“The first gee-point asteroids have only just arrived at Uranus, and Neptune can expect visitors in a few days. Pluto’s turn is coming if the trajectory projections hold up. The Moon still hasn’t been touched, presumably because the Wheel lives there.
“The big structures are different shapes on each world, though I doubt that means anything. It matches the patterns at smaller scales. Every Lander has variants on the auxiliary creatures and machines that attend it, but they all do the same work. On Mars, the Charonian structures are pyramids. On others, massive cylinders, or enormous hemispherical domes.”
“Things are moving toward a climax,” Larry said. “The last of the Martian pyramids will be complete in a day or so. What happens then? What happens when enough of the big structures are complete on the other worlds?”
Raphael smiled. “Maybe all the orbiting gee-point objects crash, and use the big structures for target practice.”
“Charming thought,” Larry said. A few of the Landers had malfunctioned, crashing instead of landing gently. There was one confirmed crash on Venus, two at Ganymede and one impact on Mars, on the other side of the globe from Port Viking, just a few hours after the Anthony went through the wormhole. Thankfully, the Martian impacter was a small gee point, moving fairly slowly when it hit. It had punched a hell of a big hole in the surface, but had not caused any casualties or damage to inhabited areas. “The crashed Landers are the closest thing to good news we’ve had since the first commlink with Earth,” Larry said. “They at least show the enemy is fallible. But times are bad when an asteroid crashing into a world is good news.
“The thing is, I get the feeling that the asteroid strikes should be telling me something,” Larry went on. “Something important. But the gee points’ parking themselves in orbit worries me most of all. That’s a signal that the Charonians are ready for the next phase—whatever that next phase is.”
Damn it, who or what were the Charonians? Who controlled that Sphere? And from where? “Sorry,” Larry said. “My mind’s wandering. There are too damn many questions.” Larry thought of the recording of the shattered sphere Marcia MacDougal had picked up from the first tap on the Lunar Wheel. At least that was clear now—and yet still a mystery. “Can you call up the sphere image Marcia showed us?”
Raphael worked the controls on his notepack. The wallscreen cleared and showed a sullen red globe glowing in the darkness. And there was the burn-through, the twin sparks of fire leaping away from inside it and racing away.
Raphael set the holographic image to repeat, and brought up a series of images of the Dyson Sphere as relayed from Earth via the Saint Anthony.
“They’re the same,” Raphael said. “They have to be the same. They both display the same surface markings. As if someone had etched in lines of longitude and latitude. The patterns are identical.”
“But the images of the Sphere relayed by the Anthony show nothing that suggests any such thing ever happened to it,” Larry objected, staring at the two images.
“Perhaps the burn-through is on the other side of the Sphere, on the hemisphere not visible from Earth.” Raphael suggested.
“No, this Sphere, Earth’s Sphere, isn’t wobbling or tumbling. It’s very clearly under control,” Larry said.
Raphael nodded. “You’re right. But then what does the message-image of the shattered Sphere mean? Is it a premonition? A warning? What sort of enemy would be powerful enough to endanger a Dyson Sphere? An entity that can grab stars and planets, that can call upon the entire power output of a star. What could be powerful enough to dare attack that?”
Larry shrugged helplessly. “Why were there two stars inside the Dyson Sphere?” He shook his head. “A side issue. The physicists can worry about it later.”
“They’re all side issues,” Raphael said, a bit heatedly. “Compared to figuring out the Charonians’ next move, everything else is a side issue. Let’s try to tackle the situation from another tack. Maybe there’s some clue in when things happen, their order.” He pulled out his notepack and called a chronology of events up onto the screen.
“Okay, but if the Charonians ignore human activity, so should we,” Larry said. He took the notepack from Raphael and worked the controls for a moment. “Besides, we have no idea what they would chart as a major or minor event. Let’s blank out the human events and just chart all the Charonian actions, no matter how trivial, against time.” Larry set the system for graphic display on the wallscreen, a red dot against a white background for every single thing that happened.
Raphael looked up at the display and drew in his breath. From the moment Earth vanished until the time the Lunar Wheel received the first image of the shattered Sphere, the pace of events was leisurely at best. It was immediately after that image that things were thrown into a panicky rush and started to happen in frantic haste, all over the Solar System. The image of the shattered Sphere had stimulated the Wheel to action.
“To me, that pattern says the shattered Sphere image scared the merry hell out of the Wheel,” Larry said. “So why should a picture of a Sphere scare it? What do we know about the Sphere, anyway?” He lay back in the bed.
Raphael took back the notepack, looked over the summaries. “Let me see. According to what we have from Earth, there are at least eight G-class stars around the Dyson Sphere, held in place by gravity control. Uncounted terrestrial-sized worlds around each star, perhaps ten or twenty around each.”
“So what are those worlds to the Charonians?” Larry asked, staring at the ceiling. “Prisoners? Science experiments?”
A weird and chilling idea popped into Raphael’s mind. “Or perhaps toys? Or pets? They’re certainly being well cared for, if Earth is any example. None of us dared dream that Earth would have survived in such good shape.”
Suddenly, Larry sat up again. “That’s it. What they’re doing is keeping Earth safe. That’s the point. You’ve just reminded me of a dumb idea I tossed out a long time ago. Maybe they got the Earth out of the way before the rough stuff began here in the Solar System. Earth was being taken out of harm’s way. Maybe the rough stuff is about to begin, here.”
Raphael looked at Larry and felt fear sweat suddenly popping out of his forehead. “Suppose it’s not the Earth they want—but the Solar System?” Raphael asked.
The Nenya roared through the darkness, accelerating toward Pluto, many dark days ahead.
Gerald MacDougal bustled into the crowded wardroom of the Terra Nova and looked around. A dozen conversations were starting up between people who had never met before. Like lunchtime on the first day of school, he thought. A roomful of new people, a sense of things beginning, a chance for new adventure.