“Okay,” said Robert. “First stop, orbit, to make a copy of your ship, and then we jump right into the heart of the Enemy Domain.”

Herb tilted his head to one side and gazed at Robert appraisingly. “You’re a robot, aren’t you?” he said. “I should have guessed as much. That’s how you always managed to stay one jump ahead of me.”

Johnston nodded once at Herb’s grin. “I can see that’s managed to salvage your ego a little,” he said dryly.

Herb continued around the room, tapping at the smooth grey walls as he went.

“That’s why you don’t need anything in here. No beds or sofas or kitchen or…or…anything.”

“Yes,” Robert said dismissively, then changed the subject. “I’m about to activate the reproductive mechanism on your own ship. Do you want to watch?”

Without waiting for a reply, Robert called up an external view on one wall. Herb saw the final stages of his ship’s warp transition from the planet’s surface, watched it slotting itself back into normal space with a faint shimmer.

Herb frowned suspiciously. “Why are you making a copy of my ship?”

“We’ll be jumping into the Enemy Domain in one of them. We’re keeping the other one as a spare to get us out.” He gave Herb a despairing look. “We can’t stay on mine, can we? There are no facilities here.”

Herb’s voice held a faint tremble. “Why will we need another ship to get out? What will happen to the first one?”

Robert pointed to the sharp little linen-wrapped machine that Herb carried in his hand.

“It will be eaten by that VNM you are carrying. It’s a superfast replicator: makes a copy of itself every point seven seconds. First rule of wiping out a VNM infestation: if it can reproduce faster than you, you have to encircle it and work inwards. Very time-consuming, and you run the risk of some of the infection escaping through the gaps in your net. But if you can reproduce faster than the enemy, then you start in the middle and work outwards. We’ll be chasing the infestation, but we know we will catch it in the end.”

“What will happen to me? Will I be on the ship?”

“You’ll be okay,” said Robert. “That machine you’re carrying prefers to convert nonorganic materials.”

“Oh.”

Robert gave Herb a significant glance. Herb ignored it. Looking outside, he could see that his ship was warping and deforming. A long bulge formed along the upper surface as a second ship began to grow.

“Look at that,” Robert said, pointing to Herb’s pregnant spacecraft. “You humans astonish me sometimes. Every adult, every child even, has access to machinery that can reproduce in that way. Haven’t you ever wondered why the universe isn’t already choked up with your junk?”

Herb looked at him in puzzlement. “But it’s illegal to make unauthorized copies. You need a license to operate a VNM on Earth. They need materials with which to make copies of themselves: you could be stealing someone else’s resources.”

Robert laughed. “It’s illegal to convert planets into masses of flickering VNMs, but that didn’t stop you giving it a try.”

“So? You caught me and stopped me.”

“And I’ve caught twenty other young men and women before you. Did you ever hear of Sean Simons? He was a young man, just like you. Rich father, too much sense of his own importance. Bit more malice, mind. He deliberately set about converting a planet.”

“Doesn’t sound familiar.”

“Really? Check the news files. He went missing.” Robert looked at Herb darkly. “I know where he is, though,” he added softly.

Herb felt a little chill, but it quickly dulled. The featureless pale blue room had assumed the aspect of a place apart from reality: a waiting room where they paused while the main events prepared to take place.

“We can’t catch everyone, though. Hasn’t it occurred to you that there may be deeper forces at work here? Every human with a gram of common sense can get hold of a warp drive and a self-replicating machine. You could fill the galaxy with little silver cigars before teatime.”

Herb was impatient. “I know; that’s what the EA is for. That’s what we’re working to prevent now, isn’t it?”

Robert looked at Herb for a moment then shook his head in disbelief.

“No. I give up. You really don’t see it, do you?”

Outside, the bulge in the top surface of Herb’s ship had grown a lot larger. The second ship would soon begin tearing itself free.

They were moving through space, the two ships accelerating away from Herb’s accidentally converted planet. Herb felt an odd pang of loss as he saw that dull grey disk getting smaller as they moved faster and faster. Just behind them, his pregnant spaceship went through the final throes of labor.

Robert stood at Herb’s shoulder, looking on appreciatively.

“What’s the gestation period?” he asked.

Herb smiled with paternal pride. “Twenty-five minutes under optimal conditions. And it can do that every two hours, assuming an appropriate source of construction matter is at hand.”

“Oh, I know where there is one,” said Robert. He looked back at Herb’s ship and then clapped his hands together.

“Oh well. Five more minutes until the ships have separated. Then we jump.”

“Is that it?” asked Herb. He suddenly needed the toilet, and he was acutely aware there was nowhere to go on Robert’s ship. He also wanted to change his clothes. Silk pajamas and a pair of paper slippers may make good ship wear, but he felt incredibly exposed at the thought of landing dressed like that in the middle of the Enemy Domain. He needed body armor. An ABC suit. It was too late for all that.

Herb’s mouth felt dry. “Don’t you have any advice for me?” he asked plaintively.

“Yes. Just do as I say.”

“Oh.”

Herb licked his dry lips. So this was it. He gazed around at the illuminated walls of the spaceship, looked through the viewing field at the receding disk of his abused planet, and wondered sadly how it had come to this.

He thought back to the day that he had left Earth. Walking across the dew-soaked lawn beneath a cloudless blue April sky that seemed to go up forever. His spaceship had sat waiting on the grass ahead of him. Herb had paused for a moment to glance around at the beautiful spring morning. The sight of his father’s house, the green copper dome on its roof, the cream-painted stone walls and the windows reflecting the early morning sunshine. What could he find in space that couldn’t be equalled or surpassed by that morning?

Now he wondered: would things have been different if he hadn’t taken off then?

Herb didn’t know. All he knew was that in three minutes he would be jumping to almost certain death. He looked miserably around Robert’s ship again. The pale blue room, the dark viewing area…

He felt sick.

Herb’s spaceship had separated into two new ships. Two creamy white boxes that tumbled slowly through space behind them. Robert looked on, impressed.

“Almost perfectly balanced,” he whispered. “Only a fraction of a gram’s difference between the two. And only a total mass of one point seven grams lost in the process.”

Herb nodded in terrified agreement. The two ships that now floated behind looked identical to him. He would have expected no less, of course. The twin ships began to drift apart.

“What now?” asked Herb.

“One’s going back to your converted planet to replenish its mass. We’re going to board the other and make the jump into the Enemy Domain.”

“What about restoring our ship’s mass?” asked Herb frantically, hoping for a way to delay the impending jump. “It won’t be working at optimal efficiency at only half mass. What if we’re attacked? The walls will be too thin to deflect any attack.”

Robert gave a little laugh. “The thickness of the walls will make no difference when the Enemy Domain attacks. The ship may as well be made of rice paper for all the protection it will give us.”