Everybody but Moonboy was there, including both Martians. Rare to see them together outside of their tub. I guess if you bathed with someone twenty hours a day, you might avoid him the rest of the time.

Spy came in exactly on time and stood in the door. He was wearing his space suit, holding the helmet. “Other-prime has decided that we should precede you to Wolf 25. We have learned enough about you to help the Others there deal with the problem. So we will leave this iceberg and speed on to our mutual destination. We should arrive about eight months before you.”

I didn’t know whether to feel relieved. We wouldn’t have them looking over our shoulders, but then we wouldn’t learn anything more about them, either.

“We are going to impose something upon you that may be unpleasant, but Other-prime feels it is necessary. Your group is unstable in various ways, and there is a real possibility that not all of you, or perhaps none of you, will survive the rest of your trip.

“To keep this from happening, we will cause you to travel the way we do. The time it takes you to go the twelve light-years will not be affected, but the duration of the trip will be negligible. I just explained this to Carmen.”

“You did, but it made no sense.”

“Do you remember about the elevator and the bird?”

I looked around at everybody and shook my head. “You said that describing it would be like telling a bird how an elevator works.”

“Yes. How you can get to the top of a building without flapping wings. It would never understand. But that would not affect reality.”

“Of course not.”

“What would happen if you put the bird into the elevator and took it to the roof?”

“It wouldn’t like it,” Paul said.

“No,” Spy said, still looking at me. “But it would get to the rooftop.”

It turned to Paul. “It will happen tomorrow morning. I will call you a half hour ahead of time. People should be strapped in, including Moonboy.”

“Will I be shutting the engine down?”

“Not for another twelve years. Objective time. That would be about three years and three months in your decelerating frame of reference. Seconds, in your new one. It will all be clear.”

Clear to whom, I wondered. To Paul? “Spy, I don’t understand. You and I were sitting down in the garden, talking about, I don’t know, marriage . . .”

“Social connections. Friendships.”

“And now suddenly we’re going to be the birds in your elevator, flapping around and going crazy, I assume. What happened?”

“The Other-prime contacted me and said it was ready.”

“What if we aren’t ready?” Paul said, tense. “This is a pretty big deal.”

“Just have them strapped in, Paul. You will find it an interesting ride.”