“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 Brennan’s instructions. Sometimes he cooked for them. His blinding speed never seemed hurried, but he never stayed to talk after he had finished eating. He was gaining weight, but it seemed to be all muscle, and the great knobby joints still gave him the look of a skeleton.
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. Brennan had taken the scattering component out of the gravity lens that showed the sun. The light interfered with his seeing. The sky was black now. The sun was bigger and dimmer; it would not burn out a human eye.
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 Brennan’s laboratory; it cooled the noonday heat on this side of the grassy sphere. The plants had not yet started to die, but they would.
“A hundred and seventy years. We’ll never even know how it ended,” said Alice.
“We could live that long.”
“I suppose.”
“Brennan must have more tree-of-life virus than he needs.” When she shuddered, he laughed.
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 Brennan swam to them across the pond, his arms whirling like propellers.
“I have to swim like crazy,” he said. “I’m heavier than water. How’re you making out?”
“Okay. How goes the war?”
“Tolerably.” Brennan held up a handful of spools in a sealed plastic bag. “Star maps. I’m about ready to leave. If I could think of a great new weapon to take along, I’d spend up to a year making it. As is, there’s only final inspection.”
“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.” Brennan turned back to the pond.
“Hey!”
Brennan turned. “What?”
“Could you use any other kind of help?” He felt silly asking.
Brennan looked at him for a long moment. “Yes,” he said. “Remember, you asked.”
“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. “Brennan? If you really need the help, I volunteer too.”
“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.”
Brennan, infinitely adaptable himself, had the knack of dropping bombs into a conversation without seeming to realize it. Alice lost her breath. “I am?”
“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. Brennan had dropped too many bombs at once. Roy closed his eyes tight, as if that would help. When he opened them Brennan and Alice were still watching him.
Alice was pregnant.
Little blue lights.
“I, I, I’ll go,” he told them. “I’m not running out on you, love,” he added quickly and urgently. His hands had closed too tightly on her shoulders. “We’re bringing a child into the world. The same world which, by an odd coincidence, is now the target for t-t-two hundred and thirty—”
“I’ve located the second wave,” said Brennan.
“Dammit! I didn’t need to hear that!”
Alice put a hand across his mouth. “I understand, my loyal crew. I think you’re right.”
And the air was full of the smell of burning bridges.
They stood beneath the branches of the single huge tree, watching. Brennan was occupied with a portable control set taken from his vest. Roy only watched.
The two-hundred-year-old singleship looked like a short insect with a long stinger, the cargo webs spread like diaphanous wings, the stinger tipped with actinic light. The sound of it was a shrill scream. Brennan had spent a full day teaching Alice how to use the ship, care for it, repair it. Roy would not have guessed that a day would be enough, but if Brennan was satisfied… And she was doing well. She went straight up, then turned smoothly into what had been the sun.
Roy felt a twitchy urgency, a sense that if he didn’t do something now, right now, he was committed for life. But the moment was long past. He only watched.
The sun looked odd now. Brennan had fiddled with the gravity lens, turning it into a launching system for the singleship. As Roy watched the sun shifted a bit left, dimming, to catch the singleship, dead center.
She was gone.
“She won’t have any trouble,” said Brennan. “She should make a good thing out of that ship. It’s not just a relic. It’s got historical significance, and I made some interesting changes in—”
“Sure,” said Roy. He saw that the grass was dying and the leaves on the tree were turning yellow. Brennan had drained the pond; it was a shallow sea of mud. Kobold had already lost its magic.
Brennan slapped him on the shoulder. “Come on.” He walked out into what had been a pond. Roy followed, wincing. The cool mud squished between his toes.
Brennan stooped, reached deep into the sludge, and lifted. A metal door came up with a sucking sound. An airlock door.
It was all happening very fast now. The airlock led into a cramped control room, with two crash chairs and a three hundred and sixty degree wraparound vision screen over a control board like that of any spacecraft. Brennan said, “Use straps if you want. If we foul up now we’re all dead anyway.”
“Shouldn’t I know something—”
“No. You can inspect the vehicle to your heart’s content after we’re under way. Hell, you’ll have a year at it.”