Permanence

"You don't have to remind me," she said coldly. "Then what?"

He shrugged. "Then the other interceptors approach. We'll see how close we can get to the Banshee before we have to open fire. But all we have to do is take out a critical system, like her engines and she'll have to surrender. If she's caught unprepared, it should be easy. Immobile, she has no options, because we can slide in behind the 'construction shack' to avoid her weaponry. We'll board her and secure your people."

Rue nodded. "Sounds good. Prepare everyone. It'll take a couple of days to orbit the dwarfs, so we'll head out right away. Communication is to be by laser only. We'll leave this outpost and one interceptor to act as observers."

"So who's on the in-teams?" asked Mike, his expression neutral.

She hesitated. Rue didn't want to send Mike into the fray, but if she left him here as an observer, he would be furious with her. "I'm going," she said. "With one squad, to bring my people out. Dr. Herat will go in the other ship, and… and since you control that autotroph thing, you'll go with him. We need to know what's valuable and what isn't, here. Do we need to secure the whole system to be safe? Or just the new cycler? Only you and Herat can make that assessment."

He nodded, his expression neutral.

The Klaxons sounded and everyone began to suit up to return to their ships. Rue watched Mike as he talked to Dr. Herat. His eyes often drifted back to her; he knew she was watching. But they were separated by meters and an impossible gulf of duty, for now. She tried to fix his features in her mind, in case she never saw him alive again.

HERAT WAS NOT one to let fear get in the way of his enthusiasms; so Michael was surprised at how subdued the professor seemed as they began their run around the back side of Apophis.

As soon as they were coasting on the aerobraking trajectory the pilot had chosen, Herat ordered the telescopes out and began silently studying the face of Apophis. Michael checked on his autotroph companion, and when he was certain the swarm's systems were all working, opened a co

As he worked he brooded over what Rue had said. Was it true that he knew no other way to relate to those he cared for, other than service? — to place someone else's needs above his own, and ensure that those needs were met? Wasn't that what love was?

Or was it possible that love was sharing your own goals with someone else? In which case… just what were his goals? He didn't know anymore.

"Something's happening," muttered Herat. "I was right."

Michael climbed through the maze of pipes and struts that was the cabin of the interceptor and settled beside Herat. His shoulder brushed the hot carapace of the autotroph's capsule.

"What are you talking about?"

"It's been bothering me since we arrived. Why didn't the Lasa notice us? Acknowledge our presence?"

Michael shrugged. "Maybe they weren't looking. Or maybe we didn't send the right signal to wake them up. Or they haven't noticed us either, which is quite likely."

"Maybe they weren't looking. If they weren't, that would suggest that this installation is ru

"But if it was expecting us to know how to signal it? That would imply that this place was not meant for us. But I believe Jentry's Envy and, by extension, this place, was a gift. Meant for anyone who wanted to take it."

Michael saw his point. "The lack of a greeting is ominous."

"I was hoping that the system had signaled Crisler when he first arrived. Now I don't think it did. Look." He gestured to a long-range infrared view across the horizon of Apophis. Michael could see the faint thread shapes of the orbiting tethers and a vague pink glow that the window legend said was a retreating cloud of small packets bound for the construction shack.

Herat read Michael's look of incomprehension and scowled. "Look at the packets, man! The closest ones are days away from their origin. The whole stream stretches from a million kilometers above Apophis all the way to the shack. It's a long continuous flow of building material— but it's been cut off."

He was right. The last packet of building material sent from the Twins had gone out days ago. Michael saw where Herat was going with this: "The system started to shut down as soon as Crisler arrived!"

"Yes." Herat scowled at the display. "The question is, why?"

"But that's great, Professor. It's a major clue. We'd better laser this back to the fleet."

Herat glanced up, shrugging. "I suppose."

This wasn't like the professor at all. "What's wrong?" Michael asked.

For a moment Herat looked exasperated. Then his shoulders slumped and he said, "I know that it was right for me to join the halo. The Compact, I mean. The R.E.'s rotting from within. My career was winding down anyway; the Panspermia Institute's a farce, always has been… I just miss my children. I don't know if I'll ever see them again, Bequith."

"After this," Michael nodded to the Twins, "you can still go home. You're not a wanted man in the R.E., Professor. Crisler thinks you're safely dead."

"It's not that. I… sometimes I just feel my age, Bequith… Michael. After this…" Herat gazed sadly at the displays. "What will there be after this? This place is a treasure world, for sure. And it's the climax of my career. The end of a long search. It's fu

He laughed. "Never mind. Look, maybe the Lasa machinery is supposed to run on its own until someone intervenes. Then it hands control over to the newcomer. It's an instinct of the machine, it's designed that way. So maybe the shutdown means this place is functioning the way it was originally designed to: It won't eat up the resources of new colonists. It will only turn back on when they allow it, which would be when they are not competing with it for resources.

"Or I could be wrong. Anyway, send our observations to the fleet."

Later, when they turned the lights red for a sleep period— their orbit of Apophis would take several days— Michael found his mind whirling on about Rue, about himself, and about Laurent Herat. The last time Herat had acted like this was on the shores of Kadesh. Hard to believe that was over a year ago. At that time, the professor had come face-to-face with his own version of the kami of Dis. His lifelong enthusiastic chase after the alien had turned up worse than nothing. It seemed he had pursued ultimate answers for himself in that search and those answers weren't there. For a while, Jentry's Envy had convinced him it could be otherwise, but he was now coming again to face the same reality.

Thinking this made Michael sad and yes, he heard that whisper of the kami, saying it doesn't matter, nothing matters. To hold an artifact millions of years old in your hands and realize that every being for whom it had held significance was long extinct— that would rattle anyone who thought about it too long. And Herat had thought about such things his whole life.

This whole place could be a vast machine ru

Time swept all away and it would sweep Laurent Herat away soon enough. Also Michael Bequith and all his cares and loves. These thoughts jumbled together in his mind, bringing him a confused, unpleasant melancholy, as he drifted off to sleep.