She cannot have much money and may well be staying for a few days with some chance acquaintance.

  Am I insane? Deluded?

  Tomorrow she may be gone. One dash three one four—

  Should I call?

  Perhaps I may be a man of courage after all, a man who has never truly understood his own character.

  Will I call her? Do I dare?

  To the Seventh

  God and the Devil were playing chess. Which was which depended on which side you were on; Mack Chance was on God’s, and God’s name was E-One.

  Across an eternity of frigid nothingness and dark matter, the Devil said, “Honesty, decency, and a genuine respect for the value of human life alike compel me to tell you that you will lose. As of the present move, I have extended my investigation of operational permutations to one hundred sixty-five thousand. May I ask your own?”

  “Oh, fifteen or twenty thousand.” God chuckled. “But to tell you the truth I seldom do it. There’s only so much time, and it rarely turns up anything of value. I’d say I played by the seat of my pants, if I wore pants.”

  “Your method has achieved very little.”

  God considered. “Doesn’t that depend on the measure of achievement?”

  “You have suffered heavy casualties and lost a great deal of territory.”

  “True.” There was a note of sadness in God’s voice.

  “All while I was examining a mere hundred thousand.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t do better,” God told him.

  · · · ·

  A visual simulation of General Hart appeared in Mack’s screen. “Captain Chance!” (So it would be filtered to us.)

  “Yes, sir!” Chance saluted.

  Hart’s simulation returned the salute. “You are about to get a transmission from E-One.”

  Hart’s simulation said nothing more, so when ten seconds or so had passed Mack inquired, “Do you know who will be conveying E-One’s instructions to me, sir?”

  “E-One will talk to you directly, Captain. That’s what I’ve been given to understand.”

  This was serious even if it wasn’t true. Mack, who wanted to frown, smiled. “I’ll stand by, sir.”

  “Have you ever talked to E-One directly before, Mack?”

  It was extraordinary cordiality, and Mack felt a sinking sensation; generals with gold galaxies on their shoulder boards condescended largely to those captains who—in the generals’ opinion—were slated to die soon and messily. “No, sir,” Mack said. “Never.”

  “I didn’t think so, and thought you might welcome a little briefing in advance.”

  “I certainly would, sir.”

  “You don’t have to stand on ceremony with E-One, and you don’t need to look out for trickery. No traps.”

  That sounded more frightening still. “Of course not, sir,” Mack said. He stole a glance at his digitals as he spoke, but everything looked perfectly normal.

  “It’s hard for E-One to express itself to us, however. Its thoughts are a great deal deeper than ours, Mack. Bottomless, in fact.”

  “I understand, sir.” This was definitely a simulation, Mack decided, and wondered briefly who was putting it out.

  “So if you don’t follow everything it’s saying, don’t be shy about asking for explanations. I don’t know what it intends to ask of you.”

  (Mack’s built-in defibberator buzzed.)

  “But whatever it is, it will be of utmost importance that you know just what you are to do and why you’re to do it.”

  “As far as I’m capable of knowing, sir.”

  “Exactly. It will probably ask you to volunteer, Mack. It usually does.”

  “I will, sir.”

  The glimmer of a smile crossed the simulation’s frosty countenance. “Sight unseen, Mack?”

  “Sight unseen is easier, sir.”

  · · · ·

  “Rook to rook’s four,” the Devil declared in a voice of steel.

  God nodded thoughtfully. “Pawn to king’s—what do you call the horses?”

  · · · ·

  It had been (mentally, Mack glanced at his implant) an hour and sixteen minutes. Seconds flitted by: twenty-three, twenty-four… Still no E-One.

  He had filled the time by checking everything that could be checked. Charge was a little over the top, and thus slightly dangerous. Both fuel tanks were nearly full, and there was food and water for almost a year. Every tube was loaded and every missile ready to arm. He was checking circuits now, well aware that there would be nothing wrong with any of them. The main-battery laser that was his little ship’s principal weapon would be next. After that—

  “Captain Chance?”

  He looked around. The screen was blank.

  “It is I. I can give myself a human face if you like. An old man with a beard.”

  “No thank you, E-One.”

  “Some people like it. A talking sun? A cloud? The fat man with an elephant’s head?”

  Mack shook his own; presumably E-One could see him, in whatever way it was E-One saw things. “No, thank you. I’m comfortable like this, E-One, if you are.”

  “Good.” E-One smiled, and for a badly confused moment Mack wondered how he knew that E-One was smiling. “Captain Chance, I need you for an extraordinary mission, the most extraordinary in history.”

  “I’ll go, E-One.”

  “That,” the smiled broadened, “is not customary, Captain Chance. Custom demands that I first seek to persuade you, then force you. That I indulge in polite blackmail, to be frank.”

  “If I don’t go,” Mack said, choosing his words, “for the rest of my life I’ll know that when you wanted something from me, something real and necessary—”

  “Your patrols are real and necessary,” E-One said without interrupting him.

  “I refused. That’s blackmail enough, E-One. I’ll do it, whatever it is, or die trying.”

  “Do you believe in miracles, Captain Chance?”

  “Yes.”

  “You answered without reflection. This time I want you to reflect, Captain Chance. Do you believe in miracles?”

  Mack reflected, tussling with successive layers deceptively labeled “soul,” “core,” and “innermost being”—tearing each to bits and throwing each aside, only to find that it kept creeping back. At length he said, “Where you’re concerned, yes, sir. I do, sir. I mean—”

  General Hart’s simulation reoccupied the screen. “You’re more comfortable with a human face,” E-One as Hart told him.

  Mack shook his head. “Not really.” He took a deep breath. “I wish you wouldn’t do that, E-One.”

  Hart faded. “Your ship is capable of jumps of five hundred thousand light-years, Captain Chance. Since you carry fuel for one recharging, half a million light-years defines the sphere of no return. For convenience we may call it a hundred and fifty thousand parsecs. Larger ships are capable of more, but larger ships are both more easily detected and less easily spared.”

  Mack nodded. “I take it that this is outside my sphere, E-One. I won’t be able to get back.”

  “Correct. The distance is nine hundred thousand parsecs. You will require six jumps to reach it.”

  “Then I can’t. I can’t even get close.”

  “In the heart of our enemy’s territory is a world that he once occupied. It is ruled by entities that are neither hostile nor friendly to him. If they were hostile, he would have been destroyed long ago. If they were friendly, we would have been similarly destroyed. You and I would not be talking as we are, because neither of us would exist.”

  Mack was seized by the optimism with which a small number of very fortunate men confront death. “You have some way of getting us there—the Prawn and me. You think they can be turned against the enemy.”

  “I know that they cannot be turned against him, and that there is no way for you to reach them save by your own efforts. Will you go? I warn you that I will not ask again. This is your final opportunity to turn back, the edge of your sphere.”

  While Mack was thinking it over someone else said, “Yes.” That, at least, was the way that it seemed.

  · · · ·

  Hyperspace jumps were, as Mack admitted to himself, no fun at all. He tapped the key. They were also dangerous as…

  He and his ship existed here as a totality. He was the man who had spoken with E-One and the infant in the womb, the boy who had rejoiced at his appointment to the Academy and the man whose life was over and done with. His ship, too, was ores and organic matter, itself complete, itself half built, newly built, and scarcely begun. Outside its sides that were not sides the universe was a point of matter vastly heavy, and a vastness beyond the reach of mathematics in which matter was so rare that it could be truthfully said not to exist.

  And all between.

  · · · ·

  Five hundred thousand light-years away, he and it snapped into existence “again.”

  Mack nodded to himself and tapped in “Recharge.” Behind him, the drive’s reactor hummed below the threshold of hearing.

  An admiral filled the ship’s screen. “You’ve got an onboard processor problem, Captain.”

  Mack saluted. “I don’t think so, sir.”

  “We’ve notified yours, of course. It should be running a self-exam.”

  As the admiral spoke, data flashed across his medals, and Mack, seeing it, said, “I don’t think so, sir.”

  “We got your destination.”

  That was routine; Mack nodded.

  The admiral drew breath, “It’s outside your range. Hell, it’s outside mine.”

  Mack nodded again, and found a strange, slightly bitter pleasure in watching the admiral’s expression change and change again.

  “That’s actually where you’re bound? Going to try to go? We received special orders about you. That’s why I contacted you in person when your destination was reported to me. We’re to refuel you and supply anything else you may need. Did you know that?”

  “E-One told me the orders were going out, sir. I couldn’t be sure they were received, naturally.”

  “E-One told you?”

  “Yes, sir. E-One had ordered they be sent before we spoke, it said. It apologized for that, but said it wanted to make every effort to see that they got there before we did, and we left right away. After E-One and I were through talking, I mean, sir.”

  The admiral nodded, his expression still showing traces of shock. “A tender is on its way to refuel you, Captain. It also carries water and rations, if you need them.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Is there anything else you need?”

  Mack started to say, “No, sir,” and stopped himself. “Yes, sir. Information. E-One told me a little, but your data may be more current. You can supply a human perspective too.”

  The admiral cleared his throat. “I’m to cooperate with you in every way, Captain, and I want to. But there are certain matters that cannot be discussed over a scannable link. You realize it, I feel quite certain.”

  “Yes, sir. The things I want to know are mostly things the enemy knows already.” Mack laid a radar trace over the admiral, and nodded appreciatively at a blip that was presumably the tender. “You’ve got a ten DS battle-cruiser task force, executing combined operations with Admiral Fischer’s? E-One says it likes to attack up the middle of the board with his knights.”

  Momentarily, the admiral’s face went blank. “He—it said that, Captain?”

  “Yes, sir. E-One was trying to couch its explanation in terms I would understand, I feel sure, sir.”

  “You could put it like that, I guess.” The admiral’s hand, longer and thicker than Mack would have supposed, appeared on screen as it rose to stroke his chin. “That might actually be a good way to put it. Certain to be, if that was the metaphor E-One used. We’ve been giving the enemy fits. No doubt about it.”

  “Yes, sir. That leads to my first serious question, sir. You can estimate pretty easily where my next jump’s going to land me. What do you think the chances are that I’ll find myself in the middle of an enemy force?”

  “A substantial one?” The admiral shook his head. “Zero. You might encounter a patrol, though I doubt it. A gunship and a couple of chasers, something like that.”

  “That would be more than enough.” Mack spoke mostly to himself.

  “I suppose so. Hasn’t E-One supplied you with special armament?”

  “No, sir,” Mack said.

  The admiral’s expression showed plainly that he did not believe him. “Captain, if you can release the information, what are you going to do two jumps from now? It’s going to take five to get where you’re going. Five anyway, and maybe more. You’re recharging now, I take it, and my tender will refuel you. But when that fuel’s gone and you’ve got no charge left, how are you supposed to get there?”

  “Find some,” Mack told him.

  · · · ·

  God muttered, “Pawn to the king’s knight’s four.”

  · · · ·

  Approximately five hundred thousand light-years into enemy territory, Mack and Mack’s ship materialized in an instant. The radar showed nothing, and he sighed. He had diverted his course by a trifling amount and ended his jump some four light-years from the place where he was supposed to be. If the enemy had picked up his conversation with the admiral (as seemed likely) and if the enemy could break the almost uncrackable algorithm used to encrypt such transmissions (as E-One had been quite sure the enemy could), patrols would be converging at this moment on the place where he was not.

  As he began the recharge that would exhaust his fuel, his ship informed him that it would occupy an estimated two hours, twenty-one minutes, and forty-seven seconds—probable within one half of one percent. His next jump, like all such jumps, would take no time at all. And infinity.

  · · · ·

  “Pawn to the king’s knight’s five.”

  The Devil’s voice held a contempt as vast as the cosmos. “You are trying to queen that pawn. It won’t work.”

  God shrugged. “Perhaps not. Your move, I believe?”

  · · · ·

  Two blips, moving so fast that their present positions would be well in advance of those shown on radar. The ship calculated them and added without being asked that they were presumed enemy.

  It was barely possible, however, that the admiral had sent them. A larger ship, carrying more fuel, might accompany and refuel him for another jump or two, depending on size. E-One had told Mack that nothing of the kind would be done, but it was possible—barely possible—that the admiral had acted on his own, essentially sacrificing one of his ships.

  Mack tapped in an order, and battle harness deployed around him. Two taps more brought full acceleration; he struggled not to black out as he activated the simulator.

  On his screen, the blips became DS long-range pursuits, the ship’s best guess as to their type. Lasers that were visible red streaks lanced from their turrets, and the air crackled with what some anointed expert had felt might do for the sound of a near miss. Mack killed the audio.

  “Enemy initiates engagement,” the ship told Mack. “Fire response?”

  “Negative.” (It required a single keystroke.)

  “Near miss. Ten thousand K.”

  That needed no reply and Mack gave none.

  “Survivability eighteen percent.”

  Had it not been for the crushing acceleration, Mack would have nodded.

  “Request reactivate sound simulation.”

  “N”

  “Request…”

  Mack had blacked out.

  · · · ·

  When he resumed consciousness, an enemy officer’s face occupied his screen. He blinked.

  “You were thought deprived,” the enemy officer said with the aid of a language filter. “Thought deprived you could not know the no hopefulness nature of your position here. I tell you that if you do not slow we shall roast you to pieces.”

  Mack tapped his keyboard; his ship’s acceleration fell to nothing.

  “That is preferred by me,” the enemy officer said. “You are our prisoner. You must soon open your airlock to the from my own boarders or perish.”

  “I’m a defector,” Mack told him, wondering just what was being heard at the enemy officer’s end. “I have information for your high command.”

  “You must open your airlock,” the enemy officer repeated, and vanished.

  Mach shrugged and tapped in “Local.”

  Both enemy DS long-range pursuits were within a kilometer of his little ship, slender, darkly shining cylinders designed to present the smallest possible frontal area to the missiles of the pursued and warted here and there with laser turrets. As he watched, an inky mole appeared on the side of one, from which two space-suited figures emerged. Presumably one would stay to pilot his little ship; the other would escort him back to the DS long-range pursuit.

  A moment later the second DS long-range pursuit fired its nuclears and pulled away (making about one and a quarter Gs, according to his screen), then vanished as it jumped.

  He retracted his battle harness, got up, and released the airlock bolts.

  · · · ·

  The first boarder was a woman, short-haired and without makeup. She waved him aside, took his place in the pilot’s seat, and stabbed at his keyboard as if she hated it.

  The second, a man, presumably had a language filter. “I speak as you do, somewhat,” he said, “but not so well that we can do without this. Do you see that which I say?”

  Mack nodded.

  “Already your suit you have on and this is very good. You say you have the information precious? Get it and we go.”

  “It’s in my mind,” Mack told him. “There are no books or disks.” His ship began a slow roll, end over end.

  “The software of you we must have, and such disks as you have all. Get these.”

  Mack nodded again. An alarm shrilled, and he looked around at his screen anxiously.

  “She is seeing to this,” the man told him. “You get for us all disks and records. Soon she will learn your system.” The roll stopped abruptly, then reversed. Toward the back of the ship, a second alarm sounded, a howling siren. Angry red lights blinked on either side of the screen.