“How sure are they,” she asked Bill, “that ignition won’t happen for a thousand years?”

“They’re not giving opinions at the moment,” he said. “But as I understand it, there’s a possibility the nuclear engine could already have started. In fact, it could have started as much as two hundred years ago.”

“And they wouldn’t know it?”

“No.”

“I’d assumed when that happened the protostar would more or less explode.”

“What would happen is that over a period of several centuries after its birth, the star would shrink, its color would change to yellow or white, and it would get considerably smaller. It’s not a process that just goes boom.”

“Well, that’s good to know. So these people aren’t really sitting on top of a powder keg.”

Bill’s uncle image smiled. He was wearing a yellow shirt, open at the neck, navy blue slacks, and slippers. “Not that kind of powder keg, anyhow.”

They passed out of the data stream and the signal vanished.

Hutch was bored. It had been six days since she’d left Serenity, and she ached for human company. She rarely rode without passengers, didn’t like it, and found herself reassuring Bill, who always knew when she was getting like this, that he shouldn’t take it personally. “It’s not that you aren’t an adequate companion,” she said.

His image blinked off, to be replaced by the Wildside logo, an eagle soaring past a full moon. “I know.” He sounded hurt. “I understand.”

It was an act, meant to help. But she sighed and looked out into the mist. She heard the gentle click by which he routinely signaled his departure. Usually it was simply a concession to her privacy. This time it was something else.