They were spinning parts of Argo to smooth out the heat load. The ferocious rage of that brawling gas could singe their hull, and crisp up the human cargo nicely. Toby recalled Quath’s gourmet comments about cracking open carefully cooked primate bones, savoring the marrow. He shuddered.

Killeen smacked a fist into his palm, a momentary release. “I don’t see what more we—”

<We are now needful of the Besik Bay,> came the fizzy speech of Quath, beamed over general head-comm.

The Bridge crew turned as if one. They stared at the half-seen alien who stood absolutely still in the corridor outside.

Killeen was the first to speak, with sardonic humor. “I wondered when you would begin to spill your lore.”

Quath’s two eye-stalks rattled against the hatchway. <You are delicate grubs, unable to take the heat. Should you perish from being toasted here, I would grow lonely.>

Killeen laughed. “Glad to know you care so much. Those antennas we erected—I suppose your new link with your ships works better?”

<I speak well and [unknown]. You cannot glimpse the full [untranslatable] of what it means to converse with others who truly understand.>

“Well, we’re learning.” Killeen grinned. Toby could see his father relish the conversation, his face losing its lined tension.

Partially.

<You are clever, for ones so stunted.>

“We don’t need all that extra mass you lug around.”

<Wisdom comes from accumulation. Mites do not know this.>

“You look like you’ve grown some more eyes, since I saw you last time.”

<I am of the Myriapodia, not limited to your feeble two viewing boles. We watch, slit-eyed, many-orbed. There are many abundant visions in this wracked place. But I have no need for more legs, for we do not run from even the most fierce of dangers.>

Toby knew the word “Myriapodia” simply meant “many-legged,” but the funny trilling way Quath sounded the word carried an air of awe and pride, too. Killeen had told Toby to get here in a hurry, then had ignored Quath completely. Toby was beginning to see that Killeen had different ways of dealing with the alien, maybe better ones.

“This Besik Bay. You want to hide there, many-eyed?”

The crew murmured. Toby knew they all suspected that they were being used by the Podia for some murky purpose, and this brought that question close to the surface again. But what choice did they have now?

Quath rattled her eye-stalks again. <The Philosophs believe it wise.>

“Ummm—diplomatic of you. But I asked what you think.”

<The name itself calls up worn fables, but little information. Ancient expeditions of Myriapodia found it so labeled—apparently by humans.>

Toby put in, “Besik? No Family of that name.”

<It refers to some ancient human site, a refuge—there.>

Somehow Quath made the wall screens jump and swivel. They whirled around as the ship’s sensors sought a different target—and locked on an inky blob, high above the glowering red disk.

<Explorers have used Besik Bay’s shade to elude the disk’s heat. Or so old tales tell. Myriapodia sheltered there, cooled, and then fled from this storm wrack of stars.>

Killeen gestured to Lieutenant Jocelyn. “Take us up that way.” He had always been one for quick decisions, and the Bridge jumped to comply. Killeen turned back to Quath, his expression veiled. “What were your ancestors looking for here?”

<A weapon fabled in our older tales.>

“What kind of weapon?”

<In the end, all tools of defense are knowledge. We sought the [untranslatable].>

“Can’t say more than that?”

<I do not know what this [untranslatable] knowledge is.>

“Hell! Look, for Family Bishop True Center is a legend. Almost a holy place—only we don’t know why.”

<It is much the same for us. I believe however that your kind have been here before we ever ventured in.>

“Yeasay?” Killeen frowned. “Whatever we did, way back then, it’s lost.”

<For us as well. But the Philosophs never knew the true labyrinths of this place. The mechs have made certain to destroy all records they can find of that distant epoch.>

Killeen stated moodily at the expanses. “For us, coming here—well, it’s like climbing the tallest mountain anybody ever saw.”

<I believe that is somehow linked to why you are needed.>

Killeen shrugged, as if sensing when he would learn no more. “Okay, we’ll cool our heels a little behind that cloud.”

Though ordinary crew seldom spoke on the Bridge without the Cap’n’s bidding, Toby decided to use his position as Cap’n’s son. He could not resist probing further. “Quath, what made your ancestors leave?”

<Mechs guard this cyclone of fire.>

“Why? It’s a hellhole.”

<Mechs fare well here. Energies surge. They sup on such ferocity.>

“But there aren’t any mechs here now.”

<So it seems. This worries me.>

“There are plenty on our tail,” Killeen observed mildly.

<They will try to find us in the Besik cloud.>

“So we hide?” Killeen asked, frowning.

Toby knew his father did not like to sneak by a challenge unless he absolutely had to. On the other hand, the Families had been running for a long time, learning the elusive crafts, and knew the virtues of being missing.

<My kin of the Myriapodia will have a chance to speak and to [unknown].>

Killeen shrugged again, as if he knew when he wasn’t going to get any more out of Quath. He tapped the control board. The screens veered again, coming around to the strange, warped star—which wasn’t a star at all any more.

While they had been talking, the inflating fat-man’s belly had broken open. Now it spewed out white-hot streamers, the tortured sun finally shredding. Erupting gas swirled away from the split star, twisting. It rushed to join the smoldering rim of the great disk. As the view backed away, Toby saw the star as if it were a helpless animal, caught, struggling pointlessly, its life being sucked out. Lumps of it streamed into the disk, setting off fresh orange explosions there.

Toby felt a chilling wonder mixed with fear. “How come the hole can rip up a whole star, this far out, and it’s so small we can’t even see it?”

Killeen reached down and patted his son’s shoulder, and in his face Toby saw the same mix of emotions. “The way I understand it, that hole is small, sure—but it’s got plenty of mass in it. That much, all compressed together, it makes strong tides. The inner face of that star’s trying to orbit along one curve, see? Its back face, it’s a smidgen further out from the hole, so it wants to orbit along a little-bit different orbit.”

“I guess. So?”

“Well, they can’t both go their separate ways and still hold together and be a star, right?” From Killeen’s half-distracted gaze Toby knew he was getting coached by his tech Aspect. “But they can go their own way, if the star tears itself apart. So when the tides get strong enough, that’s what it does. The tides just plain shred it, like a rag doll.”

Toby looked around. The whole Bridge crew was silent, watching their Cap’n. In their upturned faces Toby read hope and need, sobered by the spectacle. Killeen’s wary smile reflected the glare of the agonized, dying sun.

In the quiet Quath spoke, her words carrying a faint hiss. <This fresh food will fuel the Eater—and first, the disk.>

Killeen’s face wrinkled with worry. “So it’ll get hotter?”

<Yes. Let us speed to the refreshing cool of Besik.>

Toby grinned. “I thought your kind looked but didn’t run.”

<To run quickly and well is an art, which then lets one live to watch again.>

“Ummm. Sounds like an excuse to me, big-bug.”

<[Untranslatable].>