“Katin, you’re crazy!”

“No I’m not. I’ve finally seen what I’ve—”

“Hey there, keep your vanes spread taut!”

“Sorry, Captain.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Don’t go chattering to the stars if you’re going to do it with your eyes closed.”

Ruefully the two cyborg studs turned their attention back to the night. The Mouse was pensive. Katin was belligerent.

“There’s a star coming up bright and hot. It’s the only thing in the sky. Remember that. Keep it smack in front of us and don’t let her waver. You can babble about cultural solidity on your own time.”

Without horizon, the star rose.

At twenty times the distance of Earth from the sun (or Ark from its sun) there was not enough light from a medium G-type star to defract daytime through an Earth-type atmosphere. At such distances, the brightest object in the night would still look like a star, not a sun—a very bright star.

They were two billion miles, or a little over twenty solar distances, from it now.

It was the brightest star.

“A beauty, huh?”

“No, Mouse,” Lorq said. “Just a star.”

“How can you tell—”

“—it’s going to go nova?”

“Because of the build-up of heavy materials on the surface,” Lorq explained to the twins. “There’s just the faintest reddening of the absolute color, corresponding to the faintest cooling in the surface temperature. There’s also a slight speed-up of sunspot activity.”

“From the surface of one of her planets, though, there would be no way to tell?”

“That’s right. The reddening is far too faint to be detected with the naked eye. Fortunately this star has no planets. There’s some moon-sized junk floating up a bit closer that may have been a failed attempt at a world.”

“Moons? “Moons!” Katin objected. “You can’t have moons without planets. Planetoids, maybe, but not moons!”

Lorq laughed. “Moon-sized is all I said.”

“Oh.”

All vanes had been used to swing the Roc into its two billion-mile-radius orbit about the star. Katin lay in his projection chamber, hesitant to release the view of the star for the lights of his chamber. “What about the study stations the Alkane has set up?”

“They’re drifting as lonely as we are. We’ll hear from them in due time. But for now we don’t need them and they don’t need us. Cyana has warned them we’re coming. I’ll point them on matrix moveable. There, you can follow their locations and their movements. That’s the major manned station. It’s fifty times as far out as we are.”

“Are we within the danger zone when she goes?”

“When that nova starts, that star is going to eat up the sky and everything in it a long way out.”

“When does it begin?”

“Days, Cyana predicted. But such predictions have been known to be off by two weeks in either direction. We’ll have a few minutes to clear if she goes. We’re about two and a half light-hours from her now.” All their views came not by light, but by ethric disturbance, which gave them a synchronous view of the sun. “We’ll see her start at exactly the instant she goes.”

“And the Illyrion?” Sebastian asked. “How we that get?”

“That’s my worry,” Lorq told him. “We’ll get it when the time comes to get it. You can all cut loose for a while now.”

But no one hurried to release cables. Vanes diminished to single lines of light, but only after a while did two, and two wink off.

Katin and the Mouse lingered longest.

“Captain?” Katin asked after a few minutes. “I was just wondering. Did the patrol say anything special when you reported Dan’s… accident?”

It was nearly a minute before Lorq said: “I didn’t report it.”

“Oh,” Katin said. “I didn’t really ‘think you had.”

The Mouse started to say “But” three times, and didn’t.

“Prince has access to all official records coming through the Draco patrol. At least I assume he has; I’ve got a computer scanning all those that come through the Pleiades. His is certainly programmed to trace down thoroughly anything that comes in vaguely connected with me. If he traced down Dan, he’d find a nova. I don’t want him to find it that way. I’d just as soon he didn’t know Dan was dead. As far as I know, the only people who do know are on this ship. I like it that way.”

“Captain!”

“What, Mouse?”

“There’s something coming.”

“A supply ship for the station?” Katin asked.

“It’s in too far. They’re sniffing along after our faery dust.”

Lorq was silent while the strange ship moved across the co-ordinate matrix. “Cut loose and go into the commons. I’ll join you.”

“But, Captain-” The Mouse got it out.

“It’s a seven-vaned cargo ship like this one, only its identification says Draco.”

“What’s it doing here?”

“Into the commons I said.”

Katin read the name of the ship as its identification beam translated at the bottom of the grid: “The Black Cockatoo? Come on, Mouse. Captain says cut loose.”

They unplugged, and joined the others at the pool’s edge.

At the head of the winding steps, the door rolled up. Lorq stepped out on the shadowed stair.

The Mouse watched Von Ray come down and thought: Captain’s tired.

Katin watched Von Ray and Von Ray’s reflection on the mirrored mosaic and thought: he moves tired, but it’s the tiredness of an athlete before his second wind.

When Lorq was halfway down, the light-fantasia in the gilt frame on the far wall cleared.

They started. The Mouse actually gasped.

“So,” Ruby said. “Nearly a tie. Or is that fair? You are still ahead. We don’t know where you intend to find the prize. This race goes by starts and stops.” Her blue gaze washed the crew, lingered on the Mouse, returned to Lorq. “Till last night at Taafite, I’d never felt such pain. Perhaps I’ve lived a sheltered life. But whatever the rules are, handsome Captain,” (contempt resonated now) “we too have been bred to play.”

“Ruby, I want to talk to you… Lorq’s voice faltered. “And Prince. In person.”

“I’m not sure if Prince wants to talk to you. The time between your leaving us at the edge of Gold and our finally struggling to a medico is not one of my—our pleasantest memories.”

“Tell Prince I’m shuttling over to The Black Cockatoo. I’m tired of this horror tale, Ruby. There are things you want to know from me. There are things I want to say to you.”

Her hand moved nervously to the hair falling on her shoulder. Her dark cloak closed in a high collar. After a moment she said, “Very well.” Then she was gone.

Lorq looked down at his crew. “You heard. Back on your vanes. Tyy, I’ve watched the way you swing on your strings. You’ve obviously had more experience flying than anyone else here. Take the captain’s sockets. And if anything odd happens—anything, whether I’m back or not, take the Roc out of here, fast.”

The Mouse and Katin looked at each other, then at Tyy.

Lorq crossed the carpet, mounted the ramp. Hallway over the white arc, he stopped and gazed at his reflection. Then he spat.

He disappeared before ripples touched the bank.

Exchanging puzzled looks, they broke from the pool.