"And we haven't had the time. But where does the soul fit in?"

"Have you ever heard of B.F. Skinner?" Dykstra asked.

"Twentieth century psychologist, right?"

"Correct. He viewed all organisms, people included, as being nothing more than the sum of their learned responses to the multitudinous stimuli one encounters in life. Some of his techniques are still in use and are a godsend to folks suffering from some disorders, particularly phobias. But as a psychological theory his views were pure reductionist twaddle, not unlike the same sort of stupidity that held biology back at the turn of this century, and psychohistory back four decades ago. But I digress. Nobody lived like they were only the sum of their responses, and other than Skinner's assertion that they were, there was never any evidence of it.

"But the Phinons are the sum of their experience and evolutionary history.

"Now I need to present you with two sets of facts that we have confirmed since the men returned with their data. One, the Phinons have just the technology sufficient to fully exploit the ecological niche that is-or rather, are-the cometary halos. That, plus enough extras to handle whatever other life forms were out there that they had to wipe out. Two, the dead Phinons from the first comet the men visited died around a hundred million years ago. The two bodies alone differ in age by over two million years. And yet there is virtually no difference at all in their physical structure from that of the hostages we are holding below."

Knoedler looked stunned. "You mean they've been occupying our Oort cloud for at least a hundred million years?"

"Not necessarily. Recall that comets, in addition to being left over from planetary system formation, are also formed by exploding planets, an additional by-product of asteroid belt formation. Van Flandern demonstrated this over a century ago. That first comet the men visited may have been occupied by the Phinons when it was light-years away from us. We found no evidence that Phinons move their comets, so it drifted into its current location near our star. The point is that the Phinons have remained virtually unchanged for at least a hundred million years because overlapping Oort clouds constitute a truly huge ecological niche.

"That is why their technological level is so close to ours-they've been at the same level for millions of years, with a hyperdrive just adequate to exploit the comets within the galaxy. Over the duration of their existence, the Phinons must have routinely run into species that met them when at a technological level just below their own."

"What do you suppose happened to those other races?" Knoedler asked.

"I think we're watching a replay right now," Dykstra said.

The conversation had been going on for hours. Nikki Le had been listening in the adjacent room, and had twice more brought in coffee and sandwiches while the two continued the discussion.

Nikki couldn't follow most of it, of course. Dykstra was the genius of the age, and Knoedler (My Tommy, she thought, smiling to herself) had an IQ in the ordinary genius range. Whenever the colonel asked for a clarification, though he seemed satisfied with what he got, Nikki remained deeply in the dark.

Finally it was over. As Dykstra was leaving, Nikki was amazed that rather than seeming worn out, he looked invigorated, and left carrying rather than using his cane.

With the door closed, Knoedler took her in his arms and kissed her, hard. He was the one that was exhausted, and Nikki made him go back into his office and lie down on the couch where she joined him and began giving him a back rub.

"Oh, that feels good," Knoedler said. "How am I going to get along without you?"

"You're the one ordering me to go to Jupiter," she said.

Knoedler sighed. "Have to. I need someone I can trust. You'll be picking up VIPs from both the Jovian moons and the little rocks. Those are the two groups who got us into our recent little war. Nachtegall is a good man, but I want a mission commander who can also be a diplomat."

"I'm not sure if I should feel proud or insulted by that," Nikki said, continuing the massage. "I was listening to the whole talk with Dykstra. Didn't follow it though. Did you find out what you wanted to know?"

"Nikki, make a dozen copies of the recording of that conversation. Dykstra's view on the last century is iconoclastic, but . . . Geez, he tied together old science fiction; punctuated equilibrium; the work of Kuhn, Van Flandern, Hawkins, and Graneau; Calvinism; the Chronicles of Narnia; and the behavior of trees in a pest-infested forest, just to name a few. That was the most astonishing intellectual tour de force I've ever heard of in any way, shape, or form. Dykstra is probably the only scientist responsible for two paradigm shifts in the same discipline-Dykstra Hyperphysics is going to replace Dykstra Field Theory as the ruling paradigm of the twenty-second century.

"The future is going to want to remember what Dykstra just told me. It's going to want to see what the best brain of any dozen ages is capable of given a century of experience.

"That is, if we have a future."

Even though Hague had been watching the Phinons for three hours before Samantha came, he was still observing them more than ten hours later when two armed guards and a doctor from the biology section of the Phinon Project arrived to take away Te'chk.

Of course, he was the only one who knew that was the Phinon's name. Though name was probably too strong a term, Hague realized. Designation was a better fit.

It was true that Hague had failed completely to notice Sammi's presence earlier, but that was actually a very rare thing for the savant. Sammi and all the others whom Hague now thought of as his friends would be astonished to know just how aware he was of his surroundings. They were used to thinking of him as being pretty much, if not oblivious, then uninterested by the goings-on around him. This was not at all the case. In fact, the only other time since arriving on the Moon that Hague had been unaware of his surroundings was when he'd received the note from Dykstra to consider what would happen if two hyperdrives were operated next to each other. Every single other event was firmly locked inside his brain, and instantly accessible. For Hague, there was no such thing as a faded memory-events of decades before were as clear as yesterday, or even yesterminute.

The other three men did not object to Hague's presence as they went about removing the Phinon. First they adjusted the holographic controls while the Phinons were standing some distance apart, and suddenly a wall appeared between them. A sudden blaze of clickety-clacking raged between them until a real wall dropped down within the hologram and cut off the conversation. Then gaseous PMDP was pumped into Te'chk's side and the Phinon went limp.

"Off to dissection, oh yes," Hague thought. "Oh, yes."

If all humans could be described as bodies of water, then some would be no deeper than a mud puddle, while others would be veritable oceans. No one would argue that Dykstra amounted to anything less than the Pacific in this analogy. What almost no one understood was that Hague would be the Arctic Ocean, covered over entirely by ice, except for one small hole from which emerged those glimpses of his genius and an unending supply of "oh yeses."

Hague was sure he understood the Phinons. He'd learned their language, and been frankly bored by it. It was a very logical means for conveying information, but much of the conversation between the two aliens had consisted of "guard duty speak"-"See anything?" "Nope. You?" "Nope."-and they displayed nothing remotely like human curiosity about their surroundings. They knew they were in some kind of cage, that they'd been drugged, that the Chk-chk-clickle (their term for humans) had brought them here. They reaffirmed those facts to each other dozens of times while Hague had been listening. But there was something missing from these beings that was not missing from people, and even Hague's squirrels seemed to have an interior illumination that the Phinons lacked.

"Like the spiders, oh yes. Very much like the spiders." Unknown to anyone except himself, when Hague was seven he'd watched spiders for weeks. The little denizens of the corners had followed humans into space, and the asteroidal corridors Hague was used to had been a nice home for them. He'd admired the web building skills of the spiders-the aerial wizardry displayed in the weaving of the little biological machines.

The Phinons were like them, only they had technology. Hague involuntarily shuddered whenever he thought about that technology. It was so wrong. None of it could be found in the catalogs he knew so well. None of it was derived from earlier primitive forms that he was familiar with. It was a bizarre collection of exotic capabilities and missed opportunities and Hague hated it, reacting to it with the deepest of revulsion.

Not unlike the way an ordinary person might react to a living Phinon if he met up with one in a dark alley somewhere.

That the Phinons were ugly was completely wasted on Hague.

Once Te'chk was hauled away, the holographic wall was removed along with the real separation. Hague continued to watch as Ti'kak looked around for its former companion. The rods and pistons that moved the Phinon's head around twisted that sensory node in an efficient search pattern. It said: "Te'chk(?) Te'chk(?)." Several minutes later it gave up the search and said: "Kittle-click chack-chack Ti'kak."

"Yes, oh yes," Hague said. "You are alone, oh yes." And then he also departed.

Rick couldn't sleep.

He tried for over an hour, but the fact that he was supposed to speak at the funeral for Pops tomorrow, and that he still didn't know what he was going to say, made it impossible. Now he was sitting at his terminal staring at a blank screen.

Why did I volunteer to say a few words? Rick thought. But then, he was the last one to see Pops alive, and Bob was off Luna again. He really did owe it to those who'd known him to say some things.

But what?

This is stupid. I just got back from fighting Phinons and now I'm nervous about a couple of minutes of public speaking. But being logical didn't even bring a single yawn.

He looked toward the bed. Paula was only half-draped by the covers and seeing the outline of her naked breasts in the dim illumination brought a flood of delightful recent memories. Paula hadn't moved in with him, but by his second night back she'd sort of stopped returning to her quarters at night.

Rick still wasn't sure what to make of this relationship. There was so much more he would have liked to have known about her before sleeping with her so routinely. At least my mind thinks that. But she's so damn beautiful. Even if she told me she only wanted me for my money she still could get me into bed.

Whatever. He couldn't say that he had any complaints about the situation. He looked at her again. Nope, not a complaint at all.

That first night of his return she'd come over and they'd shared stories about Pops. She made him tell her every detail of the old guy's last minutes. When he'd elaborated on just how brave Pops had been, Paula had started to cry, and then one thing had led to another . . . Several times that night, Rick recalled, smiling.

But that brought him back to the task at hand. I'll just tell them about those last few minutes of Pops' life. How he stood to fight. How he sent Bob along. I don't have to say anything else. And suddenly words started to fill up the screen, though even as he typed them Rick knew he wouldn't be looking at his printout tomorrow. He wouldn't need to.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. He hadn't noticed Paula waking up. She hadn't bothered to put on her robe. "Are you almost done, honey? I'm getting cold back there."

He stood up and her nude body melted against his. "Save and print," he said to the terminal. Then their hands found now familiar but pleasurable places, and with Rick navigating, they made it back to the bed.

They made love and it was good. Very, very good. Paula took him like he was the last man in the world, and these were the last days.

Two hours before the funeral, Rick met his father in the visitor's suite. Wayne Vander Kam had come up for the funeral since Pops had technically been in his employ at the time of his death, and also because he had business on the Moon. Although Rick and his father had talked several times since his return, this was the first time they'd met face-to-face. His father shook his hand.

No hug this time, Rick thought.

"I'm glad you could come, Dad," Rick said.

"So am I. Even came up in a streakbomber retrofitted with the D & H drive. Killed two birds with one stone-the ship was coming here anyway. But right now, we have an appointment in Colonel Knoedler's office. We have to go get Dr. Hague first, though."

They left the suite and set off for Hague's lab. On the way, Rick brought up Paula. "Dad, there's someone I'm going to want you to meet. You'll see her with me at the funeral. Her name is Paula. She's one of your propulsion techs-"

"A propulsion tech? You sleeping with her? How well do you-"

Rick stopped right there, took his father by the shoulder, and pulled him up short. His dad hadn't even noticed what he was saying, Rick was sure. He was just back in his automatic pattern. "That is enough, dammit! I just got back from the Oort cloud. I was fighting the Phinons. You think I give a shit about what you think of the woman I want to be with? What happened to that soft-hearted father who couldn't bear to see me go, huh? Junior's back so now you can go back to being an asshole, is that what you think?"

Rick watched the fire flare in his father's eyes, but then like a match snuffed by a pair of wet fingers, the flame went out. Then he said, "You're my youngest boy. You're probably going to have to keep reminding me that you're a man for a while yet. I'm sorry."

In relative silence they proceeded to Hague's lab, and Rick neglected to tell his dad about the squirrels. When they opened the door, there was the oak tree with Hague standing in his vest, five squirrels running around his trunk, saying, "Here you go, Sarobi," handing her a nut.

"What in the hell is this place?" Vander Kam Sr. whispered.

"Arie, this is my dad," Rick said, enjoying his father's reaction.

"Oh yes, the elder Vander Kam. Oh yes. Very pleased to meet you, oh yes," Hague said.

After a few minutes Rick got Hague out of his vest and somewhat presentable and the three set off for the colonel's office. "I forgot to ask-why are we meeting with Knoedler?"

"You'll see."

Knoedler's temporary assistant ushered them right into the office. The colonel was standing beside a

woman, fiftyish, Rick decided, wispy looking, and yet . . . This woman has edges, he thought.Hague looked at the woman and said, "Hello, Sarobi, oh yes, hello."Sarobi's edges went away and she rushed to her brother. Tears were streaming down her face, rolling off cheeks that Rick was somehow sure had been allowed to feel precious few in her lifetime.

"I found her, Rick," his dad said. "Wasn't easy. This is one very resourceful woman."

"But years ago when that 'mistake in Dykstra's work' paper came out, Sarobi started paying attention to

what was going on in the Belt," Knoedler said. "She traveled there but couldn't find Arie. She got a message to my office a few years ago about her brother and what he was able to do. That set me on the track to find him, and initiate the raid to get him. But I'd never met her until today."

"You can talk," Sarobi said to Hague. "You learned how to talk."

"Yes, oh yes," Hague said. "I talk very well, oh yes."

"And like the old professor, I notice," Sarobi said.

"Oh yes."

"Professor?" Rick asked.

"Our parents were dying," Sarobi said. "They shoved us in a life pod and we made it to Ceres. But in

those days, just after the war, help wasn't easy to find. Packs of children were on their own in those tunnels. To make money I'd find people with broken tools and offer to get them fixed better than new for a price, then I'd bring the tools back to where Arie and I were holed up, he'd fix them, and then we'd be okay for a while. But finally one guy found us, and ultimately Arie was left with old Professor Kirk and I went on to Earth. Kirk said 'oh yes' a lot. Arie wasn't speaking yet when I left. I guess when he decided to, he copied the Professor."

Then Sarobi turned back to Hague, and in their own ways, they got caught up.

"Thanks for finding her, Dad," Rick said softly.

"You won't ever have to worry about Arie, son. Capitol Products is taking them both in. Sarobi is going to work for me. Arie isn't the only one in that family with remarkable abilities."

Sammi was standing outside the door of the chapel when Rick arrived. I'm surprised she came. Funerals remind her of Steve so much, and this one is like his-no body. "Hi, Sammi. How are things?"

"Oh, I'm deluged," she said. "The Phinon dissection data is astonishing. And you guys bringing back those two in the middle of mating is telling us more about the range of their physiology than we could have hoped for . . ." and she prattled on.

This is hard for her, Rick thought. She's talking shop to keep her mind off where she is. "Bob will be glad to hear about what great specimens we brought back. Too bad he's gone with Nikki and . . ."

Rick continued talking but he was looking at the way Sammi's expression darkened at the mention of Nikki. After he finished she politely but abruptly ended their conversation and took a seat in the back at the end of a row.

A few moments later Paula arrived, dressed tastefully and demurely in black. Rick could tell around her eyes that she'd tried makeup, probably cried, then given up the idea of anything elaborate with mascara. They sat down in the second pew from the front.

Soon the ceremony began. The religious part was generically Christian. Pops' records listed him as a Baptist. But no one could find any relatives of the old soldier. No family for Pops. No wonder he never went back to Earth.

The service went as well as could be expected, given a chaplain who'd never known Pops, but soon it was Rick's turn to speak. He held his sheaf of notes as he walked up to the podium, still certain he wouldn't need them. Then he looked out into the sea of faces.

The sea of faces. In addition to Paula and Sammi and Chris; his father; Knoedler, Sarobi, and Hague; and other expected guests, were scores of military men. They were all in their best dress uniforms, of all ages, of ranks spanning the range from general to private, admiral to midshipman. Rick even saw more than a dozen Belt uniforms, but somehow there was no such thing as System Patrol and BDF here.

I should have known, Rick thought. I see you did have family, Pops.

"Let me tell you about my friend," Rick began, and then he saw Sammi stand up and walk out.How long has it been since I last gave a seminar? Sammi thought to herself as she stood at the front of the theater giving her opening remarks. The Phinon in the cage behind her was simply standing, seemingly looking right out at the crowd even though it couldn't see anything but "wall" in that direction.

Dykstra was there, as was Knoedler and Hague. Rick was not, but then, he hadn't been invited. This demonstration did not fall within his need-to-know according to the rules. Of course, it didn't fall within Hague's either, but now everyone knew that he could understand Phinon "talk," so he had been included. The crowd was rounded out by Andy Fine, some additional workers in the biology section, and the usual interested brass.

"My original genano symbiotic organism had been designed to separate iron oxide molecules into their constituent elements. Since the Phinons have steel skeletons, it was Dr. Dykstra who thought my expertise might be applicable to the Phinon problem. It was fairly easy to redesign the genanites to promote rust instead of undoing it. After all, that's pretty much what iron and steel want to do when in the presence of oxygen." Oh how that paragraph glossed over what really happened, Sammi knew. But she had been asked to be brief, and she'd wanted exactly that herself.

"Working with dead Phinon tissue, I was able to tailor a genano organism that could do away with the bacteriological component and live within the Phinon itself. However, living wasn't enough-it also had to be able to manufacture its tools and meet our established mission criteria. This was accomplished even before the arrival of the living specimens. However, recent work with live tissue allowed me to fully quadruple the effectiveness of my previous best attempt." In truth, the phenomenal Phinon regenerative capabilities would have rendered her original bug nearly useless. Andy noticed it before she did. Fortunately, she was well on her way to making modifications to take advantage of the regenerative systems before they discovered that fact, and thus saved herself from a bout of depression and feeling like a failure. If Bob and Rick hadn't come back with live Phinons, we'd be dead for sure.