The Furians knew that most stars are members of binary or multiple systems. Their Arks targeted binary systems with a red giant and a widely separated dwarf star. Ark sail vessels could use the red giant’s intense luminosity to decelerate, then sail on to the planetary system of the dwarf.

So… why would one Ark come here?

Librarians don’t just rely on hearsay; they check. Rachel surveyed Sol’s neighborhood, far back in time.

She looked at red giant/dwarf star binaries within a hundred light-years of Sol. There were four. Beta Aquila had a dwarf companion roughly 150 AU from the star. Astronomers had found in the 2100s that it had no planetary companions the size of Earth with working biospheres. The other three red giants—Epsilon Cygnus, Aldebaran, and Theta Ursa Major—also had no life-bearing worlds orbiting the red giants or the giants’ companion stars, as shown by looking at their atmospheric chemistries. So these were not good prospects for the dying Furian world. Apparently such life-bearing pairs were unlikely.

The Furians’ star was a bit more than a hundred light-years from Sol. So the Furians looked for happy coincidences instead.

Rachel shook her head in wonder. The Furians were smart. Roughly every 100,000 years, random orbital motions made stars drift by within two light-years of Sol. By chance, a red giant was a few light-years from Sol when the Furians launched their Ark sails. So they took advantage, she guessed, of the coincidence. It checked out with the astro simulations she ran, using teams of astro-experts from the Library and elsewhere, even Earthers. About four million years ago, a red giant had passed by in stately splendor, lighting with a ruddy glow the sky of an Earth busily evolving mammals. Small primates scuttled then, beneath this glowing ember in the night, trying to stay alive. Perhaps some of them had puzzled at the lights in that dark celestial bowl as the Furian probe made its passage, braking around the red giant. Then it set sail for the biosphere the Furians knew orbited the ordinary yellow dwarf star two light-years away, Sol. The passage time at lower velocities would be dozens of centuries, but the Ark had time to play out its slow logic.

Fraq had implied that an Ark ship had entered the solar system and, following instruction from a Furian society that had long before died on their burning world, taken up orbit. What would stimulate it to activity again?

Fraq thought the Ark awaited a visit. Only an interplanetary civilization could reach it and understand its genetic heritage. The Ark orbited somewhere near Sol, awaiting a knock at its door.

The Ythris wanted to go there, harvest the heritage. With help from the evolved primates, and their SETI Library. Without mentioning at all the wormhole that had brought the Ythri here…

What had her mother used to say? Adventure means opportunity. Sure, Mom.

4.

The Lunavator Bolo was running often and not fully booked, good. But they had to wait for the synchronous connection to the high-velocity Flinger. And Fraq wanted to hunt. So… they wanted her to join in. More diplomatic social niceties, and for Rachel a command performance, courtesy of the Prefect.