Protector

“Not a fleet. We want the Outsider to see us as harmless. Do we have any big ships in the Trojans?”

“The Blue Ox. She was about to leave for Juno, but I commandeered her and had her cargo tank cleared.”

“Good. Nice going.” The Blue Ox was a mammoth fluid cargo carrier, as big as one of the Titan Hotel’s luxury liners, though not as pretty. “We’ll want a computer, a good one, not just a ship’s autopilot. Also a tech to run it, and some spare senses for the machine. I want to use it as a translator, and the Outsider might talk by eye-blinks or radio or modulated current. Can we maybe fit a singleship into the Ox’s cargo hold?”

“What for?”

“Just in case. Well give the Ox a lifeboat. If the Outsider plays rough someone might get away.”

Lit did not say paranoia, but he was visibly restraining himself.

“He’s big,” Nick said patiently. “His technology is powerful enough to get him across interstellar space. He could be friendly as a puppy, and someone could still say something wrong.” He picked up the phone and said, “Get me Achilles, main switchboard.”

It would take awhile for the operator to focus a laser on Achilles. Nick hung up to wait. And the phone went off jarringly in his hand.

“Yes?”

“This is Traffic Control,” said the phone. “Cutter. Your office wanted anything on the big monopole source.”

Nick opened the volume control so Shaeffer could hear. “Right. What?”

“It’s matching course with a Belt ship. The pilot doesn’t seem to be evading contact.”

Sohl’s lips tightened. “What kind of ship?”

“We can’t tell from this distance. Probably a mining singleship. They’ll be matching orbit in thirty-seven hours twenty minutes, if neither of them change their minds.”

“Keep me posted. Set nearby telescopes on watch. I don’t want to miss anything.” Nick rang off. “You heard?”

“Yah. Finagle’s First Law.”

“Can we stop that Belter?”

“I doubt it.”

It could have been anyone. It turned out to be Jack Bre

He was several hours from turnover en route to Earth’s Moon. The Mariner XX’s discarded booster rode his hull like an undernourished Siamese twin. Its whistle was still fixed in the flat nose, the supersonic whistle whose pitch had controlled the burning of the solid fuel core. Bre

For a used one-shot, the relic was in fine shape. The nozzle had burned a little unevenly, but not seriously so; naturally not, given that the probe had reached its destination. The Museum of Spaceflight would pay plenty for it.

In the Belt, smuggling is illegal but not immoral. Smuggling was no more immoral to Bre

Bre

He had been accelerating for four days at just short of one gee. Uranus’s orbit was far behind him; the i

Have a look at Bre

He is forty-five years old. He looks thirty. Gravity has been kind to the muscles of his face, and growth salve to the potential bald spot at the crown of his head. But the developing fine lines around his eyes stand out clearly now, since he has been wearing a puzzled frown for the past twenty hours. He has become aware that something is following him.

At first he’d thought it was a goldskin, a Ceres cop. But what would a goldskin be doing this far from the sun?

Even at second glance it could not have been a goldskin. Its drive flame was too fuzzy, too big, not bright enough. Third glance included a few instrument readings. Bre

The strange light was an Outsider.

How long had the Belt been waiting for him? Let any man spend some time between the stars, even a flatland moonship pilot, and someday he would realize just how deep the universe really was. Billions of light years deep, with room for anything at all. Beyond doubt the Outsider was out there somewhere; the first alien species to contact Man was going about its business beyond the reach of Belt telescopes.

Now the Outsider was here, matching courses with Jack Bre

And Bre

Call the Belt? The Belt must know by now. The Belt telescope net tracked every ship in the system; the odds were that it would find any wrong-colored dot moving at the wrong speed. Bre

The Belt must act without him.

Which left Bre

One was easy. He didn’t have a snowman’s chance of smuggling anything. He would have to alter course to reach one of the major asteroids, and call the Belt the first chance he had to advise them of his course and cargo.

But what of the Outsider?

Evasion tactics? Easy enough. Axiomatically, it is impossible to stop a hostile ship in space. A cop can match course with a smuggler, but he ca

Ru

But he could do more for them. Or he could become a father again… probably with Charlotte. There was money strapped to his hull. Money was power. Like electrical or political power, its uses could take many forms.

Contact the alien and he might never see Charlotte again. There were risks in being the first to meet an alien species.

And obvious honors.

Could history ever forget the man who met the Outsider?

Just for a moment he felt trapped. As if fate were playing games with his lifeline… but he couldn’t turn this down. Let the Outsider come to him. Bre