"It was worth my career. I thought to destroy a pirate fleet with Hobo Kelly. But my pilot fled. Fled! What have I now, to show for my expensive Trojan Horse?"

I suppressed the obvious answer, along with the plea that my first responsibility was Carlos' life. Ausfaller wouldn't buy that. Instead, "Carlos has something. I know him.

He knows how it happened."

"Can you get it out of him?"

"I don't know." I could put it to Carlos that we'd be safer if we knew what was out to get us. But Carlos was a flatlander. It would color his att.i.tudes.

"So," said Ausfaller.

"We have only the unavailable knowledge in Carlos' skull."

A weapon beyond human technology had knocked me out of hypers.p.a.ce. I'd run. Of course I'd ran. Staying in the neighborhood would have been insane, said I to myself, said I. But, unreasonably, I still felt bad about it.

To Ausfaller I said, "What about the mining tugs? I can't understand what they're doing out here. In, the Belt they use them to move nickel-iron asteroids to industrial sites."

"It is the same here. Most of what they find is useless: stony ma.s.ses or b.a.l.l.s of ice; but what little metal there is, is valuable. They must have it for building."

"For building what? What kind of people would live here? You might as well set up shop in interstellar s.p.a.ce!"

"Precisely. There are no tourists, but there are research groups, here where s.p.a.ce is flat and empty and temperatures are near absolute zero. I know that the Quicksilver Group was established here to study hypers.p.a.ce phenomena. We do not understand hypers.p.a.ce, even yet. Remember that we did not invent the hyperdrive; we bought it from an alien race. Then there is a gene-tailoring laboratory trying to develop a kind of tree that will grow on comets."

"You're kidding."

"But they are serious. A photosynthetic plant to use the chemicals present in all comets... it would be very valuable. The whole cometary halo could be seeded with oxygen-producing plants--" Ausfaller stopped abruptly, then, "Never mind. But all these groups need building materials. It is cheaper to build out here than to ship everything from Earth or the Belt. The presence of tugs is not suspicious."

"But there was nothing else around us. Nothing at all."

Ausfaller nodded.

When Carlos came to join us many hours later, blinking sleep out of his eyes, I asked him, "Carlos, could the tugs have had anything to do with your theory?"

"I don't see how. I've got half an idea, and half an hour from now I could look like a halfwit. The theory I want isn't even in fashion any more. Now that we know what the quasars are, everyone seems to like the Steady State Hypothesis. You know how that works: the tension in completely empty s.p.a.ce produces more hydrogen atoms, forever.

The universe has no beginning and no end." He looked stubborn "But if I'm right, then I know where the ships went to after being robbed. That's more than anyone else knows."

Ausfaller jumped on him.

"Where are they? Are the pa.s.sengers alive?"

"I'm sorry, Sigmund. They're all dead. There won't even be bodies to bury."

"What is it? What are we fighting?"

"A gravitational effect. A sharp warping of s.p.a.ce. A planet wouldn't do that, and a battery of cabin gravity generators wouldn't do it; they couldn't produce sharply bounded a field."

"A collapsar," Ausfaller suggested.

Carlos grinned at him.

"That would do it, but there are other problems. A collapsar can't even form at less than around five solar ma.s.ses. You'd think someone would have noticed something that big, this close to Sol."

"Then what?"

Carlos shook his head. We would wait.

The relay from Southworth Station gave us registration for three s.p.a.ce tugs, used and of varying ages, all three purchased two years ago from IntraBelt Mining by the Sixth Congregational Church of Rodney.

"Rodney?"

But Carlos and Ausfaller were both chortling.

"Belters do that sometimes," Carlos told me.

"It's a way of saying it's n.o.body's business who's buying the ships."

"That's pretty funny, all right, but we still don't know who owns them."

"They may be honest Belters. They may not."

Hard on the heels of the first call came the data Carlos had asked for, playing directly into the shipboard computer. Carlos called up a list of names and phone numbers: Sol system's preeminent students of gravity and its effects, listed in alphabetical order.

An address caught my attention: Julian Forward, #1192326 Southworth Station.

A hyperwave relay tag. He was out here, somewhere in the enormous gap between Neptune's...o...b..t and the cometary belt, out here where the hyperwave relay could function. I looked for more Southworth Station numbers. They were there: Launcelot Starkey, #1844719 Southworth Station.

Jill Luciano, #1844719 Southworth Station.

Mariana Wilton, #1844719 Southworth Station.

"These people," said Ausfaller.

"You wish to discuss your theory with one of them?"

"That's right. Sigmund, isn't 1844719 the tag for the Quicksilver Group?"

"I think so. I also think that they are not within our reach, now that our hyperdrive is gone. The Quicksilver Group was established in distant orbit around Antenora, which is now on the other side of the sun. Carlos, has it occurred to you that one of these people may have built the ship-eating device?"

"What?... You're right. It would take someone who knew something about gravity. But I'd say the Quicksilver Group was beyond suspicion. With upwards of ten thousand people at work, how could anyone hide anything?"

"What about this Julian Forward?"

"Forward. Yah. I've always wanted to meet him."

"You know of him? Who is he?"

"He used to be with the Inst.i.tute of Knowledge on Jinx. I haven't heard of him in years.

He did some work on the gravity waves from the galactic core... work that turned out to be wrong. Sigmund, let's give him a call."

"And ask him what?"

"Why... ?" Then Carlos remembered the situation.

"Oh. You think he might--Yah."

"How well do you know this man?"

"I know him by reputation. He's quite famous. I don't see how such a man could go in for ma.s.s murder."

"Earlier you said that we were looking for a man skilled in the study of gravitational phenomena."

"Granted."

Ausfaller sucked at his lower lip. Then, "Perhaps we can do no more than talk to him.

He could be on the other side of the sun and still head a pirate fleet--"

"No. That he could not."

"Think again," said Ausfaller.

"We are outside the singularity of Sol. A pirate fleet would surely include hyperdrive ships."

"If Julian Forward is the ship eater, he'll have to be nearby. The, uh, device won't move in hypers.p.a.ce."

I said, "Carlos, what we don't know can kill us. Will you quit playing games--" But he was smiling, shaking his head. Futz.

"All right, we can still check on Forward. Call him up and ask where he is! Is he likely to know you by reputation?"

"Sure. I'm famous too."

"Okay. If he's close enough, we might even beg him for a ride home. The way things stand we'll be at the mercy of any hyperdrive ship for as long as we're out here."

"I hope we are attacked," said Ausfaller.

"We can outfight--"

"But we can't outrun. They can dodge, we can't."

"Peace, you two. First things first." Carlos sat down at the hyperwave controls and tapped out a number.

Suddenly Ausfaller said, "Can you contrive to keep my name out of this exchange? If necessary you can be the ship's owner."

Carlos looked around in surprise. Before he could answer, the screen lit. I saw ash-blond hair cut in a Belter crest, over a lean white face and an impersonal smile.

"Forward Station. Good evening."

"Good evening. This is Carlos Wu of Earth calling long distance. May I speak to Dr.

Julian Forward, please?"

"I'll see if he's available." The screen went on HOLD.

In the interval Carlos burst out: "What kind of game are you playing now? How can I explain owning an armed, disguised warship?"

But I began to see what Ausfaller was getting at. I said, "You'd want to avoid explaining that, whatever the truth was. Maybe he won't ask. I--" I shut up, because we were facing Forward.

Julian Forward was a Jinxian, short and wide, with arms as thick as legs and legs as thick as pillars. His skin was almost as black as his hair: a Sirius suntan, probably maintained by sunlights. He perched on the edge of a ma.s.sage chair.

"Carlos Wu!" he said with flattering enthusiasm.

"Are you the same Carlos Wu who solved the Sealeyham Limits Problem?"

Carlos said he was. They went into a discussion of mathematics--a possible application, of Carlos' solution to another limits problem, I gathered. I glanced at Ausfaller--not obtrusively, because for Forward he wasn't supposed to exist--and saw him pensively studying his side view of Forward.

"Well," Forward said, "what can I do for you?"

"Julian Forward, meet Beowulf Shaeffer," said Carlos. I bowed.

"Bey was giving me a lift home when our hyperdrive motor disappeared."

"Disappeared?"

I b.u.t.ted in, for verisimilitude.

"Disappeared, futzy right. The hyperdrive motor casing is empty. The motor supports are sheared off. We're stuck out here with no hyperdrive and no idea how it happened."

"Almost true," Carlos said happily.

"Dr. Forward, I do have some ideas as to what happened here. I'd like to discuss them with you."

"Where are you now?"

I pulled our position and velocity from the computer and flashed them to Forward Station. I wasn't sure it was a good idea; but Ausfaller had time to stop me, and he didn't.

"Fine," said Forward's image.

"It looks like you can get here a lot faster than you can get to Earth. Forward Station is ahead of you, within twenty a.u. of your position. You can wait here for the next ferry.

Better than going on in a crippled ship."

"Good! We'll work out a course and let you know when to expect us."

"I welcome the chance to meet Carlos Wu." Forward gave us his own coordinates and rang off.

Carlos turned.