Protector

“Emergencies make me hungry,” he said. “And now I’d like to excuse myself. It’s not polite, but there’s a war to fight.” And he left, sprinting like a roadru

For the next few days Roy and Alice felt like unwanted guests of a perfect host. They didn’t see Bre

Or they would find him in the laboratory making ever-finer adjustments in his “telescope.” There was only one ship in the field now, seen against a background of red dwarfs and interstellar dust clouds: a blue fusion flame, blue-shifted yellow helium light, sparkling around the edges.

He would talk to them, but without interrupting his work. “It’s the Phssthpok configuration,” he told them with evident satisfaction. “They didn’t mess with a good thing. See the black dot in the center of the flame? Cargo pod comes first during deceleration. And it’s a bigger cargo pod than Phssthpok was carrying, and the ships are moving slower than his did at that distance. They aren’t that close to the speed of light. They won’t be here for a hundred and seventy-two or -three years.”

“Good.”

“Good for me, or it should be. Cargo pod first, and breeders in the cargo pod in frozen sleep. A vulnerable configuration, wouldn’t you say?”

“Not at odds of two hundred and thirty to one.”

“I’m not crazy, Roy. I’m not going to attack them myself. I’m going for help.”

“Where?”

“Wunderland. It’s closest.”

“What? No. Earth is closest.”

Bre

“So you’re using the Wunderlanders as a decoy. Are you going to tell them?”

“Don’t be silly.”

They toured Kobold, and tried to keep out of Bre

Once he found them near one of the rounded huts. He led them into an airlock, and showed them something beyond the glass i

Floating within a great rock-walled cavity: a silvery sphere, eight feet across, polished to a mirror brightness.

“Takes a damn finicky gravity field to keep it there,” said Bre

Roy whistled. Alice said, “Wouldn’t it be unstable? It’s too small.”

“Sure it would, if it weren’t in a stasis field. I made it under pressure, then got the stasis field around it before it could blow up in my face. Now there’s more matter on top of it. Would you believe a surface gravity of eight million gees?”

“I guess I would.” Neutronium was as dense as matter could get: neutrons packed edge to edge under pressures greater than those at the centers of most stars. Only a hypermass would be denser, and a hypermass would not be matter any more: just a gravitational point-source.

“I thought of leaving it here as a decoy, in case a Pak ship got past me. Now there are too many. I can’t leave Kobold for them to find. It would be a dead giveaway.”

“You’re going to wreck Kobold?”

“I have to.”

Sometimes they did their own cooking — avoiding the potatoes and yams, as per Bre

He was unfailingly polite. He never talked down to them.

“He treats us like kittens,” said Alice. “He’s busy, but he sees to it we’re fed and sometimes he stops to scratch our ears.”

“Not his fault. We can’t do anything to help. I wish there were something—”

“Me too.” She lay on the grass in the warm sunlight, which had taken on an odd color. Bre

He had stopped Kobold’s rotation to make it easier to adjust the multiple gravity fields. Now there was always wind. It whistled through the permanent night around Bre

“A hundred and seventy years. We’ll never even know how it ended,” said Alice.

“We could live that long.”

“I suppose.”

“Bre

She sat up. “We’ll have to be leaving soon.”

“Look.”

There was a bobbing head in the waterfall. An arm emerged and waved to them. Presently Bre

“I have to swim like crazy,” he said. “I’m heavier than water. How’re you making out?”

“Okay. How goes the war?”

“Tolerably.” Bre

“We’ve got weapons in the ship. You can have them,” said Roy.

“Sold, with thanks. What’d you bring?”

“Hand lasers and rifles.”

“Well, they can’t mass very much. Thanks.” Bre

“Hey!”

Bre

“Could you use any other kind of help?” He felt silly asking.

Bre

“Right,” Roy said firmly. By now that What have I gotten myself into now? sensation was a familiar one.

“I’d like you to come along.”

Roy stopped breathing.

Alice spoke. “Bre

“Sorry, Alice. I can’t use you.”

She bridled. “Did I mention that I’m a trained goldskin? Trained in weapons, spacecraft, and pursuit.”

“You’re also pregnant.”

Bre

“Should I have been more tactful? My dear, you may expect a blessed event—”

“How do you know?”

“The hormones have made some obvious changes. Look, this can’t be a total shock. You must have skipped—”

“—skipped my last shot,” she finished for him. “I know. I was thinking about having a child, but that was before all this Vandervecken business came up, and after that… well, Roy, there was only you. I thought all flatlanders…”

“No, I’m cleared to have a child. Where do you think new flatlanders come from? I’d have told you, but it never…”

“Well, stop looking so flustered.” She stood up and put her arms around him. “I’m proud. Have you got that through your thick head?”

“Me too.” He sniffed, forcing it a bit. Of course he wanted to be a father. But — “But what do we do now?”

She looked troubled, but didn’t answer.

This was rapidly getting out of hand. Bre