Dark as Day

34

Milly functioned well on very little sleep. As a teenager that had first pleased her, then worried her when she learned of the disastrous sleepless experiments in the early part of the century. Now she simply accepted it as a piece of given good fortune, like a naturally beautiful or a naturally healthy body.

Bat had dismissed Milly, Alex, and Magrit Knudsen — there was no other word for his abrupt ending of the meeting — until he and Bengt Suomi could explain what had happened, or failed to happen, as Sebastian Birch plunged to his death on Jupiter. Milly, who had dozed on and off during the long hours of the scooter’s pursuit, now felt far too wired to sleep.

She made sure that she was on-call for Bat’s meeting, whenever and wherever it took place, and went off to her own apartment. It possessed a secure line to Jack Beston at the Argus Station, and she had something important she needed to ask him and possibly to tell him.

The system took a while to locate him, then he was glaring out of the screen at her in a green-eyed rage.

“What the hell have you been doing? I’ve left messages all over Ganymede, telling you to call.”

The Ogre was in his foulest mood. Somehow that was reassuring. She decided that, whatever happened, she would keep her own emotions under control.

She said, “I’m not sure what I’ve been doing, because the only people around here who seem to know aren’t telling. But I think that a few hours ago I came close to being killed.”

That was intended to shock him, and it did. His expression changed from anger to concern. “You were attacked?”

“Not by anything I recognized.”

That was enough for the Ogre. He had a short attention span for anything that did not directly involve the Argus Project. He said, “So long as the incident didn’t affect your work. Did you lose anything because of the Seine outage?”

“What Seine outage?”

His eyes went from half-closed to wide open. “Where the hell have you been for the past half-day, in an alternate universe? The whole Seine network went down for seven minutes. It failed here, in the Belt, on Earth — everywhere.”

“When was this?” Milly felt as though she had indeed been in a different universe, ever since the moment she staggered out of her cubicle looking for food and encountered the Great Bat.

“Six hours ago. Two this morning. We’ve been sweating blood ever since, trying to recover project data.”

If the Seine network had gone down for seven minutes in the small hours of the morning, many people might not have noticed. But a detail like that meant little to the Ogre. He had told her that Project Argus was operating around the clock.

“I wasn’t working at two this morning, Jack. But I wasn’t asleep, either. I was watching a man commit suicide. He took a ship and dived into Jupiter. No one could stop him.”

“I see. Tough break. But Milly, if that lunatic Puzzle Network gang has you sitting around and wasting your time when you should be trying to crack the signal, I won’t stand for it. There’s work to be done back here.”

Which brought Milly, rather sooner in the conversation than she would have liked, to her real reason for the call.

“Jack Beston, I want to ask you a question.”

That got his attention. Nobody on the project called him Jack Beston. To a few it was Jack, to the others it was Sir. He knew that when he was not present they called him the Ogre, but he didn’t mind that.

He said suspiciously, “Question? What question?”

“Why are you involved in SETI?”

“That’s a dumb-ass thing to ask. I don’t have time to play games.”

“I’d like an answer. You’ve been working on Project Argus for most of your adult life. What do you hope to get out of it? If you had just one wish, what would it be?”

The green eyes narrowed. Jack Beston said nothing.

“That wish could be many things,” Milly went on. “I know my own wish. I know why I left Ganymede and joined your project on Argus Station. Even if we didn’t find a signal — and I’m not sure I ever expected that we would — I loved the intellectual challenge. And if we did find a signal, that would lead to the most exciting generation in the history of the human race. A discovery as big as taming fire, or learning the techniques of agriculture.”

Jack Beston opened his mouth to speak, but still said nothing.

Milly went on, “And we did find a signal.” Remembering that moment of conviction, something is there, she felt again the shiver in her spine. “In the first days after detection, it seemed to me that we had done it. I thought that the hardest job was over. But I was wrong, wasn’t I?”

He nodded. “Detection just calls for patience. The hardest part is interpretation, the understanding of an alien mind.”

“You knew that — maybe you’ve always known it. But I didn’t. Now detection is past, and so is verification. What’s left is interpretation. When we were trying for detection, it was all right to have parallel efforts — even competing efforts. There was no duplication going on, because we were doing an all-sky survey, and Philip had put his money on the targeted search.

“But we’re past all that now. We have a signal. Understanding it, and reaching the point where we can reply to it, will take enormous amounts of effort. There’s enough work for everybody for years and years. Cooperative work, not competitive. I know cooperation is a new idea for you, so here’s my question: are you slaving night and day because you want to be able to read a message from the stars? Or is Jack Beston working mainly to beat Philip Beston, and prove that he’s a better man than his bastard brother?”

His face was absolutely unreadable. He said, “I should have listened to Hannah Krauss. She told me you would cause trouble. She was right.”

“Trouble, because I ask you what you want out of life?”

“What I want is none of your business. You’re fired, Milly Wu. You’ll not set foot again on Argus Station.”

“That’s right, get rid of anybody who dares to ask you to face the truth. Do you think I care where I live, or who I work for?” Milly was becoming emotionally charged in spite of her determination not to. “It’s what we are trying to achieve, and the people we work with, that matter. I’ll miss Hannah, and I’ll miss Simon Bitters and Lota Danes and Arnold Rudolph. My God, I’ll even miss you, though don’t ask me why. But what we’ve been trying to do is more important than any of our personal feelings. And the work will go on, no matter where I am or you are. It would go on even if we were both dead.”

He stared at her. “The needs of the project transcend any single individual, that’s true.”

“Including you.”

“Including me. All right, I overreacted. You’re not fired. But you should take a few days off. You’re tired out and stressed out, and you are overreacting, too.”

Before she could curse him down to size, as he deserved, he added, “Eat a good meal and get some rest. That’s not a suggestion, Milly Wu, it’s an order. We’ll talk about all this later.”

His image vanished, leaving Milly shouting at a blank screen, “You arrogant son-of-a-bitch! It’s not your brother who’s the bastard, it’s you. And you can’t give me orders anymore. I don’t work for you.”

She looked down at her hands, resting on the desk in front of her. They were shaking. She felt that her insides were shaking, too.

Eat a good meal and get some rest? That was a joke. The way she was feeling, if she tried to eat she would choke on the first bite. Sleep was out of the question.

She was too agitated even to sit still. Her rooms, usually comfortably modest and cozy, now had walls that seemed to crowd in on her. The old Durer and Escher prints that she had brought in from Argus Station and hung with pleasure irritated rather than satisfied. She recalled what Hannah Krauss had said, soon after Milly arrived at Jovian L-4. The occupational hazards of mathematicians, logicians, and crypt-analysts were depression, insanity, paranoia, and suicide.

Depression was something she had fought off as a teenager. The solution in those years had been not rest, but physical activity and a change of mental focus.

Milly slipped into her exercise suit and headed for the nearest free-speed access point. She walked fast, posing a practical problem for herself as she went. Last night had started in her cubicle at the Puzzle Network’s Command Center in Sector 291, deep down on Level 147. It had ended in the research quarantine facility, up close to the surface on Level 4, in Sector 82. Today’s meeting with Bat would logically be held in one of those locations. Milly wanted an exercise route that would allow her to reach either of them quickly.

Most people would have consulted a General Route Planner, providing optimal routes between any pair of Levels and Sectors within Ganymede. Milly didn’t want to do that. She needed a distraction. She entered the free-speed system and began to jog along it, passing or being passed by scores of others running for exercise or pleasure. As she went she visualized and held in her mind the intersecting network of vertical and horizontal routes to which the free-speed course had access. When the call came, she needed to be able to move from her location of the moment to wherever Bat was holding the meeting.

She ran steadily for an hour, feeling the tension inside her gradually fade. Her brain was well into the pleasant endorphin-soothed state induced by exercise when, annoyingly, her receiver buzzed for attention.

“Yes?”

The voice in her ear was not that of Bat, or Alex Ligon, or anyone else whom she recognized. It said, “Interested parties should convene at the Ligon Industries’ Experimental Center, Level twenty-two, Sector one-one-eight.”

Milly swore to herself. The meeting was going to take place at neither of the locations for which she had planned rapid routing. She had never before been to the Ligon Industries’ Experimental Center; she had, in fact, never heard of it.

She sprinted for the next exit on the free-speed course and ran through the output chamber. You were not supposed to do that, and the output processor did not have enough time to finish its job. Milly emerged with perspiration removed from her body and clothing, but her core temperature was still well above normal. As she called on the General Route Planner and asked it to take her to Level 22, Sector 118, she could feel new sweat breaking out on her body.

When she arrived at the Experimental Center it was clear that sweat was not going to be an immediate issue. The admitting Level Two Fax was having a major fight — as much as a Fax was permitted to fight — with somebody else.

“It’s not Ms. Bloom, you electronic slop of Brownian motion.” The woman arguing with the Fax was thin, red-haired, and extremely angry. “I’ve told you ten times, it’s Dr. Bloom. And if Ligon Industries can invade my lab in the middle of the night, without permission, I’m damned if you’ll keep me out of theirs. Let me in.”

“I am sorry, Ms. Bloom, but there is no authorization for your admission.”

“That’s it! Go away. Get lost. I request a Level Five Fax.”

“Very well, Ms. Bloom.”

Milly stepped forward. “Dr. Bloom? My name is Milly Wu. I was one of the people who went into your facility last night.”

The woman turned to her. “Were you now? Who said you could?”

“No one. But I may be able to help.” Milly turned to the Fax, which was wavering in outline during the attempted invocation of a Level Five version. Currently it had the form of a person of uncertain age and gender. “My name is Milly Wu. I believe that I have authorization to attend this meeting.”

The image solidified. “That is correct, Ms. Wu. You may enter.” The double doors beyond the Fax were opening.

“I have with me my associate, Dr.—” Milly turned to the other woman.

“Bloom. Dr. Valnia Bloom.”

“My associate, Dr. Valnia Bloom. We are both attending this meeting. We both require admission.”

“Very good.” The Fax nodded. “I will announce your arrival and forward your names. Milly Wu and Dr. Valnia Bloom. Follow the wall indicators.”

They walked forward together. As they passed through the double doors, Valnia Bloom said, “Thank you, I suppose. But I want to know what the hell was going on last night. Upon my return to my lab I discovered that I had been accused of the unauthorized use of a Mayfly-class ship and of a Flyboy scooter. The Mayfly has been lost, and the scooter with its two passengers was picked up by a medical ship following an emergency call. The captain of the OSL Achilles called, asking what I had done with his first officer. I learned that there have been unauthorized entries and exits to my facility. Worst of all, a man in my care died — and I have yet to be offered a shred of explanation as to what was going on. It required a major effort on my part even to learn of the existence of this meeting.”

“Dr. Bloom, I wish I had answers, but I don’t. We were promised some today. That’s why I came here.”

“We’d better get some. Or you can look for blood on the carpet.”

There was no carpet, only the tough corrosion-resistant flooring of a scientific lab, but Milly got the message. Valnia Bloom was where Milly herself had been two hours ago, all set to blow her main circuits.

When something was ready to explode, you stayed out of the way. Milly trailed Valnia Bloom as they followed the lighted wall strips, along a corridor, through another pair of double doors, and into a long chamber filled with scientific equipment, none of which Milly recognized.

She did, however, recognize the group of people at the far end. Alex Ligon, her companion for last night’s illegal breaking and entry, was there. The woman, Magrit Knudsen, whom Alex had identified as his boss and as a very senior member of the Ganymede cabinet, was present. So was Bengt Suomi, looking like the devil with his dark eyebrows and brooding saturnine face. Finally there was the Great Bat, towering over everyone and peering at a complicated device sitting on top of a work bench.

Any concern that Milly had over personal freshness disappeared. Bat was wearing the same funereal black garb as last night, and he had clearly slept in it or worse. He turned as they approached. He gave Milly only a brief nod of recognition, but her companion received his full attention.

“Dr. Bloom?”

“Right.” Valnia Bloom was staring. “I’ve seen you before, or at least your picture. Weren’t you involved a few years ago in explorations on Europa?”

“That could be described as correct. My name is Rustum Battachariya. I owe you a sincere apology. We invaded your research facility last night, without asking.”

“Did you try to ask? I’m not hard to reach.”

“We did not. There were, however, extenuating circumstances. We believed at the time that rapid action was needed to forestall an unimaginable disaster. We were wrong, for reasons I still do hot understand, but the basis for our concern will soon become clear to you. First, however, I would like to preface a demonstration with a statement. And if it at first appears to be a digression, please bear with me.”

“Talk. I’ll listen — for five minutes.”

“Which will prove ample. Let me begin by saying that despite what others may think, I am not perfect. I have a personal weakness. For many years, I have been an avid seeker of relict weapons left over from the Great War. Those explorations have met with some success” — Bat raised his eyebrows toward Magrit Knudsen, who hesitated, then nodded — “but there have been occasional tantalizing hints of much more than we have found. One of these is the legendary Mother Lode, a complete listing of all weapons developed by Belt forces. No trace of the Mother Lode has ever been found. Many doubt its existence, though I have hopes. Another undiscovered country has been an ‘ultimate weapon,’ a scorched-earth device intended not to win the war, but to destroy every living creature in the whole solar system — winners and losers alike.

“The reality of such a weapon was doubted, by me among others, until very recently. But then, through an indirect route, I came across evidence that a woman named Nadeen Selassie had not, as was previously believed, died, before the end of the Great War. She was the genius weapons-maker of the Belt, the maker of the Seekers and the reputed designer of a doomsday device that would turn the solar system ‘dark as day.’ It became clear that Nadeen Selassie did indeed die, but not before she, and possibly her ultimate weapon, had escaped the Belt and gone to Mars and perhaps to Earth. She had with her a small girl and a small boy. The girl died, but the boy lived on. Perhaps Nadeen Selassie entrusted to him the nature of the weapon that she had devised. Perhaps she did not. At any rate, he grew up to become an unusual young man. His name was Sebastian Birch.”

Bat was interrupted by a snort of derision from Valnia Bloom. “That’s bullshit. I know — knew — Sebastian Birch. If your ridiculous accusations drove him to flee Ganymede and dive to his death on Jupiter, I’ll do my damnedest to make sure that you are charged with murder.”

“Dr. Bloom, I played no such role. All my actions last night were aimed at preventing Sebastian Birch from leaving Ganymede. I had, you see, become convinced that he bore with him the secret of Nadeen Selassie’s doomsday weapon. Sebastian Birch’s presence on Jupiter would, I was convinced, destroy all life throughout the solar system. I had in mind some kind of ignition mechanism, one that would turn the planet, which is largely hydrogen, into a vast bomb using hydrogen-to-helium fusion. Discussion with Dr. Suomi disabused me of that notion.”

Bat inclined his head to the Ligon Industries’ gangling scientist, who stooped over the workbench like an impatient stork. “Dr. Suomi pointed out, in the politest possible terms, that although I have my own areas of expertise, I am in some fields a scientific idiot. No method known to science could cause such a fusion reaction on Jupiter. My idea would have required that Nadeen Selassie, in the closing weeks of the Great War, develop not merely a new weapon, but a whole new physics. That was not merely improbable, it was impossible.

“Before I could relax, however, Bengt Suomi sent me the results of a later test, one which at first baffled both him and me. He is going to repeat that test now, for my benefit and yours, in a form where it is much easier to see what is happening. Dr. Suomi, if you would be so kind?”

“Indeed. Observe closely.” Suomi stepped forward and held up what appeared to be an empty glass cylinder with a metal plug at its upper end. He turned the big cylinder, half a meter long and almost as wide, with a showman’s flourish that did not at all match his mournful appearance. His arm was long and skinny, and Milly found herself thinking, As you can see, I have nothing up my sleeves. She tried to suppress the image. This was a life-and-death matter, no cause for joking.

“You will notice,” Suomi continued, “that the cylinder appears to be lacking in contents. That is, however, not the case. The cylinder contains two things: hydrogen, at low pressure. And, at the bottom of the cylinder, approximately a hundred small spherical nodules taken from the body of Sebastian Birch.”

“What! Let me look.” Valnia Bloom strode forward and tried to grab the cylinder from Suomi’s hands.

“Dr. Bloom, they are too small to see with the naked eye.”

“I know that, better than you — I’ve been working with Sebastian Birch for months. What I want to know is, where the hell did you get those samples?”

Bengt Suomi looked at Bat. Bat turned to Alex Ligon. Alex Ligon said — looking, Milly decided, about as guilty as a human being could look — “I’m not sure, but I think they came from a medical test lab in Earth orbit.”

“Did they now? Well, I suppose that’s remotely possible.” Valnia Bloom handed the cylinder back to Bengt Suomi. “I’ll have a few words with Christa Matloff about this.”

Alex Ligon did his best to fade into the background, as Suomi went on, “Here we have a perfectly stable situation. Hydrogen, and nodules composed of some inorganic materials, co-existing without undergoing any form of reaction.” He stepped over to the workbench. “Now I place the cylinder on the fixed stand, and allow the piston freedom to move.”

The bottom of the cylinder fitted neatly into a silver ring. The metal insert at its upper end mated exactly with a round-ended arm that protruded down from a bulky silver ovoid.

“I can control the movement of the piston up or down with this wheel, decreasing or increasing the pressure within the cylinder. The pressure itself is shown on the gauge. Note that the value holds steady, and we presently have much less than a kilogram per square centimeter. In fact, it is necessary to apply upward force to hold the piston in position. Now I propose to lower the piston. Keep your eyes on the pressure gauge.”

Suomi moved to the wheel at the side of the instrument and began to turn it. The piston visibly, and slowly, descended. The reading on the pressure gauge, just as slowly, increased.

Milly thought to herself, Well, big deal. Pressure inversely proportional to volume. It’s behaving just the way that a perfect gas is supposed to behave. I hurried all the way over here, sweaty and smelly, to watch a demonstration of Boyle’s Law?

The descent of the piston continued. The pressure within the cylinder went up in exact reciprocal proportion. It had reached a few kilograms per square centimeter, and Milly was ready to conclude that Bengt Suomi and the Great Bat were both nuts, when an abrupt change occurred.

The value shown on the pressure gauge dropped to zero. At the same time the piston moved swiftly downward until the free space at the bottom of cylinder had vanished completely.

“A visible anomaly, a definite anomaly,” said Bengt Suomi. “The volume drops to a vanishingly small value, but so does the pressure. What has happened to our perfect gas, with its pressure inversely proportional to volume?”

He paused. Milly decided that Suomi didn’t just sound like a showman, he was one. He was making a meal of this.

She said, “It’s very obvious. There’s been a phase change in the hydrogen. Gas to liquid, or to solid. The pressure/volume relation doesn’t apply anymore. You have a tiny volume of material, and no pressure.”

She knew she’d hit it right, because Suomi said glumly, “That is a correct conclusion. There has indeed been a phase transition. The contents of the cylinder have gone from the usual form of gaseous hydrogen to a far denser form. The phase change takes place through the whole body of the gas almost instantaneously, with the nodules apparently serving as a catalytic agent for the condensation. This is what our experiments revealed. But what was the significance of this? I could see no relationship to any ‘doomsday device,’ or a weapon of any kind. Nor could my staff. The subtle mind of Rustum Battachariya was needed to unravel the mystery.”

He bowed to Bat, who said, “I formed a clear mental picture, but I didn’t know how to calculate consequences. Sebastian Birch had an unnatural obsession with the clouds of Jupiter and Saturn. I asked myself what would happen if nodules like those in Sebastian Birch’s body were released into the upper atmosphere of a gas-giant planet. At first, there would be no interaction. As we saw, the nodules have no effect on low pressure hydrogen. But the nodules themselves are dense. They would fall rapidly through the planetary outer layers, to regions where the pressure was higher. And now there would be immediate and drastic consequences. The phase change that we saw would take place and spread with great speed through the whole atmosphere. The new phase of hydrogen occupies far less volume. Jupiter would collapse, catastrophically, to become a denser sphere only a small fraction of its current size.

“After that phase change we would have a smaller Jupiter. However, the planet’s mass would remain the same, therefore its gravitational influence would not change. Ganymede, Europa, and the other moons would continue in their present orbits, unaffected. So what would happen? Nothing? I tried to imagine myself within the dark mind of Nadeen Selassie, and I was somehow sure there would be consequences — terrible ones. What might they be? I could not say. At that point, I again needed expert assistance.”

Bat raised his eyebrows at Bengt Suomi. Milly reached another conclusion. She would never have dreamed it of Bat, but somewhere deep inside the man was as big a ham as Bengt Suomi — and they were both loving it. They knew they had their audience hooked.

Bengt Suomi’s next sentence confirmed it. He said, “Let us dip into the past. Sometimes old theories have their uses. During the nineteenth century, the age of the Sun was much in dispute. Biologists and geologists needed many tens of millions of years for natural processes to have the necessary effect. Physicists, on the other hand, could imagine nothing that would offer the Sun so long a lifetime. Finally, Kelvin and Helmholtz came up with a proposal. It was wrong, as it happened, but it made sense. They suggested that the Sun remained hot because it was gradually shrinking in size. During that slow collapse, gravitational potential energy was converted into heat energy. There would be enough energy to keep the Sun hot and shining for many millions of years. The same thing happens when a star suddenly collapses. A vast amount of energy is released, enough to blow the outer layers of the star far way into space.

“Now consider our situation. If all the hydrogen on Jupiter underwent a sudden phase change to a denser form, the planet would shrink to a thousandth of its present size. There would be a gigantic release of gravitational potential energy. We would see Jupiter collapse, but at the same time flare bright enough to make the Sun appear dim. Actually, we would see only the first millisecond of that change, because Ganymede and all the other moons would instantly become charred cinders. That was Nadeen Selassie’s ultimate weapon; a weapon not based on fission or fusion, but on the release of planetary gravitational energy. The collapse would not be stable — at those induced temperatures, the phase change would rapidly reverse. But it would come too late to save anything from here to the Oort Cloud.”

Magrit Knudsen said, in tones of wonder, “She was insane. She wanted, to kill everyone.”

“Oh, yes.” Bat nodded with every evidence of satisfaction. “Her final vengeance. In all this, it is difficult to feel any compassion for Nadeen Selassie. Our sympathies should go to Sebastian Birch. It is clear that he enjoyed no freedom of action in what he did. He was compelled, by Nadeen Selassie’s modification of his brain and his conditioning, to seek death within the atmosphere of Jupiter or Saturn. However, it turned out that Nadeen Selassie was wrong. Somewhere in her calculations she made a fatal error. The death of Sebastian Birch, fortunately for us, did not result in the extinction of all life in the solar system. But Sebastian Birch himself—”

Valnia Bloom said suddenly, “She wasn’t.” And, as the others stared at her, “Nadeen Selassie wasn’t wrong.”

“But we are alive,” Bengt Suomi said. “She intended all of humanity to die. She made a mistake.”

“No, she didn’t. You are alive because we were lucky.” Valnia Bloom walked forward and peered at the transparent cylinder. “Those nodules, plus a few more back at Christa Matloff’s facility in earth orbit, should be the only ones in existence. Every nodule inside Sebastian Birch’s body was broken down and removed from him during a sluicing operation. The final check, to make sure that sluicing was complete, ended just a couple of days ago. If he had managed to get his hands on a spacecraft before that, and flown it down to Jupiter…”

“We would not be here to discuss his actions.” Bat gave a great and gusty sigh of satisfaction. “A fortunate outcome, and a lesson learned. Sluicing of the nodules from Sebastian Birch’s body: we were ignorant of that all-important fact. ‘Against ignorance, the gods themselves contend in vain.’ Just so.”

He seemed well content. It was Magrit Knudsen who said urgently, “You can talk about how lucky you were later. Don’t you understand the danger? I’ll pass the word at once. Every remaining nodule, anywhere in the solar system, must be located and destroyed. If I hear you correctly, a single one of them, dropped into the atmosphere of any of the outer planets, would start an irreversible reaction that would kill us all. We’ll start here.” She moved forward and grabbed the cylinder from the bench, ignoring Bengt Suomi’s gesture of protest. “I’m taking charge of this. Dr. Bloom, I want you to call the Earth facility at once. Every nodule that they can find must be accounted for and placed in high-level quarantine until we have agreed upon a safe method for disposal. Who directed the sluicing operation?”

“Harold Launius.”

“I don’t know that name, but I want you to go and find him. Tell him that no matter what he’s doing, he is now on special assignment and will report directly to the Jovian cabinet. We need to know exactly what he did, and how he did it. He must talk to no one else.”

“He’ll have it all on record. He’s the best.”

Valnia Bloom hurried out. Magrit Knudsen advanced on Bat.

“Rustum Battachariya, you are a genius and someday I’m going to kill you.” She moved so that she could address everyone in the room. “I’m going to make myself unpopular with all of you. I know you have other work that you’d like to be doing, but this takes precedence. Anything that you know, or think, or even suspect may be slightly relevant, we have to hear about. I’ll apologize in advance, but you are going to be pestered until you wish you’d stayed in bed and missed this meeting. If anyone else asks what’s going on, you don’t tell them. Refer them to me. Any questions?”

Bat glowered. Alex Ligon said tentatively, “My predictive models…”

“Will manage for a while without you. Kate Lonaker and Ole Pedersen can hold the fort. Even in your worst scenario, as I recall it, humanity had a run of at least another half century. With Nadeen Selassie’s doomsday weapon in the picture, we almost went yesterday, and we could all go tomorrow. In any case, I’m not suggesting that we abandon other work — only that this must occupy the highest priority. Anyone else?”

Milly was tempted to ask about the SETI effort, but she kept her mouth shut. She needed to talk again to Jack Beston. She wasn’t sure that she was ready or willing to resume their curious love-hate relationship. Yesterday the SETI signal and Jack had been the most important things in her universe, but what Bat and Bengt Suomi had said was finally sinking in. Yesterday, that same yesterday when the SETI signal mattered so much, she had almost died and never known it. The whole of life was suddenly a fragile possession, a delicate mystery that could vanish as randomly and inexplicably as it had appeared.

Milly had said nothing, but Magrit Knudsen caught something from her expression. The older woman smiled at her.

“There are days like this, my dear. You just have to hope that you’ll live to see a lot of them.” Magrit Knudsen turned again to Bat. “One more thing. I know how much you love to collect lost weapons from the Great War. I sympathize with that, and normally I approve of it. Now, I can imagine you saying to yourself, if I could obtain a few nodules that Nadeen Selassie implanted in Sebastian Birch — or even just one — that would be the finest war relic anyone could ever hope to own. And I would enclose them and insulate them and guard them so well in the depths of the Bat Cave, the nodules would never be dangerous to anyone. I couldn’t ever mention to anyone that I had them, but they would still be mine. Well, Bat, I have just one thing to say about that line of thinking. Don’t go there. Even if your devious mind sees a way to get your hands on more nodules, don’t do it.”

“Very well.”

“Is that a real yes? A personal promise, from you to me?”

“I suppose.”

“You suppose?”

Bat was half a meter taller than Magrit and at least four times her mass. She stood, hands on hips, staring up at him in silence as he frowned, pursed his lips, puffed out his cheeks, and gave every appearance of a man in supreme torment.

Finally he reached a hand into the pocket of his rumpled shirt and fumbled around. His hand emerged holding a great mass of detritus. Milly saw papers, an interface coupler, three keys and a tiny electronic lens, all glued together by what appeared to be lumps of hard candy. Bat reached into the middle of the mess with his other hand and delicately removed a capped metal tube a couple of centimeters across. He handed it over.

As he did so he sighed like an expiring whale and said, “There is more than one way to kill a man, Magrit Knudsen. Take this; and with it, you have my solemn promise.”