"Won't be long and there won't be any," Bob said. "Not unless we can stop them."

They looked again at the vast array of brilliant pinpoints. By now they were certain that their velocity had taken them outside the confines of the fleet, but that was hardly a comfort.

"Well, skipper?" Rick asked after a moment.

"Let's rig up a power boost for the transmitter, Rick. We have nothing to be coy about anymore. We're going to blanket the entire Solar System with our mayday and SOS, both widespread laser and good old E and M. The Phinon Project is no longer a secret."

"I'll get right on it," Rick said. "I agree, we have to tell everyone. I just hope to hell it will make a difference."

"Ultimately, it will," Bob said. He looked again at the Phinon fleet. "But not to the people at Jupiter."

XI.

"Colonel, you're going to want to see this immediately," Lieutenant Commander Le said, bursting through the door into his office. Knoedler barely had time to turn around in his chair before she was tapping codes into his keyboard and bringing in the latest (encrypted) information from one of the deep space listening posts.

Knoedler watched in rapt attention. "They're finally back," he said. "And sending an SOS, too. Try to get Dykstra for me, Commander." She returned to her desk. Then he looked at the coordinates of the Hyperlight. The ship was in the same direction as the Phinon hyperspace breakout point. He didn't have any time to wonder about that before the visuals of the Phinon fleet came through.

Shit! Shit! Shit! "Nikki!" he shouted, forgetting to call her by her rank and not even noticing."I have Dykstra," she said. "Now what?""There should be-""Wait!" she cried. "We're getting a data dump from deeptracking. That's what you want, right?""Yes. And tell Dykstra to meet us here immediately."A few minutes later the situation had become clear to the colonel and the commander. "Those are the traces of the alien reaction drives that the distress call talks about," Knoedler said, more to himself than to Nikki since she could see them herself. "So far we've found six hundred thirty-four thousand individual signatures."

"This is scary," Nikki said. "How do you fight that many ships?"

"I don't know," Knoedler said. "I just don't know. But we're going to have to go out there and get the Hyperlight ourselves. My ship is the fastest available.""And I don't suppose you want the Belt getting there first," Nikki added."Nope. Have you noticed we haven't heard anything from them yet about the distress call? At any rate, it's going to be another late night for us. Better have food sent in, enough for us and Dykstra." "Your usual, Colonel?" Nikki asked.

"Yes," he said. Then: "Y'know, I'm sorry you haven't had much of a life outside of work lately, Commander."

"Have I complained? Sir."

"You don't need to add the 'sir,' " Knoedler said. "I told you that."

"And I have a name besides 'Commander,' " Nikki replied. "You used it just a few minutes ago."

"I did?" Knoedler honestly didn't recall. "I've been trying to remain professional," he said.

"What would happen if you stopped trying?"

Those words set off a train of erotic images that Knoedler had been incorporating into some very recent fantasies, but he was too controlled to show it. "Do you want me to tell you, Nikki?"

The door chime sounded and the autoannouncer intoned, "Dr. Dykstra is waiting." Knoedler frowned. "I want you to show me, Tommy . . . sir," Nikki said, and with a sly smile went to answer the door. * * * "Wow. Less than two-and-a-half hours. That was fast," Bob said when Rick informed him that their distress call had already been answered. The lieutenant had been taking a much needed nap. "Yeah.

Some Belt ship called the Queen Lucy. They say they're on a scientific mission to some rocks out near the Kuiper Belt. You buy that?""Hell no.""They didn't say much else," Rick continued. "They gave their position and an ETA, but didn't mention anything about the Phinon fleet."

"Maybe they think we're space happy," Bob said, not seriously. "We didn't exactly come clean on everything either. What do you suppose they'll say once they find the Phinons in the stateroom?"Five days went by. Bob and Rick continued to exchange brief messages with the Queen Lucy, but the lightspeed delay was annoying and made regular conversation impossible, and besides that, their rescuers seemed to be playing their cards close to the vest. The Phinons were still sleeping, but with each day the PMDP dosage had to be administered fifteen minutes earlier, so by now the aliens were getting shots less than eleven hours apart. Bob and Rick took turns feeding nutrient solution to their captives. The solution had been concocted based on an examination of the stomach contents of Phinons killed at Slingshot. They just inserted a tube into the mouth orifice on the "head" and poured in a liter each time. The aliens didn't seem to be losing weight.

Strangely, the Hyperlight had yet to receive a transmission from the System Patrol. This was something that Bob could not understand since there had been plenty of time for their signal to reach the inner system and for a reply to have come back, even if their superiors had wanted to think about what to say for a few days.

Finally Rick saw the drive flame of the Queen Lucy as it was slowing down to match velocities with them. "Our rescuer is a luxury liner," Rick said. "But it has a battleship's engine. This ship belongs to the Belt Defense Force. I'm sure of it."

"Okay, so it has the legs of a warship. Does it have the arms?"

"No way to tell, Bob. Sorry."

"No wonder they didn't want to talk about themselves," Bob said. " 'Course, I'm kind of stuck now. We committed treason when we took the ship out into the Oort cloud. We'll be doing it again if we let the Belt have this ship instead of blowing it up. This is becoming a habit."

"We could defect," Rick said. "I hear the weather is nice on Ceres."

The other ship matched velocities. Bob was impressed by the skill of the ship's pilot. He brought the Queen Lucy right alongside the Hyperlight on the first pass and into the groove so tight that relative drift velocities could be measured in centimeters per minute.

"They're hailing us," Rick said, and he put the voice on the loudspeaker.

"This is Captain Brinn of the Queen Lucy. Please roll your ship fourteen degrees so we may extend our docking tube to lock onto your door."

"Not so fast, Captain," Bob said "We know you're BDF. We want to talk a minute."

"Okay, this is Captain Brinn of the BDF. Do you guys freaking want to be rescued or not?"

I like this man, Bob thought. "We're not breathing our last wisps of air yet, Captain. We're just out of reaction mass. But this little ship can still blow your ass out of the sky and I'm willing to wait for a more polite BDF officer to come along," the lieutenant said.

There was a pause; then the reply came back: "I suppose the proper response to that is 'Oh yeah!' or 'Sez you!' but I think I'd rather just talk. What do you want to know?"

"What were you really doing way the hell out here?" Bob asked.

"As you no doubt know, Glacierville was hit by an alien raid. We were coming out here to see what else we could discover. Our mission is-or rather, was-as secret as yours."

"I doubt that," Rick said softly enough so that the comm pickup would miss it. Bob and Brinn continued to sound each other out, and finally Bob, as a form of confession, asked the most important question: "Do you have a supply of PMDP on board, and how long would it take you to get us back to the inner system? And if you don't have any PMDP, do you have a really strong room with a good lock on the door?"

There was a long pause, then Brinn said: "You have alien POWs along, don't you, Lieutenant?"

"You're quick, Captain. I like that," Bob said. "That's what we went out there for."

Bob felt a tug on his sleeve. Rick was trying to get his attention-was pointing to the scanner display.

Bob looked more closely, frowned, then looked at Rick who just shrugged. "Who?" Bob whispered.

"Don't know," Rick whispered back. "But they have Dykstra-Hague impellers and they're slowing down at a hundred gees. They'll be here in less than an hour. I'll listen for a hail."

"Where were we, Captain Brinn?" Bob said, but he was met with silence.

"They stopped transmitting," Rick said. "Guess they've seen that incoming boat, too."

Bob and Rick did not have to wait long before the approaching ship called. "Welcome back, gentlemen.

This is Colonel Knoedler of System Patrol Intelligence. We've been expecting you . . . for quite some

time. Dr. Dykstra has a question he wanted me to ask. 'Did you get the present you were shopping for?' " Rick and Bob looked at each other, then almost sadly, which was even a surprise to him, Bob replied, "I guess it's time we passed the fate of the Universe on to you. Yes, Colonel, we found it, and now it's Christmas morning."

Bob had to admit that the guys from the Belt had picked a comfortable means of travel. A luxury liner filled with scientific gear. What a great idea. The opulent meeting room that he, Rick, and the others were now gathered in was not only gorgeous, but comfortable. He leaned back in the nicely cushioned chair and continued to listen to Colonel Knoedler.

Knoedler had been telling them about the current state of affairs between the Belt and the Solar Union. The discovery of the Phinon fleet heading inside the Hague Limit had turned the cease-fire into peace, and now scientists from the Phinon Project and the Capitol Products docks were already on the way to the Belt to explain the new technology.

Of course, it hadn't hurt to have people like Knoedler behind the scenes pulling strings.

Rick was seated to Bob's immediate right, and then around beyond him sat Captain Brinn, the colonel, the colonel's (beautiful) assistant Lieutenant Commander Le, and a Belt general whose name Bob had failed to catch immediately to his left. It had been clear from the outset, despite having a Belt general along, that this meeting out here in deep space was Colonel Knoedler's show.

"Okay, that's the background," Knoedler continued. "We took an extra day outfitting my boat to hold the captured aliens, assuming there were any, and then it ate up some time when Commander Le and I had to stop on Ceres to pick up General Adams," ah, Adams, Bob thought, "but we couldn't avoid that since the Queen Lucy is a Belt ship.

"Which brings us to now. Lieutenant Nachtegall and Dr. Vander Kam will be returning on my ship to the Moon, as will our captives."

"But what about the Hyperlight, Colonel?" Bob asked. "We can't just leave her out here."

"And why not, Lieutenant? Let me be blunt about this. We need those Phinons on Luna. Everything else I could leave out here, myself included, just as long as we get the Phinons back to the High Command. Maybe some day someone will come out here and salvage the Hyperlight for a museum, but her race is run.

"As for the Queen Lucy, General Adams will be remaining on her with you, Captain Brinn. Given the equipment aboard her, she's needed out here to monitor the Phinon fleet.

"We leave immediately after the Phinons are transferred. By your leave, General?" Adams nodded. "Dismissed."

And that's that, Bob thought as he returned to the Hyperlight with Rick. Rick didn't have anything to say, so with a minimum of verbal exchanges they put the Phinons in rescue bags again for transport and carried them to the main lock. Others from the Queen Lucy took the aliens from there, and Bob and Rick went to gather up the boxes containing the dead Phinons and the implements they'd collected on their trip. Once those were transferred, they both stood for a moment at the lock.

"I can't find any appropriate words," Rick finally said. "The most important months of my life were spent with this ship."

"Mine too," Bob said. "I promise, once the war is over, you and I will come out here and bring her back home. We can plot her trajectory for the next million years, so I don't think we'll have trouble finding her."

With that, they left, and a few minutes later Bob watched from the window of Knoedler's boat as the Queen Lucy severed her connection to the Hyperlight. Then it was their turn, and Nikki Le separated her craft from the luxury liner, rotated, then threw the drive to full.

At over 100 gees, the Queen Lucy and the Hyperlight disappeared in their wake in a frustratingly short instant.

Even for someone who doesn't like long good-byes, Bob thought.

I don't think I've run like this in the last thirty years, Dykstra thought as he hurried down the corridor to Sammi's lab. The message from Colonel Knoedler that he was on the way back with the crew of the Hyperlight had come only minutes before, and he was anxious to tell Sammi right away. He had agreed to the colonel's request (not order) to not tell the woman about the reception of the distress call when it had come days before, and now he was eager to make up for keeping her in the dark about the fate of her friends.

And he couldn't just call, not when he'd have to tell her that one of the men hadn't returned.

Dykstra turned a corner, almost tripped, had to catch himself with a hand to the wall. How could I have forgotten my cane? He caught his breath a moment, winced as he set off again. Extra aches and pains for at least a week, he thought.

Finally he was at her lab, but he was almost out of breath. I won't even be able to talk to her until I catch my breath. He found himself staggering through the door, saw her hair as she turned in his direction, but she seemed to be seated in a fog. "Sammi . . ." he said, but then thrust his palm against the wall in a desperate attempt to hold himself up, and still found himself sinking to the floor. Out of the fog he saw Sammi rushing to him, her chair toppled over in her haste to reach him.

"Chris! Chris! Medical team, stat!" he heard, but it came from a far distant place.

And then all was crystal clear, and James Christian Dykstra found himself in a tunnel, with a bright light at the end, and he was moving toward it.

A near death experience. At least I hope it's just "near." His mind felt incredibly sharp, and he couldn't help but examine the walls of the tunnel and attempt to discern their composition, but he was moving too fast. So he examined the nature of his motion, duly noted the absence of inertial effects and the lack of wind, then patiently awaited his arrival at the light source.

Presently he found himself standing on some sort of open plain, and there were human figures in front of

him, but they were backlit and the white light was too intense for him to be able to make out any of their faces.Except for one, and she came forward to greet him."Hello, Jenny," he said.Oh, the beauty she had at twenty, yet the nobility she'd acquired by sixty, he thought."Welcome, Chris. But you are not staying. There is still a little bit for you to accomplish," she said.There was so much he wanted to say to her, even if this was only some kind of dream or his brain discharging chemicals in death. But what he did finally say was: "Why can't I see the others behind

you?"Jenny sighed. People sigh in heaven? "Always the scientist, aren't you? Do you think He doesn't understand your abilities? You have just come, but now it is already time for you to go." This time he did feel a wind, but it was blowing him back.

"Then why did I have to come at all?"

"You will know," Jenny said, and she smiled, a smile much like Sunshine's.

"Is Jamie here?" he called out even as he found himself falling away.

She just smiled at him as if amused by the question, and her smile faded into the distance as he found

himself back in the tunnel, tumbling, and his chest hurt.

Dykstra awoke with a start, felt the tubes in his chest jerk, and realized he was in the High Command

hospital. Almost immediately a doctor entered. "I'm Dr. Claire. How are you feeling, Dr. Dykstra?" she asked."Like I'm a hundred and twenty-six years old," he rasped out. "But then, I am.""Well your heart isn't. Not anymore. We had to put in a mechanical unit. That was on orders from the top. They want the available medical telemetry. You're just too valuable to lose. Besides, at your age, regenerating your old one wouldn't have been a good idea anyway." She looked over the readouts on his med scanner. "You're looking good. But I want to keep you here for a few days, maybe even a week-" "I don't have a week-"

"You most certainly do," she shot back sternly, and that was the end of his protest. "You also have a visitor. No more than a half hour, though. After that you're going to sleep again for a while." At that Dr. Claire left, passing Sammi who was on her way in.

"Chris! Thank God you're going to be all right. I was so terrified we had lost you."