The first signs of stress showed up at zero plus eighteen minutes and change. Bright lines appeared around Alpha Maxim’s belt. The chromosphere became visibly turbulent. Fountains of light erupted off the solar surface.
At zero plus twenty-two minutes the sun began to visibly expand. The process was slow: it might have been a balloon filling gradually with water. Enormous tidal forces started to overwhelm the spherical shape, flattening it, disrupting it, inducing monumental quakes.
At twenty-six minutes, eleven seconds, it exploded.
It was often possible to make a reasonable guess at a person’s age from the physical characteristics his or her parents had selected. Different eras favored different skin tones, body types, hair colors. Concepts of beauty changed: women from one age tended to be well developed, their centers of gravity, as Solly Hobbs had once remarked, several centimeters in front of them; another era favored willowy, boyish women. Men’s physiques ranged from heroic to slim. The current fashion was to consider bulk as somehow in poor taste. Males born during the next few years were going to resemble a generation of ballet dancers.
During the eighties, parents of both sexes had opted for classic features, the long jawline, eyes wide apart, straight nose. Teenage girls now looked by and large as if they’d stepped down from pedestals in the Acropolis. Kim had come from an earlier time when the pixie look was in vogue. She tried to compensate by maintaining a straightforward no-nonsense attitude, and by avoiding a programmed tendency to cant her head and smile sweetly. She also adapted her hair style to cover her somewhat elvin ears.
Solomon Hobbs was from an age that had favored biceps and shoulders, although he had allowed things to deteriorate somewhat. Solly was one of the Institute’s four starship pilots. Kim had come to know him, however, not through an official connection, but because of their mutual interest in diving. Solly had been a member of the Sea Knights when Kim joined.
He had clear blue eyes, brown hair that was always in disarray, and a careless joviality that contrasted with a culture that thought of having fun as serious business, something one did to maintain a proper psychological balance.
After the lights came on and her guests had drifted away, Kim caught a cab which deposited her at the foot of Solly’s pier. The dive on the Caledonian was to be their way of welcoming the new year. They’d been looking forward to it for weeks, but as they rounded Capelo Island, riding a cold wind, Kim began to describe her conversation with Sheyel. It wasn’t a story she enjoyed telling, because it cast her former teacher as a crank. Yet she felt driven to talk about it. When she finished, he asked gently how much confidence she had in Tolliver.
“If you’d asked me two days ago—” she said.
“People lose touch as they get older.” Solly squinted at the sun. The sloop rose and fell. “It happens.”
They listened to the sea.
“I almost feel,” said Kim, “as if I owe it to Emily to do something.”
“Emily would tell you to forget it.”
Kim laughed. That was funny. Emily was by no means a mark for every weird idea, but there had been something in her that wanted to get beyond the merely physical universe. Given a choice between daylight and darkness, she’d have opted for the night every time. “No,” she said. “Emily would have wanted me to do something. Not just let it go.”
“Like run up to Severin?”
She made a face. “I know. It’s dumb even to think about it.”
Solly shrugged. “Turn it into a vacation.”
“I’m going to have to get back to him. To Sheyel. I don’t like the way we left things.”
“And you don’t want to call him and tell him—”
“—Right. That I didn’t bother to check out the woods.”
They both laughed. The wind brought some spray inboard.
“Solly, I’ll just say I didn’t have time to go. That I’ll get around to it when I can.”
“Didn’t you tell me this guy was a good teacher?”
“Yeah. He was good.”
“And you’re going to tell him you didn’t have time to check something out for him? That you were too busy? Even though your sister was involved?”
“Solly, I don’t really want to get caught up in this.”
“Then don’t.” His sensors picked up the wreck, and he tacked a few points to port. “Moving up on it,” he said.
“I mean, what happens to my reputation if it gets around I’ve gone ghost hunting?”
“Kim, why don’t you take him at his word? We both know you’re not going to sleep until you do. Look, it’s only a few hours to Severin. Do it. What did he say was out there? A spook?”
“He didn’t exactly say. ‘Something’s loose.’”
“Well, that could be pretty much anything.”
“I think he was suggesting I’d know it when I saw it.”
“Give it a chance. When nothing happens you can tell him you tried.”
He dropped anchor and they changed into their wet suits. Kim folded her clothes carefully on the cabin bunk, then removed her silver earrings and laid them on top of her blouse. They were dolphins, given to her years ago by an otherwise forgettable amour. Then they sat down on the deck and resumed the conversation while they pulled on flippers and adjusted thermostats. Kim knew that the dive could not be made until the Tolliver issue was settled.
“You think I owe him that,” she said.
“I think you owe it to yourself.” He put his mask on, adjusted it, attached the converter, and took a deep breath. “I’ll go with you, if you want.”
“You really would?”
“I’m on an off-rotation for a couple of weeks. Plenty of time available if you’d like to do it.”
Actually, she did. “Okay,” she said. “I’m supposed to talk to the Germane Society the day after tomorrow. Wednesday. And I’ve got a fund-raiser at Sky Harbor next Saturday.”
“What’s next Saturday?”
“The Star Queen christening. Maybe this weekend would be a good time.”
“I don’t think I want to ask you what the Germane Society is.”
“They are relevant.”
Solly grinned. “Is it a luncheon?”
“Yes.”
“Why wait till the weekend? Eagle Point’s a tourist spot. Cheaper to hit it now. Why don’t we leave Wednesday afternoon? After the Relevant Society—?”
“—Germane—”
“Whatever.”
“You sound terribly interested all of a sudden.”
“A night in the Severin Valley with a beautiful woman? Why wouldn’t I be interested?”
Her relationship with Solly was purely platonic. He’d been married when they first met, so they became friends before they could have become lovers. She’d liked him from the first. When Solly became eligible after he and his wife had failed to renew the marriage, she had considered signaling a romantic interest. But he’d seemed reluctant. Best way he knew of, he said, to put a rift between them. She’d wondered whether there was a secret agenda somewhere, perhaps another woman. Or whether he meant what he said. Eventually the arrangement came to seem quite natural.
“I used the VR this morning,” she said, “after I got off the circuit with Sheyel.” She pulled the converter on over her shoulders and connected it. “I spent an hour looking at the Severin woods. They’re just woods.”
“It’s not quite the same as being there,” said Solly.
A wave passed under the boat and set it rocking. He dipped his mask in the water and put it on. “What about Kane? What happened to him?”