"There's the battleship on the Dykdar," Pops said, then: "What the hell? Looks like they're going to try to chase us. They're firing up the drive. It also looks like they're trying to raise us."

"Bet you a million credits Knoedler is behind this. Son-of-a-bitch got where he is by being suspicious. Well, we're supposed to be a hundred million klicks away from the station before we go into hyperdrive. Let's see how many we can rack up while we outrun that battleship," Bob said.

"Enjoying yourself, Lieutenant, sir?" Pops asked.

"You damn betcha."

Bob pushed the acceleration up to 90 gravities and the race was on. Of course, there was no way a battleship could do even half that."They're firing missiles at us. Those bastards!" Pops exclaimed, grinning."What's going on up there?" Rick called from the middeck."We're under attack," Bob said. "But I don't think it's going to amount to much."In a straight line, the missiles fired at the Hyperlight could do upwards of 150 gravities. For a little while. They could not do near instant right angle turns. Bob let the missiles close to within a few dozen kilometers, then veered off sharply. The missiles lacked the fuel to even come close a second time.

But now the real test was before them.

They spent the next hours cruising out to a hundred million kilometers from the station and then there was nothing to be done except to become the first humans to go faster than light.

"On my mark, ten seconds. Mark," Bob said. Then: "Will we feel anything when we enter hyperspace?

Sick? Disoriented? Anyone know?"

"We sent rats out on one of our tests," Pops said, again seated in the copilot's position.

"How'd they do?"

"They lived."

"That's comforting. Say good-bye to the Sun, guys," Bob said.The hyperdrive engaged and the Hyperlight leapt toward the stars at an apparent acceleration of 200 million gees, leaving a long blue streak of immense beauty, unfortunately witnessed by no one.

V.

Sammi had been thinking about Bob a lot lately. Though Bob would have preferred that those thoughts concern him in a more personal (and sexual) way, it was actually something that he had asked her that had kept her subconscious going for a week now.

How many Phinons would her genanites kill?

She recalled the melodramatic way she'd told him that her bugs would kill all of them, but that was a reply more out of a thirst for vengeance than out of scientific reason.

In the era of genano technology, it was mandatory to insert within either the virus or the bacterium host a death gene that would cause the bugs to cease their activity after a specified number of replications. In some specialized cases where this was not feasible, the nanotools themselves might be designed so that they could shut the genano virus down when necessary.

This was to have been the case with her bugs during their original mission. They were to be released into the Martian soil, there to go merrily about releasing oxygen from the rust of the sea of sands that constituted so much of the planet's surface. After one hundred days of activity, the bugs would start manufacturing nanotools that wouldn't quite fit the bill for their task, and this would also lead to a failure to make food for the bacteria upon which the virus depended, and the process would grind to a halt. After the terraforming teams had evaluated the work done by the genanites, a new batch could be released to continue the work.

In the case of the anti-Phinon bug, however, since there was no way to know the size of the threat, and since there might not be any way to reinfect the Phinons (assuming they could infect them the first time!) it seemed clear to Sammi that she couldn't program in a death sequence.

She'd been sitting at her workstation for three hours straight, so she rose and went to get herself a cup of tea. Her hair was up in a severe bun, a style which she had never worn before Steve's death. She caught a glimpse of herself in the polished chrome canister that held eight gallons of hot tea for the entire laboratory section, and thought: I even look like a bitch. She reached up and pulled out the pins and let her long hair tumble freely down, then she tried to generate one of her famous smiles. She managed a weak grin. But it's a start. The start of what, though?

"Dr. Samantha?" It was Andy, the "other" genano engineer, though he was more of a regular biologist who'd taken a few graduate level classes in Samantha's specialty; a genano tech at best.

"Yes, Andy?"

"I'm having some trouble with those cultures you wanted me to make. Can you come look at them sometime this afternoon?"

Andy was clean-cut, shy, and he lacked confidence. It was easy for Samantha to walk over him. Sometimes she did. Though he was apparently an excellent biologist-the Patrol didn't put dummies at the High Command-he was far from being her scientific peer. Yet someone had to work with her to know exactly what she was doing in the sad event that . . . ugh.

Recalling that she was trying not to be a bitch, she said, "Okay. I'll fit you in."

She looked at the clock on her way back to her station, and realized that the Hyperlight was due to hit hyperspace in less than an hour. She had no way of knowing that the crew had departed ahead of schedule. And now she thought about Bob in a way that would have pleased him more.

Why did I have to be so cold to him before he left? Poor man. He knew he'd never get the sort of traditional send-off would-be heroes think they deserve. A hug would have been fine. And he deserved that. He's been a good friend ever since I got involved in this damn mess. And what did I do? He comes to say good-bye and I panic. I punched him on the shoulder, for God's sake! I never do that.

Now it was too late. He was out there with the others, and if all went well, he'd be returning with a Phinon or two, subjects that she needed, that they all needed, to find out if her genanites would work after all.

How will history view me? Samantha MacTavish-the fate of humanity rested upon her shoulders. But if it rests on any shoulders, it rests on a lot of them. Without Chris we'd have no hyperdrive, without me no Phinon killer bugs, but without Bob and the others we won't have those anyway. No-the fate of humanity rests with all of us.

Now, about killing Phinons.

She returned to her workstation and continued her research. Assuming she developed a working genanobug, how were they supposed to expose the Phinons? Chris had suggested that somehow they had to take on a fighting pair, either of ships or individuals, infecting one then killing the other so that the infected member would flee back to Phinon territory and hopefully infect the main group.

But unless they knew how the Phinons were distributed out there, this wasn't an easy thing to ensure. For instance, how long would the genanites have to lay dormant before activating? If they turned on too soon, the carrier might die before it even reached other aliens. And how dense was their population out there? This question too played into the equation of how to design the bugs.

Sammi continued to plow through file after file of unfamiliar material, all of it dealing with the distribution of matter in the Kuiper Belt and the Oort cloud. She hoped that by finding an average separation, and by knowing the hypervelocity of 24c, she could somehow get a handle on how rapidly she could expect her bugs to spread given a single carrier.

Despite astronomy not being her field, she found much of it interesting, and some of it fascinating. She also discovered almost immediately upon accessing the files that many of the papers she needed had been authored or coauthored by Richard Michaels. The study of near extrasolar matter had been his particular niche.

It wasn't enough for her to just consult one textbook on the subject, for she knew too clearly from her own field that what was accepted as gospel in one text was sometimes considered outdated dogma in another, and she needed to know what everyone had to say. At least there seemed to be a consensus that the Oort cloud was not so much a cloud as a series of broad belts or bands. Good information to have-it meant right off that the average separation distance she had to consider would be much less.

But there was no consensus on the extent of the cometary halo, and thus, on the scale of the Phinon dispersion through space. It was clear that the Phinons had evolved on a planet somewhere-their physical structure was designed with a gravity well in mind. But what were they now? Were they strictly inhabitants of cometary haloes? And did it matter? Given the amount of transient material traversing interstellar space, cometary haloes as good as overlapped each other. With this the case, then the Phinons might occupy the space between the stars, and how many stars was anybody's guess. There wasn't any sound reason to suggest that they couldn't occupy the space between all of the stars in the galaxy. That would only depend upon how long they'd been around.

So just what was her virus going to do? Kill the Phinons around the Sun? Or kill Phinons spread across the entire galaxy, for century after century until all of them were dead?

She hadn't thought of it that way before.

Maybe it's time I did.

Massive, powerful, sublime-that was the effect that the architect of the Capitol Products corporate headquarters building had been commissioned to achieve. Patterned after the greatest of the old cathedrals and the shaft leading to the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid, the architect had won a bonus with his design.

Even I feel intimidated, Knoedler thought as he entered the front doors. He had been forced to rent a ground car and drive himself from the spaceport since his aide had (apparently) messed up his transportation (again) and there had been no car and driver to meet him. This put him in a bad mood, and in some ways that was good, given the nature of his mission here.

Of course, the aide would have to go. How many was that in the last six months?

He did his best to ignore the psychological effects of the front entry and atrium, and reported to the main desk. Unlike Rick Vander Kam only the week before, the head of System Patrol Intelligence did not have a free pass even to the public restrooms. But Knoedler was sure that everyone working in the room knew who he was. He looked around and noted that ten security people were pacing the floor, when the standard complement was five. He also knew what sort of enhancements the security detail had been given to their bodies-most of them had been commandos in the Patrol Special Forces.

The receptionist took his name and waved to a security officer. Knoedler was led to a special elevator (and under a special arch for a weapons check), and then whisked up to the summit of the building and into the President's office, and seated a full five meters away from the massive oak desk of Wayne Vander Kam.

Vander Kam's chair was empty. Knoedler had to wait eighteen minutes and twenty-two seconds-he timed it-before Vander Kam emerged from a side entrance and sat down.

"Been a while, Colonel," Vander Kam said. "How's the new transport working out for you?"

The second ship equipped with the new drive was assigned to the head of System Patrol Intelligence. "It's everything the good Dr. Dykstra promised such ships would be," he answered. "Now, is your office safe from listening devices?" He knew it would irritate Vander Kam even to ask. This office was safer than most other such offices in the entire Solar Union. Capitol Products had greater financial assets than the entire planet of Mars.

"Of course, dammit! You know that."

"Good. The Patrol wants a favor. I want a favor."

"Voluntary or forced favor?"

"We can argue over definitions later."

"I see," Vander Kam said. "Colonel, I know how this works. Just what percentage of the Joint Staff even knows you're here?"

"I'll be honest. A small one. And it's my ass that gets hung out to dry if I screw this up. If I get caught, then I'm a renegade, a traitor," Knoedler said. Then: "Sort of like your son."

"What?"

"Thought that would get your attention. I know what Dykstra had planned. I know the Hyperlight isn't coming back on schedule. I know your son was in on it from the start." Knoedler decided to push the envelope. He held out his hand palm up. "I have his balls right here," he said, making a fist.

Vander Kam sat very still. Knoedler could see the rage growing behind his eyes. Powerful men usually kept themselves under very tight control. But they were always dangerous. Finally Vander Kam spoke. "And I have eighty floors between you and the pavement."

"Nice retort," Knoedler said. "I also have this," he said and removed an exceedingly flat but decidedly wicked looking energy pistol from within his shirt and leveled it at Vander Kam.

"How did you get that through security?" Vander Kam demanded. "Shoot me and you're dead before you reach the office door."

At least he looks scared, Knoedler thought.

The colonel said, "No doubt by the same security folk who missed this," while sliding the weapon back under his shirt. "Mr. Vander Kam, I am not looking for Pyrrhic victories. I need you to listen and I need you to know how serious this is."

"I'm listening."

"Good. How many ships will Capitol Products be able to convert over to the new drive in, say, the next month?"

"We're already getting the retrofit kits together for every version of military craft we manufacture. In a couple of weeks we'll be able to ship hundreds, maybe a thousand units a day," Vander Kam said. The man knew his company.

"That's what we projected in Intelligence also," Knoedler said. "But that isn't what's going to happen."

"Why the hell not?" Vander Kam exploded.

Knoedler told him. In detail. It took forty-five minutes.

"Bottom line, Mr. President, is this," Knoedler said near the end of the conversation. "I'm not asking you to do any more than your son is doing-risk being held up as a traitor if things don't work out."

Vander Kam leaned back in his chair. "I'll help you, Colonel," he said. "You and those shadows above you. I'll obfuscate the issue of why ships aren't being converted over much more quickly. But not because of your threats, dammit, to my son or to me. I'm doing it because I think you're right. Now get the hell out of here. I don't like you and I don't like your methods. I never have."

Knoedler rose. "Shake on it?" he asked, but he didn't bother extending his hand.

"My word is good without it."

"At least let me give you this then," Knoedler said, reaching under his shirt and removing the weapon, in one motion tossing it onto the desk. It clattered and came to rest. Vander Kam picked it up gingerly.

"It's a fake," Knoedler said. "It's made out of a solid piece of the same stuff they make gel caps from. Your security sniffer thought I was carrying cold pills. I'm a sneaky son-of-a-bitch, Mr. Vander Kam. Never forget that."

"We're in hyperspace, men. Did anybody feel anything?" Bob asked. He was looking out into a sky gray with smears of darker or lighter color, and whorls and pulses. This was the tachyon sky Chris had told him he was likely to see, but he hadn't been prepared for the monochrome beauty of chaotic magnificence that the hyperspatial panorama turned out to be. Pops also seemed transfixed by the view.

Unfortunately, there was no way to navigate through it. For that, they'd have to drop out and look around.

"I didn't feel anything strange," Rick replied. "But I didn't know the engines would hum in that frequency range. Or maybe 'drum' is a better word."

"Sounded like soft kettledrums to me," Pops said.

"Okay, we've got just a bit over a day until we reach the site of OEV 1, but we're going to have to drop out to take our bearings a couple times, and it probably wouldn't hurt to shed some velocity, too," Bob informed them. "We were going at a pretty good clip when we transitioned."

They settled in for the flight and after a while Rick exchanged seats in the cockpit with Pops so he could enjoy a good view of hyperspace for a time. Later, they gathered around the table to eat, and the first meal humans had in hyperspace consisted of hot dogs and french fries.

"Y'know, filet mignon wouldn't have been out of place for our first meal," Rick said with another handful of fries on the way to his mouth.

"I'll buy you the best steak in the Solar System once we get back," Pops said. "Now, will someone tell me why it is we're going to OEV 1? And while we're at it, will you tell me what OEV 1 is?"

"OEV 1 stands for Oort Exploration Vessel 1. It was a probe designed to head deep into the Oort cloud and figure out what the structure of the cometary halo actually is, in addition to picking up samples of pristine comet matter which conceivably hasn't been warmer than a few Kelvins since the day it was made. That's the ship Richard Michaels was on when the Phinons found him," Bob said, sounding like he was quoting from somewhere.

"Why was he on that probe?" Pops asked. "I mean, he was going to be gone for years. Why did they want a person out there anyway? Didn't the probe have the best expert systems available?"

"Computers don't go 'aha,' " Rick answered. "It's been understood for a long time that, as expert or intelligent as you want to make a computer, they still don't match up to us in imagination. Some people doubt they ever will. So just in case something turned up out there that required an intellect capable of going 'aha,' they sent him."

"You two sound like you know all about this," Pops said.

"We've both met Michaels," Bob told him. "He's not hesitant to tell you all about what happened. Getting him to shut up about it is something of a problem.

"Anyway, the reason we're going to OEV 1 is because Intelligence has had more time to think about the Phinons since Michaels was recovered, and also to reduce some of the data that OEV 1 gathered. That comet where he found the Phinon 'refinery,' and where they attacked him, is right on the edge of a ring, or band, of comets. The Oort cloud isn't so much a cloud as it is a series of belts, and the distribution of matter isn't remotely homogenous. The hope is that from there we can begin to get a good idea of just how many Phinons are out here that we may have to deal with."

"I never heard the whole story of his encounter with them," Pops said. "Other than a few bits and pieces to give a general idea of what happened. Since you've both heard the account right from the horse's mouth, why don't you get me up to speed?"

Rick began. "The ship spotted something on one of the comets that shouldn't have been there, something that looked like a refinery. Obviously it couldn't have been anything people had put there. While he was wondering what it might be, a Phinon ship popped out of hyperspace and blasted the drive section of the ship. Then they landed on the ship and blasted their way in."

"That part I know about," Pops said. "And the airlock didn't even lock. They could have just cycled it."

"Almost. It was open on the outside. Once they entered, it closed and pressurized. Then they cut through the inner door, and once inside, could have just opened each of the doors down the corridor they were investigating. But they didn't even try. Michaels says he got the distinct impression that it never occurred to them to see if a door would just open first."

"When did he kill one with a spear?" Pops prompted.

Bob picked up the story. "Not a spear-a piece of wire conduit heated in the mess oven. He hid in the kitchen and when one entered he rammed it right through the breathing hole in the chest. After that it struggled and almost got him even though it was skewered, but he got its weapon and cooked its head right in its helmet. That killed it even though Phinons don't keep their brains up there."