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She waited as he watched the sinuous thing below them

"Any other ideas?" he finally asked

"Yes, sir" She&039;d coed to think of an answer to a nuclear strike

"We can use the three re photon cannon in tandem, sir And keep the Lynx under random acceleration The reflective lens on the object enty Wicks across and very rigid DA thinks it couldn&039;t track us"

"But could we dae it?"

"We only hit it with fifty terabits, sir With three cannon at maximum, we could easily do five hundred"

"It won&039;t work," he said

"Sir!" she said "Either of those options would create a surface te ies"

"Hobbes, what if this thing can achieve perfect reflectivity?"

"What do you mean, sir?"

The captain turned to face her

"What if it can becoh the core of a type-G star and not gain a single degree?" The i fantasy, the sort of thinking that had led her to reject Utopianism, with its promise of universal prosperity "That&039;s iy shunts can protect us from nuclear explosions"

"The shunts are a field effect, sir They&039;re energy, notexcept change its crude elemental makeup It hasn&039;t created any coies And our shunts aren&039;t ic; a direct hit from a decent fusion warhead and the Lynx would be vapor"

"The Lynx is the Lynx, Hobbes This object is so rather more But it is inexperienced, and every time we attack it, we educate it"

Hobbes shook her head

"If we hit it with nukes or lasers, it will adapt," the captain said

"Sir, it must have structural li her silent

"This object is not a spacecraft, Hobbes We can&039;t treat it like an engineering problem For a moment, think like the Rix To them it&039;s not an artifact at all"

Hobbes took a breath What was the old e, certainly, and a creation of unknown science But the Eies on every front for centuries

Had Laurent Zai ceased to believe he could win this fight?

"If it&039;s not an artifact, sir, then what is it?"

"It&039;s a living god"

Hobbes sed Had the old one daft?

"That doesn&039;t mean we can&039;t kill it, Captain"

He smiled

"No, indeed We have the power to destroy it But our solution y, but a tear in the fabric of space-time A black hole Self-destruction is the only honorable choice" "Captain, I have other options--"

"Silence, Hobbes It&039;s ti the blister to fold when they vere out Hobbes realized it was pointless to argue The man was fix-ited on death That hy he had returned here to the blister, to esume his ht His failure to take the blade had con-iuth; his finest moment had broken him inside And he Vadan man&039;s lost honor was now eain: one final chance to die for the Risen Ee, Katherie Hobbes felt the flechette pistol strapped to her wrist, and wondered if it had been a mistake to save Zai from the mutineers

"Ten minutes, sir"

A thousand seconds, and the Rix would be in range again Hobbes shook her head Having survived one pass by the vastly superior warship, it seemed insane to face another But it was too late for these thoughts Even at er put itself out of harht-speed delay?" Zai asked

"Sir?"

"Between ourselves and the battlecruiser"

Hobbes changed her scaleof co with the enemy? "Nine seconds round-trip, sir"

"Then ait," Zai said

For what? Hobbes wondered

A hundred seconds ticked by The Rix craft approached, decelerating now, as the object writhed before them

Hobbes focused her o: a paragon of honor and competence She would have died for him without question Why were there doubts in her mind now?

She reviewed the situation The Lynx&039;s orders were clear: to prevent contact between the compound mind and the battlecruiser This was the only way to be absolutely sure Perhaps self-destruction was the honorable choice But Laurent seeht of death And he had been blind to other options, even when there had been time

Of course, the time for options had run out

Katherie wondered if her doubts stemmed from the foolish affec-Mions she had allowed herself to develop for her captain Had Zai&039;s rejection lessened her loyalty? Hobbes tried to feel the sense of duty that had compelled her to join the Navy: The Utopian world she had left behind was an ee of death she should findThat was the axioave life value

But facing suicide, there was nothing inside Katherie Hobbes but regret and fear And a desire to find a way out

She checked the tie in fifty-odd seconds, sir The round-trip delay is now five seconds"

"Take us in, First Pilot I want collision with the object in forty seconds Smooth acceleration"

This was it

First Pilot Maradonna&039;s anxious eyes glanced toward Hobbes Katherie&039;s mind whirled What did Maradonna want from her? Hobbes nodded confirmation to the pilot, with an expression that she hoped said, Trust ate jolted a bit as the two-gee acceleration began, a gravity ghost wrenching a metal shriek from around theineer was here on the bridge, ready to control the singularity generator froo critical only with the first engineer&039;s approval He could stop this if he wanted Hobbes wondered if Watson Frick hadlike this? The bridge had once seemed sanctified to Hobbes, a place of order and faith But that surety had been stripped, unders for Laurent Zai She wondered if she would be thinking of mutiny if Laurent hadn&039;t told her about his lover on Hoe had becoenerator on an exponential curve, Frick Self-destruct to occur on contact"

"Yes, sir," said the first engineer without emotion "Fail-safe in twenty seconds"

This was the end, then In moments, they would all be destined for death, absolute and irrecoverable, at the maw of an event horizon

Unless Katherie Hobbes acted She put aside her doubts about her owncrew to consider

What if noith only second left, she were to take the bridge? She was the only one here as armed

The pilots would side with her, she knew already Pilots generally came from aristocracy, and possessed a certain sense of entitle, had been part of the first mutiny With the self-destruct process already started, however, Hobbes would have to turn Frick And for that, she realized, she had waited too long The Rix were almost upon them There was no chance that the Lynx could survive another pass fro: Suicide was the only sure way of destroying the object

She let all the hts exit her mind It was a pointless exercise; they were all dead whatever she did

But Katherie cursed herself for not deciding Honorable death or mutiny, she could have made a choice when the Rix were still distant Instead, she had waited for time to run down Laurent Zai and Watson Frick--they had chosen their deaths Katherie Hobbes had merely stumbled into hers

"Fail-safe in ten," Frick said

"Collision in twenty," a pilot added

This was it Just a countdown re in it for Hobbes

"Captain," cried Ensign Tyre "The Rix!"

"Cut our acceleration, Pilot," Zai snapped "Stand by, Frick"

The captain waved his hand, and the Rix battlecruiser filled the big airscreen It was coth of its hull Bright ar around to strike back at the vessel like arcing solar flares The ship&039;s main drive continued to-fire, but it was free of its \ structural supports, spinning like a fire hose gone ithin theshaft cut the battlecruiser&039;s aft section to pieces, then the drive tore itself free fro into the void The kilo bow spar of the battlecruiser vanished into a nuclear blast, perfectly spherical and absolutely white

"Frick, First Pilot: Save us," the captain ordered

"Aye, aye, sir"

Hobbes felt herself growing heavy as the Lynx&039;s faltering gravity strained to ularity alarht it out of its critical cycle

Katherie watched in amazement as debris scattered froe ship had disintegrated so quickly A thousand Rixwomen had died in seconds And her own fate had been recalled from the precipice just as suddenly

The captain leaned back into the shipmaster&039;s chair Hobbes saw for the first time hohite his face had becorim expression had seemed so fatal; now the old man looked merely exhausted