She heard van Rijn: “Well, we are not total-sure. Could be our finding is accidental; or maybe the planet is not like we suppose. We got to check on that, and hope the check don’t bounce back in our snoots.”

  “Nuclear engines are in operation around our quarry,” Hirharouk said. “Neutrinos show it. What else would they belong to save a working base and spacecraft?”

  Van Rijn clasped hands over rump and paced, slap-slap-slap over the bare deck. “What can we try and predict in advance? Forewarned is forearmed, they say, and the four arms I want right now is a knife, a blaster, a machine gun, and a rover missile, nothing fancy, maybe a megaton.”

  “The mass of the planet—” Hirharouk consulted a readout. The figure he gave corresponded approximately to Saturn.

  “No bigger?” asked van Rijn, surprised.

  “Originally, yes.” Coya heard herself say. The scientist in her was what spoke, while her heart threshed about like any animal netted by a stooping Ythrian. “A gas giant, barely substellar. The supernova blew most of that away—you can hardly say it boiled the gases off; we have no words for what happened—and nothing was left except a core of nickel-iron and heavier elements.”

  She halted, noticed Hirharouk’s yellow gaze intent on her, and realized the skipper must know rather little of the theory behind this venture. To him she had not been repeating banalities. And he was interested. If she could please him by explaining in simple terms, then maybe later—

  She addressed him: “Of course, when the pressure of the outer layers was removed, that core must have exploded into new allotropes, a convulsion which flung away the last atmosphere and maybe a lot of solid matter. Better keep a sharp lookout for meteoroids.”

  “That is automatic,” he assured her. “My wonder is why a planet should exist. I was taught that giant stars, able to become supernovae, do not have them.”

  “Well, they is still scratching their brains to account for Betelgeuse,” van Rijn remarked.

  “In this case,” Coya told the Ythrian, “the explanation comes easier. True, the extremely massive suns do not in general allow planetary systems to condense around them. The parameters aren’t right. However, you know giants can be partners in multiple star systems, and sometimes the difference between partners is quite large. So, after I was alerted to the idea that it might happen, and wrote a program which investigated the possibility in detail, I learned that, yes, under special conditions, a double can form in which one member is a large sun and one a superjovian planet. When I extrapolated backward things like the motion of dust and gas, changes in galactic magnetism, et cetera—it turned out that such a pair could exist in this neighborhood.”

  Her glance crossed the merchant’s craggy features. You found a clue in the appearance of the supermetals, she thought. David got the idea all by himself. The lean snubnosed face, the Vega-blue eyes came between her and the old man.

  Of course, David may not have been involved. This could be a coincidence. Please, God of my grandfather Whom I don’t believe in, please make it a coincidence. Make those ships ahead of us belong not to harmless miners but to the great and terrible Elder Race.

  She knew the prayer would not be granted. And neither van Rijn nor Hirharouk assumed that the miners were necessarily harmless.

  She talked fast, to stave off silence: “I daresay you’ve heard this before, Captain, but you may like to have me recapitulate in a few words. When a supernova erupts, it floods out neutrons in quantities that I, I can put a number to, perhaps, but I cannot comprehend. In a full range of energies, too, and the same for other kinds of particles and quanta—Do you see? Any possible reaction must happen.

  “Of course, the starting materials available, the reaction rates, the yields, every quantity differs from case to case. The big nuclei which get formed, like the actinides are a very small percentage of the total. The supermetals are far less. They scatter so thinly into space that they’re effectively lost. No detectable amount enters into the formation of a star or planet afterward.

  “Except—here—here was a companion, a planet-sized companion, turned into a bare metallic globe. I wouldn’t try to guess how many quintillion tons of blasted-out incandescent gases washed across it. Some of those alloyed with the molten surface, maybe some plated out—and the supermetals, with their high condensation temperatures, were favored.

  “A minute fraction of the total was supermetals, yes, and a minute fraction of that was captured by the planet, also yes. But this amounted to—how much?—billions of tons? Not hard to extract from combination by modern methods; and a part may actually be lying around pure. It’s radioactive; one must he careful, especially of the shorter-lived products, and a lot has decayed away by now. Still, what’s left is more than our puny civilization can ever consume. It took a genius to think this might be!”

  She grew aware of van Rijn’s eyes upon her. He had stopped pacing and stood troll-burly, tugging his beard.

  A whistle rescued her. Planha words struck from the intercom. Hirharouk’s feathers rippled in a series of expressions she could not read; his tautness was unmistakable.

  She drew near to the man’s bulk. “What next?” she whispered. “Can you follow what they’re saying?”

  “Ja, pretty well; anyhow, better than I can follow words in an opera. Detectors show three ships leaving planetary orbit on an intercept course. The rest stay behind. No doubt those is the working vessels. What they send to us is their men-of-war.”

  Seen under full screen magnification, the supermetal world showed still less against the constellations than had the now invisible supernova corpse—a ball, dimly reflecting star-glow, its edge sharp athwart distant brightnesses. And yet, Coya thought: a world.

  It could not be a smooth sphere. There must be uplands, lowlands, flatlands, depths, ranges and ravines, cliffs whose gloom was flecked with gold, plains where mercury glaciers glimmered; there must be internal heat, shudders in the steel soil, volcanoes spouting forth flame and radioactive ash; eternally barren, it must nonetheless mumble with a life of its own.

  Had David Falkayn trod those lands? He would have, she knew, merrily swearing because beyond the ship’s generated field he and his space gear weighed five or six times what they ought, and no matter the multitudinous death traps which a place so uncanny must hold in every shadow. Naturally, those shadows had to be searched out; whoever would mine the metals had first to spend years, and doubtless lives, in exploring, and studying, and the development and testing and redevelopment of machinery…but that wouldn’t concern David. He was a charger, not a plowhorse. Having made his discovery, told chosen beings about it, perhaps helped them raise the initial funds and recruit members of races which could better stand high weight than men can—having done that, he’d depart on a new adventure, or stop off in the Solar Commonwealth and take Coya Conyon out dancing.

  “Iyan wherill-ll cha quellan.”

  The words, and Hirharouk’s response, yanked her back to this instant. “What?”

  “Shush.” Van Rijn, head cocked, waved her to silence. “By damn, this sounds spiky. I should tell you, Shushkebab.”

  Hirharouk related: “Instruments show one of the three vessels is almost equal to ours. Its attendants are less, but in a formation to let them take full advantage of their firepower. If that is in proportion to size, which I see no reason to doubt, we are outgunned. Nor do they act as if they simply hope to frighten us off. That formation and its paths are well calculated to bar our escape spaceward.”

  “Can you give me details—? No, wait.” Van Rijn swung on Coya. “Bellybird, you took a stonkerish lot of readings on the sun, and right here is an input-output panel you can switch to the computer system you was using. I also ordered, when I chartered the ship, should be a program for instant translation between Anglic language, Arabic numerals, metric units whatever else kinds of ics is useful—translations back and forth between those and the Planha sort. Think you could quick-like do some figuring for us?” He clapped her shoulder, nearly felling her. “I know you can.” His voice dropped. “I remember your grandmother.”

  Her mouth was dry, her palms were wet, it thudded in her ears. She thought of David Falkayn and said. “Yes. What do you want?”

  “Mainly the pattern of the gravitational field, and what phenomena we can expect at the different levels of intensity. Plus radiation, electromagnetics, anything else you got time to program for. But we is fairly well protected against those, so don’t worry if you don’t get a chance to go into details there. Nor don’t let outside talkings distract you—Whoops!” Hirharouk was receiving a fresh report. “Speak of the devil and he gives you horns.”

  The other commander had obviously sent a call on a standard band, which had been accepted. As the image screen awoke, Coya felt hammerstruck. Adzel!

  No…no…the head belonged to a Wodenite, but not the dear dragon who had given her rides on his back when she was little and had tried in his earnest, tolerant fashion to explain his Buddhism to her when she grew older Behind the being she made out a raven-faced Ikranankan and a human in the garb of a colony she couldn’t identify.

  His rubbery lips shaped good Anglic, a basso which went through her bones: “Greeting. Commodore Nadi speaks.”

  Van Rijn thrust his nose toward the scanner. “Whose commodore?” he demanded like a gravel hauler dumping its load.

  For a second, Nadi was shaken. He rallied and spoke firmly: “Kho, I know who you are, Freeman van Rijn. “What an unexpected honor, that you should personally visit our enterprise.”

  “Which is Supermetals, nie?”

  “It would be impolite to suggest you had failed to reach that conclusion.”

  Van Rijn signaled Coya behind his back. She flung herself at the chair before the computer terminal. Hirharouk perched imperturbable, slowly fanning his wings. The Ythrian music had ended. She heard a rustle and whisper through the intercom, along the hurtling hull.

  Words continued. Her work was standardized enough that she could follow them.

  “Well, you see, Commodore, there I sat, not got much to do no more, lonely old man like I am except when a girl goes wheedle-wheedle at me, plenty time for thinking, which is not fun like drinking but you can do it alone and it is easier on the kidneys and the hangovers next day are not too much worse. I thought, if the supermetals is not made by an industrial process we don’t understand, must be they was made by a natural one, maybe one we do know a little about. That would have to be a supernova. Except a supernova blows everything out into space, and the supermetals is so small, proportional, that they get lost. Unless the supernova had a companion what could catch them?”

  “Freeman, pray accept my admiration. Does your perspicacity extend to deducing who is behind our undertaking?”

  “Ja, I can say, bold and bald, who you undertakers are. A consortium of itsybitsy operators, most from poor or primitive societies, pooling what capital they can scrape together. You got to keep the secret, because if they know about this hoard you found, the powerful outfits will horn themselves in and you out; and what chance you get afterward, in courts they can buyout of petty cash? No, you will keep this hidden long as you possible can. In the end, somebody is bound to repeat my sherlockery. But give you several more years, and you will have pumped gigacredits clear profit out of here. You may actual have got so rich you can defend your property.”

  Coya could all but see the toilers in their darkness—in orbital stations; aboard spacecraft; down on the graveyard surface, where robots dug ores and ran refineries, and sentient beings stood their watches under the murk and chill and weight and radiation and millionfold perils of Eka-World…

  Nadi, slow and soft: “That is why we have these fighting ships, Freeman and Captain.”

  “You do not suppose,” van Rijn retorted cheerily, “I would come this far in my own precious blubber and forget to leave behind a message they will scan if I am not home in time to race for the Micronesia Cup?”

  “As a matter of fact, Freeman, I suppose precisely that. The potential gains here are sufficient to justify virtually any risk, whether the game be played for money or…something else.” Pause. “If you have indeed left a message, you will possess hostage value. Your rivals may be happy to see you a captive, but you have allies and employees who will exert influence. My sincere apologies, Freeman, Captain, everyone aboard your vessel. We will try to make your detention pleasant.”

  Van Rijn’s bellow quivered in the framework. “Wat drommel? You sit smooth and calm like buttered granite and say you will make us prisoners?”

  “You may not leave. If you try, we will regretfully open fire.”

  “You are getting on top of yourself. I warn you, always she finds nothing except an empty larder, Old Mother Hubris.”

  “Freeman, please consider. We noted your hyperdrive vibrations and made ready. You cannot get past us to spaceward. Positions and vectors guarantee that one of our vessels will be able to close in, engage, and keep you busy until the other two arrive.” Reluctantly, van Rijn nodded. Nadi continued: “True, you can double back toward the sun. Evidently you can use hyperdrive closer to it than most. But you cannot go in that direction at anywhere near top pseudospeed without certain destruction. We, proceeding circuitously, but therefore able to go a great deal faster, will keep ahead of you. We will calculate the conoid in which your possible paths spaceward lie, and again take a formation you cannot evade.”

  “You is real anxious we should taste your homebrew, ha?”

  “Freeman, I beg you, yield at once. I promise fair treatment—if feasible, compensation—and while you are among us, I will explain why we of Supermetals have no choice.”

  “Hirharouk,” van Rijn said, “maybe you can talk at this slagbrain.” He stamped out of scanner reach. The Ythrian threw him a dubious glance but entered into debate with the Wodenite. Van Rijn hulked over Coya where she sat. “How you coming?” he whispered, no louder than a Force Five wind.

  She gestured at the summary projected on a screen. Her computations were of a kind she often handled. The result were shown in such terms as diagrams and equations of equipotential surfaces, familiar to a space captain. Van Rijn read them and nodded. “We got enough information to set out on,” he decided. “The rest you can figure while we go.”

  Shocked, she gaped at him. “What? Go? But we’re caught!”

  “He thinks that. Me, I figured whoever squats on a treasure chest will keep guards, and the guards will not be glimmerwits but smart, trained oscos, in spite of what I called the Commodore. They might well cook for us a cake like what we is now baked in. Ergo, I made a surprise recipe for them.” Van Rijn’s regard turned grave. “It was for use only if we found we was sailing through dire straits. The surprise may turn around and bite us. Then we is dead. But better dead than losing years in the nicest jail, nie?” (And she could not speak to him of David.) “I said this trip might be dangerous.” Enormous and feather-gentle, a hand stroked down her hair. “I is very sorry, Beatriz, Ramona.” The names he murmured were of her mother and grandmother.

  Whirling, he returned to Hirharouk, who matched pride against Nadi’s patience, and uttered a few rapid-fire Planha words. The Ythrian gave instant assent. Suddenly Coya knew why the man had chosen a ship of that planet. Hirharouk continued his argument. Van Rijn went to the main command panel, snapped forth orders, and took charge of Dewfall.

  At top acceleration, she sprang back toward the sun.

  Of that passage, Coya afterward remembered little. First she glimpsed the flashes when nuclear warheads drove at her, and awaited death. But van Rijn and Hirharouk had adjusted well their vector relative to the enemy’s. During an hour of negagrav flight, no missile could gather sufficient relative velocity to get past defensive fire; and that was what made those flames in heaven.

  Then it became halfway safe to go hyper. That must be at a slower pace than in the emptiness between stars; but within an hour, the fleeing craft neared the dwarf. There, as gravitation intensified, she had to resume normal state.

  Instead of swinging wide, she opened full thrust almost straight toward the disc.

  Coya was too busy to notice much of what happened around her. She must calculate, counsel, hang into her seat harness as forces tore at her which were too huge for the compensator fields. She saw the undead supernova grow in the viewscreens till its baneful radiance filled them; she heard the ribs of the vessel groan and felt them shudder beneath stress; she watched the tale of the radiation meters mounting and knew how close she came to a dose whose ravages medicine could not heal; she heard orders bawled by van Rijn, fluted by Hirharouk, and whistling replies and storm of wingbeats, always triumphant though Dewfall flew between the teeth of destruction. But mainly she was part of the machinery.

  And the hours passed and the hours passed.

  They could not have done what they did without advance preparation. Van Rijn had foreseen the contingency and ordered computations made whose results were in the data banks. Her job was to insert numbers and functions corresponding to the reality on hand, and get answers by which he and Hirharouk might steer. The work killed her, crowded out terror and sometimes the memory of David.

  Appalled, Nadi watched his quarry vanish off his telltales. He had followed on hyperdrive as close as he dared, and afterward at sublight closer than he ought to have dared. But for him was no possibility of plunging in a hairpin hyperbola around yonder incandescence. In all the years he had been stationed here, not he nor his fellows had imagined anyone would ever venture near the roiling remnant of a sun which had once burned brighter than its whole galaxy. Thus there were no precalculations in storage, nor days granted him to program them on a larger device than a ship might carry.

  Radiation was not the barrier. It was easy to figure how narrow an approach a crew could endure behind a given amount of armor. But a mass of half a dozen Sols, pressed into the volume of an Earth, has stupendous gravitational power; the warped space around makes the laws of nature take on an eerie aspect. Moreover, a dwarf star spins at a fantastic rate: which generates relativistic forces. Describable only if you have determined the precise quantities involved. And pulsations, normally found nowhere outside the atomic nucleus, reach across a million or more kilometers—