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Höd
grew visibly in the monitors of the
Celyn
now, heartbeat by heartbeat.

“It's coming at us so quickly,” said Gerloc.

Her voice was small now, Kerys realized, with little remaining of the cool competence of the young officer who had held her position by the
Celyn
. The difference was, Kerys supposed, unlike herself and Freydis, Gerloc hadn't had the time to get used to all this—to being trapped in a speeding mote of a vessel, caught between two colliding cosmic bodies. Like a fly, she thought, trapped between the tabletop and the descending fist.

Freydis, at least, was calmly checking her instruments. “We're approaching our full speed now. We're actually moving far faster than Höd itself; most of the closing velocity is ours.”

Gerloc stared through a thick window. “It is the eye of a god, opening slowly.”

Kerys snapped, “No mythology now, Gerloc. It is just a lump of rock and ice. A big one, and representing awesome energies. But it is not divine. And if not for human intervention, it would not be here at all, high above Mars.”

Freydis said, “We have less than half an hour to closest approach. When we arrive, we'll pass by the thing before we can count to ten. If we're going to do something, we need to decide soon.”

“Do something? Such as what?” Gerloc asked.

Kerys glanced at Freydis, who she was sure understood the full situation, and shook her head.
Not yet. Let Gerloc work it out for herself.
She said aloud, “Still no response from the crews on the surface?”

“None,” Freydis said. “I think there's still activity down there, however. The Eye hasn't been abandoned, and the big kernel banks are still firing.”

“A suicide crew, then.”

“It looks like it. And if so, they won't welcome visitors.” Freydis glanced at Gerloc. “You understand we can't land. We don't have the power, the time, to slow down and make a rendezvous.”

“Of course I understand that,” Gerloc said dismissively.

“Even if we could attempt some kind of landing, they'd probably try to shoot us out of the sky first,” Kerys said. “And even if we had come earlier, it was probably always too late—Höd is probably too close to be deflected anyhow, by any conceivable push even from the kernel banks. Small tweaks to its momentum from far away: that's how Höd has been delivered onto this course. It was worth a try, though. To come, to try to talk to the surface crew.”

Gerloc nodded. “Then, if we can't deflect the asteroid, what can we do?”

Kerys glanced at Freydis, and closed her eyes. “There may be one option. I have to tell you something very strange, Gerloc, and I apologize that there is no time to explain it fully. There are people in our universe—some of them are down there on Mars now—who are not from our history. They do not share our past. Freydis understands some of this . . . Now, Gerloc, the important point is this. That history was ended with a terrible war, at the climax of which a tremendous mass—some kind of huge ship I think—was slammed into the surface of the planet Mercury. They called it the Nail. In their history, as in ours, Mercury was the source of the first kernel mines.”

Freydis put in, “This has been studied in our own academies, based on the strangers' description. There was a tremendous detonation—a huge release of energy. It's thought that the kernels, caught up in the impact of the incoming mass, opened wide in response. And the release of energy—”

“It was enough to scorch worlds clean,” Kerys said.

Gerloc looked at Freydis, and then at Kerys, who closed her eyes. “I think I understand where this is leading. So we crash the ship into Höd—and not just at any random point. Directly onto the kernel banks. In the hope of blowing this lump of ice apart with kernel energies.”

“That's the idea.”

“Thus saving Mars.”

“And, with any luck, averting a war on Terra.”

Gerloc's eyes snapped open. “Well, if that's your plan, we have a lot of work to do to make it happen, and not much time to do it in.”

Kerys grinned. “Good response. And you're right. We need to turn the ship around. Shut down the kernel drive first, use the secondary thrusters to swivel her. Then we light up the drive again, so that when we come down on Höd, it's with our own kernels blazing away.”

Freydis nodded. “It could work.” Her voice was brittle, her eyes too bright. “But right now we aren't on a trajectory to hit Höd at all, let alone the kernel facility down there. We'll need to make a course correction before we pivot the ship.”

“Yes,” Gerloc said. “And of course we'll need to take into account the effect of our decelerating thrust on our trajectory, all the way down . . .”

Good, Kerys thought savagely. They would have to work, to actively pilot the ship, all the way in. It would be good, complex, demanding work, that would allow them no time to think.

Impulsively she reached out and grabbed their hands. “Whether we succeed in this or not, we will ignite a light that will be seen across the solar system, on every world. People will know who we were; our families will know what we tried to do today. All right? Are you ready for this?”

Impulsively Freydis grabbed Gerloc's hand, so they closed the circle. “Let's get it done.”

“Agreed,” Gerloc said.

They broke the circle and turned to their posts.

The chamber to which Earthshine led them was just a cavern in the deep rocks. There was a scatter of chairs near the door, a small chemical toilet, and heaps of equipment, including a heavy-looking cylinder of some plain white material. The light came from suspended fluorescents, a very mundane glow. Mardina and Beth together helped Penny over to one of the chairs; she couldn't stand for long anymore.

The central area of the floor was roped off, the barrier containing a smoother area within.

Earthshine had an air of smug triumph, Mardina thought. The others seemed subdued, even confused, as they were drawn deeper into Earthshine's arcane plan, his mysteries—his layer of mind, deep in the rock.

A Navy radio communicator in Mardina's pocket chimed, her farspeaker, a soft mechanical bell. She pulled out the little gadget, held it up to her ear. She walked toward Penny. “You need to hear this. All of you . . . I'm getting a signal down here.”

Earthshine nodded. “You should. I had my support from the Brikanti Navy install relays and repeaters inside the bunker, and then in this chamber when we discovered it.”

“It's from the
Malleus
, in space. They see Höd. The crew say it's now about the size of the sun as seen from Earth, and growing fast.”

Penny nodded, eyes closed. “It would be by now—”

“There was a detonation.”

Chu, the slave boy, with the ColU's slate on his chest, muttered a prayer in his native Xin.

Penny said, “The
Celyn.
”

“Yes,” Mardina said. “They rammed it.”

Penny said, “I bet they were trying to destroy the asteroid, by detonating the kernels.” She turned to Beth. “Remember? Just like the Nail when it struck Mercury. Why, maybe Kerys even got the idea from our descriptions of that event.”

“But they didn't succeed,” Mardina said. “According to the
Malleus
crew. The Eye has a new crater, but is intact. Even such an immense explosion—”

Penny said firmly, “It was a worthy effort. And I suppose there was nothing more they could do, given the time. Kerys and her crew will be remembered for their heroism.”

Mardina listened to a fresh message. “The Eye is still on its way. The centurion is ordering us back to the surface. Pickup in half an hour.” She folded up the farspeaker. “We need to go.”

“No,” Earthshine said. “
There is another way.
”

“What other way? There's no other ship—”

“I told you, I can save you.”

Penny glared at him. Then she beckoned Mardina and Chu. “You two. Help me.” She gestured at them impatiently, until they came to her. She held up one arm for each of them, and they grabbed her and lifted, Chu being careful of the ColU pack on his back. “Now get me over there,” Penny said, flapping one hand at the roped-off area. “I need to know what he's found.”

The ColU said, “I have a feeling we both know already, Penny Kalinski.”

“I want to see with my own ruined eyes . . .”

What lay within the roped-off area didn't seem special to Mardina when they got there at the pace of Penny's hobble. It clearly wasn't natural, however. It was a sheet of some gray metal-like substance, with a fine circular seam a few paces across.

But Penny laughed.

“Show me, Chu,” the ColU murmured. “Show me . . .”

Penny snapped, “This isn't one of your damn virtual illusions, Earthshine?”

“Of course not.”

Mardina said, “I don't understand.”

“A Hatch,” Penny said, her tremulous voice full of wonder. “He's only found a Hatch. Here on Mars.”

“You still don't understand,” Earthshine said. “You never did listen, Penny Kalinski. You or that sister of yours. I didn't
find
this. It wasn't here when I established my base here on Mars.
They gave it to me.
Believe me, this chamber did not exist, yet as Ceres approached this world—I suppose as my own intention became clear—there it was, an anomaly showing up in my deep scans, and when I had a shaft sunk down to it, here was the Hatch. They gave this to me.”

Mardina shook her head. “Who? Who gave it to you?”

“The noostratum,” Penny said. “The dreaming bugs in the rocks? Is that what you would have us believe? Is this what all this has been about, for you, Earthshine? With Ceres you are striking a blow, not at Mars—not at any humans on Mars—but at the bugs in the deep rocks?”

“Well, it certainly takes a mighty blow to do that, doesn't it? I threatened them with destruction, and I got their attention. Here! Here in the floor—here is your proof.”

Beth said, “So now what? I've been through Hatches before. They take you far away. To another world, even another star. But which star, Earthshine?”

He smiled. “I don't know. That's the beauty of it. But wherever it is, whatever I find, I will have been
invited
there. Think of that! Oh, yes, I certainly got their attention. But this is not for me alone. Together, today—
now
, before the asteroid falls—we will go through this impossible doorway, and we will find out. Your intuition was right, you see—you were right to come here, all of you. I can save you. You, my granddaughter, my great-granddaughter—all of you, if you wish. You can see I have my own processor unit ready to go . . .” He pointed to the bulky cylindrical unit.

The ColU said, “This is wrong. What you have done here is wrong, Earthshine. You meddle with powers that could destroy us all—destroy the potentialities of mankind.”

Earthshine just laughed. “Whatever you say, I won't allow you through the Hatch, you—toy. So you can be a witness to those powers, can't you?”

The ColU paused, a long and terrible silence that must have been an age for such a high-speed artificial mind. Then it said, “If I may not follow you through that Hatch—be sure, Earthshine, that I will not forget you. I will not give up the quest to find you, wherever you go, whatever you do. No matter how many generations of friends I have to outlive to do it.”

Chu was visibly agitated by this cold announcement. “Master, please. I am grateful to be your servant. Yet I have served you well, have I not? But I don't want to die, not today, not
now
.”

“You won't die, Chu Yuen,” the ColU said gently. “Remember, the centurion is coming to pick us up. We need only return to the surface.”

“I, too, will go no farther than this,” Penny said with an expression of disgust. “Never mind tinkering with history—these damn Hatch builders have wrecked my own life, and my sister's. I'll go no farther. And as for the rest—Chu, take hold of Ari Guthfrithson.”

“Madam?”

“Just grab him.”

“Do as she says, Chu,” the ColU said.

Chu hesitated for one heartbeat. Then he took long strides around the Hatch emplacement, and grabbed both Ari's arms, gripping them firmly above the elbows.

Ari struggled, but couldn't free himself. “Why is this animal holding me?”

Penny said, “Whatever all this mystery is about, I want
you
to go no further with it, Ari. You are a manipulative, scheming chancer. And the ambition you have expressed scares me, frankly. Well, this is one thing I can fix. This is the end of the story for you, as it is for me. You're coming back with us to the surface.”

“I will not. Beth—Mardina, my daughter—”

“Chu, shut him up.”

The slave pushed Ari against one wall, pinning him with his left arm, while he clamped his right hand across Ari's mouth.

Earthshine turned away, indifferent, and spoke to Beth and Mardina. “What these others choose is irrelevant. We are the core; we are family. If only Yuri Eden had survived . . . I never met him, you know, after his emergence from cryo. Never saw him again after I closed that heavy lid over his sleeping face. But he lives on in you. Come with me now.”

Mardina recoiled, her head swimming. “I don't understand any of this. I don't
want
any of it. What can there be for me on the other side of this—door in the ground? Up there, Terra—that's my world, that's my home, my career, my life. As far as I can see, all these Hatches have brought any of you is destruction and disruption and distress.” She looked at Beth. “Mother? You'll stay with me, won't you?”

But Beth was hesitating.

Earthshine said, “Maybe we can find a way home for you, granddaughter.”

“Home? Back to Per Ardua?”

“Yes. Back to Per Ardua.”

Beth looked at Mardina, her face anguished. “Mardina, you must come with me—”

“No! I don't care about Per Ardua, about
Before
. You're doing to me now what you always complained about your own mother doing to
you
. Ripping you out of your old world and stranding you on another.”

“I know. You're right. But even so . . .” She looked again at the Hatch. “I can't miss this chance, my only chance to go home.”

Penny said gently to Mardina, “It's all right, my dear. Come with us. We'll return to the surface, and get out of here before the hammer falls. And your fool of a father, at least you'll still have him!”

The ColU said, “Don't be afraid, Beth Eden Jones. If I must stay here, I will care for Mardina, as once I cared for you.”

Mardina protested, “I don't need
anybody
—”

But Penny touched her hand to hush her.

“I'll come back for you someday,” Beth said gently.

“Or I'll come for you,” Mardina said on impulse. “Though I've no idea how.”

“Yes.” Beth forced a smile. “Let's make that pledge. When we have both found whatever it is we're looking for . . .”

Mardina shook her head. “So what happens now? How will you get this Hatch of yours open anyhow?”

Beth smiled now, stepped forward, and pointed at the emplacement. “The Hatch knows when we're ready. They always do.”

Mardina looked down. That central expanse of floor, surrounded by the circular seam, was no longer pristine. It had changed. Now it contained two complex indentations, like small craters with five rays—two pits shaped to accept the pressing of a pair of human hands.