Infinity Beach

28

“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” It was Yoshi’s voice. But only Kane was visible, relaxed in his chair. He was looking off to his right, gazing out beyond the view of the imager. Kim, recalling the design of the Hunter, knew he was looking through large double windows. The overhead screen depicted the Alnitak region, the vast roiling clouds, the dark mass of the Horsehead, the brilliant nebulosity NGC2024, the giant star itself, and the sweeping rings of the Jovian world.

“We thought you’d not want to miss it.” Emily this time. “There’s nothing quite like it anywhere we’ve been.”

She came into the picture now and sat down in the left-hand chair. “I think,” she said, “we should have dinner tonight out on one of the terraces.”

“Precisely what we had in mind.” That was Tripley. Kim judged from the body language of Emily and Kane that their colleagues were not physically present in the pilot’s room. “In fact, we’ve made it a tradition to do that whenever we’ve been out here.”

Something on the control board caught Kane’s eye. He made adjustments, looked at his screens, and frowned. “Well, that’s interesting.”

“What is it, Markis?” asked Tripley’s voice.

“I don’t know. We’re getting a return—”

“What kind of return?”

“Metal. Moving almost perpendicular to the plane of the system.”

Emily leaned forward to get a better look at the screen. “Is that significant? I wouldn’t think a chunk of iron’s that much out of the ordinary.”

“This one appears to have some definition.” After a pause: “But don’t get excited. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Nevertheless, Emily’s face took on an aura of hope.

“Markis.” Tripley again.

“It’s on your monitor now, Kile. We’re still too far away to make anything of it.”

“You think it might be an artificial object?”

“I think it’s a chunk of iron.” He pressed a key on the control panel. “So everybody knows,” he said, “the Foundation requires us in any unusual circumstance to record everything that happens throughout the ship until we resolve the situation. Save for private quarters, of course. We will go to full recording mode in one minute. So get your clothes on back there, kiddies.”

“Can we get a picture of the thing?” asked Yoshi.

“It’s still too far away.”

“How far is that?”

“Seven hundred thousand kay. It’s in orbit, about to drift behind the planet. We’ll lose it in a few minutes.”

“Not altogether, I hope,” said Emily.

“No chance,” said Kane. They watched it drop down the sky, disappearing finally behind the rim of the big planet.

“Kile, I assume we want to take a closer look?”

Tripley laughed. “Sure. Why not, as long as we’re here?”

“How long before we see it again?” asked Yoshi.

“Don’t know. We didn’t get enough to plot an orbit.”

“Just stay with it,” said Tripley.

“All right.” Kane gave directions to the AI. “If we’re going to pursue we should get rolling. Everybody belt down.” Hunter rotated, realigned itself, and the mains fired.

They’d been running for almost three quarters of an hour when the object reappeared. Kane tried unsuccessfully to acquire an image. “It’s still too far,” he said.

“Markis.” It was the AI. “The object is in a long irregular orbit. It’ll decay quickly. Within about six weeks, in fact.”

“When will we catch up with it?” asked Tripley.

Kane put the question to the AI.

“Late tomorrow morning,” came the answer.

Two lamps burned dimly in the pilot’s room.

Rings and moons dominated the windows. At 2:17 A.M., the AI woke Kane. “We have definition, Markis.”

The object was smooth, not the rugged piece of rock and iron one would have expected. It was shaped somewhat like a turtle-shell.

Kane studied it for almost ten minutes, enhanced it, tapped his fingers on the console, nodded to himself. Eventually he opened the intercom. “Friends,” he said quietly, “we have an anomaly.”

They padded one by one into the pilot’s room, in bare feet, all wearing robes. All cautiously excited. Emily looked at the overhead, the others turned to the windows, into which Kane had placed the image. “It’s an enhancement,” he explained. “But I think this is close to what’s really out there.”

They stared quietly. Yoshi stood near Tripley and they seemed to draw together. Emily’s face shone.

“It’s not very big,” Kane said.

“How big is that?”

“A little more than a half meter long, maybe two-thirds as wide.”

Kim could almost feel the room deflate.

“It looks like a toy,” said Yoshi. “Something somebody just tossed overboard.”

It was tumbling, turning slowly end over end.

Tripley stood near a desk lamp. He turned it off so they could see better. “Just for argument’s sake,” he said, “is there any possibility of a local lifeform?”

Emily shook her head. “Alnitak puts out too much UV.”

“But we don’t really know that it couldn’t happen,” Tripley said.

“Almost any thing’s possible,” said Emily. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.”

Antennas and sensor pods were becoming visible. Kane tapped the window. “It has a Klayson ring.”

It might have taken a minute for the implication to set in. A Klayson ring indicated jump capability.

“Aside from the size,” said Emily, “anybody ever seen this kind of design before?”

Kane shook his head. “I’ve run a search. It doesn’t match up with anything.”

“It’s a probe,” said Emily. “Probably left by the survey unit when it was here.”

“Can’t be,” said Kane.

“Why not?”

“The Klayson ring.”

“Some probes have Klayson rings,” insisted Emily.

“Not this size. It’s too small. We wouldn’t know how to pack a jump system into a package like this. Unless there’s been a major advance in the last few months.”

“Are you suggesting,” said Yoshi, “it’s a celestial artifact?” She barely breathed the conclusion.

Kane got up, went over to the window, and studied the object. “I don’t want to get everybody excited, but I don’t think we, or anybody we know, left this here.”

They looked at one another. Tentative smiles appeared. Emily pressed her hand to her lips. Tripley glanced around the room as if he feared someone would have a more straightforward explanation. Yoshi stood unmoving in front of the windows, beside Kane.

“Don’t be discouraged by its size,” said Kane. “It might still be possible to talk to it. There might be an AI of one sort or another on board.”

“Let me ask a question,” said Tripley. “Does intelligent life have to be big?”

Emily nodded. “Theoretically, yes. Got to have big brains.”

“Theoretically. But is that really true?”

No one knew.

Kane looked up from his console. He seemed to be alone in the pilot’s room. “Kile,” he said to the commlink.

Tripley and the others showed up literally within seconds.

“We’re getting power leakage,” he told them. “It’s not dead.”

“Magnificent!” Tripley jabbed his right fist in the air and turned toward the women. “Ladies,” he said, “I do believe we’ve done it! “

They embraced all around. Emily kissed Kane’s cheek while he pretended to be annoyed, and Yoshi threw her arms around him.

“From this point,” said Tripley, “we will proceed on the assumption that they’re alive over there.”

When they overtook the turtle-shell they were looking down on the rings from a point somewhere over the north pole. Kane closed to within forty meters of the object. He’d arranged the approach so that Alnitak was behind the Hunter, to prevent its blinding the imagers.

Everybody was in the mission control center, save Kane, who stayed in the pilot’s room. Tripley sat down at a comm console, looked at his colleagues, and signaled to Kane, whose virtual image occupied a chair. Kane nodded and Tripley put his index finger on the transmission key. Kane had pointed out that the AI could handle all the transmissions, but the moment was a bit too historic for that.

“Okay,” said Kane. “When you’re ready—”

Tripley pressed the key once. Then twice. He looked up at his colleagues and beamed. “Maybe,” he said, “the first communication–”

He tapped it again, three times.

“—between humans and their starborn siblings–”

Four.

“—has just been sent.”

They looked at one another expectantly. In the windows, the turtle-shell tumbled slowly across a moonscape.

“It’s dark over there,” said Kane.

Emily shook her head. “It’s too small. It’s a pity. But I’ll settle for the artifact.”

“You give up too easily,” said Yoshi. “Try again, Kile.”

Tripley resent. One, two, three, four.

The room glowed with the colors of the rings.

“I think Emily’s right,” said Tripley. “If anybody were there, they’d certainly want to respond.”

They tapped out the signal a third time. Then Yoshi sat down at the key and continued patiently to send.

“Something to consider,” said Kane, studying the image. He pointed at an object mounted in the nose of the turtle-shell. It looked like a bracket or fork. “It might have an attack capability.”

“Why would they attack?” asked Emily.

“You’re poking a strange animal. What I’m saying is that it could happen. It might be a good idea to think about it.”

“They’re not going to shoot at us,” said Tripley. “Why would they bother? They don’t even know us.”

Kane’s voice was unemotional. “Think about our relative sizes. We’re what, several hundred times as big as they are. If there’s really something alive over there, I’d expect them to be nervous. If our situations were reversed, I sure as hell would be.”

“So what are you suggesting?” asked Emily.

“That we be prepared to back off on short notice. Which means if I say we’re leaving, I’ll want everyone to belt down quickly, and to do it without argument. I doubt that the occasion will arise, but I won’t want to get into a discussion if it does.”

“Okay,” Emily said, without bothering to conceal her amusement. “If they shoot, we run. I don’t think anybody’s going to argue with that.”

“So what’s next?” asked Yoshi. “They don’t seem to have their radio turned on. What else can we do?”

“Blink the running lights,” said Emily.

Tripley nodded. “Okay.”

Kane turned them off and then on again. Waited a few seconds. Turned them off. Turned them on.

They kept it up for a while. After a few minutes Tripley asked whether anyone else had an idea.

“Yes,” said Yoshi. “Why don’t we back away so they don’t think we’re pushy? Let them make a move, if they’re inclined. They have to be as curious as we are.”

They agreed it was worth trying, and Kane withdrew to a range of five kilometers and assumed a parallel orbit.

They spent the next few hours in a long, generally pointless and often circular discussion. The turtle-shell seemed unlikely to be a warship under any circumstances because the Alnitak region was a no-man’s-land, a place that could not conceivably be of strategic value. It was also probably not a trader or commercial vessel for the same reason. And that left only survey and research, the vessel was not completely automated, and if it was in fact a vessel, then it should be staffed by scientists. But if that were so, why hadn’t they responded?

Tripley suggested they try the radio again. They changed the transmission to one-three-five-seven and put it on automatic. It ran for two hours before they gave up and shut it down.

“We need to start talking,” said Emily, “about what we do when they don’t answer.”

“That’s easy,” said Kane.

Everyone looked at him, surprised. Kane customarily avoided making policy suggestions that concerned the mission, as opposed to technical matters or the operation of the ship. “We take a lot of pictures and go home.”

“No,” said Tripley. “It’s out of the question.”

“Even if there were no other considerations,” Yoshi said, “they seem to be adrift and in a decaying orbit. If there’s anybody in there, and we leave them, they’ll die.”

“If we go back with nothing more than pictures,” said Tripley, “the scientific community would excoriate us.”

“I can think of three possible reasons why they aren’t responding,” said Kane. “One, it is automated. Two, they’re all dead. Three, they’re playing possum. Floating out here in a decaying orbit suggests they’re damaged. They can’t run and they probably can’t put up a fight. They’re looking at a vessel of monumental dimensions, probably by far the biggest they’ve ever seen. So they’re hoping we’ll go away. Or—”

“Or—?”

“That help will arrive.”

“You think they’ve been sending out a distress call?”

“Sure. If they can.”

“Do we have any way of intercepting it?”

“We don’t know enough about their equipment. If it’s hypercomm, which it probably would be, we’d have to be astronomically lucky to pick it up.”

Emily suggested they try the radio again.

“Why would it be any more likely to work this time?” asked Tripley.

“They’ve had time to see we mean no harm. They may feel more willing to take a chance now.”

Kane directed the AI to begin sending, counting to four.

“I never considered the possibility,” said Tripley, “that anything like this could happen. We always assumed that, in the event of contact with celestials, they’d be just like us, curious, anxious to communicate, amicable.”

A new tone sounded in the speaker.

A blip.

And then a pair of blips.

And then three.

“Coming from the turtle,” said Kane.

Four.

Analyze.

Tripley banged a big hand down on the console.

They continued counting through to eight.

Joy reigned. They pumped fists, embraced, shook hands. And there were a few tears.

“My God, they’re really there,” said Tripley.

“Are we getting this?” Emily asked Kane. “For the log?”

The captain looked directly at the imager. “Yes,” he said. “They’ll be watching this in classrooms a thousand years from now.”

Tripley broke out four glasses and a bottle of wine.

And they got another blip.

Then a pair.

“They’re counting again,” said Tripley.

Three. Five.

Eight.

They looked at one another, waiting.

“Eight,” said Tripley. “What comes after eight? They’re waiting for an answer.”

Emily shrugged. “Thirteen,” she said.

“How do you figure?”

“Each number is the total of the two preceding.”

“That’s good enough for me,” said Tripley. He switched the transmitter to manual and tapped out the response.

The signals came again: One, two, three, five, seven.

“Primes,” said Emily.

Tripley grinned, enjoying the game immensely. “Eleven,” he said.

Emily stood near the window, looking out at the tiny craft. “I think it’s time for a visual.”

Tripley agreed. “Good. But what do we show them?”

“What are they most curious about?”

“Us,” saidYoshi.

“Yes.” Tripley was beaming. “Let’s have someone say hello. One of the women—”

“Why one of the women?” asked Emily. “I think everybody should get on the circuit. Let them see what we’ve got.”

“Okay. Let’s do it this way, though. Emily, you’ve been looking for these people a long time. You go first.”

Emily looked genuinely moved. “Sure,” she said. “I can live with that. All right.” She was already jotting down notes.

Kane was obviously vastly pleased. “Their language skills might not be a good fit.”

“This is not for them. It’s for those kids a thousand years from now.”

“—Who are also listening to this setup,” Yoshi reminded her.

“It’s all right. They’ll understand.”

Emily sat down and signaled she was ready. Tripley adjusted her image and hit Transmit. “You’re on,” he told her. She looked directly into the imager and smiled her brightest smile. “We know you can’t understand any of this,” she said, “but we want to say hello to you anyhow. Greetings from Greenway. Can we assist you in any way?”

The others followed. Tripley spoke with warmth of his hopes that this chance encounter would produce long-term benefits for both races. Yoshi wished a good fortune to “our interstellar friends,” and expressed her hope that this marked the beginning of a new era for everyone.

Finally it was Kane’s turn. He didn’t look as if he expected to be called on in this endeavor, but when Yoshi identified him as their captain and reported he had something to say, he rose to the occasion. “We’re happy to meet you. If we can be of assistance, please let us know.”

With that, he switched off.

“Well,” said Tripley, “how’d we do?”

“I thought you guys were outstanding,” said Kane.

“Any sign of a response?” asked Emily.

“Not yet.”

Kane sank back into his seat. Tripley asked whether it was likely the turtle-shell would have compatible equipment to receive a visual image. Kane assured him it would.

They waited. The minutes dragged by. And a white lamp blinked on. “Incoming,” said Kane.

It resembled a butterfly.

In her living room, Kim, expecting to see a misty thing, leaned forward surprised. Her pulse began to race.

The butterfly looked at them out of cool, golden eyes. They were not compound, but were rather quite mammalian. It had a thorax and mandibles and multiple sets of limbs, apparently six altogether, but it was difficult to be certain. Spotted red-gold wings moved slowly.

It wore a surprisingly mundane green blouse. The lower half of the body was not visible.

There was no physiognomy capable of supporting, in human terms, an expression. From somewhere, it was impossible to be certain where, a sound was emanating, a singsong rhythm, almost a chant, interrupted by rapid sets of clicks.

The image was being picked up on monitors in both mission control and the pilot’s room, and was also being displayed in the windows.

The creature was supported on a framework, presumably a chair-equivalent. A few gauges were visible on a bulkhead, and the pilot’s room, if that’s what it was, appeared to be normal size. Curious illusion that: anyone receiving the transmission would make some egregiously false assumptions. The butterfly appeared to be of the same general dimensions as a human.

It raised its upper left limb in a gesture that must have been acknowledgment. It maintained that position for one minute, seventeen seconds. Then the screen went blank.

“What happened?” asked Tripley.

Kane shook its head. “Apparently end of transmission,” he said. “I guess they’re not much for small talk.”

“Can we get a picture of the main hatch from outside?” Emily asked Kane. “Our main hatch?”

“Negative. We don’t have anything that can acquire the angle. Why?”

“How about the cargo door?”

“We can do that.”

“What do you have in mind?” asked Tripley.

“I think we ought to send them an invitation.” She explained her idea but Tripley, after he’d heard her out, looked uncertain.

“You think it’s wise?”

“What’s to lose? If Markis is right and the ship’s damaged, it might get us all off on exactly the right note.”

“All right,” he said. “Let’s try it.”

Kane pointed one of the port imagers at the cargo hatch, opened the air lock and turned its lights on. Emily straightened her blouse and checked her hair. When she was ready, he went to a split screen, putting her on one side and the open door on the other.

“Hello again. Would you like to come on board?”

The image of the miniature ship was back in the windows. It floated serenely against the star-clouds.

Emily waited. And tried again.

And a third time.

“I think I’m insulted,” she said finally.

“What’s the matter with them?” Two hours had passed and Tripley could not begin to conceal his frustration. “You think they saw the open door as a threat?”

“Don’t know. We’re looking at butterflies, for God’s sake. You think they’ve had any experience with spiders?”

“So what do we do now?” asked Emily.

“The open door should be a universal,” Tripley persisted. “All it really implies is that they’re welcome. Why don’t we try it again?”

“Let Yoshi wave at them,” said Emily. “Maybe she’ll have better luck.”

Yoshi took her place in front of the imager, smiled sweetly, looked as unthreatening as she could presumably manage, and made friendly overtures.

There was still no response.

“I just thought of something,” she said. “They probably don’t realize how big we are. As individuals, I mean. They’d expect there are thousands of us here.”

“You’re right,” said Emily.

“Meaning–?”

“A physical meeting might not be a good idea. At least for now.”

“Transmission coming in,” said Kane. “Audio only.” He put it on the speaker.

They were back to blips.

One.

Two. Three.

And fourteen.

“Fourteen?” demanded Tripley.

“It’s not a series,” said Yoshi.

Emily took a long deep breath. “I agree. But what are they trying to tell us?”

The sequence repeated. One. Two. Three.

Fourteen.

And repeated again.

“They’re telling us to go away,” said Emily. “Fourteen doesn’t fit the series. They want to break off.”

“So what do we do now?” asked Tripley.

“Go home,” suggested Kane. “Take the hint and leave. I don’t think you can do anything here except cause damage.”

“We can’t do that, Markis,” said Tripley. “It’s crazy.”

Emily looked tired. “What do you suggest, Kile?”

“Markis, do you still think they’re adrift?”

“Yes. There’s no question about it.”

“Then we can’t just leave.” He was in an agony of indecision. “We don’t know how far they are from home. And we don’t know whether they’ve got help coming.” He looked at Emily. “Would you want to leave them here, have them get sucked into that—” he indicated the gas giant, “—and live with it for the rest of your life?”

“Why don’t we wait to see whether anyone comes to rescue them?” suggested Yoshi. “If nobody shows up within a reasonable time, then we could try to take them on board.”

“What’s a reasonable time?” asked Tripley. “For all we know, they’re running out of life support while we debate. God knows how long they’ve been here.”

“But they’re telling us,” said Emily, “to go away.”

Yoshi frowned. “I’m not so sure. Maybe the message is a distress call. You break off the sequence, that means there’s something wrong. Maybe they think we should recognize that. Just like we think they should recognize the open door.”

Tripley was out of patience. “Look,” he said, “what’s the worst that could happen if we pick them up? We go back to Greenway—”

“—St. Johns is closer.”

“—Greenway. We’re going to need help. We’ll have a team waiting for us when we get there. Do whatever needs to be done for the poor bastards. Then we give them the keys to the city and send them on their way.”

“If it works,” said Yoshi, “it’d be a great way to begin relations.”

“Then we’re agreed. Markis, you have any reservations?”

“I’d keep hands off. But it’s your call, Kile. I’ll go along with whatever you decide.”

“Let’s do it.”

“How?” asked Yoshi.

Tripley took a deep breath. “What you said. The thing doesn’t seem to have much maneuverability. Let’s just take them on board.”

Emily and Tripley suited up, went below, and depressurized the cargo bay.

“When I tell you to,” Kane instructed them, “open the door. But not before. I don’t want you getting a direct dose of local radiation. We’ll keep the star on the far side of the ship. But it still won’t be safe so we want to handle this with dispatch. Once the door’s open, you shouldn’t have to do anything. I’ll bring the turtle shell on board. But if there’s a reaction and we have to maneuver, make sure you hold on to something. As soon as it’s inside, close up. Okay?”

“Okay, Markis,” said Tripley.

Thrusters along the starboard hull fired and the Hunter moved sidewise toward the target.

Carrying their helmets, they went into the air lock and sat down on the bench. The screen embedded in the outer door performed all the functions of a window. Kim’s angle however did not reveal what they were able to see. “So far there’s no response,” said Kane.

He took almost an hour to negotiate the distance. When he was satisfied, he signaled and Tripley opened the inner air-lock door. And then the outer.

“Still nothing,” said Kane. “It’s about two minutes away.”

They moved out of the lock, giving Kane room to operate.

“We’re about to cut gravity. Stay clear of the object. If it does anything unexpected, let it go. Somebody dies, it’s a lot of paperwork, and in this situation it wouldn’t take much.”

“You all right?” Emily asked her partner.

“I’m fine,” said Tripley.

“Okay.” Kane’s voice was a monotone. “We’re about to shut gravity down. Don’t make any sudden moves.”

The celestial appeared outside the open air lock.

“Stay clear,” warned Kane. “The turtle-shell will come through the door without help. When it’s safely inside, close up. And then give it lots of room.”

The Hunter’s, outside lights swept across the turtle-shell. Kim noticed what she had not observed before: The geometry suggested the hyperbolic vehicle that had attached itself to the Hammersmith.

“Don’t worry,” said Emily. “We’ll be fine.”

“I’m sure you will. But keep your distance until we’re sure it’s safe. When we’ve done that, we’ll have to figure out how to secure for the trip home.”

“Maybe,” said Yoshi, who was watching from the corridor, “we should have talked this out a bit more.”

The turtle-shell was just outside the air lock. Kane was apparently moving the Hunter gradually toward it. Tripley stood watching. He was too close. Maybe mesmerized, but his face was obscured by the helmet. Emily took him by the arm and pulled him gently out of the way.

It entered the lock. Passed through and drifted into the hold. Into the lights.

“Hey,” said Kane, “we’re getting a visual.”

Tripley threw a startled glance at one of the monitors. The picture of the spacecraft blinked off and was replaced by the butterfly. Its antennae were weaving and the singsong cadence had gone up an octave.

“I think it’s frightened,” said Emily.

“Maybe.” Tripley looked from the screen to the microship. “They’ll be grateful soon enough.”

Tripley started toward the air lock, intending to close it. But the ship moved. It rotated a few degrees around its own axis, pointed its prow at the open sky beyond the air-lock door, and started forward. It was a kind of lurch, as though the directing force had less than total control.

“Stay clear,” warned Kane. “It wants out.”

Emily tried to pull Tripley back. “They’re terrified,” she said. “They’ve just discovered how big we are. Don’t make any threatening moves.” And then, incredibly, she walked in front of the ship and held up her hands. “It’s all right,” she told them. “We only want to help.”

Several things happened at once. Tripley punched a button and the air lock started to close. Kane snouted a warning to Emily that they couldn’t hear her and to get out of the way. The butterfly image vanished from the screen.

Foolishly, Emily held her ground, blocking the vessel’s route back through the door, which was closing fast. “Please,” she said. “Give us a chance.”

Twin beams of red light lanced from the fork on the ship’s prow. They struck her squarely in the abdomen and propelled her into the air lock and sent her tumbling out the door. Tripley screamed and made a grab for her but he succeeded only in changing her course and very nearly going out himself. He stared after her retreating form, turned, and charged the turtle-shell. Kane ordered Tripley to stop. But it was too late. The mission director seized the microship and his momentum carried both of them across the chamber. They crashed into a wall and Tripley bounced away in the zero gravity, still holding tight to the celestial.

The outer door closed.

“Going to one gee,” Kane said.

Tripley and the microship fell to the floor.

Emily, picked up by one of the screens, continued drifting away, trailing red bubbles.

“Monitoring zero—” Kane’s voice broke. He needed a moment to regain control and finish: “—Zero pulse.”

Yoshi was adamant. “I say we turn them loose. Turn them loose, get away from here, and forget it ever happened.”

“They killed Emily,” said Tripley. “How can we just let them go?”

“They were scared. They wanted out.”

“There was no need.”

Kane broke in: “Nobody has more reason than I do to want the little bastards dead.” He stopped and his jaw worked. “But this is a special case. Yoshi’s right. Point them toward the hydrogen—” he meant the gas giant, “—and let them go.”

Tripley shook his head. “That means she’d have died for nothing. What do we tell people when we get home? We found some celestials, but they didn’t want to talk a whole lot. Don’t know how the ship works, we didn’t get a chance to ask. Don’t know where they’re from. Otherwise ask us anything. By the way, we lost Emily.”

“What do you want to do?” asked Kane.

“I say we take them with us. We’re committed. For God’s sake, Markis, we’ve paid the price. We owe it to her.”

“If we’d used our heads—”

“It’s late for recriminations. You want me to take the blame? Okay, it’s my fault.”

“That doesn’t bring her back, Kile.”

“I know. It was stupid. We took a chance. But we’ve got to make it count for something. How could we possibly walk away from this now?”

**”A”i7e?” Yoshi’s voice, strained. “I don’t think any body’ll thank us for this.”

“What do you mean? How can you say that? This is it! It’s the Holy Grail.”

“People will be happy to have the discovery, but we’ll be a laughingstock.”

Tripley shook his head desperately. “You wanted to bring them on board as much as I did.”

“Think about it,” said Yoshi. “We don’t know what kind of hypercomm messages they’ve been sending out. Look out for the giants with their open doors. Shoot on sight. What do you think people are going to say to the pictures of you charging the ship and banging it against a wall?”

“Markis, is that really on the log?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so, Kile.”

“My God. But the bastards are killers.”

“Only because they were being hijacked,” insisted Yoshi. “That’s the way they saw it. And the way the media will play it. Look, I’m not trying to blame anybody. But we need to think about this. Reputations, careers, everything’s going to go. We’ll even show up in the history books as dummies of the first order. They’ll be laughing at us for centuries.”

They were in mission control. Emily’s body had been retrieved and placed in her bunk. The celestial was centered on their screens, lying pinned by gravity to the cargo deck. “We can’t just throw this away,” Tripley pleaded.

No one answered.