Two and a half million years ago.

Phssthpok sat by the root bin, eating and reading. He would have smiled if his face had been built that way. Already he could see that his mission would involve every childless protector in the world.

For two and a half million years those breeders had been living without tree-of-life. Without any way to make the change to the protector stage. Dumb animals.

And Phssthpok alone knew how to find them.

You’re flying from New York, USA, to Piquetsburg, North Africa. Suddenly you become aware that New York is flying in one direction, Piquetsburg in another, and a hurricane wind is blowing your plane off course in still a third…

Nightmare? Well, yes. But travel in the solar system is different from travel on a planet. Each individual rock moves at its own pace, like flecks of butter in a churn.

Mars moved in a nearly circular path. Asteroids moved nearby in orbits more elliptical, catching up to the red planet or falling behind. Some carried telescopes. Their operators would report to Ceres if they saw purposeful action on the surface.

The abandoned Bussard ramjet crossed over the sun and curved inward, following a shallow hyperbola which would take it through the plane of the planets.

The Blue Ox followed an accelerating higher-order curve, a J whose upright would eventually match the Ox’s velocity and position to the Outsidees.

U Thant rose from Earth on a ram-and-wing rented from Death Valley Port. There was a lovely scenic ride up and out over the Pacific. One hundred and fifty miles up and orbiting, as required by law, Nick switched to fusion power and headed outward. He left the ram-and-wing to find its own way home.

The Earth wrapped itself around itself and dropped away. It was four days to Mars at one gee, with Ceres to tell them which asteroids to dodge.

Nick put the ship on autopilot. He was not entirely displeased with the U Thant. It was a flatlander navy job, its functions compromised by streamlining; but the equipment seemed adequate and the controls were elegantly simple. And the kitchen was excellent.

Luke said, “Okay to smoke?”

“Why not? You can’t be worried about dying young.”

“Does the UN have its money yet?”

“Sure. They must have got it transferred hours ago.”

“Fine. Call them, identify yourself, and ask for everything they’ve got on Mars. Tell them to put it on the screen, and you’ll pay for the laser. That’ll kill two birds with one stone.”

“How?”

“It’ll tell them where were going.”

“Right… Luke, do you really think this will get them moving? I know how unwieldy the UN is. There was the Müller case.”

“Look at it from another direction, Nick. How did you come to represent the Belt?”

“Aptitude tests said I had a high IQ and liked ordering people around. From there I worked my way up.”

“We go by the vote.”

“Popularity contests.”

“It works. But it does have drawbacks. What govemment doesn’t?” Garner shrugged. “Every speaker in the UN represents one nation — one section of the world. He thinks it’s the best section, filled with the best people. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been elected. So maybe twenty representatives each think they know just what to do about the Outsider, and no one of them will knuckle down to the others. Prestige. Eventually they’d work out a compromise. But if they get the idea that a civilian and a Belter could beat them to the Outsider, they’ll get off their thumbs faster. See?”

“No.”

“Oh, make your call.”

A message beam found them some time later. They began to skim Earth’s stored information on Mars.

There was quite a lot of it. It covered centuries. At one point Nick said, “I’m ready for summer vacation. Why do we have to watch all this? According to you we’re just running a bluff.”

“According to me we’re running a search, unless you have something better to do. The best time to bluff is with four aces.”

Nick switched off the screen. The lecture was on tape now; they wouldn’t miss anything. “Come, let us reason together. I paid a million marks in Belt funds for this stuff, plus additional charges for the message beam. Thrifty Sohl that I am, I feel almost compelled to use it. But we’ve been studying the Müller case for the past hour, and it all came out of Belt files!”

Eleven years ago a Belt miner named Müller had tried to use the mass of Mars to make a drastic course change. He had come too close; had been forced to land. There would have been no problem. The goldskin cops would have picked him up as soon as they had clearance from the UN. No hurry… until Müller was murdered by martians.

Martians had been a myth until then. Müller must have been amazed. But, strangling in near-vacuum, he had managed to kill half a dozen of them, using a water tank to spray death in all directions.

“Not all of it. We were the ones who studied the martian corpses you recovered,” said Garner. “We may need that information. I’m still wondering why the Outsider picked Mars. Maybe he knows about martians. Maybe he wants to contact them.”

“Much good may it do him.”

“They use spears. By me that makes them intelligent. We don’t know how intelligent, because nobody’s ever tried to talk to a martian. They could have any kind of civilization you can imagine, down there under the dust.”

“A civilized people, are they?” Nick’s voice turned savage. “They slashed Müller’s tent! They let his air out!” In the Belt there is no worse crime.

“I didn’t say they were friendly.”

The Blue Ox coasted. Behind her the alien ship was naked-eye visible and closing. It made Tina nervous to be unable to watch it. But that could work two ways; and this was the Outsider’s blind side, where three Belters worked to free Einar Nilsson’s singleship from its vast metal uterus.

“Clamps free back here,” said Tina. She was sweating. She felt the breeze on her face, as the air system worked to keep her faceplate from fogging.

Nate’s voice spoke behind her ear. “Good, Tina.”

Einar’s said, “We could have carried a fourth crewman in the singleshifs lifesystem. Damn! I wish I’d thought of it. There’d be two of us to meet the Outsider.”

“It probably won’t matter. The Outsider’s gone. That’s a dead ship.” Nonetheless Nate sounded uneasy.

“And how many crew got left behind? I never much believed the Outsider would come riding between the stars alone in a singleship. Too poetic. Never mind. Tina, give us five seconds of thrust under the fusion tube.”

Tina set her shoulders and fired her backpac jets. Other flames sprouted forward under the lifesystem hull. The old singleship drifted slowly up between the great doors.

“Okay, Nate, get aboard first. Make sure you keep the Ox between you and the Outsider at all times. We’ll have to assume he doesn’t have deep-radar.”

There was no way either of them could see Tina’s puzzled frown.

Belter women averaged around six feet tall; but Belter women tended to be willowy, slender. Tina Jordan was six feet tall and built to scale: flatlander scale. She was in good trim and proud of it. She found it annoying that Belters still took her for a flatlander.

She had left Earth at twenty-one. She had been fourteen years in the Belt, on Ceres, Juno, Mercury, at Hera Station in close orbit around Jupiter, and in the Trailing Trojans. She regarded the Belt and the solar system as her home. It did not bother her that she had never flown a singleship. Many Belters had not. The singleship miners were only one aspect of Belt industry, which included chemists, nuclear physicists, astrophysicists, politicians, astronomers, file clerks, merchants… and computer programmers.