“And there was one other thing, something that neither brother had expected. Once they got going, Jack and Philip discovered that they were fascinated by the SETI projects. The longer they worked, the more it became an obsession. They’ve being going head to head for the past twelve years, with neither one slowing down and neither showing an advantage — until now, with the Wu-Beston anomaly. You can imagine how Philip welcomed that message from the Ogre.

“Better be prepared when you reach Odin Station, Milly. It’s odds-on that the Bastard will have a reception planned for you. I wouldn’t like to guess what.”

11

ABOARD THE OSL ACHILLES

Welcome aboard the OSL Achilles.” The blond-haired man in the white uniform stared dubiously at Janeed, and then at the two bags. “Is that all you have?”

“I’m afraid it is. Is there anything wrong with that?”

“Weil, no. But some of the others…” He gestured to a huge heap of luggage. “Most people try and bring the contents of the family home, including the cat. It’s my job to talk them out of it.”

“I never had a family home, so it was easy.” Janeed examined his silver badge, which offered the cryptic message F. O., marr p. They were already in Earth-synchronous orbit, and her light-headed feeling was due to more than the micro-gravity environment. Normally she would never have added, to a total stranger, “Is that all you do, handle luggage? And what does your badge mean?”

He seemed more amused than affronted, and looked hard at Janeed for the first time. “No, it’s not all I do. My name is Paul Marr, and I’m second in command. First officer, sort of a spare captain — I suppose it’s in case we lose one.”

“You mean you’re the first mate.”

“If you want to put it in the old-fashioned Earth way, I guess I am.” Janeed and Sebastian were the last to board, so there was no pressure to keep them moving along. Paul Marr glanced at Sebastian, who was staring enraptured out of the port at the full globe of cloudy Earth, far below, and added, “The first mate. You sound like you’ve been to sea yourself.”

“For more than a dozen years.”

“Really? You don’t look old enough.”

“Easily old enough. Thank fresh air and early nights if I look younger than I am. It wasn’t on a real ship, though. I worked in the South Atlantic on a Global Minerals’ mining platform.”

“Even so, it’s a lot more than I’ve ever done. It must be wonderful down there on Earth: the sea breezes, the tides, the storms.”

“Not just those. Don’t forget the pirates, the grog, the lash, the treasure, keel-hauling and hanging from the yard-arm.” Janeed’s strange sense of freedom — of liberation — would not go away. It was like waking on a spring holiday morning when she was six, with the whole day and the whole world waiting. Perhaps it was unfair to dump her exhilaration on Paul Marr, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was laughing, and it was with her, not at her.

“Get yourself settled in on Ganymede,” he said, “then you must take another trip on the Achilles. We’ll go down to Earth, just the two of us, and you can show me everything.”

Was it a come-on, after less than two minutes in each other’s company? It certainly sounded that way. Janeed decided, to her own amazement, that she wouldn’t mind if it were. Paul Marr was part of the mystery, shaking off the surly bonds of Earth and heading into the unknown.

But Marr was staring at Sebastian, who had suddenly swung away from the port.

“I’m sorry.” The first officer was looking at Sebastian, although he seemed to be talking to Jan. “The gentleman there. I assumed that you two were brother and sister. But the manifest shows different last names.”

“We’re together, but we’re not related.” At Paul Marr’s frown, Jan added, “We grew up together, ever since we were a few years old.”

Paul Marr said, “Good” — which so far as Jan was concerned could mean absolutely anything — and then, to Sebastian, “I’ve been curious to meet you, Mr. Birch. You are the reason that the Achilles will be detouring to Mars, instead of taking a straight run to the Jovian system.”

Sebastian said nothing. It was Jan who had to ask, “Why? What’s on Mars that involves Sebastian?”

“Not what. Who. We’ll be picking up a Dr. Valnia Bloom there, who has been recruiting for her science section. She wants to talk to both of you and give Mr. Birch another set of tests on the way out to Jupiter.”

“Why?”

“You’ve got me. But it will offer you the chance to see a bit more of the System. Of course, you won’t have an opportunity to go down to the surface of Mars. We’ll just do an orbital rendezvous.”

“Good.” Sebastian spoke to Paul Marr for the first time. “I’ll see cloud patterns.”

“You’ll certainly be able to do that. Are you interested in the clouds on Mars?”

“Not very.” Sebastian turned back to the observation port, leaving Paul Marr to stare quizzically at Jan. His expression said, Is he normal? Jan didn’t want to think too closely about that. She loved Sebastian more than anyone else in the universe, but even she couldn’t deny that he was strange.

“Come on.” She took Sebastian’s arm. He seemed fixated on Earth again. “You’ll have time to look at that later. Now we have to go to our quarters and settle in.” She picked up the bags, handed one to Sebastian, and moved along the entry umbilical that led through to the ship’s interior.

At the hatch an odd feeling in the back of her neck convinced her that she was being stared at. She turned. Paul Marr had not moved. He gave her a nod and a little smile, and said, “Enjoy the Achilles. We’re proud of her. I hope I’ll see more of you on the flight out.”

Marr had sounded sincere enough, but for the next four days Jan did not see him at all. It was not for lack of trying on her part. The Achilla was a substantial vessel, a fat ovoid forty meters long and thirty across its round mid-section. The engines that propelled the ship toward Mars at a steady third of a gee were housed in the rear, together with the ship’s instrumentation and control room, all behind a bulkhead that said NO PASSENGERS BEYOND THIS POINT in large red letters. Jan decided that Paul Marr must be hiding there, because he was certainly not in any other part of the ship. While Sebastian stared first at the starscape beyond the observation port — “Boring,” he said, after half an hour — and then drowsed in his bunk or gazed vacantly at the cabin ceiling, Jan explored the whole vessel.

There were seventy-one other passengers, bound for the Jovian system as final destination. Jan and Sebastian were the only ones who would head farther out, after the indoctrination sessions on Ganymede. She spoke with a fair number of fellow travelers, but found little in common with most of them. They had worked indoor office jobs on Earth, and they expected to work indoor office jobs somewhere on Ganymede or possibly Callisto. Jan’s life on the high seas of Earth meant nothing to them, though she did swap sea stories with one former sailor. Her own ignorance of what the future might hold in the Saturn system ruled that out as a subject for conversation.

The captain of the OSL Achilles joined the passengers every day for dinner in the ship’s formal dining room, and different groups took it in turn to sit at his table. When Jan’s turn came, along with Sebastian and three others, she made polite general conversation for awhile, and then — ingenuously, she hoped — said, “Your first officer was very kind and helpful when we came aboard. But I haven’t seen him since.”

Captain Eric Kondo squinted across the table at Jan. She had the feeling that he was reading her ID badge. “I’m sure that you will, Ms. Jannex,” he said, “as soon as we reach Mars. The first officer has been very busy, overhauling the Omnivores for inspection when we reach Mars orbit.”