effort to . . .”  He shrugged.  “It's like they have to slow down to talk to you.”

“Slow down?  Kids have always had to slow down to talk to adults.”  Stanton grinned.  “Especially old ones like us.”

Winston nodded.  “True,” he said, “but this is different.  This isn't just a matter of hyperactive kids and stodgy adults.  When you talk to them you can see them making a mental shift, like they need a different language to talk to you.”

“Oh,” said Stanton, looking at the children, who had followed the Francesian until he went out the red end of the Square.  Now, with nothing to do, they appeared to be watching him and Winston.  Could he see something in their eyes?  Were they looking at him now with an alien intelligence?  He shook his head.  “They look like ordinary kids to me.  I mean, look at the way they were following that guy.  They were playing, like kids always have.”

“You're right,” said Winston.  “Although there was more to that than meets the eye.”

“Really?  How?”

“This cohort of children is too smart for the Francesians.  Too smart to buy what they're selling.  They're not joining the cult and the numbers are stagnating.”  Winston glanced at the exit, where they'd last seen the lone Francesian.  “That probably explains their latest campaign.”

“Campaign?  The Francesians are having campaigns?”

“Yes,” said Winston.  “Awareness raising.  Recruitment drives.  It's taken on a life of its own.”

Stanton was shaking his head.  “I don't know whether to laugh or cry,” he said.

“I know what you mean,” said Winston.  “This might help you decide.  This campaign is about having more say in the education of the children.”

“Education?” said Stanton.  “What could they possibly contribute to education?”

“They've avoided being specific.  They just say that they want their beliefs to have equal time with the scientific belief system that the children are being taught now.”

“Beliefs?” barked Stanton.  “Equal time?”  He was at a loss for words.

“Yes,” said Winston.  “According to them, science is just an elaborate system of beliefs.  No more real than theirs.”

“Well,” said Stanton, “have they subjected their beliefs to experimental testing?  How about peer review?”

Winston raised placating hands.  “Don't worry,” he said.  “We're not going to let them change our education system.  It's just a sign of their desperation.”  He chuckled.  “Besides, even if they got their way, these kids wouldn't fall for it.  They're too smart for that.”

“That's good,” said Stanton, watching the kids drift off as something else caught their attention.  “It's good to see that you're not falling completely to pieces while we're gone.”

Winston sighed copiously.  “It's not easy,” he said, “to always know what to do in the absence of the heroes of Green Comet.”  He lifted his chin.  “We'll have to blunder on, I guess.”

Stanton smiled.  “Okay, enough of that,” he said.  “Now, what else was there?  Oh yes, the singer.  Is she still there?”

“Yes,” said Winston.  “She's still around.  Still singing.  And still a mystery.”

“No one's figured it out yet?  You'd think someone would have by now.”

“Yes you would, but I think most people would just as soon not know.”

“You can count me among those,” said Stanton.

“Me too,” said Winston.

“Although, I must admit the puzzle is attractive.  The engineer in me wants to solve it.”

“You're not alone,” said Winston.  “Quite a few people are working on it.  They have an organization where they pool information and speculation.  They seem to be narrowing it down, comparing incidents of singing with who's out of hibernation, and so on.  They say it's just a matter of time.”

“I see,” said Stanton quietly.  He'd always known that the Singer couldn't remain anonymous forever.  That was obvious to anyone who understood probabilities.  But he still found the prospect of her discovery disappointing.

So did Winston, so he changed the subject.  “So, just a few more big sleeps and you'll be meeting the Makers.”

Stanton perked up.  “Yes,” he said.  “Who'd have thought it would ever happen?”

“Especially after all these years,” said Winston.  “Well, millennia, really.”

Stanton nodded.  “Thousands of years.  I wonder . . .”

“You wonder what?”

“Well, I wonder how someone can be technologically advanced enough to send a von Neumann machine to another star, and then do nothing for thousands of years.”

“That's right,” said Winston.  “They're obviously still there.  And they're advanced enough to have radio technology.”

“But no more advanced than they were back then?” said Stanton.  “How do you come that far only to stall?”

“Maybe they're satisfied with what they have,” said Winston.  “Or maybe they gave up after launching the Visitor.  Maybe they lost touch with it and just lost interest.”

Stanton nodded.  “Maybe.  I guess we'll have to ask them.”

“I guess so,” said Winston.  “Now that you mention it, what will you do when you get there?  What will you say to them?”

Stanton laughed at him.  “I'm sure Fran will think of something.”

Winston laughed right back.  “I'm sure she will.  Some small step, no doubt.”

“I also get the sense of touch,” said Buzzard.  “I can feel the shape of the numbers, as well as see it.”

“That's almost like texture,” said Archie.  “You can feel your shapes, and I can feel the texture of my light and color.”

“Almost the same,” said Buzzard, “but not the same.”

“No,” said Archie, “not the same.  But equal.”

“That's right,” said Buzzard.  “They feel equal to me.”

The monitor beeped.  The computer had finished another run, and this time it had something.  The digital signal, the periodic one coming from the rotating body in orbit around another, larger body, wasn't encoded with the language they were hearing in the analogue signals.  This binary signal was terse and economical and appeared to be mostly numbers.  It looked just like the ordinary telemetry of routine status reports between distant points.  Immediately they knew that someone on the rotating body was communicating with something in a geosynchronous orbit around it.

Thirty-Four – Too Many Auras

“I've been talking to my colleagues on Green Comet,” said the Doctor.  “When you told me what Winston said about the children there, I got curious.”

“So what do they say?” said Stanton.  “Are the kids there getting smarter, or is Winston imagining things?”

“He's not imagining it, but they're not really smarter, per se.  Depending on your definition of smart.”

“You're going to have to explain that.”

“Of course,” said the Doctor.  “They don't score significantly better on the standard tests, as Winston told you.  They're not any quicker at understanding things, either.  But they seem to understand more deeply than you'd expect, especially for someone their age.”

“More deeply?” said Fran, her interest piqued.

“Yes,” said the Doctor.  “They see the nuances that one wouldn't expect them to see until they're much older.  They seem to be immediately aware of the essence of complex situations.  Something that most adults would have to think about.”

“So,” said Fran, “they're not that much smarter than they were in earlier . . .”  She still needed a new word for generation.

The Doctor said, “I find 'cohort' works pretty well there.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” she said.  “So this cohort might not be smarter, but they seem to understand more fully than expected.”

“That's a good summary,” said the Doctor.  “And they're still just kids, too.  They might perceive nuance beyond their years, but they still have childish ideas and emotions.”

“That's interesting,” said Fran, trying to picture it.

Elgin asked, “What's causing it?  If it was just one or two of them, we could put it down to chance.  Does anyone know why an entire cohort is like this?”

“No one knows for sure, of course,” said the Doctor.  “The working hypothesis is synesthesia.”

“We all have synesthesia,” said Elgin.  “What's different now?”

“That's the thing,” said the Doctor.  “We all have synesthesia, so for the first time we're all reproducing within a closed pool of strong synesthetes.  It seems unavoidable that the number and strength of synesthetic traits in each individual would increase with time.  The hypothesis is that we've crossed a threshold where this new effect has become apparent.”

“That might be a factor, too,” said Fran.  “The number of children like this might have just become large enough to become noticeable.”

“Yes,” said the Doctor.  “It could be that instead.  Or as well.”

Elgin wasn't satisfied.  “You still haven't said how more synesthesia makes them this way.”

“I know,” said the Doctor.  “So, hypothetically, each time a new form of synesthetic perception is integrated into the brain, it increases the amount of brain power required to process it.  The result is that everything they perceive is more layered and complex.  They see subtle shades and nuances that we don't.”

“So they don't necessarily see more than we do,” said Fran, “they just see more subtleties.”

“Yes,” said the Doctor.  “Now, it's possible that it will lead to increased intelligence eventually, as the brain learns how to take advantage of the new processing power, but there's no evidence of that yet.”

Elgin was shaking his head.  “You haven't explained how their brains can handle it all.  With the flood of new perceptions, why aren't they overwhelmed.”

“They would be if their brains were like ours, but the hypothesis invokes the infantile neuronal die-off.”

“The what?”

“The neuronal die-off.  We are born with an excess of neurons, then a number of them are discarded while we're infants.”

“But that's crazy,” said Elgin.  “Why would we waste all the energy producing them only to throw them away?”

“It's thought that we start out with too many so we'll have enough for whatever contingency arises.  Whatever kind of situation we're born into, our brain is able to adapt.  Then, when it knows what it's up against, it discards what it doesn't need.”

Elgin was nodding.  It sounded right.  “So their brains are adapted to the new perceptions and they can handle them.”

Fran said, “Does that mean that we will never be able to enjoy this new vision, even with brain conditioning in hibernation?”

“Most likely not,” said the Doctor.  “We'll be able to replicate some of it, even most of it, but we won't be able to replicate the way they have to adapt to it in their formative years.”

“Ah,” said Fran, “so they'll always have the advantage of it being completely natural to them.”  She nodded.  “This certainly explains it.  And you can see why Winston would say it looks as if they have to use a different language to talk to us.”

“Yes,” said the Doctor.  “I do hope they continue to want to talk to us.”

“What?” said Fran.  “How can you say such a thing?  Of course they'll keep talking to us.”

“Are you sure?  If future cohorts continue to increase their abilities, how long will it be before we're not worth talking to?”

“Don't say that, Doctor.  I prefer to believe that they will become more compassionate, not less.”

“So they'll continue to care about us?"

“Yes.”

“Like people,” said the Doctor, “or like bright pets?”

“Oh, Doctor,” said Fran, “it won't be that bad.”

“I hope you're right,” he said.

Stanton said, “She is right, Doctor.  The ones I saw were just like regular kids.”  He laughed.  “You should have seen them following that Francesian.  They had him down pat.”

“They were following him in a line,” said Elgin, “mimicking him?”

“Yes,” said Stanton.  “Like they did with Buzzard the day we joined the comets.”

“I remember that,” said Elgin.  “They did that with me, too.  At the swimming hole.  Under water.”

“I remember,” said Fran.  “That was sweet.”

“Yes it was,” said Elgin.  “And funny, too.  I almost drowned when I laughed.  Under water.”

Everyone laughed at him, and Fran took his arm and gave it a squeeze.  “You were such a good sport about it.  It's one of the things that let me know that you were the man for me.”

“If I had known that, I'd have tried drowning sooner.”

She slapped his arm, while he grinned at her.

Buzzard spoke up.  “Does anyone know if they see shapes?”

“Shapes?” said the Doctor.

“Yes,” said Buzzard.  “When I'm doing numbers, I see shapes.  Does anyone know if they do that?”

“Or colors,” said Archie on the monitor.

“I see,” said the Doctor.  “No.  No one has said anything about the children seeing shapes or colors while doing numbers.”  Buzzard and Archie looked mildly disappointed.  “But they do see more auras,” he added.  “Those might qualify as shapes and colors.”

“No,” said Buzzard.  “Auras have shapes and colors, but they're not the same.  Not the same.”

“No, I suppose not,” said the Doctor.

“Wait,” said Fran.  “Auras?  They see more auras?”

“Yes,” said the Doctor.  “A large percentage of them, the majority, see auras around almost everything.  Not just people.”

“Everything?” said Fran.  “Why?  I mean, we know why we see auras around people, but why other things?  What good does it do to see an aura around a chair, for instance?”

“I don't know,” said the Doctor.  “What could an aura tell you about a chair?  Not much.  But presumably it's telling them something.  If you've grown up seeing auras around everything, then you'd probably get something useful out of it.”

“Maybe it tells them whether the chair wants to be sat on,” said Buzzard.

Everyone laughed, but the Doctor said, “That's a good point.  We know that chairs don't care whether they're sat on or not, so it must be about the observer's state of mind.”

“That's right,” said Fran.  “We know that the auras we project around people are our impression of their state of being.  We pick up on their tone of voice and their body language and our synesthesia translates it into light and color.”  She nodded.  “Chairs don't have 'states of being' in the same way we do, so their auras would be more about the person looking at them.”

“Yes,” said Buzzard.  “Like, maybe last time they sat in it, it wasn't comfortable.”

Fran laughed, but she said, “Exactly!  Or maybe they had a really nice cup of iceberry tea, so it has a nice aura.”

“These are good ideas,” said the Doctor.  “I'll have to bring them up next time I'm talking to my colleagues.”

Thirty-Five – Relics

“We thought we felt like relics before,” said Elgin.

“Yes,” said Fran, her face re-focusing.  “Now it's official.”

Elgin looked into the featureless white light.  “I wonder what it's going to be like when we go back.”

She looked where he was looking and didn't see anything either.  They were both quiet long enough to completely disappear.  Finally Fran said, “We can deal with that when the time comes.  In the meantime, we have the Makers to look forward to.”

“That's right,” said Elgin, his brown eyes intent.  “When we get up we'll be on the last leg.  Only two more sleeps after that.”

“Nigel had a good idea, didn't he?  To send a message in the Prime's language.”

“Yes,” said Elgin.  “Send a message.  Wait for a reply.  Send it again.  Repeat until successful.”

“Or until we're sure it won't be,” said Fran.  “And keep it simple, too.  Announce your presence and await acknowledgement.”

“Let them puzzle it out,” said Elgin.  “If they can figure it out, that's good.  If not, then we can eventually call them in their own language.  But no need to let on that we're here, or how much we know, until necessary.”

Fran frowned.  “I'm still not sure how I feel about that.  It feels strange to begin with deception.”  But she nodded.  “Best to proceed with caution, though.”

“That's right.  We have no idea what we're getting into.  We don't know if the Makers are dangerous or not, and we won't know until we meet them.”  Elgin nodded too.  “We're not being deceitful so much as prudent.”

Fran shook her head.  “Do you ever wonder what we're doing here?  Why we're out here, light years from home, heading into who knows what?”

“Nope,” said Elgin.  “Oh, I think about it, of course.  Who wouldn't?  But I don't have any questions about why we're doing it.  How could we be doing anything else?”

Fran smiled.  “You're right.  How could we?  We couldn't have let the Prime fly away without doing something.”

“No,” said Elgin.  “This might be dangerous and scary and weird, but it's where we belong.”

They were looking into each other's eyes as the white light turned to gray.

Thirty-Six - Parasite Puppeteers

"Release your controls now, Buzzard."  Maria and Buzzard were out in a pair of the hundred meter modules, checking out their new control systems.

"Okay Maria, it's all yours."

"Here goes," she said.  She applied forward thrust, and Buzzard's module moved ahead along with hers, a hundred meters off her starboard beam.  She turned left, and it followed.  Right, the same.  She pitched up until they were upside down, then rolled them back upright.  The two vessels were like a pair of synchronized swimmers.

"That's perfect," she said.  "Now unlock your controls and set them to coordinated maneuvers."

"Roger, wilco," he said.  "All set."

"Good.  Now let's do the routine we planned."  Side by side they flew up to the front of the Prime, where they turned left to swing around it.

"It's doing it," said Buzzard.  "It's accelerating on its own to match your turn.  I'm making the turn, but it's adjusting to keep up with your module."

"Excellent," she said.

"And it's helping with the turn, too.  I can feel it in the controls."

"Good," said Maria.  "That's just what we were hoping for."

"So these things will be able to assist us when we fly them," said Buzzard.  "And they'll be able to fly themselves when necessary."

"That's right," said Maria.  "And they'll be able to fly and maneuver in tight formation, or avoid collisions when we fly in tight formation."

"Like we're doing now," said Buzzard.

"Yes, I guess you're right.  A separation of one vessel's length probably qualifies as a tight formation."  She looked across the gap to her right.  "Let's see," she said, and yanked her controls over.

"No, wait!" said Buzzard.  "Oof!" he added as his module matched hers.  "You could have warned me," he protested as they straightened out to continue their circumnavigation of the Prime.

"What fun would that have been?" she said, laughing.

Buzzard laughed too.  "That's what I love about you, Maria.  Your sense of fun."  He added, "One thing.  One of the things.  That I love."

"Modules One and Two, this is the Ball, over."

Maria said, "Ball, this is Mod One, go ahead."

"Hi Maria.  This is Elgin."

"And Fran."

"And Archie.  On Tainui."

Maria couldn't see them, since the modules had audio only, but she could tell by their voices that it wasn't serious.  "Hi guys," she said.  "What's up?"

"Hi guys," said Buzzard.  "Hi Archie.  What's up?"

"Hi Buzzard," said Archie.  "We got it."

"You got it?" said Buzzard.  "Yes!"

"Got what?" said Maria.

"We got a reply," said Elgin.  "The message to the Makers, in the Prime's language.  We just got a reply."

"Oh!" said Maria.  "Just now?  What does it say?  Are you going to answer it?"

Fran laughed, delighted at Maria's enthusiasm.  "It's very short," she said.  "All it says, really, is 'Who are you?'"

"I see," said Maria.  "Well, what are you going to tell them?"

Fran said, "We're not going to tell them anything for now.  We'll wait until you guys are back, and then we'll talk about it.  There's no hurry, since it's been over six years since they sent it."

"Oh, right," said Maria.  "Of course."  Then she asked, "Is Nigel there?  He must be pretty pleased with himself."

"Yes."  Nigel's voice came on.  "Here.  And pleased."

"You should be," said Maria.  "You got it right."

"Thank you," he said, "but it was just a lucky guess.  They could just as easily have not understood the message.  Or ignored it."

"Nigel's being modest," said Fran.

"I know," said Maria.  "It might have just been a lucky guess, but it was obviously the right guess."

"That's just it," said Nigel.  "It was the obvious thing to do.  I just happened to say it first."

"Sure," said Fran.

"Obviously," said Maria.

While everyone was laughing at Nigel, Archie spoke up.  "We've already learned something about the Makers," he said.

"What?" said Buzzard.

"They don't remember sending the Visitor.  And they don't remember its language."

"How can you tell that?" said Elgin.

"The way they used the language shows that they've deciphered it, rather than remembered it.  And they said 'who' rather than 'what.'  'Who are you?'"

That clicked for Elgin, and Buzzard said, "Yes.  Archie's right."

Maria said, "Okay.  We can talk about this when we get in.  See you in about half an hour."  She pushed her controls forward.

"How was it?" asked Fran.

"It was good," said Maria.

"Really good," said Buzzard.

"The control systems work just the way we planned," said Maria.  "The automatic assist is really nice."  She grinned at Buzzard, who laughed.

"Where the modules smooth out your inputs?" said Fran.

"Yes.  And the Prime, too," said Maria.

"Oh, yes," said Fran.  "I think Nigel was saying that the Prime could control its whole fleet at once, if it had to."

"I don't see why not," said Maria.  "From what we saw, fourteen scouts and fourteen modules should be no problem."

Fran shook her head.  "It's still hard to believe.  Who'd have thought, not so long ago, that the Prime would be taking orders from us like this?"

"I know what you mean," said Maria.  "Before, we were worried whether it might destroy us just for being here.  We were glad to be like stealthy parasites.  And now we seem to be able to get it to do whatever we want."

"It's like we've become its masters," said Fran.  "As if we were puppeteers."

"Parasite puppeteers," said Maria, laughing.

"Parasite puppeteers!" said Fran.  "I love it!"

"Me too," said Elgin.  "It's perfect.  We've infected our host, and now we're controlling its behavior."

"Puppeteers," said Buzzard, his long-fingered hands in front of him, manipulating an imaginary marionette.  "Puppeteers."

Elgin got up and imitated a puppet on strings.  As the laughter ran its course, Stanton said, "So, what else do you think we can get it to do?"

Fran gaped at him.  "That's usually my line." she said.

Stanton smiled at her.  "It's different now," he said.  "Your small steps have shown the Prime to be harmless, so now we can proceed with confidence."

"I see," she said.  Then, with a wink, "I guess I'm going to have to start taking bigger steps, then."

He cocked an eyebrow at her, but he was still smiling.

Nigel said, "I think we should start by preparing it to communicate with the Makers."

"We've already done that, haven't we?" said Galatea with her usual trenchant brevity.

"Yes," said Nigel, "but I think we should prepare it to have a two-way conversation with them.  We want to make sure that it tells them enough, but not too much."

"Nigel's right," said Stanton.  "We need to figure out what to say to them."

They discussed it but nothing sounded any good until Archie said, "I think we should have the Prime tell them what it is."

"That's a good idea," said Stanton.  "How do you think we should do that?"

"Well, we know that the language won't be a problem," said Archie.  "The Makers have already shown that they can figure that out."

"Okay," said Stanton.

"So now we just need to tell them what the Prime is."

"Like, 'Makers, this is the Prime.  I'm a hundred kilometer vessel full of resources?'"

"Not exactly," said Archie.  "We'll be able to tell them about that, but we can use its real name."

"You know the Prime's real name?" said Stanton.

"The Prime has a real name?" said Fran.

"Yes," said Archie.  "Not a real name, as such.  More of a designation, really."

"What is it?" asked Stanton.

"It's the equivalent of what we'd call letters and numbers.  They don't match up directly with our letters and numbers, so I've made something up that we can use."

"Understood," said Stanton.

"Okay.  For the Prime I've chosen MvNM-2, for Makers von Neumann Machine Two."

"That's logical," said Stanton.  "Now, don't tell me.  Let me guess.  The Visitor is MvNM-1, right?"

"That's right.  But those are just our equivalents.  We'd send the Makers the actual designations in the Prime's language."

"Of course," said Stanton.  "But in our translations it would be MvNM-1 and -2."

"Right."

Stanton looked at Fran and Elgin, who nodded.  Looking around at everyone else, he saw agreement as well.  "That sounds good, then," he said.  "Now it's just a matter of putting together the actual message.  Any suggestions?"

Fran said, "Just one thing.  Keep it short, whatever it is.  Tell them enough to answer their question, but leave the important things unsaid.  Make them want more."

Buzzard started to laugh.  "What's so funny, Buzzard?" asked Fran.

"The Prime is number two," said Buzzard, laughing and laughing.

There were some shrugs and raised eyebrows, but the dimples in Archie's cheeks were deeper than they'd ever seen them.

Galatea said, "Math humor, I guess."

The message didn't take long to craft, once they knew what they wanted to say.  It began, "Makers, this is MvNM-2."  Of course, the Prime used its original designation, given to it by the Makers' predecessors in the first place.  And it addressed itself not to the Makers, but to the original entity that communicated with the Visitor during its expedition in that distant time.

Then it reported on its mission.  The stars they visited, and when.  The disappearance of the Visitor.  The decision to come home.

Finally they had it send a request for the construction of enough lasers to slow them down when they arrived.  The Prime was already talking to the original laser installation, the one that started the Visitor on its journey those thousands of years before.  But they thought they might as well get the Makers involved, too.  They weren't sure that the small laser would have the ability, or the resources, to build itself up enough in the time remaining to it.

Now it was just a matter of waiting somewhat over a decade for a reply.  They were curving past the last star before their destination, but they were still well over six light years away.

Thirty-Seven - Under the Skin

"We've found something."  Elgin and Frances were on the surface of the Prime, up near its bow.

"What does it look like?" asked Stanton, who was in a pod with Galatea.

"It looks like a hatch," said Elgin.  "It's square and it has a seam all around.  Here, I'll get you a good picture.  It just stands out from everything else."

"I see what you mean," said Stanton.  "We've got no perspective here though, Elgin.  How big is it?"

"It's about two meters across."

"Where are you?"  It was Maria's voice.  She and Buzzard were also on the surface, escorted by Nigel and the Doctor in another pod.  "We're not finding anything here."

"We're close to the centerline, Maria," said Fran.  "We must be within a few hundred meters of it."

"About a hundred meters," said Stanton.

"Thanks, Stanton," said Fran.  "And we're very close to the leading edge too, right?"

"About ten meters back," said Stanton.

"Okay," said Maria.  "We're still about five kilometers from the centerline, but we're close to the edge, like you.  We're going to fly directly to a hundred meters, in case it's laid out symmetrically."

"It probably is," said Elgin.  "That would fit with what we've seen so far."

"Yes," said Buzzard, his voice reflecting the activity of flying.  "Fourteen scouts.  Fourteen modules."  He flew for a while.  "The shape of the whole thing is symmetrical.  Bi-laterally, at least.  It has a definite top and bottom, and front and back, but the sides are symmetrical."

"That's right," said Elgin.  "I would be surprised if you don't find another hatch right where it should be."

"Me too," said Buzzard.

After a brief silence, Fran said, "Nigel.  Do you think you can open this hatch?"

"I'm working on that, Fran," he said.  "It looks like I should be able to, but it'll take some study."

"I'll leave it to you, then," she said.  After a moment of staring at the hatch, she started rising straight up.

Elgin joined her and together they went up about three hundred meters.  From that height they got a clearer picture of the local terrain, and it really was as much like terrain as it was like machinery.  At a hundred kilometers long and about thirty wide, the Prime was as large as a small moon.  From their high vantage point, they could see that it was laid out symmetrically on either side of the centerline.  They could see exactly where Buzzard and Maria should go.

In the distance they could see the blinking red lights of their pressure suits picking their way toward the middle.  "Maria," said Fran.  "Keep going that way.  You're heading right for it."

"Will do," said Maria.  After a moment she added, "Where are you?"

"Look up," said Fran.  "We're about three hundred meters up."

After some silent searching, Maria said, "Ah!  There you are.  You look like a pair of flashing red stars."

Fran and Elgin waved, even though they knew it was pointless.  "Red dwarfs?" said Elgin.

"Never!  Not you two.  Red giants for sure."

"Dying, grotesquely swollen and devouring our young?"

Everyone laughed, especially Buzzard.  "Grotesquely swollen Elgin," he chortled.

Chuckling, Fran said, "You're getting close now.  Less than a hundred meters.  Just keep going that way and you can't miss it."

"I think I can see where it must be," said Maria.  "I'm beginning to get a feel for how it's laid out."

"It looks like you're on a beeline from here," said Fran.  "We're going back down now."

As they were drifting back down, Nigel said, "I've got it.  At least, I think I have.  Let me know when you're ready to give it a try."

"We're just about there, Nigel," said Elgin.  "And Buzzard and Maria should be, too."

"We are," said Maria.  "And you're right, Elgin.  It really does stick out, doesn't it?"

"Is yours the same as ours?"

"As far as I know," she said.  "Two meters square with a seam all around."

"That sounds right," he said.  Then to Nigel, "I think we're ready here.  Ready when you are."

"All right," said Nigel.  "Stand back."

"What for?" said Maria.

"Just to be safe.  There's no indication here, but we don't know what's going to happen.  What if there's some kind of atmosphere under there and the door blows open?"

"Or," said Buzzard, "it's an emergency door and it opens explosively.  Explosively."

"Right," said Nigel.  "So, is everyone clear?"  When that was confirmed, he sent the command to open.

It didn't blow open, in either sense, but there was a kind of a bang.  As with the release of the scout, they felt the jolt through their feet as the door unlatched.  The hatch swung up and over until it was lying flat on the Prime's surface, just like a small version of the big hatch on Green Comet.

"Hey!" said Maria.  "You didn't say you were going to open our hatch too."

"I didn't know I was," said Nigel.  Then, "Oh, no."

Everyone wanted to know, but it was Stanton's voice that carried.  "Oh, no, what?" he said.

"Oh," said Nigel, "nothing serious.  At least, I hope not."  He sounded bemused, hints of laughter in his voice.

"Well, what is it?" said Stanton.

"It's the hatches," said Nigel.  "Now that I know what I'm looking at, I think there are around eight hundred of them."  Laughing nervously, he finished, "And I think I just opened all of them."

Stanton barked a laugh, but stifled it.  The image of a hundred kilometer freighter flying through interstellar space with eight hundred hatches gaping open was pretty funny, but potentially serious, too.  "Can you close them?"

"I think so," said Nigel.  "Are you all clear of your hatches?"  With that confirmed he said, "Here goes," and the hatches swung shut.

"Good," said Stanton.  "Now can you isolate these two?"

"Give me a minute.  I think I can see the difference between the big ones and the little ones."

"Big ones?" said Stanton.

"Yes," said Nigel.  "I opened all the big loading hatches for the freight compartments, too."  He was quiet and everyone knew he was working on it.  "Okay, I think that takes care of the big ones.  Now I'm going to try something, and you tell me if your hatch opens or not."

"Ours is opening," said Maria.

"Ours isn't," said Fran.

"Good," said Nigel, closing the ones that had opened all down the left side.  "That settles the lateral question.  Now for front and back.  Anything now?"

"Nothing here," said Maria.

"Nothing here either," said Fran.

"Right.  I think I'm almost there.  Now I'm going to open the hatch that's closest to the front, on the top, just right of the centerline.  That should be you and Elgin, Fran."

"Yes, it's opening."

Nigel shut it.  "Now yours, Maria."

"There it is," said Maria.

"Excellent!  And I'm not showing any others opening at the same time."

"Great!" said Maria.  "Now open up so we can get in there and start exploring."

"Yeah!" said Buzzard.  "Open up.  Let's go."

"Hold your horses," said Stanton.  "We haven't decided which one yet."

"Which one?" asked Maria.  "Both of them, of course."

"No," said Stanton.  "We can't send you all in there at once.  We'll send two of you in, and the other two can stand by at the entrance."

Before Maria could protest, Fran said, "Let Maria and Buzzard go first.  Elgin and I can stand watch."

"No, Fran," said Maria.  "If we can't all go, then you and Elgin should go.  Or we should at least draw straws."

"No," said Fran.  "Elgin and I are agreed.  It should be you and Buzzard."  When Maria didn't answer she added, "You guys have all the experience with the scouts and modules.  That should count for something."

Elgin said, "She's right.  It's right."

When Maria still didn't answer, Stanton said, "Make up your minds, or I'll pick someone."

"Okay," said Maria.  "We'll go.  You guys stay there.  We'll use your hatch."  You could tell by her voice that she was moving.  "That's the first one we found, so it's only fitting."

"That's right, too," said Elgin.

It didn't take long to fly two hundred meters.  Within minutes the four of them were clustered, staring at the portal that was about to open.  It only hit them then.  They were about to open up the Prime and invade its innards.  They looked at the hatch, and they looked at each other.  You could see in their faces that things had changed.

Stanton broke the silence.  "Is everyone just about ready?"

That broke the spell.  Now they were looking sheepish.  "Yes, Stanton," said Fran.  "We're ready."

That would have been it, but Elgin had something to say.  He said, "I'm not usually the one for making speeches.  Almost anyone would be a better choice for that than me."  He might not have been very practiced at it, but he certainly had their attention.  "It just struck me.  What we're about to do, well, it's pretty weird when you think about it."

There was general agreement to that.

"But really," he went on, "that's what we do, isn't it?  We do weird things, I mean.  Like even being here in the first place."

They were pulling for him, willing him to get through it.

"So, anyway, I just thought that, even if this seems weird, it's not, really.  It's not that weird, I mean.  Because, for us, this is normal."  He stopped there, feeling unfinished.

They surprised him with a round of hearty agreement, and Fran came over and slipped her arm through his.  She beamed into his face, proud as could be.

Stanton said, "Nice speech, Elgin.  I think you spoke for all of us with that."

Galatea chipped in, "Elgin making speeches.  What next?"

"Thank you Galatea.  Stanton.  Everyone."  Elgin sounded embarrassed.  "Don't worry.  I won't make a habit of it."

"No, you were fine," said Stanton.  "Now, if everyone is ready, let's open up and get going."

"We're all set here," said Fran.

"Okay," said Nigel.  "Opening up."

The hatch swung up and laid itself flat beside the opening.  The four looked at each other, then Buzzard and Maria moved forward.  At two meters wide, the hole was big enough for both of them to go through at once, which they did, heads first.  Elgin and Fran closed in and looked down, their eyes following the lights as their friends looked around.  There was nothing much to see.  It looked like there was a corridor under there, running fore and aft.

"It looks like we're in a passageway," said Maria, confirming what their friends could see, and what their helmet cameras were transmitting.  "Looking forward, it stops at a bulkhead after a few meters.  But looking aft, it seems to go forever."

"Go forward first," said Stanton.  "Let's see what we've got."

"On our way," said Maria, and they headed for the bulkhead, their lights pushing the shadows away.  It was only a few meters, since the hatch was just ten meters from the Prime's leading edge.  Elgin and Fran could more or less keep an eye on them, if they moved around to the back of the opening and crouched down.

"There's another passageway," said Buzzard.  "Just before the bulkhead.  Going sideways.  A lateral passageway.  Going both ways."

"Okay, Buzzard," said Stanton.  "Hold your head still for a while and let's have a look."  Buzzard happened to be looking to the right, away from the centerline, when he stopped moving.  Stanton saw an empty passage, its lines converging on the vanishing point.  "That's good.  Now look inboard."  It looked the same, only he could see what looked like another bulkhead in the distance.

"It occurs to me," said the Doctor, his voice surprising them, "that passageways are made for passage, and I wonder what is meant to be using these."

He wasn't the only one.  They'd all thought about it, and they'd all assumed the same thing: service robots.  That calmed the brain's rampant speculation while they got on with things, but the Doctor's comment repopulated the passageways with other possibilities.

"Just robots," said Maria, trying to sound calm.

"Just robots," said Buzzard.  "So, which way do you think we should go?  Inboard or outboard?"

Maria smiled at him.  He made it seem so natural.  "Definitely in," she said.  "I think that's where the action will be."

"Me too," said Buzzard.  "That outbound tunnel looks boring, but I bet that bulkhead at the end of the inner one is the centerline."

"I bet you're right," said Maria.  "So let's go."

At three meters square in cross section, the corridor was big enough for them to fly comfortably side by side.  They set an easy pace of two meters per second, what would have been a brisk walking pace back on their planet.  At that rate they would have reached the bulkhead in less than a minute, but there were periodic openings in the walls, and they had to explore every one.

The openings led into alcoves, each about five meters cubed and lined on every surface with what looked like the components of a larger system.  The components appeared to be modular, each one well under a meter in size.  Curious, Buzzard took hold of one by what looked like an obvious handle, and pulled.  After a good tug, it slid out smoothly and they could see a tidy array of smaller components inside.  There was also a green light that started flashing.  "Uh-oh," said Buzzard, and slid it back in.

"Uh-oh what?" said Stanton.

"Nothing," said Buzzard, although the green light didn't go out.  And then they noticed a light in the hallway. A moving light.

"Uh-oh," said Buzzard again.

"Buzzard!" said Stanton, who couldn't tell the new light from their lights.

"Something's coming," said Buzzard.

"What?" asked Stanton.

"There's something out in the hallway."

"Well, what is it?"

"I don't know.  We can just see its light.  Moving.  In the hallway."

Maria flew over to the door and had a look, popping her head out and back in.

"What is it?" asked Buzzard.

She popped her head out for another quick peek, then backed in and pulled Buzzard to one side.  "I think it's a service robot," she said.  "I'm pretty sure it's coming here. We'd better turn our lights out."

"What does it look like?" asked Buzzard, switching off.

"Can't you get out of there?" said Stanton.

"It's too late to get out of here," said Maria, as the robot turned into their alcove.

It took a while to see it properly.  Firstly, they were so keyed up that their eyes were trying to see everything at once, and therefore not seeing anything very well.  Secondly, there were far too many parts.  They got an impression of a bulky mass with a large number of appendages, and all the limbs seemed to be moving at once.

Buzzard and Maria stared from the side of the room as the robot crossed from the opening to the blinking green light.  It reached out with two of its limbs, the topmost two, and pulled out the component.  A second, smaller pair of limbs reached up to hold the component while it worked on it with the top two.  It had four more appendages down below that seemed meant to function in a quadrupedal way.

Seemingly satisfied with its inspection, it did something that turned out the green light, then slid the component back in.  Mission accomplished, it turned to leave, and stopped dead when it saw them.

"Uh-oh," said Buzzard again, when he saw it pointing something at them.

"What's that?" said Stanton, seeing it on his monitor.

"I don't know," said Buzzard.  "It doesn't look like a gun.  There's no hole in the end.  Just some spiky things."

"Maybe it's some kind of energy weapon," said Stanton.

"I hope not," said Buzzard.

Nigel cut in.  "There's a lot of activity here.  The Prime's main processors are receiving a lot of data."

"Ah!" said Elgin.  "A sensor.  The robot's pointing a sensor at you and sending the data back."

"I hope so," said Buzzard.

"Come on," said Maria, heading for the robot.

"Wait!" said Buzzard.  "Wait for me."

Side by side they approached it, while it stood and watched them come.  It was standing squarely on its four largest limbs, with its main body erect above them.  The upper arms hung unmoving from its sides, while the smaller arms were waving slowly, questing absently.  The sensor retracted, leaving just two big eyes about two-thirds of the way up the trunk.  It didn't have anything like a head, unless you thought of the whole body as one.

They stopped in front of it.  They were close enough to reach out and touch it, or for it to touch them.  Forgetting its strange morphology, and the fact that it had four limbs to their two, it was about the same size as them.

"Nigel," said Maria, "what's happening now?"

"The heavy data flow has stopped," said Nigel, "but there's still information moving."

"From this robot?"

"It looks like it.  I believe I've identified this particular unit and its connection to the central node."  He gave a satisfied chuckle.  "And I've been able to use this to isolate similar signals.  It looks like there are about eight hundred of them."

"That's the same as the number of hatches," said Buzzard.

"That's right," said Nigel.  "I'm trying to figure out now if they're associated."

Maria moved closer, keeping her eyes on the robot's arms.  Slowly she reached out, wanting to touch it, and one of its arms came at her.  She jumped back so fast that Buzzard helped to slow her down, his hand on her prism-shaped service pack.  They both drifted backward together.  The robot's arm stopped, and drifted back to its previous position.

Maria and Buzzard looked at each other.  Without a word, they moved forward once again.  This time she reached out for the robot's arm, and it reached out to meet her hand.  She grasped it and it stopped moving.  She glanced at its eyes and could tell somehow that it was watching her.  Looking back at the arm, she turned it over to get a good look at the structure at its end.  The robot neither resisted nor helped her efforts.

There were six appendages on the end of the arm, forming what she instinctively thought of as a hand.  Manipulating them, she quickly saw that two of them were analogous to the thumb on her hand.  Each thumb naturally opposed two of the four fingers, and each other.  She looked at Buzzard and he raised his eyebrows as the possibilities blossomed in his mind.

Maria said, "Pretty effective, eh?"

"Yes," he said.  "Half of the hand could hold onto something while the other half worked on it."

Nigel's voice broke in.  "I think I have it figured out," he said.  "It looks like there is one robot assigned to the area around each hatch.  This one covers the hatch you used, and a good chunk of that quadrant of the Prime.  There's another one on the other side of that bulkhead you saw at the end of the hallway."

Elgin and Fran showed up in the doorway.  “We thought we should come in case you needed our help,” said Fran.  “But it looks like you've got everything under control.”

Maria said, “More or less.”  She released the robot's hand, which slid back to its neutral position.  “So,” she said to Nigel, “you can identify them individually.  Do you think you can control this one?”

"Well," said Nigel, "probably.  Eventually.  With practice."

"Try it now," she said.  "Move the hand I was holding."

"Really?" he said.  "Are you sure?"

"Sure."

"Okay.  I'll give it a go."  He muttered to himself, obviously trying to work it out.  "Okay, I'm ready.  Stand back."

He might have been half joking, but it's a good thing they did as he said.  He was able to move the hand, all right, but only by moving the whole arm, and that rather spastically.  It flailed wildly, and would have struck them if they hadn't moved.  It did end up striking itself, severely lashing its own face, leaving it permanently scarred.  It made no move to avoid the damage, and gave no reaction to it.  They would end up giving it the nickname "Scarface."

"That was good, Nigel," said Maria.  "Could you do it again?"

"Ha-ha," he said.  "Not if I can help it."  He pored over his data.  "All right, I think that's got it," he muttered.  Then to Maria and Buzzard, "Stand back.  I'm going to try that again."

Buzzard and Maria backed up all the way to the wall, and pressed themselves theatrically against it.  "All set," they said.

"You guys are a laugh a minute," said Nigel drily.  He could catch glimpses of what they were doing through their cameras, and that gave him an idea.  It took only a moment to tap into the data stream from the robot's visual sensors, and a few more to figure out how to convert it for output on his own monitor.

"Well," said Maria.  "Is something going to happen?"

"Hang on," said Nigel.  "Just about there."  Then the image popped up.  "Ah, there you are.  Oh yes," he said, seeing them in their humorous pose, "you two are hilarious."

"Wait," said Maria, "are you looking at us through its eyes?"

"Yes," he said.  "That's where it happens to be looking.  Now, if I can just . . ."  The robot's hand moved slowly in front of its face, and they could see its attention turn that way.  "Good.  And it automatically adjusts focus, too."

"It looks like you have good control of the arm now," said Maria.  "It hasn't slapped itself in the face for a while."

"Thank you," said Nigel, equally facetiously.  "With some practice, I think a person could make one of these do almost anything."

"Only one?"

"Oh, now that you mention it, I suppose a person could run a few of them simultaneously."

"That's interesting," said Maria, as she watched Nigel put the supple, unjointed arm through its paces.  "We can use these robots to explore the whole Prime."

"Yes," said Nigel.  "That will save a lot of time."  They were just getting into the possibilities when they got a call from the other end of the big ship.

"Pods one and two, this is Tainui, over."

Stanton answered.  "Pods here.  Go ahead, Archie."

"Hello Stanton.  Everybody.  We got a reply from the Makers."

"Oh, good," said Stanton.  "What does it say?"

"Not much," said Archie.  "Hardly any formalities.  Only a few words that boil down to, 'Why should we help you?'"

Thirty-Eight - First Contact

"At first it looked like it was galloping."  Buzzard was telling Archie about the robot.  "And then, once it was up to speed, it settled into a trot."  He shook his head.  "But not a trot.  Not really a trot."

"How was it not like a trot?" said Archie.

"I didn't know this," said Buzzard.  "I never thought of it before Maria told me.  She used to ride horses, you know.  Back on the planet."

"No," said Archie, "I didn't know that."

"Yes," said Buzzard.  "With her father."  His face fell.  "And her mother.  Her mother."

"What's the matter, Buzzard?"

"Her mother," he said.  "She was killed in a riding accident.  That's the main reason they went on Green Comet."

"That's sad," said Archie.

"I know," said Buzzard.  He looked at his friend.  "But if it hadn't happened, I wouldn't have met Maria.  Is it bad to feel happy about something so sad?"

Archie nodded.  "That's hard all right."  Then he firmly shook his head.  "You can be happy about meeting Maria and still be sad about her mother dying.  She didn't die so you could meet Maria, even if you were only able to meet because she did.  You know?"

Buzzard looked at him.  "I guess you're right," he said.  "I know you're right.  But it still feels bad that my happiness is contingent on something so sad."

"I know," said Archie.  "But what about all the other things it's contingent on?  And then all the things those things are contingent on.  And so on."

"I know," said Buzzard.

"And then, why did you go on Green Comet?  And what was that contingent on?  And so on."

"I know."

"It's illogical, Buzzard."

"I know, but there it is."  Buzzard turned his palms up.

Archie shook his head.  "I think I understand," he said.  "Anyway, what did Maria tell you about trotting?"

"Oh," said Buzzard, "that's right.  Maria pointed out that most quadrupeds move their diagonal legs together.  I mean, one leg on each side is going forward while the other is going back, and it's opposite on the other side.  You know?"

"I can see that."

"Okay, well, the robot, after it finished galloping, was moving both legs on the same side together."

"So, it was like us walking, only with two legs on each side?"

"That's right.  Only not really walking, because it would glide without touching the ground."

"I see," said Archie, with a puzzled frown.  "But if it's going airborne, I mean, if it's leaving the floor, why doesn't it soar right up and hit the ceiling?  There's no gravity to speak of."

"I wondered that too," said Buzzard, "so I had a good look at the recording.  The robot doesn't push off to propel itself, it reaches forward, gets a grip, and pulls itself."

"So it has magnets, or suckers."

"It has to be magnets.  Suckers wouldn't work with no air.  Or maybe it has setae, like us."

Archie rolled his eyes.  "How long have we been out here?  And I'm still assuming there must be air if you're indoors."

Buzzard laughed, and turned to watch Stanton and the others fly up.

"Are we all here?"  Stanton counted heads, finding all eight.  "Good.  I think we're all aware of the message."  Nods all around.  "Right, so now we need to figure out how to answer it.  This is serious because, if they don't build up the laser, we're going to blow right through that system."

Fran raised her hand.  "It's not quite that bad," she said.  "There's not enough to stop the Prime, that's true, but there is enough to stop the balls."

"Thank you, Fran.  That's right, of course.  We probably won't have any trouble stopping, provided the Makers don't turn off the lasers that are already there."

"That's the problem though, isn't it?" said Elgin.  "As far as the Makers are concerned, we don't exist.  It's just the Prime.  And if they decide they don't like the Prime, what's to stop them from turning the lasers off?"

"Are you suggesting that we tell them we're here?"  Stanton's expression was sceptical.

"No," said Elgin.  "I think our plan of letting them know in the last year is the way to go.  I'm just saying that, since the Prime is all they know, it's the Prime that has to convince them."

Stanton nodded.  "I agree.  But the problem is, how do we do that?  We have no idea what the Makers are like, so we don't know how to appeal to them."

There was silence while everyone pondered that, then Buzzard tentatively suggested, "They like symmetry.  The Prime is symmetrical.  And the Visitor.  And the modules and scouts."

"That's true," said Stanton, "but I can't see how it helps us.  Sorry Buzzard."

As Buzzard's face fell, the Doctor said, "Buzzard might be onto something."  When they looked at him he said, "Maybe their liking of symmetry goes beyond appearances."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, maybe they like symmetry in actions.  Like, they do one thing and expect or want something else to balance it."

Stanton did not look enlightened.

The Doctor tried to clarify it.  "I guess I'm thinking of a sense of fairness, or an expectation of reciprocity."

"Ah," said Stanton.  "So you think they might be asking what we'll do for them if they build the lasers.  'Why should we help you?'"

"Yes," said the Doctor.  "Only what will the Prime do, rather than us."

"Of course," said Stanton.  "But what can the Prime do for them?"

"The only thing it has to offer," said the Doctor.  "Its cargo."

That was greeted by general approval, and they immediately began to discuss how to word the message.  Everyone came up with a variation on, "If you will build the lasers, then I will give you . . ."  The suggestions became increasingly fanciful and humorous as each tried to outdo the other, and that exposed the flaw in that approach.  They knew instinctively that the Prime couldn't bargain with the Makers.  Its makers.  It wouldn't ring true for a device that was ultimately of their making to act like an equal in a negotiation.  They were going to have to find a way to do it that would feel right to the Makers.

"Just tell them," said Galatea.  "Tell them that the Prime has tons of valuable resources on board, and if they don't build the lasers, then they won't get them.  What's the problem?"

Elgin said, "That sounds right.  Almost."

"Almost?" said Galatea.

"Yes," said Elgin.  "It's almost right, but not quite."  Seeing her frowning at him, he said, "Sorry."

"Well, what's wrong with it?"

"I'm not sure."  He shrugged.  "Maybe it sounds too much like a threat."

"That's it!" Nigel burst out.

"What?" said Fran.  "Have you got the answer?"

"Yes!" said Nigel.  He grinned at them, nodding vigorously.  "It's perfect."

"Tell us," she said, "and let's see what Elgin's sense of right makes of it."

"Okay," said Nigel.  "We don't want the Prime to sound as if it's bargaining with them, right?"  They agreed.  "Or threatening them."  He looked at Elgin, who nodded.  "But we want them to know what they'll be missing if they don't help the Prime stop."

"I think that sums it up," said Fran.

"So," said Nigel, "we don't have to actually do anything."

Stanton was frowning now.  "Are you suggesting we do nothing and hope for the best?"

"No, not at all," said Nigel.  "I just mean all we need to do is let the Prime give the Makers the straight facts, with nothing added.  No embellishments, no explanations."

"Oh," said Elgin, beginning to nod.

Stanton looked at him.  "Do you know what he's getting at?"

"I think so," said Elgin.  To Nigel he said, "You just want the Prime to tell the Makers what it's carrying, right?"

"That's right," said Nigel.  "We get it to send them its manifest, and that's all.  Just a machine reporting to its makers.  No threats and no promises."

Elgin was nodding decisively now.

Stanton said, "I like the sound of that.  That's how I would expect my machines to talk to me."

"Is that it, then?" said Fran.  "Is that how we're going to do it?"

Stanton looked around.  Everyone seemed agreeable, so he said, "It looks like it."

"Good," said Fran.  Looking thoughtful, she asked, "How long would a message like that take to send?"

Nigel said, "Well, it depends on how we send it.  Why?"

"I think we should make it take a while," she said.

"How long of a while?"

"Is a week too long?"

"No," said Nigel.  "It has a slower data mode, which I presume is meant for critical transmissions, with redundancy checking for accuracy and all.  We could easily make that take a week."

"Good," said Fran.  "The critical redundancies will no doubt impress the Makers."  She grinned at him.

"No doubt."  He grinned back at her.  "But why do you want it to take a week?  We could do it in less than a day."

"I'm not sure.  Something just tells me it might be useful."  She shrugged and looked at Elgin.

He said, "It feels sort of right."

"Sort of?" asked Stanton.

"Yes," said Elgin.  "There's no big click, but it has a sense of being right.  There's no sense of wrong at all, but I guess there's not enough there to know for sure."

"I get you," said Stanton, who was used to dealing with Elgin's sometimes vague talent.  "It can't do any harm to use a slow transmission, and Fran thinks it might do some good."  He looked around and got a consensus.  "Let's do it, then."

"After we finish the tea and biscuits," said Fran.

The Doctor had been quiet for quite a while when he spoke.  While everyone was drinking tea and chatting about the Prime and the Makers, he'd been silently gazing out through the Ball's shell at the immensity of the great cargo ship.  If anyone had been watching him they'd have guessed that his mind was on something important.  As it was they'd almost forgotten that he was there, and his voice surprised them.  It wasn't the first time that had happened.  He said, "This isn't how I imagined first contact."

In the surprised silence he added, "I imagined that there would be more ceremony, somehow.  An exchange of greetings, momentous greetings.  I guess I was expecting some kind of revelation."  He laughed softly.  "Instead we're sending a list."

Everyone laughed.  It was funny when you put it like that.  The laughter faded quickly, though, because he was right.  Here was the only chance they'd ever have at first contact with an intelligent alien species, and it was being wasted on a prosaic list.

Nigel had an objection.  "Technically," he said, "this isn't first contact."

"Do you mean the Visitor?" asked the Doctor.  "I don't think that counts because it was just a machine.  And it never tried to talk to us.  All it did was destroy us."

Nigel nodded.  "You're right," he said.  "There might have been contact there, but there was certainly no exchange of ideas."

"If that doesn't count," said Archie, taking a biscuit from the tray offered by Fran, "then this one doesn't count either."  He took a neat bite.

"Why not?" said the Doctor, but Archie was busy chewing.

"I know.  I know why not," said Buzzard.  "I think I know."

"Why then, Buzzard?" asked the Doctor.

Buzzard looked at Archie, who nodded, still chewing.  "Because if the first one didn't count because the Visitor was just a machine, then this one doesn't count because the Prime is just a machine."

The Doctor didn't say anything, so Elgin said, "He's right.  It's almost perfectly analogous."

Nigel said, "But it's different.  The Visitor never talked to us, and the Prime is talking to the Makers."

"It's still just a machine," said Elgin.

"But it's saying what we tell it to say," said Nigel, "so it's really us making contact."

"That's true," said Elgin, "but the Makers don't know that.  Can it really be contact if only one side knows?"

The eight of them, nine counting Archie, knocked that around for a while, but they couldn't settle it either way.  Fran was the one who finally put it to rest.  "Those two cases might be ambiguous," she said, "but there's one that won't be.  When we call the Makers a year before we get there, that will be definite contact."

Thirty-Nine – Pursued by Fire

“Makers, this is the Comets.”  They were one year out and slowing quickly.  Once the Makers received the Prime's manifest, the lasers started to come on line with brisk regularity.  The Prime wouldn't be required to use its huge ion drive to slow down, beyond what it would normally.

They'd debated how to phrase this message and soon settled on “the Comets” as their identifier.  “The Ball” didn't sound so good, and besides, that would have left out Tainui.  Calling themselves by their old, dead planet was a popular choice, and made it down to the final two.  The Francesians voted as a bloc for that choice.  They thought it would be a good opportunity to repeatedly admonish the Makers for their sins.  To really rub their noses in it, if it was discovered that they had noses.  But they were comet people now, and the Ball and Tainui were here representing all comet people, so their designation inevitably settled on “the Comets.”

“Makers, this is the Comets.  We are accompanying the Prime and will arrive at your location in one year.”  That year was translated into orbital periods, the time the Makers' moon took to orbit its gas giant planet, which was two weeks.  They reasonably assumed that the planet, which would fill a large part of their sky, would be their primary celestial influence.

“Makers, this is the Comets.  Thank you for adding the lasers so promptly.  The Prime now has enough to successfully stop in your system.  When we arrive, you will receive a large quantity of resources.”

They were close enough now that the round trip time for a radio message was down to one week.  They had been slowing down from their normal cruising speed of one-tenth of the speed of light for much of the final leg, and now they almost felt like they were back in normal space.  Even though there are no significant relativistic effects at ten percent of lightspeed, the great distances and times involved can leave you feeling disconnected.

So, this was it.  They were coming down out of interstellar space, and were about to engage with normal life again.  They had sent their message, what they all felt was the real first contact between alien species, and within a week they expected a reply.  Everyone was infused with feelings of drama and history.  Everyone on the Ball and Tainui, Green Comet and Orange Comet, Pharos and Scintilla, was looking forward to this pivotal moment when two peoples, risen out of two worlds, evolving separately for billions of years, would come together at last.  Thousands of people, living light years apart, were clustered around their windows, speculating wildly about how the Makers would respond.

There was mild disappointment when the moment passed in silence, but they were prepared for that.  It might take a few minutes to get over the shock of receiving such a message.  When they thought about it, it seemed reasonable to take an hour or two to compose a reply worthy of the occasion.  They were surprised when it took over a day.  And they were let down when the answer finally came.

“Who are you?” it said.  “What do you want?”

“Not what we might have expected,” said Winston.  He was at the window chatting with Stanton.  With him was Minder, who now chaired the planning committee.  Elgin and Fran were there too.

“No,” said Stanton, “but maybe we should have.  They weren't very wordy when they were talking to the Prime, either.”

“That's right,” Fran said.  “They said almost the same thing then.”

Everyone nodded, then Elgin said, “Congratulations, Minder.  I always knew you were destined for great things.”

Minder blushed, the colors cycling through his cheeks.

Fran took pity on him and changed the subject.  “So, mister chairman,” she said, “we hear that you have five comets completed now.”

Minder looked pleased.  “Yes, we do,” he said.  “We just attached the fifth one, and tomorrow the pressure tests will be done and the tube will be open to traffic.”

“Congratulations,” said Fran.  “It must be satisfying to have it happen on your watch.”

Minder looked at Winston and the two of them chuckled.  Turning back, he said, “Coincidentally, we were just talking about that.  I occasionally seek out Winston's wise counsel, to get the benefit of his experience.”  He smiled faintly and shook his head.  “It's a great honor to have the chair at such a time, but the responsibility surprises you.”

“I guess the pressure can get pretty bad,” said Fran.

Minder scoffed and waved it off.  “It's nothing compared to what Winston faced.  Or the Five, when you were facing down the Visitor.”

“But it's still there,” insisted Fran.  “It might not be on the scale of the Visitor, but the potential for disaster is still there.  And you're the one responsible.”

Minder laughed.  “Thanks for reminding me.”

They all laughed with him, then Elgin said, “The Minder I know, the one who took care of me, wouldn't want to give the responsibility to anyone else.”

“That's right,” said Fran.

“Hear, hear,” said Stanton.

Winston nodded sharply and patted Minder's shoulder, while Minder blushed again, lights in his face.  “Anyway,” he said, smiling through his bioglow, “this is only the penultimate comet.  We hope to have Winston back in the chair when we attach the sixth one.  When we complete the hexamer.”

Winston shook his head.  “I don't think . . .”

“The hexamer,” said Elgin.  “The smallest possible droplet of water.”

“The smallest droplet of water,” said Fran.  “I'm glad we came up with that.  It's so appropriate.”

Winston said, “We should really . . .”

“I think it's better than Orange Comet, with the benzene ring,” said Stanton.

Winston shrugged and turned up his palms.

“Oh yes,” said Fran, “although six comets in a ring is better than the sixty in a sphere that they were planning.”

“Right,” said Elgin, “C60.  That would have taken forever.”

“Twelve pentagons and twenty hexagons,” said Stanton.  “That would have been a sight to see though, eh?”

“Yes,” said Elgin, with a faraway look.  In a musing tone he said, “You know, we could probably build Green Comet up into a snowflake.  If we wanted.  Given time.”

“Right,” said Stanton.  “Time.  At this rate, thousands of years, at least.  More likely tens of thousands.”

“That sounds right,” said Elgin.  “It's a long time, but it's only time, isn't it?”

That rang true for all of them, given that they'd already been at this for several millennia.  They went quiet, their minds far away.  Eventually Winston broke the spell.  Clearing his throat, he said, “Meanwhile, what are we going to say to the Makers?”

They decided to tell the Makers a bit more about themselves, but not too much more.  They told them they were comet people.  That they lived on comets.  They told them that they saw the Prime setting out, with its enormous sail, and that they decided to tag along and see where it was going.  They told them that comet people were explorers, curious and adventurous.  Nomadic, even.

They decided that now was not the time to tell them why comet people had no home.  This was going to be a lot for the Makers to absorb.  This gigantic ship that they didn't remember making and launching, now returning laden with resources beyond their greatest fantasies.  And now this alien species announcing its presence and its intention to visit them.  This was definitely not the time to tell them that their creation wiped out a species, and that the few survivors of the outrage were about to drop in on them.  They would find the right moment for that revelation later, after they knew each other a little better.

They sent along a picture of themselves, of Elgin and Frances standing side by side.  The picture showed the very slight dimorphism between their sexes, and gave them the opportunity to explain their genders.  They used multiples of the wavelength of the radio signal to demonstrate their size.

They bundled everything up in a nice package and sent it on ahead, with their best wishes, in anticipation of meeting in person very soon.  At the end of the message they asked the Makers to tell them a little more about themselves, in the spirit of openness and good intentions.

A week later, when they got the reply, Elgin said, “Oh, so that's why Scarface looks like that.”

In the picture that accompanied the message they saw one figure, presumably of a Maker.  Just like the service robots, it had eight limbs, four below and four above.  It was easy to picture them in use, with the bottom four for ambulation and the upper four for manipulation.  The arms and legs grew from the sides of a body that began nearly horizontal between the legs, then curved up to vertical between and above the arms.

On the front, above the upper arms, was a face of sorts.  There was a pair of big eyes, forward looking and probably binocular, and below them a mouth.  Presumably a mouth.  It wasn't open, so they couldn't be sure, although it seemed most likely.  If it was a mouth then it was probably a rudimentary beak.  They could see a seam between its upper and lower halves, which looked like large, rigid lips.  The big, staring eyes and immobile mouth left the face uncomfortably devoid of expression.  There was no nose.

The accompanying text described the Makers as the people of Water, living under Air, pursued by Fire.

Elgin and Fran looked at each other and nodded.  “Their moon must be mostly water,” said Elgin.

“Maybe all water,” said Fran.  “And the fire must be their star.  The red dwarf.”

“That's right,” said Elgin.  “It would be close enough to see its flames.”

“Yes.  It must look like a ball of fire,” said Fran.  “But what about the air?”

Elgin frowned in thought, but didn't reply.  It was Archie who spoke up.  “It says they're living under Air.  Not in air, but under it.  Maybe Air is the gas giant.”

“Yes!” said Elgin.  “Water, air and fire.  But no earth.”

“Well,” said Stanton, “if they live on a water world, there might not be any land.  There'd be no reason to have earth in their mythology.”

“I wonder,” said Fran.  When they looked at her she said, “I wonder if they even have a concept for earth.  And if they do, what they think of it.”  She looked around, taking them all in.  “I wonder what they will think of terrestrial creatures like us.”

Forty – Communication

Whatever the Makers thought of earth or terrestrial creatures, they wouldn't be finding out right away.  There were too many other things to think about for now, too many other things to learn about each other as they steadily came closer.  And besides, the Makers had no idea that they were terrestrial.  As far as they knew, comet people lived on comets, and that's all they needed to know for now.

As the distance between them shrank, the time between messages also grew shorter.  While they wouldn't be able to have a normal, two-way conversation until they were much closer, each time they had an exchange it was different from the last time.  At first they were more like proclamations.  Statements of facts, with no expectation that the reply would be any different.  But as the delays got shorter, from days down to hours and eventually minutes, they found that they could say something and the response would be almost natural.

They got in the practice of having one person act as their representative, reasoning that it would be easier to form a relationship that way.  It almost went without saying that Fran would represent the comet people.  When the Makers complained that they couldn't tell her apart from the others, she began wearing a small gold pendant around her neck for identification.

The Makers also decided to nominate one person to represent them.  When it said its name, its lips didn't move.  Rather its beak.  The Makers didn't use their mouths for speaking.  That appeared to be done another way.  When they were making speech sounds, you could see a fluttering at the sides of the face and subtle vibrations above the eyes.  Now they could begin to see why Maker speech sounded the way it did.

Fran's counterpart told her its name.  In amongst the bubbling and hissing, she thought she could hear something like “Plublublorp.”  Even the computer, which was doing a running translation of their conversations, couldn't do any better than that.  What it could do was faithfully recreate the sound.  That was no good for Fran, but it was useful because the computer could substitute that for whatever she did manage to say.  So she settled on “Plub” and the Maker heard its name.

Plub didn't have any more luck with her name than she did with his.  What he said sounded to her something like “Fannie,” once she got past all the extraneous sounds.  That was fine with her.  The computer interpreted it as “Frances,” and most importantly, there was no loss of meaning.

Fran didn't have to ask Plub to wear anything so she could tell him apart from all the others.  The Makers were already wearing clothing, and it appeared to be at least partly meant to provide identification.  She would have described his as moderately decorative, but primarily utilitarian.  Others that she saw had plain clothing, simple and unremarkable.  And occasionally someone came into the room in an elaborate outfit, obviously meant to impress.  Even with her limited experience, she thought she could see the others defer to those ones.

In addition to the clothing, which seemed meant to identify groups rather than individuals, Fran began to notice more subtle differences in their appearance.  Their skin was primarily beige, but it was darker on the back and lighter on the front.  Fran could see that the line marking the transition from dark to light had small variations among individuals.  That helped to differentiate among them when they were in groups.  More useful were the spots.  These were reddish and greenish, circular, and in a range of sizes, but all smaller than the eyes.  She soon grew familiar with Plub's pattern and could recognize him immediately.  She was grateful for these cues because their faces, with the staring eyes and rigid mouths, seemed all so much alike to her.

Now she needed some way to discern feelings, or intentions.  It was quite clear, usually, what Makers meant when they said something.  Their language, at least as they used it when talking to her, seemed clear and simple.  Or, looked at another way, blunt and to the point.  They would never use ten words when nine would do.  But she couldn't rely on other cues, like facial expressions, to fill in the subtleties.

Plub, for his part, complained of the opposite.  He said he found her mobile expressions confusing.  “Your eyes jiggle,” he said through the interpreter.

“I'm sorry,” said Fran.  “I'll try to make them jiggle less, but I can't promise anything.  It's an unconscious part of the way we communicate.”

“And those things over your eyes.  Going up and down.”

“Do you mean these?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows.

“No, but those are bad, too.  I mean the things covering them.”

“My eyelids,” she said, blinking a few times.

Plub turned away.  “Stop!” he said.

“Of course,” she said.  “I apologize if it upsets you.  I will try to remember to blink less, but again, it's instinctual.”

Plub looked back.  “What's it for?”

“We need to blink to clean and moisten our eyes.”

“Why don't you do this?”  He wiped his big eyes with one of his appendages.

Fran had no answer for that, so she shrugged.

“Is that instinctual?”  Plub raised his uppermost appendages in a futile attempt to mimic her shrug.

She laughed.  “No.  That's more cultural.”

“What does it mean?  And what was that noise?”

“A shrug,” she demonstrated, “can mean many things, but as a general rule it indicates unsureness, or not knowing what to say.”

“I see,” said Plub, trying it again.  “And the noise?”

“That was a laugh,” she said.  “Do Makers laugh?”

The pause before his reply was longer than normal.  Longer than the lightspeed delay.  Finally he said, “The interpreter doesn't have a word for that.”

“For 'laugh?'”

“Laff.”  Plub couldn't quite replicate the sound.  Too much hissing and gurgling.

“Laugh,” said Fran.  “When something is amusing or surprising or incongruent, we find it humorous.  We laugh.”

After another pause, Plub said, “I don't get it.”

“No,” said Fran, “I suppose not.  Not yet, anyway.”

“Not yet,” said Plub.  Then he said, “You talk with your eating hole.”

Fran laughed again.  “My mouth,” she said.  “We use our mouths for eating and talking, and also breathing.  Although we can also breathe with just our nose, too.”  She touched it with her forefinger.

Plub touched the blank spot between his beak and his eyes.  “We don't have noze.  We breathe with our breathing holes.”  He touched the sides of his face, where she had seen bulges and undulations while he spoke.  “We also speak there, and with our vibrators.”  He touched the dome of his head.

“And eating?” asked Fran.

Plub delayed again, and exhibited some behavior that they would later learn meant embarrassment.  A combination of subtle cues that included averting the gaze, bending slightly forward, and a curious fluttering around the breathing holes.  One of his hands came up and covered his beak.  Then he straightened up and took away his hand.  He opened and closed his beak and spoke through a wild fluttering.  “Food hole,” he said.

Stanton said, “What have we learned?”

They were at the window again, with Winston and Minder.  Galatea was there too this time, along with the Doctor and Nigel.  For their part, Winston and Minder had been joined by a Francesian.

Fran said, “It's possible that they don't understand humor.”

Stanton nodded.  “Anything else?”

Fran said, “I think we'll find that they do have a sense of humor, but we might not get it.”

“You're probably right,” said Elgin.  “I think there will be a lot of things that we don't get right away.”

“I think we should keep our eyes open for subtleties,” said Fran.  “Their expressions are bound to be more full of meaning to them than they are to us.”

“Yes,” said Elgin.  “And vice versa.  I doubt that they get much out of ours either.”

“That's right,” said Fran.  “Far too much jiggling and twitching.  Plub had to look away.”

Nigel jumped in.  “And what was that thing about his mouth?  He was feeling something strongly there.”

The Doctor said, “I think he was embarrassed.  Don't ask me why, but that's the sense I got.”

Nigel nodded assertively.  “I think you've got it, Doc.”

Stanton said, “Sense of humor, subtle expressions, embarrassment.  Anything else?”

“Their clothing,” said Fran.  “They seem to use it to indicate a hierarchical structure.  Whether it's institutional or social, I don't know yet.”

Elgin said, “Probably both.”

Everyone nodded again, then Galatea said, “What I want to know is, where are the females?  As far as I can tell, they've only let us see males.”

“Uh-huh,” said Stanton.

The Doctor cleared his throat.  “To be honest, we don't know that for sure.”  When Galatea narrowed her eyes at him, he hastened to say, “I agree that it's most likely.  That's what it feels like to me, too.  But, for scientific rigor, we need to allow for other possibilities.”

“Like what?” said Galatea.

“Like maybe the differences between their genders are too subtle for us to see.”  Galatea snorted, so he continued.  “Or maybe they have more than two genders.  Or maybe they're hermaphrodites, and don't express their gender except when they're actively breeding.  Or maybe they reproduce in some way we've never seen before.”

“Okay,” said Galatea, “but I still think they're all males.”

“I agree,” said the Doctor.

They all agreed, really.  It felt right to them that the Makers they had seen so far were males, and that the species had two sexes.  They just had to officially keep an open mind to other possibilities.  They were left wondering, though, why they hadn't been allowed to see any females yet.

Into the thoughtful silence Nigel said, “As far as learning about their feelings . . . with their lack of expressions.”

“Yes?” said Fran, keenly interested.

“I'm thinking I can program an avatar, and as the interpreter figures out their language better, I can analyze their body language and have the avatar on your screen display the appropriate equivalents.”

Fran liked that.  “Could you?” she said.  “That would help so much.”

“Sure,” said Nigel.  “It'll take some time, but we already think we know one: embarrassment.”

Fran remembered Plub averting his eyes.  “Yes,” she said.  “And as we get closer, with less gap between our responses, it will really help me know what to say.”

“That's what I thought.  We can get everybody to watch what Plub and the other Makers do, and chip in with what they think they're feeling.”

“How do we even know they have the same feelings as we do?” asked Galatea.

“That's a good point,” said Nigel, “and no doubt one of the things we'll discover.”

Stanton looked around the group, his eyes glancing off the Francesian.  It wasn't as if he really belonged, anyway.  He hadn't contributed anything to the discussion.  “Is that it, then?” asked Stanton.  “Can anyone think of anything else?”  No one had anything and they were about to break up when the Francesian spoke.

“I have a question,” he said.

Stanton stopped and looked at him.  “All right,” he said, “go ahead.”  He glanced at Fran to see how she was taking it.  She seemed to be okay.

The Francesian moved forward, looking around to make sure he had everyone's attention.  “You've never asked us for any input.  In all the decisions you've made, you never once asked for our opinion.”  He continued, in tones of righteous grievance.  “We're members of Green Comet too, and we deserve to be heard.  We deserve to have our suggestions debated and enacted as much as anyone else, rather than brushed off the way you always do.”  He drew himself up, apparently set to carry on in even higher dudgeon, when Stanton stopped him.

“Whoa!” he said, putting his hands up.  When the Francesian stared at him, open-mouthed, he said, “You had a question?”

Haughtily, the Francesian said, “I was about to ask it when you interrupted me.”  He shook his vestments.  Unlike the rest of them, he and his people wore clothing.  Like the Makers, their clothing appeared to serve the purpose of demonstrating the wearer's place in a hierarchy.  “You people ignore our good counsel, then you interrupt it after you've explicitly asked for it.”  He looked as if he was declaiming from a mountaintop.

Stanton threw up his hands again.  “Hold on, uh . . .”  He lifted his chin at the man.  “What's your name, anyway?  What can we call you?”

“You know very well that we don't give our names to the uninitiated.”  He looked as if he'd nearly stepped in something that would stick to his foot.

“Right,” said Stanton.  “I'll call you Frank then, shall I?  So, Frank, just ask your question, okay?  This is not the time for the big speech.”

Frank looked offended, but when he saw the expressions of strained patience all around, he finally took the reasonable route.  “The question, entrusted to me by the holy council, though I am unworthy, is about the Maker religion.  Have you determined what their religious beliefs are yet?”

Stanton gaped at him.  “Religion?” he said.  “You want to know if we asked them about religion?”

“Yes,” said Frank.  “Is it monotheistic or polytheistic?  And do they have any living saints?”  He glanced covertly at Frances and Elgin.

“No, we didn't ask them about religion.”  Stanton's voice had become measured and painstakingly patient.  His friends noticed and began to feel a growing tension.

“Well, you should have,” said Frank.  “It's the most important thing you could ask them.”

“No, it isn't.”  Calm.  Quiet.

“Yes it is!  Now, you make sure you ask them next time you're talking to them.”  The Francesian looked archly at them all.  “We want to begin talking to their spiritual leaders as soon as possible.”

“Oh, do you?”  Stanton couldn't do Elgin's face thing, but his eyes were enough for this man.  When his wandering gaze fell on them, he visibly recoiled.  Holding him fast with those riveting eyes, Stanton said, “If that's what you wanted, maybe you should have come along.”

His mouth opening and closing, the startled man looked at them all, surprised at their lack of compliance.  He backed away wordlessly, then turned to fly back to his masters, no doubt to report their insolent disobedience.

“I'll do it,” Fran said, loudly enough for her retreating supplicant to hear.  He hesitated, turned back to give her a grateful bow, then flew on.  She looked at her friends, a little abashed.  Their faces showed their surprise.  “I was going to do it anyway, eventually.  I think it's an interesting question.”

“You realize you've just encouraged your devoted followers,” said Stanton.

“I know.”  She turned her golden eyes down.  “I hope it doesn't cause any more trouble.”

Forty-One – Motives

“Plub!  What happened?”  As soon as they began their exchange, Fran noticed it.  One of Plub's lower arms was cut off.  All that was left was a stub that moved in a truncated version of the idle questing that lower arms do.

He showed the embarrassment that they'd already figured out, and the avatar on Fran's screen exhibited the equivalent.  There were also some other expressions.  They couldn't yet sort them out, but Fran felt that there must be at least two more emotions there.  The avatar did nothing.

It was obviously uncomfortable for Plub, but he squared himself up and looked right in her eyes.  “There was a Cutting,” he said, his breathing holes shaking.

“A cutting?” said Fran.  “You had an accident?”

“No,” said Plub.  She could tell that this was hard for him, but he pressed on.  She began to like him a little more right then.  He told her, “It was decided to cut me because of how I shamed all Makers.”

“Shamed?  What could you have done that would shame your species?”

“It was what we talked about before.”

She paused, then, “Oh, you mean when we talked about . . .”  She stopped with her hand part way to her mouth, alerted by some instinct.  She said, “When we talked about that which we will never talk about again.”  It was good she did because in a few minutes when she saw his reaction, he'd gone rigid, with his limbs slightly flexed.  Plub's obviously alarmed posture made her guess that he desperately wanted to avoid talking about his food hole again.  She didn't know why that would shame the Makers, but she didn't want to be the cause of any more cuttings.

Plub relaxed, clearly relieved.  She couldn't say why, but she thought there was something about him that said gratitude.  Then she scolded herself, reminding herself that she was most likely projecting her own emotions onto him.  He said, “That is correct.  Never again.”

She changed the subject as quickly as possible.  “It won't be long now before we meet in person, will it?”

“No,” he said, his overall appearance seeming to smooth out.  “We look forward to that.  It is an honor to be part of such a significant moment in our history, and to meet intrepid comet-dwellers from the stars.”

“We feel the same, I assure you.”  She made a mental note of what relief looked like on a Maker.  She was sure that's what the smoothing out was.  “The importance of this meeting isn't lost on us, either.”

“You didn't lose the importance?”

Fran laughed, and added confusion to the growing repertoire of expressions they were collecting.  “I'm sorry,” she said.  “That's a figure of speech.  Not being lost on us means that we're aware of it and know its meaning.”

“I see,” said Plub.  “That's good.  We haven't lost it either.”

Fran stifled another giggle and wondered if she was the right person for this job.  If she found every little thing funny, then it could affect her performance.  Like right now, the way Plub was looking at her.

“You're making that noise again,” he said.  “Laff.  What is incongruous?”

Fran quelled her incipient laughter.  “It's hard to explain, Plub.  That little misunderstanding over an idiom just struck me as funny.  And the thing about humor is, if you have to explain it, then it's not funny any more.”  She shrugged.

“Ah, shrug,” he said.  “You don't know what to say.”

Fran hung on for dear life.  “That is correct,” she managed to say.

Plub said, “We have a question, Fannie.  What are you doing here?”

Her mirth evaporated.  “But we told you, Plub.  We wanted to see where the Prime was going.  To see if we could meet the people who'd made the Visitor.”  The interpreter converted those to MvNM-2 and -1, then to the original Maker equivalent, and finally into audible modern Maker.

“We know that,” said Plub, “but why?  What are you going to do when you get here?”

“We're explorers.  We'll explore and learn.”  She gestured at him.  “We hope to learn about you.  Your people and your world.”

“What do you want to know?”

His abrupt manner was making her uncomfortable, but she didn't let it affect the way she acted.  She'd already learned that Makers tended to be terse.  In fact, she'd seen evidence of something, most likely impatience, as they listened to her relatively wordy speeches.  If their way made them seem brusque, even rude, how did she seem to them?  Indecisive?  Evasive?  She'd resolved to try to make her sentences shorter, if only to make her hosts more comfortable.  “We want to know as much as you'll let us know.”

“But why?  What do you want?”  Plub was unreadable, even to their rudimentary level.  “Why have you brought the Prime here?”

Stanton stopped her from answering right away.  “If they think we could do that, it could be to our advantage.”

Fran didn't like that.  It wouldn't be the first thing they kept from the Makers, but she was naturally reluctant to lie.  Besides, she couldn't think of any reason why they would have brought a hundred kilometer long vessel across all those light years, when they could have kept it and its resources with a lot less trouble.  “I can't think of a good reason.  Can you?”

Stanton shook his head.

So Fran told Plub, “We didn't.  We saw the Prime going and we tagged along, as we already told you.”

“No,” said Plub.  “You want something.  What do you want to acquire?”

Acquire?  That was pretty specific.  Not just “want” or even “get,” but acquisition.  Of something physical?  Were these people that base?  Were they incapable of imagining abstraction?  “All we want to acquire is knowledge, Plub.  To get to know you.”

Plub hesitated, looking off camera.  It looked as if he was listening to something.  When he looked back he said, “What do you want to know about us?”

“As much as you are willing to tell us,” said Fran.  “How you live.  What your world is like.  Do you have any dreams or aspirations?”  She stopped, realizing how open-ended those questions were.  “And there's one thing that has us curious.  Why haven't you shown us any of your females?”

After the lightspeed delay, Plub looked shocked.  He went rigid again, in his defensive posture, and he looked off camera again.  When he looked back she was sure he looked desperate.  “Why do you want to know about the females?”

Fran tried to mollify him.  “It's all right.  We don't need to know, if it's a sensitive subject.”  She glanced at his stump.  “I don't want to be the cause of another cutting.”

Plub looked down at his severed limb, then back at Fran.  “I think you are concerned about my arm,” he said.  He stared silently at her, then said, “I don't know why you would care.  It's my Cutting, not yours.”  A little more staring, then, “Don't worry.  It's only a minor Cutting.  It will grow back.”

That was a long speech for a Maker.  Was Plub trying to empathize?  That would be interesting to know, if it was true.  It served its purpose for the present, anyway.  Fran was very relieved to learn that Plub's injury was considered minor, and even moreso that it was temporary.  She said, “I'm glad to hear that, Plub.  Even so, I still don't want it to happen again.”

Plub shrugged.  As well as a Maker could shrug, having no shoulders.  “It will happen or it won't.  It's not up to you.”

“No,” said Fran, “it's not up to me.  But it is my wish.”

Plub stared silently again.  It went on for so long that Fran was beginning to think that this interview was over, but he finally stirred himself.  With a brief glance off camera, he said, “The females are in the water.  That's all I can tell you.”

“That's enough,” said Fran.  He had grown in her estimation again.  He'd pushed himself into territory that certainly made him very uncomfortable.  Even if it did grow back, getting an arm cut off had to be unpleasant, and he'd risked it to answer her question.  It seemed like a real risk, too.  From the way he said it, it sounded as if these cuttings were quite common.  She said, “Thank you, Plub.  That was very generous of you.”  She thought she'd turn the conversation to safer areas.  “So, your females are in the water, and you're on the land?”

He recoiled.  “Land?  No, we are not on the land.  Primitive animals live on the land.”  She'd plainly horrified him.  But, if they weren't on the land, then where were they?  Once again he visibly struggled, and again he succeeded.  “There is not much land on our world.  Only enough for a few creatures.  We live on the mats.”

Archie asked, “What did he mean by the mats?”  He'd been visiting when the time came for the meeting at the window, so they invited him along.  That was a recent development, having people visit back and forth between the balls.  They were afraid that their populations of pathogenic microbes might have mutated, diverging significantly in the millennia since Green and Orange comets separated.  They were concerned that one or the other of them might be carrying something that would be lethal to the other.  But they did all the tests and they didn't find anything.  There was no evidence of any lethal microbes.  No evidence of any deficiency in either of their immune systems.  There was nothing that stood out as dangerous.  Nor was there anything that guaranteed their safety.  As usual, they were left having to make a decision based on probabilities.  They did what they always did:  debate and vote.  And as usual, they voted on the adventurous side.

So Archie visited often.  He seemed to spend as much time on the Ball as he did on Tainui.  And he wasn't the only one.  Plenty of people went back and forth, so much so that the two balls were less like two places and more like two halves of the same place.  Archie, or almost anyone, was as likely to be in one as the other, so it was no surprise that he was there when the time came for the meeting.

“What did he mean by the mats?  And how can there be no land?”

“As far as no land is concerned,” said Nigel, “there's a good, plausible explanation for that.”  When Archie fixed him with his characteristic attentive gaze, he continued.  “We know that their world is a moon orbiting a gas giant, right?  Well, remember all those moons in the system we saved?  The one where a piece of the Visitor might have hit that planet?”

Archie nodded, even though he hadn't actually been there.  That was before Tainui even left Orange Comet.  But he'd followed it all on the window.

“Okay,” said Nigel.  “There were a lot of moons around those gas giants, and many of them were icy.  Completely covered by thick ice.”  He gestured in the general direction of their destination.  “The Maker world could be like one of those moons, only with the water liquid.”

Fran said, “Oh, a water world.”

“Yes,” said Nigel.  “With a few isolated mountain peaks sticking up.  Maybe extinct volcanoes.  They can get pretty tall on a place with low gravity.”

Archie nodded economically.  “That makes sense.  But why did he react that way?  He seemed offended when Fran implied that they lived on land.”

“I don't know,” said Nigel.  They looked around and no one else seemed to have any idea either.  That is, until the Francesian stirred.

“Maybe it's just alien to them.”  It was Frank.  They could tell by his tonsure.  It wasn't as extreme as most of the others.  “When people are unfamiliar with something, they can end up despising it for no good reason.”  He gave them all a significant look, to get his point across.  “Like when some people believe something and they get ostracized by those who don't.”

As her friends began to bristle, Fran kicked the legs out from under that topic before it could get any traction.  “I think Frank is right.  Remember when Plub described the Makers as people of water, under air, pursued by fire?  There's no mention of land, so either they just didn't think to include it, or they deliberately excluded it.”

Looking grateful, Frank said, “Yes, my lady.  In your wisdom you have shown us the truth.”

Fran bit her tongue and did not roll her eyes.  “Thank you,” she said.

Archie nodded again.  He said, “That makes sense, too.  That takes care of the land question.  Now what about the mats?”

No one appeared to have a ready answer for that.  There were shrugs all around, even from Frank.  They were about to let it go, when Minder said, “Let's start from first principles.”  He got some encouraging nods.  “All right.  Plub said that their females are in the water, and implied that the males are not.  But he was disgusted at the idea of living on land, so what else is there?”

Archie said, “Something floating?”

“Right,” said Minder.  “But he specifically said mats, so it's not just random bits of stuff floating around.  I don't know if a species could evolve to their apparent level of technology without having large, reliable tracts of dry . . . not land . . . surface of some kind to work on.”

“So that's what the mats would be?” said Archie.  “Large contiguous areas of floating stuff?  What would do that on a water world?”

“Pumice, perhaps?” said Minder.  “Maybe the moon had a period of intense volcanic activity and now there's a lot of pumice floating on the ocean.”

”Plausible,” said Archie.  “It's possible that it could have clumped together into floating islands.”  But he was shaking his head.  “I don't think you'd call those mats, though.”

Minder was shaking his head, too.  “Vegetation?” he guessed.  “That's the only other thing I can think of.”

Archie nodded sharply.  “Yes!” he said.  “That fits perfectly.  They could have evolved concurrently with mats of vegetation, so coming out of the water to live on them would have been a natural step.  And it's not mineral, like pumice, so it can't be confused with land.”

There were nods all around then.  Even Frank was nodding tentatively, though he would surely have his own explanation that didn't involve evolution.  But everyone seemed reasonably satisfied, so Fran summed it up.  “They live on a water world, kept liquid by a combination of heat from their star and from the gas giant.  Their females live in the water, and the males live on large mats of vegetation, which allows them to develop technology.  Their mythology features water, air and fire, and they seem to disdain earth.”  She frowned.  “Something about their females makes them uncomfortable.  And something about their mouth, or about eating, makes them feel ashamed.”  She mentally reviewed her summary, then said, “Have I missed anything?”

They all shook their heads, and Stanton said, “I think that answers Archie's questions, and then some.”  He looked around.  “Are there any more questions?”

After a polite pause, Frank said, “Lady Frances, have you asked them about religion yet?”

“No, I haven't,” she said.  “The timing isn't right.”

“Yes it is!” he said.  “It's the most important question you can ask them, and it's best to do it immediately.”

“No, it's not.”  Her voice was neutral, her gaze sympathetic.

Frank stopped, his mouth open and his eyes widening.  He was just realizing what he'd done.  He'd disagreed with his saint.  Argued with her.  Practically scolded her.  “I'm sorry, my lady,” he stammered, backing away.  “I'm so sorry.  I didn't mean . . .”  He turned and fled.

Fran watched him go, disappointed, a little sad.  Next to her, Stanton said, “Well, that's one way to get rid of them,” and was surprised by the way she looked at him.  “What's wrong?” he asked.

She said, “Nothing.  We have plenty of good reasons to feel that way about them.”  She looked at the exit, flanked by columns of red ice.  “It's just that I'm getting to know this one, and I'm beginning to develop hopes for him.  I feel like I should resolve to be less suspicious.”

“Suspicious?  They're the ones who are suspicious.”  But he stopped and looked at her.  “Maybe you're right, though.  Maybe we could allow them a little more leeway.  This one, anyway.”

“Suspicion,” said the Doctor, reminding them of his presence.  “That's something the Makers seem to have in plenty.  Plub asked some pointed questions about our motives, didn't he?”

“Yes, he did,” said Fran.  “It's probably prudent to be somewhat suspicious of strangers who come bearing gifts, though.  We have to admit it's a very peculiar situation.”

“That's true,” said the Doctor.  “Looked at from their perspective, this must be bizarre.”

Galatea laughed.  “From their perspective?”  Everyone joined her, on both sides of a window separated by light years of cold void.  Some of them were living on comets, far from any star, while the others were attached like parasites to a ridiculously enormous spaceship.

“You're quite right,” said Fran.  “The situation is pretty bizarre all around.  The Makers have good reason to be sceptical.”  She frowned.  “But it felt like more than that.  It felt as if it was coming from an ingrained distrust.”

They accepted that.  They were accustomed to Fran forming these feelings, and being right.  Elgin smiled and said, “I think I would be naturally distrustful if I lived with people who habitually cut each other's arms off.”

“Exactly,” said Fran.

Winston cleared his throat and said, “If they cut off an arm because someone says something embarrassing, what would they do for something more serious?”

“Yes,” said Fran, “although who's to say how serious Plub's crime was to the Makers?  Depending on their cultural mores, talking about that could be among the most serious.”

Winston nodded, then croaked, “You're right, of course.  We had better keep our minds, and our eyes, open.”

Forty-Two – The Cutting

With a final burst of its thrusters, the Prime came to a full stop one ship's length from the laser array.  That's when they realized something.  Just as the Prime had a definite up and down, so did the lasers.  The Prime was symmetrical from side to side, but it had a back and a front, a top and a bottom.  The laser array also had, by appearance, a top and bottom, and they were perfectly aligned with the Prime's.  Now they knew why, during its long flight, with its many changes of direction, the Prime had always maintained the same up-down orientation.  It was keeping itself upright with respect to this installation.

Up, for the lasers, happened to be up for the rest of the system.  With only very small deviations, the axes of the red dwarf, the gas giant and its moons were all the same.  That was it for major bodies in this system.  Just the star and its one planet, along with the planet's collection of moons.  With such a small star and such a large planet, this was almost a binary system.  If the planet, already massive enough to be a brown dwarf, had been bigger, this would have been a binary of two red dwarfs.  Likewise, if the star were smaller, it could have been two brown dwarfs.

With two bodies so similar, the system's Lagrangian points were quite well-defined.  That's how the laser base was able to remain on station unattended for thousands of years, though when the Makers got there they found its propellant reserves dangerously low.  In a matter of centuries it would have found itself at the mercy of the vagaries of gravity.

The Makers, who were just then returning to space, noticed activity out in the planet's L1 Lagrangian point.  The desire to explore, to figure it out, meant that their spacefaring abilities were maturing just as contact with the Prime, and its passengers, was made.  All this meant that they had a well-established presence at the laser when the Prime arrived.  All of their vessels also had clear tops and bottoms, and they were all aligned with the laser and the rest of the system, and now the Prime.

“Look at that,” said Nigel.  “They're all the same.”

“That's pretty significant,” said the Doctor, “given the possibilities.”

Stanton said, “It's significant, but it's not that different from what we've done with the comets and lighthouses.”

Nigel said, “You mean aligning them to galactic north?”

“Yes,” said Stanton.  “The only difference is that we're using the galaxy while these people are using their own system.”

Fran was holding her hand up to the monitor to give Plub a good look at it.  She opened and closed it a few times, then sequentially touched her thumb to the tips of her fingers.  Her idea was to give Plub a clear idea of how it worked, and perhaps to help him get over his squeamishness.  He was getting better.  He went whole days now without having to turn away from her.  If it wasn't her jiggling eyes then it was the way her arms were so stiff and jointed.  She hoped that showing him how dexterous her fingers were would allow him to accept that they were full of bones.

The Makers had no bones.  Their arms and legs could bend arbitrarily, something that might make Fran squirm if she were squeamish.  Their bodies consisted mostly of muscle, skin and cartilage, giving them an enviable combination of rigidity and flexibility.  The lower limbs had a higher ratio of cartilage, for support, while the upper limbs were more supple.  Plub put his hand up, opening and closing the double fist, then sequentially touching his two thumbs to each of the four fingers, and to each other.

He said, “Why do you have bonze?  They restrict your mobility.”

“When our ancestors came out of the ocean, they needed more support.” said Fran.  “Our gravity was about three times as strong as yours.”

Plub couldn't nod, of course, but a slight bending forward of his body served that purpose.  “You needed a strong structure to hold you up.”  He looked at her legs.  “But how did you stand on only two legs?  Didn't you always fall over?”

Fran suppressed a laugh.  This was an important moment.  “Our ground wasn't always moving, the way yours does.  We didn't live on mats.”  She held her breath.  How would they take this?

Plub's avatar displayed uncertainty.  “What did you live on, then?”

“Our planet's surface was only about three-quarters covered by water.  The rest was land.”

“Land?”  Plub looked repulsed, maybe even betrayed.  “What happened to the water?”

“Nothing happened to it.  There was at least as much water on our world as there is on yours.  It's just that our world was so big compared to yours.”

Pity and condescension?  Plub's avatar wasn't that sophisticated yet.  “I suppose you had to use land, then.  It couldn't be helped.”

“No,” said Fran, “it couldn't be helped.  But it turned out to be a good thing.  If our ancestors hadn't come out of the ocean, we would never have evolved the technology to be here.”

“Like we did on our mats.”

“Yes.  Our continents were our mats.”

Plub bent forward slightly.  It looked as if he might be coming to terms with their terrestrial roots.  “Even here it's true that we had to come out of the water.  The things living in the water are still primitive.”  He asked, “Why do you speak of your world in the past tense?”

They were talking in real time now, so Fran's hesitation was painfully obvious.  She chastised herself for lack of preparation.  They had known all along that it would come to this, that they would have to tell the Makers how their von Neumann machine had turned into a killer.  It just never seemed like the right time.

“Fannie?” said Plub, his big eyes staring.

Well, said Fran to herself, I guess the time is now.  So she began the long, sad tale, while Plub listened intently.  He didn't interrupt and he never showed the least impatience with her sometimes tangential story.  He waited until he was sure she was finished before he spoke.  What he said was surprising.

“So that's why you came here,” he said.  “You've come for a Cutting.”

Back at the window, Fran said, “Why do you think he ended the session so abruptly?”

The Doctor said, “It must have been a shock, hearing that you're responsible for worlds being destroyed.  Maybe he needed some time to get used to it.”

“He didn't seem shocked to me,” said Fran.

Galatea said, “How can you tell, with that face?”

Fran laughed.  “I know what you mean, but I think I'm getting a feel for it.  It seemed to me that he was more satisfied that he finally knew why we came here.”

“That's it, I think,” said Elgin.  “He acted as if he was having his suspicions confirmed.  But what did he mean by a cutting?”

Winston cleared his throat.  “Punishment,” he croaked.  “They use cuttings as punishment, so he thinks you're there to punish them for what happened.”

“But we're not,” said Fran.  “We've told them why we're here.”

“I guess they don't believe you,” said Winston.

“This could be useful,” said Stanton.  “If they think we're capable of punishing them, then that could be to our advantage.”

“But we're not capable of punishing them,” said Fran.  “And that's not why we're here anyway.”

“Still,” said Minder, “Stanton's right.  Even if it's not true, having them believe it might come in handy.”

Fran didn't like it, but she had to admit that they were right.  Ultimately, they were in a very vulnerable position.  Having the Makers believe that they were powerful and dangerous could be useful.  She didn't want to think of that, though.  She felt that she was developing a rapport with Plub, and she preferred to believe that it was indicative of the relationship forming between their species.  She shrugged, accepting the extra possibilities, and said, “At least there's no one asking me about religion.  Where is Frank, anyway?”

“I don't know,” said Minder.  “I haven't seen him today.”  He looked at Winston, who shook his head.  “I have seen him around,” Minder continued, “but we haven't spoken.  If I had to describe it, I'd say he was avoiding me.”

“That's odd,” said Fran.

“Maybe he's embarrassed,” said Winston.  “After what happened last time, I wouldn't blame him.”  When Fran looked at him, he said, “You know.  Arguing with you.”

While she shook her head, Stanton said, “That's right.  He took off like a spooked quail after that.”  He smiled.  “That was nice to see, eh?”

They agreed with him, but they were looking at Fran, who was lost in thought.  She had expressed reservations about condemning Frank too harshly, and they didn't want to go too far.  They were antagonistic toward the Francesians for her sake, and if she wanted to moderate that, then they wanted to follow her lead.  She finally said, “Yes, that was something.”  She shook her head.  “But more importantly, the Makers know more about us now, and we'll soon see what they think of it.”

“Right,” said Elgin.  “They know we have bones.  They know we are, or were, terrestrial.  And they know that their ancestors are responsible for nearly wiping us out.”

Nigel said, “From what we've seen so far, they seem quite judgemental.  I expect them to be contemptuous of the bones, if only because it is unlike them.  Being terrestrial might be worse, since it seems to be part of their mythology.  I think we must be prepared for condescension at least, and possibly much worse.”

Elgin agreed.  “It could get interesting.  They also seem to assume that we're very advanced and powerful.  Those two opposing sentiments will conflict with each other.”

“Yes,” said Nigel.  “Then there's the genocide.  Will they be burdened with guilt and remorse, or will it make us look weak and even more contemptible?”

The Doctor said, “Or do they experience cognitive dissonance?  And if so, will they need to demonize us to preserve their self-respect?”

“And what about the cutting?” said Galatea.  “Does that mean they expect us to punish them?”  She pointed with her chin in the general direction of their world.  “Maybe they think we're preparing to destroy their moon right now.  What would they be doing then?”

Fran was summoned to a meeting with Plub.  As she rushed up to the monitor, she saw him standing in an odd posture.  Of course he wasn't standing, he was floating, just like her.  He had microgravity in his room at the laser array, too.  But his posture made him look as if he was standing at attention, with his limbs stiff and symmetrical.  It looked formal and Fran wondered what he wanted to say to her.  “Plub,” she said, “what is it?”

He drew himself up even more erect, and said, “Fannie, and people of the comets, it's my duty to tell you that the Cutting has begun.”

“Cutting?  What cutting?” asked Fran.

“In retribution for destroying your world, we will be cutting the descendants of the ones who sent the Visitor.”

Fran still wanted to know about the cutting, but something else jumped out at her.  “The descendants?  But after all this time, wouldn't that be almost everybody?”

Plub unstiffened a little.  “Yes,” he said, “so we're having a lottery.  We estimate that ten thousand people must have been on the project, so ten thousand will be cut.”  He stiffened up again.  “We hope that will be sufficient.”

“You're going to cut the arms off of ten thousand people?”  She glanced at the stump ruining Plub's symmetry.  She thought she could see where it was growing back.

“No,” said Plub.  “They will be killed, like your people.”

“Killed?  No Plub!” she said.  “We don't want them killed.  We don't want that.  Stop the cutting.”

“I can't stop it,” he said.  “The decision was made at the highest levels, and I'm only a messenger.  A negotiator.”

“Then put me in touch with your superiors, so I can tell them to stop it.”

Plub crumpled slightly, averting his eyes.  “They won't listen to you either.  To them, you're no better than me.”

Fran got it.  “Because I'm just a negotiator, too,” she said.  Her golden eyes pierced him.  “We don't have time for this, while you're running around massacring people.”

Plub straightened up.  “It's not a massacre,” he insisted.  “It's being done systematically, under law, one hundred per day.”

“A hundred per day,” said Fran.  That meant they had time.  She didn't like even that many being killed, but at least it wasn't all ten thousand at once.  “Plub, you have to help me stop the cutting.  We don't have a hierarchy like you, so there's no 'highest level' here.  But we can assign someone else to talk to them if it will make your superiors feel better.”

Plub stared at her for a long time, his posture gradually returning to normal.  “I will do what I can,” he said, and cut the link.

When next they talked, Plub had someone with him.  Not actually with him at the laser station.  This person was obviously back on the water world.  You could tell by the light and by the way he moved in gravity.  It was also easy to tell that this was an important person.  Not only was his clothing elaborately ornate, he also took up most of the screen.  Plub was relegated to a corner, not unlike his avatar.

For this formal occasion they decided to also have two people, so Elgin was there with Frances, but they were side by side and the same size.  Plub introduced the other Maker with a long, convoluted name.  As it went on it became obvious that they were hearing much more than just his name.  They surmised that it must include his title or titles.  It was so long that they concluded that he must be very important indeed.

After Plub's introduction, the newcomer looked back and forth between Fran and Elgin, then asked, “Which one is the female?”

Fran touched her gold pendant and said, “That is I, Plublub.”  Then they had to wait while the translator read back the entire list of names and titles.

If he was put out by how silly it sounded, he didn't let it show.  He graciously gave them a shorter title by which they could address him, and that got linked to Fran's “Plublub.”  He looked at her and said, “I'm told you have concerns about the Cutting.”

“Yes,” she said, “grave concerns.  We want it to stop.”

“But why?” asked Plublub.  “We're doing it for you.”  He spoke as if he knew he was speaking for posterity.  He was fully aware that this meeting was being seen all over his world.  After all, he'd had to use his executive power to force the rights holders to release their copyrights on images of the aliens so this meeting could be broadcast.  He knew that would cost him something in the future, but he thought it was worth it.  Linking his image to these exotic creatures, and his name to the whole venture, promised to do wonders for his brand.

“We want it to stop,” said Fran, “because the people you're killing are not responsible for what happened to our world.”

“So what?” said Plublub.  “Someone has to be punished.”  He was clearly dismissive of their underdeveloped sense of justice.

“Not on our account,” said Fran.  “Under our laws we only punish those responsible, not their distant descendants.”

“Well,” said Plublub, “this is our world and our laws.”

“I understand,” said Fran, “and if you want to continue killing your own people, then make it clear that you're doing it for yourselves, and not for us.  Because we don't want it.”

Plublub looked a little flustered, but he covered it up smoothly.  He hadn't been prepared for a female who could argue so cogently, but he quickly adjusted his expectations.  Tactically, he asked, “What does the male say?”

Elgin was well prepared, so he spoke without hesitation.  “Greetings Plublub, and all Maker people.  We come to you as explorers, with curiosity and good will.  We are not here to punish you or to seek retribution.  So I agree with Frances and join her in asking you to stop this cutting.  Let us come together as two peoples, free and unburdened by the past.”

Plublub, the experienced politician, paused impassively, giving the impression of thinking about what he'd heard.  He sensed immediately that these apparently uncultured aliens had adroitly cast themselves as protecting the Maker people from their own leaders.  Clearly his assumptions had allowed him to underestimate them.  It wouldn't happen again.  He said, “We will consider this,” and terminated his connection.

Plub's image momentarily filled the screen before he also broke the link.  It was subtle, as if he was trying to hide it, but the avatar appeared to be trying to conceal amusement.

Forty-Three – Just a Few Questions

“I hope Plublub can stop it.”  Fran was looking into the Square, her mind filled with memories.  She remembered getting on Green Comet after the destruction of Yellow Comet.  The excitement and mystery of the Visitor, followed by the horror of its real nature.  Their escape from it.  The gratification of destroying it.  The Discovery of the Prime, and of the Makers, the descendants of those who sent the hated Visitor.  And now, given the opportunity for vengeance, they were trying to stop their hosts from executing it for them.  “I hope he can stop it soon, before too many more people are killed.”

Everyone was quiet, influenced by her pensive mood.  Elgin moved close and put his arm around her shoulders.  “You've done what you could.  I don't think it could have been done any more effectively.  Now we just have to rely on them.  We have to hope that this unique situation will allow them to ignore one of their own laws.”

The Doctor brought it down from the hypothetical to the concrete.  “I hope Plublub can look beyond his own sense of self-importance and see what is really important here.”

“And he's going to have to overcome the competing self-importance of everyone else involved, too.” said Nigel.  He glanced at the Doctor and said, “The Doctor and I have been talking about this, and we think these people have a really primitive society.  From what we've seen, we think it's probably based on self-interest and deep suspicion of the motives of others.”

Fran nodded tentatively.  “I can see that,” she said.  “The obvious hierarchy.  The way rank is shown with clothing.  Their persistent suspicion of us.  And,” she finished, groping for words, “that blatant bargain with the cutting.”

“Yes,” said the Doctor.  “They seem to put great value on status, and their interactions seem to be based on bartering and keeping score.”  He shrugged.  “At least that's how it seems to me.”

“I think you're probably right, Doctor,” said Elgin.

“If they function by trading and keeping score,” said Fran, “is there any way that we can tell what the score is?  Any way we can tell how this is going to turn out?”  She looked at Archie.  “Is there any way you can make an estimate?”

Archie's only reaction was to go even more still than usual.  They knew he was running numbers, what little they had, and they knew to wait.  It didn't take him long to surface and say, “No.  There's not enough data.  It would just be a guess.”

Someone who wasn't familiar with Archie might have wheedled.  They might have thought that even a guess would be better than nothing.  But Fran was familiar with Archie, as she was with Buzzard.  She knew that if they said it was a guess, it would be no better than anyone else's guess, maybe even worse.  She could probably guess better than they could, because she was used to guessing and they weren't.  “I didn't think so,” she said.  “So we just have to wait and hope for the best.”

“Huh,” said Stanton.  “Hope for the best.”  He had a bemused smile.  Like Fran, his eyes were roaming the Square, and his memory was reaching deep into the past.  He was thinking of when they figured out that the murderous Visitor was a von Neumann machine, and how he wanted five minutes alone with its criminally incompetent engineers.  His smile faded.

Fran noticed.  She said, “What are you thinking about, Stanton?”

He came back to the present, drawing a deep breath.  He looked at her and said, “I was thinking about the Visitor, and how I wanted to kill these people for building it.”  His smile came back.  “And now we're trying to stop them from being killed.”

Fran smiled too.  “I bet you're not the only one who wanted revenge.”

Winston, on the other side of the window, said, “I know you're not the only one.”

There were sounds of assent on both sides of the window, and the Doctor said, “As a doctor, I am naturally averse to violence and killing.  But back then, with what happened, and especially when Fran was . . .”

“When I was dying?” Fran finished for him.

“Yes,” said the Doctor, glancing at Elgin.

Elgin looked at her.  With that memory, his face had begun showing signs of its legendary mask, but now it relaxed into a smile.  “I was ready to destroy that scout and endanger us all,” he said, shaking his head.

She put her hand on his arm.  “We were all different people then.  Those were different times.”

“Different people,” said Stanton, his bemused smile back.  “I think that's more true than you intended.  Sometimes I wonder if that was really me, or just someone in the history books.”

Elgin looked at him.  “Me too,” he said.  “Fran and I have talked about this.  It's the same body, but is it still the same person after all this time?”

“Well, actually,” said the Doctor, “it's not technically the same body, either.  All of the cells have been replaced many times over.”

“Right,” said Nigel.  “It's like the parable of the axe.  If you've replaced the head once and the handle three times, is it still the same axe?”

“The answer is yes and no, depending on how you look at it,” said Stanton.  “That's the point of that parable.”

“Right,” said Elgin, “so we're left with the same question.  Are we the same people we were back then?  If so, then we somehow kept a continuous identity even though everything else changed.  And if not, then who are we?”

Winston and Minder looked at each other.

Fran noticed.  “What?” she said.

They looked again, and Winston nodded.

Minder nodded back and said, “Right, then.  It's funny that this should come up because we were just talking about it.”

“Really?” said Fran.  “That's quite a coincidence.”

“Not really,” said Minder.  “It turns out a lot of people are thinking about it.  It's even becoming a public health issue, if you can believe it.”

The Doctor was intrigued.  “Public health?  How?”

“Yes,” said Minder.  “Counselors are reporting a continuing increase in neuroses associated with it.  Even psychoses.  They're thinking of calling it identity angst.”

No one looked impressed by the choice of name.

“I don't like it either,” said Minder.  “It doesn't sound right.”

“No,” said Fran.  “It's too awkward to say.”  She demonstrated.  “Identity angst.”

“You're right,” said Elgin.  “It doesn't flow.”

Stanton laughed.  “And the lines have to flow, don't they?” he said, referring to Elgin's finely-tuned sense of structural integrity.

“That's right,” said Elgin, laughing with him.

Chuckling, Minder continued with his story.  “The counselors are reporting that some people are so troubled by this that they are refusing to let people call them by their name.  They claim that they are no longer that person.  Even that they never were that person.  It's leaving them with a serious identity crisis.”

Fran looked at the Doctor, who nodded.  “Entirely plausible,” he said.  “It's our minds that construct our identity, so our minds are perfectly capable of rejecting it, too.”

“I find that hard to believe,” said Stanton.  “If we reject our own identity, then who's doing the rejecting?”

“That's not a problem, Stanton,” said the Doctor, “merely a paradox.”  He smiled at the engineer's frown.  “I'll give you a more concrete example that's less mental and more physical, okay?”  When Stanton nodded, he said, “You might have heard of people who believe that certain of their body parts don't belong to them.  They've suffered damage to the part of the brain that integrates their body self-image, and now believe that their arm, say, must belong to someone else.”

Stanton said, “Yes, I think I've heard of that.  I found that hard to believe, too.  The arm is attached to their shoulder, for goodness sake.”

“I know what you mean.  It doesn't make sense to our normal idea of identity, but I promise you it's true.  And I think that's what might be going on here, only with the psyche instead of the body.”

Elgin was nodding.  “I think you might be onto something, Doc.  All those years and all those hibernations.  Why wouldn't you begin to feel disconnected, even from yourself?”

Minder had been watching this idea develop, and now he said, “That's what our medical people think, too.”  He and Winston looked at each other again, then Minder said, “So we've been wondering if there's something we could do about it.”

“The planning committee?” said Stanton.  “What could you do about this?”

“Nothing,” said Minder, a glimmer of light appearing in his cheeks.  “We're obviously not equipped to help people with their psychological problems.”  He glanced at Winston, who nodded reassuringly.  “We're thinking of how we can help them through structural means, by providing the services they need to get through this crisis.  And possibly with legislation, too.”

“New laws?”  Stanton's expression was baffled.

“Yes,” said Minder.  “If time and hibernation can have such a profound effect on our self-identity, then maybe we can deal with it by allowing people to change their identity.”

He was greeted with silence.  They could not have expected that.  They were naturally thinking of how to help people hang on to their identities, and now Minder was suggesting helping them shed them.  It flew against instinct, but Fran quickly adapted.  “I think that might work,” she said.

That rang the rightness bell for Elgin.  “We've already done it once, when we chose our comet names.”

“And if this is a trend,” said the Doctor, “It could eventually affect all of us.  We had better prepare.”

Stanton said, “So, we're like the Makers.  We're not the same people we were thousands of years ago.”

This time Plub had two other Makers with him.  If he'd had shoulders, they'd be right behind them, just within arm's reach.  The clothing on these ones looked tough and intimidating.  It was as much like armor as it was like clothing.

“Hello Plub,” said Fran.  “Who are your friends?”

“Not my friends,” said Plub.  The two didn't react.

“Oh,” said Fran.  “Are you going to introduce them?”

“No.”

“I see.  Could you tell me what they're here for?”

“They signify the importance of this meeting.  They are for decoration.”

Fran was getting good at stopping her laughter before it got up into her throat.  “Decoration?  Do you mean like an honor guard?”

He paused.  Apparently the translator couldn't quite get it right.  He said sharply, “They're ceremonial.  Only ceremonial.”  He drew himself up again, like before, and spoke.  “The purpose of this meeting is to make two announcements.”  The guards also made themselves rigid and symmetrical.

Fran found herself adopting a formal pose.  “I see,” she said.  “Go ahead, Plub.  We're listening.”

“Announcement number one,” he said.  “The Cutting has been stopped, as you requested.  Only three hundred forty-seven were cut.”

That was awful, but it was good news, so Fran was grateful.  “Thank you, Plub.  And thank Plublub.  That is very happy news.  What's the other announcement?”

Plub was a little more reluctant with this one, and Fran detected signs of distress, similar to what they'd seen before.  “I have been authorized,” he said, although the translator noted that “ordered” also fit, “to answer your questions.”

Fran was delighted to hear that.  Maybe they could learn more about their hosts now.  “Any questions at all?” she asked.

Plub bent forward, but maintained his rigidity.  Fran noticed that his amputated arm curled protectively toward his body.  “Yes,” he said.  “I am to answer anything.”  This order was directly from Plublub who, along with his backers, would own the exclusive broadcast rights to the conversation.  With that, and with all the associated promotional opportunities, they were set to make a killing.

“That's wonderful, Plub.”  She looked at his curled stump and at the two guards.  “Are you sure they're not here to cut you?  The last time we talked about something they didn't like, you were punished.”

“No,” he said, struggling to relax, “they are decoration only, as I told you.  I have been given a pre-emptive pardon.”

“If you're sure, then.”  When he bent forward she said, “What about our side of the bargain?  What is expected of us in return?”

“You will answer our questions.”

Fran nodded.  “That sounds fair.”

“It is fair,” said Plub.  He braced himself.  “What is your first question?”

“I apologize in advance for making you uncomfortable,” said Fran gently.  “Tell me about your females.”

Plub stiffened right up, as did his honor guard.  But they were ready for this.  They'd been told what to expect and they quickly relaxed back to a state of anxious anticipation.  Plub pulled himself erect and, with much fluttering and shaking, told Fran about the females, and why they stayed in the ocean.  It was because they were about five times the mass of the males, on average, and needed to go into the water when they grew up and began to put on the weight.

“Maybe if we had bonze, like you,” said Plub, “then they could support that much weight out of the water.”

“Maybe,” said Fran.  Her mind was racing.  The answer had stimulated many more questions, but she chose the most important one.  “Do you still interact with each other?  Do you have a shared society?”

Plub hesitated, then said, “We have separate societies.  We have ours on the mats, and the females have theirs in the water.”  He struggled mightily to add, “We only interact for . . .”  He strained to finish, but couldn't.

Fran helped him out.  “To mate?”

The three of them were shocked.  One of the guards had to turn away, he was so stricken.  Plub forced himself to say yes, hugging himself with all four arms.

Fran admired his pluck, and was inclined to let up on him.  “Just one more question, Plub, then it's your turn.”

He gave her one of his nods and braced himself.

She said, “Why is this so repugnant to you?”

He said, “Because, during the . . .”

“The mating?”

“. . . Yes.  During that, the females try to eat us.”  Plub collapsed into a trembling heap of writhing limbs.

Fran was surprised into silence.  Meanwhile, back on their world, Plublub and his backers were delighted.  This was practically pornography.  With aliens.  They were broadcasting to the largest audience in history, and they owned exclusive rights to everything.  Plublub basked in it.  What an acquisition!

Fran was trying to understand how a sentient creature could try to eat another sentient creature, especially of the same species.  She said, “I don't understand, Plub.”

Gamely, Plub pulled himself up.  “We become feral during,” he forced himself to say, “mating.”  His guards recoiled in shock.  Plublub rubbed his hands greedily.  “The females go completely feral, and we males become just irrational enough to do something so dangerous.”  He forced himself to meet her gaze.  “It is primitive.  It is embarrassing.”

“I can see that,” said Fran.  She decided that was enough of an ordeal for poor Plub, and said, “Your turn now.  What do you most want to know about us?”

“Thank you,” said Plub gratefully.  His guards perked up and moved forward, while he took a few moments to compose himself.  When he was ready he said, “When you told us about the Visitor destroying you, and you destroying it, you spoke as if you were there.”

Fran nodded.  “Yes,” she said.

“You can't mean that you were actually there.”

“Yes, we were.”

“But that's thousands of years.  Do you live that long?”

Fran shook her head.  “No, but we were there.  We've spent most of the intervening time asleep, though.  In hibernation.”

“Ah,” said Plub.  “We have some primitive species on our world who hibernate.”

“We did too,” said Fran, “but our species wasn't one of them.  We invented hibernation techniques as the only practical way to do extended space travel.”

“I see.”  He stared at her, then asked, “How old are you really?”

Fran laughed.  “I don't know.  I've lost track.  But I've lived more years than I would have without hibernation.  It slows down some of the effects of aging.”

That would interest Plublub, Plub knew.  Owning the rights to such a technology could be very valuable, and Plublub and his backers would own the rights to everything that came out of this discussion.  Plub knew he should pursue this and get as much as he could out of it, but he didn't.  Logically, he should favor his masters over these aliens, but he found that he was growing to like this Fannie better than he liked any of them.  He heard himself saying, “Your turn.  What else would you like to know about us?” and not caring whom it made unhappy.

“Okay,” said Fran.  “We have been wondering about this.  How is it that you were advanced enough seven thousand years ago to send a spacecraft to the stars, but you're no further ahead now?”

She asked tough questions, but he was getting used to it.  He said, “That is also embarrassing.  We had a . . . setback.  Our civilization wasn't as advanced as our technology was, and it broke down.”

“I understand,” she said.  “When something is dynamic, it's inherently unstable.  But why did it take so long to recover?”

“It was a severe collapse,” he said.  “By the time it was over, our population was near zero.  All our knowledge was lost and the few remaining Makers had to struggle just to survive.  It's only recently that we've been able to rebuild, and to have the luxury of rebuilding our knowledge.  I can only tell you this because of the few artifacts our archeologists have been able to find.”

“I see,” she said.  “You might find that embarrassing, but it's also inspirational.  You survived.  Not only that, but you're thriving again.”

Plub's expression brightened, and his guards stood up straighter.  “You're right,” he said.  “Our ancestors might have failed, but we've rebuilt what they lost.  We don't have to be ashamed.  We can be proud.”

“That's right,” said Fran, “And now there's something I'd like to ask you.”

Plub and his guards became attentive again.  “Of course,” he said.  “Go ahead.”

“We're wondering if you're ready for a little adventure.  We would like you to come over here for a visit.  We can show you how we live.”

Plub was speechless.  His guards were wary and apprehensive, looking back and forth between the negotiators.  Back on their world, Plublub didn't know whether to be happy at the prospect of more valuable footage, or worried about the loss of control.  Plub found his voice quickly.  “Yes!” he said.  “I'd like that very much.”

“Good,” said Fran.  “We'll need to do some tests to ensure that it's safe for you.  I think the oxygen and nitrogen levels are close enough, but we'll have to check for toxins and possible pathogens.”  She smiled at him.  “We don't want you getting sick.”

“Or you,” said Plub.

That pleased Fran.  A simple show of concern.  She'd begun to worry that there was no altruism in these people at all, and Plub changed that with one simple phrase.  “I don't foresee any problem,” she said.  “Our doctor says it's unlikely that any pathogens would be viable across species.  And it's a simple matter to find and eliminate toxins.”

“I'm not worried, either.”

“In the worst case, you can keep your spacesuit on.”

“Exactly.”

“We should use one of our excursion pods.  It's better suited for this than any of your vessels.”

“Fine.”

“So, you and your two friends?”

“They're not my friends, but yes.  The three of us.”

“Good then,” said Fran.  “Let's make the arrangements.”

Forty-Four – I'll Show You Mine

Elgin and Frances went across in one of the pods to pick up their three guests.  Their trip took an hour in all, most of it coasting.  The pod could go faster than a hundred kilometers per hour, but it would have wasted far too much fuel.  So they had an hour to enjoy the view.

Out here at the gravitationally stable L1 Lagrangian, both the brown dwarf planet and its red dwarf star were easy naked eye objects.  They were very close to the same size visually, with the main difference being in their brightness.  On one side, the star was bright enough that they could make out details on its red surface, and its spherical shape was plainly evident.  On the other, the planet was dimmer, but they could just make out hints of banding in its atmosphere.  Knowing where to look, they could pick out the glint of a moon, the home of the Makers.

Ahead was the laser array.  It looked as if it was cobbled together from junk found trapped at the Lagrangian point, because it was.  They could see the small original laser that had sent the Visitor on its journey of discovery, and surrounding it was the rest that was thrown together a few decades ago when the Makers learned of the treasure the Prime was bringing home.  Their target was below the lasers where the habitat was constructed.  As they approached, it resolved itself into a collection of modules tied together by tubes.  They could see a few vessels parked nearby.

They slid smoothly to a stop just ten meters from the pickup point, their airlock open and facing the habitat.  Within a few minutes the airlock on the habitat opened and three space-suited figures emerged.  They moved slowly across the gap, and Elgin and Fran could see that they were joined by lengths of rope or cable.  It seemed to take a long time, but they were moving carefully and deliberately.  At least, two of them were.  They were pulling the third one along as if it were an empty suit.

Fran got on the radio.  “Is everything all right, Plub?”

The lead figure raised an arm.  Their suits were designed with only two arms and two legs, presumably to simplify things.  “Yes, Fannie,” came Plub's voice.  “One of the decorations just fainted.”

“Oh.  Is he going to be okay?”

“Yes.”  They arrived at the pod at last, and crowded into the airlock, pulling on the inert one and stuffing it in a corner.  The airlock seemed just as full with three Makers as it did with four comet people.  They weren't that much bigger, just built bulkier.  “We're in,” said Plub.  “All clear.”

Elgin closed the airlock door and started the pump to fill it with air.  That done, he opened the inside door and the three Makers drifted into the main cabin.  With a brief message to the the habitat, he turned the pod and set course back to the Prime.

“Welcome aboard, Plub,” said Fran.  “It should be safe to open your suits now.  In fact, you can take them right off if you want.  When we dock with the Ball, we'll be able to enter directly.”

The Makers looked at each other.  Then Plub, Fran could tell by his markings visible through his faceplate, reached up and opened it.  After a tense moment, he confidently pulled his suit down, exposing his whole top half.  He freed his arms and tied the suit's arms around what would have been his waist, if he'd had one.  Then he stared at his mate until he did the same, and between them they did the third one, who woke up during the process.  He struggled and protested until Plub violently slapped him, when he seemed to get hold of himself.  Once that was done, Plub turned to Frances and Elgin for a formal greeting from Makers to comet people.

Fran was distracted by the smell, but she managed to reciprocate the greeting, along with Elgin.  Then she held out her hand.  She said, “My people have a custom of touching hands at these times.  If it doesn't make you too uncomfortable, I'd like to share the custom with you on this special occasion.”

Plub hesitated, while his guards stared at him apprehensively.  Then he slowly extended his hand, touching Fran's palm to palm.  The contact was brief and they both broke it as if they'd received a shock.  Plub's mates were cringing and averting their gaze, but Elgin moved forward and reached out.  With less hesitation, Plub repeated the contact with him.  It lasted longer this time, giving Elgin time to experience the strange geometry of Plub's hand, as well as its odd texture.  He was sure he could feel dozens of vestigial suckers, and his fur began to rise.  The supple flexibility of Plub's hand felt so alien that it made him wonder what the Maker thought of the stiffness of his bones.  When they broke contact, he had to make a conscious effort to not wipe his hand on his fur.

The formalities over, they settled in for the return flight.  Given enough time, the conversation eventually loosened up and took its own direction.  Fran found the opportunity and she took it.  “Plub,” she said, “some of our people have been wanting me to ask you this.  Do you Makers have any mythology?”  He just looked blank so she assumed the translator couldn't do that one.  She tried again.  “Do you have any stories about how your world came to be?  How Makers came to be?”

She could tell she'd put him on the spot again, but he rallied quickly.  “Yes, we have many such stories.  Different stories from different times and different parts of the world.  The one that's currently dominant says that Air created Fire and Water and Makers.  When we die, we rise up to live in Air for the rest of eternity.”

“That's interesting,” said Fran.  “Do you have a personal belief?”

“Yes.  I believe that the Great Maker created the universe, then left it to evolve on its own.”

“I see,” said Fran.  “Thank you.  I'll have something to tell people now.”

Elgin didn't take them directly to the Ball.  Instead they went on a tour of the Prime.  They circumnavigated it, flying up one side and back down the other.  As kilometer after kilometer of vessel slid by, the appearance of something different became very welcome.  They pointed out the Ball and Tainui moored near the back end.  Then, halfway up, there was the massive strut holding up the sail.  A little further on, seven scouts and six modules, a sight that seemed to impress their guests.  Then it was around the front end, interesting only because it was the front, and back down the home stretch.  Once again, six modules and seven scouts, followed by the big mast, then nothing much the rest of the way.

The Makers conferred among themselves, then Plub posed a question.  “Those vessels,” he said, “the modules and scouts.”

“Yes,” said Fran.  “The Visitor had hundreds of them.  Very powerful.  Lethal.”

“I remember from your story.  The thing is, are there two missing?  We counted two more scouts than modules, and there seemed to be two empty spaces.”

“Yes, there are,” said Fran.

“Do you know where they are?”

“No.  They were here when we joined the Prime, but some time since then they disappeared.  We're pretty sure it was on the last leg, just before we got here.”

“But why?  Why would they do that?”

Fran shrugged, a gesture Plub knew by now.  “We've been with the Prime for a long time, but it still does things we don't understand.”

“So they could be anywhere, planning anything.”

“Planning, no.  They're not that intelligent.  But you're right that they could be anywhere.”

“Would they attack us?” asked Plub.  “Destroy our world?”

“Probably not,” said Fran.  “They probably remember that they're from here.  That's good because two of them could easily knock down your civilization.”

The Makers clicked and growled and fluttered together, with much waving of limbs, until Fran said, “We're almost there.  Prepare to disembark.”

Elgin docked the pod smoothly, the airlock lining up with the entrance to the Ball.  It opened and Fran led the Makers in, their spacesuits still covering their bottom halves.  They were greeted by Stanton, with most of the population of both balls arrayed behind him at a respectful distance.

“Greetings Makers,” said Stanton, “and welcome to our humble home.”

Plub stopped himself from trying to take in the entire two hundred meter sphere at once and said, “Thank you.  We bring greetings from the Maker people.”  He chose to leave out the promotional speech Plublub had instructed him to make.  Instead he asked, “Is that ice?  Is your vessel made of ice?”

“Yes it is,” said Stanton.  “Come, let us show you around.”  He led the Makers into the Ball, the crowd parting before them.  Plub looked startled, and Stanton asked, “Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” said Plub, moving forward again.  “It was just the sound.  It surprised me.”

“Oh, right,” said Stanton.  He hadn't even noticed the leathery rustle of wings as the people moved.  He shook his head and carried on, showing their guests almost everything the Ball had to offer.  They started in housekeeping, with the hibernarium, and followed with the laser light dispersal system, the command center, and finally the flashball court.  One thing they didn't show them was the window.  They didn't think the Makers needed to know about their capability for instantaneous communication.  At least not yet.  So the window was displaying a big image of the beautiful ringed planet from the system they saved.

“Is that your home?” asked Plub.

“No,” said Stanton.  “Ours was a small, rocky world closer to our star.  This is one of the planets orbiting the star the Visitor was going to next, before we destroyed it.”

“It looks something like Air, except we don't have any rings here.”

“It is a gas giant,” said Stanton, “but it's less than a tenth of the size of Air.  And its star is a yellow dwarf.  It's much hotter, so this planet is much farther away than you are from your star.”

“Does it have any worlds like ours?”

“It has many moons, but none with liquid water on their surface.  It's too cold there.  Too far from the star, and this planet doesn't generate nearly as much heat as Air does.”

“I see,” said Plub.  Staring at the ringed planet, he said, “There's so much out there that we've never seen.  Couldn't even imagine.”

“It was the same for us not long ago,” said Stanton.  “And now I think we should take a break and watch a flashball game.”

The Makers were fascinated by flashball, and they carried on a spirited discussion throughout.  Plub was sure they could adapt the game for their own use.  Maybe they could hold paddles in their lower arms for flying.  But, even though one of the players once threw the ball hard enough to flash white, none of the Makers heard a crack.

“One good turn deserves another, I guess,” said Elgin.  They were on their way over to the Maker habitat for a return visit.  The invitation came shortly after Plub's visit, and they were quick to agree.  It was a perfect opportunity to cement relations between their species, but they were more motivated by curiosity.  They couldn't miss this chance to learn more about the only alien species they'd ever met.  So Elgin and Fran volunteered quickly, before anyone else could, and brought along with them an odd third member.  Scarface, the Prime's service robot.

“I think you're right,” said Fran.  “I suppose they thought they had to invite us back just to be polite.”  This time when two figures were hauling a third across the gap, the third one wasn't wearing a spacesuit.

It was cozy in the habitat's airlock, but not crowded.  When the inner doors opened, they were let into an anteroom that was just big enough for the three of them and the three Makers who were there to greet them.  They recognized Plub, and he was accompanied by an honor guard, possibly the same two as before.  They greeted Elgin and Frances ceremoniously, but they were distracted by Scarface.  Here was a machine designed by their distant ancestors, and made in their own image.  Scarface accepted their attentions unperturbed.

They'd lost radio contact with the Ball as soon as they entered the airlock, and it hadn't returned in the anteroom.  Nor did it return as they went deeper into the habitat.  They thought this was odd since they'd arranged for Plub to have continuous contact during his visit, and they'd expected the same in return.  Plub explained that the relay equipment was set up in the main living area of the habitat, and that they'd soon have contact again.

They came out of a short passageway into a large space lighted brightly in red, closely matching the star's natural light.  There were about a dozen Makers in there, dominated by one in impressively elaborate clothing.  He was flanked by half a dozen guards in hard clothing similar to that worn by Plub's guards, only more ornate.  The remainder looked like ordinary guards, but they appeared to be holding weapons.

The armed guards moved around behind the visitors and awaited orders.  Elgin noticed that two of them stationed themselves behind Plub and his escorts.  He wondered what was going on, but decided to continue with their rehearsed diplomatic protocol.  For all he knew, this is how these people did things.  He said, “We bring you greetings from the comet people.”  He gestured at Scarface.  “And we bring you a gift that we hope will interest you.”

The highly decorated Maker said, “We accept your gift.”  Then he looked back and forth between them.  Even with their helmets pulled back, he couldn't tell the difference.  “Which one is the male?” he asked.

Elgin indicated himself.  “That is I,” he said.  “My name is Elgin, and this is . . .”

“Take that one away,” said the Maker, and two guards grabbed Elgin and dragged him from the room.  Two more grabbed Fran, and the other two pointed their weapons at Plub and his guards.

The last thing Elgin saw as he was hustled out the door was Fran's face, showing concern, but also resolve.

Forty-Five – The Law of Property

The two guards took Elgin down a short hallway, one of the tubes, he thought, then through a room and into another hallway.  This one connected with a longer corridor, where the guards settled into an easy lope like Scarface's.  They reached out with a leg, gripped the floor, and pulled themselves forward.  He assumed they must have suckers on their feet, which were unshod.  It was such a natural gait that it was easy for them to set up a rhythm, unconsciously moving in synchrony.

Elgin felt them relax into it and took his opportunity.  Wrenching himself out of their loosened grasp, he flew back up the hallway.  He didn't know what he was going to do when he got there, but he couldn't leave Fran alone without doing anything.  He had to try.  So, back up the long hall, the short connector, through the room and into the tube.  The Makers were pursuing him, and they could really move when they wanted to, but he had the advantage.  He could fly, while they had to run.

The guards must have called ahead because when he burst out of the hallway into the bright red room, other guards were converging on the doorway, raising their weapons.  Elgin glimpsed Fran, who appeared unhurt, and in the same instant he saw the head Maker approaching her, flanked by his fancy guards.  His body decided for him, heading for the Maker before he could even think about it.  If he could get there, get his hands on him, maybe they'd have some bargaining power.

The room was like a snapshot, with all the people in it just beginning to react to his entrance.  Forewarned, the honor guard was already facing him, ready to defend their master, who was just catching on that something was happening.  His body was twisting toward the doorway, the big eyes staring and the upper limbs rising defensively.  The other guards, the ordinary ones with the weapons, were surprised by his speed and he was by them before they knew it.  They couldn't use their weapons now for fear of shooting their own people.

Elgin ducked his head and rammed the wall of guards, his hands reaching out for the head Maker.  He felt fabric and clutched a handful of it, pulling himself closer to that empty face.  The beak was open and the eyes were staring into his own as he cocked his other fist to punish this treachery.  Then it all ended abruptly in a tangle of limbs, the head Maker's flung up in front of him, warding off Elgin's fury, and the guards' wrapping themselves around his attacker.

Once they had hold of him it was all over.  Any one of them could have subdued him easily, their strength being so much greater than his.  This is what happens to a body when it spends so much time in microgravity.  He was helpless, but his face was still close to the Maker's.  In a voice that was almost a growl he said, “You will pay for this.”  As he was being dragged away again, he said, “I will come for you.  I will find you.  And you will pay.”

This time there were four guards, and this time the ones holding on to him didn't relax their grip.  They held on so tightly that if it weren't for the protection of his pressure suit, which stiffened automatically under compression, they might have broken some of Elgin's bones.  After a brief struggle, he relaxed and let them tow him down the long corridor.  As they glided along, Fran's face filled his thoughts.  Her expression, in his snapshot memory, was complicated.  There was alarm, of course, due to the sudden violence of his actions.  There was fear and concern for him as the guards subdued him.  There was anger, and worse, for the guards.  Much worse.  And there was something else.  Her eyes were shining with love for him.  That made Elgin glad he'd done it, and certain that he'd do it again, given the opportunity.

They'd been passing doors along the hallway, and finally they stopped at one of them.  One of the guards opened it, and he was flung into a dark room.  He spun and lunged for the door, but it slammed before he could get there.  He held his breath and listened, and he could hear faint noises for a while, then nothing.  Either his guards had all gone away, or they were still out there being very quiet.

He suddenly felt the darkness looming behind him and he quickly turned on his lights.  One look told him that he was alone in a small room.  Another that it was bare and empty.  He turned back to the door and found what had to be the latch.  He tugged and shook and rattled it, but nothing happened.  He pounded and kicked the door, but it was solid.

That left the room, so he examined it closely.  It was a perfect cube, all six sides identical.  If it wasn't for the door, there'd be no way to tell them apart.  Fortunately, the door was set in at floor level, giving him a way to orient himself.  A closer inspection of the walls revealed thin slots up near the ceiling on the hallway side.  Elgin flew up to have a look and found that he could see through them.  Turning off his lights, he found that he could make out the features of the hallway in its dim lighting.  He looked for a long time, allowing his vision to adapt to the dimness.  Breathing shallowly, he looked and listened until he was pretty sure that there was no one out there.

Leaving his lights off, he moved back to the center of the room and floated there, letting everything settle into a quiet stillness.  In moments the room seemed to brighten as his dark-adapted vision enhancements took over.  Soon he was able to see the whole room, almost as clearly as if there were a light on.  His hearing also adjusted.  The clamor of recent events faded away and he was able to pick up tiny sounds that he wouldn't ordinarily hear.  First was the hushed susurration of moving air.  Ventilation most likely.  Then it was tiny sounds from far away.  He moved back to the ventilation slots and listened, and he could almost create a mental picture of where the sounds were coming from.  He was sure there were raised voices coming from the direction of the habitat modules, and nothing coming from the other direction, further down the hallway.  And now he was completely sure that there were no guards outside his door.

“Stanton,” he said, “did you get all that?”

“I'm right here, Elgin.”  Stanton did sound as if he was right there.  With the implanted receiver he sounded as if he was right inside Elgin's head.

“How's Fran?  What have they done with her?”

“She's okay.  They're still talking.”

“Talking about what?”

“This and that,” said Stanton.  “Now you be quiet while we sweep your room for listening devices.”

“My cell, you mean.”

“Okay, your cell.  Now be quiet.  Explore your cell so we can get a close look at every little corner.”

Elgin began a methodical examination, while stifling an urge to ask questions.  He didn't hold out for long.  “What difference does it make if I talk?  For all they know, we talk to ourselves all the time.”

Stanton chuckled.  “Okay,” he said, “how about if I talk and you listen?  I'll tell you what's going on with Fran while we complete the scan.”

“Okay,” said Elgin.

“Be quiet,” said Stanton.  “Keep moving.  Okay, right now the Maker, the big cheese with the fancy clothes, is bragging about how clever they are.  How they built the Visitor and how it went to the stars and sent back the Prime with all those resources.”

“But they . . .”

“Be quiet.  So Fran told him that their ancestors did build well.  They only made that one major mistake.  The one that made the mission worse than a failure.”

“Yeah,” said Elgin.  “You tell them, Rannie.”

“The Maker just asked how she knew it was a mistake.  How does she know they didn't plan it that way?”

Elgin snorted.  “Yeah, sure.”

Stanton laughed.  “Good one.”

“What?”

“She just asked him if he wanted to take credit for that.”  He laughed again.  “You should see him.  He doesn't know what to say.”  Still chuckling, he said, “I think she's okay there, Elgin.  She should be fine.  And it looks like your cell is clean.  You can talk as much as you want.”

“Good,” said Elgin.  “You can tell her I'm all right.”

“Already done.”

“Good.  Thank you.”  Elgin looked around the room.  “I think this really is a cell.  I mean, I think it was constructed specifically to be a cell.”

“It looks like it,” said Stanton.  “But I don't think they plan to keep you there for long.”

“Why not?”

“Well,” said Stanton, “it looks like it should do a good job of keeping you in, but that's all.  I mean, there are no facilities.”

“Oh, right,” said Elgin, turning slowly to look at his whole barren cell.  “Well, I'm glad I went before we came.”

When Stanton spoke, Elgin could hear Galatea laughing in the background.  Stanton said, “They can't be planning on leaving you there for long.”

“My suit can take care of things for a couple of days.  Maybe longer if they decide to not give me food and water.”

“They won't do that.”

“They might,” said Elgin.  “How would we know?  All we know about them so far is that they're crude and violent.”

“Come on, Elgin, they're not that bad.  A little crude, maybe.  A tendency toward violence, sure.  But surely there's more to them than that.”

Elgin bit down hard on his response.  This was not the time to debate the qualities of his hosts, even if his personal contact with them did give him the advantage.  Now was the time for cool heads and clear thinking.  He said, “Anyway, if they do leave me in here longer than my suit can handle, I'm going to have to ask you guys to look the other way.”

Galatea was laughing again as Stanton said, “We can deal with that if the time comes.  Meanwhile, what are those walls made of?  It looks white, but not quite, from here.”

“It is,” said Elgin.  “It looks white, but up close it's kind of opalescent, or iridescent.”  He turned on one of his lights at low power, with a narrow beam for close work.  “It looks like mother of pearl.”

“I can see it,” said Stanton.  “When the light moves, the colors move.”

Elgin took one of his gloves off and ran his hand over the surface.  “It doesn't feel like metal or plastic,” he said.  “It feels like ceramic.  Maybe . . .”

“What?”

“Well, maybe it is mother of pearl.”  He nodded.  “It makes sense.  Metallic ores and hydrocarbons are probably hard to come by on their water world.  Biomimetics is a logical alternative.”

Stanton said, “You've got Archie's vote.  He's nodding.”

“Imagine,” said Elgin.  “A technological civilization built on biology.”

“Did you happen to notice what the rest of the place is made of?  You went up and down that hallway a couple of times.”

“No,” said Elgin.  “My mind was on other things.  However, I do have a good idea of what this place is.”

“What?” said Stanton.

“I think I'm inside an asteroid.  Those habitat modules and the tubes connecting them are definitely artificial, but I think this place is dug out of an asteroid.”

“I think you're right,” said Stanton.  “That's good.  That could come in handy later on.”

“Right,” said Elgin.  “So Fran has to get herself put in here, too.”

Fran was holding her own.  She was faced with a Maker who seemed to want her to appreciate what he had done.  He had arranged this trap and he had taken them captive, and now he was in control of the greatest acquisition in history.  So Fran asked him if this kind of thing was considered heroic on his world.

He brushed it away with a sweep of his arm.  “Heroism is for fools and dreamers,” he said.  “The only thing that matters is the acquisition and who owns it.”  All she did was look at him with those damn jiggling, blinking eyes.

In addition to wanting to be admired he also seemed to want to justify himself.  He said the Makers had sent the Visitor and therefore they owned everything it and the Prime had acquired.  Frances and the rest of the comet people were trespassers and had no right to expect to get anything out of this.  So Fran asked him again if he was taking responsibility, both personally and for all Maker people, for the things the Visitor did.  He didn't handle the question any better this time than he did the first time.

“You think you're smart, don't you?  With your clever words and your sneaky ways.”  Maker bluster was really something, involving a rapid swelling and shrinking of the face around the breathing holes and an almost theatrical waving of the arms.  “You think you're better than us, don't you?”  He'd handled intellectuals this way before.  This always shut them up, without fail.  He looked around to be sure his people were aware of what he'd done.

Fran didn't answer right away.  She paused long enough to see the beginnings of uncertainty, then she said, “Better?  Better at what?”

“At everything!” the Maker shouted, a visible spray jetting out of his breathing holes.  His honor guard didn't appear to notice as it settled on their skin.  “You think you're better than us at everything.  You just think you're better than us.”

She paused again to give him time to review what he'd said, and to begin to second-guess himself.  Then she said, “No, we don't think we're better than you.  We know that you are definitely better than us at one thing, at least.  You're better at abducting and imprisoning your guests.”

“Abducting?”  The Maker looked shocked.  Stanton confirmed for Fran that his reaction was genuine disbelief.  “This isn't an abduction.  It's an acquisition.  The Prime and everything on it, including you, are now my property.”

“Prisoner, you mean,” said Fran.

“What?”

“We might be your prisoners, for now,” said Fran, “but we are not your property.”

“Yes you are,” said the Maker.  “It's the law.”

“The law?” said Fran.  “Whose law?”

“Our law.  Maker law.  The law of property.”

“I see,” said Fran.  Another perfect pause, then, “This law of yours.  Does it cover aliens?”

Forty-Six – Cellmates

After all the excitement, and then long hours of tedium, Elgin inevitably got sleepy.  He resisted for a while, but soon realized that there was no point.  There was nothing to stay awake for, nothing he had to do.  There was nothing he could do, anyway.  Stanton caught him yawning and told him to try to get a few hours of sleep.

“I'll wake you up if something happens,” said Stanton.

“But what about Fran?” said Elgin.

“Don't worry about Fran,” said Stanton.  “Mister Big has left her alone.  Well, alone with a few guards, anyway.”

“Left her in that same room?”

“Yes.  I can't be sure, but it looked as if he got frustrated and left in a huff.”  Stanton chuckled.  “Don't you worry about her.  She's got Bublup right where she wants him.”

“Bublup?”  Elgin laughed.  “That sounds like her, all right.  But she can't be in that room.  She needs to get to shelter.”

“It's okay, Elgin.  She's got a couple of days.  I'm sure she has something in mind.”

“Of course she does,” said Elgin.  “Of course.  She'll be way ahead of the rest of us, won't she?”  He yawned cavernously.  “Okay, I guess I'll get some sleep.  You be sure to wake me right away if something happens.”

“I promise,” said Stanton.  “Right away.”

“Good.”  Elgin closed his eyes and let sleep rush in.  “Good.”

It wasn't Stanton that woke him up.  It seemed to Elgin that he had just dropped off when he was awakened by a big commotion.  His door was open and he could see some Makers in the dim light.  They were struggling and shouting and to Elgin it was a confusion of far too many limbs and an indecipherable cacophony of sounds.  By ignoring the limbs and the voices he was able to isolate three bodies, and to see that two of them were trying to force the third into his cell.  It was surprising how difficult it appeared to be.  It didn't seem to do much good to hold an arm, because it could elongate and get thinner, making the grip futile.  So, while the arms and legs writhed and flailed, the two guards concentrated on pushing the body into the cell.  Any limbs that tried to hold on to the door jamb were beaten viciously with a short whip until they let go.  At last, after beating him around the head and face, the two guards got the third Maker through the door and flung him to the back of the room.  Before he could get back, they slammed and locked the door.

While his new cellmate was shaking the latch and pounding vainly on the door, Elgin cleared his throat and said, “Hello.”

The Maker spun and backed away toward the corner, his limbs up in the defensive pose.  He was obviously searching for the source of the noise.

Elgin realized that the Maker didn't share his night vision.  He helpfully turned on one of his suit's lights, dim and diffuse, to make himself visible.  “Hello,” he said again.  “Welcome to my humble cell.”

The Maker stared at him for a long time, then slowly let down his guard.  “You're the male,” he said.

Elgin recognized his markings.  “Yes, Plub.  My name is Elgin.”

“I remember,” said Plub.  “Ellie.  Fannie and Ellie.”  He'd come out of the corner and was moving closer, peering closely at Elgin as he came.  “Since we can talk,” he said, “you must have a translator with you.  Where is it?”

Elgin pointed to a device the size of a button attached to the front of his suit.  “It's tied in to the external speakers,” he said.

“That's small,” said Plub.  “Very advanced.  Have you been using this technology for a long time in your space journeys?”

“No,” said Elgin.  “We just developed this when we realized we'd need it.  After we discovered you.”  When Plub goggled at him, he added, “You're the first alien species we've met.”

“The first?  We're the first alien life you've seen?”

“No,” said Elgin.  “There was some life in that other system we explored, but we didn't actually meet it.  Do you remember that system we told you about?  The one the Visitor was going to next?  We showed you a picture of a planet with rings.”

“Yes, I remember that,” said Plub.  “I remember wishing I could go and see for myself.”  Before Elgin could reply, he said, “That will never happen.  And even if it did, it would be too late for me.”

Elgin didn't try to argue with him.  He also believed that Plub would never travel to the stars.  “I guess you were just born before your time, Plub,” he said.

“What?” said Plub.  “How can I be born before my time?  I was born when I was born.  How could I be born at any other time?”

“It's just a figure of speech, Plub,” said Elgin.  “Of course nothing can happen except when it happens.  You can only be born when you're born.”

“Then why did you say that?”

“As I said, it's just a figure of speech.  I sensed that you wished you'd been born later so you could travel to the stars, and I indicated my sympathy by saying you were born too soon.”

“So, figures of speech are used to indicate sympathy?”

Elgin laughed.  “This one was, but we've got them for every occasion.  We have so many embedded in our language that we're not even aware of most of them any more.”

“But why?  Why speak in figures when you could just say what you mean?”

That gave Elgin pause.  Why, indeed?  They were second nature to him, but he could see how they would be confusing to a plain speaker like a Maker.  “I'm afraid I can't answer that, Plub.  They're just part of the language, our everyday language.  I'm not a linguist, so I don't know that much about language.  I just use it.”

Plub bent forward slightly in a Maker nod.  “I understand,” he said.  “I'm not a linguist either.”  After a second he extended his hand.  “Let us do your hand touching ritual again, to mark this meeting.”

Elgin reached out, and joked, “We've got to stop meeting like this.”

“What?” said Plub, his hand pulling back.

Elgin laughed.  “Sorry, Plub.  That was just an old joke.”  He shrugged, which hardly showed at all in his pressure suit.  “It doesn't mean anything.”

Plub said, “Ah, shrug.  And laff.”  He attempted a shoulderless shrug.  “Fannie told me that you can't explain something that's funny, or it stops being funny.”

“That's right.  It's just an old joke.  We don't even find it funny any more, which is what makes it funny when we say it.”

Plub didn't say anything, just stared for a long time.  Finally he reached out again to shake hands.  “I might never understand your humor,” he said.

Elgin took his hand.  “I'm sure there will be many things we don't understand about each other.  Some things we might never understand.”  Continuing to hold Plub's hand, he said, “But I'm sure we both understand this.”

Plub agreed.  “Yes,” he said.  “Touching like this has made me know as much as all the talking.  And I'm hardly disgusted by your bonze any more.”

Elgin gained even greater respect for Fran then.  Now he knew what strength it took to not be laughing all the time when talking to these people.  “Thank you,” he said.  “And I'm not disgusted at all by your suckers.”

When Plub took his hand back he stared at it for a long time.  You could practically see him thinking.  At last he said, “Of course.  Of course you would find us disgusting too.”  In a rush of embarrassed fluttering he said, “What must you think of us?  We've been so arrogant, when you're so far beyond us.”  He covered his eyes.  “And now taking you captive.  You must think we're such crude savages.”

That wasn't very far from what Elgin did think of them, so he didn't say anything.  But he was willing to change his opinion, given what he was seeing in Plub.  He said, “We know we can't condemn you all for the crimes of some of you.  Nothing is ever that simple.”

“That's right,” said Plub eagerly.  “It's not all of us.  Just the Acquisitors.  They own everything and control all our governments.”  His healing amputation curled in toward his body.  “They're the ones who revived the ancient custom of Cuttings.  They're the ones who start all the wars.”

“You have wars?”  Elgin was surprised, but not really.

“Yes.  If one Acquisitor wants what another one has.  Or if one simply insults another.  Then we have to fight another stupid war.”  Plub slumped and turned away.  “You should never have come here.  We're not worthy of a visit from star people.”

Elgin didn't protest.  He didn't try to soothe Plub with platitudes.  He just let the silence steep for a while, then asked, “So, what are you in for?  Why have they thrown you in a cell with one of the aliens?”

“They called me a traitor!  They said I didn't try hard enough to get marketable information out of you.  They say I care more about aliens than I do about them.”  Plub looked down at his arm.  “They said they're going to cut me.”

“What?  Another one of your arms?”

“No,” said Plub, looking up into Elgin's eyes.  “They're going to kill me.  And they said they're going to broadcast it, to try to recoup the losses I caused.”

Elgin was shocked.  He was beginning to think that nothing these people did would surprise him.  “When?” he asked.  “When do they want this killing done?”

“They want to do it tomorrow,” said Plub.

“First thing?”

“No.  They want to wait until later in the day, to get the best demographic.”

“Demographic?”

“The best audience.  The ones who will buy the most stuff.”

Elgin shook his head.  “Pragmatic, aren't they?” he said.  “So, they didn't send you here to spy on me, then.”

Elgin didn't need an avatar to tell him that Plub was shocked.  There were other emotions in there too.  He wasn't sure, but he assumed they were hurt and anger.  He took that as his answer.  “No,” he said, “I guess not.  So, why did they put you in here with me?  I saw other doors, presumably to other cells.  Why here?”

Plub was embarrassed.  Elgin knew that one well by now.  As always, Plub pushed through it.  Fluttering, he said, “They wanted to humiliate me.  Make me spend my last night with a degenerate alien.”  He was quick to clarify.  “I don't think you're degenerate.  That's what they're trying to sell you as.”

Elgin's brain was jostling with a hundred questions, but he put them aside for later.  “Tell me about this cutting,” he said.  “All about it.  How is it done?  How do they prepare for it?  Anything you can think of.”  Elgin nodded at Plub, his jaw set.  “We might have a thing or two to say about it.”

Fran nodded, satisfied.  Stanton had been relaying the scene in Elgin's cell, and she was happy with the way it went.  There wasn't much she could do about it here.  She wasn't in a cell like Elgin, but she might as well have been.  After Elgin was removed and Bublup tired of verbally sparring with her, he left, taking Plub with him.  She was left in this room, alone apart from some guards, to contemplate the extent of his power over her.

She wanted to think the best of these people, but they were making it hard.  She tried to attribute their actions to cultural differences.  Maybe a reaction to a strange and possibly dangerous circumstance.  She tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, but they were quickly erasing all doubt.  They seemed to be going out of their way to confirm that they were as crude and crass as they seemed.

At least, the bossy ones were.  What did Plub call them?  Acquisitors?  Maybe it was just the Acquisitors who were so vile.  Maybe most Makers weren't so bad.  Plub himself didn't seem so bad, once you got to know him.  Maybe she could dare to hope that the majority of them were intrinsically good, as Plub appeared to be.  She frowned.  And look where that got him, she thought.

Plub looked as if he wanted to say something.  Elgin couldn't pin down exactly what it was, but he looked like he was right on the verge of talking several times, only to subside.  He didn't push him.  If it was this hard, then he didn't need someone making it harder.  Plub thought he was going to die tomorrow.  Elgin thought the least he could do was not make it any worse.

Eventually Plub seemed to get it resolved.  He quit dithering and made up his mind.  Standing straight and looking Elgin right in the eye, he said, “There's something else I need to tell you.  Something else you should know.”

Elgin nodded formally and said, “I'm listening.”

“This is something your people should know about my people.  You can tell them when you get out of here.”

“Of course.”

Plub said, “Do you remember when I told Fannie that our females try to eat us during mating?  How they become feral?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“What I didn't tell her is that they have a good reason for trying to eat us.  Other than for the food, I mean.”  He looked away, then firmly looked back.  “They want to kill us because later, when they spawn, we come back and try to eat the young.”  Plub turned away, his breathing holes flapping noisily.  Still looking away he said, “We become completely feral, with not the slightest bit of rationality left.”

Elgin didn't know what to say.  He didn't want to judge, but it was hard not to.  They eat their own young?  Sure, there were bound to be differences between their two peoples, things that were hard to understand.  But eating their own young?  He thought it was bad that the females tried to eat the males, but this was even harder to accept.

Plub spun around.  “You despise us now, don't you?”

“No,” said Elgin, “not at all.”  He hated how false he sounded.

“Of course you do!” said Plub.  “How could you not?  It's primitive.  It's disgusting.  It's why we're not worthy of even talking to enlightened star people like you.”

“But all people are different,” said Elgin.  “All people do things differently.”

“Fah!” said Plub, with a fine spray of mist.  “Don't bother making excuses for us.  We're nothing but clever animals.”  He reached out and grabbed Elgin's arm.  “Mating isn't the only time we become animals.  During the wars that the Acquisitors make us fight, we gladly kill each other.  Friends, neighbors, relatives, it doesn't matter.  Once the frenzy is on us, we'll attack anyone we're told is the enemy.”

Elgin couldn't help but shrink away.  “Would you attack me now?  Could you go feral now and kill me?”  As far as he knew, it was a real possibility.

“No!” said Plub, releasing his arm.  “I couldn't hurt you.”

“Not unless the Acquisitors tell you I'm the enemy?”

“No.  How could you be the enemy?  You're not even a Maker.”  But he looked away and it was clear that he was thinking about it.  He said, “You're right.  We might attack you if we were told to.  But that just makes it more obvious that we're unworthy.  You should never have come here and you should leave immediately.  Leave us here to rot in our own foul stench.”

“You don't stink at all, Plub.  In fact, to us you smell like fresh water.”

“You know what I mean.  Leave us.  We'll destroy ourselves again soon enough, and then you'll be rid of us.”

“It's not that easy,” said Elgin.  “We need a functioning laser array to go back, so we need your cooperation.  We need the help of Makers, otherwise we're stranded here.”

“You're depending on us?”  Plub sagged.  “You are fools.”

Forty-Seven – They Always Win

“How did things get this way, Plub?” asked Elgin.  “Have you always had this feudalistic, hierarchical society?”

“No,” said Plub.  “When we came out of the bad times, it was much better.  After the long years of struggle people realized that if they worked together, then everyone could live well.”

“That sounds very rational,” said Elgin.  “Very enlightened.”

“It was,” said Plub.  “For almost a hundred years Makers had everything they needed.  Food, shelter, work if they wanted it.  Even the shirkers were taken care of.”

“That's a generous attitude, Plub.  Admirable.”

“Yes it was, until our true nature came out.”

“That's funny,” said Elgin, “I thought I was hearing about your true nature.”

“No,” said Plub, “that was just an aberration.”

“A hundred year aberration?”

“Yes,” said Plub.  “Our true nature is this primitive, violent one that you see now.  It's obvious.  Otherwise, why would we be this way?”

“Okay,” said Elgin.  “Then, how did you get from there to here?”

“We weren't satisfied.  We had free food, shelter, education and medical care, but it wasn't enough for us.  Everyone was rich, but we weren't really happy.”

“Nobody was happy?  Everyone was unsatisfied?”

Elgin was wearing him down.  Eroding his determination to condemn his entire species.  “Not everyone,” he admitted.

“I didn't think so.  That didn't sound like the people who wanted to support everybody, even the shirkers.  Or who were willing to do the work, in spite of the shirkers.  Those sounded like good people to me.”

“They must have been,” said Plub, “but look at us now.  Full prisons.  People begging for handouts. Others forced to do work they hate, and still not able to support themselves.”

“And a few very rich, very powerful people,” said Elgin.

“The Acquisitors,” said Plub.

Elgin nodded his head, but didn't say anything.  They floated together in their cell, each momentarily lost in their own thoughts.  After a few minutes Elgin said, “You know what this looks like to me?”

“What?” said Plub.

“I think most of you were happy.  Most Makers were satisfied with the good life they'd built for themselves.  But a few of them weren't.  For a few people, being rich wasn't good enough.  What's the good of being rich if everyone's rich?”

“What do you mean?  Of course it's good to be rich.”

“I know,” said Elgin.  “And most of you Makers know it, too.  You couldn't have had a hundred years of peace and prosperity otherwise.  But for some of you, the only way to feel rich is to be richer than.”

“Richer than what?”

“Richer than someone else.  Richer than most people, preferably.  Than everyone, if possible.”

“Like the Acquisitors,” said Plub.

“That's right.  So they start accumulating wealth so they can feel rich.  But they're not alone, and a competition develops.  Pretty soon they've got all the surplus wealth tied up in their little game.”

“It's a game to them?”

“Yes, and you ordinary Makers are just pieces in the game.  The only ones who really matter are them.  The real people.”

“But we're real people too,” protested Plub.

“I know you are,” said Elgin.  “Just as real as them.”

“Thank you.”

“You're welcome.  But now there's a problem.  All the surplus wealth is used up, and the only way to get more is by making the rest of you poorer.”

“But why?” asked Plub.  “Why can't they just play with the surplus?  Then there would be enough for everyone.”

“You're too logical, Plub.  They don't care about that, only about how rich they feel.  You're just part of the background.  In fact, if you get poorer, then that makes them richer by comparison.”

“But they're not,” said Plub.  “They can't make themselves richer by making us poorer.”

“I know,” said Elgin.  “Anybody can see that.  But remember, to them the important thing is feeling richer.”

“So, if all Makers were as rich as the Acquisitors, then they would have to get even richer?” said Plub.

“Yes,” said Elgin.  He made a face.  What he was about to say, he could feel in his mouth.  It was jagged and tasted like acid.  “And they'll do anything to get that feeling.  They'll make you poorer, turn you into slaves, send you to your deaths.”

Plub said, “Now that you've shown me, I can see that it's true.  But how do you know all this about us?  You just got here.”

Elgin smiled sadly.  “What I was describing wasn't your world.  It was ours.  We went through a period, much too long, where we let our own Acquisitors take over.  Everything I told you happened to us, just as it's happening to you.”

Eagerly, Plub said, “What did you do?  How did you fix it?”

“There is no easy fix, Plub.  Every time we took care of the problem, they found a new way.  It took generations of effort and constant vigilance.  Slowly, people were less willing to accept their games, and it became harder for them to play.”

“So everything is all right now?  You have no more Acquisitors?”

“That's true,” said Elgin, “but only because we live on comets now.  We've all shared the danger and the loss, so we're more like equals, sharing everything.”

“Of course,” said Plub.  “I'm so stupid to forget.”

“It's okay, Plub, I know it's still just a story to you.  And as far as our planet is concerned, before our people were all killed, we still had our Acquisitors.”

“Even you?” said Plub.  “Does this mean we can never be rid of them?”

“If your experience is anything like ours, you will always have Acquisitors, under the right conditions.  It won't always be the same, though.  The means they use to control and manipulate you will change to suit the circumstances.”

Plub was disappointed.  “What's the point then, if it keeps coming back?”

“The point,” said Elgin, “is that it makes you better.  Every time you make it harder for them, you make your world better.  Every time you stand up to them, you make yourselves better.”

Plub thought about that, and Elgin could see the change in him as it happened.  “You're right,” said Plub.  “We shouldn't expect any final solutions.  It's not about what happened last time.  It's about what we do this time, isn't it Ellie?”

“It's always about what you do this time, Plub.”

Plub was about to answer him when Elgin got a call from Stanton.  “Elgin,” he said, “something's happening.  Bublup just came back to the room, and it looks like he's wearing a spacesuit.”

“A spacesuit?” said Elgin.  “Why?”

“What?” said Plub.

“I don't know,” said Stanton.

“Nothing.  Just a minute,” said Elgin.

“What?” said Stanton.

Elgin laughed.  “Hang on, Stanton.” he said.  Then to Plub he said, “I'm talking to my friend back on the Prime.  Something is happening, so wait a minute, okay?

“How can you do that?  Your radios are blocked.”

Elgin looked him right in the eye.  “We didn't come here unprepared, Plub,” he said.  To his relief, Plub gave one of his nods and backed up a meter or two, then hovered silently.  To Stanton Elgin said, “What's going on?”

“He's ordering Fran to seal her suit,” said Stanton.  “It looks like they're planning on going out.”

“They can't do that.” said Elgin.  “We're not ready.”

“Uh-oh,” said Stanton.

“What?”

“One of their vessels is moving toward the airlock.  It looks like they're planning on going somewhere.”

“Where?” said Elgin, though he already guessed.

“I think there's only one place to go,” said Stanton.  “Their moon.”

“But they can't take her there,” said Elgin.  “The gravity will kill her.”

“She's trying to explain that to Bublup right now.”

“How's he taking it?”

“It's not having much effect.  He doesn't seem to care.”

“He must be insane,” said Elgin.  His agitation was contagious, and Plub began to show signs of stress, too.

“I don't think he's insane,” said Stanton, “just greedy.  She asked him if she wasn't worth more to him alive than dead.”

“And?”

“And he said that here he can only show her on video, but down there he can charge people to come and see her.”

“Has he no conscience?”

“She just asked him that, if not in those words.  He said, quote, 'While it pains me personally, I have a responsibility to my shareholders.'”

“He is insane,” said Elgin.  “I've got to get out of here.”

“Not yet,” said Stanton.  “It's not time yet.  And you couldn't do much anyway, with all those armed guards.”

“But it's happening faster than we thought it would.  They're going to kill Plub tomorrow, and now Fran.”  Plub was getting really agitated, his limbs coiling and uncoiling.  Elgin said, “It's time to change the plan, Stanton.  We've got to adapt to the changes.”

“Not yet,” said Stanton.  “Hang on a little longer.  Fran says she can handle Bublup, and we can find a way to keep them from killing Plub.”

“How?”

“We still have options, Elgin.  Hang on.  Don't panic.”

“That's not that easy in here.”

“I know, but you've handled worse before.  I have to go now.  Just try to hang on a little longer.”

“Fine,” said Elgin, looking at his blank white walls.  “I don't really have much choice, do I?”

Plub could tell the conversation was over and Elgin's attention was back in this room.  Wringing his three remaining hands, he asked, “What's happening.  Why are you upset?”

Elgin took a deep breath and let it out slowly, calming himself.  Then he explained.

“That's terrible,” said Plub.  “Fannie is going to die.”

“No she's not,” said Elgin.  “And neither are you.”

“Yes we are.  Bublup won't change his mind.  There's nothing we can do.  We're all going to die.”

“Don't panic,” said Elgin, finding himself in Stanton's role.  “There's still time.  There are still things we can do.”

“Like what?  There's nothing.  They always win.  The Acquisitors always win.”  Plub turned and went over to the door.  He kicked it.  Then again.  And again.  As the echoes faded he said, “They always win.”

Forty-Eight – The Transformation

“Elgin?”

He opened his eyes and looked blearily around.  He could see Plub's dim shape floating quietly over by the door, but that was all.

“Elgin, are you awake?”

Stanton!  “Yes,” he said gruffly.  Clearing his throat he said, “Yes.  What is it?”

“It's Fran.  She can't stall them any longer,” said Stanton.  “The Vessel is in position and they're making her go out.”

“We've got to do something!” said Elgin.

“We are,” said Stanton.  “We're preparing for the pulse.”

“No!” said Elgin.  “You can't do that while she's exposed.”

“She's ready for it,” said Stanton.  “This is her idea.”

“But, she has no protection out there.”

Stanton understood.  Something like this nearly killed Fran once, and that had nearly killed Elgin.  He said, “It's going to be okay, Elgin.  We've run the numbers.  Archie did it ten times, just like Buzzard.  Your suits have got extra shielding, and there won't be any flukey refractions this time.”

Elgin knew all this.  In his mind, he knew that the conditions were different.  But his body knew otherwise, and it was near panic.  He wanted to shout at Stanton, to make him stop, but he didn't.  He ground his teeth together and pushed the panic down.  “Okay,” he said.  “If this is how it has to be.”

“It is,” said Stanton.  “We can't afford to let that vessel leave.”

”Agreed,” said Elgin.  “Meanwhile, what am I supposed to do?”

“We're going to break you out of there,” said Stanton, a grin in his voice.

“How?”

“They left Scarface alone in that room, so we're sending him down to open your door.”

“All right!” said Elgin.  “I can't wait to get out of here.”

“Good,” said Stanton.  “I've got to get back to Fran now.  I'll talk to you later.  I'll keep you apprised.”

“Right,” said Elgin.  “Talk to you later.”

Plub was awakened by Elgin's voice and was hovering nearby.  “What's happening?” he said.  “You can't wait to get out of here?”

“Things are underway,” said Elgin.  “It's earlier than we planned, but we can't let them take Fran.  We have to act now.”

“This was planned?  You had a plan?”  Plub stared at him.  “I didn't realize.  They called you naive fools.  Trusting.  Easy prey.”

“I told you, Plub.  We weren't unprepared.”

Plub's demeanor changed.  He straightened up and smoothed out.  “I see that now,” he said.  “What can I do to help?”

Elgin stopped and looked right at him.  “Are you sure you should be helping aliens against your own people?”

Plub said, “In the year I've known you, known Fannie, you have become my people as much as other Makers are.  More than Acquisitors.”  He spread his arms.  “That you would do this.  Risk so much to save one of you.  That feels so much more right than the way we treat each other.”

“That's pretty bad, Plub.”

Before Plub could answer, they heard a noise at the door.  Glancing at each other, they went over there and listened.  They heard scraping, and a whirring noise, and they could see the latch moving.  Elgin nodded.  “That'll be Scarface,” he said.

“What?” said Plub.  “The translator didn't get that.”

“Oh,” said Elgin.  “That's the name we gave the Prime's service robot.  The one we brought over as a gift.”  The scraping had evolved into a serious grinding.

“The robot?  You brought the robot here as a . . . a weapon?”

“No,” said Elgin.  “We brought it as a gift.”  He shrugged.  “But, in case your intentions weren't honorable . . .”  The pitch of the whirring dropped a few octaves, and the door began to vibrate.

Plub looked at the door and back at Elgin.  “This is what you meant when you said you weren't unprepared.”

“That's right,” said Elgin, “one of the things I meant.”

“One?  What are the others?”

“No,” said Elgin, “I don't want to spoil the surprise.”

Plub was quiet for a while, as the door began to rattle.  At last he said, “You don't trust me.  I don't blame you.”

“No,” said Elgin, “I trust you.  I just don't trust my judgement.  This is too important to risk on my hunches.”

Whether Plub would have had an answer for that wouldn't be known, because the latch popped off and the grinding and rattling stopped.  Elgin reached out and pushed, and the door swung open, revealing Scarface returning a grinding bit to its clip at his waist.

Elgin pushed through the door, Plub following close behind.  He stopped and turned.  “No.  You stay here with Scarface.”

“But I want to come.  I want to help.”

“I know,” said Elgin, “but something is going to happen and you'll be safer here.  Afterwards, take Scarface and see if there are any repairs needed anywhere.”

“Repairs?  What are you going to do?”

“Nothing too bad,” said Elgin, “but some of your systems might be down when it's over.  We don't want to hurt anyone, if we can help it, but we have to stop you from what you're doing.”

“Not me,” said Plub.  “The Acquisitors.”

“I know,” said Elgin.  “Just stay here with Scarface, okay?  You'll know when it's time to go.”  He flew out into the hallway, Scarface backing up to make way.  “You'll have to trust me, Plub.  Now, I've really got to go.  Fran might need me.”  He flew off down the hall, looking back once to wave.

He moved rapidly but cautiously, expecting to run into someone at every turn, but the place appeared to be deserted.  Down the long hall, the short connector, the compartment, another connector, he found no one.  The room where he'd left Fran was empty, and there was nobody between there and the airlock.  The Makers, Bublup and his minions, must have thought everything was under control.  Elgin shook his head at the hubris, but he didn't relax his guard.  He didn't want to blunder into a trap now, when Fran needed him.  When he arrived at the airlock, he put his ear on the door and held his breath.  Only when he was sure there was no one on the other side did he begin the process to open it.  Fran had picked up the procedure when she was being taken out, and Stanton relayed it to him now.

Once in the airlock he told Stanton, “I'm in position.  Where's Fran?”

“To your right,” said Stanton.  “About a hundred meters out.  It should be safe to look out the window.  They seem quite preoccupied with their vessel.”

Elgin edged over to the porthole and snuck a peak.  Stanton was right.  Fran and Bublup and his six guards were clustered by their vessel, in front of an open airlock.  “What's going on?  Why aren't they going in?”

Stanton was chuckling.  “Fran can't talk to them right now, but she thinks, from their body language, that they're arguing about who should go in first.”

Elgin took another look, a longer one, and thought he could see why.  The airlock didn't appear to be big enough to hold all of them at once.  Nowhere near.  He estimated that it would probably take four cycles to handle all eight of them.  He could imagine Bublup wrestling with protocol and appearances.  Whom to send first.  Whom last.  Who would go with whom.  Elgin chuckled.

He couldn't talk directly to Fran yet, their radios still being blocked as long as he was inside the habitat, but Stanton must have told her he was there.  He saw her casually rotate until she was facing him, and raise an arm in a covert wave.  He lifted his hand to the window and waved back.  At a hundred meters, and through a window and two faceplates, eye contact was uncertain, but he felt it anyway.

The Prime, inert since they arrived, stirred to life.  Its big radar dish slewed and tilted until it was pointing directly at the Maker habitat.  Inside, powerful capacitors were powering up.  Once fully charged, it waited.

“Elgin,” said Stanton, ”we're all set here.  Cycle your airlock and crack the door.”

“Right,” said Elgin, “here goes.”  He checked the seal on his faceplate and confirmed his suit's integrity.  He could hear the pump clearly at first, then more faintly as the air attenuated.  He kept his hand on the control for the outer door.  A big green light was flashing.  “I bet there are alarms going off inside now,” he said.

“No problem,” said Stanton.  “Once you have that door open, they won't be able to open the inner one.”

“I know,” said Elgin.  “Here goes.”  He popped the outer door, just enough to break the seal.  Through the window he saw the Makers turn toward him.  While they were distracted, Fran began to drift subtly away, opening a gap of five meters before anyone noticed.  At that point, two of the guards began to pursue her.  She was more nimble, more maneuverable, but they were closing the gap.  They must have panicked and used full thrusters.

Elgin couldn't let them get hold of her.  “Now!” he said.  “Do it now!”  He pushed his way out, calling her name.

“Ah, Elgin,” she said, smoothly evading the grasp of one of her pursuers.  “Stanton told me you were on your way to save the day.”

“Keep doing what you're doing.  They're overreacting.”

“Sure thing,” she said.  “I could do this all day.”  She cut a tight turn, reversing direction, and the guards went flailing past her.  They were almost completely by when one snagged her foot with his hand.  She instinctively reacted, trying to escape, and her thrust combined with his trajectory resulted in them spinning as they sped away.

Elgin called, “Rannie!” and flew after them as fast as he could.  At the same time, the other guard had turned around and was coming back to help, while the other four guards were setting out to cut Elgin off.  They stopped and two of them went back to Bublup, who was waving his arms and obviously giving orders.  The other two started out again in Elgin's direction.

Fran looked as if she was panicking now.  She and her captor were spinning faster, like two gravitating bodies in a tight orbit, the Maker gripping her foot while struggling to reach her with his other hand.  Elgin's plan was to crash into them, right where the Maker held Fran's foot.  Once she was free they could make a run for it.  He was focusing hard on his target when the Maker began getting larger, and now he was looking at Elgin.

“Oh!” said Elgin, and ducked.  The Maker sailed over him, and he felt something strike his service pack, then his heel.  He glanced back and saw the Maker receding rapidly.

“Sorry about that,” said Fran, getting her spin under control.  “For some reason he let go all of a sudden.”

Elgin was about to reply when there was a sharp crack in his speakers, followed by a cold silence.  The Prime's radar dish emitted a hard pulse of forty gigahertz radiation, the same kind that so severely injured Fran long ago.  They assured Elgin that it wouldn't hurt her this time.  There was no refraction to focus it, and she was in her suit, with added shielding.  Elgin believed them, but he still raced toward her.  To his relief, she gave him a thumb's up.  Once they were together they looked around for her pursuers, and saw one rapidly receding on his last trajectory, and the other one coming toward them on his.  They moved aside to give him a wide berth.  Turning the other way, they could see two Makers coming toward them, and the other three over by their vessel, their limbs thrashing as they slowly spun and drifted.  They moved out of the path of the approaching two.  “Stanton,” said Elgin, “be sure to track them.  We don't want to lose them.”

“We've got them,” Stanton said.  “Your radios should be coming back on line soon.”

Sure enough, he heard humming and crackling as it came back to life.  It quickly settled down and he tested it.  “Can you hear me, Fran?”

“Loud and clear,” she said.

“Let's go over to the pod,” said Elgin.  “Then let's see what we can do to help these people.”

“Their spacesuits must be controlled by electronics,” said Fran.  “Otherwise the EMP wouldn't have knocked out their maneuvering thrusters.  I hope it didn't knock out life support.  I wouldn't like it if they were asphyxiating.”

“After what they were prepared to do to you?  I wouldn't be disappointed.  And I wouldn't feel guilty, either.”

“Oh, Elgin,” she said as they entered their airlock, “I know you better than that.”

She was right, of course.  Now that she was safe, his feelings toward Bublup and his minions was more like resentment than anything else.  But while she was in danger, he would not have hesitated to use whatever means were required, right up to lethal force.  “You're right,” he said.  “Let's go and make sure they're okay.”

It was a matter of moments to activate the pod and fly it over to the Makers' vessel.  Three Makers were still nearby, although they were slowly drifting away from each other and their vessel.  The first one they approached was Bublup, who flailed in abject panic as he slowly tumbled.  He didn't appear to be asphyxiating, which was a relief, but he was obviously helpless.  Fran was already tuned to their radio frequency, which was silent.  Watching his glittering, decorated spacesuit, and his staring eyes each time the faceplate rotated into view, Elgin could imagine Bublup's fear.  Given what he was willing to do to them, and what he had purportedly already done to others of his own kind, he was probably imagining the worst.

Elgin deployed the harpoon gun, waited until Bublup could see what was happening, and shot him.  His frantic struggles were quelled as the net enveloped him, and they reeled him in.  They repeated the procedure with his guards, then went looking for the ones who had been chasing them.  It was an hour's work to capture them and return, seven Makers stuck on the pod like barnacles.

“What do we do with them now?”  They were halfway between the Prime and the laser station.  Should they take them back to the Ball and improvise some kind of prison?  Or should they take them to the station and lock them up in their own cells?  Elgin was hoping that Fran had an idea.

Fran shrugged and said, “What do you think, Stanton?”

Stanton said, “I'd just as soon you didn't bring them here.  We're not really set up for housing alien prisoners.”

“I agree,” said Fran.  “Is there any word from Plub yet?”

“Not yet,” said Stanton.  “We're calling every five minutes.”

“What about Scarface?” asked Elgin.  “Any communication with him?”

“Nigel says Plub left him at your cell,” said Stanton.  “He was ready to make Scarface go with Plub, but after the radar pulse he just took off and left him there.”

“How about if Nigel takes him for a walk?  A little reconnoiter.”

“Good idea,” said Stanton.  “Stand by.”

Elgin took the time to check on their passengers, who all appeared to still be alive, if not lively.  He didn't blame them.  He knew he wouldn't be very enthusiastic about being lashed to the outside of a spaceship, either.  “We have to do something soon,” he said.  “We don't know how long their life support will hold out.”

“That's something else we need to talk to Plub about,” said Fran.  “Where is he?  What's he doing?”

“I told him to be ready to repair any systems that the pulse knocked out,” said Elgin.  “Maybe he's busy.”

“Maybe,” said Fran.  “Or maybe we damaged their radios so badly that they can't be repaired.”

“That's possible,” said Elgin.  Something came up on their video feed.  “Here we go,” he said.  “Scarface is on the move.”

They watched him move up the deserted hallway, through the module and on to the big room where they first met Bublup.  Nigel took him out to the airlock, just to be sure, but they still saw no one.  Back to the meeting room where he said, “Where to now, people?”

“That third opening,” said Fran.  “That's the one Bublup used.”

Nigel directed Scarface through the doorway and down another short tube.  The next module contained a lot of equipment, which they took the time to examine closely.  There were green lights flashing everywhere, the color of alarm in a world of red light.  Even to someone who didn't know exactly what the equipment was for, it was obviously out of commission.

“There,” said Stanton.  He touched the screen being used by Nigel.  “That big button flashing green.  If my guess is right, that's part of the comm system.”

“That room does look familiar,” said Fran.  “Take a look around, Nigel.”  When he complied she said, “Yes, it's the room Plub used to be in during our talks.”

“Good,” said Stanton.  “Get Scarface to push that button.  We might get lucky.”  When the robot pushed it, the light stopped flashing green and burned steady red.  Nigel got him to push it again and they heard something.  They could hear a quiet white noise, like background ambience.  “Get him to make a noise,” said Stanton.  “Clap his hands or something.”  Nigel did, and they clearly heard it.

“That was easy,” said Elgin.

“Too easy,” said Stanton.  “I mean, if it's this easy, then why haven't they done it?”

“Maybe they're preoccupied with something else,” said Fran.

“Could be,” conceded Stanton.  “There might be something more critical somewhere else.”  He nudged Nigel.  “Let's go find out.”

Scarface left that room and entered the next tube.  It was another short one feeding into another module, which was empty and uninteresting, so they got him to exit again immediately.  This tube was a little longer and it took a few seconds before they noticed something moving near the far end.  Nigel instinctively stopped the robot, going still to avoid detection.  Then he laughed at himself and got moving again.  “For a second it felt like I was there,” he said.

As they moved forward, it was soon clear that they weren't looking at a Maker.  Not a whole one, anyway.  This was a single limb, an upper arm, drifting slowly down the hallway toward them.  It looked as if it was writhing, although it was likely just a complicated tumbling motion.  It still made them feel queasy, though.  Nigel got Scarface to get close to it, and they could see by the stump that it had been hacked off.  It lightly brushed Scarface and immediately grabbed him, coiling itself around one of his arms.  They jumped, startled and horrified.  Nigel's hands came right off the controls as he recoiled.  He took a deep breath and forced them back on.  “That was surprisingly scary,” he said.

“I know it startled me,” said Fran.  “I'm glad it was you operating Scarface, and not me.”

Elgin asked, “Are they having another cutting?”

“Like Plub, you mean,” said Fran.  “I don't think so.  That was careful.  Ritualistic.  This seems crude.”

“You're right,” said Elgin.  “Maybe it was an accident, then.  The EMP caused an emergency and it cost someone an arm.”

“If that's the case,” said Stanton, “then someone might need our help.  Let's get going.”

They found their answer in the room at the end of the hallway.  In it they found more body parts, as well as bodies.  All showed signs of brutal hacking, with more severed limbs than seemed possible, and bodies split wide open.  None of them seemed alive, but they kept Scarface away just in case.  They didn't want him festooned with any more stray limbs.

“Maybe they were having a cutting after all,” said Fran, “only not the kind we're used to.”  She was making herself look at the bodies, to see if she recognized Plub's markings.  So far she hadn't.

“You might be right,” said Elgin.  “Plub told me that they're never far from violence.”

“Could this be our fault?” she asked.

“How could this be our fault?” asked Stanton.  “We only just got here.”

“Exactly,” said Fran.  “They had enough stability to build all this, then as soon as we show up, they fall to pieces.”  She remembered the Makers lashed to the pod.  “Now we really do have a problem.  If we take these people back, they might be in danger.”

“What's wrong with that?” said Stanton.  “Let them have a taste of their own medicine.”

“But it could be a death sentence,” said Fran.

“So?” said Stanton.  “Why should that be our problem?  It didn't seem to be a problem for them when it was your life in danger.”

“But we're not them,” said Fran.  She was right of course.  They wouldn't send people to their deaths.  Not even these ones.

Stanton nodded.  “I know,” he said.  “But if we can't take them there, that only leaves here.  We don't have any way to lock them up.”

“Maybe we do,” said Fran.  “We can make the flashball court secure, can't we?”  When he didn't answer right away, she said, “It will only be temporary.”

They set course for the Ball.  Then it was a matter of ferrying their captives in before they could dock the pod.  Once all seven Makers were in the flashball court and the door secured, they released the nets.  The Makers lunged immediately for the door, slapping and kicking angrily at it, while their attendants watched impassively.  Only his clothing set Bublup apart from the others as they raged at their impotence.  It wasn't until they settled down that their hierarchical structure begin to reassert itself.

Meanwhile, Scarface continued his exploration.  Once they were sure there were no survivors in the room of carnage, they sent him on through the next doorway.  If necessary, they would search every last module in this station.  They would keep looking until they found someone alive, or until they were sure otherwise.

They didn't have to go far.  After just a couple more rooms full of evidence of acute violence, Scarface entered one where there was someone who was still alive.  He had his back to them, and it was a rich ocher color, unlike the beige they were used to.  Something must have alerted him to Scarface's presence, because he turned, holding a large machete-like weapon in one hand.  They thought they must be seeing another type of Maker, a type they'd never seen before, because it was different in every way.  In addition to the ocher back, which continued all the way down the outsides of the arms, all its other markings looked different, too.  They were all more vivid, more sharply defined.  It also looked bigger, or stronger, or something.  It was hard to define but it just looked more dangerous, even disregarding the machete.

As this strange Maker approached Scarface, its weapon extended in front of it, Fran said, “Oh my.  I can't believe it.”

“What?” said Elgin.

“Look at its markings,” she said.  “Never mind the colors.  Just look at the spots and the margin line.”

“Oh,” said Elgin.  “I see what you mean.”

“Yes,” said Fran.  “That's Plub.”

Forty-Nine – The Armada

Plub slashed and the Maker arm fell away from Scarface.  Then he spoke, but all they could hear was hissing and growling.  They hadn't foreseen the need for putting a translator into Scarface's communication system.  Nigel was just about to patch it through to their main system when Plub brushed past and left, back the way they'd come.  Nigel was turning to follow him when the Doctor stopped him.

“No,” he said.  “Keep him here for a while.”

“Why?” said Nigel, turning the robot back.

“Anatomy,” said the Doctor.  “This is our chance to study Maker anatomy.”

Nigel nodded and moved toward the nearest body.

Plub was moving quickly.  He passed through a pair of modules without stopping and sped on until he came to the communications room.  They saw him burst in, still gripping the machete, and hurry directly to the console.

He reached out with his free hand and reset the controls.  His monitor must have come on because he finally looked at them and spoke.  Even through the translator they could tell that his voice had changed, too.

“Greetings Fannie and Ellie and all comet people,” he said, his voice somehow carrying more weight.  “Welcome to the new Maker world.”

“Plub,” said Fran, “what's going on?”

He held up the machete.  “The Great Cutting has begun,” he said.

Stanton was called away to the observation station, where they were maintaining constant surveillance of the Maker moon.  Their optical telescopes had picked up something interesting.  The observer on duty pointed at a cluster of bright spots that weren't stars.

“They just showed up,” she said.  “They must have just crossed the resolution threshold.”

“Are they moving?” asked Stanton.

“It's hard to say,” she said.  “I don't have enough data to be sure, but if you want me to guess, then I'd say they're moving this way.”

Stanton looked over at the people talking to Plub.  Great Cutting?  What was that?  He looked back at the cluster of spots.  And what was this?  An armada?  He asked, “Where are Buzzard and Maria now?”

She consulted her instruments.  “They're just a few hours from arrival at the Maker moon,” she said.  “Do you want me to divert them to check out this?”

Stanton thought about it.  “No,” he said.  “Let them keep to the original plan.  We can deal with this.”

Fran said, “Did you kill all those people, Plub?”

“No,” he said, lowering his weapon.  “There are a few of us united in this cause.”

“It looks like it's over now, Plub.  I think you can put down your weapon.”

“No!” he said, raising it.  He caught her reaction, even though she quickly stifled it.  “What's the matter?” he asked.  “Is the violence too real for you?”  He looked and sounded scornful.  “I tried to tell Ellie.  We're never far from the truth.”

He caught her off guard, but she rallied quickly.  “You surprised me, yes,” she said.  “Surprised and shocked me.”

“You didn't think I was capable of this, did you?” he said.  “That timid coward could never do this, could he?”  The avatar on her screen seemed to be gloating.

“You're right, Plub,” she said.  “We should have known though, shouldn't we?  From what you've told us already about your violent tendencies, we should have expected this.”

“Yes you should,” he growled.  “But you were too worried about stopping the Cutting.”  He held up his amputated limb, which seemed to have grown a lot since she last saw him.  “You were too worried about me to see the truth.”

“I admit it, Plub.  We were hoping that we could develop a good relationship with your people.  We were probably too optimistic.”

“Yes you were.  And now you're forced to face the worst of us.”

“That's not quite true, is it?  We have faced far worse before.”  Her voice lost its strength.  “Far worse.”

That caught Plub off guard.  He remembered her story about the Visitor killing her people, and suddenly his little murder spree didn't seem so grand.  He looked around, then back at her.  She thought she saw a change in his appearance.  A little less of the warrior rampant, perhaps.  She asked him, “How long does this usually last, Plub?”

“What?” he said.

“When you change like this, to killing mode, how long do you usually stay this way?”

“Why?” he demanded, shaking off his doubts.  “Are you afraid?”

“I would be afraid of you if we were in the same room now,” she said.  “But since we're not, I'm only curious.”

That gave him pause again, remembering where he was.  He threw up a brazen front and tried to force it, but he was losing his impetus.  Grudgingly, he told her, “It lasts as long as it is needed.”

“And now that the killing is over?”

“Now that the cutting is over, I'm beginning to change back.”  His disappointment was obvious, even without the avatar.

“You like feeling like this,” she said.  “You prefer it.”

“Of course!” he said.  “It's so clean.  So pure.  No questions to fill me with weakness.”  He raised the machete in front of his face, trying to recreate his heroic posture of moments before, then lowered it again, his body sagging.  “And now, by tomorrow, I'll be that soft weakling again.”

“I understand,” said Fran.  Stanton bent in and whispered in her ear.  She raised her eyebrows at him, then turned back to the screen.  “Plub,” she said, getting his attention, “there seems to be a fleet of vessels en route from your world.”

“Acquisitors!” he roared, straightening up again.  “We must destroy them.  You must help us destroy them.”

“Not so fast, Plub,” she said.  “It's not that simple.  Yes, if they threaten us, then we might have to destroy them.  But we can't take sides in a local dispute.”

“But you have to,” he said, brandishing his machete.  “It's the Acquisitors.  They were going to cut ten thousand people.  They cut me.  They were going to kill you.”  He waved the blade for emphasis.  “They're bad.”

“I agree,” she said.  “But how good are you, and the ones like you, who are doing this Great Cutting you told us about?”  When he just stared, she said, “How many people have you killed?  How many more will die?  And when you have taken the power, how will you use it?”

His breathing holes flapped in the Maker equivalent of stammering.  “But, this Cutting is good,” he said.  “They're bad, and this is good.  They're evil and they do evil things.”  He noticed he was waving the machete, and lowered it below the console.

“And what would they say, if I was talking to them?  Would they tell me that their civilization is under attack by violent dissidents?  Terrorists?  That's what they always said on my world.”  She shook her head at him.  “No,” she said.  “We will defend ourselves if necessary, but we will not take sides.”  She softened.  “I'm sorry, Plub.  You're going to have to sort this out for yourselves.  I hope you'll still be there afterward, and we can pick up where we left off.  But if we intervene, we'll only give Makers reason to distrust us.”

“Distrust you?  Our world hangs in the balance and all you care about is whether we trust you”?  He pushed away from the console.  “Do what you like,” he said.  “We don't need you.”  He waved her away.  “And don't think you can just stand back and then be friends again afterward.  Maybe we'll cut you, too.”  He reached forward and slapped off the connection.

“You did the right thing,” said Minder, with Winston nodding emphatic agreement.  “The worst thing would have been to take sides.”

“I know,” said Fran, her gaze roaming the Square.

“There was nothing else you could do,” croaked Winston.  “Nothing you can do to stop it.”

“I know.”

“You can't blame yourself,” said Minder.

“I don't,” said Fran, looking at him.  “I just regret that there's nothing more we can do.  Knowing you're helpless doesn't make you feel less helpless, does it?”

They all knew she was right, so there was no argument.  Minder changed the subject.  “What about the armada, then?  Any idea what's going on there?”

Stanton picked it up.  “Not really, no.  We've been able to resolve the number, a dozen.  We know they'll get here in about twelve hours.  The ships are about the size of our pods.  About the same size as the one by their airlock now.  We don't know if they're armed or not, but we're assuming they are.  And we don't know if they're going to the laser base, or coming here.”

“So, wait and see on that then, eh?” said Minder.  “What about Buzzard and Maria?”

“They're in position now, in orbit around the Maker moon.”  Stanton used his hands to demonstrate.  “Buzzard is in a geosynchronous orbit out by their communications satellite, and Maria is in closer on a circumpolar orbit.  They've got it covered.”

“What do they say about it?  Did they send any pictures?”  Minder was asking for everyone.  Even though they'd already met the Makers, it still felt incomplete to come this far and not see their world yet.

“They say it's about what you'd expect,” said Stanton.  “It looks like a small planet with an ocean and continents, or at least big islands.  The difference is that the islands are floating and drifting around a bit.  Kind of like continental drift, only faster.”  He was using his hands again.  “And the gas giant, Air, fills a big part of the sky.  Oh, and the islands have about a twenty meter variation in elevation from place to place, as ocean swells pass under them.”

“I see,” said Minder.  “That sounds interesting.”  He winked at Winston.  “But no pictures, though?”

While everyone laughed, Stanton said, “Okay, I get it.  I'll ask them to send some snapshots.”

Winston said, “So, Buzzard and Maria got there too late to see the armada leave, right?”  Stanton nodded.  “Have they seen any other activity?”

“No other launches, if that's what you mean.  But they did describe their launch system.  It's like the one we used to use back on the planet.”

“The balloons, you mean?”

“That's right.  Forty-eight balloons in the upper atmosphere, suspending what looks like a track underneath them.  The angle is around twenty degrees, the same as ours was.”

“Electromagnetic propulsion like ours?” asked Winston.

“They can't tell,” said Stanton, “without seeing a launch.  It could just as easily be rockets.”

“But,” said Minder, “no pictures though, eh?”

“This is fascinating,” said the Doctor.  He was going through the thousands of images they'd acquired through Scarface.  So thorough was the hacking done by Plub and his friends, that they didn't have to make one cut during the autopsies.  “Look at that,” he said to Nigel, “multiple brains.”

Nigel could see one obvious brain in the center of the upright part of the body.  It was almost directly behind the eyes, and below the lung.  The other things the Doctor was calling brains were associated with the limbs.  From his rudimentary knowledge of anatomy, he'd have called them ganglia.  Eight large ones where the limbs joined the body, and then two smaller ones in each limb.  “It must be handy to have twenty-five brains,” he said.

“I would say that each limb has the ability to be autonomous,” said the Doctor.  “Even when separated from the body, they should still be capable of independent movement.”

“That would explain that arm glomming onto Scarface,” said Nigel.

“Yes,” said the Doctor, musing.  “I wonder what extra layers of meaning that adds to their cuttings.”

“Right,” said Nigel.  “It's not just an arm.  It's part of their intelligence.  I wonder how much of their identity is in one arm.”

They looked at each other while their minds raced.  Finally the Doctor shook his head.  “Fascinating,” he said, moving on to another picture.  “Now, look at the eyes.”

The armada was coming for them after all.  Two of them separated and went to the laser station, but the other ten came straight to the Prime and parked themselves a few hundred meters from the balls attached to its stern.  Their radios came to life and a Maker in hard clothing appeared on their monitor.  Without preamble, he said, “Surrender and turn over our property.”

They let Fran do the talking, since it worked out so well in the past.  She introduced herself and asked, “What is your name, please?”

“My name is not important,” he said.  “Comply or be destroyed.”

“Whom do you represent, then?” she asked.  “Is it the Acquisitors, or have they been removed in the Great Cutting?”

“There is no Great Cutting,” he said.  “Our true masters are still in control.”

“I assume your true masters are the Acquisitors,” she said.  “We have one of those here, as it happens.”  They transmitted images of their captives, sullen and defeated.  “Would you like us to send him over, along with his guards?  We don't really have room for them here.”

“No,” said the Maker.  “We don't want them.  They are weak.  They allowed themselves to be taken by a female.”  The Makers in the flashball court reacted violently when they heard that.  They raged and ranted impotently.

Stanton had a small pleased smile.  As he had said while they were installing the live feed in the improvised cell, “Never pass up a chance to divide your enemy.”

“I didn't think you'd want them,” said Fran.  “I suspect you work for a competitor, don't you?”

“It doesn't matter who I work for,” he shouted.  “Turn over our property or be destroyed.”

“I'm afraid it's not that simple,” she said.  “We don't control the Prime.  We can't tell it what to do.  If you want it, you're going to have to convince it that you own it.”

That made him think.  “How can we do that?” he said.  “Every time we try to talk to it, it transmits its manifest.  You have to tell it to listen to us.”

She shrugged, spreading her palms.  “As I said, we're just passengers.  We don't tell it what to do.”

Before the Maker could answer, he was swept aside by a large Acquisitor in the most splendid clothing they'd seen yet.  He was also the largest Maker they'd seen.  He was more than large.  He was obese to the point of corpulence.  He announced himself with the second longest name they'd ever heard, and said, “We will listen to no more of your alien lies.  You will turn over my property, or you will die.”

“Greetings, Blublub,” said Fran.  After waiting for the translator to repeat his long name, she said, “If we're dead, then we really won't be able to help you, will we?”  Nigel was trying to get her attention, so she asked Blublub to wait.

He reacted badly, demanding that she listen to him, warning her to not turn away from him, and being very noisy and distracting, so she turned down his audio to hear Nigel.  Nigel was saying, “Our sensors show strong electromagnetic fields around their vessels, and our telescopes show holes that could be the openings of projectile weapons.  My best guess is that they have rail guns or projectiles propelled by explosions, or both.”

“Would they be able to penetrate our shells?” asked Fran.

“Probably not with one shot,” said Nigel, “but repeated impacts might do it, especially if they hit the same spot.”

“So,” said Fran, “we're outgunned and we're easy targets.”  Nodding, she turned Blublub's audio back on.  He was still carrying on, and now he was issuing an ultimatum with a time limit.

“You have one minute to comply before we destroy you.  Give me my property or we will fire upon both of your vessels and you will all die.”

Fifty – Showdown

“I'd be careful if I were you, Blublub,” said Fran.  “Be careful what you do.”

“Why?” he said.  “What are you going to do?  You only have one weapon, and it's not even charged up.”

“Yes, we know our rail gun is no match for your weapons, so we're not even going to use it,” said Fran.  “No, I'm thinking of the Prime.”

That made Blublub nervous.  According to his avatar, if his eyes were more mobile they'd have been darting around.  But he bluffed his way through.  “What about the Prime?  It never does anything.”

“You never know what it's going to do,” she said.  “You've no doubt heard about the two missing vessels.  Who knows what they're up to?”

That got him thinking.  Maybe he'd heard about some mysterious sightings back at his moon, and was having second thoughts.  But the sight of the Prime, so unbelievably big, and so near, must have bolstered his resolve.  Being that close to so much wealth gave him strength.  He made a slashing motion with his arm and shouted, “Your time is up.”  To his crew he said, “Shoot both vessels.”

The holes in the fronts of the Maker vessels were the muzzles of projectile weapons after all.  Two of them puffed and less than a second later a chunk of ice was blown out of the Ball's shell.

Galatea groaned, and Stanton said, “Don't worry Gay, we can fix it later.”

Nigel's status report was immediate and reassuring.  “Minor damage,” he said.  “The hole is less that a meter wide and only a few centimeters deep.  And there are no cracks.”  He cocked his head, obviously listening.  “Tainui reports the same.  Archie says that enough hits in the same place will produce a breach eventually.  He estimates between ten and twenty.”

“Let's begin the random oscillation protocol,” said Stanton.  “Let's make sure they can't hit the same place twice.”  The Ball began to wobble slowly.  To Galatea he said, “It's a good thing the shell is an amorphous solid.  Crystalline ice might have cracked.”

It's hard to not be nervous when someone is shooting at you, especially when a hull breach would be fatal, but the people in the Ball and Tainui were prepared for this.  And now that the first shot was fired and the damage was as small as expected, they found themselves relaxing.  They took further comfort from the fact that the flashball court gave them extra protection.  If the shell did start to leak, the smaller sphere was sealed and would protect the rest of the Ball.  The only people who weren't comfortable were the Makers who were confined to the flashball court.  They were pressed up to the inner door, pounding and shouting for salvation, all thoughts of rank and privilege apparently forgotten.

Blublub brayed at them, “Now what have you got to say?  Are you ready to give me my property?”

Fran ignored him for the moment.  She appeared to be getting some important information.  She nodded, then turned to the Maker.  “Something's happening, Blublub,” she said.

“Of course something is happening,” he crowed.  “We shot you.”

“That's not what I mean,” she said.  “Something's happening to the Prime.  We heard something.  Right after you shot us, we felt something.”

Blublub didn't say anything, just looked around at his crew, who also said nothing.  He turned back to Fran and said, “You're bluffing.  There's nothing happening.”  He slapped one of his crew and said, “Prepare to fire again.”

“I advise against it,” said Fran.  “You don't know what the Prime might do.”

“The Prime is my property,” he said.  “It will do what I want it to do.  Fire!”

Another chip in the front of the Ball.  Another groan from Galatea.  Increased panic from the prisoners in the flashball court.  And more noises from the Prime.  “There it goes again,” said Fran.  “I strongly advise you to stop shooting at us.”

“I don't care what you advise!” he shouted, a fine mist expanding away from his breathing holes.  “Give me my property!”  He was going to say more, when something diverted his attention.  A crewman pointed at something in front of him, and he said, “What's that?”

“Have you spotted something on your radar?” asked Fran.

“Yes,” he said.  “There's something moving.  Make it stop.”

“I've tried to tell you, Blublub,” she said.  “There's no predicting what the Prime will do.”

“But what's it doing?” said Blublub.  “What's it going to do?”

“I can't tell you what it's going to do,” said Fran, “but I expect that it will depend on what you do.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can't guarantee anything, but if you stop shooting, maybe the Prime will do nothing.”

“What?  Just give up?  Give up my property?”  He made a chopping motion with both of his top arms, sending waves through his fat.  “Never!  You'll never take it from me.”

At this point, the objects of Blublub's agitation cleared the end of the Prime and became visible to the Ball and Tainui.  It was a pair of scouts.  They weren't that much bigger than the pods or the Makers' vessels, but they certainly looked more dangerous.  They looked tough and capable, making the Makers' ships look amateurish and fragile.  Glittering redly in the sunlight, they moved with a silent, deadly efficiency.  They glided to a synchronized stop halfway between the armada and the Prime, then did nothing.

“They're shooting at us.”  It was Buzzard's voice.  “Actually, they're shooting at Maria.  They're not shooting at me yet.  Maybe they haven't seen me, since I'm on a higher orbit.”

Stanton said, “Is she all right?  What are they shooting?”

“Yes,” said Buzzard, “she's fine.  They're shooting rockets, but she destroys them before they get to her.  She waits, though.  Just like we talked about.  She waits until the rockets are out of the atmosphere, just in case there's any dangerous fallout.”

“That's good, Buzzard,” said Stanton.  “It's time for you to move into position now.  The situation here is about to become critical.”

“Okay, will do,” said Buzzard.  “Oh!  Now Maria says they're shooting at her with laser beams.  Or particle beams.  Some kind of beams.”

“And?” said Stanton.

“She says they're not causing any damage.  Nothing serious, anyway.  She's letting the module's automatic targeting system take care of it.”

“How's it doing?”

“It's just as good as we remember, from when they were destroying us,” said Buzzard.  “Only it's limited to just the source of the beams.  It doesn't destroy everything around it, like they did in those days.”

“Good,” said Stanton.  “Just as we hoped.  Are you in position?”

“Just getting there,” said Buzzard.  “They should be cut off now.”  He added, “When Maria shoots the rockets, no one gets hurt.  But when she shoots something on the ground . . . I mean on the mat . . . on the surface . . .”  He trailed off.

Stanton said, “On the ground is fine, Buzzard.  On this world, the mats are the ground.”

“Okay, well, when she shoots something on the ground, then people probably do get hurt, don't they?”

“They probably do,” said Stanton, “but it wouldn't be happening if they weren't shooting at her, would it?”

“I guess not,” said Buzzard.  “But they wouldn't be shooting at her if she wasn't there scaring them.”

Stanton sighed.  “You're right, Buzzard.  It's partly our fault, isn't it?  If we weren't here, none of this would be happening.  But we are here, and it is happening, so when it comes down to it, the sooner they stop shooting, the better.”

Buzzard thought about it, then said, “You're right.  But I still feel bad.”

“Good,” said Stanton.  “It's good that it makes you feel bad.”

“Shoot them!” yelled Blublub.  “Shoot them!”

They prepared to lose another chip of ice, but apparently Blublub was referring to the newcomers.  His crew dutifully shot the scouts, which immediately returned fire, taking out the weapons used.  Blublub was exhorting them to shoot again when his crewman pointed at something on their radar.  All the Makers froze, staring.

“What's going on, Blublub?” asked Fran.  “Why did you stop shooting?”

He glanced at her, then back at the radar screen.  Then he looked up, through what must have been a forward viewport.  Maker eyes were already wide and staring, but Blublub's avatar showed his reaction by widening its eyes in shock.  Fran looked back toward the Prime and soon a pair of modules loomed into view.  If the scouts were scary, then the modules were terrifying.  More than three times their length and about thirty times their mass, modules practically made scouts look harmless.

Everything was falling apart for Blublub.  His advantage was gone.  His riches were slipping away.  His hubris was biting him painfully.  Worst of all, this was making him look bad.  How could he face the other Acquisitors after this?  He had boasted so grandly when his armada set out, gloating about the acquisition he was about to make.  He had gloried in their envy and resentment, and now they would only laugh at him.  He couldn't bear the thought of that so he screamed, “Shoot them!  Shoot them all!”

When they hesitated he raged at them, lashing out and striking those nearest to him.  When they still didn't comply, he lunged for the controls, ready to do the shooting himself.  That's when they moved, seizing him and forcibly stopping him.  They had seen enough to know that they were hopelessly outmatched, and they didn't have Blublub's incentives of pride and greed.  They only wanted to stop him and save themselves, but he wouldn't stop.  The struggle went on, escalating steadily.  It was pathetic to watch.  Fran was embarrassed for them, and for all Makers.  When the machetes came out, she turned off the monitor.

“That's not exactly what we had in mind,” she said.

“No,” said Elgin.  “A peaceful surrender would have done.”

Stanton said, “It's good enough for me.”  When Fran looked at him he said, “Any kind of surrender is better than the alternative.  We're helpless here, remember.”

She nodded, but she still wasn't happy.  She was staring at the blank monitor, trying to not visualize what was going on over there, when they heard a commotion over by the flashball court.

“What's that?” she asked.

“I don't know,” said Elgin, heading that way.

She followed him, and so did Stanton and the others.  They could see a small crowd gathering outside the court, and signs of frantic activity inside it.  By now they were used to their prisoners' antics.  Much of the time they'd been locked up they'd spent violently protesting their imprisonment, or demonstrating their fear of being killed, so no one paid any attention to this last upheaval at first.  When they got close they could see why that changed.

Bublup's guards were engaged in tearing his parts into even smaller parts.  Not having any machetes, they were using their beaks to do the cutting, and their hands to do the tearing.  The six of them, often pulling the same part in opposite directions, almost had him down to where there were no more parts that were big enough to work with.  He and his fancy clothing drifted in a slowly spreading constellation of fragments.

Fran's face was so full of horror and guilt that it wounded Elgin.  He took her in his arms and turned her away.  “There was nothing we could have done,” he said.

“They were in our care,” she said, her voice shaking.  “This wasn't supposed to happen.”

“We did our best,” he said.  “We couldn't have predicted this.”

“Well, we should have,” she said.  “We had plenty of time to plan.  We should have planned for this.”

Elgin agreed with her, and he felt almost as bad as she did, although mostly for her pain.  But he also knew that it was impossible to plan for everything, especially when you don't know all the variables going in.  He didn't try explaining, though.  He knew logic was inadequate for this, so he just gently led her away.

They were almost back to the control center when a beeping signaled an incoming call.  When they got there Fran said, “It's from the laser station.  What now?”

It was Plub.  He still had his machete, and he was looking fully feral again.  “That was good,” he said.  “Tell them to send more prey.”

Fran turned away, her eyes seeking refuge in Elgin's.  “What is wrong with these people?” she asked.  “What have we got ourselves into?”

Fifty-One – Master of the Prime

Stanton moved in front of the screen.  When Plub craned to see around him, he said, “Plub, I want to talk to you.  Look at me, Plub.”

“I don't want to talk to you,” said Plub, “I want to talk to Fannie.”  He tried to see over Stanton's shoulder.  “Fannie and Ellie.”

“Too bad,” said Stanton, lifting his shoulder and wing top.  “You're talking to me.”

“I don't want to talk to you,” said Plub, turning away.  “I don't have to talk to anybody.”

“I guess you don't want to hear how Bublup died, then.”

That stopped him.  He turned back.  “You killed Bublup?  Did you decide to help us after all?”

“No,” said Stanton.  “We didn't kill him.  His guards did.”

That caught Plub's interest.  “His guards?  Have they joined the Great Cutting?”

“I don't know about that,” said Stanton.  “There were extenuating circumstances.  They all thought they were going to die.”

“Oh,” said Plub.  “Did they make the change?”  He held up an arm to show the color.  “Do they look like me?”

“No, they look normal.  I think they just panicked.  Maybe some of Blublub's people changed, though.  I was just about to talk to them.”

“Blublub too?  Maybe they've joined the Great Cutting.”  Plub gave his machete a little hopeful wave.

“Maybe,” said Stanton.  “We didn't actually see him get killed, but it looked inevitable when we cut the connection.”

“You didn't watch?”

“No.  Unnecessary violence is abhorrent to us.”

“Unnecessary?  There's no such thing as unnecessary violence.”

“Really?  How will you feel about that tomorrow, or the next day?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you come down from this killer's high and return to normal.  How will you feel about all this then?”

“Don't talk about that!” said Plub.  “This is my true nature.  That is just wasting time, waiting for this.”  He struck a heroic pose.

“If you say so, Plub.  Now just wait a minute.”  Stanton re-opened the connection with the armada.  “Blublub!” he said.  “I want to talk to Blublub.”

No one was at the communications console on Blublub's ship.  He could see a couple of people moving in the background, but they seemed to be involved in mundane chores.  It looked as if they were cleaning up, putting trash in a bag.  Only when a severed limb drifted slowly by at close range did he realize the nature of the chores.  When a hand slapped the limb away and a face filled the screen, he barely kept himself from jumping.

“Blublub is no longer here,” said the face.  “You can talk to me now.  My name is Blup.”  It was really more than that, but that's what Stanton settled on.  It wasn't as long as the titles that Blublub and Bublup and Plublub gave themselves though, so Stanton thought there was a good chance that this wasn't an Acquisitor.  He also noticed that this Maker was the usual beige, so he hadn't made the change.

“Hello Blup,” said Stanton.  “Is Blublub dead, then?”

“Yes,” said Blup.  “You no longer need to fear us.”  He glanced off screen, probably at the forward viewport.  “And neither does the Prime.  Can you tell it that?”

Stanton shook his head.  “No, Blup.  We've told you.  It doesn't work that way.  Your safest bet is to not do any more shooting.”

“We won't,” said Blup quickly.  “None of us wanted to do it anyway.  Just the Acquisitors.”

“Good,” said Stanton.  “Did you kill anyone besides Blublub?”

“Just a few who foolishly tried to defend him.”

“All right,” said Stanton.  “It couldn't be helped, I guess.”  He shrugged.  “I might as well fill you in on what else has been happening while you've been busy.”  Blup listened avidly as Stanton told him about Bublup being killed by his guards.  “You were shooting at us then,” he said, “and I think the fear overcame them.”

“Did they change?” asked Blup.

“Change?”

“Yes.  I mean, did they change color?  Did they look different?”

“No,” said Stanton.  “They were using their beaks to cut up the body, but they looked pretty normal otherwise.”  While Blup thought about that, Stanton said, “Someone who did change though, is Plub.  He looks completely different.”

“Plub,” said Blup.  “Yes.  The negotiator.  You say he has made the Change?”

“If that's what you call it.  His back is darker and he just looks more dangerous.”

“Yes,” said Blup, “that's the Change.”

“Very well,” said Stanton.  “All we know is he seems to have killed almost everybody on the station, and he keeps talking about a Great Cutting.”

“The Great Cutting?  It has begun?”

“I don't know about that, other than what he's said.”

Blup rubbed his upper hands together.  “If the Great Cutting has begun, then there is much to do.”  He looked around, then back at Stanton.  “I must meet with Plub.  We need him to lead us into the knives.  You must arrange for us to meet.”

“I'd be careful if I were you,” said Stanton.  “I think he killed the last people you sent over.  He asked us to get you to send more prey, as he put it.”

Blup's avatar showed awe and reverence.  “He truly is in the exalted state,” he said.  “It might be best if we talk by radio first, to give him time to acknowledge me.”

“Sure,” said Stanton.  “I'll put you in touch with his exaltedness.  Meanwhile, can you take Bublup's killers off our hands?  It's probably best if they face Maker justice for their crime.”

“Certainly,” said Blup.  “But they're not criminals.  They're heroes of the new order.”

“Of course they are,” said Stanton.  “We'll bring them over, then.  We'll get them to bag up Bublup's remains too, and bring them along.”

“No need,” said Blup.  “We don't need Bublup's remains for anything.”

“Don't you do a service for the dead?”

“Not for the likes of him.”

Stanton nodded.  “Fine,” he said.  “We'll send it along anyway.  It's no use to us.”  He turned to talk to Plub.

“Wait,” said Blup.  “If you please, do you know why we've lost contact with our moon?”

“Lost contact?”

“Yes.  We can't seem to connect with the satellite any more.”

“Why don't you try something else?”

Blup's avatar was sheepish.  “We don't have anything else.  Blublub paid for time on the satellite, and he said that was enough.”

“He let you come out here with no redundancy?”  Stanton held up his hands.  “Don't answer that.”  He shook his head.  “Maybe that's where the Prime's other modules went.  The ones that are missing.”

“Do you think they destroyed the satellite?  Why?”

“Maybe somebody shot at them.  Do you think someone might have done that?”

“Yes,” said Blup, looking down.  “What else do you think they might have destroyed?”

“I think that would depend on how long they were being shot at.  How long do you think that might be?”

“I don't know,” said Blup.  “There are many different people, with many different allegiances.  It could go on for a long time.”

“Well, I hope you're wrong,” said Stanton.  “And now let me talk to Plub and arrange a meeting for you.  And we'll send over your people, too.”

“There's hardly anyone shooting at us any more, but we've noticed a big balloon.”

“What's it doing?” asked Stanton.

“It looks like it's rising up to the launcher,” said Buzzard.

“We can't let them launch any more vessels.”

“Do you want us to shoot it down?”  You could tell that Buzzard didn't like the sound of that.

“No,” said Stanton.  “We'll just stop them from using the launcher.”

“You want us to shoot that down?”  Even worse.

“No,” said Stanton.  “If you take out one balloon, then the track won't be straight, right?  They won't be able to use it.”

“Right,” said Buzzard, “okay.  Okay.  Right.  We can do that.  That's what we'll do.”

“It will keep their casualties to a minimum.”

“That's right.  That's good.  That's what we want,” said Buzzard.

“It is,” said Stanton.  He had already told Buzzard what happened with the armada, and now he had a question.  “The Makers here are curious about why they've lost contact with home.  What are you hearing there?”

“They keep trying,” said Buzzard.  “No messages, though.  They're not sending messages.  They just keep trying to make contact.”

“Good,” said Stanton.  “Let me know when they give up.”

“Okay,” said Buzzard.  “That's what we want, isn't it?  Give up?  We want them to give up.”

“That's right.  The Makers here think the Prime is doing who-knows-what there, and we want the ones there to wonder if their armada has been destroyed here.  We want them to think there's no point in carrying on.”

“We want to break their spirit.”  Buzzard didn't sound as if he relished the idea.

“I know it sounds cruel, Buzzard, but it's better than the alternatives.  You didn't see Plub.  We don't want to deal with these people if they all become warlike.  We would really have to hurt them then.”

“I know,” said Buzzard.  “This is the least bad option.  Least bad.”

“Yes it is,” said Stanton.  “Good luck.  Keep us informed.”

Transferring Bublup's remains and his guards to the Makers' ships went smoothly.  Taking no chances, they had the guards do up their suits, then they netted them again and transported them by hand.  If they resented it, they didn't let on.  They cycled them in through the airlock in three sets of two, stuffing the bag full of Bublup's parts in with the last set.  As they were flying back to the Ball, they saw the Makers throw the bag of parts back out, along with another bag, presumably containing the remains of Blublub.  When they had drifted a safe distance away, the Makers shot them.  Of course, the two weapons used for that were immediately destroyed by the Prime's vessels.

“Make them stop!” said Blup.  “Make them stop shooting!”  There was an alarm sounding and green lights were pulsing everywhere.

“Why did you do that, Blup?” asked Stanton.  “You know the Prime doesn't like that.”

“It wasn't us.  It was one of Bublup's guards.  They surprised us.”

Stanton nodded, remembering the terror they'd endured not long ago.  “Well, get control of your people, or there's no telling what the Prime might do.  How bad is the damage?  Will you be all right?”

“Yes.  It's reparable.”  He glanced behind him, where the guard was being brutally subdued.  “It won't happen again.”

“It had better not,” said Stanton sternly.  “I don't know why the Prime isn't just blasting you all to pieces.  And worse, what if it decides to turn on us, too?”

“I'm sorry,” said Blup.  “It wasn't my fault.”

“You wanted to be in charge, Blup.  From now on, everything is going to be blamed on you.”

Blup looked abashed, but then firmed up.  “I understand,” he said.  “And it won't happen again.”

“Good,” said Stanton.  “And about time, too.”  He was reassured by the abject expression on Blup's avatar.  “Okay,” he said, “enough of that.  We got hold of Plub, and he's willing to talk to you.”

Watching them talk was awkward, even uncomfortable.  The way Blup and his crew looked at Plub, the attention they paid him, could only be called obsequious.  They appeared to be doing an eight-limbed, microgravity version of genuflecting.  A hairless form of tugging the forelock.  And Plub basked in it, as if it were his due.

In time the talk turned to the Great Cutting.  Plub wanted to go home and lead it.  He would arrive in the midst of the chaos and mayhem, and the people would rally around him and follow him to glory.  Blup and the others thought it was an inspired idea.  The armada would take him home and triumphantly deliver him to his people.  Together they would be the shining star that would lead the Maker people on to the greatness that had always beckoned.

Fran turned away and shuddered.  Elgin looked as if he was going to be sick.  Stanton shook his head in disgust and pushed into the celebration.  “Plub,” he said.  “Plub.  Hey Plub!”

The mighty warrior finally heard him and crossly deigned to look.  “What?” he said.  “Stannie, isn't it?”

“Yes, Plub.  It's Stanton.  I just have a couple of questions.”

“Very well,” said Plub.  “You have been loyal and true, even though you are aliens.  You may speak.”

“Thank you,” said Stanton, without a trace of sarcasm.  “First, it will take several days to get there.  How long can you maintain this exalted state?”

Plub hesitated, but only briefly.  “In the company of my followers, and on such a mission, I can stay this way indefinitely.  As long as it takes to win victory.”  His followers cheered and shouted praise.

“Okay,” said Stanton, “but what will you find once you get there?  In a few days, the Great Cutting could be over.  The people might have found another hero.”

“Never!” Plub shouted.  All the Makers loudly agreed.

“Wouldn't there be other Makers who have made the change?  Couldn't they be rallying followers right now?”

Their reaction made the truth of that plain.  They began to lose their assurance.  Blup tried to sustain their flagging fervor.  “If they do, then we will crush them when we get there.  The plain truth of Plub's ascendency will sweep them away.”  But it wasn't doing the trick.  Even Plub began to lose his confidence.

“What do you suggest, then?” he asked haughtily.  “Should we just give up and live out here like hermits?”

“Not at all,” said Stanton.  “I'm suggesting that you use your position to your advantage.  You might be far from home, but you're close to the Prime.”

Plub stopped and looked away.  There were no viewports in the communications room on the station, but there might as well have been.  The way Plub looked now, you could tell he was seeing the Prime in his mind's eye.  “Yes,” he said slowly.  “Yes,” again, more firmly, his people beginning to respond.  “We can use that.  When the people see that the Prime is mine, they will come to me.”  He looked back at them.  “Plub, Master of the Prime, will lead the people into a new age of enlightenment.”  His followers cheered and began to chant, “Plub, Master of the Prime!”

Stanton looked at Fran and rolled his eyes.  She laughed, glancing at the monitor to see if Plub heard.  He was oblivious, wallowing in adulation.  She said, “I hope you know what you're doing.”

Stanton shrugged.  “He's going to be like this anyway.  We might as well let him think we're on his side.”

She nodded.  “We're not going to interfere,” she insisted.

“We won't have to.  The Great Cutting will run its course, and then we'll deal with whoever's left.”  He tipped his head at the monitor.  “Most likely him, since he's safe out here.”

She nodded again, slowly.  “I hope this is over soon,” she said.  “I want my old Plub back.”

Fifty-Two – A Mat Divided

It turned out there were three other exalted ones, and the Maker world found itself divided up into a trilateral power structure.  Two of them happened to be on the same mat, so their forces inevitably clashed in a big “meeting of the knives.”  It was long and it was gruesome, and Fran was glad that she only had to hear about it after it was all over.  That left two charismatic leaders with roughly equal numbers of avid followers, ready to spend the rest of their lives fighting for total domination.

Maria and Buzzard could see some evidence of the conflict, but not much, and nothing definitive.  Most of what they learned was from the sporadic bits of radio traffic they were able to pick up.  The Makers had given up completely on communicating with their satellite, and if they had other means of reaching the armada and the laser station, they weren't using them.  They seemed to be focused entirely on the Great Cutting taking place on the ground.  It was after the first great battle, in a confused hiatus before the remaining two factions could find a way to get at each other, that Stanton asked Buzzard to stop blocking the satellite.

After several weeks of babysitting Plub, Master of the Prime, talking him down every time he wanted to go home and join in the glory of the Great Cutting, it was a relief to be able to tell him that the satellite was back on line and he could talk to his people.  He eagerly lunged at the chance.

Stanton was right.  Plub's proximity to the Prime did turn out to be a powerful motivator.  The majority of Makers weren't directly involved in the fighting.  Most of them were just trying to carry on, to keep things functioning in spite of the madness erupting all around them.  Some were taken as slaves to serve the opposing interests of the combatants, and many were simply victims of blind violence.  When they heard Plub's voice coming from the heavens, and saw his exalted image against a background filled with the awesome sight of the Prime, they were ready to be moved.

Plub called upon them to rise up and destroy their masters.  Bring down those false prophets of the past, and follow him into a new age, where they could take their rightful place among the stars.  They listened to him, and many more Makers met their end in chaos and confusion.  The mobs managed to overwhelm one of the two remaining forces, the one already weakened in defeating its enemy, but the other resisted, safe and secure in its redoubt.

Plub's army laid siege and the war settled into a long, tedious waiting game.  Occasionally, to break the monotony, fighters would come charging out of the fortifications and engage in a frenzied bout of slaying.  Mostly though, nothing much happened at all.  The stronghold was on the coast, in a very defensible position.  There didn't seem to be any reason why it couldn't persist indefinitely.

Even though association with the Prime did give Plub a certain amount of cachet, it could also be used against him by his adversaries.  They insinuated that he had an unhealthy relationship with the aliens.  The same aliens who had sent ships to attack their world.  He claimed to be the Prime's master, but he was really the aliens' lackey.  Hadn't he turned on his own people at their bidding?  If he truly was Master of the Prime and such a great hero, then why was he hiding behind them?  Why wasn't he down here fighting his own battles?

The propaganda campaign was working.  It began to undermine the loyalties of the people fighting for Plub.  More importantly, it tweaked his pride.  He made an immediate decision to go home.  He would leave the safety of his lofty perch, and he would personally lead his people on the battlefield.

Not even Fran could talk him out of it.  It was no use trying to tell him that he was being manipulated.  He only saw such attempts as her own sneaky manipulations.  He declared that he'd always known that comet people couldn't speak the plain, simple truth.  He said he should never have listened to them, and swore that he never would again.  To the delight of Blup and the rest of the armada crew, and to the delirious joy of his followers back home, Plub set out on the road to honor and glory.

The excitement and anticipation were high.  Plub's army thought that his presence would make all the difference, and they threw themselves into renewed attacks on the redoubt.  Before he even got there, another ten thousand had died, mostly his people throwing themselves futilely against impregnable defences.  His opponent laughed and sneered, calling him a soft plaything of an alien female.  He knew that his insults and goading were driving Plub and his minions to reckless folly.  If he could keep it up, then their strength would be spent, and he could go out and vanquish them.  Then the world would be his.  After that it would be a simple matter to kill the aliens and lay claim to the Prime and its riches.

It was a surprise to everyone when Plub arrived and called his people back.  They retreated from the walls, pulling back to a radius of about five kilometers.  There they settled, establishing permanent encampments, and it looked as if they intended to do nothing but wait.  It seemed like a futile strategy.  Plub's hordes outnumbered those of his rival.  In open battle they would be an irresistible force.  Meanwhile, his foe's fortifications were unassailable.  He would not be moved.  So this siege looked like a poor strategy.

Fran was of two minds about it.  At least now there weren't thousands of people throwing away their lives in pointless fighting.  On the other hand, it wasn't doing anything to help the cause of the comet people either.  They were stuck here as long as this situation remained unresolved.  To be sure, they could start up the laser array and begin the long journey home.  But without a pact, or at least an understanding with the Makers, they would be vulnerable to simple sabotage.  Like it or not, they needed this war to be over.  Then they had to deal with whoever won it.

It was during one of the lulls that Buzzard noticed it.  The siege had settled back into a pattern of long periods of boring inactivity, punctuated by brief spells of frenzied killing.  To pass the time, he trained his telescope on the conflict zone.  Not that he could see any details, but he could make out the fortifications and a kind of ring that hemmed them in.  He surmised that the ring was the encampments of Plub's army, imprisoning his enemy against the sea.  To him it was a static tableau that looked as if it would never change.  But then it did.

“It's moving!” he said.  Then he opened his link to Stanton and said it again.  “It's moving!”

“Buzzard, this is the Ball,” said Stanton after a few seconds.  “What's moving?”

“Stanton, it's moving,” said Buzzard.  “The fort.  The one under siege.  It's moving.”

“How is it moving, Buzzard?” asked Stanton.

“It's moving away from the mat.  Or rather, it's not moving in the same direction as the mat.  They're both moving, but they're not moving the same way.”  Buzzard kept trying to say it right, and kept just missing.

“You mean they're separating?”

“Yes!”

Stanton was silent.  If he spoke, it would only be to ask how that could be, and he was sure Buzzard wouldn't be able to tell him anyway.  Finally he asked, “Can you tell how quickly they're separating?”

“Not exactly,” said Buzzard.  “The numbers I've got from the telescope so far aren't smooth.  They're variable.”

“But there's enough of a trend to say they're separating?”

“Yes,” said Buzzard.  “Just barely.  Anyway, for the numbers to be different, they can't be connected any more, can they?”

“I suppose not,” said Stanton.  “What about Maria?  Can she see it from her current position?”

Buzzard did a quick calculation.  “Not quite,” he said.  “In a few minutes, though.”  So they waited, Buzzard continuing to watch his telescope's numbers.  Slowly they formed a trend.  The part of the mat that was isolated by Plub's army was definitely moving differently from the rest of the mat.  But Buzzard still couldn't see enough detail to confirm it visually.

Maria could, though.  “You're right, Buzzard,” she said.  “I can see a gap there.”  She was quiet for a moment, then said, “It goes all the way around.  It starts at the coast, then it forms a circle, or half of one, with a radius of about five kilometers, and ends at the coast again.”  After another silence she said, “I can see water.  I'm catching glimpses of water as the gap opens and closes.  It seems to match the period of the ocean's long swells.”

“So they are separated,” said Stanton.  “And all the way down to the water, too.”  He asked them, “Have you seen anything that would indicate that this is a natural phenomenon?  Are there any other similar chunks of mat floating free?”

“There is other stuff,” said Maria.  “Other bits of debris here and there.  But nothing like this.  It's too regular.  Almost a perfect semicircle.”

She kept a close eye on it, until it disappeared behind the bulge of the moon again.  She noticed that the gap would open up and then close again, almost rhythmically.  She would see the water shining in between, then lose it again.  The period of this rhythm matched that of the longest ocean swells.  As that part of the mat rose up the swell, the gap opened up, closing as it went down the other side.  It wasn't completely symmetrical, though.  Looking closely she could see that the gap was getting gradually bigger, and not closing as snugly either.  By the time she lost sight of it, she was sure the ten kilometer wide plug of mat was destined to break free eventually.

“The question is,” said Stanton, “who cut it free?”  They were waiting for Maria to come around again, where she could see what was happening.

“Right,” said Elgin.  “I think we can assume that someone did.  That feels right.  So, was it cut by the attackers or the defenders?”

“The defenders,” said Archie.  “To get away.”

“The attackers,” said Nigel. “To get rid of them.”

Even though the discussion continued, and they analyzed the possibilities in fine detail, it always came back to those two hypotheses.  Escape or banishment.  But Stanton had an argument against both of them, and it was basically the same argument.  Neither side would want to do it because it would remove the opportunity for more fighting.  The Great Cutting would be over, and Stanton couldn't see any Makers opting to conclude it on such an anticlimactic note.

“It's free!” said Buzzard.  “Oh, sorry.  I mean, Ball, this is Buzzard, over.”

“Go ahead Buzzard,” said Stanton.

“It's free.  It's broken free,” he said.  “The gap kept getting wider, and as soon as it was halfway out, it came free.”

“No chance, of it going back in?” asked Stanton.

“No,” said Buzzard.  “Well, of course there's a chance.  There's always a chance. That's how probabilities work.  There's always a finite probability for every outcome.  It's just that some probabilities . . .”  He wrestled his prattling to a halt.

“I get you, Buzzard,” said Stanton.  “The probability of this plug of mat blundering back into the hole is infinitesimal, right?”

“Right.”

“So that's that,” said Stanton.  “It looks as if this war is over, or at least getting there.  What now, I wonder?”

When Maria swung back in sight of it, she confirmed that the separation was complete.  “They're getting further apart rapidly now.  I guess the small piece is more susceptible to currents than the whole mat is.”

Stanton had nothing to say about that.  He looked at Elgin, who shrugged his shoulders, and they both looked at Fran.  In fact, everyone was looking at Fran.  When she noticed, she laughed.  “Okay,” she said.  “My best guess would just be a guess.  Either Plub cut them off to get rid of them, or they did it themselves to escape.  Right now, we don't have anything to help us decide either way.”  She looked at them all.  “We'll just have to wait until Plub calls, and then we can ask him.”

Fifty-Three – Stranded

“We killed thousands!”  Plub was jubilant.  “Thousands!”  His avatar was grinning.  “The battlefield was littered with the writhing limbs of our enemies.”

Fran forced herself to not look away.  “Congratulations, Plub,” she said.

“What's wrong?” asked Plub.  “Why aren't you happy?  We won!”  He spread his arms triumphantly, the severed one nearly completely regrown.

“I am happy for you, Plub” she said.  “I'm happy it's over.  I'm glad you won.”

“Oh,” he said when he got it, the pause a little longer than the radio delay of several seconds.  “This is about the violence, isn't it?  The 'unnecessary' violence.”

“I'm afraid so,” she said.  “It seemed like so many people were dying when they didn't have to.”

Plub's excitement was draining away.  He said, “I told you, Fannie.  You and Ellie.  That's how we are.  That's what we do.”

“I know, Plub.  I know that in my mind.  But emotionally I keep hoping it's not inevitable.”

Plub stared silently for a moment, then said. “Your feelings are separate from your thoughts?”

“Not entirely,” she said.  “We are able to separate them, but it's rare that our thoughts aren't affected by our emotions.”

“Then why . . . Oh, I see.  They're just different enough that you can separate them.”  Another silence.  “We can't.  They're different enough that we can tell them apart, but we can never think without emotions.”

It was Fran's turn to be quiet.  In time she said, “That makes sense, now that you mention it.”

“Yes, it does,” he said.  “That's why it was so hard to do what we did.”

“What you did?”

“Ending the war the way we did.”

“Ah,” said Fran.  “So you did cut them off to end the siege.  We weren't sure if you did it, or they did.”

“It was us.  We wanted to keep fighting.  We wanted the Great Cutting to go on forever, because it feels so good.  But I decided to end it.”

“You did?”  Hope flickered in Fran's stomach.

“Yes,” he said.  “And it was hard.  It was against all my instincts.  And the only reason I could convince my people to do it that way was their unquestioned devotion to an Exalted one.”

Fran looked at Plub wondering.  “But why?  Why did you go against your instincts?”

It was hard to reconcile his avatar's bashful expression with his feral appearance when he said, “I was inspired by you.  By you sophisticated space people.  I wanted to show that we're not completely primitive.”

“So you banished them instead of killing them,” said Fran.  “Now I really do congratulate you.”

“Thank you,” he said, looking proud.

“This has never been done before?”

“No.  At least, there's no record of it.  As far as is known, Great Cuttings always end in a complete breakdown.”

“You've made history, Plub.  This time you'll be able to rebuild without having to start from the ground up.”

“Yes, we can rebuild,” said Plub, “and you can help us.”  His avatar looked hopeful.

“Of course,” said Fran.  “Of course we can help you.  We will help you in whatever way we can.”

“We'll rebuild here, then as soon as we're ready, you can help us get back into space.”

“Certainly,” said Fran.  “We'll help you get back to normal as quickly as possible.”

“With your technology, and with what you know, we can go to space for real,” said Plub.  “Not just into orbit or out to the laser station, but to the stars like you.”

Fran was ready for that.  They'd discussed it.  They guessed that it was inevitable that the Makers would eventually ask them to share their knowledge and technology, so they prepared a position.  She told Plub that the comet people would help them rebuild their society, and help them get back to the level they were at before the Great Cutting.  They would help them regain whatever knowledge had been lost, so they could get back to normal.  And when they were ready for it, the Makers would receive new knowledge and new technology that would help them take the next step.  When they were ready, comet people would help them become true space people.  That seemed to make Plub happy, so Fran changed the subject.  “We're curious, Plub.  We're wondering what's going to happen to the people that you cut off.  Are they going to be okay on that little piece of mat?”

Plub's avatar grinned again.  “That depends,” he said, “on them.  There's enough mat there for that many people to survive.”

“So they should be all right?”

“Yes, depending on what they do.  If they work together they'll have enough resources for everyone.”  Plub's avatar displayed a nasty leer.  “But if they don't work together, then there will be trouble.”

“And you don't think they will cooperate, do you?”

Still leering, Plub said, “That will be up to them.”

Fran said, “If they can't do it there, then they're certainly not ready for extended space travel.”

“No,” said Plub.  “They're not civilized enough.  That's why I cut them off.  I didn't want them spoiling it for the rest of us, making us look bad.”

“Yes,” said Fran.  “That will be a factor in deciding when you're ready.  If you can show that you can get along.”

“Like I did, right?  I showed it by stopping the Great Cutting, didn't I?  I showed that we can get along.  That must show you that we're ready.  That I'm ready.”

Fran was prepared for that, too.  “It's a good sign,” she said.  “It's encouraging that you can show such foresight and restraint, especially in your condition.”

“My condition?”

“Yes.  In your feral state.  I've seen you act rashly and apparently without much thought since you made the change, so this is good to see.”  She made a gentle patting motion.  “But let's take it one step at a time.”

“I don't want to take one step at a time.  I want to do it now.”

“I know you do,” she said, “but let's take care of the rest of it first.  Let's get your society back on its feet.  Then, when you've changed back to normal, we can think about the next step.”

Plub began to get agitated.  “I don't want to get back to normal.  Soft and weak.  I want to go to space, to the stars, now, while I'm strong.”

“I'm afraid that's not possible, Plub.”

“What do you mean it's not possible?”

“I mean we can't do that.”

“You can't?  Or you won't?”  Plub looked as if he was swelling up.

“All right,” said Fran.  “Since you put me on the spot, we won't.”

Plub snapped, “Why not?” his voice rich with a deep growl.

“We will help you take that step when we think you're ready, and not before.”

“But I'm ready now!” Plub shouted.

“No, you're not,” said Fran.

Plub pulled himself up in a righteous outrage.  “Who are you to decide that?  I've shown that I'm ready by stopping the killing.  I stopped a Great Cutting.  No one has ever done that before, so who are you to say I'm not ready?”

“I'm sorry, Plub, but even if you're ready, what about everybody else?  Can you really say that you're ready as a people?”

“Sorry?  You're sorry?  What right have you got to be sorry for me?”  Plub looked almost twice his size now.  “I won the war.  I ended the Great Cutting.”  He spread his arms in a grand sweep.  “I rule the world!”  He glared at her.  “You're the one who's going to be sorry.”

Before he could cut the connection, she said, “Don't do anything rash, Plub.  We can still talk about this.”

“Talk!  All you do is talk.  I'm going to act.  I will take your technology if you won't give it to me, and I will go to space whether you want me to or not.”

He killed the connection before she could stop him this time, and it was over.  Fran was left replaying the conversation in her mind, wondering what she could have done differently.  Whether she could have done something that wouldn't have ended in blatant threats.

“You had no choice,” said Winston.

“That's right,” said Minder.  “You had to tell him.  We agreed that you had to tell them clearly that we wouldn't give them access to technology before they were ready for it.”

“I know,” said Fran, “but it's different once you do it, and you realize that you might have just stranded yourself here.”

“We all knew it might happen,” said Elgin, “and we were all prepared to accept the consequences.”

“That's right,” said Stanton, and everyone else agreed.  “We went into this with our eyes open.  From the very beginning, before we even started out, we all knew we might not be coming back.”  He put his hand on her shoulder.  “You did the right thing and we all support you completely.”

“I know,” said Fran.  “I know all that.  But I can't help but feel that it might have turned out differently if I had handled it better.”  She looked around the Square, wondering if she would ever get back there, to breathe its air and smell its smells.

“Of course you do,” said Elgin, putting his arm around her waist.  “That's what you do.  And if it had ended better, and Plub hadn't ended up threatening us, you still would have been thinking about how you might have done it even better.”

They all agreed emphatically, and when she looked at them they were grinning at her.  She laughed.  “I do, don't I?”

They nodded and Elgin said, “Uh-huh, and that's one of the things we love about you.”

She looked at him, grateful and a little abashed.  “I'm fussing unnecessarily, aren't I?”

“Fussing, yes,” said Elgin.  “Unnecessarily, no.”

Nodding all around, then Winston said, “It's not really as bad as all that anyway, is it?  Even without their help you can still reactivate the laser array and get out of there.”

“That's true,” she said.

Stanton said, “The problem with that is that they can come out here and turn it off again.”

“But they can't turn off the other ones,” said Winston, “so you can still get home.  The only problem is, depending on when they turned that one off, the first leg might be a long one.”

“You're right,” she said.  “It's not an impossible situation.  I would just hate to leave here with bad feelings between us.  I don't like the idea of absconding and leaving them in a bad way.”

“They're the ones causing the bad feelings,” said Minder.  “You tried hard to make it work.  You've done everything you could.  They're just not ready.”

She nodded, saying, “The way this has worked out, I wonder if we're ready.”

“You could wonder that about anyone, I bet,” said Elgin.  “I think that we're not perfect, but we're ready enough.  And the Makers are definitely not.  I hate to imagine what might happen if they came to the comets and then something set them off.”

That was something that required no debate and no second guessing.  They couldn't allow these dangerous and unpredictable people to become a threat to the existence of the comet people.  They couldn't give them the opportunity to finish what their ancestors had begun millennia ago.  If that meant being stuck here with them, perhaps never to get home again, then so be it.  It was a price they were glad to pay.

Fifty-Four - Savage Joy

The metal and ceramic arm reached out and seized the piece of rubbish, a section of thorax, from the look of it.  It was tied onto the daisy chain of body parts that Scarface was pulling behind him as he cleaned up the station.  This was the last piece of Maker in the habitat, so he headed for the cargo bay.  That was the only place that had an airlock big enough to handle all this material in one cycle.

He pulled his grisly burden out into space, and jetted away on the vector in his orders.  Orders that came to him in the same way as ever, and that he didn't question any more than he ever had.  When he reached the prescribed speed, he released his load and turned back to the station without a backward glance.  He had no curiosity about the purpose of this chore, or about the fate of the remains of the erstwhile Makers.  He didn't know the significance of the gas giant, Air, in Maker mythology, and it would have meant nothing to him to learn that it would be the final destination of this string of mortal remains.  For Scarface the rubbish was out, and now he had to get back to tidying up.

There was a lot to do.  The first order of business was to begin training in the operation of the station.  It wasn't much like his duties on the Prime, but not that different either.  His trainer would control his body, showing him what to do, then he would add the task to his routine.  Slowly he built up the collection of skills he would need to maintain the laser station single-handed.  He would have to work alone because all the Makers who remained alive after Plub's rampage would have gone with him on his mission.  Scarface wasn't lonely and he didn't resent being left alone with all the work.

Once his essential duties were under control, he began a thorough cleaning.  Soon the entire station gleamed, with not a trace of carnage left behind, and all systems were functioning at peak efficiency.  Now, except when his handler checked in with new orders, Scarface spent his days in maintenance mode.  It would have been blissful, had he been capable of feeling bliss.

Today though, he was being taken to the communications module.  He knew he didn't have any duties there.  There was no equipment that needed tending, and it was days before the next scheduled cleaning and inspection.  None of that mattered to Scarface, though.  He went where he was taken and, for now, forgot about his normal routine.

On the console he could see some activity.  In addition to the normal lights indicating equipment functioning in standby mode, there was a pair of lights showing radio transmissions being sent and received.  There was no one here using the radio, which must mean that two other parties were communicating through this station.  On the monitor Scarface could see one of them.  It was one of the eight-limbed creatures.  The ones that were constructed on the same pattern he was.  He could recognize the sounds it was making, which matched the movements of the image on the monitor.  The other sounds, made in reply, were coming from one of the four-limbed creatures, the ones who were presently controlling him.  But they were just sounds.  There was no accompanying image.

Soon the conversation stopped, and not long after that the airlock indicator lit up.  It went through its cycle and Scarface could hear and feel that someone had entered the station.  That person was coming this way.  He could tell by subtle currents in the air, and by the increasing volume of their speech noises.  They were saying, though he didn't understand it, “Where are you?”  The voice was rich with growls and hisses and expressive flutterings.  “I'm here,” it said.  “Where is my Fannie?”

“I'm in here,” called Scarface, but it wasn't his voice.  He didn't have a voice of his own, since it wasn't required in his original occupation.

Plub swept into the communications room accompanied by two other Makers.  He looked around, his eyes brushing right over Scarface.  “Where?” he said.  “Where are you?”

“Here,” said the robot.  “I'm right here, Plub.”

He located the sound and stared at Scarface in disbelief.  “Fannie?” he said.  “But you said . . . I came all the way out here because you said you wanted to meet in person.”

“I know, Plub,” said Fran through her mechanical avatar.  “And I still do.  This is just a first step in that direction.”

Plub was momentarily speechless.  He couldn't believe he'd been tricked.  That she had tricked him.  While his attendants waited impassively, he struggled to find his voice.  When he found it all he could say was, “You tricked me.”

She said, “I know Plub, and I'm sorry.  I hope you can believe me when I say that I really do look forward to coming together in person.”  Her words were coming from Scarface, but there was no other activity there.  The limbs didn't move to indicate expression.  There was no fluttering at the sides of the face, nor undulations in the dome above the eyes.  Nigel did manage to keep the eyes on Plub, so there was at least that nominal contact.  It gave him something to focus on while they talked.

“I thought that you meant to meet in person this time,” he said.  “How can I believe you now?”

“I apologize for deceiving you,” said Fran.  “It's just that I really wanted you to come back out here.  There is so much we need to talk about, but I was too afraid to meet in person yet.”

“Afraid?”  Plub seemed genuinely wounded.  “You don't have to be afraid of me.”

“I know you feel that now, but you could change any time.”  Her voice was calm, reasonable, placating.  “I could say one little thing and you'd go off.  You could kill me in a few seconds.”  She finished firmly.  “As long as you're like this, I can't trust you.”

“Trust?  You lied to me, and now you want to talk about trust?”  Plub was starting to puff up again.  His indignation was making him look bigger and more dangerous.  “How can I ever trust you again?”

“I think you'll learn,” said Fran.  “Once you change back to normal, and you're not so volatile, you'll understand why I had to do this.”

“Normal?  Weak, you mean.  You want me to be weak because I frighten you when I'm strong.  You're just afraid.”

“That's what I've been trying to tell you, Plub.  You scare me when you're like this.  You're violent and unpredictable.  That's why I can't be in the same room with you.”

Plub hesitated.  When you insulted the enemy, called them a coward, they weren't supposed to agree.  They were supposed to insult you back, and then you could follow the natural path of escalating epithets and eventual fighting.  But this alien female wasn't doing that.  She was admitting that she was afraid.  Was this another trick?  Was she trying to make a fool of him again?  He glared at the robot, standing there so innocently.  Was it mocking him?  “Maybe I should give you something to be afraid of,” he said.  “Maybe I should come over there with my ships and we can have our talk there.”  He adopted a threatening posture, his hand on the hilt of his machete, in its ceremonial scabbard.  His guards emulated him, half drawing their own machetes.

Fran sighed.  “Oh, Plub,” she said.  “That won't solve anything.  Remember what the Prime did when Blublub tried that.”

He did remember.  Blublub was blinded by greed and ambition and he didn't pay attention to the warnings.  In the end it cost him his life when his own people turned on him.  But if that was supposed to scare Plub off, it didn't work.  He wasn't like Blublub, and his followers weren't like Blublub's people.  Plub was exalted and his followers would never betray him.  He pulled his machete out and approached Scarface, who didn't move.  “The Prime would never do that to me,” he said.  “I am Plub, Master of the Prime.”

Fran sighed again.  “Okay, Plub,” she said, “we'll try again later.”  The last thing she saw as she cut the connection was an enraged Exalted Maker raising his machete.

“I hope he didn't hurt Scarface,” said Fran to no one in particular.

Nigel said, “I'm still getting readings from him.  His accelerometers did register a pretty hard shock just after you hung up, but he still seems to be functioning normally.”

“That's good,” she said.  “I feel guilty sending him in there to face that.”

The Doctor quirked an eyebrow at her.  “You know what they say about people who attribute feelings to machines.”

“I know,” she said, laughing.  “But he's cute, and he works so hard and never complains.”

“I know what you mean,” said Galatea, surprising everyone.  “What?” she said.  “You don't think I appreciate a good worker?”

Stanton said, “You've never given much indication with live ones.”

While everyone laughed, Galatea said, “None of them has ever measured up.  If it's not smudges and smears on the work, then they're showing up late.  Or,” she added indignantly, “they need a day off to go to a wedding.”

“That happened once,” said Stanton, “and it was their own wedding.”  Everyone knew this story, but they laughed anyway.

“I don't care,” she said.  “That would never happen with Scarface, would it?”

“I don't suppose it would,” said Stanton, thinking.  Then he said, “You're not finished fixing the damage on the balls yet, are you?  Would you like to try out one of the Prime's other robots there?  See how it goes?”

She looked at him, pure delight on her face.  “Yes!” she said.  “Yes, I would.”

When Plub next talked to them, Galatea was out on the front of the Ball with her new worker, as pleased as could be.  The worker, which didn't have a name because she didn't believe in naming machines, was more than satisfactory.  It learned quickly, worked diligently and never complained.  They had to modify its feet because magnets don't work on ice.  With setae, it could move and hang on with its four feet, leaving its four hands free.  It was working out well and Galatea was pleased.  They could hear her humming out there alongside her new favorite worker.

She refused to come in as the armada approached.  “They won't shoot,” she said.  “They wouldn't dare.  They know what will happen if they do.”

“You don't know that, Gay,” said Stanton.  “They're Makers led by an Exalted one, and he thinks he's the Master of the Prime.”

“I don't care,” she said.  “Even he couldn't be that crazy.”

“Yes he could!” he said.  Then he threw up his hands.  “That's it.  I'm coming out there.”

“You won't change my mind,” she said, humming contentedly.

“I wouldn't think of it,” he said.  “I'm going to give you a hand.  If you're going to get yourself killed, then I might as well keep you company.”

The armada pulled up a few hundred meters away, about where they were last time.  It was faced by two scouts and two modules.  The Prime's vessels were outnumbered by Plub's ships, but they were bigger, faster, more maneuverable and better armed.  Anyone who remembered what happened last time knew that it could be over in seconds, with the armada destroyed, should the Prime's guardians so choose.  The only question was how much damage Plub could do before his fleet was destroyed.

Once everything was in place, Fran's monitor indicated that there was an incoming call.  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her face setting into very businesslike lines.  When she opened the connection she saw Plub, and standing next to him, Scarface.  The first thing she noticed was Scarface's new injury.  He had a vee-shaped dent near the top of his dome.  He didn't seem to notice it, and Nigel said he was functioning normally.  Oddly, it seemed to give him more character.

There was something different about Plub, too.  It was more subtle than Scarface's new dent, but once you noticed it, you couldn't ignore it.  The ocher color on his back was a little lighter, and his markings were less vivid.  His appearance was less striking and he appeared smaller and less dangerous.  Could it be that the Exalted one was changing back to normal?

Fran caught herself before she could say anything.  She intuitively realized that this might be traumatic for Plub.  Hadn't he said several times that he hated his normal existence?  She fell back on formality, planning to feel her way through.  “Greetings, Plub,” she said.  “To what do we owe the pleasure of this call?”

“Greetings Fannie, and all comet people,” said Plub.  His avatar looked self-conscious and nervous.  “We come on a mission of peace and friendship.”  They could see how hard it was for him to say that.  “To begin what I hope will be a long and prosperous relationship.”

Those were just the sorts of things your enemy might say when they were setting you up for betrayal, and Fran knew that.  On the other hand, Plub was nervous and awkward and uncomfortable, not sneaky and sly.  But maybe he was nervous because he was being sneaky.  She decided to play along while she learned more.  “Greetings Plub and all Maker people,” she said.  “We welcome you in the same spirit.”

Plub relaxed a little then.  Was it because he was being sincere, or because the subterfuge was working?  What he said next decided it for Fran.  He said, “I wanted to start over again.”  He pointed at Scarface.  “I knew it as soon as I hit the robot.  At least, I began to know it.”

Fran relaxed too.  He did want to start over.  Somehow she could just tell.  Whether it was the avatar, or maybe she was learning how to read him better, she knew he was being sincere.  She said, “Tell me about it, Plub.”

So he began his story.  It was not very well told, since Makers weren't used to storytelling.  Their normal way of speaking was much more plain and terse.  But he persisted, and she admired him for that.  He told them how the savage joy of chopping Scarface was immediately mixed up with an unfamiliar feeling of regret.  He didn't understand it, but he stopped his guards from emulating his attack and saved Scarface from any further injury.  Then came a time of alternating rage and . . . was it shame?  Some kind of self-reproach anyway.  One moment he would be swollen with indignation, and the next with deep embarrassment.  He would be justifying his anger at the comet people, then he would be remembering all the good things they'd done.

“You were always fair to me,” he said.  “Ellie helped me escape when I was going to be executed.”  He turned and looked at Scarface.  “Even the robot helped.”  He turned back to Fran.  “But especially you, Fannie.  You were always kind and generous, even when I treated you badly.”  He stopped, exhausted from the unaccustomed effort.

“Of course I was, because you deserved it.  As far as I was concerned, I was still talking to the Plub that I've known for over a year.”  She tilted her head and smiled at him.  “I knew that you were swept up in your biological imperative, so I just waited and hoped for the best.”

“I can see now that that must have been hard for you,” said Plub.  “I couldn't see it then.  Even now it sometimes slips away as my feral nature rises.”  He did a shoulderless Maker shrug.  “It's a good thing you're not like us, or you'd have destroyed us as worthless primitives long ago.”  He curled slightly forward, looking down at the floor.  “We don't deserve your attention, much less your mercy.”  His avatar showed the effort required to make that admission, fighting the proud vanity still ascendant in his Exalted body.

Fran noticed and her admiration for him increased.  If he could do that under these circumstances, then maybe there was hope for these people after all.  “You should know us by now, Plub.  We abhor unnecessary violence, remember?  We were certainly ready to defend ourselves if necessary, but there was never any question of arbitrarily destroying you.”  When he continued to look down, fighting his raging emotions, she added, “We came all this way hoping to find the people who sent the Visitor, and we found you.  We would never waste anything so precious.”

Fifty-Five – A Pretty Puzzle

Buzzard said, “It was long, but not too long.”  He looked at Maria and they grinned.  “Not long enough, though,” he said.  Everyone on both sides of the window was grinning.  Even Galatea.

She said, “It's about time you came back.  We haven't had a decent game of flashball in over a year.”

He laughed a Buzzard laugh, loose and easy.  “We'll fix that,” he said.  “I'm ready to play.  Ready.”

“What was the longest part?” asked Stanton.  “Was it getting there?  That was pretty long.”

Maria looked at Buzzard and he lifted his chin at her, so she picked it up.  “No,” she said.  “Sure, it was long, but everything was new.  Just flying those things was enough to keep us interested for the first while.”  From the look on her face they could tell that she was reliving it.  “Then there was the star.  We swung so close to it that we could see its photosphere writhing in the magnetic fields.”

“We saw the pictures,” said Fran, “but that's nothing like being there.”

“No,” said Maria.  “After that came another fairly long leg as we went back out to the planet.  To Air.  But that was fine too, because we were getting closer to the Maker world all the time.”

“So you were learning new things every day,” said Fran.

“Almost,” said Maria.  “After we got there we had all those braking maneuvers to get us into the right orbit.”  She and Buzzard grinned at the memory.  “That was just fun,” she said, while he laughed.  Then her face got serious.  “That's when it looked like we were going to be late.  After all that, late by a day or two.”

“When they launched their armada,” said Fran.

“Yes.  But that turned out okay after all.  Then came the longest part.  After we set up in orbit around their moon, and after the surveys and all that, then came the waiting.”

“While they had their wars and whatnot.”

“That's right,” said Maria.  “We knew it was important and everything, but it just went on and on.  The Makers kept fighting and fighting, long after there was any point to it.”

“If there ever was.”

“Exactly.  So, that's why that was the longest part.”  She and Fran nodded.

“Well,” said Stanton, “it worked out pretty much the way we planned it.  It was a good job well done, you guys.”

As everyone on both sides of the window joined in, Buzzard and Maria accepted their praise, holding hands.

The Doctor said, “That was a good strategy, wasn't it?”

“Tactic,” said Nigel.  “I think that's a tactic.”

“What's the difference?” said the Doctor.

“The strategy was the whole big plan,” said Nigel, “and that tactic was part of it.  They're similar, but different.  At least, that's the way I understand it.”

“I guess I see,” said the Doctor.

“Yes,” said Nigel.  “The strategy is the big, elaborate overall plan.  The tactic is one part of the strategy.”  He looked around at all the others for confirmation, and got a lot of shrugs and upturned palms.

The Doctor said, “Where do you learn this stuff, anyway?”

“I don't know,” said Nigel, shrugging, palms up.

Minder said, “So, when are you guys coming home?”

Elgin leaned forward and looked down the length of the Square to the yellow end, where he could see the apartment.  He looked at Fran, then back at Minder.  He said, “Do we even have a home there any more?  Is our place still a museum?”

Minder glanced down the Square, then at Winston.  They both looked down at the floor, embarrassed.  Minder said, “Yes.  And the Francesians hold weekly services there, too.”  He had trouble looking them in the eye.

Elgin snorted, and Stanton backed him up, but Fran said, “It's just an apartment.  We can always get another one.  The important thing is the people.  Our friends.  That's where our home is, right?”

“That's right,” said Minder, with Winston croaking his agreement.  “You'll always have a home here Elgin, no matter what.”

Elgin was almost mollified.  He nodded at Minder, and at Fran.  He looked at Stanton, who was still frowning.  He said, “It's not that bad, Stanton.  As Fran says, it's just an apartment.”

“But it's your apartment,” said Stanton.  “And those . . . arrogant . . .”

Fran put her hand on his arm.  “It's not worth getting angry over.  It's done with.  Let's talk about something else.”

“Right,” said Minder.  “So, when are you coming home?”

Fran laughed.  “I think it will be a while yet,” she said.  “We promised Plub that we'd help them get back on their feet, and that might take time.”

“There's hope for them though, right?” said Minder.  “Plub said they had almost a hundred years of peace before the Acquisitors, so they should be able to do it again.”

“Well,” said Fran, “it turns out their period of peace and prosperity wasn't that peaceful after all.  Their idea of what comprises peace is a little different from ours.”

“How so?”

“From what we've been able to gather, it boils down to the lack of a Great Cutting.  Other than that, there's still plenty of violence.  Murders.  Skirmishes.  Small wars.  Quite apart from the females eating the males and the males eating their young.”

Minder shook his head.  “And I thought running this place was complicated,” he said.  That got a good laugh.  “Given all that, how are you going to know when it's time to leave?”

“We've decided to play that by ear,” she said.  “Either events will let us know, or we're thinking we might stay as long as Plub lives.”

“Okay,” said Minder.  “How long do you think that might be?”

“That's just it,” she said.  “We don't know.  It seems it's so rare for Makers to die of natural causes that we can't really calculate their natural lifespan.”

“So it could be ten years, or a hundred.”

“Or more.  They could live for a thousand years, for all we know.”  She looked at Stanton.  “We're going to have to work out a hibernation schedule.  One that can run indefinitely.”

Buzzard said, “No problem.  I can work that up.”  He looked at Archie.  “I think we should combine the populations of the balls.  If we still keep just thirty-five active, we can get a lot more sleep time.”

“That'll work,” said Archie.  “Meanwhile, I'll start working out some actuarial tables for the Makers.  There have to be some of them who've died naturally.”

“Well,” said Buzzard, “not necessarily.”

“Okay,” said Archie, “then I'll find the ones who got the oldest before they got killed.  That will at least put some constraints on it.”

“Good idea,” said Buzzard, and they huddled together, preparing for their math excursions.

“Well, that's taken care of,” said Minder, smiling.  “There is one big thing though, that hasn't been.”  He looked over their shoulders, through the shell of the Ball.  He couldn't see it from his angle, but it loomed even so.

“The Prime,” said Fran.  “You're right.  What do we do with the Prime when we leave?”

“We take it with us,” said Stanton.  “By rights, it belongs to us.  It's full of stuff stolen from our system.  From our planet.”

“Yeah!” said Galatea, taking his arm.  “It's our stuff.”

That seemed reasonable to everyone, but Winston cleared his throat and said, “Not entirely.”  When they looked at him he said, “The Visitor was built by the Makers, so the Prime could be considered theirs.”

“The Visitor would have been tiny when they sent it,” said Stanton.  “It only got big on stolen resources.”

“True,” said Winston, “and that's another thing.  Most of those resources came from systems the Visitor, uh, visited before ours.  If we take the Prime back, would we stop and drop them off along the way?”

Stanton had no answer, and Fran said, “Winston's right.  Even if the Makers have no right to the resources, we'd be stealing them from those other systems if we took them home.”

They were all quiet while they thought about that.  It promised to be a pretty puzzle.

How it happened

Green Comet began in 1994. It also began before then and after then. I’m sure most books are the same. They’re impossible to pin down to a specific date, depending on what you use for criteria. But let’s use 1994, since that’s the year the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet smacked into Jupiter. At that time I was active in the Science conference, one of the Usenet newsgroups. Another member posted, asking for ideas he could use for a disaster story. I suggested some non-ecliptic comets on a dangerous orbit. I wonder if it was a coincidence that the movies Armageddon and Deep Impact appeared in 1998. Probably.-)

The idea began simmering in my mind, and I even wrote a couple of short stories to explore the concept of living on comets, but it was mostly conceptual until about 2004. I decided then to think about it seriously. Since I had a menial job at the time I could spend the whole day thinking about it, and jot down notes after work. I knew I had a story when Elgin and Frances showed up. In 2009 I finished with that job and that’s when I put pen to paper with the aim of getting the story written. Three years later it was ready to publish.  Three more years and the sequel, Parasite Puppeteers, joins the series.

About Jim

Jim has fought forest fires and controlled traffic in the air and on the sea. Now he writes stories.

Connect with Jim

The Green Comet blog: http://greencomet.org/

Contact me: http://greencomet.org/contact/

Cover image from a photograph by Petr Broz CC-BY-SA