If a sun and planets had been in embryo here, they would now never form.

The invader passed. It had not lost much speed. Accelerating once more, it dwindled away toward remoter stars.

CHAPTER 9

Reymont struggled back to wakefulness. He could not have been darkened long. Could he? Sound had ceased. Was he deafened? Had the air puffed out of some hole into space? Were the screens down, had gamma-colored death already sleeted through him?

No. When he listened, he made out the familiar low beat of power. The fluoropanel shone steadily in his vision. The shadow of his cocoon fell on a bulkhead and had the blurred edges which betokened ample atmosphere. Weight had returned to a single gee. Most of the ship’s automata, at least, must be functioning. “To hell with melodrama,” he heard himself say. His voice came as if from far off, a stranger’s. “We’ve got work.”

He fumbled with his harness. Muscles throbbed and ached. A trickle of blood ran over his mouth, tasting salty. Or was that sweat? Nichevo. He was operational. He crawled free, opened his helmet, sniffed— slight smell of scorch and ozone, nothing serious— and gusted one deep sigh.

The cabin was a mare’s nest. Dresser drawers had burst open and scattered their contents. He didn’t notice particularly. Chi-Yuen hadn’t answered his queries. He waded through strewn garments to the slight form. Slipping off his gauntlets, he unlatched her faceplate. Her breathing sounded normal, no wheeze or gurgle to suggest internal injuries. When he peeled back an eyelid, the pupil was broad. Probably she had just fainted. He shucked his armor, located his stun pistol, and strapped it on. Others might need help worse. He went out.

Boris Fedoroff clattered down the stairs. “How goes it?” Reymont hailed.

“I am on my way to see,” the engineer tossed back, and disappeared.

Reymont grinned sourly and pushed into Johann Freiwald’s cabin half. The German had removed his spacesuit too and sat slumped on his bed. “Raus mit dir,” Reymont said.

“I have a headache like carpenters in my skull,” Freiwald protested.

“You offered to be in our squad. I thought you were a man.”

Freiwald gave Reymont a resentful glance but was stung into motion.

The constable’s recruits were busy for the next hour. The regular spacemen were busier yet, inspecting, measuring, conferring in hushed tones. That gave them little chance to feel pain or let terror grow. The scientists and technicians had no such anodyne. From the fact that they were alive and the ship apparently working as before, they might have drawn happiness… only why didn’t Telander make an announcement? Reymont bullied them into commons, started some making coffee and others attending to the most heavily bruised. At last he felt free to head for the bridge.

He stopped to look in on Chi-Yuen, as he had done at intervals. She was finally aware, had unharnessed but collapsed on her mattress before getting all armor off. A tiny light kindled in her when she saw him. “Charles,” she susurrated.