Protector

It was a horrifying thought. He never mentioned it to Bre

“Teach me to fight Pak,” he once asked Bre

“No way,” said Bre

“The subject might arise. If a Pak ever wanted to take a breeder prisoner—”

“All right, come on. I’ll show you.”

They cleared out the exercise room, and they fought. In half an hour Bre

Nonetheless they made the fights part of their program.

There were all kinds of ways to kill time. And the time passed. Sometimes it crawled, excruciatingly slow; but always it passed.

There was one Jupiter-sized mass in the Epsilon Indi system. Godzilla, Epsilon Indi V, was out of Protector’s path as they braked in at three thousand miles per second. But Bre

They slid past a glittering translucent sphere of ice crystals. It was Godzilla’s Trojan point, and it looked like a vast Xmas tree ornament; but to Roy it was a Welcome sign. He began to believe they would make it.

Two days later, at 1000 miles/second, the ram field was no longer doing anything useful. Bre

“Oddly enough.” Roy wore a hungry grin. “Not that I haven’t enjoyed your company.” He had Home in the telescope screen. Home looked like Earth: deep blue swirled with the white frosting of clouds, the outlines of continents almost invisible. He felt a throb in his throat. This past year, his vision walls had showed only scenes from Home.

“Listen,” he said, “are we going to wait for the ferries or just go down?”

“I thought I’d put Protector in distant orbit and go down with the cargo ship. We may need it to refuel Protector. Homers haven’t done much with their asteroid resources. They may not have any cargo ships.”

“All right. Before you turn on the insystem drive, why don’t I just go over to the cargo ship and put it through a countdown?”

Bre

Home was already naked-eye visible, a white star not far from the sun. Roy boarded, stripped off his suit, went to the controls and called Bre

Roy started his inspection with the life support systems. All okay. The drive system checked out as far as instruments could tell. Roy worried that the drive tube might have been bent out of alignment by the tidal force of Phssthpok’s Star. They had never had a chance to inspect for that. They wouldn’t, until the cargo ship cut loose from Protector.

There was no landing gear to inspect. He’d land in a harbor; the ship would float.

He put twelve hours into his countdown, then broke for a nap. By now Bre

Under one Home gravity he slept less, and lightly. He woke in the dim light, remembering his odd suspicions of Bre

He went over them again… expecting to see how ridiculous they were. He’d been a bit paranoid then. Man was not meant to live locked in with a not-quite-human being for six years.

He went over his suspicions again, and they were logical. The idea was still horrid, but he could not find the logical flaw.

That bothered him.

And he still didn’t know just what Bre

He got up and prowled the ship. He found something Alice had stowed aboard, long ago: paints for a pressure suit. There had never been a design on the chest of Roy’s suit. He draped the suit across a chair and stood before it, waiting for inspiration. But the inspiration that came to him was a vivid flourescent target.

Sucker. If he was right — but he couldn’t be right.

He called Bre

“All okay here,” said Bre

“Green bird, as far as I can tell without actually flying it.”

“Good.”

Roy found that he was stupidly trying to read expression in the hard face. “Bre

“’Bout two and a half years back? I thought something was bothering you besides the lack of a harem.”

“Maybe I’m nuts,” said Roy. “Maybe I was nuts then. It hit me that you’d have a lot easier job of talking the Home population into backing your war, if you first—” He almost didn’t say it. But of course Bre

“That wouldn’t be nice.”

“No, it wouldn’t. But will you please explain to me why it isn’t logical?”

“It isn’t logical,” said Bre

“Yah,” Roy said in a burst of relief. Then, “Yah, but you kept me out of the hydroponics garden. Wasn’t that because some of the virus might get to me?”

“No. It was because the smell would get to you and you’d eat something.”

“And the same with the garden on Kobold.”

“Right.”

“The garden Alice and I wandered through without smelling anything at all.”

“You’re older now, idiot!” Bre

“Yah, of course. Sorry, Bre

“Censor you,” said Bre

Roy leaned back in the crash chair. Thick depression was on him. Whatever else he was, Bre

Now, very suddenly, Protector surged under three gravities acceleration. Roy sagged back. His mouth went wide in shock. Then, with all the strength of a now-massive right arm, he reached up to the controls and found a red button.

It was under a guard lock.

The key was in his pocket. Roy dug for it, cursing steadily under his breath. Bre

The cable that linked him to Protector blasted free. He was falling.

It took him a full minute to bring the drive up to thrust. He started a ninety degree turn. Protector couldn’t possibly match the turning radius of the smaller cargo ship. Through the port he watched Protector’s drive flame drifting away to the side.

He saw it go out.

Why had Bre

Never mind. Next step: the com laser, and warn Home.

Assuming he was right… but he dared assume nothing else, now. Bre

He swung the com laser toward Home and began tuning it. He knew the frequency he wanted, and the spot… if it was on the right side of the planet. What would Bre