rock; she could not believe that anything could withstand the stresses of that curve. And then it was making it, followed by her instruments, a blip now on the full screen of the viewer, but almost past, free, almost, in the emptiness of interplanetary space toward New World, a shower of tiny particles, a wall of inertial force as tangents merged and the alien struck, small asteroids bouncing away, larger ones doing terrible damage, and with a crunching finality, the almost head-on contact, at that awesome speed, with the parent rock of the cluster. The alien spun, wheeled ponderously, regained straight-line flight, but it was visibly limping, losing air into all-devouring space as Miaree accelerated, tacking toward it. Her speed matching the speed of the alien now, then overtaking.
Something had spewed into space. Her sensors warned, and she avoided the trail of entrails. Maximum magnification showed the objects to be inanimate, some mechanical, parts ripped and torn from the skin of the alien driver.
With a start, she saw the front of the driver light, braking again. Now it was in the pull of the sun and its original speed was a terrible handicap. The lights of the braking were seemingly weaker. Again and again they flashed, as if in desperation. Still the sunward momentum was in command.
And there was nothing she could do. Even an Artonuee driver could not outdistance a flyer on a sunward track. And as the alien driver accelerated, she saw it pull away.
God, it was unfair. All the years of speculation, of hope, of effort. All the wealth poured into sending unreturned signals into space. And there it was, a driver, a driver from out, and it was diving for the sun on a straight line and would plunge into the furnace in—she calculated—three days.
It was unfair to her and to all Artonuee and it was unfair to the beings on board the doomed flyer. For there, in that battered hulk, was the secret to resist God. To come to the Artonuee system, the driver had had to cross interstellar space. And, unless it was an incredibly old robot machine, it had had to fly at a speed which proved, with finality, that God’s laws were not absolute.
These were her thoughts as she chased futilely after the runaway miracle from the stars. And as it passed the orbit of New World, no longer blinking in that desperate effort to break its fall into the sun, she felt a surge of despair.
Lost. Irretrievably lost. Salvation for the race within her sight and now gone. A blip on the viewer, a tiny particle lost in the vastness of space. Accelerating with the sun’s pull. Leaving her behind as she forgot her flight plan and went past New World in the desperate hope that, at the last minute, a miracle would happen.
She lost the driver in the fires of the sun as it passed the orbit of First Planet, and far from home, overdue, she once again rode the winds outward, but no longer ebullient. Saddened. Shamed at her inability to help.
They were broadcasting her call when she opened the communicators. She edged into Haven, a half-day overdue. The committee awaited at the dock. A stern male boarded Rim Star and confiscated the in-flight recorder.
She was numbed, helpless. It was only when the controller picked up the empty bottle, the jenk liquor bottle, that she was able to submerge her sadness in common sense. The flight recorder would contain her frantic messages to the alien, the messages which had been, apparently, unheard. And such things were not for mere males. There was meaning here. Males, hearing her description of the alien, would say, 'It is only the jenk.'
'I plead immunity on the grounds of discovery.' she said, as the stern-faced male looked at her.
'That is a serious statement. Don’t make it worse, my daughter, by clutching at motes in the wind.'
'Nevertheless, I plead.' she said. 'And I request direct transport to Nirrar to report my discovery.' There was the diamond asteroid, of course, but it was not that now diminished discovery which concerned her. She wanted to talk with Mother Aglee. The asteroid would cover her movements.
'And this?' The controller was holding the empty bottle. 'Does pleading discovery excuse this flagrant breach of regulations?'
'I will face that.' she said. 'I will accept my penalty.'
'It is usual to withdraw flying rights.'
'For how long?' Her heart was hurting. Not to fly ?
'A year. More.'
Oh, no, she thought. Oh, no.
'We will put a seal on the flyer.' the controller said, 'until the hearing.'
Chapter Five
The small executive driver which lowered her to the Nirrar port was luxurious and comfortable, but the pleasure was lost on her. In her mind, she could hear the disintegrating whine of metals, the crackle of liquid fire, could imagine the terminal pain of burning. She could see, with her large eyes lidded, the strangely fashioned driver as it plunged sunward. She closed off all sensation, became encased in her body, suffered with the beings aboard the driver, dead by now.
She lifted her privacy screen only when the crush of deceleration weighted her body. She was alone in the passenger section, was standing when the flight crew sent clearance and the outer door hissed, then lowered. Laden with carry luggage, still dressed in spacecloth, she walked from the pad, registered incoming, saw the fare charged to her personal credit. In the warm sun of New World, she stood, hair mussed, smelling chargy from ten days of flying, waved to a public roller.
She knew the city well. They gave the driver directions, waved aside his objections. 'It’s shorter to take the river road, lady,' he said.
'And fight bumper to bumper traffic as the home-bound government employees are released,' she said. 'The Western Circle, then Lonwee Avenue.'
'It’s your credit, Lady.'
Her own dwelling was on the outskirts to the north, in the residential complex around Research Quad. Just off the Western Circle, the new route finished only years in the past, was the home of her Chosen Mother, where she had learned and where she had grown. There were the schools, the parks, the playgrounds.
Near the port, the industrial complexes towered cleanly over the even elevation of the Nirrar Plateau, a site chosen for the capital city of the Northern Continent, a site picked after two centuries of unplanned city development proved to be disastrous for the newly settled planet. Nirrar was new, and yet it was old. In the Nirrar Hall of Wonders she had stood, with youthful awe, before the ancient and battered driver which, two thousand years ago, had first orbited New World. The Hall, itself, was of neo-silk construction and bore a date, over its ornate entrance panel, which established it as one of the first constructions of New Nirrar, following the first two centuries of planetary exploitation which had almost devoided New World of its native flora and fauna.
She loved the city, had roamed its avenues and byways, knew the secrets of its hidden, small dining halls, its tiny, out of the way shops where the exotic products of the five-planet system were on display. She had taken University at The School of the Artonuee, New World, in Nirrar Gardens, to the south of the main complex. Between her fourteenth and fifteenth years, she had served her mandatory aideship in the Hall of Government, starting as a mere clerk and, in one short year, had established a rank which had, to a young girl just out of University, seemed exalted. As assistant to the Charge Advisor in the government of Mother Aglee, she had appeared before the Planetary Legislature to testify on the negative results of the work of government scientists. She had been complimented by Mother Aglee herself on the clarity of her report on the ill-fated expedition to the sunside of First Planet. At the end of her year, she was offered permanent tenure and stood in line to be Charge Advisor when Lady Jonea, who was aging, should hear the call home. Her rank, when she reluctantly refused the permanent appointment, opting to pursue her chosen career in research, was awarded on a nonpension basis, but that rank, she knew, would assure her an audience with the Mother.
'Lady,' the roller driver said, as he cruised Lonwee Avenue in ideal conditions, 'I bow to you.'
She accepted the compliment. He had the accent of the cold outworld,
Five. 'Just in?' she asked.
'A year, just shy,' he said. 'It would have taken a half-hour longer my way.'
Since no vehicles were allowed in the Government Quad, she stepped out of the roller at the Southern Gate,
