C H A P T E R

       1

THE PHONE WAS RINGING. HE CAME UP OUT OF A SLEEP AS DARK
as death, fumbled at the glowing button in the phone's base with numb fingers and punched it. The ringing ceased.
"Wander here," he mumbled. An officer he did not recognize showed on the screen.
"Major, this is Assignment. Lieutenant Van Lee. Laagi showing upward of thirty ships facing our sector of the Frontier. Scramble, sir."
"Right," he muttered.
There was no reason for the Laagi to start putting extra ships into that part of their territory that faced the North American Sector, and necessitate an all‑personnel call‑out of the ship‑handling crews‑including people like himself who had just come back in off patrol out there six hours ago.
But then, attacking or running, the Laagi made no sense. They never had.
"You're to show in Conference Room K at four hundred hours. Bring your personals."
"Right." Groggily he rolled over on his stomach and squinted at his watch in the glow from the button on the phone. In the pale light, the figures on his wrist‑com stood at

1
2 / Gordon R. Dickson
twelve minutes after three‑three hundred twelve hours. Enough time.
"Understood, sir?"
"Understood, Lieutenant," he said.
"Very good, sir. Out."
The phone went dead. For a moment the desire for sleep sucked at Jim Wander like some great black bog; then with a convulsive jerk he threw it and the covers off him in one motion and sat up on the edge of his bed in the darkness, scrubbing at his face with an awkward hand.
After a second, he turned the light on, got up, showered and dressed. As he shaved, he watched his face in the mirror. It was still made up of the same roughly squarish, large‑boned features he remembered, but the lines about the mouth and between the eyebrows seemed deepened with the sleep, under the tousled black hair, coarsely curling up from his forehead. It could not be drink, he thought. He never drank except on leave, nowadays. Alcohol at other times did nothing for him anymore. It was just that now he slept like a log‑like a log watersoaked and drowning in some bottomless lake.
He had not gone stale. Out on the Frontier he was as good as ever. But he needed something‑what, he could not specify. He felt the lack of it, like the emptiness of a long‑empty stomach inside him. But it was not hunger, because he was fed regularly; and it was not women, as his friends suggested, because he had no trouble finding women on his leaves from duty. What he wanted was to come to grips with something. That was it, to have a wall behind him he could set his back against and a job to do in front of him, where he could see himself getting it done‑instead of fighting an endless war and getting nowhere, surrounded by those who found simply being in the war enough to justify their existence.
He ceded to accomplish something and find someone who understood what it was like to have that need.
He got up and started getting himself ready for duty.
When he was finally dressed, he strapped on last of all his "personals"‑his sidearm, the painkiller kit, the little green thumbnailsquare box holding the x‑capsule. Then he left his room, went down the long, sleeping corridor of the officers'

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quarters and out a side door into the darkness of predawn and the rain.
He could have gone around by the interior corridors to the Operations building, but it was a short cut across the quadrangle and the rain and chill would wake him, drive the last longing for sleep from his bones. As he stepped out of the door the invisible rain, driven by a light wind, hit him in the face. Beyond were the blurred lights of the Operations building across the quadrangle.
Far off to his left thunder rolled. Tinny thunder‑the kind heard at high altitudes, in the mountains. Beyond the rain and darkness were the Rockies. Above the Rockies, the clouds. And beyond the clouds, space, stretching light‑years of distance to the Frontier.
‑To where he would doubtless be before the dawn rose, above this quadrangle, above these buildings, these mountains, and this Earth.
He entered the Operations building, showed his identification to the Officer of the Day, and took the lift tube up to the fourth floor. The frosted pane of the door to Conference Room F glowed with a brisk, interior light. He knocked on the door and went in without waiting for an answer. Inside, the room was half‑full of pilots like himself and their gunners.
"Oh, Jim!" said the colonel behind the briefing desk. "Not here. They want you in Conference Room K, this time."
Jim grunted. He had forgotten. He went out. One floor down and halfway down the corridor to the right was Conference K. Jim went in this time without even knocking‑and stopped. Like all conference rooms in Operations, it had one desk and many chairs. This room also had two people, one of whom was General Louis Mollen, Sub‑Chief of Operations, and the other was a woman Jim did not know.
Mollen, round and hard‑bodied as a medicine ball, with a head to match, sat behind the desk; and in a chair half‑facing him was a woman in military flight clothes, in her midtwenties,lean and highforeheaded, with the fresh skin and clear eyes of someone who has spent most of her years inside walls, sheltered from the weather. Under reddish blond hair her eyes were blue‑green, in a face that was rectangular, with the jawlines sloping straight down to a small, square chin. It was not

4 / Gordon R. Dickson
a remarkable face. Nor was it unremarkable. It was a strong, determined face.
"Sony, sir. I should have knocked," said Jim.
"Not important," said Mollen. "Come in."
Jim came in and both the other two stood up as he approached the desk. They watched him closely, and Jim found himself examining the woman. The flight coveralls she wore had been fitted to her, which meant she was not just a civilian fitted out by the ‑supply depot for this occasion. At the same time something about her did not belong in the Operations building; and Jim, out of the dullness of the fatigue that was still on him and the emptiness in him, found himself twinged by a sudden and reasonless resentment at her presence here, at the moment of a scramble. She looked unnaturally wideawake and competent for this dark hour of the morning. Of course, so did Mollen; but that was different.
Jim stopped in front of the desk.
"Jim," said the general, deep‑voiced, his round, snubnosed, pugnacious face unsmiling. "I want you to meet Dr. Mary Gallegher. She's from the Geriatrics Bureau."
She would be, thought Jim sourly, reaching out to shake hands with her. Mary Gallegher was almost as tall as Jim himself, who at five feet ten was near the upper limit in height for the cramped quarters of the pilot's com seat of a fighter ship, and her handshake was not weak. But still . . . here she was, thought Jim, still resenting her for being someone as young as Jim himself, full of the juices of living, and with all her attention focused on the gray and tottering endyears of life. A bodysnatcher‑a snatcher of old bodies from the brink of the grave for a few months or a few years.
"Pleased to meet you, Mary," he said.
"Good to meet you, Jim."
"Sit down," said the general. Jim pulled up a chair and they all sat down once more around the desk.
"What's up, sir?" asked Jim. "They told me it was a gmeral callout."
"The call‑out's a fake. Just an excuse to put extra ships on the Frontier for something special," answered Mollen. "The something special's why Mary's here. And you. What do you remember about the Sixty Ships Battle?"

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"It was right after we found we had a frontier in common with the Laagi, wasn't it?" said Jim, slightly puzzled. "Over one hundred years ago or so. Back before we found out logistics made mass spaceship battles unworkable. Sixty of ours met forty‑some of theirs beyond the Frontier, as it is now, and theirs were better. What about it?"
"Do you remember how the battle came out?" It was the civilian, Mary Gallegher, leaning forward with an intensity that puzzled him.
Jim shrugged.
"They were better, as I say. Our ships were slower then. We hadn't started to design them for guarding a frontier, instead of fighting pitched battles. They cut us up and suckered what was left into staying clumped together while they set off a nova explosion," he said. He looked into her eyes and spoke deliberately. "The ships on the edge of the explosion were burned up like paper cutouts. The ones in the center just disappeared."
"Disappeared," said Mary Gallegher. She did not seem disturbed by Jim's description of the explosion. "That's the right word. How long ago did you say this was?"
"Over a hundred years ago," said Jim. He turned and looked at General Mollen, with a glance that said plainlyWhat is this, sir?
"Look here, Jim," said the general. "We've got something to show you."
He pushed aside the few papers on the surface of the table in front of him and touched some studs on the control console near the edge of the top. The overhead lights dimmed. The surface of the table became transparent and gave way to a scene of stars. To the three seated around the desk top it was as if they looked down and out into an area of space a thousand light‑years across. To the civilian, Jim was thinking, the stars would be only a maze. To Jim himself, the image was long familiar.
Mollen's hands did things with the studs. Two hazy spheres of dim light, each about a hundred and fifty lightyears in diameter along its longest axis, sprang into viewbright enough to establish their position and volume, not so bright as to hide the stars they enclosed. The center of one of

6 / Gordon R. Dickson
the spheres was the surf of Earth, and the farthest extent of this sphere in one direction intermixed with an edge of the other.
"Our area of space." said Mollen's voice, out of the dimness around the table. "‑And the Laagi's, Mary. They block our expansion in that direction, and we block theirs in this. The distribution of the stars in this view being what it is, it's not practical for either race to go around the other. You see the Frontier area, Mary?"
"Where the two corne together, yes," said Mary.
"Now Jim‑" said Mollen. "Jim commands a Wing of our Frontier Guard ships, and he knows that area well. But nothing but unmanned drones of ours have ever gotten deep into Laagi territory beyond the Frontier and come back out again. Agreed, Jim?"
Agreed, sir," said Jim. "More than twenty, thirty lightyears deep is suicide."
"Well, perhaps," said Mollen. "But let me go on. The Sixty Ships Battle wits fought a hundred and twelve years ago‑here." A bright point of light sprang into existence in the Frontier area. "One of the ships engaged in it was a oneman vessel with a s‑.mianimate automatic control system, named by its pilot La Chasse Gallerie‑you said something, Jim?"
The exclamation had emerged from Jim's lips involuntarily. And at the same time, foolishly, a slight shiver had run down his back. It had been years since he had tun across the old tale as a boy.
"It's a French‑Canadian ghost legend, sir," he said. "The legend was that voyageurs who had left their homes in Eastern Canada to go out on the fur trade routes and who had died out there would be able to come back home one night of the year. New Year's night. They'd come sailing in through the storms and snow in ghost canoes, to join the people back home and kiss the girls they now wouldn't ever be seeing again. ‑That's what they called the story, `La Chasse Gallerie.' It means the hunting of a type of butterfly that invades beehives to steal honey."
"The pilot of this ship was a Canadian," said Mollen. "Raoul Penard." He coughed dryly. "He was greatly attached to his home. La Chasse Gallerie was one of the ships near the

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center of the nova explosion, one of the ones that disappeared. At that time we didn't realize that the nova explosion was merely a destructive application of the principle used in phase‑shift drive. ‑You've heard of the statistical chance that a ship caught just right by a nova explosion could be transported instead of destroyed, Jim?"
"I'd hate to count on it, sir," said Jim. "Anyway, what's the difference? Modern ships can't be anticipated or held still long enough for any kind of explosion to be effective. The Laagi haven't used the nova for eighty years. Neither have we."
"True enough," said Mollen. "But we aren't talking about modern ships. Look at the desk schema, Jim. Forty‑three hours ago, one of our deep, unmanned probes returned from far into Laagi territory with pictures of a ship. Look."
Jim heard a stud click. The stars shifted and drew back. Floating against a backdrop of unknown stars he saw the oldfashioned cone shape of a one‑man space battlecraft, of a type forgotten eighty years before. The view moved in close and he saw a name, abraded by dust and dimmed, but readable on the hull.
La Chasse Gallerie‑The breath caught in his throat.
"It's been floating around in Laagi territory all this time?" Jim said. "I can't believe‑"
"More than that"‑Mollen interrupted him= `that ship's under pilotage and moving." A stud clicked. The original scene came back. A bright line began at the extreme edge of the desk and began to creep toward the back limits of Laagi territory. It entered the territory and began to pass through.
"You see," said Mollen's voice out of the dimness, "it's coming back from wherever the nova explosion kicked it to, over one hundred years ago. It's headed back toward our own territory. It's headed back, toward Earth."
Jim stared at the line in fascination.
"No," he heard himself saying. "It can't be. It's some sort of Laagi trick. They've got a Laagi pilot aboard=
"Listen," said Mollen. "The probe heard talking inside the ship. And it recorded. Listen‑"
Again, there was the faint snap of a stud. A voice, a human

8 I Gordon R. Dickson
voice, singing raggedly, almost absentmindedly to itself, entered the air of the room and rang on Jim's ears .

. . . en roulant ma boule, roulantroulant ma boule, roulant . . .

The singing broke off and the voice dropped into a mutter of a voice that switched back and forth between French and English, speaking to itself. Jim, who had all but forgotten the little French he had picked up as a boy in Quebec, was barely able to make out that the owner of the voice was carrying on a running commentary on the housekeeping duties he was doing about the ship. Talking to himself after the fashion of hermits and lonely men.
"All right," said Jim, even while he wondered why he was protesting such strong evidence at all. "Didn't you say they had the early sernianimate control systems then? They used brain tissue grown in a culture, didn't they? It's just the control system, parroting what it's heard, following out an early order to bring the ship back."
"Look again," said Mollen. The view changed once more to a close‑up of La Chasse Gallerie. Jim looked and saw wounds in the dust‑scarred hull‑the slashing cuts of modern light weapons, refinements of the ancient laser beam‑guns.
`"The ship's already had its first encounter with the Laagi on its way home. It met three ships of a Laagi patrol‑and fought them off."
"Fought them off? That old hulk?" Jim stared into the dimness where Mollen's face should be. "Three modern Laagi ships?"
"That's right," said Mollen. "It killed two and escaped from the third‑and by rights it ought to be dead itself, but it's still coming, on ordinary drive, evidently. It's not phaseshifting. Now, a control system might record a voice and head a ship home, but it can't fight off odds of three to one. That takes a living mind."
A stud clicked. Dazzling overhead light sprang on again and the desk top was only a desk top. Blinking in the illumination, Jim saw Mollen looking across at him.
"Jim," said the general, "this is a volunteer mission. That

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ship is still well in Laagi territory and it's going to be hit again before it reaches the Frontier. Next time it'll be cut to ribbons, or captured. We can't afford to have that happen. Its pilot, this Raoul Penard, has got too much to tell us, even beginning with the fact of how he happens to be alive in space at well over a hundred years of age." He watched Jim closely. "Jim, I'm asking you to take a section of four ships in to meet. La Chasse Gallerie and bring her out."
Jim stared at him. He found himself involuntarily wetting his lips and stopped the gesture.
"How deep?" he asked.
"At least eighty light‑years in toward the heart of Laagi territory," said Mollen bluntly. "If you want to turn it down, Jim, say so now. The man who pulls this off has got to go into it believing he can make it back out again."
"Mat's me," said Jim. He laughed, the bare husk of a laugh. "That's the way I operate, General. I volunteer."
"Good," said Mollen. He sat back in his chair. "There's just one more thing, then. Raoul Penard is older than any human being has a right to be and he's pretty certainly senile, if not out‑and‑out insane. We'll want a trained observer along to get as much information out of contact with the man as we can, in case you lose him and his ship, getting back. That calls for someone with a unique background and experience in geriatrics and all the knowledge of the aging process. So Mary, here, is going to be that observer. She'll replace your regular gunner and ride in a two‑man ship with you."
It was like a hard punch in the belly. Jim sucked in air and found he had jerked erect. Both of the others watched him. He waited a second, to get his voice under control. He spoke first to the general.
"Sir, I'll need a gunner. If there was ever a job where I'd need &‑gunner, it'd be this one."
"As a matter of fact," said Mollen slowly‑and Jim could feel that this answer had been ready and waiting for him= `Mary, here, is a gunner‑a good one. She's a captain in the Reserve, Forty‑second Training Squadron. With a ninety‑two point six efficiency rating."
"But she's still a weekend warrior= Jim swung about to face her. "Have you even done a tour of duty? Real duty? On the Frontier?"

10 I Gordon R. Dickson

"I think you know I haven't, Major," said Mary evenly. "If I had you'd have recognized me. We're about the same age and there aren't that many on Frontier duty."
"Then do you know what it's like, Captain‑what it can be like out there?" raged Jim. He was trying to keep the edge out of his voice but he could hear it there in spite of all he could do. "Do you know how the Laagi can come out of nowhere? Do you know you can be hit before you know anyone's anywhere near around? Or the ship next to you can be hit and the screens have to stay open‑that's regulation, in case of the one‑in‑a‑million chance that there's something can be done for whoever's in the hit ship? Do you know what it's like to sit there and watch someone you've lived with burning to death in a cabin he can't get out of? ‑Or spilled out of a ship cut wide open, and lost back there somewhere . . . alive but lost . . . where you'll never be able to find him? Do you know what it might be like to be spilled out and lost yourself, and faced with the choice of living three weeks, a month, two months in your suit in the one‑in‑a‑million chance of being found after all‑or of taking your x‑capsule? Do you know what that's like?"
"I know of it," said Mary. Her face had not changed. "The same way you do, as a series of possibilities, for the most part. I've seen visual and audible recordings of what you talk about. I know it as well as I can without having been wounded or killed myself."
"I don't think you do!" snapped Jim raggedly. His voice was shaking. He saw Mary turn to look at the general.
"Louis," she said, "perhaps we should ask for another volunteer?"
"Jim's our best man," said Mollen. He had not moved, or changed his expression, watching them both from behind the desk. "If I had a better Wing Cee‑or an equal one who was fresher‑I'd have called on him or her instead. But what you're after is just about impossible; and only someone who can do the impossible has a hope of bringing it off. That's Jim. It's like athletic skills. Every so often a champion comes along, one in billions of people, who isn't just one notch up from the next contenders, but ten notches up from the nearest best. There's no point in sending you and five ships into Laagi

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territory with anyone else in command. You simply wouldn't come back. With Jim, you might."
"I see," said Mary. She looked at Jim. "Regardless, I'm going."
"And you're taking her, Jim," said Mollen, "or turning down the mission."
"And if I turn it down?" Jim darted a glance at the general.
"I'll answer that," said Mary. Jim looked back at her. "If necessary, my Bureau will requisition a ship and I'll go alone."
Jim stared back at her for a long moment, and felt the rage drain slowly away from him, to be replaced by a great weariness.
"All right," he said. "All right, Mary‑General. I'll head the mission." He breathed deeply and glanced over Mary's coveralls. "How long'll it take you to get ready?"
"I'm ready now," said Mary. She reached down to the floor behind the desk and came up with a package of personalssidearm, med‑kit and x‑box. "The sooner the better."
"All right. The five ships of the Section are manned and waiting for you," said Mollen. He stood up behind the desk and the other two got to their feet facing him. "I'll walk down to Transmission Section with you."