“Coordinates received and understood.” Darla.

“Chief Engineer, Fuse, please.” I burned Hope Nation into my memory before it faded from the simulscreens.

We Fused.

Saddened, I left the bridge to Vax and Lieutenant Chantir’s watch, and went below for something to eat.

Passengers milled excitedly in the corridor, exploring the ship. I spotted Derek, grinning foolishly. “Well, Mr. Carr.”

I fell in alongside him. “You’ll be back someday.”

“Perhaps, sir.” He didn’t seem much concerned.

“Why so happy, Mr. Carr?”

“I met the new education director, sir. I think we’re going to be friends.”

I didn’t need a reminder of Amanda. “That’s nice,” I said, glum. I grimaced at the sealed airlock. “It’s going to be a long trip home.”

A familiar voice, behind me. “Think so?”

I whirled. Amanda waited, hands on hips.

“Hi, Micky.” She smiled. Her eyes danced as she came into my arms.

EPILOGUE

“Are you all right, sir?”

I blinked as I emerged into the bright sunlight. My head ached miserably. I swallowed my nausea. Vax hovered; Alexi waited by the car.

“I’m fine.” Despite my claim I felt awful from the P and D I’d voluntarily undergone. For three days they’d pumped me full of drugs, questioned me without end. I remembered little of it. Ever-changing faces, persistent demands that I explain in detail each decision I’d made. They’d stripped me of reasons, facts, motives, and exposed my foolish mistakes to the merciless light. I wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed beside my wife.

“What happened, sir?”

“I passed, Mr. Tamarov.” I swallowed again.

Alexi guided me to an electricar. “What next, sir?”

“They’ll decide whether to court-martial me.”

“They wouldn’t dare!”

“Watch your tongue, Mr. Holser.” Even among comrades I wouldn’t allow that.

“Aye aye, sir. Do you want to go back to quarters?” The entire crew had been shuttled from Lunapolis to Houston Naval Base as soon as my report was read, and we were still there.

“Admiral Brentley wants to see me before the Board of Inquiry makes its report. His office is that way.” I pointed toward Houston.

“You drive, Alexi.” Vax got in the back seat next to me and closed his eyes.

“How do you feel, Vax?” I could guess; he’d had the same drugs 35 I.

“I’ve been better. It’s all right.”

“What will they do with you?”

“They offered me a posting. I’ll tell you later, if you don’t mind.”

I drew back, a little hurt. “As you wish.”

We pulled up before the Admiral’s sunbaked residence, its yard surrounded by tall, unkempt bushes. A sentry saluted. I paused. “Get some sleep, you two.”

Alexi shook his head. “I’m going to round up the others.

We’ll be back to pick you up when you’re done.”

I was too weary to argue. “Whatever you say.”

The Admiral’s entryway was dark and cool. An orderly took me through a sitting room into a sunny first-floor office.

I came to attention.

“Carry on.” Admiral Brentley’s gruff voice suited him.

Sixtyish, graying, his athletic body had thickened into the heavy muscle of an athlete’s later years. He studied me with-

out expression.

“Aye aye, sir.” I chose the at-ease position.

The Admiral Commanding, Fleet Operations, sat himself on the edge of his desk. “Well, Seafort. What do you have to say for yourself?”

With a pang I realized that he knew it all, had seen the reports, heard my testimony, spoken to his nephew whom I had sentenced to the launch berth for most of the return voyage. Our interview was a formality. Court-martial or not, I would never again see command.

“I’ve nothing to say for myself, sir.”

“No excuses, no defenses?”

“No, sir.” My voice was firm. “I did the best I could with what knowledge I had.”

He regarded me quizzically. “What am I supposed to do with you?”

“Am I to be court-martialed, sir?”

“That’s up to the review board.” His tone was brusque.

“I’m not a member.” He walked around the side of the desk and stood looking out the window behind him. “However, they’ll damn well do what I tell them to do. It’s my fleet.”

I was shocked by his confidence. It meant either that I wasn’t in as much trouble as I thought, or I was in so much trouble that what he said didn’t matter at all. “Yes, sir.”

“I’m not happy with some of your decisions.” He tapped a sheaf of papers on his desk. “Pardoning Mr. Herney, for example. And your commutations for the mutineers on Miningcamp.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, sir.” I spoke quietly.

“You don’t care, do you?” The accusation surprised me.

I didn’t think it showed.

I wouldn’t lie to a superior. “No, sir, not really. I’ve had months and months to go over it. I did the best I could given who I am and my lack of abilities. I don’t expect you to see it that way, sir, but I’ve learned to live with it.” With Amanda, in the long, loving nights in our cabin. With the fumes of the Chief’s smoke, across my companionable cabin table.

He growled, “Well, I asked for it. I won’t penalize you for the truth.” He came around the desk, faced me with arms folded. “I can’t court-martial you. The public wouldn’t stand for it.”

“The public?” What on earth was he talking about? “Court-martial the hero of Miningcamp? The Captain who saved his ship with pistols blazing?”

“That’s utter nonsense!” I said, forgetting myself.

“The crew swears to it.” He paused, and added, “Courtmartial the first man to make contact with another species? No. I won’t do that.”

I closed my eyes. My stomach hurt anew. I just wanted it over. “Very well, sir.”

“Still, I can see to it that you never board a ship again.”

I was only mildly interested. “Is that what you intend?”

He came closer. “There are some things I can’t overlook.

That business with the circuit judge. It indicates a lack of respect for civilian authority. Couldn’t you have handled him more diplomatically?”

I raised an eyebrow. “What business, sir? I don’t recall any mention in the Log or Governor Williams’s dispatches.”

After a moment the corners of his mouth turned up. “Yes.

Well. You covered that nicely. It only came out in the interrogation.” He brushed it aside. “The worst of it was leaving your ship to visit Telstar.Absolutely inexcusable.”

I no longer had anything to lose. I said, in a tone for which I’d have caned a midshipman, “Tell me you wouldn’t have gone across to look, in my place.”

Admiral Brentley, taken aback by my disregard of. rank, seemed to swell. He strode back to his desk, threw himself in his chair. He glowered; I stared back with indifference.

Slowly, his shoulders relaxed. “I would have done exactly as you did, Nick,” he said. “I’d have gone over to take a look for myself. I’d want to know what happened to their ship: it was identical to my own.”

“Yes,”sir. But I still should have circled the ship first.”

“Why? To check for aliens? In two hundred years we’ve never found anything but a few boneless fish on one watery planet. Why should you be on guard?”

I considered. “I wasn’t sure, thinking about it. It just seemed I should have been more wary. As I should on Miningcamp. I just opened the locks and stood aside.”

“Since when has the Navy gone to Battle Stations to dock at a U.N. orbiting station?” he demanded. “That one, you’re clear on. We’ve already decided. If every Captain has to

ready a defense party before opening locks at a station, we’ll all go glitched. No, it’s the U.N.A.F. Commandant who’ll pay for that.”

He tapped the reports. “I can go along with most of it, even when your decisions differed from mine. Hell, that’s why we send a Captain, to make decisions. We back him up with total authority. Hope Nation is three years out; we can’t pull strings from home port.” He stopped. “But there’s one matter you’ve forgotten. Lieutenant Ardwell Crossburn. My nephew.”