Richard remembered when Rock had graduated from Starlight Academy fifteen years earlier. Richard was in his early forties at the time, and recalled the shock that went through the Starlight world when Rock was offered the position of Starman but had turned it down. He was the only person ever to have refused the honor. He had chosen instead to stay close to a young woman whom he loved; they had married and now had four young children. Rock rarely left his family, and Richard had placed him second in command of Starlight Enterprise. Rock continued. “We already concluded that the ability to sheath spacecraft and even asteroids comes from an alien intelligence more advanced than our own race. I think it highly likely that the source--at least the immediate source--of that knowledge is the asteroid Zimbardo has taken over. We don’t know what other capabilities this asteroid base has. But we _do_ know that Lurton Zimbardo is bringing it to Earth--very, very close to Earth, and that he will be here in fifteen days.” Richard swallowed hard and looked away. “Oh my, Rock!--I’m sure you’re right. In fact, what other possibilities are there?” “But unless he has defenses or weaponry we haven’t seen yet, we have an advantage. A slight advantage.” “What’s that?” “He doesn’t know that we know where he is or that we have guessed what he’s really doing.” * * * * * Robert Nolan and Beowulf Denn made the twenty-six minute journey from the Moon to the space station. Robert had been full of chatter on the way back, but Wulf had responded only with short sentences, and after they had docked they went their separate ways. Robert went to his office to call the President. Richard had urged Robert to be the one to inform him that the probes had deployed successfully, that the microwave net had found the asteroid, and that Earth was not in danger of collision. Robert felt the honor deeply and was eager to announce the good news. Wulf found his way to his own private sanctum, saying he wanted to take a nap. He set a “do not disturb” code on his communication system. Then he prepared another audiodisk, making a brief report of the luncheon meeting at Starlight Enterprise. He played it through twice, making changes until he felt comfortable with the message. Then he speeded it up so that the complete message lasted 0.027 seconds, encrypted it, inserted the disk into his personal computer, and transmitted it. After the message had been sent, he destroyed the disk and removed all signs on his computer that the action had occurred. He stared out the window at the third planet, a beautiful blue and white globe, thinking nothing in particular. After a moment he stretched out and tried to take a nap. But he couldn’t sleep. * * * * *