“A fearful thing!” Old Habibula blinked his dull-colored eyes. “Such monstrous bombs make our best weapons seem like mortal foolish toys. I hope you don’t expect Lil and me to face such wicked weapons as that!”

  “I hope we can keep our battles on a somewhat smaller scale.” Star grinned bleakly. “But the enemy is deadly enough.”

  “Ken, I don’t understand.” Lilith’s eyes had darkened with dread. “What have exploding galaxies to do with the age of these anomalous rocks—or with that enemy machine?”

  Moving stiffly in his chair, Star raised his hands to rub at his temples under the edge of that white bandage, as if to ease an ache in his head.

  “One possible source exists for such an explosion.” His voice was weaker and more weary, yet still painfully precise. “A hundred million supernovas, all touched off at once, would not be enough. The only possible source is a blowout of space itself.”

  Shivering, old Habibula gulped another glass of wine.

  “You know mass curves space,” Ken Star said. “When the curvature reaches what is called the Schwarzschild radius, space is bent back until it meets itself. The closed space, with the mass that made it close, is separated from our space-time. But energy enough to explode a galaxy is left behind—the released energy is equal to half the product when the mass ejected is multiplied by the square of the velocity of light.”

  “Do you mean those rocks were thrown from another universe?”

  “That might follow.” Star nodded carefully, as if motion hurt his head. “My theory is a new view of the universe. It suggests that all of our own visible world of space and time has grown from the expansion of a Schwarzschild space that was ejected from the older space-tune some six billion years ago. It suggests that we are witnessing the birth of a new space-time universe, each time we observe a galaxy exploding.”

  “Dear mortal me!” panted old Habibula. “The world I thought 1 lived in was big and giddy enough. I’m not sure I care for your improvement. If nature is that complex, I know I prefer machines— machines, that is, of human make!”

  “This new cosmogony staggered me at first, but I’m afraid it has to be accepted.” A strange awe glowed in Star’s hollowed eyes. “If every exploding galaxy represents a new space-time universe budding out of our own, then the total universe must be truly infinite, not only in space and time but also in multiplicity!”

  He glanced sharply at me, as if to answer a skeptical question I had not asked.

  “Captain, I’ve spent years on the math,” he said. “My analysis shows that each ejected space-time system will become unstable and expand again. The degenerate matter in its nuclear core will explode into dispersing fragments. Expansion will generate hydrogen atoms, which will ultimately gather into galactic clouds around the separating fragments. As these new galaxies mature, they will in turn contract and explode and so create new space-time universes. The cycles of creation never cease.”

  “A novel idea of the universe!” I sat staring at him. “I wasn’t meaning to object—it’s just too big to grasp at once.”

  “It makes me giddy.” Lilith gave me a quick little smile. She turned back to Ken Star, her bronze eyes darkly solemn. “But I still don’t understand the anomaly.”

  “At first I thought it was simply the scar—the navel, if you like, of our universe. I suspected that our own space-time system had not been completely detached from the old mother world from which ours was born. I believed that those ancient rocks had somehow wandered through a wound in space that was not entirely healed.”

  “Would your math account for that, sir?” I asked. “Could such a rupture stay open for billions of years? Or would it be closed instantly?”

  “Frankly, I don’t know.” Star paused to press his bandaged temples. “You must consider the fact that each subuniverse would have its own coordinate systems of space and time. Time here may be space there—so that our own six billion years might be only an instant in the older mother world those rocks came from.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “There are other factors, too,” he added. “Besides the mass-effects predicted by the Einstein-Schwarzschild equations, there are magnetic and radiation effects that are harder to analyze—the same effects that you have been observing, here at Nowhere Near.”

  Lilith’s darkened eyes were staring at the wall beyond Star, as if she saw something far off and dreadful.

  “Ken, does your theory mean that the anomaly is natural?”

  “At first I thought so—I desperately hoped so,” he said. “Now I doubt that it is entirely natural. The theory implies that the anomaly should shrink, if it changes at all. I’m very much afraid that the expansion we are observing is an artificial effect.”

  Old Habibula had been about to pour himself another glass of wine. He set the bottle back with a clatter, blinking fearfully at Star.

  “For sweet life’s sake,” he moaned, “what does that mean?”

  “I’m afraid that the anomaly is a kind of gate that still connects us with our mother world,” Star said huskily. “I still believe that it was natural in origin, but I’m afraid that it has been enlarged or opened by some application of intelligent technology.”

  “You mean—” Old Habibula stopped to shudder, clutching at his bottle as if it had been some talisman of safety. “You mean that wicked machine—and that bubble of

  dreadful darkness—”

  “I’m very much afraid that the machine is an invader.” Star’s voice was faint and bleak. “I’m afraid that the bubble is the visible aspect of the opening interspatial gate through which it came. I’m afraid we must face a hostile technology that has been evolving four times longer than our space-time universe—”

  The mess hall door burst open. Ketzler came tottering in. His face was white beneath a long smear of blood. His right hand was clutched against his side, and blood oozed between his fingers.

  “Mutiny, sir—” His voice was a bubbling sob, and bright blood trickled down his chin. “Most of the crew—even Gina Lorth. They’ve got—control drum—docks. I guess—guess they just couldn’t take Nowhere—not any more!”

  Swaying, he clutched at a table.

  “Something—worse, sir!” His voice thickened and broke. “That black bubble—more fighting machines—I was just going to call you, when they hit me—”

  He blinked and peered as if his sight were fading.

  “Wha—what can we do, sir?”

  He crumpled to the floor.

  The Absolute—Zero!

  Resistance to the mutineers, such as it was, had ceased by the time Ketzler reached the mess hall. The leaders were the disgruntled veterans who had wanted to leave with Captain Scabbard. Their only real opposition, apparently, came from Ketzler and the lock sergeant, Vralik. Vralik died defending the locks.

  The attack on Ketzler in the control center had been made only to cover the flight of the mutineers. By the time I reached the ice asteroid from the full-G ring, they were gone. They had blown up our position rockets, wrecked the fire-control gear of our old proton guns, and looted the station safe. They smashed the pilot computer in one of our two emergency rockets, and took off in the other.

  The outbreak must have been set off by news of the invaders, because it showed more panic than plan. The mutineers took too many persons aboard a rocket built for only twelve. They left crates of supplies and drums of reserve fuel stacked in the dock. They killed Vralik needlessly—a letter I found in his pocket showed that he had meant to join the plot.

  Though I saw no hope for them, I couldn’t help wishing them well. The name of Gina Lorth brought me a painful throb of regret. I had been fond of her once. We had come out to the station on the same relief ship, both very young, devoted to the Legion and eager for adventure. A native-born mutineer, even then Gina had what she called a thing against authority. The raw cadet, I had been a fellow rebel until my first promotion began to turn her against me. Sadly, I had watched time dim her bright vitality and the dark spell of Nowhere put out her daring gaiety.

  I felt sorry Gina was gone.

  Seven of us were left on Nowhere Near—seven counting Ketzler and the two injured men from the Quasar Quest. Cool and deft and still alluring, Lilith helped us care for Ketzler. She gave him efficient first aid. Later, in the station hospital, she dressed his wounds and administered a tiny jet-injection.

  “A drop of Giles’ serum,” she said. “It cost the Legion five million. It ought to heal his wounds—and add a good ten years to his normal life.”

  Nothing had been damaged in the north observatory. I found Ken Star ahead of me there, a gaunt slight ghost moving unsteadily about the red loom and gleam of the electron telescope. No telescope was needed to tell me how fast that bubble of blackness had been growing. A neat round blot against the silver mist of stars, it was now fully two degrees across.

  At first it seemed featureless, but a dull orange spark came against it as I looked, creeping toward its center. The orange point grew brighter, yellower, whiter. Suddenly the bubble changed—I suppose because of some optical or psychological effect.

  No longer a bubble, it was suddenly a wide black funnel. That white star fell fast down its midnight pit, down into Nowhere. We dropped after it. Turning giddy with my sense of that wild and helpless fall, I clutched a hand-rail desperately.

  “See that, Captain!”

  Ken Star’s husky voice seemed at first to come from far away. I had to close my eyes and catch my breath before I could release my sweaty grasp on that cold rail and follow him to the electronic telescope.

  “See that light?” he was calling. “That’s your mutineers. They’ve been shot to junk and caught in that sterilizing field—I saw the puff of gas when their fuel exploded. Now the wreck is trapped in a more intense gravitic field—”

  Breathlessly, he interrupted himself.

  “Here! Come take a look!”

  I joined him in front of the green-glowing screen. That black circle filled half of it— still a monstrous funnel to my eyes, so dark and deep that I shrank away from it, dizzy and shivering. The wreckage of the rocket was a hot bright point, toppling down its bottomless throat. Now I found something else—four fainter points, spaced outside the circle.

  “Those objects—”

  “Can you get the ‘scope on one of them, with a higher power?”

  Breathing even and hard to still the tremor of my hands, I brought one of those four points to the center of the screen. I turned up the power. The point swelled. It became a greenish blur. Out of the blur emerged another invader machine, the dark twin of Ken Star’s attacker.

  “Four invaders,” Star rasped, “Spaced in tetrahedral pattern around the bubble.

  Guarding that gateway—perhaps helping create it. I believe they have come from that more ancient space-time universe, to hold a bridgehead against us—”

  “Huh!” My exclamation interrupted him. “It’s gone!” The screen was blankly greenish-black again. Turning to the transite dome, I saw that the moving star was gone from that shadow-disk.

  “The glowing wreck just went through the gate into—somewhere,” Star said.

  “Without its light, we can’t see the invaders. But they’re still there.” “And Nowhere Near is still dropping toward them,” I said. “That spot covered one degree when we first saw it, five hours ago. Now it covers two—which means we’ve come halfway. Without the position rockets, we’re falling faster. I suppose we have three hours, maybe four.”

  As helpless as Ketzler, I stared at his gaunt face. “Commander, what can we do?” Jetting nearer, he loomed tall in the crimson gloom. “We do have a weapon,” he whispered at last. “Humanity’s ultimate defense. A top

  secret thing—but you will have to know about it now. Because I think we may be forced to use it. Where is Lilith?”

  “Still hi the hospital,” I said. “Doing what she can for those injured men.” I clung to a chrome rail in that zero-G space, still shaken from my giddiness. The riddle of the soldier and the girl spun crazily in my mind.

  “Is she—?” I gasped. “Who is she?” “My niece,” he said. “Bob’s youngest daughter. Her real name is Lilian Star—Lilith

  Adams is her own invention. She and her two sisters are keepers of the peace. Chosen guardians of the absolute weapon.” Awe struck me, cold as the black space beyond the transite dome. “I guess that explains a queer detached aloofness I felt about her —a feeling that

  almost frightened me. So she isn’t a nurse at all?” “She is a nurse,” Star told me. “She says she needs some humane interest, just to

  balance her power to destroy. She has done original medical work. She led the research team that developed the longevity serum she’s testing on Giles Habibula.” Hot humiliation flashed over me. “And I’m the one who turned them away,” I breathed bitterly. “When they came with

  Scabbard, I wouldn’t let them aboard— because I couldn’t believe Habibula’s tale about how he loved machines!” “A cover story,” Star said. “But Giles does have a feeling for machines.” “Why didn’t they tell me? Scabbard’s men could have murdered them!”

  “They’re both more competent than they look.” Star grinned faintly in the dim red dark. “Their scheme to get aboard Nowhere Near worked well enough, without compromising anything.”

  “What is the weapon, sir?”

  “Its code designation is the letters AKKA. That’s about all you’ll need to know about it.”

  Floating behind that cold chrome rail, I glanced out through the dome at the round black shadow growing in the core of Nowhere. Something alien as space breathed oa my spine.

  “Is it—good enough?”

  “It’s absolute—at least hi ordinary space. Just the threat of it, three hundred years ago, was enough to overthrow the Ulnar Emperors and their Purple Hall. With one stroke, in the last century, it destroyed Earth’s old satellite and the invading Medusae there. I don’t know what will happen when it hits the anomaly.”

  He peered uneasily at the dome.

  “Can you call Lilith from here?”

  I tried to call, but the mutineers had evidently wrecked the intercom.

  “Let’s get her here,” he said. “Though the Green Hall has forbidden any needless or premature use of her weapon, I think the time has come to set it up.”

  The station hospital spun in a half-G ring section, almost grazing the crust of the ice asteroid. Breathless with haste, I burst out of the elevator there. Old Habibula challenged me with a proton-pistol I hadn’t known he carried.

  “Sorry, Captain.” His murky eyes searched me. “What do you want?”

  “Commander Star wants Nurse Adams in the north dome,” I blurted. “He says it’s time to set her weapon up.”

  “So Ken has told you?” His pink baby-grin was warily friendly. “Now we can stop playing silly games. I’ve been telling Lil that we’ve been waiting too mortal long for those fearful invaders to make a gesture of friendship. Wait. I’ll bring her.”

  He waddled into the hospital and returned with Lilith. She turned to smile back toward her patients.

  “They’re all sleeping,” she whispered. “I think they’ll recover—”

  “If those monstrous machines give ‘em time!” old Habibula panted. “Ken says it’s time for us to strike. For life’s sweet sake, don’t waste time!”

  Gravely unhurried, she waited for me to lead the way into the elevator. As we dropped, I turned to look at her. Her lean proud loveliness pounded in my veins and ached in my throat—yet now she was a goddess, moving to the seat of cosmic judgment, serenely untouchable.

  “Please—please forgive me,” I stammered. “For sending you away with Scabbard.

  I—I didn’t know.”

  Her bronze eyes fell to me, aloofly amused.

  “You were not to know.”

  “Couldn’t you—couldn’t you have trusted me?”

  “I asked your name.” The dance of light died in her eyes. “I learned you are Lars Ulnar. I remembered that twice keepers of the peace have been kidnapped by Ulnar traitors. I didn’t want to be the third.”

  I said nothing, but she must have seen me flinch.

  “Sorry, Lars.” A softer smile warmed her gaunt face. “We trust you now.”

  We left the elevator at the cable stage. I clipped her D-grip to the moving cable and we soared toward the dome through the shadowy heart of the hollowed asteroid.

  “Scabbard’s mate and those two spacemen?” I twisted around to look at Lilith. She floated behind me, staring toward the dome as if she could already see our unknown antagonists waiting out in Nowhere. “Was it your secret weapon that—disposed of them?”

  She nodded silently.

  “And mortal well it did!” puffed old Habibula, flying behind her. “Lil’s got a precious obligation to protect herself. Even now, when both her sisters share it, the duty of the keeper of the peace is a fearful thing for any being!”

  In the dull red dusk of the zero-G dome, I found fan-jets for Lilith and old Habibula. She had stopped at the entrance, gazing at that black funnel in the heart of the anomaly, her face gaunt and grave and white. Ken Star came soaring toward us from the red-glinting mass of the electronic telescope.

  “Are you quite certain, Ken?” Her solemn question greeted him. “It’s an awful decision—the future of worlds at stake. Do you know that they are able and acting to destroy us? Are you sure that no truce is possible? Are you quite certain that they or we must die?”

  “You can assure the Green Hall Council that we have made every effort,” he answered huskily. “Our signals have got no reply—except unprovoked attacks from weapons we can’t counter with anything short of AKKA.”

  “But radio and laserphones don’t work reliably in the anomaly,” she said. “How can you be sure that they knew we were trying to signal?”

  “We can’t.” He caught a rasping breath. “But I believe we have shown forbearance enough. After all, we want to survive—”

 

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