“Even then,” the woman had replied, shrugging her shoulders. “It’s a huge mass, yes. Our weapons and shields wouldn’t blunt it at all. But remember, they’ll be moving at very close to our velocity. The kinetic energies are relatively mild. The likely result … let me think … yes, the obvious result would be a damaged hull and a huge flash, and then a cloud of steam that would cling to the ship for the next thousand years or so …”

“The ship would survive?”

“And prosper,” Aasleen added. “Think what we could accomplish with all that free water.”

For a few years, that was the end of the discussion.

But the polyponds kept rising out of the depths of the Satin Sack, engines firing, carefully gathering their bodies into a complex, ever-shifting sphere that was just distant enough and just diffuse enough to prevent any unplanned collapse. What Aasleen had seen by instinct years ago, every AI and crew member and clear-eyed passenger began to see for himself.

Then the polyponds began to speak to each other, and soon afterward, the leading wave turned around and began to brake its terrific momentum. While the Master Captain was standing in O’Layle’s cell, hoping for answers that never came, her First Chair visited Aasleen. Wearing a grim expression, she looked at her old friend, asking an open-ended, “What next?”

“If they can coordinate their fall, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“And keep compensating for any changes we make in our velocity?”

“Yes.”

Quietly, with a knifing honesty, Aasleen described one possible if very unlikely future.

“And if that happens,” Washen asked, “what?”

“But I doubt it can happen,” the engineer added.

“Why?”

For a moment, she was silent. Then the entire face smiled, the mind behind it delighted to have such an odd, unexpected conundrum, and with an almost joyous laugh, she admitted, “I doubt it happens because it’s too strange, and too awful, and I’m going to stick my head in a dark hole now, thank you.”

THE NEW GUESTS seemed happy and awed and very polite. Even the young harum-scarum acted a little cowed by the presence of so many important souls, which prompted a rude noise from Osmium’s eating hole. “Sit like you belong here,” the Submaster warned. “Or lie on the floor and let me set my feet on your bent back.”

When the old people laughed, the youngsters joined in with nervous chuckles. The boy who had once walked with Pamir and Washen now took a seat between them. A plate of hot food had been delivered, but he didn’t act hungry. Smiling, he said, “Thank you.” He smiled at his plate and lifted a fork, and then the fork dropped again as he told his dinner, “Thank you.”

“I remember our little stroll,” Pamir said. “You promised me you were going to become a captain when you grew up.”

The guests fell silent.

“Am I confused?”

Julius sighed. “No,” he allowed.

“I don’t see you in any ensign ranks,” Pamir rumbled. “Why is that?”

The broad shoulders rolled, and an embarrassed voice said, “I changed my mind, I guess.”

Washen showed him an agreeable face. “Of course you changed your mind. Only fools live the lives they dreamed up as children”

But Pamir had a better sense of things. “But that’s not the reason. Is it, friend?”

Another young human—a pretty woman with huge pink eyes—blurted out, “What would be the point?”

Everyone fell silent.

The pink eyes blinked hard. And then a defensive voice added, “There isn’t time to pass even the first level in captain’s school. Is there?”

Julius threw a warning look at his friend, but then found the voice to explain, “It’s common knowledge. In a few days, the polyponds are going to be here. They’re going to fall on our heads and flood the hull, and there isn’t anything we can do to stop them.”

There. It had been said.

But Washen refused to do anything but smile. “We aren’t entirely defenseless,” she remarked. “For years now—ever since we felt halfway sure of their plan—we have made our own plans. Adjustments. Arrangements. Entire worlds don’t have a tenth as much energy and talent as we have, and I don’t believe that anybody … and that includes the important souls sitting at this table … none of us can understand or appreciate just how powerful we can be … !”

The words had an impact. The new guests sighed. Even the captains seemed more relaxed, more confident.

“So what if they grab hold of us?” Pamir muttered. “They have to survive on the hull. They have break through at least one hatch. All of the hatches have been reinforced ten different ways, of course. And even if they get inside, unlikely as it sounds, how many millions of souls will they have to fight just to reach any important part of the ship?”

Gloom had been cast aside. A keen if fragile sense of invincibility hung over the scene.

Washen watched the faces, the bodies. Only two of her companions showed doubts. Oddly, one was the man who had just spoken: Pamir clamped his mouth down tight, something foul against his tongue. Bless him, he was trying to sound like a good captain, brave and assuring and full of fire. But he knew too much and was far too honest. In another moment or two, he would clear his throat with a hard rattle and spit out a few sarcastic barbs.

The other doubter sat even closer, and he had the quicker tongue.

“But I wonder,” Julius muttered.

Washen studied him for a moment. “What do you wonder?”

“Do we really understand their goals?” He was more child than man, but sometimes that was a strength. Julius didn’t have enough time or experience to feel rock-sure about anything. “The polyponds,” he said, as if anyone forgot about whom they were speaking. “We’re assuming they want to steal the Great Ship. But isn’t that an awfully smug assumption?”

“Smug?” Aasleen replied, bristling now.

Osmium made a rude sound.

But the youngster refused to be intimidated. A charming little shrug led to a simple comment. “As I remember it,” he said to his audience, “there’s some evidence that when worlds drift inside the Inkwell, they vanish. Somehow, the polyponds manage to tear them apart.”

Aasleen dismissed him with a slicing gesture. “First of all,” she began, “worlds are very slow animals. Each spends tens of thousands of years drifting through the Inkwell. While we’re moving at much greater velocities than any solar system, and we’re only spending thirty years here.”

“Granted.”

“Second, we’re made of hyperfiber, not stone and iron—”

“Our hull is,” Julius interrupted.

“And our bones, too.”

The youngster nodded, and waited.

Perri offered a third reminder. “The ship wouldn’t be worth nearly as much if it was dismantled.” His affections were plain, holding Quee Lee’s hand with both of his while he defended the other great love of his life. “Destroying an ancient artifact … a marvelous machine, and just for its parts … just can’t believe any intelligence would consider doing that …”

Julius looked down at his plate, and again, he picked up the bright fork in his left hand, finally letting the tines burrow into the cooling noodles.

“You’re right,” he conceded.

Then he lifted his eyes again, smiling as if embarrassed. “I guess I didn’t know. I didn’t realize. That we understand the polyponds well enough to say anything for sure …

“Do you see my point, madams? Sirs?”

THE PARTY FELL into an easier, more comfortable rhythm. Washen found herself looking at Perri, an earlier intuition again playing with her. When he noticed her gaze, he responded with a rakish smile and a little wink. Quee Lee whispered in his ear, and he laughed. Then on a private nexus, Washen called to him, speaking through the polite conversations and the clicking of silverware.

“I want to meet with you,” she told him. “Just you.”