“I’m going to fire, too,” he shouted.

—That’s stupid. Waste your reserves and we’ll both die. Just hang on.—

“No, I can’t.”

—I’m like a pig on ice out here. You can match velocities and make the trip with minimal fuel. And you’ll handle yourself better when you come down in that madhouse. You know that’s true. I’m not being self-sacrificing here. Far from it. I’d botch it and we’d both end up as icicles.—

“I mass more than you,” be had raged. “I’ll pick up a lower velocity than you would—so I’ll take longer. That’s simple dynamics.”

—I’m talking skill here, not Newton’s laws. You can do it Carl, and you know very well that I can’t.—

“Dammit, I won’t let you—

—Too late.—Across the hundred meters she waved cheerily as the stars wheeled behind her. The tether linked them, navel to navel. Centrifugal force bent him backward, as if he were suspended from his belly button.

He struggled to think clearly against the steadily pressing hand. There had to be a way to stop her. “You can’t.”

—I’m triggering on the signal.—

“What?” So she had set up the came vector-seeking program, only hers marked a spot on the opposite side of their circle than his. His beeps had been coming regularly, uselessly, and now—

—I’m down to two percent, —she called. —I’m going to sling you way.—

She soared against the mad whirl of stars, the only fixed point in his centrifugal universe, and he heard his own ritual piping beep, knowing that hers would come a scant five seconds later.

“Wait, there must be.”

—Time’s a-wastin’, Carl. Fly fast!—

With a decisive chop she freed the line.

He felt the jolt as a sudden release, a return to freefall. Looking up, he saw that she had hit it just right—Halley hung above, a dim splotch.

And below him, between his parted boots, Virginia waved with a slow, somber grace. He was alarmed at how quickly she shrank, a blue dot swallowed by the yawning space between the burning suns…

… Three hours ago. He shook off the memory. He should have found a way to thwart her, to launch her Halleyward instead… but once she had committed her own fuel, he had been trapped. She had always been quicker than he, and maybe this time she had been right. He had to prove her correct now, get down to the surface and find a craft that could rescue her.

Nearer, now. Halley seemed to fill the sky. Momentary blue brilliances lit its scarred face. The shaft mouths were clogged with ice, sealed to prevent crew inside from entering the battle. Small lasers commanded the agro domes, keeping them isolated.

Would so many people have joined Sergeov’s conspiracy if they had figured out all the implications of his plan?

Carl had had a lot of time to think, on the way back. Sure, using Earth as a target made better sense than Mars, dynamically. Earth’s greater gravity would be more useful and the thicker atmosphere would be better for aerobraking. But it would still take many passes before the returnees had shed enough velocity to match orbits or land.

And would Earth sit still while they kept swinging around again and again, pass after pass? Oh, they might be intimidated once—by thethreat of plague bombs—but that wouldn’t last.

Some joined Sergeov, because they think it’s the only way to live. No matter what the price.

The price, in this case, would be high.

In order to keep Earth from interfering, from taking revenge, Sergeov had to destroy her.

The way the dinosaurs had been destroyed…by a storm from heaven. Sergeov planned to bring Halley home, dead centre.

So? Carl thought bitterly. Earth declared war on us, didn’t they?

It was a sophistry to which Carl was fortunately immune.

I’m not at war with six billion people, no matter what their leaders do to me.

After Halley smacked into the Earth, there would be no civilization left to speak of. Sergeov’s Ubers could maneuver back slowly, casually, without interference.

Perhaps they plan to become gods.

Over my dead body.

He would fight them, of course, useless as it seemed. But that was distant from his mind as the surface rushed up at him. He cared only about one thing—finding a fueled lifter mech as quickly as possible and getting spaceborne again.

She tricked me, he declared again to the stars. Please, oh please, keep her alive until I can get to her!

As he began his long delayed braking, he saw that several launcher pits were blackened. Debris lay all about them, the ruined sleeves of flinger tubes, cores of electromagnetic assemblies, induction coils…

Vast damage. Carl felt sickened at the lost work. Loving craftsmanship destroyed.

And in his ears rang shouts of victory from the Ubers. Two Uber pincers converged on the line of microwave borers. Their Arcist defenders crouched low, trying to cover the attackers with the cumbersome trumpet-shaped horns. Carl could hear the quick bursts from them as sssttuuppp sssttuuppp sssttuuppp over the comm. Blue-white plumes flowered where the microwaves caught the ice. They were putting up a fierce last stand, but it seemed to be all over.

Suddenly, Carl caught a new clicker of movement out the corner of his eye. Fanning out behind the Uber main force came a motley gaggle, moving swiftly. A smaller group swarmed toward the equatorial line, now only lightly held by the Ubers. He turned up his telescopic power. Who were these?

They did not come from the tightly guarded shafts, but rather from fresh cracks in nearby depressions. New tunnels, Carl thought. They’re organized.

They spread across the grainy ice. He counted a dozen figures in sleek black suits—of a type he had never seen before—and over twenty others dressed in strange, filmy green. They lacked tabards, so he could not tell what faction they were with, if any at all.

The newcomers fought with a fine-edged ferocity, using small, potent handguns. They took the Uber line from the rear, inflicting damage on weapons rather than pinpointing people. Carl coasted closer, watching with mounting impatience. What was happening? His comm gave only shouts, incomprehensible orders, and crackling static.

Who are these guys?

The odd figures in green and in black outflanked one launcher, attacking from its vulnerable side. Someone had trained them. Instead of a milling rush, they used covering fire to maneuver, keeping the Ubers’ heads down while each figure moved forward. Then they pounced into the pits as the launcher crew tried vainly to swivel its awkward muzzle to meet a fresh, unexpected attack.

It didn’t work perfectly. Laser pulses caught some attackers and blew gouts of blood into the vacuum. Distant launchers pelted the ice with machinegun bursts, striking a few figures and propelling them off the ice into a permanent, solitary orbit about the sun. In the frigid gripping silence their ends were impersonal, an intersection of certain vectors and momenta, the dynamics of death a matter of mere mathematics.

But human verve counted, too, and the black and green tide washed over the pit-punctuated equator. In his ears rang hoarse jubilation, incoherent cries. Ubers died in burrows where they had crawled for shelter.

He was coming in close now. Two figures below him donned tabards, apparently so their troops could form up about them—the heraldry popped into his head acid he blinked in amazement. Ould-Harrad and Ingersoll? At the same moment he saw that they were not wearing green suits, but rather no suits at all! The green was some airtight layer. Halleyform!

The black-suited ones stayed together. Their suits were little more than glossy helmets plus some thin film covering the rest of their muscled bodies, showing detail so clearly that he could tell they were all male, all remarkably similar. They moved with grace and speed that stunned the eye.