Combat mission. Enemy. Target. He had not used those words for years; they were things of childhood. Galoshes. Skatekey.
As the days stand up on end,
My friend.
His uncle had fought in some grimy jungle conflict, somewhere. The man had told stories about it, resolving all complicated political theory with the unanswerable gut reality of a souvenir pistol and bayonet, proudly displayed. Nigel had thought it a minor eccentricity, like owning a complete fifty-year run of National Geographic.
The fist lifted.
The fist returned.
A rivulet of spittle ran down his chin. He licked at it, unwilling to move a hand. His eyes ached. Each of his kidneys was a sullen lump just beneath the skin of his back.
Iron and oil,
Brought to a boil.
Abruptly, he floated. The dull rumble died. He sucked in air, feeling life return to his numbed arms and legs, and automatically scanned the regiments of lights before him.
He was flying blind, no telltale radar to guide him. After a few minutes of checking he activated the breadboarded fire control center and received acknowledgments from the computers that rode in the missiles. Then he rotated his couch to get a full view out the large observation port.
Nothing. The port was black, vacant. He logged the time and checked the running printout on his slate. The burn was right, his heading was dead on. The Snark was coming in for an orbit around the moon, as Houston had asked it to, and he would come up from behind, closing fast.
He glanced out the port again. Nothing. Now that he was on a definite mission, moving, the complete radio silence was eerie. Out the side port he could see the moon fall away, an endless dirty-gray plain of jumbled craters.
He searched the main port carefully, watching for relative motion against the scattered jewels of the fixed stars. He was studying the star field so intently that he nearly missed the bright point of light that drifted slowly into view.
“Ha!” Nigel said with satisfaction. He swung the viewing telescope down from its mount. Magnified, there was no doubt. The diamond point resolved into a small pearl. The Snark was a sphere, silvery, with no apparent markings.
Nigel could see no means of propulsion. Perhaps they were on the other side of the object, or not operating at the moment. It didn’t matter; his missiles had both heat-seeking and radar guidance. But things could not come to that…
Nigel squinted, trying to estimate the range. The Venusian satellites set a minimum possible radius of one kilometer. If that was about right—
A voice said:
“I wish you the riding of comfortable winds.”
Nigel froze. The odd, brassy voice came from his helmet speakers, free of static.
“I… what…”
“A fellow traveler. We shall share this space for a moment.”
“It is …you… speaking?”
“You believe I cannot sense your canister. Because it overlaps the cross section of your star.”
“Ah, that was the general idea.”
“Thus, I spoke. For my life.”
“How do you know?”
“There are fewer walls than you may think. There can be intersections of—there is no word of yours for the idea. Let us say I have met this before, in different light.”
“I—”
“You are alone. I do not understand how your kind can divide guilt. Here, in this cusp, I know it cannot be done. You are one man and you have no place to hide.”
“If I…”
“You would make mean comfort for yourself. You are ready?”
“I never thought I would have to…”
“Though you came. Ready.”
“To get here at all I had to agree…”
The voice took on a wry edge. “Permit me.”
From the left port came a bright orange flare and a blunt thump as death took wing. A spike of light arced into the front port and spurted ahead. It was a burning halo, then a sharp matchpoint of flame, then a shrinking dot that homed with bitter resolve.
A chemical warhead. Nigel sat stunned. A thin shrill beep rattled in the cabin as automatic tracking followed the missile. Somehow the Snark had made his craft fire. Red numerals of trajectory adjustments flickered and died, unseen, on the board before him.
The idiot beep quickened. The burning point of light swept smoothly toward the blurred disk beyond it.
Nigel sucked in his breath—
