Jennings turned off the sound, and gave them a capsule summary. “The Venus structures are now spewing atmosphere into space at greater than escape velocity. The volume is truly mind-boggling. The point, according to the talking heads, appears to be to strip Venus of its atmosphere. They estimate it’ll be done in a few weeks.”

Narang shook her head in disbelief.

“A whole planet’s worth of atmosphere? That’s amazing.”

“Won’t all that gas in interplanetary space create problems for ships?” Kemp asked.

Jennings nodded. “That occurred to a lot of people, so they did some calculations. It appears that each nozzle, or whatever they are, accelerates the gas either into an orbit that intersects the sun, or a long-period orbit that won’t re-enter the inner system for centuries. The mechanism seems to be taking care to avoid polluting the local area.”

Kemp began to reply, “I’m not sure if that indicates—” when the monitor flashed up Breaking News and the recorded interview cut to one of the news anchors. The captain quickly restored the sound.

We have confirmation that some unidentified structures are growing at the poles on Mars, similar but not identical to the Mercury artifacts. There are also indications of crustal movements around the equator, although nothing specific has been identified.

The monitor cut to images, obviously taken with a phone from a ship’s viewport. They showed structures, large enough to be seen from orbit, pushing their way out of the planet’s crust.

“Mercury, Venus, and Mars. Assuming there’s a theme to all this, what is he doing?” Kemp scratched his chin, staring at the screen.

“Perhaps,” Captain Jennings replied, “we’ll get a chance to ask him. Please strap yourselves in, and we can get going.”

Within ten minutes, the Getting Ahead was outside the Olympus Station slow zone, and the captain began to apply some real thrust.

The course laid in, and the ship’s A.I. in charge, Jennings turned to his two passengers. “What’s the plan?”

“We have to get out there and try to convince the Navy’s task force not to attack.”

“That’s it? As plans go, that really lacks a certain something.”

“Planning?” Kemp grinned at him.

“Yes, that.” Jennings shook his head. “Sadly, it’s all we have right now.”

“So, those oversized nacelles you had installed on the Getting Ahead—I guess it’s time to find out if you got your money’s worth.”

“Mm, hmm. That’s why I have the hab ring spun down. Better make yourselves comfortable. This isn’t going to be pleasant.”