They were in their pressure suits, getting a look at the damage to the station. Gerald and Marcia walking hand-in-hand even in their suits, Larry and Sianna walking a step or two behind.
Up in the sky, on the leading limb of the Shattered Sphere, a huge new crater sat at the center of a massive scorch mark. There was already talk of launching an expedition to the Shattered Sphere, getting a look at a dead one before having much more to do with a live one.
“Well, the Charonians didn’t much care for parasites,” Gerald MacDougal said, pointing to Adversary Crater, as it had already been named. “I wonder how they’ll feel about symbiotes.”
“That’s a strange way to look at it,” Sianna said.
“How so?” Gerald asked. He stopped and turned toward her, his broad smile plainly visible behind his visor. “We saved the Multisystem Sphere, didn’t we? We kept it alive.”
“Yes, but not because we wanted to,” Sianna protested. “Because we wanted to save ourselves and our planet.”
“That’s what all good symbiotes do,” Larry said with a smile. “Take care of their hosts to take care of themselves.”
“I suppose,” Sianna said, her tone a bit doubtful. “I don’t much like thinking of the human race in quite that way.” She turned around to look at Solitude Ring, hanging off in the middle distance. It had taken a bit of damage from the Adversary blast. Prize crews from the Terra Nova were already seeing about getting it up and running again. They expected to have working wormhole links to the Ring of Charon in the Solar System, and to the Moonpoint Ring in the Multisystem, within another week or two. They wouldn’t be stranded here for long. A lot of people were going to be on their way back. There were going to be quite a few reunions.
Gerald and Marcia had walked on ahead, leaving Sianna and Larry alone. Sianna was glad enough to give them some privacy—but also glad that she and Larry had a little of their own. She didn’t know him at all, but she wanted to. Not to conquer her schoolgirl fears of him, either. She wasn’t a girl anymore. Not after the last few weeks. She couldn’t have survived them without doing some very fast growing up.
But she could see a lot of herself in Larry. Both of them had been forced to deal with fear and loneliness. Both of them wondered about the Universe. And neither of them was ever going to fit in very well. “You know,” she said. “We have a lot in common, you and I.”
“Really? I don’t think anyone would like to think of themselves as being like me,” he said.
“I don’t mind.”
“Thanks very much,” Larry said. “But seriously, I like talking to you, too. You’re the first person in a long time who didn’t treat me like a sideshow freak, or come to me just because you needed something. It’s nice.”
“So,” she said, turning to him, “what happens now?”
“What do you mean?” Larry asked, moving back a step or two.
Sianna reddened. That was not what she’d meant. “I mean, what happens with the Earth?”
“Huh?”
“Wally says he’s doubled what we knew about Charonian command codes since we got here. He says he should be able to rig as many ships as we like with beacons that will tell the COREs and SCOREs to leave them alone. And we know a hell of a lot more about running wormholes than we did. Pretty soon we’ll know how to make them sit up and beg.”
Larry shrugged, exaggerating the gesture because of the pressure suit. “I suppose that’s true,” he said. “So?”
“So tell me, what do we do about Earth?” Sianna asked. “I came to you because you’re the expert on moving planets.”
Larry looked at her, hurt and startled. Then he realized she was teasing him, and relaxed. “I don’t know about expert,” he said, “but what did you have in mind?”
“Well, do we leave Earth where it is, or take it back home? If we can get to the other worlds in the Multisystem, really get out there and explore those worlds, maybe colonize them, there’s a lot to be said for leaving Earth right where it is. Or do we take it back home to the Solar System, just for sentimental reasons?”
Larry seemed surprised by the question. He gave her a funny look, as if he weren’t sure whether she was serious or not. At last he burst out laughing, a long and joyous sound that sounded good to Sianna. “I don’t have an answer for you,” he said. “But if that’s our most serious problem, I’d say we were in very good shape indeed.”
Wally Sturgis could not resist. Simulations were all very well, but here he was on the actual control panel, running the system that operated a planet-sized mind—and he had used it to destroy a real-life menace. It would be hard to go back to imaginary worlds after that!
Besides, there was so much he could do here. There was still lots of functioning hardware, and lots more that it ought to be possible to fire up. Lots of ways to get the network reconnected. And they were learning more and more Charonian command code all the time. Which brought Wally back to the idea that he could not resist.
It was obvious that the Multisystem had retained some sort of link with the Shattered Sphere system, if only through the sensors that had allowed it to monitor the movements of the Adversary. It hadn’t taken Wally long to find those sensors—or find a way to subvert them.
A carefully crafted message, in carefully written code, ought to do the trick. It would almost be a post-hypnotic suggestion—unless you wanted to think of it as a computer virus. All it had to do was plant the idea in the Sphere’s head. Except of course the Sphere didn’t have a head. Never mind. The important thing was that the Sphere would not even know that it had received an instruction. Let the thing think it was its own idea.
Wally worked long hours before he had the code just right, was absolutely certain it would work—and even then he hesitated. He really ought to check with someone first, get someone’s permission. But no, that would spoil the fun of the thing.
He set up the link, calibrated his equipment, and sent the execute command.
He couldn’t resist.
The Mind of the Sphere did not understand what had happened. Clearly it all had something to do with the last world it had captured, the one that had come to it unexpectedly. Somehow it, or some unnoticed, insignificant creatures on it, seemed to have fended off the attack that the advent of their world had caused. Very strange. Very strange indeed. The Mind decided to pay more attention to that world in future. But for the present, the danger was past. It could withdraw its Special Guardians and rebuild them to suit other purposes. It sent out the word. All across the Multisystem and the Portal, the Special Guardians began their long journeys home.
Thinking on it further, it occurred to the Sphere that the new planet had managed to kill at least one regular Guardian—and it might not be wise to trifle with a world that could defeat the Adversary. And why waste precious Guardians to protect a planet that was perfectly capable of taking care of itself? Surely a world that could protect itself against the Adversary would have no trouble defending against incoming skyjunk. Almost by way of experiment, the Sphere decided to withdraw its regular Guardians from the new planet. It could always return them later, if need be.