"That's why it's coming apart," said Hutch.
"Yes, I would say so. Despite appearances, it's apparently pretty tightly wrapped, considering what it's able to do. But this maneuver is a bit much even for the mechanism that holds it together."
Carson asked the question that might have been on everyone's mind: "Is it a natural object?"
"Of course it is," said Angela. But she was speaking from common sense, not from knowledge.
"How can it change directions?" asked Hutch. "And what sort of braking mechanism could it have?"
"Maybe there's something out there exerting force on it," Angela said. "A superdense object, possibly."
"You think that's what's happening?" asked Carson. He had thrown off his jacket, and was making for the coffee pot.
"No." There would have been other effects, advance indications, orbital irregularities. There was none of that. "No," she said. "I have no explanation. But that doesn't mean we need to bring in malevolent agencies."
"Who said malevolent?" asked Hutch.
They exchanged looks, and Angela let the question hang. "It's reacting to something. Has to be. Magnetic fields, maybe. Maybe there's been a solar burp of some kind. Hard to tell, sitting down here." She shrugged. "We'll just have to wait and see."
"Angela," said Hutch, "Is this thing like a cloud? Chemically?"
"Yes," she said. "It's constructed of the same kind of stuff as the big clouds that stars condense from: particles of iron, carbon, silicates. Hydrogen. Formaldehyde. And there's probably a large chunk of iron or rock inside."
Hutch tasted her coffee. It was spiced with cinnamon. "There were concentrations of formaldehyde," she said, "in the soil around Oz."
"I didn't know that," said Angela. "Is that true?"
"Yes, it is."
She looked out at the sun, which was still high in the southwest. It was only marginally closer to the horizon than it had been when they arrived.
"So how does it brake?" asked Hutch again.
Angela thought about it. "One way would be what we've seen: to hurl material outward. Like a rocket. Another way would be to manipulate gravity fields."
"Is that possible?" asked Carson.
"Not for us. But if anti-gravity is possible, and the evidence suggests it is, then yes, it could be done." Angela fell silent for a few moments. "Listen: let's cut to reality here. Just the existence of this thing implies wholesale manipulation of gravity, of tidal forces, and of damned near every other kind of force I can think of. It's almost as if the thing exists in a dimensional vacuum, where nothing from the outside touches it."
"Almost?"
"Yes. Almost. Look: there are ftvo clouds. Let's assume both were traveling at the same velocity when they entered the planetary system. They should have broken up, but they didn't. The one on the far side of the sun is moving more slowly than this one. That's as it should be, because it's contending with solar drag, while our baby here is getting pulled along as it moves toward the sun. So there is some effect. But don't ask me to explain it."
Angela drifted out of the conversation while she watched the object, and the readouts. The cometary tail, which (in obedience to physical law) was leading the object, had become harder to see as the head turned toward them. Now its last vestiges virtually disappeared into the red cloudscape. After a while she turned back to them. "It's coming here," she said.
They watched the image. Watched for the tail to appear on the other side. It did not.
Their eyes touched. "Target angle stable," she added.
Hutch paled. "When?"
Carson said, "This can't be happening. We're being chased by a cloud?"
"If it continues to decelerate at its present rate, I would say Monday. About 0100."
"We'd better let Terry know," said Carson. "Get them back here and pick us up."
Hutch shook her head. "I don't think so. They're moving away from us at a pretty good clip. My guess is that it will be noon Sunday before they can even get turned around."
Bedtime. Angela noticed Hutch in front of a display, her expression wistful, perhaps melancholy. She sat down with her. "We'll do fine," she said. "It can't really be after us."
"I know," said Hutch. "It's an illusion."
The screen was filled with poetry.
"What is it?" Angela asked.
"Maggie's notebooks." Her eyes met Angela's, but looked quickly away. "I think there was a lot about the woman that I missed."
Angela's gaze intensified, but she didn't speak.
Hutch brought up a file. "This is from Urik at Sunset."
It was a group of prayers and songs celebrating the deeds of the Quraquat hero. Epic in tone, they retained a highly personal flavor. "Urik was to be experienced up close," Maggie commented in the accompanying notes, "and not from a distance in the manner of terrestrial heroes."
She went on: "Show me what a people admire, and I will tell you everything about them that matters."
And, finally, a prayer that seemed particularly pertinent:
My spirit glides above the waters of the world, Because you are with me.
They looked east across the sky. It will come from that direction. Over there. It would come in over the coffee-colored sea. If the sun would set, which of course it won't for several more days, they'd be able to see it now. "It'll probably become visible during the next twelve hours," Angela said.
What was the old line from the Rubaiyatl
But who was now the potter?
And who the pot?
The snowfields were broad and serene.
Delta. Friday, May 20; 0900 hours.
Hutch was not happy. "What are our options?" she asked.
"How about clearing out now?" suggested Carson. "Get in the shuttle and go. Get away from Delta altogether."
Angela considered it. "I don't think the odds would be good. The shuttle was designed for ship-to-ship operations. It was never intended for use in gravity wells. It doesn't have much power. We can't really get clear, and I don't think we want to play tag with that monster. No. Listen, it's moving pretty slowly now. I suggest we stay where we are. Go around the other side of the world and hide."
"I agree," said Hutch. She depolarized the viewing panels, letting the red daylight in. "We know there were survivors on Quraqua and Nok: these things don't kill everybody. Let's just dig in."
"Listen," said Carson, "is it really going to score a direct hit on usT'
"Yes," Angela said. "I don't think there's any doubt about it. It'll come in about thirty degrees off the horizon, and it'll land right in our coffee. Incidentally, its timing is perfect. If it were a little earlier, or a little later, it wouldn't have a clear shot at us. At the mesas, I mean."
Carson's stomach tightened. Its timing is perfect. "Okay," he said. "Let's make for the other side. Let the moon absorb the impact. After that happens, we clear out. If we can." His face was grim. "So now we know about Oz. It was intended to draw the goddam thing. I can't believe it. The sons of bitches deliberately arranged to bomb the civilizations on Nok and Quraqua. They must have been psychos."
"Let's talk about it later," said Angela. "We've got things to do."
"Right," said Carson. "Let's start by rearranging the cameras to get the best record we can."
"There is something else we could try," said Hutch. "Maybe our blocks worked better than we expected. We could blow them up. Pull the bait out of the water."
Angela shook her head. "I don't think it would matter now. It's late. That thing is coming for dinner no matter what we do."
The outermost moon in the system orbited the gas giant at a range of eighteen million kilometers. It was little more than a barrel-shaped rock, with barely the surface area of Washington, D.C. It was a fairly typical boulder, battered and ill-used. An observer in that moon's northern hemisphere would, during these hours, have been looking at a fearsome sky, a blood-red sky, filled by a vast fiery river. The river knew no banks and no limits: it drove the stars before it, and even the sun was lost in the brilliance of its passage.