"We've done better than previous contenders," Martin said.
"Maybe," Hans said. "Harpal, what—"
"The dark masses could be loose-packed neutronium bombs," Jennifer said. "The measurements are about right."
"Good Christ," Harpal said. "That many bombs could wipe out every planet in the system five, ten times over. If we could gather them—"
"They're falling into Wormwood," Hakim said.
Fresh diagrams floating in the air showed the rearrangements of the inner masses, their drift toward the star, estimates of time of entry into the heliosphere. "They're being pushed in, " Jennifer said. "I think—"
"Wormwood's going to go," Hans said. "Jennifer, work up some momerath on what that will mean for us. Martin, coordinate with the moms. Tell the rifles to come back in, fast."
"Wormwood's particle wind is partially channeled to the poles," Jennifer said. "There must be powerful fields controlling its interior. When it blows, if those fields are still in place—and I don't think they could just be switched off—it won't expand as a sphere…"
Martin pulled back and spoke through his wand to the moms.
Hakim pulled up a picture of Nebuchadnezzar's surface glowing from the internal plasma of their seeds, but that seemed inconsequential now; the second part of the trap was indeed about to close.
The Dawn Treaderorbited less than two hundred million kilometers from Wormwood. If the star went supernova, a tremendous burst of neutrinos would blow away the star's outer layers.
Neutrinos in normal quantities were less substantial than any ghost, capable of traveling through light year thicknesses of lead unimpeded. But if they were present in such huge numbers, their interactions with matter—with the Dawn Treaderand everything else in Wormwood's vicinity—would become deadly.
Martin had no idea what so many neutrinos would do to their chemistry, but the sheer force of the neutrino blast could tear them to pieces.
Jennifer seemed lost in an ecstasy of calculation.
A mom appeared in the nose. "If this information is correct," it said, "there is both danger, and extraordinary opportunity."
Jennifer's face lit up. "There could be channeling of the blast in different areas," she said. "Neutrinos will pour out in all directions, but most of the star's mass may push through the poles, making two jets, like a quasar." She linked her hands and used two thumbs up and down to show the flow.
"I concur," the mom said.
Hans looked between Jennifer and the mom, biting his lower lip, and slowly uncurled, stretching his arms. "What do we do?"
"We use all available fuel for rapid acceleration into a new orbit to pass over the star's south pole," the mom said.
Jennifer laughed as if this were the funniest thing in the world. Tears came to her eyes. "Right, right!" she said.
"We can protect the ship's contents against most of the effects of a neutrino storm," the mom continued. "We will use neutrino pressure to propel us out of this system."
"We'll be like a seed in the wind," Jennifer said. "If we hold together, we'll be blown out into deep space."
"The post-explosion environment will be rich with volatiles from Wormwood," the mom continued. "We will gather volatiles even as we are propelled outward."
"They want to destroy us, but they may save us!" Jennifer said.
"Then why are they doing this?" Harpal asked. "Why give us this gift?"
"Very likely, they willdestroy us," the mom said. "But the opportunity exists, if we are skillful, and very quick. Alert the crew to field confinement and super acceleration. We will begin in a few minutes."
Martin watched the star sphere. Haze covered Nebuchadnezzar's surface now, shot through with flashes of intense white light. The neutronium and anti-neutronium seeds deep within heated the body's surface to plasma; there would not be sufficient energy released to place any of the planet's material in orbit about itself, as had happened with Earth; indeed, Nebuchadnezzar would keep its spherical shape. But for the next few million years, the planet's surface would consist of cooling magma.
Martin could not exult at this small victory. Assistance in a suicide was no triumph; self-immolation designed to trap arsonists was comically absurd. But to have the fire offer them a chance at life, a chance to move on and finish the Job…
He began to laugh. Jennifer joined him. Harpal grimaced and left the nose to coordinate the crew. Hans stared at them as if they were crazy, then shook his head vigorously, and whooped.
Theresa would have appreciated this, Martin thought. William would have simply loved it.
They recovered their craft and prepared for the storm.
Wormwood's death-throes took seven hours. The star's magnetic field—restructured to push the solar wind up through the poles—whipped about like hair blown in the wind, clearly visible as the surface layers boiled and churned and cast up dancing streamers. The star began to resemble a fiery turnip with leafy top and frantic roots.
Within, billions of neutronium weapons ate through the star's dense inner layers and ended their unseen, unknown orbits, mated positive to negative, anti em to matter. The ambiplasma generated by these deadly copulations marched steadily outward.
The moms timed everything.
Hans ordered the crew into the schoolroom and fell silent, sitting beside the star sphere, watching with half-lidded eyes as things beyond his command and control—beyond his comprehension—began to happen.
Martin sat nearby, his body frightened but his mind too lost in sorrow to care what would happen next. He watched Rosa Sequoia, who squatted in an awkward lotus in one corner, rocking gently, eyes closed. He envied her personal treasure of spiritual solace, her ability to be lost in an inner reality that did not match the external. What had she found, that Martin would never find?
The images in the star sphere conveyed only an abstract meaning. What were the energies of a dying star if not incomprehensible? A human life—all their lives—could be snuffed with a paltry fraction of the energy about to be released.
They had climbed to the top of an enormous wave, years before, and now the wave crashed down, and any slight bubble in that foaming maelstrom would be sufficient to snuff their candles utterly and completely, forever darkness, no amens.
The peculiarity of Martin's state of mind was that he did not so much think these things as feelthem, joined to his body's fear like an anatomical footnote.
Fear made its own opiate. Emotions cannot ride forever at high intensity; within an hour, terror declined to numbness, with clear and selfless perception. Certainty of death was replaced by light curiosity, an intensity of unattached thought impossible only a few minutes before.
Scattered parts of his overwhelmed self made ironic commentary: This is the dark night of the soul Not hardly, this is just panic carried to its extreme Look at them they do not experience this the way you do They must They must
Visceral moans filled the schoolroom as they felt the fields lock down. Martin's body tingled and all internal motions slowed.
Waves of darkness passed as the fields subdued their eyes, all their physical senses.
Yet something remained. What could possibly be left to him? Undefined memory, perhaps an illusion; who could say where that memory began? During their sequestering, or after, as a balancing of his brain's chemical bookkeeping…