Toward the end of the voyage, the debate went underground, where it simmered like a waste-disposal system occasionally leaking noxious fumes. There was simply nothing more to say. During the last three weeks, Kim saw nothing out of the ordinary. She tried to talk herself into dismissing the apparition, or at least into locking it away in a corner of her mind where it could cause no disruption, much as she had the earlier experience at Remorse. But then she’d been able to get away from the Severin Valley. Now she was bolted in with the thing.

So there’d been an uneasy moratorium, a studied avoidance of the subject. Conversation necessarily became guarded rather than informative, ceremonial rather than intimate. It was like having a rhinoceros on board, whose presence no one wanted to recognize.

On the last day, however, as they approached jump status, Solly broached the subject. “I’m sorry the flight turned out the way it did,” he said.

His tone suggested he wasn’t holding her aberration against her. “It’s not your fault,” she said, carefully restraining the anger that began to stir.

“We need to decide whether we’re going to report the incident.”

Translation: Do you want to admit to having a hallucination?

They were both in the pilot’s room. Everything was in order, and the clock was counting down. Solly was waiting for the status lamps to light, after which he would push the EXECUTE key, and they would leap across into their own universe.

“Got a question,” Kim said, casually.

“Go ahead.”

“When we use the hypercomm transmitter, how do we know it’s in use?”

His jaw tightened. “Could you rephrase that, Kim? How could I not know I’m using it?”

She tried again. “When we’re communicating via hypercomm, does something light up on the status board?”

“Right here.” He pointed at a pair of lamps atop the communication console. “Orange means Ham’s begun the operation, that a channel is being opened, and green means it’s okay to talk.”

“Can you test it?”

“Test what?”

“Test the system. See if it works.”

“Kim, why?” He looked puzzled.

“Humor me, Solly. Please.”

Ordinarily he would simply have asked Ham to open the channel. Now it was necessary to pull the control board across his lap, consult his manual, press some keys.

“Well?” she asked.

“That’s odd.”

No lights.

“Problem?”

“The status lamps should have lit up,” he said.

“So as things are now, if someone were transmitting, we wouldn’t know.”

He checked the bulbs. Both were scorched. “How’d you guess?”

She shrugged. “It seemed like a possibility.”

He went back to the utility locker and returned with fresh lamps. “This has to do with the intruder, right?”

“I don’t like what’s happening, Solly.” She was suddenly desperately weary, anxious to see real sunlight again, and a real ocean. The virtual expanses of Hammersmith’s projection system just didn’t cut it. No matter how vast the stretches of sea and beach might appear, she always knew she was inside a chamber. “When do you expect we’ll be docking?” she asked.

“About six in the morning.”

It was not quite ten A.M., and they were just a few minutes from the jump. “Twenty hours?” she asked. “That seems kind of long.”

“It’s because of the time differential in hyperflight,” he said. “We never know quite where we’ll materialize. So we want to be well away from Greenway.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Check your harness.”

She could hear power gathering in the jump engines. Solly activated the external sensors and telescopes. She sat back, but kept an eye on the hypercomm lamps.

As they clicked down to one minute, Solly sighed. “You really expect something to happen, don’t you?”

“I think something just did,” she said. “In any case, to answer your question: Yes, I think we should contact Matt as soon as we’re able. I want to tell him what’s going on.”

“So what are you going to say? That you think there’s something on board that shouldn’t be here?”

“That’s right.”

He grew somber. “If you do that, we may not get home anytime within the foreseeable future. You’ll scare them out of their socks, and we’ll spend the next few years on old Hammersmith.”

“I don’t know what else to do, Solly,” she said.

The clock ran down to zero and he pressed the key.

A wave of vertigo passed behind her eyes. But she tried to control her breathing and think of other things. Like how good it had been with Solly, despite the problems. Like the fact that Emily’s body was downstairs and somebody was going to pay up for that.

The sensation passed quickly and the windows lit up with familiar constellations. Greenway and its moons appeared on one of the auxiliary screens.

“Transition complete,” he said.

Kim nodded and kept her eyes on the hypercomm lamps.

Solly opened a channel to Sky Harbor. “This is Hammersmith. Approaching on manual. Computer out. Request assistance.”

While they waited for the signal to reach Greenway, and for the controllers to respond, Solly looked over his instruments. “Everything seems normal,” he said.

Kim couldn’t sort her feelings out. She wanted the problem to go away, wanted to get home with her discovery, wanted to enjoy her accomplishment. But she also wanted to be proved right, for Solly to see that the apparition had substance. Maybe she wanted to demonstrate that to herself as well. She wanted an apology from somebody.

“Hammersmith, this is Sky Harbor.” A female voice. “We’ve been expecting you. Patrol will escort you in.” They gave Solly a course and speed.

“That doesn’t sound good,” he said.

He brought the ship around to the prescribed heading and fired the mains. A blip appeared on the long-range navigation screen. “That’ll be our escort,” he said.

“How far are they?”

“Several hours.”

Something caught Kim’s attention. A movement, a shift in the light. She looked around the pilot’s room. Nothing seemed changed.

“Problem?” Solly asked.

“Don’t know.” She reached over and touched the hypercomm lamps. They were warm. “I think they’re out again,” she said.

He frowned and tried them for himself. And then scowled.

He removed the orange lamp and held it up to his eyes. “They sure are.”

“Is there any other way to know whether we’re transmitting?”

“Yes.” He punched a button. “Patrol, Hammersmith. Do you read?”

“Hammersmith, this is Patrol one-one. Affirmative. Do you require assistance?” Male voice this time, Bondolay accent. Lots of r’s.

“Are we showing a hypercomm transmission?”

“Wait one.” He sounded as if he were being patient. Kim wiped her mouth while she waited for the response, which seemed to take an interminably long time. Then the voice was back: “Hammersmith,” he said, “that is affirmative.” He sounded puzzled. How could Hammersmith be transmitting and the pilot not know? “Is there a problem?”

“Computer is down,” Solly said, climbing out of his chair. “And we’re having some other minor malfunctions.” He signed off and left the pilot’s room in a dead run. Minutes later he was back, his face pale. “You were right, Kim,” he said. “There is something in the works and the son of a bitch is trying to talk to the folks at home.”

“The first thing it’ll do,” she said, “is tell them where Greenway is. Turn off the transmitter.”

“I just did.”

“Good.”

He opened the channel again. “Patrol, this is Hammersmith. Has the subspace transmission ceased?”

“Negative.” The voice paused. “Hammersmith, what is your situation?”

“I think we ought to tell them,” said Kim.

“That would not be a good idea. If they believed us, we might just get a missile up our tailpipe.”