Macroscope

CHAPTER 7

Beatryx was weeding the garden: some shoots of wheat were coming up beside the tomato plants, and she was carefully extracting them without damage to either type of plant. The tediously preserved shoots would shortly be transplanted to the south forty — forty square feet of verdant field.

Ivo squatted down beside her but did not offer to help. This was her self-appointed task, and his unsolicited participation would constitute interference. Meaningful tasks were valuable. He noted that she had continued to shed weight; the round-faced matron was disconcertingly gone, replaced by the hollow-faced one. Material comfort did not automatically bring health and happiness, unfortunately.

“You know she’s taking it hard,” he said after a suitable delay.

“What can we do, Ivo? I hate to see it, but I just can’t think of any way to help.”

“As I make it, she’s having the reaction she suppressed when Brad lost out to the destroyer. She knew he was gone, then, but she refused to admit it. Now—”

“Now we have to take turns standing watch over her, treating her like a criminal. I don’t like it, Ivo.”

An understatement. Her whole body reflected her concern. Beatryx, physically, was in worse shape than Afra. “None of us do. But we don’t dare leave her alone.”

She lifted a blade of green and placed it tenderly in her basin of moist sand. “It’s terrible.”

“I wondered whether—” He paused, disturbed by the audacity of his idea. “Well, we are, as you say, already treating her like a criminal.”

“We have to do something,” she said.

“Maybe this is all wrong. That’s why I wanted to talk it over. I thought, well, if she feels guilty, we might give her a trial. Sort of bring out the evidence, one way or the other, and all take a look at it, and decide who was how guilty of what. Then it would be — decided.”

“Who would decide, Ivo? I couldn’t.”

“I don’t think I could, either. I’m not objective. But — you know him better than I do — I thought your husband might—”

“He’s fond of her, Ivo. He wouldn’t want to pass judgment on her.” There was no sign of jealousy in her manner, and Ivo knew she was not the type to conceal what she felt, in such an area. It told him something about her, something nice; but it told more about Groton.

“He’d have to agree, of course. But if it seemed a real trial would clear the air — make things all right again—”

Beatryx stiffened. “Look, Ivo! Look!”

Alarmed, suspecting mayhem or calamity, he followed her gaze. There was nothing.

“On that tomato leaf!” she whispered, trembling with excitement.

He looked, relieved that it was nothing important. “Looks perfectly healthy to me. But you’ll have to spray—”

Then he brought up short. “A bug!”

“A bug!” she repeated.

“It must have been a worm in the tomato,” he said. “I thought everything was sterilized.”

“Maybe we’ll have lots of bugs,” she said, excited. “Triton bugs. And flies and spiders and worms. Maybe they’ll get in the house and we’ll have to put up screens!”

It had been so long since they had seen any creature apart from the four members of the party that this was a signal discovery. “We are not alone,” he said. “It’s a good omen.”

“Do you think it’s warm enough here for it?” she inquired anxiously. “Should I bring it some food? What do they eat?”

Ivo smiled. “Nature knows best. I’m sure it’s sitting on its supper right now. If we leave it alone it will probably raise a family soon. But I’ll photograph a bug-book for you from the macroscope, so you can identify it.”

“Oh thank you!” she said sincerely.

He left her kneeling beside the plant. If there were such things as omens, this was surely a sign that the nadir for the Triton party had passed.

“A trial.” Groton considered it. “There may be something in that. Certainly something needs to be done. That girl is very near the edge.” If Beatryx had changed because of the stress of recent months, Groton had not. He seemed to have the most stable personality among them.

“I got the idea from something I remembered. A bit on animal psychology. A dog had strayed or got lost somehow — I don’t know the details — but after a few days his master got him back. The master was very glad to have him safe, but the dog just moped around the house, hardly eating or resting. Finally the man asked a veterinarian about the problem. The man said to roll up a newspaper and give the animal a good swat on the rear.”

“That wasn’t very helpful.”

“It cured the dog. It seemed the dog expected to be punished for getting lost, and couldn’t revert to normal until that punishment was over. He was just waiting for it, brooding, knowing things weren’t right until it came. One token swat, and that dog almost tore the house apart for joy. The slate was clean again, you see.”

“You suggest that a swat on the rear will cure Afra?”

“I don’t know. It can’t bring Brad back, of course, but the guilt—” Groton sat down. “You know, you’re right about the guilt. It has no outlet — we don’t blame her, really. But a trial? Well, hard to say what would do the job of expunging guilt…”

“You would have to make the decision. On her guilt, I mean. Weigh the evidence, institute appropriate punishment—”

“Yes, I suppose I would.”

Ivo could appreciate Groton’s unease. They were all guilty, by their prior inaction, as much as Afra by her action. Who were they to pass judgment upon her?

Groton opened the roll-top desk he had built for his study and drew out a sheet of paper. It was a circular chart divided into twelve pie-sections, with a smaller circle in the center. There were symbols all around the edge and in several of the segments, together with assorted numbers. Below the large circle were several geometrical drawings identified by further symbols.

“This is her horoscope. Suppose I explain some of it to you, and you tell me whether this thing we contemplate is wise.”

Ivo doubted that this particular tack would help, but he was becoming accustomed to Groton’s method of getting at a problem. If the astrological chart helped him to make up his mind (as Beatryx had once hinted), more power to it. He also remembered the coincidental insight of his own horoscope, that had pointed to Schön rather than to himself. That had been uncanny.

“Do you know what I mean by the houses, cardinal signs, alchemy of the elements, portmanteau analysis—”

“Say again, quarterspeed?”

Groton smiled. “Just testing. I didn’t want to insult you by oversimplifying. I’ll stick as much as I can to layman’s language — but I want you to understand that this is simplified, to the point where what I tell you is only approximately true.”

“Why can’t you just give me the summaries, as you did before?” Ivo did not want to say that a detailed technical lecture was something other than he had bargained for.

“Because that would be too much of me speaking. I need to show you enough of the principles so that you understand the essence of what the chart says, on your own. You may have a different opinion from mine, and your interpretation could help me to reach my own decision.”

Groton’s manner reminded him of Afra’s when she had insisted on the handling. The full meaning and validity of her request had not been clear to him until later; then he realized that her instinct had been sure. Groton evidently had reservations about this procedure, but was overruling them for some good reason. It would be wise to oblige. More and more, he was being made aware that his own views of things were often based on pitifully inadequate information.

“All right. One opinion on tap, for what it’s worth.”

Groton pointed to the chart. “Notice that this is in twelve segments. Actually, it is twenty-four segments: twelve superimposed on the other twelve, but for convenience we employ a single diagram. I have placed the identifiers around the rim, you see.”

“I recognize the numbers one through twelve; that’s about all.” He continued to study the obscure markings, however. “And Neptune! I couldn’t forget that symbol. There in the six-box.”

“That’s enough for a start. Let’s call that the top disk: the twelve houses, numbered counterclockwise. The houses, roughly, represent circumstance: the situation, the potentiality the individual has to work with. That’s not good or bad in itself; he may exploit it or not. But it’s there, much as the chessmen we discussed before are there, ready for the game.”

“Twelve different circumstances?”

“Yes. The first house represents identity, the second possessions, the third environment, and so on. That’s really an oversimplification—”

“You explained. Ballpark estimates.”

“Yes. Now the planets move through these houses, that are really segments of the celestial equator. Three-dimensional segments, to be sure, like those of an orange — but twelve of them make up the heavens about Earth.”

Ivo looked at the chart again. “So the center circle is Earth, and the outer one is the rest of the universe, carved up into twelve big houses, and we’re looking down at an orange sliced in half. Yes.”

“Close enough. The planets represent the particular ways in which the individual asserts himself. The sun in the first house means—”

“The sun? I thought you said planets.”

“We consider the sun and moon to be planets. It is best to set aside what you know about astronomy, for this; it has almost no genuine relation to astrology.”

“I begin to appreciate your sincerity. So the sun is a planet.”

“Viewed from Earth, they are all moving bodies, Sol and Luna no less than Venus or Pluto. They all have changing positions in the sky. We’re not revising astronomy; we are merely arranging our terms to suit our convenience. Technically, it is astronomy that did the revising; it was originally a subdivision of astrology, and all the early astronomers were primarily astrologers. There is no conflict.”

“I follow.”

“The sun indicates purpose, the moon feeling, Mars initiative, and so on. There are tables in the books that give all this, if you find it helps. So the sun in the first house puts the planet of purpose in the house of identity. A person with this configuration, according to one description, is determined to exalt his ego one way or another, and tries to dominate his immediate situation. That doesn’t mean he succeeds; this is merely his impulse. He may be bombastic rather than great.”

“You sound as if you have a reservation. Are there other descriptions for what sun-in-first means?”

“There are always differences in interpretation. But my reservation stems from the oversimplification. The whole chart must be considered, not just the sun, or unfortunate mistakes can be made. You see, one of our group has this particular placement.”

“Afra!”

“That’s what I mean. It isn’t Afra, as you can see by her chart; the first house is empty. It’s Beatryx.”

“I think I’m catching on. If a person is born when the sun is in one of these segments, that tells something about his personality — but only something, not everything. And I guess the sun has to be somewhere. What is the second house?”

“Possessions, among other things. Here, I’ll make out a list; that’s easiest, I think.”

“Oh yes. So the sun in the second house puts purpose in possessions. That man will be out to make money.”

“Or to achieve personal advantage some other way,” Groton said, not pausing in his listing. “You have the general idea. Again, there is no guarantee he’ll make a fortune — but he’ll probably try.”

“Where is the sun in my — in Schön’s horoscope?”

“The twelfth house. That’s confinement.”

“Purpose in confinement.” Ivo thought that over. “This begins to grow on me, I must admit.”

“Just remember that the sun, important as it is, can be outweighed by an opposing configuration elsewhere. And of course the entire horoscope represents probability, not certainty. Heredity is obviously a major influence. Leo is the sign of the lion, but a mouse born into Leo is still a mouse.”

“I’ll remember,” Ivo agreed, smiling. “A leonine Mickey.”

“Notice the position of the sun in Afra’s horoscope.”

Ivo studied the chart once more, finding it less confusing. “Is that the little circle with the dot inside? That’s in the ninth house. But that’s not the only thing there.”

“It certainly isn’t alone, and in certain respects this is a remarkable chart. But let’s ignore the others for the moment. The sun symbol goes near the rim, you see, followed by the ecliptic position in degrees and minutes, and on the inside is the zodiacal sign, which we’ll go into in a moment.”

“What does the ninth house stand for?”

“Understanding, consciousness, knowledge.”

“So Afra has purpose in understanding. That means she wants to know things — and if her heredity gives her high intelligence, she’ll come to know a great deal.”

“The text says: ‘The sun in the ninth house places the practical focus of life in a determination to exalt the ego through high standards and broadened interests. This position always encourages a conscious lean towards an intellectual understanding or a religious orientation. At his best the native is able to bring effective insights or genuine wisdom to every situation, and at his worst he is apt to meet all reality with a complacent intolerance or bigotry.’ ”

“That sounds close enough. But it is really so general it could apply to almost anyone.”

“We’ll try to get more specific — one planet at a time. You can’t divide all humanity into twelve basic groupings without being general. By the time we check ten planets against twelve houses and twelve signs and verify with the symbols of the ascendants and overall patterns, we begin to have definition resembling that of the macroscope. Now where do you see the moon?”

“Right beside the sun. Same house.”

“The moon represents feeling.”

“So that’s feeling in understanding. To know her is to love her?” He said it lightly, but knew it had happened to him.

“No, that’s an outside impression, not controlled by her horoscope. It’s what she feels and understands that’s important here. Specifically: ‘The moon in the ninth house centers all personal experience in issues of morality, elevating ends and reasons above practical needs. This position exaggerates every concern over ideas and motives. The native at his best is able to approach reality with an understanding support for every human capacity, and at his worst he is apt to worry over abstractions and dissipate every impulse to action.’ Do you recognize Afra there?”

“Yes, in a way. You know, this is — well, isn’t it really pretty private? I have the feeling I’m prying into things that aren’t my business.” He saw that he was tacitly admitting an acceptance of astrology, but didn’t care. “Nudity of the body is one thing, but—”

“Good point. I consider a person’s detailed horoscope to be very like the privileged information given to a lawyer, or perhaps a priest. Or medical or financial statements. This is one reason I hesitated to show you her chart before. But if we are to pass a judgment on her that may affect her entire life—”

Ivo saw the point. “I’ll — keep all this confidential. Even if she doesn’t believe in astrology, or I don’t, it’s still—”

Groton went on to another section. “The signs of the ecliptic define character. There are twelve of them, spaced similarly to the houses, but they are not identical to the houses. That’s why we have to mark their symbols; the indications around the edge are only approximate, since the signs are not geometrically defined in the manner of the houses. Where do you spot the sun this time?”

“The sign is a cross between a square-root symbol and a hunchbacked musical note.”

“That’s Capricorn — the Goat. This is—”

Ivo interrupted him to run down a nagging connection. “What did you say Schön was?”

“Aries — the Ram. You can recognize his symbol by the spreading horns, situated in this case at the cusp of the twelfth house.”

“I see it. The circle with the antlers.”

“No, not that one; that’s Taurus the Bull. Next above it.”

Ivo located the correct symbol. “So that’s how you separate the sheep from the goats! But what’s Aries doing on the Goat’s chart? I thought—”

“All houses and all signs appear on all charts. There’s a little of everything in every person’s makeup. But the positions of the planets show the emphasis for any one person. Schön’s sun is in Aries, while Afra’s Mars is in Aries; an entirely different matter, I assure you.”

“The sun is more important?”

“That depends on the configuration. Generally, it is; that’s why the popularized horoscopes use it, though that’s like saying that your brain is more important than your heart. Aries rules the brain, coincidentally. But you can’t get along without either one. In Afra’s case Mars does have great weight, and perhaps makes her as much a fire person as is Schön. But the combination of sun, moon and Mercury in Capricorn puts enormous stress on earth — well, I don’t want to get off into subjective interpretation. This is a BUCKET pattern, and the handle-planet, Mars, reveals a special capacity or important direction of interest. So this aspect of her chart indicates initiative and extreme self-containment.”

Ivo was beginning to get lost, much as he had when Brad attempted a “simplified” explanation. He did see the bucket-shape, however, with the handle toward the left and a semicircle of filled slices to the right. “So the way Afra just went ahead on her own to revive Brad, without worrying about the risk or what she would do afterward — that was spelled out the moment she was born? Because Mars happened to be in Aries? And you could have predicted—”

“It’s hardly that simple, Ivo. There are so many other factors, and she could have reacted in some entirely different fashion. Hindsight is no justification. But I did foresee some kind of crisis. There is an activation of Saturn at about this time in her life, following the emphasis of Mars that seemed to account for her prior problem with Brad. When he became destroyed. In another year there is a predomination of Uranus. That’s three crises in fairly rapid order, for her — but the timing can vary by a year or more either way, and I simply cannot pin any of these down precisely.”

“But the odds are she’ll have a third crisis as bad as the first two, within a year?”

“In your terms, that about sums it up. Remember, I make no claim to—”

“I remember. Is it possible for me to read this chart and look up the descriptions myself? You said you wanted to get an independent opinion—”

“I don’t think you’d find it very instructive, Ivo. It takes years to—”

“I’ll bet the chart on me says somewhere that I like to do things for myself.”

“Not exactly.” Then Groton paused, catching the hint. “As you wish. Here are the texts. Here are the listings of symbols I wrote out, and you already have the chart. There are things I haven’t explained yet, such as the grand trine in fire, and—”

“I think I have enough to go on. Suppose you leave me to it for an hour or so? I may misread terribly, but I’ll try to come up with a notion where I stand. Then we can decide about the trial. And I think I’d better have the other charts, too, for comparison.”

“It’s in the stars,” Groton said, yielding with good grace, and left him to it.

Ivo began by checking Beatryx’s chart. It was a twelve-slice disk like the first, but the markings differed. In the center it gave her date and place of birth: February 20, 1943, 6:23 CST a.m., Dallas, Texas, 33N 97W. Geographic coordinates, he decided. Below were several mathematical notes and the word SEE-SAW. He ignored these and concentrated on the symbols.

He found the sun in the first house, just as Groton had said. “Purpose in identity,” he murmured, and leafed through the nearest text until he came to a section titled “The Planets in the Twelve Houses.” A glance at the description assured him that he had researched correctly.

With more confidence he located the moon in the seventh house. “Feeling in partnership,” he said, checking his lists. He found the place and read: “…at his best is able to find common elements in his associations with any other individuals, and at his worst he is apt to make things unnecessarily hard for himself.” He recollected the interests she shared with him, poetic and musical, that had only appeared when there was need for conversation and companionship, and nodded. He also recalled her intensely personal reaction to Afra’s folly.

He tried next for the signs. Her sun was in Pisces: purpose in sympathy. The first volume was open at the houses and he wanted to keep his place, so he opened the second. It was an old, weathered tome.

“Pisces produces a very sensitive nature…” he read. “Longing to understand and forgive his fellow men, to feel himself one with them and above all to succor those who are ill-treated by the world… vaguely sad idealism…often somewhat of a Cinderella in practical life…”

He paused to think about that, too. It was as apt a description of Beatryx as he could imagine. It was almost as though the passage had been written with her in mind.

He flipped back to the title page: Astrology and Its Practical Application, by E. Parker. Translated from the Dutch. Published in 1927.

Fifteen years or more before Beatryx had been born.

He checked her chart again and located the moon in Virgo. “Feeling in Assimilation,” he thought. The book said: “There is much love for the fine arts, especially for literature. Works of art are often inwardly enjoyed without its being much shown…”

Excited, now, he went to the other text — one copyrighted 1945 by one Marc Edmund Jones — and looked up moon-in-Virgo for confirmation. “Reacts to others with a deep hunger for common experience…”

Be objective, he told himself. You’re only reacting to what matches.

But still he wondered…

He drew forth Afra’s chart and began looking up its elements and making notes. Even so, he quickly lost track of the multiple factors, and found some conflicts between texts. Finally he decided to handle it in businesslike fashion: he made a table of the abbreviated elements, so that he could consider it as a unit:

PLANET | HOUSE | SIGN | DESCRIPTION

Sun | 9th | Cap. | purpose X understanding, discrimination

Moon | 9th | Cap. | feeling X understanding, discrimination

Mars | 12th | Aries | initiative X confinement, aspiration

Venus | 8th | Sag. | acquisitiveness X regeneration, administration

Merc. | 9th | Cap. | mentality X understanding, discrimination

Jup. | 6th | Libra | enthusiasm X duty, equivalence

Sat. | 7th | Sag. | sensitiveness X partnership, administration

Ur. | 4th | Leo | independence X home, assurance

Nep. | 6th | Scorp. | obligation X duty, creativity

Plu. | 5th | Virgo | obsession X offspring, assimilation

Ivo contemplated his production with a certain frustrated pride. He had made an unintelligible horoscope intelligible; he had reduced voluminous verbiage to its essence. Chaos to order, as it were — and he still didn’t know what to make of it. There was a lot of discrimination, tied in with purpose, feeling and mentality, and this certainly seemed to reflect Afra’s drives. But understanding tied in with the same three qualities. Then there was enthusiasm for duty and equivalence; obligation for duty and creativity; obsession for offspring and assimilation?

What did all this say about her probable reaction to a Tritonian trial? Would it help her, or would it drive her to suicide? Or would she see through it all and laugh?

Afra was a person, not a chart or a table.

He should have left the astrology to Groton.

Ivo shook his bursting head as though to rattle loose a productive notion and put the papers aside. He went to his own apartment and picked up the box that held his useless artifacts of Earth. He had never returned them to his clothing after the melting. The penny should still be there, amidst the junk… yes, his questing fingers found the disk. He fished it out without looking, flipped it into the air, caught it and slapped it against his wrist. “Heads we try her, tails we forget it,” he said aloud. Then he looked.

It was the bus token, possessing neither head nor tail.

Groton rapped for attention. “We do not need to be unduly formal. Ivo, you’ve been assigned to prosecute. Please make your case.”

Ivo rose, feeling for a moment as though he were actually in a formal courtroom, addressing a jury of twelve. “Harold, it is my purpose to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that Afra Summerfield did willfully and with malice aforethought murder Bradley Carpenter. She—”

Afra jumped to her feet in a fury. “What a thing to say! Of all the ridiculous, unwarranted, slanderous—”

She broke off, seeing the other three silent and solemn.

Groton turned slowly to address her. “You are of course entitled to express yourself, Afra. But it would be better if you let Beatryx speak in your defense. We do need to ascertain the truth of this matter, if we are to exist in harmony here.”

She subsided, pitiful in her misery and sudden uncertainty. “Yes, of course, Harold. I understand.”

“Proceed, Ivo, if you please.”

“We have here a pampered and arrogant young woman of the upper middle class. She was raised to believe herself superior to the common folk, by reason of the purity of her breeding, the finances of her family and the quality of her education. She possesses an alert mind and tends to deem those of more leisurely intellect to be inferior for that reason, too. At the same time, she resents those of demonstrably greater intelligence than hers, since such people appear by her definition to occupy a higher niche in the hierarchy. They are, in a word, superior.”

Afra watched him, appalled. “Is that what you really believe? That I—” But she halted again, seeing his impassive demeanor. “I’m sorry. I won’t interrupt again.”

“Now picture the situation that obtained when she became employed within the orbiting Macroscope Project as a high-powered secretary. Many — perhaps most — of the trained personnel there exceeded both her education and her natural ability. Compared to them she was both ignorant and stupid. Surely this fostered in her a state of continuing resentment. No one likes to believe himself to be inferior, or to have others believe it, whatever the actual case may be.”

Ivo had intended to overstate the case, not really believing it himself, but he found himself responding to his own rhetoric. In accusing her, he was voicing some of his own attitudes. He felt inferior, and he had never liked it. And Afra was an intellectual snob.

“In addition, these personnel were multiracial. Negroes, Mongolians and halfbreeds were ranked above her, inherently and socially. Even certain members of the maintenance crew were able to earn privileges she was denied. Remember, she is Georgia-born. To her, such persons are niggers, chinks and spies, tolerable so long as they ‘keep their place’ but never to be acknowledged as equals, let alone betters. These were also of foreign nationalities and foreign ideologies: to wit, socialist, communist and fascist. To her, a belch after a meal is uncouth and a cheek-to-cheek greeting between members of the same sex disgusting.”

He was going too far, bringing in irrelevancies, but could not seem to stop. His resentments were coming out, and she personified them. He was angry at her because he loved her.

“But one thing kept her there, despite her obvious unsuitability for the position. She met an attractive young American scientist only slightly more intelligent than she who was willing to fraternize. She — became infatuated with him.” Translation: Ivo was angry because Afra loved Brad…

A crease appeared in Afra’s brow and her color heightened, but she did not move or speak.

“But it turned out, after a brief but intimate liaison, that this American had deceived her. He was far more able intellectually than she, having falsified his status in that respect. He had far, more education, and regarded what she had taken to be a commitment for marriage as no more than a temporary entertainment. Further, he proposed to reassign her favors to an acquaintance. She thus found herself reduced to the lowest status imaginable to her: so-called white slavery.”

Beatryx gestured in distress. “Ivo, that’s horrible. You have no right to accuse her of—”

He felt cold now, no longer angry. “Of de facto prostitution? I was not doing so. I was making the point that Bradley Carpenter treated her as a diversion. His real purpose—”

“You’re overdoing it,” Groton cautioned him. “Brad isn’t on trial.”

Ivo was glad to let that aspect drop. Brad had, after all, been his friend. He had known for twenty years what Brad was like: a polite, cautious, dull Schön. If Brad used people ruthlessly, what would Schön do?

“It subsequently turned out that her supposed fiancé was himself of mixed blood: by her definition, a mulatto or worse. And he had been raised in a free-love colony where morality in the conventional sense was unknown. Thus she learned that she had not been the first to share intimacies with him; rather, she was the last in a very long line, and followed after girls — and boys — of all the races of the world.”

Some condemnation! Ivo himself was as conservative as Afra, and as biased, despite what he knew of his origin. Yet he had shared much of the life of the project until its breakup. When, thereafter, he had encountered individual girls from it, he had indulged in the usual amenities. Outsiders would have considered this to be flagrant promiscuity. Yet the project bond was special; its members shared a heritage, and there were no reservations between them. What was more natural than a sharing of intellect and experience, in this way recapturing a fragment of that larger camaraderie?

Ivo had been shocked by Afra’s nudity and actions at the time of the handling — but that was because she was a nonproject girl. Had he been properly objective, he would have had no problem. She had been true to her viewpoint, then and in her relation to Brad, while he was a thorough hypocrite. He should be on trial, not she…

Time to wrap it up, before he got carried away again. He gestured at Afra. “It is not for us, as it was not for her, to judge the morality of Bradley Carpenter. He is dead by this woman’s hand. It is for us to determine whether the defendant had motivation for murder — and surely, by her bigoted definitions, she had. Her act must be interpreted in this light. There can be no verdict but guilty.”

He had spoken well, but he felt tight and sick. This trial had shown him unwelcome things in himself.

Beatryx, assigned counsel for the defense, took the floor. She was gaunt now, and troubled, but her voice was strong. “Harold, this is all wrong. Ivo has put things all out of proportion. There’s hardly anybody who couldn’t be condemned by that sort of reasoning. Afra was trying to bring back the man she loved, and she tried very hard, but it didn’t work. Nobody else did anything. The rest of us would have let him fade away, there in his tank. If she had known what would happen, she never would have—”

“No,” Afra said. “I couldn’t stand to have him remain as jelly, or as an idiot. Better to have him dead, than that.”

Ivo froze. Beatryx was making a good case — and Afra had just undermined it.

“That isn’t true!” Beatryx told her. “You just think because he died, you have to take the blame. But he did it himself — he watched the destroyer on purpose.”

Afra stared straight ahead. Beatryx was right. Afra hadn’t tried to kill Brad. She had taken a wild gamble in an effort to bring him back — from the dead, in effect. Her failure did not imply malice.

“Do you have any statement to make on your own behalf?” Groton asked Afra after a moment.

There was no response.

“In that case, having heard the presentation and being already familiar with the background of this case, it behooves me to render an impartial decision.”

Groton was going through with it, but it seemed to Ivo that this “trial” was in a shambles. Afra had not fought back properly, and so had not been officially vindicated. They had accomplished nothing.

“I find the defendant guilty of conduct prejudicial to the well-being of the decedent, Bradley Carpenter. Motivation for overt, premeditated murder, however, has by no means been shown, and more than a single interpretation may be placed on the defendant’s physical actions. At worst, they were reckless. The actual instrument of demise appears to have been the phenomenon we term the destroyer, combined with an incompletely understood function of the melting cycle. Rehabilitation of the defendant therefore seems feasible.”

Brother! Would Afra swallow this?

“Are you saying it was an accident?” Beatryx asked. “But she still has to pay for it?”

“Just about,” Groton conceded. “Recklessness, though, has been well established in my judgment.”

“I suppose that’s all right, then.”

Ivo nodded acquiescence.

“I therefore sentence you, Afra Summerfield of Georgia, to exile from the equal society of man until such time as the neutralization of the said destroyer seems feasible, so that no other person need ever be similarly afflicted. This will be considered penance by corrective endeavor. Further: because to a considerable extent your personal pride was at fault, this sentence includes a period of confinement at onerous labor. You shall assume the gardening and cooking and laundry chores for the Triton encampment and shall not leave the garden-kitchen-laundry areas except to make beds and to perform such other menial tasks as may be required of you by the other members of this encampment. This labor shall terminate only upon the group’s departure from the present locale, at which time you shall be permitted to petition the group for readmittance to its society on a probationary basis.

“Until that point you shall not again be addressed by name, nor shall you address any member of the group by name.”

And Afra, amazingly, nodded. She wanted to be punished!

“This sentence,” Groton said after a pause, “is suspended, owing to—”

“No!” Afra said dully. “It’s a fair sentence.”

So Groton had intended only a token reprimand. Afra, anticipating this, had insisted that it be real. Her privilege, of course — but were they helping her to recover, or merely catering to her masochism?

“Girl,” Ivo snapped into the intercom.

After a few seconds Afra’s voice came back. “Sir?”

“Report to the drawing room for conference.”

She appeared duly, clad in a simple black skirt falling below the knees, with a long-sleeved blouse overset by a loose housecoat. A drab kerchief bound her hair, giving her something of the aspect of a nun.

She stood silently, waiting for him to speak.

“Sit down.”

“Sir?”

“Down. I have something to show you.”

She settled on the least comfortable perch available.

Ivo took his stance before the blackboard he had set up. “A conception of cosmology,” he said, assuming the manner of a lecturer. “The evidence available indicates that our universe is in a state of continual expansion. Calculations suggest that there is a finite limit to such expansion, governed by variables too complex to discuss at this time. For convenience we shall think of the present universe as that four-dimensional volume beyond which our three-dimensional physical space and matter cannot expand: the cosmic limitation. We shall further consider these four dimensions to be spatial in nature, though in fact the universe is a complex of n dimensions, few of which are spatial and many of which interact with spatial planes deviously. Do you understand?”

“Which other dimensions are you thinking of?”

“Time, mass, intensity, probability — any measurable or theoretically measurable quality.” She nodded, and he saw that he had her interest. There was nothing like a few weeks of household drudgery to make the stellar reaches more exciting. “Now assume that the 3-space cosmos we perceive can be represented by a derivative: a one-dimensional line.” He drew a line on the board. “If you prefer, you may think of this line as a cord or section of pipe, in itself embracing three dimensions, but finite and flexible.” He amplified his drawing:

“Quite clear,” she said. “A pipe of macroscopic diameter represented by a line.”

“Our fourth spatial dimension is now illustrated by a two-space figure: a circle.” He erased the pipe-section and drew a circle on the board. “Within this circle is our line. Let’s say it extends from point A to point B on the perimeter.” He set it up:

“The ends of the universe,” she agreed.

“Call this 3-space line within this 4-space circle the universe at, or soon after, its inception.”

“The fabled big bang.”

“Yes. Now in what manner would our fixed circle accommodate our variable line — if that line lengthened? Say the line AB expanded to a length of 2 AB?”

“It would have to wrinkle,” she said immediately.

“Precisely.” He erased his figure and drew another with a bending line:

“Now our universe has been expanding for some time,” he continued. “How would you represent a hundredfold extension?”

She stood up, came to the board, accepted the chalk from him, and drew a more involved figure in place of his last:

“Very good,” he said. “Now how about a thousandfold? A millionfold?”

“The convolutions would develop convolutions,” she said, “assuming that your line is infinitely flexible. May I draw a detail subsection?”

“You may.”

Carefully she rendered it:

“This would be shaped into larger loops,” she explained, “and the small ones could be subdivided similarly, until your circle is an impacted mass of threads. The diameter and flexibility of your line would be the only limitation of the process.”

“Excellent,” he said. “Sit down.”

She bristled momentarily, then remembered her place. She sat.

“Now assuming that this is an accurate cosmology,” he lectured, “note certain features.” He pointed with the chalk. “Our line touches itself at many points, both in the small loops and large ones. Suppose it were possible to pass across those connections, instead of traveling down the length of our line in normal fashion?”

“Down the line being traveled from one area to another in space? As from Earth to Neptune?” He nodded. “Why—” She hesitated, seeing the possibilities. “If Earth and Neptune happened to be in adjacent loops, you might jump from one to the other in — well, virtually, no time.”

“Let’s say that this is the case, and that those adjacent subloops are here.” He pointed to the top of the first major loop. “Assume that arrangements and preparations make the effective duration of any single jump a matter of a few hours. How long would it take to reach Alpha Centauri from Earth?”

“That depends on its position and the configuration. It might be possible in a single hop, or it might require several months of jumping. By the same token, it might be as easy to traverse the entire galaxy — if this representation of the nature of space is accurate.”

“The macroscope suggests this is the case.”

She caught on rapidly. “So the destroyer origin is theoretically within reach?”

“Yes.”

She looked at him, life coming into her face. She, like Beatryx, had lost weight, but she was lovely yet. “How long have you worn that shirt?”

He stuttered, caught completely by surprise. “I — I don’t know. What — ?”

“Too long. May I?”

“I—”

She walked around him, pulling out his shirt and unbuttoning it. She removed it and bundled it under her arm. She kissed him lightly on the cheek and departed, leaving him somewhat stupefied.

It had been forcibly brought home to him who, if this were a game, had the ranking hand.

A mouse born into Leo was still a mouse, he remembered. Afra, however low she might sink, remained a stronger personality than he.

Six hours later his shirt was back, clean and fragrant.

He looked for Afra, not knowing what to say or whether to say it — and found her kneeling beside Brad’s grave, sweet-pea flowers in her hand, tears coursing down her cheeks.

And what had he expected?

Earth: city: “disadvantaged” neighborhood.

Children played in a tiny dirt yard, throwing rocks at a broken bottle. Their clothing was dirty and sodden with sweat; their feet were bare. All were thin, and posture and appearance hinted at malnutrition.

Inside the house, a sick child slept restlessly, flies crawling across his cheek and buzzing up whenever he moved. He lay on a ragged mattress, refuse collected beneath it. Roaches peered from the hole in the wall where the yellow plaster had fallen away.

In the next room a grizzled man sprawled before a bright television set, swigging now and then from a concave whisky bottle. He was as grimy as the children.

Ivo imagined the dialogue he might have with this man, were conversation possible:

“You’re going to pot here. Why don’t you move to a better neighborhood?”

“Can’t afford it. I’m in hock now.”

“Why don’t you look for a better job, then? The economy is booming; you could make a lot more money.”

“I tried that. Man said I needed more education.”

“Why don’t you go back to school, then? To one of the free technical universities?”

“They have a quota system; only so many per district, and this one’s full up until 1985.”

“Well, why don’t you move, then… oh, I see.”

Ivo removed the helmet and goggles and shook his head. This was the age of affluence, with a record GNP and excellent jobs begging for personnel. Yet the macroscope showed the truth: whether because of this particular vicious circle or some variant of it, people were living in poverty. The residence he had just viewed was typical of a growing — not shrinking — segment of the population.

There had been a time, not so very long ago, when only nonwhite Americans lived this way. There would come a time, not so very far removed, when only the affluent lived any other way.

Why should he have any regrets about leaving this area of space?

He did, though.

Groton watched the screen as Ivo guided the image into the disk of Neptune. The mighty vapors boiled at an apparent distance of a thousand miles, throwing up great gouts of color.

Five hundred miles, four hundred, and it was easy to fancy that they were aboard a ship actually coming in for a landing, and to feel the fierce spume of the methane storm. The dark dot he had centered on had now been clarified as the eye of a hurricane — the eye alone three hundred miles in diameter and awesomely deep. Hydrogen gas swirled thinly in its center, and thick methane weighted with ammonia crystals rushed around the rim. The wind velocity at the surface they could presently see was four hundred miles per hour.

The cliffs of the cloudwall rose up, titanic, translucent, deadly. Then shadow as he lost the funnel, recovered it, lost it again. A hundred miles down, the tube was only a few tens of miles across, narrowing rapidly, and it wavered. Finally it was gone for good: either too thin to pinpoint or dissipated in the thickening atmosphere five hundred miles below the opening. Some light remained, but it was fading rapidly with depth.

A thousand miles down: still the turbulent gases and flying storm crystals. Two thousand: the same. Three thousand — and no solid surface.

“Does this planet have a surface?” Ivo demanded in frustration.

“Got to,” Groton said. “Somewhere. Too dense overall to be all gas.”

Four thousand. Five.

“Sure your settings are tuned? Maybe we’re not as deep as we thought.”

“I’m sure. It’s the damn planet that’s wrong!”

Six, seven.

At eight thousand miles below the visible surface they encountered the first solid material: caked ammonia ice. The macroscope readings were becoming vague; in this cold there was too little radiation in the proper range.

At nine, genuine water-ice: rock-hard, opaque.

Ten: the same.

“We’re two-thirds of the way to the core — and nothing but ice?” Ivo demanded.

The traces were almost unreadable — but at almost twelve thousand miles depth they struck rock.

“Do you realize,” Groton whispered, “that Neptune proper is smaller than Earth? Less than an eight-thousand mile diameter core—” He looked at the indications, that abruptly showed clear. “But what a core! Tungsten, gold, platinum, iridium, osmium — the heaviest elements of the universe are packed in here! Think of what a gold mine this place is!” He paused. “Gold? Throw it away! The stuff here—” He gave up.

“Is it all precious metal?”

“Sorry — got excited. No, it’s seventy percent iron, and the rest mostly oxygen and silicon. The heavy stuff just leaped out at me. But there is a lot of it, compared to what we’re used to, and the proportion is bound to increase with depth. Mighty solid lithosphere. But then, it has to be. As I make it, something like two-thirds the mass of this planet has to be in the core — and the core’s no larger than our Earth. My God — I didn’t think! This core — it has to be ten, eleven times the average density of Earth, to make that mass. Nothing’s that solid.”

“Going down,” Ivo said.

It was that solid. The multiple heavy elements on the core-ball’s “surface” were floating there because the interior was several times their density.

It was composed of partially collapsed matter: the refuse, possibly, of an extinct dwarf star. Protons and neutrons were jammed together with only imperfect electron layers holding them apart.

“It seems,” Groton remarked, “that half our job has been done for us.”

Ivo nodded, satisfied.

Ivo began to explain their intent to the women.

“The idea is to utilize the principle of gravitational collapse. We have obtained schematics for a rather sophisticated variant of the gravity focuser, though this resembles what we have here on Triton about the way a hydrogen bomb resembles a matchstick. Assembly of the generators alone will take months, even with a full crew of waldoes, and the related safeguards—”

“What do you mean by ‘gravitational collapse’?” Afra interjected.

“Oh. Well, simplified, it is the effect gravitational attraction has on matter when taken to the extreme. Any object of sufficient mass tends to compress itself by its own gravity, and the more dense it is the stronger this force becomes. Actually the other forces, electromagnetic and nuclear, are far stronger on a unit basis than—”

“May I?” Groton put in. “I think I can simplify this for the benefit of those who haven’t been exposed to a galactic education.” Suddenly Ivo realized that “those” meant Beatryx. He had become used to Afra’s almost instant comprehension, and tended to forget that the other woman was slower, though as vitally concerned. He had forgotten, also, that he was now talking in a manner he would not have comprehended himself, not so long ago; despite his care not to fathom galactic meanings too deeply, he had picked up a considerable amount.

And of course that was the reason Afra had asked her question. She knew astronomy and physics far better than he did, and was aware that the other woman was being left behind.

“You see,” Groton said, “Triton is smaller than Earth, so we weigh less there — I mean here — or did, before we started changing things. Schön is smaller yet, so on it we hardly weigh anything at all. But it isn’t just size that counts. If Schön were made of osmium instead of ice, it would have about twenty-five times its present mass, and therefore more gravity. We would then weigh more there than we do, though still very little.”

Beatryx nodded. Ivo was impressed; he had not really appreciated what a real talent teaching was. Comprehension was one thing; converting one’s knowledge into a clear explanation for others was another.

“But a planet isn’t just pulling at us,” Groton continued. “It is pulling at itself, too. It is much more tightly packed in the center than at the edge, because of its own gravity. And if we squeezed Triton down into a little ball about the size of Schön, and stood on that we’d weigh more than we do now, just because it was so dense and because we were so much closer to its center.

“And if we squeezed it down into a ball the size of a pea — why then the gravity would be very strong indeed. It might even begin to squeeze itself down farther, because its own attraction was so powerful. That’s what’s known as the gravitational radius — the point at which an object begins to collapse in upon itself as though it were a leaking tire. Once that happens, it’s too late; nothing can stop it from going all the way.”

“But what happens to it?” Beatryx demanded, alarmed.

“That’s what we’d very much like to know. Ivo seems to have an answer from the macroscope, however.”

“It seems that matter can’t just collapse into singularity — that is, nothing,” Ivo said, doing his best to emulate Groton’s style. “That would violate fundamental laws of — well, it’s no go. So instead it punches through to another spot in the universe, following the line of least resistance.”

“Punches through…” Afra murmured, putting items together. “That’s how you mean to—”

“To jump to the galactic reaches. Yes. But there are some problems.”

“I should say so! You’re playing with the molecular, the atomic collapse of matter! Assuming that you have a process to force this, which for the sake of conjecture I’ll assume you do, exactly what happens to people compressed to pinhead size?”

“Worse than that,” Ivo said. “A two-hundred-pound man would have to squeeze down to one ten-billionth the size of—”

“One ten-billionth!”

“ — of the nucleus of an atom. That’s if he were to go it alone, of course; not so small if accompanied by other mass.”

“That’s very small, isn’t it,” Beatryx said.

“Very small,” Ivo agreed. “But a mass the size of, say, the sun would not have to reduce by the same ratio. The greater the mass, the easier it is. But about people, now — this entire program is taken from the major extragalactic station. It is the only one that carries anything of the sort, for some reason. Actually, it doesn’t carry anything but the technology related to such travel; its area of information is smaller than I thought at first. The melting is part of the preparation for it. This station says that animate flesh can survive the transformation, provided it is properly prepared.”

“And it was right before,” Groton said.

“Let’s have the worst,” Afra said grimly.

“Well, first the liquefication we’re already familiar with. Then isolation of the individual cells, and a kind of gasification.”

“The gaseous state rebounds better after compression,” Groton put in helpfully. “Once molecular structure is reestablished.”

“And the field — that’s a simplified description — maintains an exact ratio during compression,” Ivo said. “That is, it fastens every atom in place and stabilizes things so that the entire field collapses evenly, and nothing is jostled or mixed up in the irregular currents of collapse. Much the same as spots on a full balloon will shrink in place when it is deflated, but not if it pops. After the — jump — the field maintains the ratios for the expansion, and only lets go when everything is as it was before. The machinery can take it all right; the extra flexibility for living things is required — because they are living. You can’t turn life off and turn it on again. Not in the normal course.”

“You say the larger the accompanying mass, the easier the procedure,” Afra said, becoming seriously interested. Large concepts came more readily, after the success of the melting and the Triton colony machinery. “Does that mean you’re going to try to fasten onto — well, Schön, — and compress us with it?”

“You have the idea, but we have larger masses at hand, and the equipment will be geared for them. The larger the mass, the less sophisticated the necessary technology, because of the smaller compression ratio. So—”

“Triton itself? That may be simple, but it is ambitious.”

“Neptune.”

She seemed beyond surprise. “Do you know where we’ll emerge?”

Ivo looked at Groton, who shrugged. “We don’t. The maps have changed in three million years. The expansion of space hasn’t stopped. Even if the convolutions were constant, the arrangement of stars and galaxies keeps shifting. We need a contemporary projection — and there isn’t any available on the macrosphere.”

“So we simply punch through and hope for the best?”

“Yes. After a number of tries, we should be able to set our own map, and perhaps to extrapolate reasonably.”

“Suppose we land inside a star?”

“The odds are vastly against it. But there seems to be provision for it even so; apparently matter will slide off other matter, when jumping. Path of least resistance means it is easier to punch through to an unoccupied spot than to double up on a star or planet or even a dust nebula that is indenting space on the other side. So we don’t have to worry about it at all.”

“Suppose we get lost?”

“We can’t get lost as long as we have the macroscope. Not for long, anyway. The galaxy may look strange from another location in space, but we do have a rough notion of its present layout.”

“Do you?” Afra inquired. “Did you stop to think that a fifteen thousand light-year jump — to pick the kind of figure we’ll be dealing with if we are to reach the destroyer — is like traveling fifteen thousand years into the future? All you’ve seen to date is the past history of a fragment of the universe. Your ‘present layout’ may be useless in determining your position.”

“We’ll still have the programs; most of them are galactically dated. And of course there’ll be the destroyer signal. Ill-wind department; we want to abolish it, so we use it for orientation.”

“What makes you believe there is only one destroyer?”

Again Ivo and Groton exchanged glances. “We can always fix on the Solar system,” Groton said. “We’re pretty familiar with that. We can estimate how far we’ve gone by judging how Earth appears, and of course the fix on Earth will establish our direction. With azimuth and measurement—”

“With all due respect, gentlemen,” Afra said briskly, “you are sadly inundated if not totally submerged. You may not even be able to locate ol’ Sol from fifteen thousand light-years’ removal. The configurations will be entirely different, and Sol’s absolute magnitude is not great. Let alone the strong possibility of obscuration by intragalactic dust and gas. As it is, we can only see, telescopically, one-thousandth of the Milky-Way center, and the dust is worse at the fringes. The macroscope is much better, of course, but—”

“Translation:” Groton said. “ ‘We men are all wet; we’ll get lost in a hurry.’ ” Beatryx gave him a smile — and, surprisingly, so did Afra.

“How would you handle it?” Ivo asked her.

“First I would orient on some distinctive extragalactic landmark such as the Andromeda galaxy. That’s two million light-years away, in round figures, and if we jump farther than that we won’t need to worry anymore about local affairs like destroyers. Then I’d fix on certain Cepheids, and look for the configurations typical of this general area — say, within a thousand light-years of Sol. Once I had identified the Pole Star I’d be within a hundred parsecs—”

“Andromeda being another galaxy like our own, only larger,” Groton said to Beatryx. “We should be able to see it from almost anywhere, because it is outside of and broadside to ours. The Cepheid variables—”

“I’ll explain what I mean, thank you,” Afra said. “A Cepheid is a bright star that gets brighter every so often — regularly, as though it has a heartbeat. And the longer a star’s period — that is, the time it takes to go from dim to bright and back again — the greater its absolute magnitude. Its real brightness. So all we have to do is measure its brightness as seen from our location and keep track of its period and we can figure out how far away it is. Because a star that is far away looks dimmer than one that is close.”

“Why yes,” Beatryx said, pleased. “That’s very clear.”

Ivo said nothing, not wanting to admit that he had not known what a Cepheid variable was, or how it could be used to ascertain galactic distances. He had produced technological wonders during their stay on Triton, and the principles Groton had applied to his machinery were in advance of anything known by Earthbound specialists. Ivo had increased his awareness considerably during all this, but his participation had been that of a stenographer. He had no real idea of content. He had done it, but he didn’t understand it. The result was detailed technical knowledge in some areas buttressed by appalling gaps in related areas. He could talk about gravitational collapse, yet not know what a Cepheid was.

And how much of Earth’s civilization was exactly like that, he wondered. Doing Without comprehending — even when this was tantamount to suicide?

“When,” Beatryx said, “do we go?”

It was four months of intense effort, mental, physical and emotional — but the group was in harness again, and profiting thereby. The members lived and worked in comfort, but the hours were savage. No longer did anyone do laundry or cooking by hand; that wasteful practice had been shoved aside in the rush.

Beatryx became mistress of the automated life-services equipment so that the others were free for full-time labors. She also learned how to supervise the connection-soldering machines and circuit-assemblers, making sure that each quality-control dial registered favorably for each completed unit.

Ivo traveled the galaxy via the macroscope in search of critical bits of information, since the intergalactic broadcast seemed to assume that the supportive techniques were already known; he also transcribed ponderous amounts of backup data.

Afra received much of this material and spent many days with the macroscope computer verifying tolerances, vectors and critical ratios. She admitted that the essential theory of it was beyond her; she was merely adapting established processes to their needs and confirming its applications.

Groton took her results, made up diagrams of his own, and tuned in the waldoes. He also supervised a complete survey of the globe of Triton, and selected particular locations with extreme care for the construction of enormous mechanical complexes. A visitor would have thought the planet to be the site of a burgeoning industrial commitment. In certain respects it was.

They were participating in superscience: Type III technology. None of them comprehended more than a fraction of it But by accident or cosmic design, they were a team that could do the job, with the overwhelming assistance of the supervising programs from space. The first crude waldoes had given way to tremendous mechanical beasts that roved Triton as though the human element had been dispatched, and computers superior to the one the macroscope employed were now in routine service — but the incentive lay with the human component. Ivo, Afra and Groton became immersed in their separate areas and did not communicate directly with each other for days at a time, and too often the contacts were irritable, for all were chronically overextended. Beatryx, with her invariably ameliorative personality, kept them in touch, and this was as necessary a function as any of the others.

The action became impersonal, for the project was much larger than they were, and the entire group had become merely the implementing agency. Yet Ivo watched what was happening and took pride in it, and he was sure the others did too. He knew that though Earth had largely forgotten their spectacular theft — the news had leaked out, making them momentarily infamous — the completion of their effort would leave the Earth-based astronomers and physicists gaping.

The nature of the work shifted. Excavators burrowed into the lithosphere of Triton, casting up fragments of rock in a null-gravity field. A hole formed, deepening day by day: a deep hole, braced by immense metallic tubing. The borer advanced at the rate of just over ten miles per day, the ejecta spouting forth in a geyser of grit and raining down steadily upon the normal-gravity torus surrounding the hole.

In time the tunnel, sixty feet in diameter, achieved the limit of depth the planet would tolerate. Metallic alloys could not prevent implosion beyond this point, and a force-field was unpractical in the neighborhood of the existing null-G field.

The machines finished their business and retired. For a time activity diminished. Triton was at peace again.

Then the shield of force that maintained an Earth environment around the tetrahedron home disintegrated. The foreign atmosphere puffed out, crystallized, and settled languidly upon the ground, dead as the erstwhile vegetation. The tetrahedron remained, sealed, in desolation.

A figure trekked from the disaster area, encased in a space suit. It paused where a grave lay frozen and passed on to the waiting module. It entered; the vehicle blasted away, and Triton was uninhabited.

On the moonlet Schön the reintegration of units occurred, and Joseph mated again with the macroscope housing. The ties cast loose; the ship-assembly drifted free of the ice, and Schön too was vacant.

The space-borne macroscope entered the null-gravity column, still functioning but splayed and ineffective at the thousand-mile elevation. The vehicle descended against the increasingly strong updraft of nitrogen and oxygen.

Near the surface of Triton the circulation became fierce; dust, debris and snow formed a tornado. The ship came down forwards, the macroscope housing leading, and nudged along on fractional power of the main engine.

At three feet per second relative velocity the ship entered the tunnel at the base of the windy column. The turbulence subsided around it. Buoyed by the escaping atmosphere, that passed with a five-foot clearance around the rim of the housing, the assembly descended, gently accelerating. The flowing gas cushioned it, preventing brutal contact with the walls. At fifteen miles per hour maximum velocity, the ship tunneled through the moon.

In three days it came to rest. The null-G column expired; debris filtered down. A nudge from the hot jets, no longer leashed at minimal power; the metallic restrainers, designed for exactly this failure, dissolved. The tunnel imploded, the action shocking back up its length and burying the ship a thousand miles beneath the surface.

Now the immense field generators came into play elsewhere on Triton. Three new null-G columns developed, spearing out from the advance side like the prongs of the Neptune symbol. The atmosphere, augmented by cubic miles of rock pulverized into dust and voluminous byproduct pollutants, rushed into the breach and shot outward in ten-mile diameter thrusts.

Triton slowed in its orbit, reluctantly, as the three vast motors braked it. Slowly it began to spiral in toward its primary — then gained velocity as its tether shortened.

The mighty gravity of Neptune embraced its minion and hauled it into its gaseous bosom. Great ruptures appeared in the sea-god’s ocean of atmosphere, torn up by the gravity of the spiraling ball. The tiny ice-moonlet Schön disappeared into that melee and did not reappear. Triton had lost its satellite, a moment before it lost its own identity.

Well within Roche’s Limit, that proximity that would have sundered a normally orbiting moon, Triton shuddered but did not break up. Events were far too precipitous to allow tidal force opportunity to take full effect.

Contact: the stormy exterior veil of the gas-giant parted. Ahead of Triton, crystals of ammonia-ice exploded into vapor as the heat of friction boiled the atmosphere. Behind, there appeared a turbulent wake five thousand miles wide, the crystals frothing whitely as they rematerialized in the surging breadth of it.

In five hours the moon had looped the planet at the fringe of its atmosphere and was entirely immersed in hydrogen. At fifteen thousand miles per hour it carved an atmospheric trench and looped again. On the third circuit it touched what had been the surface of water-ice and blasted it into steam. Water and ammonia thrust outward convulsively, throwing mile-long splinters of ice high into the storm, to warm and fragment violently again; sleet and boiling water and methane gas battled in the most violent conflation ever to occur on the surface of the planet.

On the fifth circuit the molten moon touched the solid portion of Neptune. At three thousand miles per hour stone met metal, rolling and melting. Now the wake was of bursting lava and precious heavy elements.

The ball that came to rest at last, embedded within a lake of liquid metal, was six hundred miles in diameter — but intact. Precipitously near its margin, like a worm in an apple, nestled the encapsulated ship.

Yet the action was not over. From that capsule spread two Type III technology fields of force: the first encompassed the moon and planet, now forever fused, extending outward twenty thousand miles, permeating every particle of dust, every molecule of gas, every crushed atom of the core. It anchored every atom in place irrevocably, relative to the whole. The second field permeated the first and began a cataclysmic contraction, taking the entire package with it. It fed upon the energies released by that compression, and continued relentlessly.

Neptune shrank, its turbulence abruptly frozen in place. Atmosphere and all, it diminished as though the viewer were retreating from it at a hundred thousand miles per hour — but there was no viewer. It became the size of Earth, of Luna, of Ceres the asteroid. It dwindled to a single mile’s diameter — but its full mass and that of its moon and its moon’s moon remained. It achieved its gravitational radius.

Then it shrank again, so rapidly it seemed to vanish. In a microsecond it was gone.

Five million miles out, tiny Nereid — Neptune’s second moon — became a planet in its own right, circling the sun in Neptune’s erstwhile orbit. Caught on its backswing, it had insufficient velocity even to retreat from Sol, let alone escape it, and fell instead in toward the orbit of Uranus as though looking for a home.

Man’s physical exploration of the cosmos had begun.