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The Ghost fluttered impassively while the beam from the Communication Laser shone right through it. Not far away, Jacob could hear Martine curse softly.

“Wrong, wrong, wrong!” she hissed. Her psi helmet and goggles made only her nose and chin visible. “There’s something but it’s not there. Dammit! What in hell’s the matter with this thing!”

Suddenly, the apparition swelled like a butterfly squashed flat against the outside of the ship, The features of its “face” smeared out into long narrow strips of ochre blackness. The arms and body spread until the creature was nothing but a ragged rectangular band of blue across ten degrees of the sky. Flecks of green began to form, here, and there, along its surface. They dodged about, mixed and coalesced, and then began to take on coherent form.

“Dear sweet God in heaven,” Donaldson murmured.

From somewhere nearby Fagin let out a whistling, shivering, diminished seventh. Culla began to chatter.

Across its length, the Solarian was covered with bright green letters, in the Roman alphabet. They spelled:

LEAVE NOW. DO NOT RETURN.

Jacob gripped the sides of his couch. Despite the sound effects of the E.T.’s, and the hoarse breathing of the humans, the silence was unbearable.

“Millie!” he tried as hard as he could not to shout. “Are you getting anything?”

Martine moaned.

“Yes… NO! I’m getting something, but it doesn’t make sense! It doesn’t correlate!”

“Well try sending a question! Ask if it’s receiving your psi!”

Martine nodded and pressed her hands against her face in concentration.

The letters immediately reformed overhead.

CONCENTRATE. SPEAK ALOUD FOR FOCUS.

Jacob was stunned. Deep inside he could feel his suppressed half shivering in horror. What he couldn’t solve terrified Mr. Hyde.

“Ask it why it’ll talk to us now and not before.” Martine repeated the question aloud, slowly.

THE POET. HE WILL SPEAK FOR US. HE IS HERE.

“No, no I can’t!” LaRoque cried. Jacob turned quickly and saw the little journalist, scrunched, terrified near the food machines.

HE WILL SPEAK FOR US.

The green letters glowed.

“Doctor Martine,” Helene deSilva called. “Ask the Solarian why we shouldn’t come back.”

After a pause, the letters shifted again. WE WANT PRIVACY. PLEASE LEAVE.

“And if we do come back? Then what?” Donaldson asked. Grimly, Martine repeated the question.

NOTHING. YOU WON’T SEE US. MAYBE OUR YOUNG, OUR CATTLE.

NOT US.

That explained the two types of Solarians, Jacob thought. The “normal” variety must be the young, given simple tasks such as shepherding the toroids. Where, then, did the adults live? What kind of culture did they have? How could creatures made of ionized plasma communicate with watery human beings? Jacob ached at the creature’s threat. If they wanted to, the adults could avoid a Sunship, or any conceivable fleet of Sunships, as easily as an eagle could a balloon. If they cut off contact now, humans could never force them to renew it.

“Pleashe,” Culla asked. “Ashk it if Bubbacub offended them.” The Pring’s eyes glowed hotly and the chattering continued, muffled, between each word he spoke.

BUBBACUB MEANS NOTHING. INSIGNIFICANT. JUST LEAVE.

The Solarian began to fade. The ragged rectangle grew smaller as it slowly backed away.

“Wait!” Jacob stood up. He stretched out one hand grabbing at nothing.

“Don’t cut us off! We’re your nearest neighbors! We only want to share with you! At least tell us who you are!”

The image was blurred with distance. A wisp of darker gas swept in and covered the Solarian, but not before they read one last message. With a crowd of “young” gathered around it, the adult repeated one of its earlier sentences.

THE POET SPEAKS FOR US.

PART VIII

In ancient days two aviators procured to themselves wings. Daedalus flew safely through the middle air and was duly honoured on his landing. Icarus soared upwards to the sun till the wax melted which bound his wings and his flight ended in fiasco…… The classical authorities tell us, of course, that he was only ‘doing a stunt’; but I prefer to think of him as the man who brought to light a serious constructional defect in the flying-machines of his day.

From Stars and Atoms, by Sir Arthur Eddington (Oxford University Press, 1927, p. 41)

23. AN EXCITED STATE

Pierre LaRoque sat with his back to the utility dome. He hugged his knees and stared vacantly at the deck. He wondered, miserably, if Millie would give him a shot to last him until the Sunship got out of the chromosphere.

Unfortunately, that wouldn’t be in keeping with his new role as a prophet. He shuddered. During his entire career he had never realized how much it meant to have only to comment, and not to have to shape events. The Solarian had given him a curse, not a blessing.

He wondered, dully, if the creature had chosen him in an ironic whim… as a joke: Or had it somehow planted words deep within him that would come out when he got back to Earth, shocking and embarrassing him.

Or am I just supposed to spout out my own opinions as I always have? He rocked slowly, miserably. To foist one’s ideas on others by dint of personality was one thing. To speak clothed in a prophet’s mantle was quite another.

The others had gathered near the command station to discuss the next step. He could hear them talking and wished they’d just go away. Without looking up, he could feel it when they turned and stared at him. LaRoque wished he were dead.

“I say we should bump him off,” Donaldson suggested. His burr was very pronounced, now. Jacob, listening nearby, wished the ethnic languages fad had never caught on. “There’ll be no end of the trouble that man’ll cause if he gets loose on Earth!,” the engineer finished.

Martine chewed on her lip for a moment. “No, that wouldn’t be wise. Better beam Earth for instructions when we get back to Hermes. The feds may decide to use up an emergency sequester allotment on him, but I don’t think anyone would get away with actually eliminating Peter.”

“I’m surprised you react that way to the chief’s suggestion,” Jacob said. “One would think you’d be aghast at the idea.”

Martine shrugged. “By now it must be clear to all of you that I represent a faction in the Confederacy Assembly. Peter is my friend, but if I felt it was my duty to Earth to put him out of the way, I’d do it myself.” She looked grim.

Jacob wasn’t as surprised as he might have been. If the chief engineer felt a need to put up a layer of flippancy, to get through the shock of the last hour, many of the others had dropped all pretense. Martine was willing to think about the unthinkable. Nearby, LaRoque didn’t pretend to be anything but scared as he rocked slowly, apparently oblivious to them all.

Donaldson raised his index finger.

“Did you notice that the Solarian didn’ say anything at all about the message beam? It passed right through im and he didn’t seem to care. Yet earlier, the other Ghost…”

“The juvenile.”

“… the juvenile, definitely reacted.”

Jacob scratched his earlobe. “There’s no end to mysteries. Why has the adult creature always avoided being in line with our rim instruments? Has it got something to hide? Why all the threatening gestures on all the previous dives, when he was capable of communicating ever since Dr. Marline brought her psi helmet aboard months ago?”