The Why. This is the Why.

Hakim and Jennifer followed. Harpal Timechaser sat next to him by the sphere, the only other ex-Pan aboard Tortoisenow that Stephanie led the bombships.

Tortoisesharpened all its passive sensors. The star sphere divided to show the bombships, the planetary surface, the heavens beyond, then concentrated on the bombships.

"Still no defenses," Hakim marveled, head shaking.

"Maybe they're cowards," Jennifer said.

Martin looked around the room, suddenly disliking his companions intensely. He shuddered the feeling away and settled into a restless neutrality of emotions, waiting.

The War Mother floated near a wall, still as a monument. After all this is over, can we take a mom with us and set it up in the middle of our town, on the new world, on a pedestal?

The view changed. They saw the bombships up close, all six of them, one by one. Martin recognized Theresa's ship. He fought to keep the neutrality, but his chest seemed stuffed with straw and his palms were damp. No defenses.

"This is cruel," said Andrew Jaguar. "We have to dosomething!"

Martin said nothing. There was nothing for them to do; best to keep them all in one place, all vigilant, all aware of what was happening.

The bombships had descended to within four thousand kilometers of Nebuchadnezzar's surface. Still, the planet had not changed its aspect; dusty brown with gray patches and green mineral stripes and black spots of reservoirs. Atmosphere clear and calm.

"Hakim," Martin said softly, "report on seismic disturbances."

"Nothing new. Same low-level rhythms," Hakim said.

"Project it for us."

The traces of crustal and mantle activity moved in graphic display beside the star sphere.

"Can you turn it into sound for us?" Martin asked.

"I will have to increase its frequency, repeat it like an echo."

"Fine," Martin said.

So treated, the deep susurration of Nebuchadnezzar became very like a heartbeat, booming and ticking, the repetition false but still informative, ears providing a more natural interpretation of this information than eyes. Martin quickly picked up the actual rhythms of sound as the series of beats rose at once to a higher frequency, dropped back, rose, dropped.

"Small ship between Nebuchadnezzar and Ramses is firing thrusters," Jennifer reported. With a scowl of concern, Hakim projected the picture, checked the images and interpretation, nodded, glanced at Martin, eyebrow raised.

A very small reaction.

"Pod release in ten minutes," Harpal said, stating what they all knew, tracking the numbers on their wands.

The room fell quiet. Three of the four couples stopped making love. The fourth became subdued, though still active.

Martin felt sick.

Nebuchadnezzar's heartbeat changed. Hakim cycled the signal through several enhancements and interpretations, meaning little to most of the crew, and said, "Subsurface activity seems to have decreased."

" Decreased?" Martin asked.

Seen in the star sphere, Nebuchadnezzar's atmosphere shimmered. Something sang through the Tortoise'shull, between a bell tone and the screech of a fingernail on slate.

Martin's entire body tensed and he rubbed his eyes with one hand. Nobody moved. The War Mother did not move. Seconds passed.

"Jesus Christ," Harpal Timechaser murmured.

"Quiet," Martin said.

The fourth couple had separated and put on overalls. It would not be decorous to die naked and in the clinch.

Long minutes passed. Two minutes to releasing the pods and scattering the mines.

The atmosphere rippled again. The simulated beat changed abruptly to a chirp-thud and another bell-screech hurt their ears.

"The planet's crust has risen and fallen a few centimeters," Hakim reported.

"The entire crust?" Andrew Jaguar asked, incredulous.

"All that we can see," Hakim said. "I presume the entire—"

The surface of the planet seemed to shatter, hot white lines racing from the poles to meet at the equator, marking off jagged polygons, then dying into racing small reddish lines, fading again to normal brown.

Hakim's face blanched. "I don't know what that was… The mines are released."

"All eleven of the ships in the outer solar system have turned on thrusters," Jennifer said.

Martin surveyed the room, working to steady his breathing. "Something's up," he said.

The star sphere followed the progress of a pod of mines from a bombship. The pod dropped, exploded in a puff, and thousands of mines spread out in a shimmer, disappearing rapidly. Thirty seconds later, massive blossoms of light spread across the atmosphere. Spinning fireballs cascaded like fireworks, dazzling the eye, too many to count.

That was not supposed to happen.

Some of the bombships seemed to ignite with burning halos.

"Strong traces of anti em reactions," Hakim said. "Extreme gamma ray production, split nuclei forming alpha particles and larger ions. Cherenkov in the atmosphere… I think perhaps the entire planet is made of anti em…"

"No," said the War Mother. All faces turned to the painted robot. "The sensors do not support this interpretation."

"Still, there are anti em reactions," Hakim said, voice trembling. "The mines have detonated prematurely…"

"Have any mines reached the surface?"

"None," Hakim said.

"Are the bombships pulling away?"

The star sphere showed that the ships were indeed pulling away, four of them surrounded by glowing halos. The halos faded as they gained altitude.

"Four of our craft show strong anti em traces," Hakim said.

"That doesn't make sense," Martin said. "Is there a layer of anti em in the atmosphere…?"

"Not possible," Hakim said, looking to the War Mother for support. The War Mother agreed.

Tortoisehad passed beyond Nebuchadnezzar and was now dipping below the ecliptic. The bombships, one by one, had dropped their loads. Three of the ships, upon spreading their mines filled with makers and doers, had produced merely the flowering of immense atmospheric explosions across thousands of kilometers, leaving turbulent scars on the planet's surface.

The fresh scars made very little difference.

The planet looks like one huge scar, smoothed over by time.

"It's been attacked before, hasn't it?" Harpal Timechaser asked.

Martin shook his head. "I don't know."

"That's it. We drilled on that. Nebuchadnezzar has been attacked before. It's always survived."

But three of the ships' weapons had found their marks and dropped to the surface, leaving no flowers of radiation behind; falling and entering, unseen from this distance but tracked by the bombships responsible. These ships rose from their close approach, clearly visible to anyone watching on the planet, to Tortoise, but minus halos of light.

The bombships began their acceleration to be picked up by Tortoise. Nothing followed them; nothing attacked. The defense craft around Tortoisestayed in formation, unchallenged.

"How long until we pick up the bombships?" Martin asked.

"Twenty minutes," Hakim said. "They have to accelerate and decelerate on combat schedule—they will be almost out of fuel. We could be more leisurely about it, perhaps." But he didn't sound convinced. Unexplained things had happened; not all the mines had made it to Nebuchadnezzar's surface.