It was over before either of us had a chance to think about it. The whirling pink sparks faded and died.

The Statue’s limbs were motionless but its stomach thrashed. I felt breathless and foolish; the hoop around my neck was like a lavatory seat put there during a drunken teenage party. “Logic’s not my strong point,” I apologized.

You see, I had a plan. It wasn’t a very good plan, and I was probably dead even if it came off. But it was all I had, and I noticed I was still breathing.

The Statue stared. “You have damaged the artifact.”

“You see, there had to be a reason why you didn’t shoot me in the back before I knew about it. And that reason’s got to be your ignorance of humans. Right?” I snapped. “Despite the fact that you and your kind have been tailing me for months—”

“Actually years. We find humans are resourceful creatures, worthy of study.”

“Years, then — if you zapped me, maybe I’d explode, or melt, or in general make a horrible mess of the Xeelee equipment. And you won’t hurt me now for fear of doing even more damage.” I clung to the frail hoop around my neck.

The Statue moved further into the building, the interesting end of the zap gun unwavering. We stood along the axis of the structure. The Statue said patiently, “But even with this awareness you are scarcely at an advantage.”

I shrugged.

“You are still isolated and without resources.” The Statue seemed confused. “All I have to do is wait five days, when you will die in undignified circumstances and I will retrieve the artifact.”

“Ah,” I said mysteriously. “A lot can happen in five days.” In fact, maybe in three — I kept that to myself.

The stomach monster thrashed.

I walked around the pillar and sat down, taking care not to squash my catheter. “So we wait.” I settled the hoop more comfortably around my neck.

Giant wings of gas flapped slowly beyond the translucent ceiling, and the hours passed.

Time stretches like a lazy leopard when it wants to.

I spent a day staring out a statue and not thinking about my catheter — or Tim.

I snapped out, “You’ve no idea what you’re stealing from me here.”

The Statue hesitated. “I believe I do. This is clearly a Xeelee monitoring station. Presumably one of a network spread through the Galaxy.”

Instantly I wished I hadn’t spoken. If it had thought through as far as that… to distract it, I said, “So you watched my experiments?”

“Yes. What we see must be a test rig for the instantaneous communication device.”

“How do you suppose it works?” Stick to details; keep it off the Xeelee—

A longer pause. Through the ceiling skin I watched a cathedral of buttressed smoke. The Statue said, “I fear the translator box cannot provide the concepts… At one time these two hoops were part of a single object. And an elementary particle, an electron perhaps, would be able to move at random between any two points of that object, without a time lapse.”

“Yeah. This is quantum physics. The electron we perceive is an ‘average’ of an underlying ‘real’ electron. The real electron jumps about over great distances within a quantum system, quite randomly and instantaneously. But the average has to follow the physical laws of our everyday experience, including the speed of light limit.”

“The point,” it said, “is that the real electron will travel at infinite speed between all parts of an object — even when that object has been broken up and its parts separated by large distances, even light years.”

“We call that quantum inseparability. But we thought you could use it only to send random data, no information-bearing messages.”

“Evidently the Xeelee do not agree,” the Statue said dryly. “It took many generations before my species could be persuaded that the elusive ‘real’ electron is a physical fact, and not a mathematical invention.”

I smiled. “Mine, too. Maybe our species have got more in common than they realize.”

“Yes.”

Well, that was a touching thought which augured hope for the future of the Galaxy. But I noticed it didn’t touch the zap gun.

The thing in the Statue’s stomach started to feed on something; I turned away. The gloom deepened as the pale supernova remnant was eclipsed by the edge of the ceiling. I tried to sleep.

The first day was bad enough, but the second was the worst. Except for the third.

For me, anyway. The suit had water and food — well, a syrup nipple — but the recycling system wasn’t designed for a long vacation. I didn’t want to lose face by sluicing out my plumbing system all over the floor. And so, when I went for my regular walks around the bereft pillar, I sloshed.

By contrast, the Statue was unmoving, machinelike. Bizarre fish swam in its stomach, and the zap gun tracked me like the eye of a snake.

On the third day I stood by my pillar, swaying in unstable equilibrium. I didn’t have to feign weakness. I sneaked glances at the futuristic sky. I had to time things just right—

At length, the Statue said, “You are weakening and will surely die. But this has always been inevitable. I do not understand your motivation.”

I laughed groggily. “I’m waiting for the cavalry.”

The stomach creature twitched uneasily. “What is this ‘calvary’?”

Too uneasy. I shut myself up with the truth. “Maybe I just don’t like being robbed. I’m a prospector for Xeelee gold, but it’s not just for me. Can you understand that? It’s for my son. My off-spring. That’s what you’re taking from me, and I don’t even know what you are.”

A flicker in the sky like the turn of a page.

It was time. I stumbled to my knees.

The Statue said, not unkindly, “You have been a worthy opponent. I will allow you to end your life according to the custom of your species.”

“Thank you. I — I guess it’s over.” I forced myself to my feet, took the hoop from my neck, and laid it reverently atop the little pillar. I began walking stiffly towards the door, feeling ashamed of my trickiness. Amazing, isn’t it. “I’d like to die outside,” I said solemnly.

The Statue glided away from the doorway, respectfully lowering its zap gun.

I got outside the building. Another shudder across the weird sky. I limped around the corner of the building—

— and ran for my life. My legs were like string, shivering from under use. A bar of light swept behind the stars. There were tiny explosions in my peripheral vision; it was as if something was solidifying out of the layer of space that cloaked the planet.

The Xeelee didn’t believe in a quiet entrance.

I tumbled face first into a shallow crater and stayed that way. It didn’t feel deep enough; I imagined my backside waving like a flag to the marauding Xeelee.

A giant started stomping around me. I held onto my head and waited for the pounding to stop. I glimpsed wings, night-dark, hundreds of miles wide, beating over the planet, eclipsing the glowing gas.

The planet stopped shivering.

I tried to move. My muscles were like cardboard. Pieces crackled off the back of my suit, which was burnt to a crisp. I walked from the crater scattering scabs like an unearthly leper.

I reached the site of the Xeelee station. I was a fly at the edge of a saucer; the hole was a perfect hemisphere, a hundred yards wide. I skirted it carefully, heading for a sparkle of twisted metal beyond it.

The Statue lay like Kafka’s cockroach, its sketch of a head battered into concavity, its limbs and torso crumpled. Fluid bubbled through a crack in the porthole, and something inside looked out at me listlessly.

The translator box was hesitant and scratchy, but intelligible. “I… wish to know.”

I knelt beside it. “Know what?”

“How you knew when… they would come.”

“Neat timing, huh?” I shrugged. “Well, the clues were there for both of us.”