I’m indebted to Michael Shara of the American Museum of Natural History, to David DeGraff of Alfred University, and to Athena Andreadis, author of To Seek Out New Life (Three Rivers Press, 1998), for technical assistance. To Howard Bloom, for his excellent The Lucifer Principle (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995). To Ginjer Buchanan, for editorial support. To Ralph Vicinanza, for his continuing encouragement. Special appreciation to Walter Cuirle for the Origins Project. Thanks to Sara and Bob Schwager. And, as always, to my wife and in-house editor, Maureen.

ORDINARILY, JERRY CAVANAUGH would have been asleep in his cabin while the AI took the ship closer to the Sungrazer, the gas giant at Beta Comae Berenices. A world on fire, as the public relations people referred to it. And there was no denying it was a spectacular sight. This flight marked his eighty-eighth visit, and he never tired of looking at it.

The Sungrazer was a Jovian, four times more massive than Jupiter, with a tight orbit that took it literally through the solar atmosphere, where it burned and flared like a meteor. He marveled that the thing didn’t explode, didn’t turn to a cinder, but every time he came back it was still there, still plowing through the solar hell, still intact. The ultimate survivor.

It orbited its sun in three days, seven hours. When you got the angle of approach right, got black sky behind it, it became even more spectacular. Of course, the view on the ship’s screens didn’t reflect the view from the ship. In order to get the kind of perspective management wanted, that gave Orion Tours its reputation, the Ranger would have had to approach much closer to the sun than was safe.