The belligerent nationalism of the Zede subsystem and the personal ambition of a charismatic leader had led to the destruction of worlds. In the long run, the loss of planets possessed of sweet water and clean air was the tragedy of war that was remembered. It was impossible for the mind to conceive of the instant death of hundreds of millions of people. But a life zone planet was the galaxy's most precious commodity. Considering man's history, his own talent for destruction, his knowledge that at times the universe shivered and blood flowed because of man's nature, he was quite ready to accept, even embrace, an unseen, frightening, almost omnipotent enemy—the alien. The Planet Killers. There were thinkers who said, but usually in still, small voices, that the Planet Killers had done more to advance science and technology than any other single factor, for even the most humane of local politicians knew the best way to unify a community was to present it with a challenge from the outside world. Therefore, the best way to unify a people, and to cause them to make sacrifices and the most prodigious efforts, was to supply them with a common enemy. The several hundred worlds of the United Planets sector had their boogeyman. The Planet Killers. Thus, when the captain of the Rimfire departed station and blinked parsecs away from the zone she was supposed to be charting, she got away with it because the admirals on Xanthos were as aware of the common but unseen enemy as anyone. They couldn't believe that the Planet Killers were there, just next door in a manner of speaking to the Dead Worlds, but Captain Roberts' cryptic message had hinted that she had knowledge that she did not want to transmit even by coded stat. For the time being, the admirals would assume that Roberts had good reason for altering her orders. The chilling coincidence that Captain Roberts was taking Rimfire into the sac of the Dead Worlds wrinkled many a brow back on Xanthos and caused the Chief of Staff to put the fleet on medium grade alert. As Rimfire blinked past the sac and to the end of the established blink routes, she was X&A in action. She went armed. Her crew was alert, and ready, and, perhaps, just a little bit nervous, for Julie Roberts told them while the ship lay charging in the sac: «Tomorrow we will leave the blink routes and venture once again into the unknown. I have heard your questions as to why we are here in this part of the galaxy. I have been made familiar with a few of your speculations. Most of them are wrong. «We are not here to make a new study of the Dead Worlds. This must be obvious to you since we have blinked past the sac. «I have always believed in being as honest as possible with you. Therefore, I am going to tell you that we are here because an alarm has been raised by a former officer of the Service.» She read Erin Kenner's blinkstat. «If there are those among you who are too new to the Rimfire to be familiar with the acronym used by Lieutenant Kenner, I will explain.» Poised on the dividing line between the explored and the unknown, Rimfire was the largest spaceship ever built. She represented the highest achievement of United Planets man. She carried in her crew scientists and experts in all fields. Her weapons were state of the art. She carried more firepower, up to and including planet busters, than the entire Zede fleet that, a thousand years in the past, had threatened the stability of the populated areas of the galaxy. She represented the power of the race of man at his most potent, and she tiptoed into the uncharted core zone, sending out impulses ahead of her, not trusting the temporary blink beacons laid down by the Mother Lode, checking out each jump in advance. Her weapons systems were on standby. Her crew was in condition yellow, just short of battle stations, for space was wide and dark, and there were millions of stars and planetary systems that had not yet been explored, and Erin Kenner had said «F.R.A.N.K.» There were those who thought that calling all aliens F.R.A.N.K. was a little bit too precious, even before one spelled out the words indicated by the initials. But as Rimfire blinked her slow and cautious way deeper into the core, F.R.A.N.K. ceased to be cutesy and quaint and came to mean just one thing. «There are strangers here. Beware. « The big ship had to charge again. She lay amid the gleam of the core near a tandem system of suns that revolved around each other. Her instruments searched out the dimensions of the relatively uncrowded area around the twin suns and found that one of the stars had a planetary family. There were two parched and barren small planets near the sun that had spawned planets, a couple of gas giants, and… «The captain's presence is requested in the observatory,» Ursy Wade said into the communicator. Julie Roberts was inspecting the weapons control room when the call came. She said, «Carry on,» and marched to the observatory. Ursy Wade was bending over the shoulder of the technician who was operating the ship's optics. She straightened, nodded, motioned the captain to take her place. Julie looked down over the operator's shoulder to the large screen. One of the most beautiful sights in the universe, at least to a being who is composed of flesh and blood and has a large percentage of water in his makeup, is a water planet, a planet in the life zone of a star, a living world that gleams blue from space, blue because of her oceans, blue because of an abundance of that precious substance that is necessary to all life as man knows it. Water. «Ummmmm huh,» Julie said, for there on the screen swam a blue planet with green and brown land areas and fleecy areas of clouds and polar icecaps. «Oh, yes,» she whispered, and then, «Scan results?» «Negative on all, Cap'n,» the tech said. «Negative on electromagnetic radiations. Negative on life signals.» «Distance?» «Point-nine b.m.» Julie nodded. Rimfire was almost one billion miles from the pretty, blue planet. It would take some damned sophisticated equipment to detect her at that distance. «Keep on it,» she said. She motioned to Ursy and they left the observatory together. On the bridge Julie slumped into the captain's chair, chin in hand. Ursy brought up the blue planet on the bridge screens. «Get me communications,» Julie said. And when the signal was answered, «Service, emergency, and hailing frequencies. Send just this: Erin. Respond. Send it five times, thirty seconds apart.» She put her feet up on the console. Worn places in the service gray paint showed that she was not the only one who assumed that relaxed position while on watch. «Keep checking with the observatory,» she told Ursy. «Take her in on flux, slow, and keep all eyes on the planet.» «Aye, aye,» Ursy said, punching cruise orders into the computer. Minutes later communications said, «No answer, Captain.» «Thank you,» Julie said. «I really expected her to answer,» Ursy said. Julie Roberts felt a tickling, crawling feeling on the back of her neck. «I wonder why Erin didn't wait for us on Haven,» Ursy said. «Do you suppose she's down there somewhere on the planet?» «You tell me,» Julie said. «What I'm wondering is why she'd fool around mining a few million dollars worth of gold when the prize money for finding a life zone planet would make her one of the richest women in the U.P.» «I hadn't thought of that,» Ursy said. Julie pushed the communicator with her toe. «Observatory.» «Aye, Captain.» «Scan results?» «Still negative on everything.» «Combustion products?» «Not quite near enough yet for that, Cap'n.» «Let me know,» Julie said. So far there was no sign of life on the planet. There were no electromagnetic waves such as those created by the broadcast of sound, image, or power. There were no life signals such as would emanate from large groupings of biological life. If there was only scattered and nontechnologically advanced life on the planet, the ship's instruments would pick up combustion's products when she was near enough. Smoke from fossil fuel would be significant and would cause her to go into a program of approach that had been used only once before, when an X&A ship had rediscovered Old Earth and moved very, very carefully toward contact with what was thought to be an alien people. Widely scattered, small sources of wood smoke could mean a less advanced people. There was nothing to do but wait. «I'll be in my quarters, Ursy. I am available.» «Yes, ma'am.» No one had mentioned it as yet, at least not on the bridge, but Ursy was smiling because she knew that the whole crew stood to gain from the discovery of a water world. Since exploration was their job, the Service people wouldn't receive the rights and payments that went to a civilian who found a good world, but there'd be a small monetary bonus and, best of all, liberty time added to that which had accrued. Ursy's favorite place to spend liberty was on her home planet, Tigian III, where the waters of the lake on which her parents lived were virgin pure and teeming with the meanest and best tasting fish on any U.P. world. Finding a water world would mean an extra month there when Rimfire went back to Xanthos for routine servicing. CHAPTER NINETEEN As the work aboard the Mother Lode continued, Erin and Denton were locked into an exhausting routine. They were part of the Amplifier. They were only given time to sleep a few hours. In order to eat they had to snatch a bite on the run. A sense of urgency emanated from the two beautiful, winged entities as the titanic force of their will combined with the power from the generator and was funneled through the Amplifier to send the tumbling asteroids of the belt crashing into one growing mass. Time was meaningless. Erin saw the chronometer as she passed through the bridge, but hours, days, weeks, all were the same. While there was charge in Mother's generator she worked, and while she was working the control was tight, causing her to function mechanically, making independent thought difficult. While the generator was charging, both Erin and Dent fell into bed, spent. Talking required energy and the aliens were demanding more than the human body was equipped to give over a long period of time. Even thought was an effort, but after sleep, alone in Erin's quarters, dreading the next period of work, they could cling together and wonder. The winged beings were making a world. With the power of the stars and their own will they were reassembling the destroyed planet piece by piece. At first, swarming masses of asteroids had crashed together in roiling, splintering violence. Now, after a period of time, the accumulated mass was larger and the available material was thinning out. Even at accelerated speeds that were significant fractions of the speed of light it took time to move an asteroid along an orbital path that measured millions of miles in circumference. They were growing more and more intolerant. No longer were they oblivious to mere men. Even in the numbed state of helplessness that was existence under the control of the female alien, Erin began to sense that they were becoming more and more angry. Punishment in the form of mental pain that blacked out all existence for a period of time came for the smallest infraction, for looking up from the work, for an errant thought. Following one sleep period, while the generator was still charging and Erin and Dent were in the captain's cabin nervously awaiting the summons to return to the workroom, Dent said, «They are not divine.» Erin just shook her head, too weary to play the game of conjecture about them. «They're going to fail, Erin, and when they do they'll be mad as hell.» He put his hand on her shoulder and turned her to face him. «In a lot of ways they're ignorant, or naive. Or maybe what was done to them, having to spend only God knows how long imprisoned in rock, drove them just a bit insane. First of all, there's not enough material to form a planet of the same size as the original. When it was shattered, large chunks were