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  “Oh. I see.” But despite himself Jordan wondered if Adri was telling him the truth.

  * * *

  As Jordan prepared to leave the city and return to the camp, he was surprised to see Brandon enter their sitting room, looking downcast.

  “I thought you were staying with Elyse,” he said to his brother.

  Dejectedly, Brandon replied, “She’s talking technobabble with the astronomers. I’m just in the way.”

  “Feeling left out?”

  “Totally.”

  “Your first lovers’ quarrel,” Jordan teased.

  “No quarrel,” said Brandon. “She wasn’t paying enough attention to me to have a quarrel.”

  Suppressing a chuckle, Jordan offered, “Well, you can come back with us to the camp.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s what I’ll have to do.”

  Jordan couldn’t help telling him, “Aditi’s coming with us.”

  Brandon looked surprised. Quickly recovering, he said only, “Good for you, Jordy.”

  As they trudged through the woods toward the cluster of hemispherical shelters that comprised the base camp Jordan stayed alongside Aditi. Behind them, a minihorse carried an electronics black box the size of a shipping crate, the generator for the energy dome. Brandon and the others walked up ahead.

  “Does the Pup burp out flares very often?” Jordan asked Aditi.

  She looked puzzled. “Burp?”

  Jordan rummaged in his mind for a definition. “Like when you’ve gobbled down your food too fast.” And he pantomimed a burp.

  “Ah!” Laughing, Aditi said, “You mean ‘expel forcibly, belch, erupt, explode.’”

  “You sound like a dictionary.”

  “I’m quoting from a dictionary.”

  Surprised, Jordon blurted, “You have a dictionary memorized?”

  Again she laughed brightly. “No, but I can call one up when I need to.”

  He understood. “You have a communications system? Built in?”

  Aditi tapped her short-cropped red hair. “Inside the skull. We all do. It’s installed in childhood.”

  Impressed, Jordan muttered, “That beats carrying a phone around, I suppose.”

  When they reached the base camp, Meek eyed the minihorse and the equipment it was carrying with unconcealed hostility.

  “I don’t like this,” he told Jordan. “I don’t like this at all.”

  Taking the astrobiologist by the arm and leading him away from Aditi and the stolid beast, Jordan said, “Harmon, it’s for your own protection.”

  “How do we know that?”

  “The city is protected by an energy dome.”

  Undeterred, Meek insisted, “We have no idea of how it works or what it actually does. I’m against—”

  “What it does,” Jordan interrupted, “is protect you from any excess radiation caused by the storm.”

  Meek’s long, craggy face was a picture of suspicion. “The Pup just happened to emit a flare. Hazzard and the others just happen to prefer leaving the ship and coming down here. Adri just happens to offer what he claims is a protective energy shield for our camp.”

  “And I just happen to accept his offer,” Jordan countered, “and order the energy shield to be set up here. That’s all there is to it, Harmon.”

  “I’m against it.”

  “Your objection will be noted in the expedition’s record.”

  “Fine.”

  Jordan didn’t tell Meek that the expedition’s record was not being transmitted to Earth. Adri was blocking all their transmissions. He smiled to himself grimly. Harmon would go ballistic if he knew that.

  Then he thought, perhaps I should go a little ballistic, myself.

  But he kept his doubts to himself.

  * * *

  Hazzard and the two others arrived aboard a rocketplane that glided in smoothly to a picture-perfect landing. The astronaut looked happy to be back with everyone else.

  “The ship’ll be okay,” he said, once Jordan asked him. “If there’s damage from the storm we should be able to repair it.”

  “It’s just we fragile human beings that have to be protected,” Thornberry added, cocking a derisive eye at Meek.

  Thornberry and Brandon helped Aditi to lift the crate of equipment from the back of the minihorse and place it squarely in the middle of their encampment. Once they uncrated it Aditi bent over the generator and tapped several switches on its top.

  Jordan felt a momentary tingle through his body. Aditi peered at the readouts flickering along the top of the shield generator, then turned to Jordan and announced, “The shield is on. We are protected now.”

  AURORA

  Jordan decided it would be best for everyone to remain at the camp until the radiation storm abated. Meek and de Falla disappeared into the bubble tent that housed the geology lab, to pore over rock samples. Longyear joined them, together with several others, including Dr. Yamaguchi.

  Thornberry bent over the shield generator, eager to learn how it worked. He quizzed Aditi, who apparently knew only how to turn the generator on and off, not its principles of operation. Hazzard, with nothing to do, walked around the camp, seemingly pleased to be free of the confines of the ship.

  Jordan went from one group to another, checking on their needs, their findings.

  Then he called Elyse, who was at the city’s astronomical observatory, where she was watching imagery of the Pup’s seething, boiling surface. She looked totally rapt as she stared at the screen, barely paying attention to Jordan. One of the city’s astronomers stood beside her, intently watching the readout that displayed the steeply rising level of radiation up above the atmosphere.

  Jordan nodded to himself, satisfied that he had made the right decision to allow Hazzard and the others to come down to the camp, and to accept Adri’s offer of a protective shield.

  When he reached the bubble tent that housed the geology lab, Meek and Longyear were sitting on folding chairs at the far side of the lab, heads together in whispered conversation. The instant Jordan stepped in, they both stiffened like naughty little boys caught raiding the cookie jar.

  Jordan merely smiled and asked de Falla, who was sitting at a bench closer to the entryway, “How’s the work going, Silvio?”

  “Interesting,” said the geologist. “I’m dating the rocks. You know, argon/potassium ratios, uranium/lead ratios, that sort of stuff.”

  “Calculating their age from the amount of radioactive elements in them,” Jordan said.

  De Falla nodded, and cast a glance at Meek and Longyear, who were sitting silent and unmoving across the lab.

  “What have you found so far?”

  With an almost boyish grin, de Falla said, “Confusion. Most of the samples we’ve chipped out are a lot younger than I expected. Younger by hundreds of millions of years.”

  Puzzled, Jordan asked, “Younger? What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. Not yet.” Scratching at his neat little beard, he added, “But if these rock samples are typical of the planet, then this planet is somehow much younger than Earth. A whole lot younger.”

  “Well, Elyse says Sirius itself can’t be more than half a billion years old.”

  “I know. But how could this planet have evolved such a complex biosphere in so short a time? On Earth, it took more than a billion years before life crawled out of the oceans and colonized the land.”

  “So this planet isn’t an exact duplicate of Earth, after all,” Jordan said.

  “No, it’s not,” said de Falla. But there was little conviction in it. He seemed more doubtful of his discovery than proud of it.

  Jordan left the lab tent and went to find Aditi. She was still with Thornberry, by the shield generator. Jordan asked her, “What do you know about the geology of your world?”

  “Not very much, I’m afraid. Ask Adri about it; he can put you in touch with our geologists.”

  He nodded and took her arm and started to walk with her among the bubble tents. Looking back at
Thornberry, who was still peering intently at the generator, Jordan said, “I wonder if it’s a good idea to leave Mitch alone with your equipment.”

  Aditi asked, “What do you mean?”

  “I get the distinct feeling that he’d like to take the thing apart to find out how it works.”

  She laughed. “He won’t be able to do that. The equipment is self-protective.”

  “It resists tampering?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know how it works, but if you try to open it up without tapping in the proper security code, it will give you a mild shock.”

  “Really?”

  “We have curious tinkerers among our people, too,” Aditi said.

  Jordan found himself saying, “I think it would be best if you stayed here tonight. No sense walking back to the city in this radiation storm.”

  She looked up at him. “It wouldn’t be dangerous for me, not really.”

  Shaking his head, Jordan said firmly, “No. I want you to stay here tonight.” Then he laughed lightly and added, “If you don’t mind.”

  Aditi didn’t answer. But she didn’t reject the idea, either.

  * * *

  Late in the afternoon, as Jordan walked with Aditi back toward the communications center, he saw Brandon step out of the biology lab’s bubble tent.

  “Bran,” Jordan called to his brother. “How goes it?”

  Stepping quickly toward Jordan, Brandon said, “Radiation level’s peaked. It’s starting to go down. Slowly.”

  “I wonder how the ship made out?”

  “Hazzard’s been checking on it remotely. She answers his queries, and the diagnostics don’t show any major damage.”

  “That’s good. I get the feeling that Meek thought the radiation storm was cooked up by Adri to destroy our ship.”

  Brandon glanced at Aditi, then said, “That’s not a joking matter, Jordy. You know there’s a cabal simmering along?”

  Jordan felt mildly surprised. “A cabal?”

  “Meek. He and Longyear and several others. They’ve formed a faction that’s not happy with your leadership.”

  “Oh, that.”

  “It’s more serious than you think, Jordy.”

  “How serious can it be?”

  “They’re talking about pulling up stakes and heading back to Earth,” said Brandon. “I think maybe Hazzard agrees with them.”

  “Nonsense,” Jordan scoffed.

  “They’re serious, Jordy. Meek is scared shitless of Adri and this whole situation. He says it can’t be natural. Everything we’re learning about this planet points to the conclusion that what we’re seeing isn’t natural.”

  “He’s overreacting,” said Jordan, with a glance at Aditi. “He’ll get over it, in time.”

  “I don’t know, Jordy,” Brandon said. “I just talked with Elyse, over at the observatory. She’s found out that this planet doesn’t have a magnetosphere.”

  “No planetary magnetic field?”

  “None.”

  “Another difference from Earth,” Jordan murmured.

  “Considering the radiation flux from the Pup’s flare, we ought to be getting fried here on the ground, without a magnetic field to deflect the charged particles.”

  “That’s why Adri gave us the energy shield.”

  Shaking his head, Brandon said, “Elyse told me that something’s absorbing the radiation, stopping most of it from reaching the planet.”

  “Something? What?”

  “Damned if I know. If there’s no magnetic field, then what on Earth is protecting this planet?”

  “The energy shield,” said Aditi.

  Both the brothers turned to her.

  Brandon demanded, “You mean the shield protecting this camp is strong enough to deflect the flux from the flare?”

  “No, it’s not. This little shield merely absorbs the residual amount of radiation that gets through the big shield.”

  “The big shield?” Jordan asked.

  Aditi nodded. “The planetary shield. The energy screen that protects the whole planet.”

  Brandon gaped at her. “You mean you’ve got an energy shield strong enough to handle the flux coming in from the flare?”

  “Certainly,” Aditi replied, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. “We don’t have a natural magnetic field, so we had to set up an energy shield to protect ourselves.”

  For several moments neither brother spoke, as they tried to absorb what Aditi was telling them.

  A man-made energy screen that protects the entire planet, Jordan marveled. And she takes it for granted; it’s perfectly normal to her.

  But Brandon said, “Wait till Harmon hears about this. He’ll want to hightail it out of here today!”

  Jordan stared at his brother, thinking, We can’t leave! We just got here. And there’s so much to learn, so much to explore.

  He glanced at Aditi, who stood patiently at his side, looking as if she were wondering what all the fuss was about.

  Framing his words carefully, Jordan said to his brother, “Bran, I can understand Meek’s fears. I worry about all this myself. I mean, it’s just too good to be true. But we mustn’t run away from it. We’ve got to learn about it. There’s an enormous amount to be learned, I’m certain of that. And I intend to stay and learn, not run away like a frightened little boy.”

  Brandon smiled tightly. “That’s just about what I thought you’d say. Now tell it to Meek.”

  Taking in a deep breath, Jordan said, “I’ll do that. In the morning. I’ll call a breakfast meeting and we can thrash this out, with all of us present.”

  Nodding, Brandon said, “Okay. I’ll tell Meek and the others.”

  “Good. Do that.”

  As Brandon hurried away, Aditi asked, “Will this be trouble for you?”

  “Perhaps,” said Jordan. “But I’m supposed to be this group’s leader, so I’m going to have to lead them.”

  And he remembered an old dictum from another leader of an earlier century: The secret of being a successful manager is keeping the five guys who hate you away from the four who haven’t made up their minds.

  * * *

  The evening was more than a little awkward. He had to find a space for Aditi to sleep. Very hesitantly, he phoned Elyse Rudaki at the observatory again to ask if Aditi might spend the night in her cubicle.

  Elyse smiled knowingly. “Of course. I’m not using it.”

  “I … ah … well, since you’re still in the city…” Jordan stammered.

  Elyse seemed amused by his consternation. “Even if I were in the camp I wouldn’t be using my own cubicle. Not as long as Brandon is there.”

  Jordan mumbled a thank-you and cut the connection.

  He did not want to eat dinner with everyone else. No sense starting a debate with Meek and his clique over dinner, he told himself. We’ll have it out in the morning.

  So he picked up a pair of dinner trays and met Aditi outside, where her minihorse was placidly munching on the grass. They sat upwind of the animal, with their backs against the sloping, slightly yielding wall of a bubble tent, laid the prepackaged meals on their outstretched legs, and opened them. They instantly heated themselves.

  “Rather romantic, actually,” said Jordan as the aroma of their steaming meals wafted up to them. “Dining out in the open, under the—”

  His voice caught in his throat. Up above them, the sky was glowing with colors. Long gossamer sheets of delicate green, red, blue, white shimmered and danced across the heavens, almost blotting out the stars.

  Aditi gasped. “Aurora,” she breathed.

  Jordan found his voice. “From the radiation storm,” he said softly. “Some of the radiation got through your screen and it’s lighting up the ionosphere.”

  “It’s so incredibly beautiful,” she said.

  “Overwhelming.”

  Without thinking consciously about it, Jordan impulsively reached for Aditi and pulled her to h
im. His dinner slid off his legs and onto the grass as he held her tightly in his arms and kissed her.

  FACTIONS

  Aditi and Jordan never finished their meal. They never even started it. They clung to each other for hours, caressing, kissing, speaking to each other in low, breathless voices.

  “I had to travel eight and a half light-years to find you,” Jordan said. “To come alive again. To feel love and warmth again.”

  Nestling her head on his shoulder, Aditi said, “I never realized how overpowering an emotion love can be. It … it simply sweeps you away.”

  “It does that,” said Jordan. Looking up at the aurora again, he added, “Of course, we had a little help from the stars.”

  She giggled. “Yes, we did.”

  He looked down at her beautiful face, lit by the flickering aurora, and kissed her again.

  “It’s getting late,” she said. “You have your meeting tomorrow morning.”

  “I don’t want this night to end.”

  “But it must,” Aditi said. She picked up her forgotten dinner tray and climbed to her feet.

  Jordan got up beside her, slowly, reluctantly. “The aurora seems to be fading away.”

  “The storm must be ending.”

  “And our storm?” he asked.

  She smiled gently at him. “It’s just beginning.”

  “Will you come to my cubicle?”

  “I can’t. It wouldn’t look right to the others.”

  “I don’t care about the others! Let’s—”

  Aditi silenced him with a fingertip on his lips. “Do you want Dr. Meek and the others who are frightened of us to think you’ve been seduced by an alien Madame Butterfly?”

  He burst into laughter. “I think you mean Mata Hari.”

  “She was the spy?”

  “Not a very good one, I’m afraid. She got caught. And executed.”

  “Oh.” Aditi’s face, half hidden in shadows, broke into a contrite smile. “You know what I mean.”

  “Yes,” he said. Reluctantly. Very reluctantly.

  * * *

  They all met the next morning in the dining area for breakfast. After a pair of robots served the prepackaged food trays, Jordan got to his feet and said, “You’re probably wondering why I asked you all here this morning.”