The Golden Globe

But Luna was alone in seeing the Invaders as a continuing threat. The rest of the system would just as soon not think about Jupiter and the horrors it might conceal, which meant no one watched too closely. If you assumed an orbit and looked as if you pla

I don't pretend to know just what Hal did to get us a course change with minimal expenditure of fuel. Something about coming around in front of the hideous planet, braking a bit, swinging around, and boosting again. I know we were under acceleration twice, neither time anything like the agony of the first boost at Uranus. When it was all done, we were aimed almost directly at the sun. Hal told me that getting to the sun was the most difficult destination in the system, in terms of energy. Which makes no sense at all, since it is so damn big and has so much gravity, right? But that's what he said, and at the price somebody paid for him, he ought to know. He said it was easier to aim for the sun from out here, where our orbital velocity was low, than farther in, where we'd have picked up too much speed. To which I might have said "Huh?" if I wasn't so dignified. I thought speed was the whole point.

There was a circular room atop the habidome that we called the cockpit. It was set up with Buck Rogers panels that theoretically could control all aspects of the ship's systems, but which had never been used, since Hal could do it all so much better. I imagined the original owner had liked to do what I did from time to time, which was sit in the captain's chair with my feet up on the "dashboard," studying the cosmos with a feeling of power, king of all I surveyed.

The view up there was of a hemisphere of space, like being under a glass dome, or in a planetarium. The second image was more accurate, because what we saw was an artifact, created by Hal. It looked real enough. But remember we were spi

I almost skipped the show entirely. Coming from Luna, I'd had it impressed on me in no uncertain terms that Jupiter was to be avoided. That it was dangerous. The image of Jupiter was a fearful one, dominated by that vast red eye a hundred times larger than my home planet.

Poly felt no such qualms. It was just a big ball of gas to her, a great photo opportunity.

I decided to tough it out. Poly wasn't scared, how could I be? Usually I'm not subject to that kind of bullshit macho, so maybe I was curious, too.

You get close enough, any planet has a lot in common with any other planet. You lose the curve of the edge, it becomes a vast plane filling half the universe. We were close. Hal showed me the gauge, creeping up very slowly, indicating rising hull temperature as we grazed the poisonous edges of the atmosphere.

Closer and closer. It was like one of those mathematical things, the chaotic figures, squiggly lines that as you magnify them reveal more and more detail. Infinitely. Fractals, that's it. Tiny swirls of yellow and orange became monstrous storms, and along their edges, more tiny swirls. Then those grew, and you realized they were gigantic. And on their edges, more storms...

It was a Technicolor Rorschach test from hell.

After a while I couldn't look at it any longer. Poly and I were strapped in, but the tigers and Toby were floating free. I watched them for a while. Toby and Shere Khan had invented a game you might call Tobyball. Shere would bat him across the room with a massive paw. Toby would go caroming around like a fuzzy zero-gee cue ball, yelping happily, until he got straightened out and leaped back toward the big cat. Shere Khan would bat him again. She seemed to regard him as better than a ball of yarn—which he resembled, the free fall making him even fluffier than usual.

When Toby came close to Hobbes he would bark at him a few times, as he'd recently taken to doing. Hobbes would watch him sail by, thoughtfully, as if trying to make up his mind. One bite, or two? Swallow him tailfirst, or head-first? Decisions, decisions.

Toby had always been as spry as a snark in zero gee, but I was surprised at how well the tigers bore it. Not that cats aren't i

When Hal warned us we were about to boost again the tigers immediately reclined on the floor. I snagged Toby and held him in my lap. The weight, when it came, was about one gee, and didn't last very long. When it was over, Jupiter had swung around behind us and was shrinking rapidly. One twist of the dial on my console would have brought it around front again, in the false image we were watching, but Poly was tired of it and I had no desire to watch anymore. So we were weightless for another half hour until Hal put spin on the ship again, and then things continued as before.

But not quite. Poly and I started sharing a bed, and I began to spend a lot of time in the library, researching the Charonese.

I don't know what decided Poly, why she finally forgave me. I never asked, because I rather suspected it was mostly loneliness. Not that I wanted a burning love affair, but who needs to know that any male body would have served her as well? Poly was not the sort to go to bed with a guy she didn't like simply to scratch an itch, but she made it clear to me before we made love that she wasn't looking for a life companion at this point in her career. Hey, at this point in my career, neither was I. So that was understood. But we were affectionate with each other. She didn't come to my bed simply for sex. She stayed to cuddle, and eventually to sleep.

It had been a long time since I'd been able to awaken in the morning with a warm body at my side. A girl who didn't mind when I reached over and stroked her thigh, her hip, who would turn over and be in my arms. I've formed few long-term relationships in my life. This one wouldn't be long, either, but while it lasted it was good for me. No hot, sweaty details here, my friend. Let it stand that she was an inventive and enthusiastic lover, able to adjust to whatever mood seized me, and more than capable of bending me to her own will, if the mood suited her. We had some jolly, slippery times.

But the universe compensates. If something good comes into your life, the odds are something bad is not far away.

In this case, it was as near as the library.

After Jupiter, I was no longer satisfied to fish from my hammock. At least not all day long. I began thinking about Isambard Comfort, his dead sister, and the whole race that had spawned them. I had no illusions about Izzy. He might not be waiting for me on Luna, but if he was alive—and I felt sure he was—he'd be there soon. It made sense that the more I knew about his people, the better I'd be able to survive a third encounter with him. What did I need to do, for instance, to square things with them? Was it possible? Everyone had heard of the Charonese tenacity, of their reputation for always fulfilling a contract, no matter what. Was it really that bad?