He would have liked some rum. But he knew from hard experience that when he got like this, he'd drink too much.

Soon it would be over. Once back on solid ground, he'd retire to the villa his agent had bought for him. It was situated on a promontory, out of the way, off a private road. No visitors. No neighbors. No one left to answer to.

If he'd been smart, he'd have gotten off Pinnacle years ago, before it all came front and center again. But he'd let it go, thinking that since he was no longer involved, people would have forgotten him. Forgotten he was ever there.

Aren't you the Nightingale who botched the first mission so thoroughly that we never went back?

He had no close friends, but he was not sure why that was. Consequently, there'd never been anyone with whom to share his considerable professional success. And now, in this increasingly sterile environment, he found himself reflecting more intensely on his life, and sensing that if indeed it was a journey he hadn't gone anywhere.

Now, with the return of Maleiva HI to the news, with the increase of public interest in everything that had to do with the doomed world, his situation was proceeding rapidly downhill. He had even considered changing his name when he got home. But there were serious complications to doing that. The paperwork involved was daunting. No, it should be sufficient just to keep himself out of the directories. He'd already made one mistake, telling these people where he was going, that he was headed for Scotland.

He'd established a code. Any money due him, any formal transactions, anyone trying to reach him for any reason, would get filed in the code box. Then he could respond, or not, as he pleased. No one would know where he was. And if he was careful, no one near Banff, where he proposed to settle, would know who he was.

Aren't you the Nightingale who fainted?

On that terrible day, the creatures had ripped into him. The e-suit had been of limited protection, had not stopped the attack, but had prevented the little sons of bitches from injecting their poison. Nevertheless, the beaks had gone into soft flesh. His neck, though physically all right, had never really healed. Some psychic scar that wouldn't go away and the doctors couldn't cure.

Anyone would have done the same thing he did.

Well, maybe not anyone. But he hadn't been afraid, any more than anybody else. And he hadn't run, hadn't abandoned anyone. He had tried.

The luxury liner Evening Star was carrying fifteen hundred passengers who expected to party through the collision. One of these was the internationally famous Gregory MacAllister, editor, commentator, observer of the human condition. MacAllister prided himself on maintaining a sense of proper humility. On hunting expeditions, he carried his own weapons. He always made it a point with his associates to behave as if they were equals. He was unfailingly polite to the waves of ordinary persons with whom he came in contact, the waiters and physicians and ship captains of the world. Occasionally he made joking references to peasants, but everyone understood they were indeed only jokes.

He was a major political force, and the discoverer of a dozen of the brightest lights on the literary scene. He was ex-officio director of the Chicago Society, a political and literary think tank. He was also on the board of governors of the Baltimore Lexicography Institute, and the editor emeritus of Premier. He was an influential member of several philanthropic societies, although he persisted in describing poor people publicly as incompetent and lazy. He had played a major role in hiring the lawyers who'd taken the Brantley School Board to court in the Genesis Trial. He liked to think of himself as the world's only practicing destroyer of mountebanks, frauds, college professors, and bishops.

He had reluctantly agreed to travel on the Evening Star. Not that he wasn't excited by the prospect of watching entire worlds collide, but that the whole activity seemed somehow a trifle proletarian. It was the sort of thing done by people who lacked a set of substantive values. Like going to a public beach. Or a football game.

But he had consented, admitting finally to his own curiosity and to an opportunity to be able to say that he'd been there when this particular piece of history was made. Furthermore, it allowed him to demonstrate his solidarity with ordinary folks. Even if these ordinary folks tended to own large tracts of real estate along the Cape and inshore on the Hudson.

After all, a little planet-smashing might be fun, and might even provide material for a few rambles about the transience of life and the uncertainty of material advantage. Not that he was against material advantage. The only people he knew of who would have leveled material advantage so that no one had any were of course those who had none to start with.

His decision to attend had also been influenced by the passenger list, which included many of the political and industrial leaders of the period.

Although he would never have admitted it, MacAllister was impressed by the amenities of the giant ship. His stateroom was more cramped than he would have preferred. But that was to be expected. It was nonetheless comfortable, and the decor suggested a restrained good taste rather than the polished superficial luxury one usually found aboard the big superluminal liners.

He enjoyed wandering through the maze of dining rooms, bars, and lounges. Several areas had been converted into virtual verandas, from which when the time came, the passengers would be able to watch the Event.

Although MacAllister had originally planned to spend much of his time working, he took instead to holding court in a bistro called The Navigator on the starboard side, upper deck. It overflowed each evening with notables and admirers, usually second-level political types, their advisers, journalists, a few CEOs, and some writers. All were anxious to be associated with him, to be seen as his friends. On his first night out, he'd been invited to dine at the captain's table. Not quite settled in yet, he'd declined.

If MacAllister had enemies who would not have been sad to see him left somewhere in the Maleiva system, preferably on the doomed planet, he knew that the world at large perceived him as a knight-errant, righting wrongs, puncturing buffooneries, and generally enlisted in the front rank of those who were striving to keep the planet safe for common sense.

He enjoyed a reputation as a brilliant analyst and, even more important, as a model of integrity. He sided neither with progressive nor conservative. He could not be bought. And he could not be fooled.

Women-offered themselves to him. He took some, although he acted with discretion, assuring himself first that there was no possibility of an enraged husband turning up. He harbored a great affection for the opposite sex, although he understood, during an age of weak males, that women belonged in kitchens and in beds. That they were happiest in those locations, and that once everyone got around to recognizing that simple truth, life would become better for all.

Midway through the voyage, he heard the report that artificial structures had been found on Deepsix and commented on it in the journal he'd kept all his life:

We've known about Maleiva III and the coming collision for twenty-odd years, he wrote, and suddenly, with a few weeks left, they discover that unfortunate world has had a history. Now, of course, there will be some advanced finger-pointing to determine which rascals are responsible for having overlooked the detail. It will, of course, turn out to be the fault of the pilot of the Taliaferro, who is safely dead. And they'll find that the failure to check the satellite data at home can be laid to a grade-three clerk. It'll be an entertaining show to watch.