The illumination grew brighter. A soft green glow, like phosphorous.

She pushed off the wall and drifted easily across the room, getting an angle so she could look out into the passageway without getting too close.

A pair of eyes stared back. Great, green, unblinking eyes. They locked on her.

Intelligent.

Mad.

She could see no head, only the eyes, floating almost independent of one another just outside in the corridor. They were big. Enormous. Too large to belong to any creature that could have reasonably fit into the hallway.

Her heart exploded and she almost lost her breather. She dived back away from the door, crossed the room, turned on her jets, and crashed through the broken frame, taking wood and glass with her.

She made for the surface, thinking, there had been nothing attached to the eyes, no body, no corporeal presence of any kind.

It was dark when she broke the surface. Kim looked around, located her boat, and raced to it, half expecting to be seized from below and dragged beneath the water. She hauled herself quickly over the gunwale, cut loose the anchor, tore off her breather, and started the engine.

The boat moved away with maddening deliberation.

She didn’t know where the flyer was. The sky was full of stars but the shore was featureless. She forced herself to slow down. She checked her compass and brought the boat around to a southeastern heading.

Behind her, something snorted. But nothing showed itself.

When she got close to land she had to cruise the shoreline, past forest broken up by buildings and strips of beach.

Occasionally she saw flickers of light in the trees, moving in conjunction with her as though she was being tracked.

Then her lamp picked out the welcome shape of the flyer. She turned the boat quickly inshore, ran it onto the beach, abandoned it, and made a dash for the aircraft. Once inside, she directed the vehicle to take off.

“Where?” it asked.

“Anywhere,” she said. “Up.”

“You should never have done that,” said Solly. He was furious. “Not alone. You know better.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Now I do.” And: “Never again.”

A long silence this time. Then: “Kim, it has to have been an eel or something.”

She was still in Eagle Point, in her robe, on the sofa with her legs tucked under her. A virtual Solly sat in a virtual chair in the projection area. Behind him, she could see a window and a view of the ocean. He was at home.

“It wasn’t an eel,” she insisted. “And it wasn’t in my head.” And to her everlasting embarrassment, tears ran down her cheeks. “It was really there, Solly. So help me, it was really there.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Whatever it was, it was there, and it wasn’t human. But the eyes were intelligent. It looked right through me.”

“Okay,” he said. “We don’t go in the water anymore, right?”

She was swallowing, trying to get control of herself. “Right,” she said. Her voice trembled.

“Couldn’t have been a squid or something, could it? Something that followed you in?”

“The lake’s fresh water.”

Solly didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then: “Did you get a picture of it?”

“No,” she said. “I was a little busy.”

“So what do you think it was?”

“You want to know what I think? Really? I think Sheyel is right. I think they brought something back with them. And I know how crazy that sounds, but I know what I saw, I mean I don’t know what I saw, but it was there, and it wasn’t a squid.”

“You want me to come up?”

“No. I’ve had enough. I’ll be on my way back in a couple of hours.”

Solly looked relieved. “You don’t have any plans about going back into the lake.”

“No.” She managed a laugh. “No way that’s going to happen.”

“What about the boat?”

“I told the rental shop where it is. They’re charging me for the pickup, but that’s fine. I don’t mind.”

“All right.” He was visibly relieved. It was a reaction that pleased her. “Think about it a minute. How could a thing have got past customs? How would it get down in the lift?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it was inside somebody. Maybe it took over Emily. Maybe that’s why they couldn’t show her on the logs.”

“Kim—” His eyes went briefly out of focus. “What’ve you been reading? Do you have any idea how that sounds?”

“Solly, I don’t have any answers. I just know what I saw.”

“All right.” He was appraising her. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.” Sure she was.

“I don’t suppose,” said Solly, “you found the Hunter logs? The real ones?”

She looked out the window. Sunlight glittered on the peaks. It was a normal world out there. “No,” she said. “But there is something.” She held up one of the pictures of the sketch on the wall.

He leaned forward. Squinted. “My God,” he said. “It’s Emily again.”

“She seems to be his favorite model.”

“I’d say. What’s she holding in her hands?”

Kim produced close-ups, watched him study the planet, and the ship. He frowned at the Valiant. “What is that thing?” he asked. “A turtle?”

“It’s a ship of some kind. What’s weird is that Ben Tripley has a model of it in his office.”

“The same design?”

“Yes.”

“What the hell is it doing in the sketch?”

“Solly, it might be a celestial. Maybe it’s what they saw out there.” She took a minute to rearrange her cushions. “I think they came out of hyper near one of the seven stars, and they saw this thing.” She shook the photo. “We’ve got to do a search, see if any ship that looked like this has ever existed. Tripley didn’t know about it, so I’d bet not. Anyhow it has no propulsion tubes, at least the model doesn’t—it’s hard to tell with this—” she meant the sketch. “As far as I know everything we make has propulsion tubes. If I’m correct, the ship is either fictitious or a celestial. If it’s fictitious, why would it appear simultaneously in Kane’s mural and as Tripley’s model?”

Solly tapped his fingers on his armchair. “Why would Tripley—Kile Tripley—want a model?”

“I don’t know. Answer that and maybe everything else becomes clear.”

“Okay,” he said. “Another subject—”

“Yes.”

“You were right. The log’s a complete fabrication. Or at least, it is from about the point where they have the engine breakdown.”

“Maybe that becomes the first question. Did they really experience a breakdown?”

“Probably. If not, and if there was a contact, it would imply a rendezvous. That seems like stretching it. No, I think we can assume the engine problem was legitimate.”

“Okay. If what we saw on the log was accurate, would it have been enough to bring them out of hyperspace?”

“Oh yes. Any kind of problem with the jump engines, you get out before you start monkeying with it. That’s SOP. Because if you don’t and something goes wrong, nobody ever hears from you again.”

“So we’re making some progress. The logs look good until the problem develops. And the virtual Emily shows up at about the same time.”

“So what’s our next step?” Solly’s voice got a little deeper, signaling that his testosterone was pushing him in a direction he really didn’t want to follow. “How about if I go up to Severin and see if I can get some pictures of the thingee?”

“No. It scares me, Solly. I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”

“That’s not a very scientific attitude.”

“I don’t care.”

“Okay.”

She could see he was uncomfortable, that he thought he should argue a little, maybe even insist on going. So she changed tack: “Have you decided to take the Taratuba assignment?”