34:29- Dorfman continues to wait for his signal to proceed him to Goethe. The time arrives. With the last of his e-light capacity and deep-space fuel, he fires toward the distant speck of blue-green ocean world. 49:50- The third echo of his signal tells him he is drawing near. Slows to sub-light and raises entry shields, makes other preparations to enter atmosphere. 1:13:30- Entry halfway competed: elevation 1200 Kilometers. The buffeting of atmosphere increases. Aware that he is being tracked and pursued by Alliance fighters, he makes jerking motions with the vessel, simulating (and nearly causing) atmospheric destruction. 1:31:37- Alliance fighters draw within firing range. Dorfman mimics a lifeless crash-landing into the dark, heaving waters. The pursuit ships hover for a time. Sixty foot waves show only scattered debris, no signs of life. They break off. 1:55:24- Czech submarin-guerilla vessel picks up coded recovery signal, makes toward the jettisoned escape pod, small and coffin-shaped. 3:27:02- Submarin vessel recovers German pilot, returns to a safer depth and slinks carefully back to guerilla base. 5:56:00- A large underwater door, thoroughly camouflaged, opens in the root of tower-like Manta Island. Vessel enters, continues forward, then slowly rises to the surface of a vast, underground hollow. Heinrich Dorfman begins his exile, which will last until the end of the war. * * * At 1440 hours, a bay door was opened aboard the Dreadnought, and a small speed-shuttle emerged. Major Janson brought her to a safe distance from the mother ship, double-checked coordinates, and took a deep breath. Slowly he engaged the main engines, preparing for light-speed. "God help us..... At least I'll get to see Jenny and the kids." He achieved the necessary momentum, switched on to full power, and turned the controls over to the computer. Seven minutes later the bomb detonated, and the ship burst into a thousand fragments. His Christian God did nothing to save him. ...................................................................... V At 0700 the following day the Dreadnought approached the Star Gate, whose hexagonal frame gleamed coldly among the stars like the blue-black barrel of a gun, surrounded by the vessels of its makers. Linear skeletons, huge anti-matter projectors lay dormant within, their task completed. A soft-glistening sheet of silver, like a fine spray of undulating mist, shrouded the multiplied blackness beyond. This protective film began to grow vague as the rounded monolith of the Carrier, here and there ribbed or jagged, continued to advance patiently, with measured speed.