The jittering mist cleared too: not steam roiled by wind, but myriads of particles swirling round the blossoms, dipping in and out. Now the motes abandoned the horn shapes and streamed toward Rather.

They were all around him, a humming black cloud of rage.

"Scientist? I'm in the center. I can hardly see. The honey hornets are-"

"Look for red," said Booce's voice.

Orange and scarlet. Orange horns the size of drinking gourds, and scarlet of another shape. Rather jetted closer.

The honey hornets came with him. Thousands of thumb-sized birds: tiny harpoon for a nose, invisible blur of wing behind. He could hear the angry buzz through his helmet. "I've got a red thing . . . Booce, it's a kind of a sloppy polyhedron half a meter through, covered with lots of little triangle holes. It's growing between these horn shapes."

"Those are flowers. It didn't grow there, it's attached. Did you take a knife?"

"No. Wait a breath, there's a matchet on mv leg. It must be Mark's."

"Cut the honeypod loose and put the sack around it. Tie the neck shut."

Rather swung the matchet behind the scarlet polyhedron. The silver suit made all movements stiff. Presently the honeypod was floating loose. Rather pulled a sack free, opened the mouth, and swept it around the honeypod.

"Got it? Tie the bag shut. Done?"

"Done. There's sticky red stuff all over my gloves."

"Stet. Now keep doing that till you run out of sacks. Don't lick the honey."

"With my helmet closed?"

"Don't ever lick honey. It's suicide."

Chapter Eight

The Honey Track

from the Citizens Tree cassettes, year 1426 State:

GOLDBLATT'S WORLD

GOLDBLATT'S WORLD MAY HAVE BEGUN LIFE AS A NEPTUNE-LIKE BODY IN THE COMET CLOUD AROUND THE PAIRED STARS. IN GOLDBLATT'S SCENARIO, THE BODY WAS CAPTURED SOME MILLIONS OF YEARS AFTER THE SUPERNOVA EVENT. THE COLLAPSING CORE OF THE SUPERNOVA, SPEWING ITS OUTER ENVELOPE ASYMMETRICALLY DUE TO A TRAPPED MAGNETIC FIELD, MAY HAVE PICKED UP A SKEW VELOCITY THAT NEARLY MATCHED THE VELOCITY OF THE PROTO-NEPTUNE. ROBBED OF ITS ORBITAL VELOCITY, GOLDBLATT'S WORLD WOULD FALL ALONG A DRASTICALLY ECCENTRIC ORBIT, PASSING VERY NEAR LEVOY'S STAR. EXTREME ROCHE TIDES WOULD WARP THE ORBIT INTO A CIRCLE WITHIN A FEW SCORES OF PASSES.

IT SEEMS LIKELY THAT GOLDBLATT'S WORLD'S ORBIT AND THE ASSOCIATED GAS TORUS HAVE BEEN CONTRACTING FOR ALL OF THEIR BILLION YEARS. MEANWHILE LEVOY'S STAR HAS BEEN COOLING- SINCE NEUTRON STARS NO LONGER UNDERGO FUSIONMAINTAINING A RELATIVELY STABLE BALANCE OF TEMPERATURE IN THE SMOKE RING.

NOTE THAT THE ROCHE LIMIT IS NEVER AN ABSOLUTE. IT VARIES AS THE DENSITY OF THE ORBITING BODY. A GASBALL WORLD MAY BE WITHIN ITS ROCHE LIMIT, AND THIS ONE PROBABLY WAS. BUT THE ROCKAND-METAL CORE IS DENSE. GOLDBLATT'S WORLD WOULD HAVE BEEN WELL OUTSIDE ITS ROCHE LIMIT AFTER THE GASBALL LOST SOME OF ITS GAS AND THE ECCENTRIC ORBIT BECAME MORE CIRCULAR.

THE PLANET IS NOW NO MORE THAN TWO AND A HALF TIMES THE MASS OF EARTH . . .

-SAM GOLDBLATT, PLANETOLOGIST