Nemesis

‘Yes,’ she said at last in a small voice. Then she fired up. ‘One thing, though. I must be able to name the star. If I give it a name, then it's my star.’

Pitt smiled briefly. ‘What do you want to call it? Insigna's Star? Eugenia's Star?’

‘No. I'm not that foolish. I want to call it Nemesis.’

‘Nemesis? N-E-M-E-S-I-S?’

‘Yes.’

‘But why?’

‘There was a brief period of speculation back in the late twentieth century about the possibility of a Neighbor Star for the Sun. It came to nothing at that time. No Neighbor Star was found, but it had been referred to as “Nemesis” in the papers devoted to it. I would like to honor those daring thinkers.’

‘Nemesis? Wasn't there a Greek goddess of that name? An unpleasant one?’

‘The Goddess of Retribution, of Justified Revenge, of Punishment. It entered the language as a rather flowery word. The computer called it “archaic” when I checked.’

‘And why would those old-timers have called it Nemesis?’

‘Something to do with the cometary cloud. Apparently, Nemesis, in its revolution about the Sun, passed through the cloud and induced cosmic strikes that killed off large portions of Earth life every twenty-six million years.’

Pitt looked astonished. ‘Really?’

‘No, not really. The suggestion didn't survive, but I want Nemesis to be the name just the same. And I want it to go on record that I named it.’

‘I promise you that, Eugenia. It's your discovery and that will enter our records. Eventually, when the rest of humanity discovers the Nemesian region - would that be the right way of putting it? - they will then learn who made the discovery and how it came about. Your star, your Nemesis, will be the first star, other than the Sun itself, to shine over a human civilization; and the first, without exception, to shine over a human civilization that originated elsewhere.’

Pitt watched her leave and felt, on the whole, confident. She would fall in line. His letting her name the star was the perfect touch. Surely she would want to go to her own star. Surely she would feel the attraction of building a logical and orderly civilization about her star, one from which civilizations all over the Galaxy might descend.

And then, just as he might have relaxed in the glow of a golden future, he was shaken by a faint touch of horror that was utterly alien to him.

Why Nemesis? Why should it have occurred to her to name it for the Goddess of Retribution?

He was almost weak enough to think of it as an evil omen.