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were to ever know of this or guess its meaning."
"He has deceived us."
"Yes."
"But I don't know why. It's a large mass, to be sure. When it hits Jagen it will become part of the neutron
star. The added mass will contract the orbit Veden follows by& well, about ten percent. That will make
Veden uninhabitable "
"Yes. Veden is finished. But that is not all." I shook my head numbly.
"Remember the observation station on Veden? They measured gravitational radiation from the dipole that
Lekki-Jagen form. When I saw this curve the fragment will collide with Jagen in less than forty
hours I remembered them."
"When the fragment hits "
"In the last instant the fragment will fall through an extremely steep gravitational potential. There will be a
burst of gravitational radiation. It will propagate out in a shock-wave about one light-second in length. I
cannot calculate what the wave will do. Perhaps it will not harm anything on the surface of a planet, so
Veden may be safe. I am not a physicist, I do not know."
"What about the ramscoops in parking orbit?" He shook his head. "I think they may be damaged. There
is a resonant effect involved. If the wavelengths in the moving front of the Shockwave are of the same
size as a ship, the wave might tear the ship apart. Certainly some energy will be delivered to a small
object like a ramscoop small compared to a planet but I cannot say how much."
"So the ramscoop fleet may be harmed. It would be a terrible blow to the Empire. All the long-term
resources would be lost. But I don't understand how that could make any difference in the war. It will be
over soon, it must." .
"I do not follow it, either. If destroying Veden were the object "
"No, that isn't it, there is no point. Any inhabited planet could be made unlivable by drawing it ten percent
closer to its star, and that ignores the effect the fragment's mass has on the star itself. It may cause a
complete change in the fusion cycle or even create a nova. I am not an astronomer, I cannot tell. But the
destruction of Veden cannot be the point of all this. There are easier ways to kill a planet's people."
I looked carefully at the fax sheets, grasping for some clue. There was so much
"What's this?" I said, pointing at a separate set of figures and code dots. The dots looked vaguely
familiar.
"One last deception," Majumbdahr said somberly. He sounded very tired, weighed down by his
knowledge. "It is a subspace communication trace. The signal came from Veden."
"Mr. Gharma's man did not silence the last communicator."
"No. Not that, beside the fate of Veden, the matter makes any difference."
"Wait a moment," I said. "What does the trace say?"
"I don't "
Suddenly I recognized it. "It's an emergency call pattern. Highest priority. That's all I can tell without a
decoder. But this signal is short, so that may be all it contains."
We sat for a moment and stared at each other bleakly. For me the shock was too great; it would take a
while to sink in.
"I don't know what is happening," Majumbdahr said after a moment, "but the Master has hidden this from
us. What should we do?"
I tapped my teeth together, thinking. "We've been in this pouch too long. We'll be missed, soon. Go out
and supervise the rest of the unloading from the skimmer. I'll go into the ship and try to find out more.
Take the fax sheets with you; it would seem strange if I had some with me after returning from Earth. I'll
meet you in your cabin when I have something new."
We tripped the hatch and went out. Majumbdahr moved toward the skin using handholds in the wall of
the tube. He did not use his jets because men were maneuvering cold-sleep vaults toward us from
outside and blocked most of the tube. Beyond them I could see the belly of the skimmer disgorge
another vault and figures jockey it into a triangular grip for handling. In a moment Majumbdahr's yellow
suit was hidden by the working parties.
A figure separated from the nearest vault and floated with its back toward me, watching Majumbdahr.
The man wore a green suit but he was shadowed by the vault and I could not read his number. I started
to move inward along the tube. In a moment the man turned and looked back at me. I could see his
number.
It was Gharma.
I kicked off and drifted quickly inward toward the main lock. When I reached the smaller bore where the
tube entered the life cylinder I chanced another look over my shoulder but could not pick Gharma out
from the other figures. By the looks of the work it was going to take a fair amount of time to unload and
mount the vaults. There were not many men trained for no gee manual labor.
I passed the main lock and let my velocity carry me to a smaller personnel lock that entered the bridge
far from the central bridge where the captain's couch was located. This lock was near the nearest
downramp to C deck. A hundred yards further along the tube ended and the reaction motors began.
I unsuited and wasted no time reaching our cabin on C deck.
Rhandra had just finished a bath and was lying nude on our sleeping pad. There was a moment of sheer
incongruity in which I realized that, despite all that was happening to me, life for Rhandra had gone on at
something like its usual pace. Somewhere in the universe there were still people who took baths and read
books, watched rainstorms and made love.
She was, as always, a quiet pool in still forests. I told her of Majumbdahr and the fax sheets. She
listened, nodded, furrowed her brow. I sat cross-legged on the pad next to her as she lay. Her oils after
the bath were sweetly pungent; I found myself admiring her small breasts that are so much in fashion. She
had prominent nipples as well, which I have always thought so fetching.
The crowded conditions of mainland Mongol culture forced a change in the role of nakedness, much as it
had in Japan even before the Riot War. A nude woman was not nearly as stimulating to a mainlander as
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