"Let's give it lots of room, whatever it is," said Keith.

"Thor, start backing us away."

"Doing so."

Keith looked to his left. "Jag, spectral analysis."

The Waldahud read from one of his monitors. "Scanning.

Hydrogen, helium, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, neon, magnesium, silicon, iron…"

"It looks pure green," said Keith. "Could it be a laser?"

Jag turned his two right eyes to look at the director, while keeping his other two focused on his instruments. "No.

There's nothing coherent about that light."

The fiery green pinprick was growing wider; it had become a fiercely bright circle several meters in diameter.

"How about a fusion exhaust?" asked Lianne. "Could it be a ship coming out of the shortcut tail first, as if it were decelerating?"

Jag consulted more readouts. "It certainly is a fusion signature," he said. "But it would have to be a very powerful engine."

Keith left his console and walked over to stand just behind Rhombus.

"Any chance of contacting that ship?"

One of Rhombus's manipulatory ropes whipped out to touch a control.

"Forgive me, but not on conventional radio.

The thing is putting out an enormous 'amount of EMI. A hyperspace radio link might work, but there's no way of knowing which quantized level they use for communication."

"Start at the lowest and work your way up," Keith said.

"Standard prime-number sequences."

Another flick of a rope. "Transmitting. But it would literally take forever to try every level."

Keith turned around and faced Rissa. "Looks like you might get your first-contact opportunity after all." He turned back to look at the shortcut. "Christ, that's bright." Every object on the bridge that wasn't swathed in the hologram was bathed in green light now. Although no shadows fell on the invisible floor, the staff members were all casting harsh ones on the seating gallery behind the workstations.

"It's even brighter than it looks," said Jag. "The camera is filtering most of it." "What the hell could it be?" Keith asked, looking at Jag.

"Whatever it is," said Jag, "it's streaming out a lot of charged particles — could be a particle-beam weapon." The green circle continued to expand. "Diameter is now one hundred and ten meters," said Jag. "One fifty." His barking grew softer, incredulous. "Two fifty. Five hundred. A full kilometer. Two kilometers."

Keith turned back to the flaring image in the hologram.

"Jesus," he said, bringing an arm up to shield his eyes.

Slapping of ropes from Rhombus — an Ibese scream.

"Profuse apologies," he said a moment later as the display darkened somewhat. "The object is brighter than the automatic compensators are designed to deal with. I shall henceforth monitor the display directly."

The green circle kept expanding at a great rate. Its edges were coruscating with violet Soderstrom discharges — a pyrotechnical halo around the vast green center. The central area still seemed to be a flat cimle.

"Temperature is about twelve thousand Kelvin," said Jag.

"That's hot," said Rissa. "What in God's name is it?"

An alarm started sounding, warbling high and low.

"Radiation warning!" shouted Lianne. She wheeled to face Keith.

"Recommended action: move Starplex."

"Right," Keith said, sprinting back to his command station. "Thor, pick up the pace. Put us another fifty thousand klicks from the shortcut."

He glanced at his astrogation readout. "Course two hundred and ten degrees by forty-five degrees. Use thrusters only; I don't want to drop into hyperspace until we know what that thing is."

"As you say, boss," said Thor, hands flying over his instruments.

The apparent growth of the green circle slowed, but it was still getting larger; its expansion rate was exceeding Star-plex's maneuvering speed.

"I didn't know a shortcut could open that wide," said Rhombus. "Jag, just what exactly is coming through it?"

Both sets of Jag's shoulders rose and fell. "Unknown. The spectral analysis is unusual — lots of heavy-element Fraunz hofer absorption lines. It matches nothing in our database." He paused. "If it's a fusion exhaust, the ship must be gigantic."

"It looks perfectly flat," said Rissa. "How can it keep expanding as a circle?"

"The apparent expansion is caused by the opening up of the shortcut aperture," said Jag. "They open at a finite speed, and, when touched by a flat surface, an aperture will take on a circular shape.until the edges are reached." He used his left eyes to glance at a readout.

"The rate at which the aperture is opening is increasing, although at an uneven rate."

The halo of violet, representing the edges of the portal, was just the faintest border around the vast circle, like a matte line around a spaceship model in an old-fashioned SF movie.

"How big is it now?" Keith asked.

Jag was evidently getting tired of answering that question.

He touched keys on his console and a trio of color-coded rulers demarcated in different units formed a glowing three-quarters frame around the green circle. It now measured 450 kilometers in diameter.

"Radiation levels are increasing rapidly," said Lianne.

"Thor, double our retreat speed," Keith said. "Can our force screens handle this?"

Lianne was consulting a set of readouts. She shook her head. "Not if it gets much bigger."

The warbling sound was continuing in the background.

"Turn that damned alarm off," Keith said. He looked at the Waldahud.

"Jag?"

"It's flat," Jag said. "Like a wall of flame. Diameter is now over a thousand kilometers. Thirteen hundred… Seventeen hundred…"

The emerald light dominated the sky. The humans brought up hands to shield their eyes again.

Suddenly, a streamer of green fire shot out of the wall, like a neon whiplash against the night. It continued to stretch out until it had extended over fifty thousand kilometers from the shortcut.

"My God…" said Rissa.

"Tell me that's not a weapon," said Jag, rising to his feet, and standing with both sets of arms crossed behind his back.

"We would have been incinerated if we hadn't moved the ship."

"Could it — could it be the Slammers?" asked Lianne.

The green streamer was now falling. back toward the vast luminescent circle of the shortcut. As it did so, it broke up into fiery segments, each thousands of kilometers long.

"Thor, prepare to go into hyperdrive on my order," Keith said.

"All stations, secure for hyperdrive," said Lianne's voice over the loudspeakers. "Is it a forcefield of some kind?" asked Rissa.

"Unlikely," said Jag.

"If that is a ship's exhaust," Keith said, "it must have the biggest goddamn ramscoop in history attached to the other end."

"Diameter is eight thousand kilometers," said Jag. He had already recalibrated the units on the scale bars twice. ''Ten thousand…"

"Thor, thirty seconds to hyperdrive!"

"All stations, alert," said Lianne. "Hyperdrive in twenty-five seconds, mark."

Another tongue of green flame shot out of the widening circle.

"Hyperdrive in fifteen seconds, mark," said Lianne.

"Sweet Jesus, it's huge," Rissa said, under' her breath.

"Hyperdrive in five sec — hyperdrive initialization canceled!

Automatic override!"

"What? Why?" Keith looked at the pair of computer eyes mounted on his workstation. "PHANTOM, what's happening?"

"Gravity well is too steep for safe hyperspatial insertion," replied the computer.

"Gravity well? We're in open spacetime." He moved out from behind his console and jogged in front of the cluster of workstations. "Reduce display brightness by half."

Rhombus's ropes flicked. The view of the giant green circle dimmed, but it was still flaring, overexposed.

"Halve it again," snapped Jag.

The view grew dimmer. Jag was trying to look at it, but it was still too bright for eyes that had evolved under a dim red sun. "Once more," he said.