"Gee, aren't we lucky?"

"Congratulations, Colonel. That was an admirably suspicious way of recounting the past," Dykstra said. "You almost have me convinced."

"And your conclusion, sir?" Nikki asked.

"The Phinons gave us the hyperdrive. I don't know why, but suspicious bastard that I am, I think they have some nasty way to destroy hyperdrives. The invention is so damn useful that we'd have to employ it if we want to get beyond the Solar System, and we'd absolutely need it if we wanted to fight the Phinons. I fear that if we come to rely on their hyperdrive, and invest totally in building spacecraft employing it, then we're ripe for an attack that could take us out in the proverbial 'one blow.' "

"But how did they know our lifeboat would ram their ship?" Nikki asked, looking for a hole in the colonel's reasoning.

"They didn't. But a ship didn't have to ram. That's just what happened in this case. For all we know, had MacTavish not turned around, in another minute one of our missiles would have gotten their ship in a different miraculous strike, again leaving that hypermotor intact."

"How about that reactionless drive? Dr. Dykstra says they don't have it."

"He doesn't know that for sure, Nikki. Besides, I'm willing to concede that they hadn't intended to give that to us. That's why the ships that hit Slingshot didn't use it. But they really didn't have any way of knowing that we had a scientist of Dykstra's caliber on the scene who could figure it out for us even from the deceptive equipment they let us recover."

"Thank you for the kind acknowledgment, Colonel," Dykstra said.

"Yeah, right. Well, it's your turn, Doctor."

Dykstra turned to Nikki, and it was almost like he was looking right into her. She hadn't noticed that look from him before-she wondered if it was something he could turn on and off at will.

"I agree with the colonel's recitation of the facts, but believe his view is overly tainted by contact with the nefarious minds of other enemy human intelligence organizations, and also from a complete ignorance of what the Phinons are like. That is, from what is revealed about them by their technology, and from the impressions of them formed by those who have actually been in contact with them," Dykstra began.

"I'm not ignorant of those things-" Knoedler began.

"You're not ignorant of what it says in the reports, Colonel. That is not to be confused with a genuine understanding," Dykstra snapped, interrupting. Nikki was impressed by Dykstra's sharpness, both in tone and of wit. But for some reason she felt sorry for Colonel Knoedler. Here was a man entrusted with some of the deepest secrets of the System Patrol, and burdened with some of the greatest responsibilities, but to a man like Dykstra, these were as nothing. And Dykstra could make you feel that way about yourself, too.

"In any case, it would be pointless to reinterpret the colonel's history lesson. Suffice it to say that where he sees devious duplicity, I see genuine data deeply revealing of the Phinon mind."

"I see," Nikki said. "But those differences don't account for what your fight is about, do they?"

"Um, that was a policy thing," Knoedler said. "Once we had a hyperdrive-equipped ship ready, I argued that we should only test it for one day, that being my compromise between us gathering information on the drive and minimizing the chances that the Phinons would find out we've built one. Dr. Dykstra argued that we should send that ship on an intelligence-gathering operation to the Oort cloud, including the possibility that our soldiers would collect Phinon POWs. We were supposed to have reached a compromise on a two-day shakedown cruise. But the good doctor sent the men to do it his way."

"To that I have not admitted," Dykstra said. "The Hyperlight is more than three weeks overdue. We have no idea why. The colonel forgets that even if I had sent the crew on 'my' mission, they would have returned by now. But in actuality, both Colonel Knoedler and I were advocating what we perceived to be a conservative course of action. I felt it was more important for us to find out about them than it was for us to prevent them from finding out about us. Besides that, I don't believe that the Phinons are sufficiently like us for them to even consider the sort of plot that the colonel fears."

"Yes, and every damn time I ask you about that you go fuzzy on me and won't explain yourself clearly," Knoedler interjected. "I only have experience with humans, Doctor. That's all any of us mortals have."

"Not so, Colonel. Nikki has a fuller perspective than that. So, Nikki, I'd like you to tell us what it felt like to fight that Phinon. What were your perceptions of it, of its mind, of its feelings?"

Nikki saw the image of a Phinon, transfixed, like a deer dazzled by headlights. She turned to face Knoedler. "I'm sorry, Colonel," she began. "But I think Dr. Dykstra is right."

Sammi used to tell her friends that Martha's home would feel warm even if the thermostat was turned down to absolute zero. The interior of the apartment Martha shared with her husband was done in earth tones, the furniture was cushiony and country (sporting print patterns dominated by farm animals and harvest scenes), and wood predominated (fake wood, of course, but damn hard to tell the difference from the real thing). On one wall was a large fireplace capable of holographically duplicating anything from a roaring blaze to a mellow intermittent single flickering flame, or even a bed of glowing coals if one was in the mood.

Even the "windows" of the apartment contributed to the warmth, playing a yearlong loop of scenes showing an outdoors typical of the Republic of Currier and Ives, changing somewhat in sync with the seasons as experienced near the 45th parallel of the North American continent. At the moment, the trees "outside" were ablaze with color, and leaves were leaping to freedom with every breath of wind.

Sammi was sitting on the couch, looking "out" the window, but her mind was a million miles away.

Martha emerged from the kitchen with two crystal mugs of hot cider and brandy. Martha herself looked much like her furniture, or a comfortable pillow, soft and cushiony. Steve used to describe her as Sammi's "older and wider" friend. Despite her looks, she was a topnotch chemist with the Martian Terraforming Project, and Martha had adopted Sammi as a surrogate daughter when they first met at the Project's labs.

"Here we are, Sunshine," Martha said cheerfully, handing one mug handle first to Sammi then seating herself beside her young friend on the couch. She took a sip of her drink. "Ah, delicious. So much depends on getting just the right cinnamon stick. Now, tell Momma Martha what this is all about. And you really should make a better effort to come see me more often. I think it would help you a lot."

"I know," Sammi sighed. "But my work is so . . . hectic. Y'know?"

Martha hated the System Patrol because she'd lost both her father and her daughter to Patrol missions that had gone awry. She had been tremendously hurt when Sammi had also agreed to work for them, and it hadn't helped that she could not be told the details of what had convinced Sammi to leave the Project and go to work for the military. So they never talked about what sort of work Sammi was doing, nor did they discuss the Patrol. But it was okay to talk about personal things and feelings.

And men.

"So why did you need to see me so badly?"

"I'm having dreams about . . . another man." As she spoke Sammi tried to bring herself into the here and

now, but even with Martha sitting next to her there was an air of unreality about things. She knew her mind was trying to keep her detached from the reservoir of emotional pain that had pooled in the depths of her soul.

"Tell me about the dream," Martha prompted.

She recounted an edited and factually false but emotionally accurate version of last night's dream that conveyed what Sammi had felt but left Martha in the dark about the classified existence of the Phinons.

Keeping secrets was a tremendous nuisance and Sammi resented the necessity with every half-truth she uttered. "Somehow I feel like I'm betraying my husband," she concluded.

Martha said, "So tell me about this 'Bob' person. What's he like?"

Sammi thought about Lieutenant Nachtegall; his hair, his face, the way the tendons in his neck arranged

themselves when he turned his head, his eyes, his hands. She thought about things he'd said to her, his attentiveness after Dykstra had gone down to Earth. Then with a coyness and a smile that surprised herself she said, "Everything about him says, 'This is a man.' "

Martha laughed. "I see."

"It's funny. I thought Steve was a man, too, obviously. But Steve was so attractive to my mind, so brilliant and intricate. Bob's bright enough, but my attraction to him is, is-"

"Centered lower?" Martha asked helpfully.

"I was going to say 'visceral,' " Sammi said.

"Samantha," Martha began, and suddenly there was a sadness in her eyes, Sammi noted. "How long has

it been since you last made love?"

"Well, it was when . . . when . . ."

The tears gushed out in a flood, unexpectedly, as she remembered her last time with Steve. Suddenly

there was no escaping her feelings, and her lame attempts to close the floodgates failed utterly. Sobs

were torn from her and Sammi cried like she had not cried since that night Dykstra had come to tell her the truth about her husband's death.

Presently the flow of tears subsided and Sammi found herself with her head on Martha's breast, the older woman gently stroking her hair like all moms have done with daughters through the ages. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Sammi choked out, ashamed at herself for losing control, yet not lifting her head nor releasing her embrace of her friend.

"It's okay, Sunshine. It's okay. When you went to work for the Patrol you left your friends behind, you left all your support behind, and you thought work would fill the empty places. It couldn't, little girl. Only other people could do that."

"I need to blow my nose," Sammi said.

After five minutes in the bathroom Sammi felt better, certainly looked better, and was chagrined to admit to herself how badly she'd needed a good cry. The rest of her afternoon with Martha was spent pleasantly. Martha's hobby was baking from scratch and Sammi enjoyed helping her conjure up a coffee cake, and later relished the difference between the real thing and the synthesized one as she and Martha consumed the result while looking out the window at the late afternoon autumn.

Ultimately, just before Sammi was to leave, their conversation came back to Sammi's reason for her visit.

"It is silly of me to think that being attracted to Bob is some sort of violation of my wedding vows. Maybe I'm just so afraid of feeling for someone and then being . . . damaged again," Sammi said.

"Sammi, you're grieving, you're lonely, you're cut off from your friends. That leaves you with needs that someone has to meet. You might stop having feelings for Bob once your life is back to normal. On the other hand, the notion that Steve would expect the rest of your life to be a celebration of celibate singleness is nonsense. I think all he'd care about is that you found yourself a genuinely good man."

"I'm afraid to be hurt again, Martha."

"Trying to avoid that by hiding yourself in your work and keeping everyone away is its own form of damage, honey. And it isn't living," Martha said.

Sammi got ready to leave and Martha wrapped up the rest of the coffee cake for her to take along. "You might invite Bob over and share this with him," Martha encouraged, handing Sammi the package. "Will you be able to see him again, soon?"

Shazam. Back to reality, Sammi thought sadly. Where are you, Bob? You and the rest.

"Yes, soon," Sammi lied.

X.

Bob noticed a brief flash in his peripheral vision, then his radio died. "Uh oh." He was jetting ten meters above the surface, a bagful of Phinons in each hand. Immediately he hit the jets and blasted straight down to the surface, there to take whatever cover he could amongst the lumps and ridges of ice.

After clearing the shaft and arguing with Pops, Bob had mumbled an inexpert prayer that the old man would somehow be following him soon. But getting back to the ship with the Phinons was his first priority, yet carrying two Phinons along with him would tax his jet-maneuvering computer to the limit unless he found a reasonably balanced way to carry them. (Pops' power suit, having been designed to accommodate even unwieldy sorts of weapons platforms, did not have that limitation. Bob swore that he'd upgrade the minute he was back on Luna.) Unfortunately, he also wanted to be able to keep his weapons at the ready, but after a short period of experimentation, it became clear to the lieutenant that he couldn't have it both ways. Not unless he wanted to walk. He didn't.

He'd had to put down right outside the shaft opening and minutes had elapsed before Bob actually took hold of the handles again, one in each hand, and holding the rescue bags extended, jumped off the surface and headed toward the Hyperlight. He'd had to go gently to avoid tumbling, and had made it about a third of the way back to where the ship lay grounded, listening to Pops and Rick commenting about how the ranks of Phinons were thinning, when his radio died.

On the way down Bob let go of the bags. They'd likely bounce a bit but would pretty much stay where they fell despite the trivial surface gravity. He had a weapon out of its holder and in hand by the time his feet hit the ground and his gripfields held him fast.

Bob didn't know what had taken out his radio. He called up his suit diagnostics and queried, and was shown a readout indicating that the radio node on his right shoulder had reached a peak temperature of 2043 Kelvins, but had rapidly cooled to nondangerous levels.

"Rick? Pops?" he called and silence came back. "Dammit. One of those bastards must have nicked me." Nicked was right-a straight-on shot from a Phinon X-ray laser would have flash vaporized Bob's suit material and the resulting explosion would have been the equivalent of having a grenade go off one millimeter away.

Bob had come down into a notch where two thin ridges about three meters high intersected. He had a clear view of the terrain in the direction of the ship, but there could be any number of Phinons on the other side of the ridges by now.

A full minute passed and nothing happened.

Since he wasn't about to try flying to the ship again, Bob collected up the two Phinons, but this time holding both handles in his left hand. He began the trek back to the ship. After four steps he turned around to see if anyone was back there.

Five Phinon faces were looking at him.

The aliens were hovering just above the ridges, and all had weapons pointed at him. Bob felt two conflicting instincts; one to start shooting and the other to hold the rescue bags in front of him like a shield. The latter impulse, with a push from intuition, won out.

Unbelievably long, uneventful, seconds passed.

They don't know what the hell to do, Bob thought. They can see that I have two of them, but they don't know why, or what it means. Judas Priest! They don't look angry or mad. They just look confused. Still, Bob was certain that they'd figure out what to do if he started shooting. Or walking again.

Then like a single unit, the Phinons slowly descended to the surface. They maintained their confused stares at Bob, and after they were all down, they just stood there, watching, as the lieutenant remained immobile.

Shit, shit, shit! Now what? Throw my captives at them and bolt? They'll cut me to shreds the second I'm clear of the bodies. And I can't get all five of them with my gun. I don't even have a Goddamn grenade on me! I gave them all to Pops.

Without warning, the ground hit him on the feet like an enormous hammer and threw Bob and the Phinons right off the surface and into space, and he was briefly blinded by the flare of the blast from the detonation of Pops' suit. He was tumbling, and he could feel the gentle, sequential bursts from the jets as his suit, having sensed its situation, was trying to bring him into a stable orientation. It seemed to be taking an unusually long time. Bob was still holding on to the Phinons. He put his gun away and blindly shifted one of the aliens to his right hand. He was stable again within seconds, and abruptly his suit vision returned.

It was an awesome scene. The randomly chosen orientation the suit had stopped him in placed him with the mass of the comet looming on his left, and less than a hundred meters away, the still brightly luminous shaft of incandescent gas pouring out of the hole where, Bob now knew, Pops had died. Everywhere partial, glowing Phinons were scattering into the velvet abyss, and after a few seconds of observation Bob noted that he was also a part of this scattering, his proper motion having in only seconds separated him more than two hundred additional meters from the surface of the icy world. Looking more carefully, Bob saw that some of the Phinons around him were still whole, noticed that maneuvering jets were flaring from their suits, and realized that these were the same ones who had intercepted him on the way back to the ship.

As the only human out there, Bob was sure they'd notice him soon.

Bob scanned the sky around him and it took only moments to locate all five of the Phinons who had been thrown off the comet with him, for all had to employ suit jets to orient themselves, and the tiny flares were easy to differentiate from the pinpoint stars despite some of them being over a kilometer away by now.

"Where the hell is the ship!" Bob shouted into the hollow of his helmet. Without his communications, he had no idea what had happened to Rick and the Hyperlight. Had she been shaken off the surface, too? Her gripfields were much stronger than those in Bob's suit. On the other hand, staying on the surface might have been more damaging to the ship than being tossed off. "Where are you, Rick?" He searched the surface of the comet, but by now the explosion had played out and Bob found he had no idea of where to look for the ship.

He gave up the search for a second and looked once again for the Phinons. Now he could see that all had suit jets flaring, and that they were all coming toward him. And worse, even more were now pouring up into the sky from other tunnels from other areas on the surface.

Suddenly the head of one of the Phinons of the gang of five exploded, and its remains vectored off towards Bob's feet. Bob smiled. He recognized the signature of an anti-personnel laser set on full.

He looked, with respect to his orientation, up, and there above him was the (glorious!) silhouette of the Hyperlight, APL cluster fully extended, and the airlock door open, waiting for him. Again the APL erupted, and Bob turned in time to see another Phinon die.

And also in time to see two Phinon fighters rise into space from beyond the curve of the comet.

Bob hit his jets, blasting at full, aiming for the airlock.

Rick Vander Kam was not having a good time. Left alone in the ship, there was nothing he could do to help his friends and was forced to simply monitor and record what Pops and Bob were doing. He found that trying to pay attention to both sets of action since they split up was extremely difficult.

Although at first monitoring the views coming from both men, since Bob's return initially consisted of nothing but images of the shaft, Rick was able to focus on the fight Pops was having. Once Bob got to the door, Rick again tried to pay equal attention to both. Rick listened to the exchanges between the two men but decided not to interrupt, even after Bob had blown the door but seemed ready to drop into the shaft to help Pops.

When Bob finally jetted off the surface after tangling with the two Phinon-filled rescue bags, Rick again focused on the battle within the comet, and offered encouragement when he saw that Pops was close to killing all comers.