Only a third of the nine men and women present kept tine impassive—if tense—expressions that betrayed prior knowledge. The rest displayed a kaleidoscope of shock, wonderment, and uneasiness as Carey's words sank in.

He continued before the murmurings had quite died down. "The object is traveling a hair below lightspeed, at about point nine nine nine cee, using an extremely hot fusion drive of some kind and what seems to be an electromagnetic ramscoop arrangement. He's about eight light-days out—under fourteen hundred A.U.—and while we haven't got his exact course down yet, he'll definitely pass through the System."

" 'Through,' General?" asked Evelyn Woodcock, chief assistant to the Executor. "It's not going to stop here?"

"No, his drive's still pointing backwards," Carey told her. "Decelerating to a stop now would take hundreds of gees."

From their expressions it was clear they weren't sure whether to be relieved or insulted by the Intruder's disinterest. "Then why is it coming here?" Assembly-Prime Wu-sin asked.

"Reconnaissance, possibly, though that's unlikely. He's coming in at a steep angle to the ecliptic—a poor vector if he wants to see much of the System. He could also be trying for a slight course correction by passing close to the sun; we'll know that better when we get more accurate readings on him. It's even possible the Intruder doesn't yet know we're here. At the speed he's making, the sun's light is blue-shifted into the ultraviolet, and he might not have the proper instruments to detect it."

"Unlikely," Dr. Louis Du Bellay of the Chiron Institute murmured. "I would guess they've done this before."

"Agreed, Doctor," Carey nodded. "It's a very remote possibility. Well. The Intruder, then, is not likely to be of great danger to us, provided we keep local traffic out of his way. By the same token, he's not likely to advance our