“ Wrong!It would have made a difference to me .”

The feeling that swept through Deb was like nothing she had known in her whole life, a bloodred rage that twisted and tore at her insides. She raised her hand. One blow would break his neck.

He did not see the movement, because he was still staring at nothing. He could not possibly have seen her raised hand. But he said, slowly and thoughtfully, “You know, when I was asked to lead an expedition to the Geyser Swirl, I knew instantly that I would accept. But I didn’t know why. I told myself that it was the chance to do what we had all talked of doing, long ago. Since then I’ve had other thoughts. This mission is so dangerous it sounds like guaranteed suicide. Sane people don’t commit suicide. And only monsters talk their oldest friends into going along to die with them. Have I been building a team? Or have I been luring you and Danny and Chrissie and the others to share my fate?”

He sounded like a zombie, and his tone of utter hopelessness broke Deb. The blood seemed to drain out of her, leaving her weak and faint. She brought her raised hand down on the back of Chan’s head, not violently but gently, touching his hair. “How long before we reach Link entry?”

“About four and a half hours.”

“Then that’s when you’ll find out if you’re a monster. Are you going back to the control room?”

“I don’t think so. The Link transition is the job of the ship’s computer. It’s supposed to be close to omniscient, and close to infallible.”

“So why are we here? What can humans do that it can’t?”

“We can risk human lives. That’s Dag Korin’s job now; mine when we get through the link.”

“Mine too, then. I’ll wait here — if that’s all right with you?” She waited, but there was no word, no nod of acceptance. Finally she went on, “I can tell you one thing right now. No matter what happens when we go through the Link, you haven’t lured anybody here. Not Chrissie, not Tarb, not Danny, not anybody. Every member of the old team, they would rather be here than anywhere else in the universe.”

Still he said nothing.

She added, “And so would I.”

Link network transitions: every one the same, every one different.

Similarities:

* Before a transition can be initiated, coordinates must be provided. One hundred and sixty-eight decimal digits are needed, enough to specify origin and destination to within one meter anywhere in the universe. No exceptions are permitted.

* The matter density within the destination volume must be no greater than that of a thin gas; otherwise, Link transition will not be initiated. Link points on Earth’s surface come very close to that limit.

* Adequate (which is to say, enormous) power must be available at the originating Link point. Travel to the stars will never be cheap. The power for a single interstellar trip eats up the savings of a lifetime. When a large mass is involved, such as that of the Hero’s Return , no private groups can afford the expense. Such Link transitions are the prerogative of wealthy species governments.

Differences:

* Link entry positions are absolute, but Link entry velocities depend on mass. A small ship, such as the Mood Indigo , can enter a link with some latitude in velocity and emerge unscathed. A ship the size of the Hero’s Return must hit the right entry velocity to within millimeters a second.

* Velocity error converts kinetic energy to heat energy upon Link emergence. Miss the entry speed by a few kilometers a second, and your ship will emerge red hot.

* There is no uniformity in Link destinations, and no warning given of their properties. A traveller must learn of any dangers — high temperature, intense gravity field — ahead of time.

* Small fluctuations, believed to be amplified quantum effects, add a random element to the direction of travel on emergence. In the worst possible case, the one-in-a-million shot that no one likes to talk about, emergence never takes place at all. In any event, a ship had better be prepared to make sudden course changes.

That encourages one other permitted variation: the prayers of the crew about to undergo transition can be anything you like. The contribution of prayer to Link transitions is not established — but almost everyone does it.

Zero hour was approaching for the Hero’s Return . The entry point gaped open, a hole in the fabric of spacetime. In the final seconds before transition, every person on board fell silent. Men and women, young or old, believers or atheists, alone or together, outwardly nervous or outwardly confident, vanished into their private worlds.

The final second ticked away. Deb Bisson gripped Chan Dalton’s hand, hard enough to bruise. He felt the pain, and welcomed it.

Time ran out. The great bulk of the Hero’s Return , slowly, sluggishly, as if reluctantly, slid forward to enter the dark eye of the Link.

17: SAY HELLO TO AN ANGEL

Bony had known about Tinker Composites since he was a small child. He had studied the aliens, watched educational programs, asked a thousand (unanswered) questions of other humans, and read everything that he could lay his hands on. The Tinkers fascinated him. Pipe-Rillas fascinated him. All the Stellar Group aliens fascinated him. That was one reason he had been so eager to go to the stars, ever since he was a child in the basement warrens of Earth. And now …

As the inner hatch swung open and he took the first step forward into the ship’s interior, Bony found that he was trembling.

His first thought — I hope Liddy can’t see how nervous I am — vanished as a carpet of dark purple rose from the floor in front of him. He heard a whirring of many wings and flinched as a cloud of purple-black components, all apparently identical and each about as big as his finger, buzzed around his head.

As Liddy gasped and clutched Bony’s arm, the Tinker components flew to the other side of the cabin and settled around a tall pole. Fluttering their wings in a blur of motion they hovered by the column, then grasped it with small claws on the front of shiny leather-like wings. Thin, whip-like antennas reached out and connected heads to neighboring tails. Each body possessed a ring of pale green eyes, all of which seemed to be staring at Bony. That lasted only a few seconds. Then a second wave with its own myriad of eyes was settling on top of the first, and a third over that. It was no longer possible to make out individual components, and Bony could see no way to count them. He knew that a Tinker Composite could form at many different sizes, but he did not know if this one was big or small.

The Composite was taking on a particular shape, a crude approximation to a human form. Within two minutes the main body was complete, a rough “head” above it, while “legs” extended outward and downward to make contact with and derive support from the cabin floor. To Bony’s surprise — this was something he had not seen mentioned in the Tinker descriptions — many of the individual components remained unattached. Of the total in the cabin, only about four-fifths were connected to form a compact mass; the others stood tail-first on the cabin floor or hung singly from walls and ceiling.

The mass of the Tinker Composite began to form a funnel-like opening in its head-like extremity. From that aperture came a hollow wheezing moan. “Ohhh-ahhh-ggghh. Hharr-ehh-looo,” it said. Then, in a crude approximation to solar speech, “Har-e-loo. Hal-lo.”

Bony, feeling like a fool, said tentatively, “Hello.” He was reassured when Liddy echoed him, “Hello,” and added, “I am Liddy Morse.”

She was still wearing the translator at her belt, although for Tinkers it should be unnecessary. That idea was confirmed when a whistling voice said, “Hello, Liddy Morse,” and, after a pause, “You may call us, Eager Seeker.”