"They could stop off to get more food and air … every year or so."
Louis laughed. "Try talking anyone into that. You know what I think? When the light of the Core explosion starts shining through the dust clouds between here and the galactic axis, that's when everyone in human space is suddenly going to get terrified. Then they'll have a century to get out.
"The puppeteers had the right idea. They sent a man to the Core as a publicity stunt because they wanted financing for research. He sent back pictures like that one. Before he'd even landed, the puppeteers were gone; there wasn't a puppeteer on any human world. We won't do it that way. Well wait and we'll wait, and when we finally decide to move we'll have to ship trillions of sentient beings completely out of the galaxy. We'll need the biggest, fastest ships we can build, and we'll need as many as we can get. We need the puppeteer drive now, so that we can start improving it now. The -"
"Okay. I'm going with you."
Louis, interrupted in midlecture, said, "Huh?"
"I'm going with you," said Teela Brown.
"You're out of your mind."
"Well, you're going, aren't you?"
Louis clamped his teeth on the explosion. When he did speak, he spoke more calmly than the situation deserved. "Yes, I'm going. But I've got reasons you don't, and I'm better at staying alive than you are, because I've been at it longer."
"But I'm luckier."
Louis snorted.
"And my reasons for going may not be as good as yours, but they're good enough!" Her voice was high and thin with anger.
"The tanj they are."
Teela tapped the face of the reading screen. A bloated comma of nova light flared beneath her fingernail. "That's not a good reason?"
"We'll get the puppeteer drive whether you come or not. You heard Nessus. There are thousands like you."
"And I'm one of them!"
"All right, you're one of them," Louis flared.
"What are you so tanj protective about? Did I ask for your protection?"
"I apologize. I don't know why I tried to dictate to you. You're a free adult."
"Thank you. I intend to join your crew." Teela had gone icily formal.
The hell of it was, she was a free adult. Not only could she not be coerced; an attempt to order her about would be bad manners and (more to the point) wouldn't work.
But she could be persuaded …
"Then think about this," said Louis Wu. "Nessus has gone to great lengths to protect the secrecy of this trip. Why? What's he got to hide?"
"That's his business, isn't it? Maybe there's something worth stealing, wherever we're going."
"So what? Where we're going is two hundred light years from here. We're the only ones who can get there."
"The ship itself, then."
Whatever was unusual about Teela, she was no dummy. Louis himself hadn't thought of that. "Then think about our crew," he said. "Two humans, a puppeteer, and a kzin. None of us professional explorers."
"I see what you're doing, but honestly, Louis, I am going. I doubt you can stop me."
"Then you can at least know what you're getting into. Why the odd crew?"
"That's Nessus's problem."
"I'd say it's ours. Nessus gets his orders directly from those-who-lead — from the puppeteer headquarters. I think he figured out what those orders meant, just a few hours ago. Now he's terrified. Those … priests of survival have got four games going at once, not counting whatever it is we'll be exploring."
He saw that he had Teela's interest, and he pressed on. "First there's Nessus. If he's mad enough to land on an unknown world, can he possibly be sane enough to survive the experience? Those-who-lead have to know. After they reach the Clouds of Magellan they'll have to set up another commercial empire. The backbone of their commerce is the mad puppeteers.
"Then there's our furry friend. As ambassador to an alien race, he should be one of the most sophisticated kzinti around. Is he sophisticated enough to get along with the rest of us? Or will he kill us for elbow room and fresh meat?
"Third, there's you and your presumed luck, a blue-sky research project if I ever heard of one. Fourth is me, a presumably typical explorer type. Maybe I'm the control.
"You know what I think?" Louis was standing over the girl now, pounding his words home with an oratorical technique he'd mastered while losing an election for the UN in his middle seventies. He would honestly have denied trying to browbeat Teela Brown; but he wanted desperately to convince her. "The puppeteers couldn't care less about whatever planet we're being sent to. Why should they, when they're leaving the galaxy? They're test-ing our little team to destruction. Before we get ourselves killed, the puppeteers can find out a lot about how we interact."
"I don't think ifs a planet," said Teela.
Louis exploded. "Tanj! What has that got to do with it?"
"Well, after all, Louis. If we're going to get killed exploring it, we might as well know what it is. I think it's a spacecraft."
"You do."
"A big one, a ring-shaped one with a ramscoop field to pick up interstellar hydrogen. I think it's built to funnel the hydrogen into the axis for fusion. You'd get thrust that way, and a sun too. You'd spin the ring for centrifugal force, and you'd roof the inner side with glass."
"Yeah," said Louis, thinking of the odd picture in the holo he'd been given by the puppeteer. He'd spent too little time wondering about their destination. "Could be. Big and primitive and not very easy to steer. But why would those-who-lead be interested?"
"It could be a refugee ship. Core races would learn about stellar processes early, with the suns so close together. They might have predicted the explosion thousands of years ahead … when there were only two or three supernovas."
"Supernovae. Could be … and you've snaked me right off the subject. I've told you what kind of game I think the puppeteers are playing. I'm going anyway, for the fun of it. What makes you think you want to go?"
"The Core explosion."
"Altruism is great, but you couldn't possibly be worried about something that's supposed to happen in twenty thousand years. Try again."
"Dammit, if you can be a hero, so can I! And you're wrong about Nessus. He'd back out of a suicide mission. And — and why would the puppeteers want to know anything about us, or the kzinti either? What would they test us for? They're leaving the galaxy. They'll never have anything to do with us again."
No, Teela wasn't stupid. But — "You're wrong. The puppeteers have excellent reasons for wanting to know all about us."
Teela's look dared him to back it up.
"We don't know much about the puppeteer migration. We do know that every able-bodied, sane-minded puppeteer now alive is on the move. And we know that they're moving at just below lightspeed. The puppeteers are afraid of hyperspace.
"Now. Traveling at just below lightspeed, the puppeteer fleet should reach the Lesser Cloud of Magellan in about eighty-five thousand years. And what do they expect to find when they get there?"
He grinned at her and gave her the punch line. "Us, of course. Humans and kzinti, at least. Kdatlyno and pierin and dolphins, probably. They know we'll wait until the last minute and then run for it, and they know we'll use faster-then-light drives. By the time the puppeteers reach the Cloud, they'll have to deal with us … or with whatever kills us off; and by knowing us, they can predict the nature of the killer. Oh, they've got reason enough to study us."
"Okay."
"Still want to go?"
Teela nodded.
"Why?"
"I'll reserve that." Teela's composure was complete. And what could Louis do about it? Had she been under nineteen he would have called one of her parents. But at twenty she was a presumed adult. You had to draw the line somewhere.