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course change might cause.
    In the few years since Kirsten last visited, the Gw’oth had added interplanetary travel to their capabilities. Who could say interstellar travel would not soon follow?
    Baedeker was here, today, coerced onto this mission, because he had been immobilized by an existential question. Was it time for him to return to Hearth? Now he had his answer.
    If a strike by the Fleet was not why the Gw’oth called for help, it would be—as soon as Baedeker returned to report what he now knew.

10
    Â 
    â€œFive minutes to dropout,” Kirsten announced calmly.
    Sigmund’s eyes refused to leave the mass pointer. It was by far the largest instrument on the bridge, a transparent sphere from whose center extended blue lines of varying lengths. The direction of a line showed the direction to the corresponding astronomical object. The length was proportional to the object’s gravitational influence: mass over distance squared.
    He sat, transfixed, in the copilot’s crash couch. The longest line, aimed right at him, nearly touched the clear surface, and that terrified him. The line seemed somehow
hungry
, ready to devour this ship, and that horrified him even more. Only a sentient mind could operate a mass pointer, which begged the question: What might be out there contemplating
him
?
    Five minutes!
    The math was simple. Every extra second they remained in hyperspace brought
Don Quixote
another two light-minutes closer to their destination. But a moment too late would be fatal. Sigmund gritted his teeth and said nothing. Kirsten was by far New Terra’s best pilot.
    â€œSounds good,” Eric answered from the engine room. “All ready back here.”
    Baedeker did not report from his cabin. Sigmund imagined the Puppeteer was a tightly rolled ball just now.
    Five minutes!
    After an eternity Kirsten began the final countdown. “Ten seconds, everyone. Eight, seven. . .”
    â€œPassive sensors only,” Sigmund reminded her.
    She nodded. “Two, one, now.”
    The mass pointer went dark. Sigmund activated the forward view screen. Ahead: stars.
    Â 
    .   .   .
    Â 
    DON QUIXOTE
DOVE into the solar system at breakneck speed.
    It was a crawl compared to their moments-ago pace through hyperspace—but with the mind refusing to see hyperspace, how could you judge?
    â€œLots of background EM,” Kirsten reported. “Data links. Video and radio chatter. It’s all from the inner system. Nothing’s intelligible from this far out.”
    â€œRadar?” Sigmund asked her. He raised his voice over the clatter of hooves in the corridor. Baedeker had emerged from his cabin.
    â€œNot that I can tell, Sigmund. Nor lidar, nor deep radar, not that any of those matter in a stealthed ship.” She took a deep breath. “It’ll be hours before the Gw’oth can know we’re here.”
    Because it would be hours before information from here could reach the inner system. Hyperwave radio was instantaneous where it worked—which was outside of gravitational singularities. They were almost 4.5 billion miles from the star, only a bright orange dot to the naked eye, and
Don Quixote
’s black hull would reflect little of the faint light that reached out here.
    â€œUnless they are already out here,” Baedeker chided from the hallway, before Sigmund got out the caveat. Cowardice was not a bad substitute for paranoia.
    â€œI’m detecting interesting neutrino flux,” Eric said over the intercom.
    Kirsten frowned. “Check your instruments and I’ll check mine. I’m still not seeing any deep radar.”
    â€œBecause it’s not deep radar. It looks like fusion reactors.”
    Sigmund glanced toward the nervous tap-tap of hoof pawing deck. Baedeker had to be thinking: fission to fusion in a few years. Sigmund knew how the Puppeteer felt. On Earth, if Sigmund remembered correctly, that transition