is your name?'
'My name, at least,' said Wu, 'is easily given. It is Dr Chao-Li Wu. And you, sir?'
'Saltade Levsrett.'
'Greetings. We come in peace,' said Wu, eyeing the weapon.
'I hope so,' said Leverett grimly. 'I have six ships with me and they've got your ship in their sights.'
'Indeed?' said Wu. 'This small dome? With a fleet?'
'This small dome is only a tiny outpost,' said Leverett. 'I have the fleet. Do not count on a bluff.'
'I will take your word for it,' said Wu. 'But our one small ship comes from Earth. It got here because it has the capacity for superluminal flight. Do you know what I mean? Faster-than-light travel.'
'I know what you mean.'
Genarr said suddenly, 'Is Dr Wu telling the truth, Marlene?'
'Yes, he is, Uncle Siever,' said Marlene.
'Interesting,' murmured Genarr.
Wu said calmly, 'I am delighted to have my word confirmed by this young lady. Am I to suppose she is Rotor's expert on superluminal flight?'
'You need not suppose anything,' said Leverett impatiently. 'Why are you here? You have not been invited.'
'No, we haven't. We didn't know that anyone was here to object to us. But I urge you not to give in, unnecessarily, to any bad temper. At any false move from you, our ship will just disappear into hyperspace.'
Marlene said quickly, 'He's not certain about that.'
Wu frowned. 'I'm certain enough. And even if you manage to destroy the ship, our home base on Earth knows where we are and is getting constant reports. If anything happens to us, the next expedition will be one of fifty superluminal battle cruisers. Don't risk it, sir.'
Marlene said, 'That is not so.'
Genarr said, 'What is not so, Marlene?'
'When he said that the home base on Earth knows where he is, that was not so, and he knew that was not so.'
Genarr said, 'That's good enough for me. Saltade, these people do not have hypercommunication.'
Wu's expression did not change. 'Are you relying on the speculation of a teenage girl?'
'It's not speculation. It's a certainty. Saltade, I'll explain later. Take my word for it.'
Marlene said suddenly, 'Ask my father. He'll tell you.' She didn't quite understand how her father would know about her gift - she had surely not had it, or at least had not displayed it, when she was one year old, but his understanding was clear. It shouted itself at her, for all that others could not see it.
Fisher said, 'It's no use, Wu. Marlene can see right through us.'
For the first time, Wu's coolness seemed to desert him. He frowned, and said tartly, 'How would you know anything at all about this girl, even if she's your daughter? You haven't seen her since she was an infant.'
'I had a younger sister once,' said Fisher in a low voice.
Genarr said with sudden enlightenment, 'It runs in the family, then. Interesting. Well, Dr Wu, you see we have a tool here that allows no bluffing. Let us, then, be open with each other. Why have you come to this world?'
'To save the Solar System. Ask the young lady - since she is your absolute authority - if I am telling the truth this time.'
Marlene said, 'Of course you're telling the truth, Dr Wu. We know about the danger. My mother discovered it.'
Wu said, 'And we discovered it, too, little lady, without any help from your mother.'
Saltade Leverett looked from one to another and said, 'May I ask what you're all talking about?'
Genarr said, 'Believe me, Saltade, Janus Pitt knows all about it. I'm sorry he hasn't told you, but if you get in touch with him now, he will. Tell him we are dealing with people who know how to travel faster than light and that we might be able to make a deal.'
90
The four of them sat in Siever Genarr's private quarters in the Dome, and Genarr tried to keep his sense of history from overwhelming him. This was the first example in human history of an interstellar negotiation. If each of the four were famous for nothing else, their names would ring down the corridors of Galactic history for this alone.
Two and two.
There, on the side of the Solar System (Earth, really, and who would have thought that decadent Earth would be representing the Solar System, that they should have developed superluminal flight rather than one of the up-to-date, live-wire Settlements) were Chao-Li Wu and Crile Fisher.
Wu was talkative and insinuating; a mathematician, but one who was clearly possessed of practical acumen. Fisher, on the other hand (and Genarr still