Footfall

The first showed a curve across the star background, not very informative.

“And this is what it would look like from above the Sun’s north pole.”

Three faintly curved lines radiated from a central point. Near that point, the sun, they were dotted lines-of course, no camera would have seen anything then-and they almost brushed the solar rim. The Navy man’s light-pointer traced the incoming line. “It came in at several hundred miles per second,” he said, “decelerating all the way. Of course the Invader wasn’t seen near the sun, and nobody was even looking for it then. This—” The light-pointer traced a line outward. “We have only three photos of it, and of course they could be artifacts, garbage. If they’re real, then this one wasn’t under power when it left the sun. It was dropped.” The third line ran nearly parallel to the second, then curved away. ‘This section was under power, and decelerating at around two gravities, with fluctuations. We’ve got five photos, and then it’s lost, but it might well have been on its way to Saturn.”

“Not good,” said a voice in the dark.

The lights came on. The Navy man said, “Who said that?’

“Joe Ransom.” He had a gaudy mustache and the air of self-assurance the SF writers all seemed to share. “Look: they dropped something to save fuel. Could have been a fuel tank—”

“I’d think it was a Bussard ramjet,” someone interrupted.

Ransom waved it away. “It almost doesn’t matter. They dropped something they needed to get here. They probably planned to. Odds are they didn’t take enough fuel to stop inside the solar system without dropping-well, something massive, something they didn’t need any more, something that served its purpose once it got them from Alpha Centauri or wherever. If—”

Burnham jumped on it. “A Bussard ramjet wouldn’t be any use inside the solar system. You need a thousand kilometers per second to intercept enough fuel-or there are some alternate versions, but you still—”

Ransom rode him down. “We can’t figure out what it was yet and we don’t care. They used it to cross, and then they dropped it. Either they figure to make someone build them another one, or they’re not going home. You see the problem?”

Something icy congealed in Jenny’s guts. They don’t expect to go home. Maybe a Threat Team isn’t such a bad idea. I’ll have to call the Admiral.

Meanwhile, the meeting was degenerating into isolated clumps of conversation. Jenny spoke up to resume control. “Enough!” The noise dropped by half. “Mr. Ransom, you said Alpha Centauri. Why?”

“Just a shot in the dark. It’s the three closest stars in the sky, and two of them are yellow dwarfs, stars very like ours.”

“Stars?”

“Yes. What we call Alpha Centauri, meaning the brightest star in the Centaur constellation, is really three stars: two yellow ones pretty close together, and one wretched red dwarf.”

“Our own sun’s a yellow dwarf,” Curtis said.

“Interesting,” Lieutenant Sherrad said. “Our astronomers say the object came from the Centaur region. Is Alpha Centauri really a good prospect?”

The meeting came apart again. This time Jenny let it ride for a bit. Her patience was rewarded when Curtis bellowed, “May I have a consensus? Who likes Alpha Centauri?”

Two hands went up.

“Who hates it?”

Three hands. And three undecided.

“Sherry? Why don’t you like Alpha Centauri?”

“Wade, you know how many other choices there are! There are almost a dozen yellow dwarf stars near us; and we don’t know they came from that kind of star anyway!”

“Bob? You like it.”

The wide white-haired man with the gaudy vest laughed and said, “I didn’t at first it’s trite. But, you know, it’s trite because it got used so much, and it got used so much because it’s the best choice. Why wouldn’t they go looking for the closest star that’s like their own? And, Sherry, there aren’t many yellow stars in that direction. That clump centers around Procyon and Tau Ceti and—”

“That’s what I was getting at,” Dr Curtis said. “It’s trite. As I see it, the way to bet is that they came from Alpha Centauri, or else they came a hell of a long distance — And if they dropped half their ship-you see?”

Burnham said, “It’d be their first trip. They won’t be very good at talking to us. Chances are they’ll want to watch us from high orbit.”

“Maybe it’s good the Soviets can’t go after them. They might run.”

“It still isn’t good. We should have met them around Saturn, just to get a little more respect—”

“Could have had a hotel on Titan by now—”

“Proxmire—”

They were at it again. Out of the babble she heard Curtis say, “One thing’s suit. They came from a long way off. So the next question is, what do they want?”