The Spheres of Heaven

quarters you promised?”

“Later. The Hero’s Return is scheduled for midnight departure to an Asteroid Belt Link entry point, and your group is still four members short. Including your team leader.” Korin pointed to the status display. It indicated that another vessel was arriving, this one from Europa via Earth. “If that doesn’t have Chan Dalton aboard, we’re in trouble. You go ahead — Captain Flammarion will show you the layout of crew quarters — and I’ll catch you later.”

“Yes, sir.” Chrissie Winger saluted again. She walked across to Flammarion, who took a couple of steps back and looked at her warily.

“You’re not going to do any of your fancy wallet-stealing stuff with me, are you?”

“Not a chance.” She beamed at him, in a way that made Flammarion feel that he was an immensely entertaining and interesting fellow. “Does a brewer give away beer? It’s as I told General Korin, I don’t do that sort of thing for free. But I wanted to impress him, so Tarb and I arranged that little stunt.”

“He likes you, you know. If he didn’t he’d have gutted you for pulling something like that.”

“Well, I like him, too — what I’ve seen of him. I expected an old fossil, but he’s not like that. There’s still plenty of firepower in him.”

“There is. And you don’t want it directed your way.” Flammarion, leading Chrissie down the ship’s main corridor, noticed an odd tightness in his jacket. He opened it as he walked and felt a bulge in his undershirt. And inside that -

He reached in and pulled out a bottle. “This is impossible. My jacket was closed, my shirt is tight at the neck.” He stopped dead and stared at the label. “Is it really beer?”

“I’m not a brewer, so I can give it away, and there are a few things I would never do. One of them is deceive a man with a gift of fake beer.”

“But how did you get it there?”

“Ah, now as to that, I am willing to deceive. Or at least, not to reveal.” Chrissie Winger had not been told where to go, and since she had not stopped walking Flammarion was now behind her; but she unhesitatingly made the turn to the unmarked corridor leading to the crew’s quarters. “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you,” she said over her shoulder. “A girl has to have her little secrets.”

She walked confidently forward. Flammarion trailed along behind. He didn’t know quite what kind of team was assembling for this expedition, but he was sure it was unlike anything he had met before.

* * *

Fifteen minutes ago, Chan Dalton had been relaxing for the first time in ten days. It had been a desperate, sleepless dash around the solar system, but against the odds he had done everything. Chrissie Winger and Tarboosh Hanson had jumped at the idea of a new stellar expedition, almost before he could tell them about it. Apparently life in the Oort Cloud was too dull and easy. They had taken the first available inbound ship and should already be on board the Hero’s Return , waiting for him.

He had spoken with Deb Bisson two hours ago, and although she was as cold as ever she swore that she, too, would arrive before the deadline. She was bringing Tully O’Toole with her. He was shaky and feverish with Paradox withdrawal and occasionally hallucinating, but with guidance and encouragement he was somehow hanging on.

That left only Danny Casement and the Bun, and Chan had been more sure of them than anyone. Danny had enormous persuasive power, but he probably wouldn’t even need it. In the old days the Bun had been keenest of all to go to the stars. Now they would fly out from the Vulcan Nexus and complete the old team.

And then reality intruded. Danny’s message, chasing Chan around the solar system, finally caught up with him. It told of the Bun’s disappearance and his almost certain death. The Hero’s Return was looming up ahead but Chan didn’t see it. He was turned inward, looking at the collapse of his plans. Deb Bisson had promised to go along only if he had the full team. With the Bun gone, Deb would back out. Without Deb, Tully would not make it. The dominoes would fall. No Bun, no Deb, no Tully …

No team.

The transit vessel docked. The hatch opened. Chan didn’t have the energy to stand up and go through it. He sat, hands gripping the padded arms of his chair, until the robots came along and began to service the cabin around him. The gentle probing touch of one on his leg, as though asking Do I clean this? , roused him.

He stood up and passed through the first connection chamber, through the outer hatch, through the lock and through the inner hatch. He was finally in the true interior of the Hero’s Return , but he had sat so long after docking that anyone waiting for a passenger on the transit vessel would surely be gone. He glanced over to the couch at the side of the chamber, expecting to see no one. General Dag Korin lay there at full length. His eyes were closed and his mouth was open. Somehow he gave the impression of a man sleeping at attention.

Chan hesitated to wake him. On the other hand, what was Korin doing here if not waiting to see Chan? And when you had bad news to present, one time was as good as another.

Chan leaned down and shook the General’s shoulder. Korin came awake so smoothly and quickly that it was hard to believe he had been sleeping.

Frosty blue eyes fixed on Chan as the General slowly sat upright. “You’re running damn close to the deadline, Dalton. Are you sure you’ll have all your team on board by midnight?”

“I’m sure I won’t. One of them is dead.”

“You tell me that now , with just a few hours to go to departure?”

“I only found out myself a few minutes before we docked.”

“Can you operate without him?”

“If we have to. But it’s not that simple.” Chan outlined Deb Bisson’s position, and how the death of the Bun would affect her presence on the team.

“So you’ve got problems to solve.” Korin stood up. “And so do I. The two of us have to talk.”

“I don’t know that I have much to say. Not until I’ve had a chance to think about all this.”

“Understood. But if you can’t talk, you can listen. Come on. This is important.”

Korin led the way into the cavernous interior of the Hero’s Return . In the old days the cruiser had carried a military crew of nine hundred men and women. The ship’s exterior with its massive armor and reinforced hull was little changed from those glory days, but once inside you wandered through a ghost ship. Your voice echoed through bare-walled compartments, your footsteps rang along empty corridors. Chan found himself reluctant to speak, while Dag Korin apparently did not want any discussion until they had privacy. The two men drifted along in silence, past dark chambers that had once housed weapons able to turn whole asteroids to slag; past engines that could drive the eighty-thousand-ton mass at anything up to seven gees; past the chamber housing a computer as sophisticated as any ever built, able to control the vessel’s sensors, make autonomous decisions, and do whatever was needed to assure the safety of ship and crew; past the deserted quarters of that crew, where almost a thousand men and women had once exercised, eaten, and slept.

Dag Korin, with the pick of the whole ship available to him, apparently preferred simplicity. He continued on, beyond the section that had once housed the captain and the senior officers, until they came to a set of smaller rooms tucked away beside the ship’s main control room. And there, at the very end of a corridor, Chan saw a tall form in a powder-blue work suit, lounging against a door painted a bilious green.

He heard Dag Korin’s surprised grunt, in the same moment as Chan recognized the blond hair and anorexic face of Elke Siry.

“I believe you already met my ward,” Korin said to Chan. And then, to the woman, “What are you doing here, Elke? I thought you were getting us ready for Link transition.”

My ward? Dag Korin had said nothing about that at their first meeting. But the woman was speaking. “I was.” There was no mistaking the high-pitched, nervous voice, with its trace of a lisp. “But I have disturbing information, matters that I must discuss with you.”

“You, too? Looks like it’s bad news all round.” Korin opened the door. “We’d better go inside.”

The room they entered was simply furnished even by the standards of Earth’s Gallimaufries. Console, disk- case, small couch, writing desk, bureau, and chair, all without decoration or added niceties. Chan squeezed onto the