“I don’t understand this at all,” Hans Rebka complained. “Why are there so many fragments, all so close to their ship? We’re having to avoid more and more of them.” He was at the controls with Kallik at his side. Darya had retired to the bunks, and J’merlia had been left behind on Dreyfus-27, along with a complete record of everything seen so far and instructions to explore and maybe refurbish the old mine shafts and tunnels.
“It cannot be the result of chance.” Kallik was still tracking and monitoring, using range and range-rate data to determine the trajectories. She whistled and clucked to herself as she added to the data base she had already formed. “If these fragments were in normal orbits about Gargantua, they would have dispersed, long ago, to form an extended toroidal ck-c-cloud with Gargantua at its center. Since they have not, and since physical laws have not been suspended here…” She leaned forward, her forward-facing black eyes intent on the display screen. “Ck-ck. I believe I have the explanation. Tell me if you s-s-see it also. Is not something there, another object, close to the location of the Have-It-All?”
Darya stood up from the bunk and moved forward to examine the display. Amid the diffuse reflections she saw the hint of a brighter ring of light, at roughly the computed position of Nenda’s ship.
“I see something. Hans, it’s another planetoid, right in the middle of the mess. In fact it explains why there is a mess. The whole cloud of fragments is orbiting around it, while it orbits Gargantua.”
“I ck-concur. It is the reason that they have not dispersed.”
“But it makes things more mysterious, not less.” Hans Rebka changed the contrast of the display, so that the bright circle stood out more clearly from the background. “Look at that thing. It’s tiny — a couple of kilometers across, no more. We’d never have seen it with the ordinary sort of search methods.”
“You mean it shouldn’t have enough mass to hold anything in orbit around it.”
“Right. But it does. And we’re being accelerated toward it. I’m forced to make adjustments to our own motion.”
The Summer Dreamboat was sliding through a denser froth of orbiting fragments as the body ahead of them became larger and sharper on the display.
“And look at that outline,” Darya said softly. “If that’s not a perfect sphere, it’s close enough to have fooled me.”
Kallik was busy superimposing the latest fix for the position of Nenda’s ship on the largest display screen. It became clear that the other vessel sat on or very close to the round body. The Hymenopt studied the combined image in silence for a few moments. “The Have-It-All is not moving relative to the planetoid. There must be enough ss-ss-surface gravity to hold it firmly in one position.”
Rebka turned the Dreamboat and increased the thrust.
“Kallik, do a calculation for me. Assume that thing is a couple of kilometers in diameter, and suppose it’s made of solid rock. What should the surface gravity be? I’d like a reasonable maximum figure.”
“Ah.” The Hymenopt touched four limbs to the keyboard in front of her. “A small fraction of a centimeter per second per second,” she said in a few moments, “Maybe one three-thousandth of a standard gravity, no more.”
“I thought so. But we’re experiencing that already, while we’re still fifty kilometers out! If I extrapolate all the way down, the gravity on the surface of that thing must be getting close to one gee. That’s flat-out impossible, for any material we’ve ever heard of.”
As Rebka was speaking the Dreamboat made a sudden jerking move to one side. Darya was thrown back onto the bunk. The other two saved themselves by clutching at the control panel.
“What was that?” Darya remained flat on her back as the ship took a second leap in a different direction.
“Meteorite-avoidance system.” Rebka hauled himself back into position. “I put it on automatic, because there’s so much stuff around here I wasn’t sure we’d see it all. Good thing I did. Hold on, here comes another. And another. God, they’re piling in from everywhere.”
The new jerking thrusts came before he had finished speaking, throwing him forward onto the controls. He grabbed desperately for handholds.
“Where are they coming from?” Every time Darya tried to sit up, the ship made a leap in some other unpredictable direction. There was a solid thump on the outside hull, loud enough to be frightening, and the few objects that were not secured in the galley came sailing through into the cabin and rattled around there. “Can you see them?”
Even as she asked that question, her mind was posing a more abstract one. How could orbiting lumps of rock be vectoring in at them, all at once and from all directions? Random processes did not work that way.
Kallik, with hands to spare, was doing better than Hans Rebka. Without saying a word she was at work on the control panel. The ship spun on its axis, and Darya felt a powerful, steady thrust added to the jerks and surges of the collision-avoidance system.
From her position in the bunk she could still see the main display screen. It showed a circle of light surrounded by bright glittering motes. As she watched it came swooping closer at alarming speed. When they seemed ready to plunge right into its center, the ship pivoted on its axis and decelerated at maximum power. Darya was again pressed flat to the bunk’s mattress. She heard a startled grunt from Hans Rebka and a thump as he fell to the floor.
Darya felt a few seconds of maximum force on her body; then all acceleration ceased. The drive turned off. Darya found herself lying in something close to normal gravity. She lifted her head.
Hans Rebka was picking himself up painfully from the floor. Kallik was still seated, clutching with both hands at the control panel. The Hymenopt stared at them with the semicircle of rear-facing eyes and bobbed her head.
“My apologies. It was wrong to take such action without seeking permission. However, I judged it necessary if this ship and its occupants were to ss-ss-survive.”
Rebka was rubbing his right shoulder and hip. “Damn it, Kallik, there was no need to panic. The collision avoidance system is designed to handle multiple approaches — though I must say, I’ve never known a bombardment like that.”
“Nor will you again, in normal ss-ss-circumstances.”
“But what made you think we’d be any safer here, on the surface of the planetoid?” Darya had looked out of the port and confirmed her first impression. The Summer Dreamboat was sitting on a solid surface, in a substantial gravity field.
Kallik gestured out of the same port. The upper part of another ship was visible around the tight curve of the planetoid. “For two reasons. First, it was clear from the fact that the Have-It-All could sit on the surface with a working beacon, and therefore with working antennas, that there could be no continuous rain of materials here at the surface of the planetoid. I already thought that meant safety, even before I saw what was triggering the collision-avoidance system.”
“Rocks and ice?”
“No.” The black cranium turned slowly back and forth. “When I caught sight of the objects raining in on us, I had a second reason for descending rapidly. The attackers were free-space forms. I knew they would avoid any substantial gravity field, and we would be safe here.” The Hymenopt turned to face Darya. “Those were not rocks or ice, Professor Lang. We were attacked by Phages.”
Hans Rebka looked startled. But Darya jerked upright in the bunk and clapped her hands together with excitement. “Phages! That’s terrific.”
“Terrific?” Rebka stared at her in disbelief. “I don’t know how much exposure you’ve had to Phages, Darya, but I can tell you this: they may be slow, but they’re nasty.”
“And these Phages are not so slow,” Kallik said calmly. “They are faster than any of which I have seen reports.”
“Which makes them worse.” Rebka stared at the excited Darya. “Do you want to be killed?”