At the hour of departure, all but Yu, Brent, and Emil were gathered at the wheel exit. Those three were in launch control. The humans stood mute, avoiding one another's eyes, Nansen almost at attention, Cleland apart from the rest. The Tahirians talked together in their own group, signals and attitudes and subdued buzz or trill.

Kilbirnie arrived last. She skipped into the bare chamber, singing.

"Farewell and adieu to you, fine Spanish ladies, Farewell and adieu, all you ladies of Spain! —"

She halted, looked them over, and laughed aloud. "Och, what long faces! Just bid me bon voyage, will ye no? For bonnie 'twill be. And nob-but two, three days."

"We worry," Ruszek croaked. "I worry. About you."

She danced over to him. "Noo, laddie, syne ye're wise and dear enough to gi' me this, dinna ever feel guilty. Ye're wonderful."

She kissed him heartily. Cleland shut his eyes.

Kilbirnie went about shaking hands. Cleland's lay limp in hers. When she let go, he stared dazedly at it.

For Nansen, at the end, she had a kiss that went on. He kept his arms at his sides. To him passion was a private thing.

"Adios, amante," she breathed. "We'll do this right when I get back." She stepped from him and made for the exit, waving. "Good-bye, goodbye," she called, reached the ladder, and went from their sight. Her voice came down to them: "Ahoy!"

Colin followed.

After a minute the humans made their way to their common room, to watch the launch on its big screen. Such was not in Tahirian nature. For a while the image was merely of stars. Then Herald appeared, floating away until clear of the wheels, jetting briefly to take station, at that distance a bright dart.

The station lumbered into view. It seemed grotesque by contrast, a twenty-meter spheroid warty with turrets and bays, bristly with masts and webs. It moved off under field drive, at low acceleration. The boat maneuvered to match. Slowly they shrank into the screen, down to a pair of sparks in heaven, down and away into darkness.

"Resume your duties," Nansen said, and left the room.

When they were properly vectored, the vessels cut their drives and dropped inward on Hohmann trajectory. It would take them half a day to reach a million-kilometer orbital radius. This part of the transit was easy, and robots could readily handle it.

It fell short of the goal. Calculating from theory, old Tahirian findings, and data sent by their probes, the expedition's physicists had decided the station should circle within a quarter million kilometers. That was still too remote for relativistic and quantum mechanical effects of the black hole to be significant. But it did seem that the closer in a transmitter was, the more clearly the aliens could send; the signal-to-noise ratio increased, while the signal itself would become more than sporadic flashes. Furthermore, from there the station could dispatch sophisticated small spacecraft deeper in, perhaps even to skim the event horizon, with a fair chance of remaining able to control them, receive from them, and retrieve a few of them. Who knew what it might discover?

That last stage of the journey would be through ever worsening savageries. They had wrecked all probes thus far — if not on the first mission, then on the second or third. Heavily shielded, heavily loaded, the station was less agile than they were. It responded slowly to its drive, you could say awkwardly. Its computers and effectors were not programmed to cope with everything they might encounter; nobody could imagine everything, and it was the unforeseen that had slain the forerunners. A question to Envoy would be more than half a minute on the way. The response would take as long, or longer — for the black hole would be whipping the station around at well over a hundred kilometers per second. Time lag could prove fatal.

A command vessel must needs go along, prepared to shepherd, prepared if necessary to plunge in, lay alongside, grapple fast, and correct the course before speeding back toward safety. Kilbirnie steered Herald.

On the half day of the inward fall she hovered over her instruments, hummed, sang snatches of song, looked out at the stars, raised memories In her head and smiled at them. Colin sat for the most part wrapped in ens Tahirian thoughts.

Uh-oh. We got trouble."

For a moment Kilbirnie's glance left the pilot console and flicked to the forward viewscreen, as if she could see the wrongness happening. Only stars and a restless blue-white blur that was the accretion disk, images enhanced against interior lighting and exterior night, were visible to her, there where she swung in orbit. The station had left her hours ago, boosting to its new path.

"Que es? What's the matter?" rapped Nansen's voice.

"Radar tracking shows sudden deviation. We don't know why, but it doesn't look good. Hang on."

Data poured in. Colin toiled at ens computer.

Presently en took up a parleur. Kilbirnie leaned around in her seat to read the writing, as well as see, hear, and smell the other components of Cambiante when used by a Tahirian. A human could only supplement with sign language, though that included several facial expressions. "(Apparently the station passed near a large mass,)" Colin said. "(The gravity flung it off course. It will plunge much lower than we planned before rounding periastron and receding.)"

"God! What —" She reached for her own parleur. "(What can the mass be? A wandering planet, sucked in by sheer chance at the exact worst moment for us?)"

"(Possibly. We know such objects exist in interstellar space. The radar indications were unclear, and it is now hidden on the farther side. But you may recall that we have often observed knots, temporary concentrations of plasma, form in the disk. We do not know what the mechanism is, although I have speculated about shock-wave resonance effects. They may create plasmoids in the huge flares we frequently see, reaching far beyond the disk before falling back. Such a plasmoid could be held together for a while by its self-generated magnetism, and might have the mass of a large asteroid. If it came close to the station, the event, although unfortunate, was not unbelievably improbable.)"

However academic the statement, Colin's body shivered in ens seat, the fur stood stiff, the mane tossed like gale-blown leaves, a brimstone reek gusted out.

Kilbirnie nodded, her neck as stiff as her mouth. "Simple bad luck. And the unknown, which we can't ever provide against." Her fingers asked, "(What is the situation, then?)"

"(The radar is collecting data.)" Colin returned to ens work. Kilbirnie reported to Envoy.

Time wore away. She wasn't hungry, but forced herself to go aft, take a few bites of dry rations, swallow a half liter of water. It helped more to do a set of limbering exercises. The Tahirian didn't seem to want anything but information.

Shortly after she came back, en told her: "(The station's new orbit has now been computed. It is highly eccentric and will rapidly decay.)"

"Well, let's get that changed." Kilbirnie saw no reason to put it on the parleur. This was her department. She bent herself to the task of establishing direct laser communication with the command computer yonder.

The station was outward bound for the apastron of its shortened and cometary path. The maximum acceleration of which it was capable, properly applied, ought to work it into a safely broad ellipse. "And then we try again for the right one," Kilbirnie said with a lopsided grin.

Envoy kept quiet, not to bother her and her partner. That must be hard on the skipper, she thought. My poor jo.

Computation. Result. Directive. Apply this vector three hours, eighteen minutes; thereafter run free, standing by for further orders.

Power surged in the station, sensed and followed by instruments elsewhere; eyes still saw only stars and the distant disk-fire.

Shock. "Wha' the bluidy hell —"

"(The acceleration is insufficient,)" Colin said from ens meters and readouts.

"(That is clear. Let us find out why.)"

Computerized telemetric systems operated swiftly. Within minutes Kilbirnie could say, "(We have damage to the station's superconductor grid. Deformation. Evidently tidal forces warped it when it passed so near the black hole. The field drive is functioning at barely 27 percent of rated maximum. Can we do anything useful with that?)"

Colin calculated. "(It cannot raise the apastron enough. At best, we can delay the irretrievably close approach and the subsequent engulfment by two orbits. That gives us a total of approximately ninety-six hours. Can the repair systems restore full function within this time?)"

Kilbirnie shook her head. "(I am not familiar with the station and its machines in detail, but with what I do know, I can be sure it will take considerably longer.)"

"(Have we then lost the station?)"

The bleakness in Kilbirnie fled from her sudden laughter. "Nay!" she cried. "We've a rescue to do. D'ye think we can claim salvage rights?" She explained: "(Our boat should be up to supplying the additional boost. Compute the parameters.)"

Almost, Colin shrank from her. "(Is this advisable?)"

"(Work up the numbers and find out,) damn it!"

The figures were soon on hand. Kilbirnie studied them, smiled, and turned to the outercom. "Herald to Envoy. I've news at last. I daresay you're almighty tired of listening in and wondering what the devil we're at."

A minute went by while her words flew outward, a receiver undid Doppler effect, and Nansen's came to her. She sat weightless, admiring the heavens. Rounding the black hole in some fifteen hours, the boat pointed her bow at other stars than earlier. But here all constellations were strange.

"Our own observations suggest what the problem is," Nansen said, carefully impersonal. "Give us your details, please."

Kilbirnie transmitted the figures while she told their meaning in English. "We can handle it," she finished. "If we rendezvous, grapple, and apply full thrust in coordination with what's left of the field drive, we'll free the station. In fact, we'll put it directly on trajectory for the orbit we intended. And we'll have ample delta v left for ourselves. But we have to do it on this pass, setting out in just a few minutes. Next time around, the decay will already have progressed too far, plus whatever further harm tidal stress may have done."

Pause. Ventilation hummed. Colin sat quiet. She had an impression that the mintlike scent from en betokened meditation.

"That is ... very unsafe," Nansen said. "The disk is going into an active phase. It's spitting more and more flares, and they are getting bigger. Quite possibly a plasmoid concentration did bring on the trouble. Diving closer in, you, too, could be caught. Abort. Return to us. Nobody will blame you or imagine you were frightened. You have no right to be reckless."

"I've considered it," Kilbirnie answered. "The odds are long in our favor. If a flare reaches us, it'll hardly include another fat mass. That would be ridiculous. Anyhow, the worst a mass can do, if it doesn't actually hit us, is throw us off course, and we can recover from that. The flare itself is ions and electrons, which'll be famine-thin by the time they get to where we are. Our screens and shielding will fend off the radiation."

She smiled at him, unseen amidst the stars. "Dinna fash yersel', skipper. Of course we'll skyhoot for home and mother if anything truly nasty comes at us." Her tone firmed. "But in my best judgment, here on the spot, we can safely do it, and our duty is to make the effort."

Waiting.

"Duty  —  I must accept your judgment, Pilot Kilbirnie," Nansen said, word by heavy word. "Take every due precaution. Proceed."

"Thanks, love." Kilbirnie blew him a kiss. "I do love you," she whispered.

Turning to Colin: "(Have you understood? I mean to go save the station. But you have your life, too. Are you willing?)"

The Tahirian lay calmed. Ens middle eyes met hers, ens side eyes contemplated heaven and the vessel that they shared. "(Yes. It will be your task, but is for all of us, and I have confidence in you.)"

"Thanks," she said again, more moved then she had expected.

Then it was to get busy.

Herald jetted. Weight tugged. Stars wheeled in view for a moment, steadied, and gleamed dead ahead. Among them the disk slowly brightened. Kilbirnie began to see the ripples and flickers of tempests within it.

The station hove in sight, ugly, lame, futureful. Kilbirnie lost selfhood, became one with her boat, with instruments, computers, controls, and the flame that drove them onward. Delicately as a stalking panther, she maneuvered in. Speeds were above a hundred kilometers per second; it would not take much of an error to smash her. Match vectors, draw closer, extend grapnels. Guided by their sensors, the arms reached for contact. It registered. They took hold and folded. Hull met hull. The impact was gentle, but rang through Herald like a great bell.

Make full linkage with the command computer in the station. Take fresh data. Recompute flight plan. Enter. Apply lateral jet, slewing around a trifle till oriented just so. Now, blast.

The acceleration was low, about a quarter gravity, for the boat was helping move a mass considerably larger than her own. Still, give it time and it would be enough, it would serve.

Kilbirnie sagged back under it, into her chair. She wiped a hand across her brow and tasted sweat, salt on her lips. "Whoosh!" she breathed. "I want a drink. Improvident, bringing nowt along stronger than coffee."

Her remark flew on the beam to Envoy. "You have to stay alert," Nansen cautioned. "The disk is churning and spouting, worse every minute."

She touched for a view in that direction and magnified. The gas was indeed in upheaval, waves and gouts of fire, a storm in the maelstrom. She was not sure whether she could make out a point of infinite night, the black hole.

"We'll keep watch," Nansen went on redundantly. He had put his ship in a canted orbit for an overview through instruments more powerful than any in the boat. "Be prepared to cut and run upon warning."

"I told you, skipper, we should be fit to ride out whatever the thing may throw at us," Kilbirnie replied. "But of course we're no heroes, we two. Nothing so stupid. I've plenty of living left to do ... with you," she finished low.

Colin had been occupied at the keyboards. "(I have reset the appropriate systems to monitor ambient space,)" en announced. "(They will provide us information additional to what we obtain from the ship.)"

"Good." Kilbirnie's nod, smile, and brief stroking of the fur conveyed it. She and a few Tahirians, en among them, had come to that much friendship and understanding over the years. She yawned and stretched. "I could do with a nap. And do and do."

She had no immediate job. Boat and station steered themselves. It was a straightforward operation, applying thrust on a line gyroscopically fixed. In this region, nearing apastron, no unusual velocity change was needed to alter orbit radically. Three hours would bring it about. Thereafter, released, the station ought to curve away and fall into the path around the black hole that its builders wanted. This far from the monster mass, the ordinary laws of celestial mechanics kept faith.

Kilbirnie unbuckled, went aft, secured herself on a bunk, and drifted into dreams. Colin stood watch. Perhaps en dozed a little, or the Tahirian equivalent of it; perhaps en was too nervous to rest. It had been long since any of ens race last challenged the universe.

Kilbirnie dreamed of flying. . . .

A yell woke her. She unsnapped her belts and tumbled to her feet. It had come from the outercom speaker. " — danger," Nansen cried. "Respond, Herald! Danger!"

She leaped along the deck and vaulted into her seat. A glance at a clock showed that two hours had passed. Colin huddled beside her, mane erected, a harsh smell around en. "Herald to Envoy," she said while her hands fastened the safety harness. "What's the trouble?"

Wait. Colin gestured at the instrument displays. She could not interpret them at a glance.

"A giant flare has erupted," Nansen said, now iron-cool. "The leading edge will reach you in about fifteen minutes. Abandon the station and boost the hardest you can."

Clearheaded, more exhilarated than alarmed, she replied with the same levelness, "Not necessarily. We couldn't outrun it in any case. And there are no clots or other special hoodoos, are there? We'll take some readings ourselves and report back."

She turned to her companion. Colin raised ens parleur. "(The spectrum shows an extremely energetic volume of gas, largely plasma. It is attenuating as it advances and spreads. Our screens will deflect the particles, and no more hard photons will penetrate our shielding than may perhaps cause us to take a prophylactic cell treatment at the ship.)"

"(I thought so. We stay.)"

"(As is to be expected, the magnetic field is strong and fluctuant, with transients of high local intensity. I cannot obtain quantitative data. This is a chaotic phenomenon, beyond previous experience.)"

"(We can cope, though. Correct?)"

"(Lacking precise measurements and applicable equations, I cannot offer better than a guess. I think we can remain. I am willing.)"

"(Then we do.)" Again she caressed en.

To Nansen: "We can handle it, and besides, we wouldn't gain much if we fled. Don't fear for us."

Wait.

"If this is your decision," Nansen dragged forth, "I will not pester you."

"Save that for when we're together," Kilbirnie suggested.

Wait.

"Vaya con Dios," said her skipper.

And it was to wait, while the linked spacecraft fought their way toward freedom.

The flare poured over them.

Nothing showed to eyes, nothing crackled in ears or prickled in skin. Viewscreens depicted stars gleaming changeless. Only meters told of the rage seething around. Kilbirnie peered unwinkingly at them. That shifting, twisting magnetism, borne outward in the electric torrent, did pose a threat to her reaction drive. It could divert the plasma stream, even start ruinous waves of resonance. The boat's collimating fields compensated. Should they be overwhelmed, they had a fail-safe. Nevertheless —

Abruptly the sky was gone from the screen before her. White flashes blinked and staggered across blackness. Colin recoiled in ens seat. Kilbirnie's hands clenched her chair arms. "What's this?" she heard herself gasp. Unreadable, the pattern fairly screamed urgency. "A warning — frae them, the aliens — ?"

The stars reappeared. She saw needles and numbers go wild. Weight fell to a fraction of what it had been. A synthetic voice stated: "Magnetic flux was at the point of overriding the screen fields and disrupting jet control. Thrust has been stopped. No significant damage has occurred."

The nightmare whirled through her, the jet forced aside, slashing at the lattice of its accelerator, perhaps with a backlash into the hull, a lethal burst of radiation, but air would already have exploded from the wound ... at best, her boat crippled, an object passive in orbit, falling back to swing through the deadly disk while the tides ripped at structure and flesh....

"What has happened?" Nansen called.

"I'd like to know, myself," Kilbirnie rejoined. "Hold on."

She conferred with Colin.

"All right," she said. "It's clear." She described the disaster that had been averted. "The flux has declined. We can resume thrust. We will."

Wait, while breath and blood went in and out.

"You'll cast loose first, of course," Nansen said raggedly. "And — forgive me, I can't teach you your business, but — as nearly as we can tell, the flare is full of magnetic line concentrations. More will probably sweep over you. You'll have to escape by fits and starts."

"That, aye," Kilbirnie conceded. "But no sense in forsaking the station. It's not yet at a point where it can work into any kind of survival orbit. We'll stay with it, tugging when we can, till it's ready."

Wait.

"Abort, I say. Return to us."

"No. We've too bluidy much invested in this. Colin and Herald and I, we can save it."

Wait. Kilbirnie began running her new computation. It was elementary; she didn't need help.

"Abort at once," Nansen said. "That is an order."

Kilbirnie sighed. "You're captain where you are. I'm captain here."

Wait. Numbers and graphics arrived. She keyed a command. Weight came back as it had been, like a hand laid upon her.

"I beg you —"

"Don't. Just wish us luck."

Wait. The fire disk waved and wavered.

"Dios santissimo —" Stoicism clamped down. "Proceed, Pilot."

"Carry on, my darling."

The minutes moved through the last hour.

An alarm shrilled. The boat shuddered. Weight plummeted anew.

"A magnetic pulse of very high power seriously interfered with plasma collimation before the shutoff could respond," stated the computer. No fear was in its voice. Not being alive, it could not die. "The jet deviated and burned through the sternmost coil. Maximum available thrust has been correspondingly reduced, by twelve percent."

Kilbirnie took her parleur, to make sure Colin understood.

"Now will you abort?" demanded Nansen.

"We'll decide," she answered. "I think not. We're too nigh victory."

She recomputed. "(This adds thrust time,)" she said to her partner. "(In twenty more minutes we can let go, if all goes well, which it may not. What do you think?)"

"(It is a risk,)" the physicist replied. "(I have noticed in the past, from the ship, that flares and the forces they carry reach a peak shortly before they cease. However, in my opinion it is worth continuing.)"

"(Agreed.)" How I wish I had the language to say what this means and what you are, Colin. But maybe I couldn't anyhow. We humans are too often shy about speaking such things. "Skipper, we are not going to quit. We'd leave our hearts behind with the station." Tahirians don't exactly have hearts. But they have spirit. "Please keep quiet. We've work to do."

The injured vessels struggled on together. The flare streamed invisibly around them.

And  —  "Harroo!" Kilbirnie shouted. The prosaic readouts before her spelled glory. "We've done it!"

She inactivated and retracted the grapnels. A nudge of impulse sent the boat drifting clear of the station. It appeared in her screen, a lumpy globule, now under command of its own computer, retreating against the Milky Way.

"This is — is wonderful," Nansen stammered. "Praise be to God." His tone steadied. "You still have to secure your escape, of course."

"Of course," Kilbirnie caroled. "And drink and dance and be outrageous. Well, that's for back aboard Envoy."

The two spacecraft were not yet completely free. They had reached a point where either one, even with a lamed motor, could assume any orbit — essentially, go anywhere. But they must go. Their present paths remained cometary. If they did not act, they would fall into the nearness of the black hole and it would wreck them.

The station was boosting. Eventually it could stop and coast into the region where it belonged. Herald should linger until then, in case of further trouble. First, though, Herald had better liberate herself, climbing to a track of much lower eccentricity much higher in the gravity well.

"Gang awa', lassie," the pilot said, and wakened the jet. Weight seized. The boat sprang.

The alarm shrieked. Readings and readouts went crazy. She floated in her harness, falling free, and heard: "An extraordinary magnetic surge has caused the destruction of coils nine through five and the disablement of coil four."

The words tolled away into silence.

"Oh, damn and damn," Kilbirnie said through it. "I'm sorry, Colin."

"What is this?" Nansen called across space. "Your jet, your acceleration —"

"Hold on till I can tell you."

Her fingers, running over the keyboard, and her brain, interpreting what came out, might as well have been machines themselves. She had not yet had time for feelings.

"Bad news," she said flatly. "Our drive is blown. We don't have but a wisp of thrust, not near enough to break loose. If we rejoined the station, it couldn't help, either. We'd simply force it to ruination with us. Whatever we tried, we're bound through the inner part of the disk."

They had already passed apastron and were downward bound.

"No," Nansen pleaded. "Ruszek is ready. He'll come take you off."

"The numbers say he can't reach us till way too late. Wait a minute, darling dearest. I have to talk with my partner."

And presently: "We're agreed. We'll no hae yon thing raddle us wi' radiation and pluck us apart bit by bit. We'll use what's left us to dive straight in."

Kilbirnie swung her boat around and took aim.

"Oh, Jean, Jean."

"Hush. I'm not glad to leave this life, but I'm glad for what it gave me. Fare ye all well, shipmates. I love ye, skipper."

Kilbirnie switched the outercom off. She restarted the motor. The acceleration, the weight, was low and erratic. Yet if a magnetic nexus did not strike Herald again — and, really, that was unlikely — speed would mount. In about an hour she and her friend would pass through the gate of death, too fast to sense it.

They joined hands and looked forth at the stars.

The Station took final orbit without requiring further assistance. It began activating its systems, to receive, explore, and relate.