Ring

She reached out toward her hyperdrive waldo. She found herself staring at her own hand and arm, becoming aware of the enormity of the action she was about to take. The light of the dying Sun flooded the cage in shades of blood-red; gaudy golden highlights glimmered from the material of her glove.

She was filled, suddenly, with a profound sense of melancholy. She stifled a cry; the mood was so powerful it was almost overwhelming…

And the flood of emotion was coming from outside her. It came from her companion, she realized; her silent, invisible companion, here in the cage…

Louise sounded tense, almost unbearably so. “Spi

Spi

“To the Solar System? No,” Louise replied briskly.

“It doesn’t seem right,” she said slowly.

“What doesn’t?”

“That we should simply leave like this. Louise, we’re the last humans. Shouldn’t we — ”

Louise laughed. “What? Nail a plaque to Callisto? Make a speech? ‘Last one to leave, turn off the lights’?”

“I don’t know, Louise. But — ”

“Spi

Spi

Sunlight imploded.

Spi

The hyperdrive transit was as sudden and seamless as the test runs. There was no internal sense of motion at all: merely a lighting change, as if all of this were no more than some shallow Virtual stunt.

She twisted in her couch. Behind her, the lifedome still sat on the frail looking shoulders of the Xeelee craft, apparently undamaged; yellow human light, aping lost Sol, still blazed from a hundred sources, pale against the emptiness of space.

And beyond the lifedome there was a star, near enough to show a globe — as red as Sol but evidently much dimmer, cooler. The star provided the little light available. Beyond the star’s glowing limb, six distant stars — a little brighter than the average — trailed across the sky in a zigzag shape. The star at one end of the compact constellation, ruby red, shone through the tenuous outer atmosphere of the nearby star globe.

The more remote constellations were an array of crimson and yellow spread across the sky. They were unchanged, as far as she could tell. Well, that was no surprise: she knew Louise hadn’t pla

“How are you, Spi

“Fine,” Spi

Louise laughed. “I’ve learned never to trust these damn gadgets. How did the trip feel?”

“As good as ever. As bad as ever… I take it we all survived.”

“I’m just checking my summaries. No structural damage, as far as I can see. One case of shock — ” She snorted. “A man who fell out of your big kapok tree, Spi

“Good. I guess it’s better that way.” Spi

“I know, Spi

“The Xeelee Ring.”

“If that’s what it is, yes. And this star lies in Centaurus also.”

The main stars of the Centaurus constellation were ranged over distances from four light-years to five hundred light years from the Sun. Northern, piggy-backing the Xeelee nightfighter, was going to move, in a rough straight line, out through this three-dimensional layout — and then beyond, out of the Galaxy and toward the Great Attractor itself.

“Spi

“Sentimental? About this place? Are you kidding?”

“Spi

The presence, in the cage with her, seemed amused at this — even satisfied, Spi

Spi

You’re too harsh on her, Spi