Time Bomb And Zahndry Others

The Price of Survival

"That's it, Shipmaster," Pliij said from his helmboard with obvious relief. "Target star dead ahead; relative motion and atmospheric density established, and vector computed. Final course change in nine aarns."

Final course change. There were times in the long voyage, Shipmaster Orofan reflected, that he had thought he would never live to hear those words, that he would be called prematurely to sit among the ancestors and another would guide his beloved Dawnsent to her final resting place. But he knew now that he would live to see the new world that the Farseers back home had found for them. "Very good, Pilot," he responded formally to Pliij's announcement—and then both Sk'cee broke into huge, multi-tentacled grins.

"Almost there, Orofan," Pliij said, gazing out the forward viewport. "Almost there."

"Yes, my friend." Orofan touched the viewport gently with one of his two long tentacles, feeling the vibration of the fusion drive and a slight tingle from the huge magnetic scoop spread hundreds of pha ahead of them. Nothing was visible; the viewport was left uncovered only for tradition's sake. "Do you suppose the sleepers will believe us when we tell them we carried them hundreds of star-paths without seeing any stars?"

Pliij chuckled, his short tentacles rippling with the gesture. "The rainbow effect through the side viewports is nice, but I'm looking forward to seeing the sky go back to normal."

"Yes." Orofan gazed into the emptiness for a moment, then shook himself. Back to business. "So. The course change is programmed. Are the scoop and condensers prepared?"

"All set. Thistas is running a final check now."

"Good." Nine aarns to go. Six of those would make for a good rest. "I'll be in my quarters. Call me if I'm not back here two aarns before insertion."

"Right. Sleep well."

"I certainly will." Orofan smiled and left the bridge.

—

It was, General Sanford Carey thought, probably the first time in history that representatives from the Executor's office, the Solar Assembly, the Chiron Institute, and the Peacekeepers had ever met together on less than a week's notice. Even the Urgent-One order he'd called them with shouldn't have generated such a fast response, and he wondered privately how many of them had their own sources at the Peacekeeper field where the tachship had landed not three hours ago.

Across the room a Security lieutenant closed the door and activated the conference room's spy-seal. He nodded, and Carey stepped to the lectern to face his small audience.

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming here this afternoon," he said in a smooth, melodious voice—a voice, he'd been told, which contrasted violently with his craggy appearance. "Approximately three hours ago we learned that there is a large unidentified object rapidly approaching the solar system."

Only a third of the nine men and women present kept tine impassive—if tense—expressions that betrayed prior knowledge. The rest displayed a kaleidoscope of shock, wonderment, and uneasiness as Carey's words sank in.

He continued before the murmurings had quite died down. "The object is traveling a hair below lightspeed, at about point nine nine nine cee, using an extremely hot fusion drive of some kind and what seems to be an electromagnetic ramscoop arrangement. He's about eight light-days out—under fourteen hundred A.U.—and while we haven't got his exact course down yet, he'll definitely pass through the System."

" 'Through,' General?" asked Evelyn Woodcock, chief assistant to the Executor. "It's not going to stop here?"

"No, his drive's still pointing backwards," Carey told her. "Decelerating to a stop now would take hundreds of gees."

From their expressions it was clear they weren't sure whether to be relieved or insulted by the Intruder's disinterest. "Then why is it coming here?" Assembly-Prime Wu-sin asked.

"Reconnaissance, possibly, though that's unlikely. He's coming in at a steep angle to the ecliptic—a poor vector if he wants to see much of the System. He could also be trying for a slight course correction by passing close to the sun; we'll know that better when we get more accurate readings on him. It's even possible the Intruder doesn't yet know we're here. At the speed he's making, the sun's light is blue-shifted into the ultraviolet, and he might not have the proper instruments to detect it."

"Unlikely," Dr. Louis Du Bellay of the Chiron Institute murmured. "I would guess they've done this before."

"Agreed, Doctor," Carey nodded. "It's a very remote possibility. Well. The Intruder, then, is not likely to be of great danger to us, provided we keep local traffic out of his way. By the same token, he's not likely to advance our store of knowledge significantly, either. With one exception: we now know we're not alone in the universe. You'll appreciate, I'm sure, the importance of not springing this revelation on the System and colonies without some careful thought on the part of all of us. Thank you for coming here; we'll keep you informed."

Carey stepped from the lectern and headed toward the door as his audience came alive with a buzz of intense conversation. As Carey passed him, Dr. Du Bellay rose and fell into step. "Would you mind if I tagged along with you back to the Situation Room, General?" he asked. "I'd like to keep close tabs on this event."

Carey nodded. "I rather expected you'd want to. I've already had you cleared for entry." He raised his hand warningly as the Security man reached for the spy-seal control. "No talking about this, Doctor, until we're past the inner security shield."

It was only a short walk to the central section of Peacekeeper Headquarters, and the two men filled the time by discussing Du Bellay's latest trip to the ancient ruins at Van Maanen's Star. "I heard about that," Carey said. "I understand it was your first solo tachship run."

"Yes. The Directorate at Chiron's been encouraging everyone to learn to fly—it's cheaper than always having to hire a pilot along with a tachship. Fortunately, they haven't yet suggested I do all my own digging as well."

Carey chuckled. "That's what students are for. Are those ruins really as extensive as people say?"

"Even more so. We've barely scratched the surface, and there's at least one more civilization under the one we're working on."

They passed the security shield to the clickings of invisible security systems, and the topic abruptly changed. "How in blazes did a tachship stumble across something moving that fast?" Du Bellay asked.

"Pure dumb luck," Carey said. "A merchantman coming in from Alpha Centauri had dropped back into normal space to do a navigational check. They'd just finished when this thing went roaring past."

"They're lucky they weren't fried by the ramscoop fields," Du Bellay commented.

"They damn near were. A few million kilometers over and they probably would have been. Anyway, they recovered from the shock and got a preliminary reading on his course. Then they jumped ahead the shortest distance they could and waited the sixteen minutes it took the Intruder to catch up. They got another decimal in his course, confirmed he was heading toward Sol, and hightailed it here with the news."

"Hmm. Ironic, isn't it, that the great search for intelligent life should be ended by a puddle-jumping business whip whose navigator didn't trust his own computer. Well, what's next?"

"We've sent out a dozen tachships, strung along the Intruder's route, to get better data. They should be reporting in soon."

The Peacekeeper Situation Room was a vast maze of vision screens, holotanks, and computer terminals, presided over by a resident corps of officers and technicians. Halfway across the room was the main screen, currently showing a map of the entire solar system. From its lower right-hand corner a dotted red line speared into the inner system.

A young captain glanced up from a paper-strewn table as they approached. "Ah, General, he greeted Carey. "Just in time, sir: Chaser data's coming in."

"Let's see what you've got, Mahendra."

Mahendra handed him a computer-printed page. Carey scanned it, aware that Du Bailey was reading over his shoulder.

The Intruder was big. Compensating for relativistic effects and the difficulty of taking data at such speeds, the computer judged the alien craft at well over fifteen hundred meters long, two hundred meters in diameter, and massing near the two-hundred-million-ton mark. Its cone-shaped ramscoop fields spread out hundreds of kilometers in front of it. The drive spectrum showed mainly helium, but with a surprisingly high percentage of other elements.

Behind him, Du Bellay whistled softly. "Talk about your basic Juggernaut! Where'd it come from?"

"We've backtracked him to the 1228 Circini system," Mahendra said, referring to one of his sheets. "He didn't originate there, though—it's a dead system. We're trying to track him further back."

Carey looked up at the main screen. "Why isn't the Intruder's course projected beyond Sol?"

Mahendra frowned. "I don't know, sir." He swung a keyboard over and typed something. "The projection stopped when the course intersected the sun," he reported, frowning a bit harder.

"What?" Du Bellay said.

"Show us the inner system," Carey ordered.

Mahendra punched a key and the screen changed, now showing only out to Mars. Sure enough, the dotted line intersected the edge of the dime-sized image of the sun. Without being told to, Mahendra jumped the scale again, and the sun filled the screen.

Carey squinted at it. "Almost misses. How dense is the stuff he'll hit?"

"The computer says about ten to the minus seventh grams per cc. Not much by Earth standards, but that's almost a hundred trillion times anything in the interstellar medium. And he'll pass through several thousand kilometers of it."

"Like hell he will," Carey winced. "He'll burn to a crisp long before that. I was right after all, Doctor—he hasn't noticed the solar system's in his path."

He glanced at Du Bellay, then paused for a longer look. The archaeologist was frowning into space. "Doctor?"

"Captain, does that console have DatRetNet capability?" Du Bellay asked. "Please look up data on that star you mentioned—1228 Circini. Cross-reference with unusual stellar activity."

Mahendra nodded and turned to the console. "Something wrong?" Carey asked Du Bellay. The other's expression worried him.

"I don't know. I seem to remember hearing about that star a few years ago...." He trailed off.

"Got it, Doctor," Mahendra spoke up.

Both Du Bellay and Carey leaned over to look at the console screen. "I was right," Du Bellay said in a graveyard voice, pointing at the third paragraph.

" 'Planetary studies indicate a giant solar flare occurred approximately one hundred years ago, causing extensive melting patterns as far out as one point eight A.U.,' " Carey read aloud. " 'Such behavior in a red dwarf is unexplainable by current theory.' I don't see the connec—" He broke off in mid-sentence.

Du Bellay nodded grimly. "1228 Circini is ninety-six light-years away. It's too close to be coincidence."

"Are you suggesting the Intruder deliberately rammed 1228 Circini? That's crazy!"

Du Bellay merely nodded at the main screen. Carey gazed up at the dotted line for a long minute. Then he tapped Mahendra's shoulder. "Captain, get me Executor Nordli. Priority Urgent-One."

—

Orofan woke to hear the last wisp of sound from his intercommunicator. He reached for the control, noting with some surprise that the shading of the muted wall light indicated half past cin—he'd been asleep less than an aarn.

"Yes?"

It was Pliij. "Shipmaster, we have a problem. You'd best come up immediately."

Was something wrong with his ship? "I'll be right there."

Pliij was not alone when Orofan arrived on the bridge. Lassarr was also there. "Greetings, Voyagemaster," Orofan said, giving the required salute even as his eyes darted around the room. No problem was registering on any of the displays.

"The trouble is not with the Dawnsent," Voyagemaster Lassarr said, interpreting Orofan's actions and expression with an ease the Shipmaster had never liked.

"Then what is it?"

"Here, Shipmaster." Pliij manipulated a control and an image, relativistically compensated, appeared on a screen. "This is the system we're approaching. Look closely here, and here, and here."

Tiny flecks of light, Orofan saw. The spectrometer read them as hot helium....

Orofan felt suddenly cold all over. Fusion-drive spacecraft! "The system is inhabited!" he hissed.

"You understand our dilemma," Lassarr said heavily.

Orofan understood, all right. The Dawnsent's scooping procedure would unavoidably set up massive shock waves in the star's surface layers, sending flares of energy and radiation outward....

"How is our fuel supply?" Lassarr asked.

Orofan knew, but let Pliij check anyway. "Down to point one-oh-four maximum," the Pilot said.

"We can't reach our new home with that," Lassarr murmured.

"Correction, Voyagemaster," Orofan said. "We can't reach it in the appointed time. But our normal scooping gives us sufficient fuel to finish the voyage."

"At greatly reduced speed," Lassarr pointed out. "How soon could we arrive?"

There was silence as Pliij did the calculation. "Several lifetimes," he said at last. "Five, perhaps six."

"So," Lassarr said, short tentacles set grimly. "I'm afraid that settles the matter."

"Settles it how?" Orofan asked suspiciously.

"It's unfortunate, but we cannot risk such a delay. The sleep tanks weren't designed to last that long."

"You're saying, then, that we continue our present course? Despite what that'll do to life in this system?"

Lassarr frowned at him. "I remind you, Shipmaster, that we carry a million of our fellow Sk'cee—"

"Whose lives are worth more than the billions of beings who may inhabit that system?"

"You have a curious philosophy, Shipmaster; a philosophy, I might add, that could be misunderstood. What would the ancestors say if you came among them after deliberately allowing a million Sk'cee to perish helplessly? What would those million themselves say?"

"What would they say," Orofan countered softly, "if they knew we'd bought their lives at such a cost to others? Is there honor in that, Voyagemaster?"

"Honor lies in the performance of one's duty. Mine is to deliver the colonists safely to their new world."

"I'm aware of that. But surely there's a higher responsibility here. And we don't know the sleep tanks won't survive the longer journey."

Lassarr considered him silently. "It's clear you feel strongly about this," he said finally. "I propose a compromise. You have one aarn to offer a reasonable alternative. If you can't we'll carry out our fuel scoop on schedule." He turned and strode out.

Pliij looked at Orofan. "What now?"

The Shipmaster sank into a seat, thinking furiously. "Get me all the information we have on this region of space. Our own sensor work, Farseer charts and data—everything. There has to be another way."

—

The group sitting around the table was small, highly select, and very powerful. And, Carey thought as he finished his explanation, considerably shaken. Executor Nordli took over even as the general was sitting down. "Obviously, our first order of business is to find out why our visitor is planning to dive into the sun. Suggestions?"

"Mr. Executor, I believe I have a logical explanation," an older man sitting next to Du Bellay spoke up. Dr. Horan Roth, Carey remembered: chief astrophysicist at the Chiron Institute.

"Go ahead, Dr. Roth," Nordli said.

Roth steepled his fingers. "The speed of a ramjet is limited not by relativity, but by friction with the interstellar medium. The mathematics are trivial; the bottom line is that the limiting speed is just that of the ship's exhaust. Now, if you use a magnetic scoop to take in hydrogen, fuse it to helium, and use the energy liberated to send this helium out your exhaust, it turns out that your velocity is only twelve percent lightspeed."

"But the Intruder's moving considerably faster than that," Assembly-Prime Wu-sin objected.

"Exactly," Roth nodded. "They're apparently using an after-accelerator of some sort to boost their exhaust speed. But this takes energy, requiring extra fuel."

"I see," Nordli rumbled. "They have to carry extra hydrogen which can't be replaced in the interstellar medium. So they periodically dive into a star to replenish their tanks?"

"It would seem so."

"Dr. Du Bellay, you're an expert on alien cultures, correct?" Nordli asked.

"To some extent, sir," Du Bellay said, "bearing in mind we've so far studied only dead civilizations, and only a handful of those."

"Yes. In your opinion, what are the chances of communicating with these aliens? And what are the chances that would make any difference in their actions?"

Du Bellay frowned. "I'm afraid the answer to both questions is very poor," he said slowly. "It's true that various scientists have developed so-called 'first-contact primers' in case we ever came across a living intelligent species. But it's also true that teaching any of our language to an alien would take considerable time, and we haven't got that time. No ship ever built could match speeds with the Intruder, so we would have to give everything to them in short, high-density data bursts. And even assuming they were equipped to receive whichever wavelengths we use, they have only seven or eight hours—in their time frame—to decipher it."

"I have to concur with Dr. Du Bellay," Carey spoke up. "As a matter of fact, we've already sent out a series of tachships to try precisely what he suggested, but we don't expect anything to come of it."

"Perhaps we could signal our existence some other way," Evelyn Woodcock, Nordli's assistant, suggested. "Say, a fusion drive pointed at them, blinking off and on. They couldn't miss that."

"And then what?" Carey asked.

"Why—surely they'd change course."

"With their own mission at stake? If it's a colony ship of some kind, its supplies are likely very tightly figured. If they change course, they may die. At the speed they're making we sure as hell can't offer to refuel them."

"There's an even more disturbing possibility," Nordli said quietly. "This refueling technique may be deliberately designed to sterilize the system for future colonization."

"I think it's unfair to ascribe motives like that to them without proof," Du Bellay said. The words, Carey judged, were more reflex than true objection—the archaeologist looked as uneasy as everyone else.

"No?" Nordli shrugged. "It doesn't really matter. What matters is that the Intruder is threatening us with massive destruction. We must stop him."

Wu-sin stirred. "Executor Nordli, you're proposing what amounts to an act of war against another intelligent species. A decision of that magnitude must be approved by the full Solar Assembly at least; ideally by all the colonies as well."

"There's no time to consult the colonies," Nordli said. "As to the Assembly... you have two hours to get their approval."

"And if I can't?"

"I'll go ahead without it."

Wu-sin nodded grimly. "I needed to know where you stand. I'll get their approval." He rose, bowed, and left the room.

Nordli turned to Carey. "General, how do we proceed?"

Carey let his eyes sweep the others' faces as he thought. They were all on Nordli's side, he saw: Du Bellay, like himself, only because there was no other choice. How many lives were they planning to snuff out?—innocent lives, perhaps, who may not realize what they were doing? "The trouble, Mr. Executor, is that the Peacekeeper forces really aren't set up for this kind of threat."

"You've got nuclear missiles, don't you? And ships to deliver them?"

"There are two problems. First, hitting the Intruder would be extremely difficult. A shot from the side would probably miss, alerting them as to our intentions. A head-on shot would hit, all right, but the extremely high magnetic fields it would have to penetrate would almost certainly incapacitate any missile we've got. And second, there's no guarantee even a direct hit would do any good. Just because they don't have FTL drives doesn't mean they're primitives—only that their technology developed along different lines. And don't forget, that ship is designed to bore through the edge of a star at nearly lightspeed."

"There's one further problem," Dr. Roth spoke up. "Disabling or even disintegrating it at this point wouldn't help us any. The fragments would still hit the sun, with the same consequences."

There was a moment of silence. "Then we have to stop or deflect it." Evelyn suggested. "We have to put something massive in its path."

Nordli looked at Carey. "General?"

Carey was doing a quick calculation in his head. "Yes, either would work. Slowing it even slightly would sent it through a less dense region of the photosphere. Assuming, of course, that he stays with his present course."

"What can we put in his path?" Nordli asked. "Could we tow an asteroid out there?"

Carey shook his head. "Impossible. As I pointed out, he's far off the ecliptic plane. Moving an asteroid there would take months." Even as he spoke he was mentally checking off possibilities. Tachships were far too small to be useful, and the only heavy Peacekeeper ships in the System were too far away from the Intruder's path. "The only chance I can see," he said slowly, "is if there's a big private or commercial ship close enough to intercept him a good distance from the sun. But we don't have authority to requisition nonmilitary spacecraft."

"You do now," Nordli said grimly. "The government also guarantees compensation."

"Thank you, sir." Carey touched an intercom button and gave Captain Mahendra the search order.

There was a lot of traffic in mankind's home system, but the Peacekeepers' duties included monitoring such activity, and it was only a few minutes before Mahendra was back on the intercom. "There's only one really good choice," he reported. "A big passenger liner, the Origami, almost a hundred thousand tons. She's between Titan and Ceres at present and has a eighty-four percent probability of making an intercept point on time; seventy-nine if she drops her passengers first. One other liner and three freighters of comparable size have probabilities of fifteen percent or lower."

"I see," Carey said through suddenly dry lips. "Thank you, Captain. Stand by."

He looked back up at Nordli. The Executor nodded. "No choice. Have that liner drop its passengers and get moving."

"Yes, sir." Turning to the intercom, Carey began to give the orders. He was vaguely surprised at the self-control in his voice.

—

"Well, Shipmaster?" Lassarr asked.

Orofan kept his expression neutral. "I have no suggestion other than the one I offered an aarn ago, Voyagemaster: that we change course and continue at reduced speed."

"For six lifetimes?" Lassarr snorted. "That's unacceptable."

"It won't be that bad." Orofan consulted his calculations. "We could penetrate the outer atmosphere of the star without causing significant damage to the system. We'd collect enough fuel that way to shorten the trip to barely two lifetimes."

"That's still not good enough. I have no wish to join the ancestors before our people are safely to their new home."

"That can be arranged," Orofan said stiffly. "You and any of the Dawnsent's crew who wished could be put in the spare sleep tanks. If necessary, I could run the ship alone."

For a moment Orofan thought Lassarr was going to take offense at his suggestion. But the Voyagemaster's expression changed and he merely shrugged. "Your offer is honorable, but impractical. The critical factor is still the durability of the sleep tanks, and that hasn't changed. However, I've come up with an alternative of my own." He paused. "We could make our new colony in this system."

"Impossible," Orofan said. "We don't have the fuel to stop."

"Certainly we do. A large proportion of this spacecraft's equipment could be done without for a short time. Converting all of that to fusion material and reaction mass would give us all that we need, even considering that we would overshoot and have to come back."

"No!" The exclamation burst involuntarily from Orofan. His beloved Dawnsent broken up haphazardly and fed to a fusion drive?

"Why not?"

His emotional response, Orofan knew, wouldn't impress the other, and he fumbled for logical reasons. "We don't know if there's a planet here we could live on, for one thing. Even if there is, the natives may already be living there. We are hardly in a position to bargain for territory."

"We are not entirely helpless, however," Lassarr said. "Our starshield's a formidable defense, and our meteor-destroyer could be adapted to offense. Our magnetic scoop itself is deadly to most known forms of life." His tentacles took on a sardonic expression. "And if they're too advanced to be subjugated, we'll simply ask for their help in rebuilding and refueling our ship and continue on our way."

Orofan could hardly believe what he was hearing.

"Are you serious? You'd start a war for the sake of only a million Sk'cee—a million, out of our eight hundred billions?"

Suddenly, Lassarr looked very tired. "I'll say this one more time, Shipmaster. The voyage, and those million Sk'cee, are my prime responsibility. I don't have the luxury of taking a broader view. By both nature and training I am highly protective toward my charges—if I were otherwise I wouldn't have been made Voyagemaster. Racial selfishness is sometimes necessary for survival, a fact those who sent us knew well. This is one of those times. I will do what I must, and will face the ancestors without shame."

There was nothing Orofan could say—the struggle to follow the honorable path was vital to him as well. But what did honor demand here?

Lassarr gazed at the blackness outside the viewport. "You have one-half aarn to choose between our current course and ending the voyage here," he said. "If you won't choose, I'll do so for you."

Heart pounding painfully, Orofan signed assent. "Very well."

—

One of the nicest traditions still remaining from the days of the old seagoing luxury ships, Chandra Carey thought, was that of the officers eating dinner with their passengers. She delighted in choosing who would join her at the captain's table, always making certain someone interesting sat at her side. She was therefore annoyed when First Officer Goode interrupted a lively discussion on genetics with a call suggesting she join him on the bridge.

"Mechanical trouble?" she asked softly into the intercom. No sense alarming the passengers.

"No, Captain. But you'll want to get up here right away." Goode's voice was casual—far too casual.

Chandra's annoyance evaporated. "On my way."

She made her apologies and reached the bridge in ninety seconds. Goode was waiting, a message flimsy in his hand. "Get a grip on your guyline," he advised, handing her the paper.

A frown creased Chandra's forehead; it deepened as she read. "This is ridiculous. Drop my passengers and fireball it way the hell off the ecliptic? What for?"

"The explanation's still coming in—tight beam, with the line's own security code," Goode told her. "And it's under your father's name, no less." He took the flimsy back and headed toward the navigator.

"Dad?" Chandra stepped to the communications console and peered at the paper sliding slowly from the slot. Sure enough: PEACEKEEPER HEADQUARTERS, EARTH—TO P.L. ORIGAMI: FROM GEN. SANFORD CAREY. Beneath the heading the message was nearly complete, and Chandra read it with a mixture of fascination and horror.

"Well?" Goode asked.

She tore off the paper and thrust it into his hands even as she groped for the main intercom board. For a moment she paused, organizing the thoughts that whirled like Martian winds through her mind. Then she stabbed the "general" button.

"Attention, attention," she said in her most authorative voice. "This is Captain Carey. All passengers and non-essential crewmembers are to report to the lifeboats immediately. There is no immediate danger to the Origami, but this is not a drill. Repeating: all passengers and nonessential crew report immediately to lifeboats. This is not a drill."

The "abandon ship" alarm sounded even as she keyed a different circuit. "Bridge to Power. I want the drive up to full ergs in twenty minutes. Start tying in for full remote to the bridge, too." She waited for an acknowledgment and switched off. "Navigator!" she called across the bridge. "Get me a course to the vector on that paper—" she stabbed a finger at the flimsy Goode had shown her. "I want a minimum-time path to the earliest possible intercept point that leaves us stationary. Any acceleration she can handle, and you can run the tanks. Everyone else: if you're not on flight prep, help get the passengers off. We fireball in twenty minutes. Move!" The bridge erupted with activity. Chandra sank into her chair, rereading the message carefully. It was hard to believe that the long search was ending like this, with a kill-or-die confrontation that made less sense even than shooting a deadly snake. And yet, despite the danger and irony, she felt a small surge of excitement. The safety of the entire solar system had unexpectedly fallen into her hands—and her father himself was counting on her. She wouldn't let him down.

Glancing up at the chrono, she keyed the intercom. "Captain to lifeboat bays—status report?"

—

Lassarr returned to the bridge at precisely the appointed time. "The half-aarn is past, Shipmaster," he announced.

Orofan looked up from the sensor monitor he and Pliij were seated at. "One moment, Voyagemaster," he said distractedly. "A new factor has entered the situation."

"I have it now, Orofan," Pliij muttered, both long and short tentacles dancing over the instruments. "Medium-frequency electromagnetic radiation, with severe shifting and aberration. I have a recording."

"Good. Get to work on it at once. And keep the sensors watching for more." Orofan stood and went to where Lassarr waited.

"What is it?" the Voyagemaster asked.

"Signals of some sort, beamed at us every few aarmis. The natives are trying to communicate."

Lassarr frowned. "Interesting. Any known language?"

"Unfortunately, no. But there's a great deal of information in each pulse. We may have a preliminary translation in a few aarns."

"Good. That'll help us if we need to negotiate for the Dawnsent's repair."

Orofan blinked. "What do you mean? Whether or not we're stopping here is still my decision."

"Not any more. I've reconsidered and have decided this is our best course. Further planetary data is coming in, and it now seems likely that there are one or two planets here we could colonize."

Orofan forced calmness into his voice. "You can't do that, Lassarr. You can't commit us to an uncertain war; certainly not one of conquest. Even if they were primitives—which they're clearly not—we would have no right to take their worlds. This is not honorable—"

"Peace, Shipmaster." Lassarr favored him with a hard, speculative glare. "You protest far too much. Tell me, if the Dawnsent didn't need to be cannibalized for the required fuel mass, would you be nearly as opposed to stopping here?"

"Your insinuations are slanderous," Orofan said stiffly. "The ship is my responsibility, yes, but I've not been blinded to all else. My overall duty is still to the Sk'cee in our sleep tanks."

"I'm sure you believe that," Lassarr said, more gently. "But I can't afford to. The very nature of your training makes your judgment suspect in a case like this. The decision has been made. I've instructed the library to catalog nonessential equipment; disassembly will begin in two aarns."

"You can't do this," Orofan whispered.

"I can," the Voyagemaster said calmly, "and I have."

Trembling with emotion, Orofan turned and fled from the bridge.

—

"That's the last of them," Goode reported from his position at the Origami's helm. He sounded tired.

Chandra nodded, several neck muscles twinging with the action. Two days of two-gee deceleration wasn't enough to incapacitate anyone, but it was more than enough to be a nuisance, and she was glad it was almost over. "That was what, the engineering crew?"

"Right—four lifeboats full. We're all alone, Captain."

She smiled tightly. "Fun, isn't it? Okay. Chaser Twelve just checked in; the Intruder's still on course. Our ETA on his path is four hours?"

"Just under. Three fifty-seven thirty."

She did a quick calculation. "Gives us a whole six minutes to spare. Tight."

Goode shrugged. "I would've been perfectly happy to take the whole trip at two gees and get here a day earlier. But creating fuel isn't one of my talents."

"I'll suggest a tachship tanker fleet to Dad when we get home," Chandra said dryly. "Okay. Number 81 should be our last boat. Fifteen minutes before we arrive I want you to go down and prep it. We'll want to cut out the minute the Origami's in position."

"Roger."

Conversation lapsed. It felt strange, Chandra thought, to be deliberately running towards a collision: strange and frightening. It brought her back to her first driving lessons, to her father's warnings that she was never, never to race a monorail to a crossing. He'd hammered the point home by showing her pictures of cars that had lost such contests, and even now she shuddered at the memory of those horrible tangles.

And it was her father himself who had authorized this. She wondered how he was feeling right now. Worse than she was, probably.

Strange how, in the pictures, the monorail never seemed particularly damaged. Would it be that way this time too? She had no desire to kill any of the aliens aboard that ship if it could be avoided. This mess wasn't really their fault.

Six minutes.... She hoped like hell the Intruder hadn't changed course.

—

Captain Mahendra's hands rested lightly on the Situation Room's communications board, showing no sign whatsoever of tension. General Carey watched those hands in fascination, wondering at the man's self-control. But, then, Mahendra didn't have a daughter out there racing the ultimate monorail to its mathematical crossing.

Mahendra turned from the board, taking off his headphone, and Carey shifted his gaze to the captain's face. "Well?"

"Chaser Six reports both the Intruder and the Origami still on course. Chasers Eight through Thirteen are still picking up lifeboats. Almost all the passengers are back; about three-quarters of the crew are still out there."

Carey nodded. "How long will the Origami have before impact?"

"From now, three hours twenty minutes. Once in place, about six minutes."

Carey hissed softly between his teeth. "Pretty slim margin."

Mahendra frowned. "Should be enough, General. Those boats can handle two gees for ten minutes or so before running their tanks. Even if you allow them three minutes for launching, they can get—oh, three hundred kilometers out before impact. That should be a relatively safe distance."

"I suppose so."

"You seem doubtful," a new voice cut in from behind him. Carey turned to discover Du Bailey had come up, unnoticed, and was standing at his shoulder.

"I'm concerned about those still aboard that ship," the general growled. "They're civilians and shouldn't have to go through this."

"I agree." Du Bellay paused. "I, uh, looked up the Origami's registry data. The captain is listed as a Chandra Carey."

He stopped without asking the obvious question. Carey answered it anyway. "She's my daughter."

"Your daughter, sir?" Mahendra asked, eyes widening momentarily. "I'm sorry; I didn't know." His fingers danced over keys; numbers appeared on his screen. "Sir, we could pull a tachship off of the Intruder's path and have it waiting to pick up Captain Carey when the Origami reaches position."

"No. We've only got three tachships left on chaser duty and I'd rather leave them there. Chandra's good, and I know she thinks highly of her crew. The best thing we can do for them is to keep feeding them good data on the Intruder's course."

"What about sending one of the tachships that's on lifeboat-pickup duty?" Du Bellay suggested.

"Those boats don't carry all that much food and air," Carey said, shaking his head. "The Origami dropped a lot of boats, and some of them are getting close to the wire. Tachships can't carry more than a single lifeboat at a time, and with all civilian craft officially barred from the area we're going to have enough trouble picking up everyone as it is." Both men still looked disturbed, so Carey flashed what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, Chandra can take care of herself. Captain, what's the status of our attempts at communication?"

Du Bellay drifted off as, almost reluctantly, Mahendra turned back to his board. His hands, Carey noted, didn't look nearly as relaxed as before.

—

The door opened, and Orofan paused on the threshold for a moment before stepping onto the bridge. Lassarr glanced up from the console where he and Pliij were working. "Yes, what is it?" the Voyagemaster growled.

"I'm asking you once more to reconsider," Orofan said. His voice was firm, devoid of all emotion.

Lassarr evidently missed the implications of that. "It's too late. Disassembly has begun; our new course is plotted."

"But not yet executed," Orofan pointed out. "And equipment can be reassembled. This path is not honorable, Voyagemaster."

Deliberately, Lassarr turned his back on the Shipmaster. "Prepare to execute the course change," he instructed Pliij.

"You leave me no alternative," Orofan sighed.

Lassarr spun around—and froze, holding very tightly to the console, his eyes goggling at the assault gun nestled in Orofan's tentacle. "Have you gone insane, Shipmaster?"

"Perhaps," Orofan said. "But I will not face the ancestors having stood by while war was made against a race which has offered no provocation."

"Indeed?" Lassarr's voice dripped with the sarcasm of fear and anger combined. "And destroying them outright, without warning, is more honorable? A few aarns ago you didn't think so. Or do you intend instead to condemn a million Sk'cee to death?"

"I don't know," Orofan said, gazing at the screen that showed the approaching star. "There is still time to decide which path to take."

Lassarr was aghast. "You're going to leave this decision to a last-aarmi impulse?"

"Orofan, there's barely a tenth of an aarn left," Pliij said, his voice strained.

"I know." Orofan focused on Lassarr. "But the Dawnsent is mine, and with that power goes responsibility for its actions. It is not honorable to relinquish that load."

Slowly, as if finally understanding, Lassarr signed agreement. "But the burden may be transferred to one who is willing," he said quietly.

"And what then of my honor?" Orofan asked, tentacles rippling with half-bitter amusement. "No. Your honor is safe, Voyagemaster—you were prevented only by force from following the path you deemed right. You may face the ancestors without fear." He hefted the assault gun. "The final choice is now mine. My honor, alone, stands in the dock."

And that was as it should be, Orofan knew. In the silence he stared at the screen and made his decision.

—

Ten minutes till cutoff. Alone on the bridge, Chandra tried to watch every read-out at once, looking for deviations from their calculated course. The Origami's navigational computer was as good as anything on the market, but for extremely fine positioning it usually had the aid of beacons and maser tracking. Out here in the middle of nowhere, six A.U. from the sun, the computer had to rely on inertial guidance and star positions, and Chandra wasn't sure it could handle the job alone.

She reached for the intercom, changed her mind and instead switched on the radio. The lifeboat bay intercoms were situated a good distance from the boats themselves, and Goode would have a better chance of hearing her over the boat's radio. "Goode? How's it going?" she called.

Her answer was a faint grunt of painful exertion. "Goode?" she asked sharply.

"Trouble, Captain," his voice came faintly, as if from outside the boat. Chandra boosted both power and gain, and Goode's next words were clearer. "One of the lines of the boat's cradle is jammed—something's dug into the mesh where I can't get at it. I'll need a laser torch to cut it."

"Damn. The nearest one's probably in the forward hobby room." Chandra briefly considered dropping back to one gee while Goode was traveling, but immediately abandoned the idea. At this late stage that would force extra high-gee deceleration to still get to the rendezvous position on time, and there was no guarantee they had the fuel for that.

Goode read her mind, long-distance. "Don't worry, I can make it. What's the latest on the Intruder?"

"As of four minutes ago, holding steady. At a light-minute to the nearest tachship, though, that could be a little old."

"I get the point. On my way."

The minutes crawled by. Eyes still on the read-outs, Chandra mentally traced out Goode's path: out the bay, turn right, elevator or stairway down two decks, along a long corridor, into the Number Two hobby and craft shop; secure a torch from the locked cabinet and return. Even with twice-normal weight she thought she was giving him plenty of time, but she was halfway through her third tracing when the drive abruptly cut off.

The sudden silence and weightlessness caught her by surprise, and she wasted two or three seconds fumbling at the radio switch. "Goode!" she shouted. "Where the hell are you?"

There was no reply. She waited, scanning the final location figures. Sure enough, the Origami had overshot the proper position by nearly eighty meters. She was just reaching for her power controls when the radio boomed.

"I'm back," Goode said, panting heavily. "I didn't trust the elevator—didn't realize how hard the trip back would be. Sorry."

"Never mind; just get to work. Is there anything you can hang onto? I've got to run the nose jets."

"Go ahead. But, damn, this torch is a genuine toy. I don't know how long it'll take to cut the boat loose."

A chill ran down Chandra's spine, and it was all she could do to keep from hitting the main drive and getting them the hell out of there. "Better not be long, partner. It's just you and me and a runaway monorail out here."

"Yeah. Hey—couldn't you call for a tachship to come and get us?"

"I already thought of that. But the nearest tachship is only a light-minute out, way too close to get here in one jump. He'd have to jump out a minimum of two A.U., then jump back here. Calculating the direction and timing for two jumps that fine-tuned would take almost twenty minutes, total."

"Damn. I didn't know that—I've never trained for tachships." A short pause. "The first three strands are cut; seven to go. Minute and a half, I'd guess."

"Okay." Chandra was watching the read-outs closely. "We're almost back in position; I'll be down there before you're done. The boat ready otherwise?"

"Ready, waiting, and eager."

"Not nearly as eager as I am." A squirt of the main drive to kill their velocity as the nose jets fell silent; one more careful scan of the read-outs—"I'm done. See you below."

Goode was on the second to the last of the cable strands when she arrived. "Get in and strap down," he told her, not looking up.

She did, wriggling into the pilot's couch, and was ready by the time he scrambled in the opposite side. Without waiting for him to strap down, she hit the "release" button.

They were under two gees again practically before clearing the hull. Holding the throttle as high as it would go, Chandra confirmed that they were moving at right angles to the Intruder's path. Only then did she glance at the chrono.

Ninety seconds to impact.

Next to her, Goode sighed. "I don't think we're going to make it, Chandra," he said, his voice more wistful than afraid.

Chandra opened her mouth to say something reassuring—but it was the radio that spoke. "Avis T-466 to Origami lifeboat; come in?"

A civilian tachship? "Lifeboat; Captain Carey here. Listen, you'd better get the hell out of—"

"I know," the voice interrupted. "I eavesdropped a bit on your problems via radio. You're running late, but I'm right behind you. Kill your drive; I think I've got time to grapple onto you."

Chandra hadn't bothered to look at the 'scope yet, but even as she killed the drive Goode was pointing at it. "There he is. Coplanar course, intercept vector, two-five gee...." The blip changed direction slightly, and Chandra realized suddenly that an amateur was at the controls.

Goode realized it, too. Muttering something, he jabbed at the computer keyboard, kicking in the drive again. "Tachship, we're shifting speed and vector to match yours at intercept; just hold your course," he called. "You've got standard magnetic grapples?"

"Yes, and they're all set. Sit tight; here I come."

The seconds ticked by. The blip on the 'scope was coming up fast... and then it was on top of them, and the lifeboat lurched hard as the grapples caught. "Gotcha!" the radio shouted. "Hang on!"

And with seconds to spare—

The universe vanished. Blackness filled the viewports, spilled like a physical thing into the lifeboat. For five long seconds—

And the sun exploded directly in front of them, brighter than Chandra had seen it for weeks. A dozen blips crawled across the 'scope, and the lifeboat's beacon-reader abruptly came to life, informing them they were six thousand kilometers north-west-zenith of Earth's Number Twelve navigational beacon.

Beside her, Chandra felt Goode go limp with released tension. "Still with me?" the radio asked.

"Sure are," Chandra said, wiping the sweat off her palms. "I don't know how to thank you, Mr.—?"

"Dr. Louis Du Bellay," the voice identified himself. "And don't thank me yet. If what you did out there didn't work, there's a worse death coming for all of us."

Chandra had almost forgotten about that. The thought sobered her rising spirits considerably. "You're right. Can you get us into contact with Peacekeeper HQ? We need to report in."

"I can maybe do better than that. Come aboard and we'll find out."

—

They were given special priority to land, and a car was standing by for them at the field.

General Carey was waiting outside the Situation Room. "I ought to pull your pilot's license for going out there against specific Peacekeeper orders," he told Du Bellay half-seriously, even as he gave his daughter a bear hug. "If Mahendra hadn't confessed to helping you get hold of that tachship I probably would. But he's too good a man to lose to a court-martial. Let's get inside; the Chasers have been reporting in for nearly twenty minutes."

Mahendra looked up as the group approached. "Captain Carey and Officer Goode? Congratulations; it looks like you've done it."

Chandra felt a lump the thickness of ion shielding in her throat. "We slowed him?"

"No, but you deflected him a couple hundredths of a second in the right direction."

"Confirmed?" General Carey asked sharply, as if not daring to believe it.

"Confirmed, sir," Mahendra nodded. "He'll be passing through the upper solar chromosphere instead of deep into the photosphere. We'll get some good flares and a significant radiation increase for a few weeks, but nothing much worse than that."

"And the Intruder hasn't tried to correct his course?" Du Bellay asked quietly.

Mahendra's expression was both sad and grim. "No, Doctor."

Puzzled, Chandra glanced between her father, Mahendra, and Du Bellay, all of whom wore the same look. Even Goode's face was starting to change... and suddenly she understood. "You mean... the impact killed all of them?"

Carey put his arm around her shoulders. "We had no choice, Chandra. It was a matter of survival. You understand, don't you?"

She sighed and, reluctantly, nodded. Goode took her arm and led her to a nearby chair. Sitting there, holding tightly to his hand, she watched with the rest of the Situation Room as the computer plot of the Intruder's position skimmed the sun's surface and shot out once more toward deep space. What had they been like, she wondered numbly... and how many of them had she killed so that Earth could live?

She knew she would never know.

—

Behind the Dawnsent, the star receded toward negative infinity, its light red-shifted to invisibility. With mixed feelings Orofan watched its shrinking image on the screen. Beside him, Pliij looked up from the helmboard. "We're all set, Shipmaster. The deviation's been calculated; we can correct course anytime in the next hundred aarns." He paused, and in a more personal tone said, "You did what was necessary, Orofan. Your honor is unblemished."

Orofan signed agreement, but it was an automatic gesture. The assault gun, he noticed, was still in his tentacle, and he slipped it back into its sheath.

A tentacle touched his. "Pliij is right," Lassarr said gently. "Whatever craft that was, its inhabitants had almost certainly been killed by our scoop before we detected it. You could have done nothing to help them. Refusing to accept the ship's mass at that point would have been dishonorable. You did well; your decisions and judgments have been proved correct."

"I know," Orofan sighed. It was true; fate had combined with his decisions to save the system from destruction without adding appreciable time to the Dawnsent's own journey. He should be satisfied.

And yet... the analyzers reported significant numbers of silicon, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen atoms among the metals of the spacecraft the Dawnsent had unintentionally run down. Which of those atoms had once belonged to living creatures?... And how many of those beings had died so that the Sk'cee might reach their new home?

He knew he would never know.