The Colors of Space

"Maybe I should have stayed awake."

"You should," Tommy said. "I only slept for a couple of hours at each

warp-drive shift. We had a day-long stopover at Sirius Eighteen, and I

took a tour of the planet. And I've spent a lot of time down here, just

star-gazing--not that it did me much good. Which one is Antares? How do

you tell it from Aldebaran? I'm always getting them mixed up."

Bart pointed. "Aldebaran--that's the big red one there," he said. "Think

of the constellation Taurus as a necklace, with Aldebaran hanging from

it like a locket. Antares is much further down in the sky, in relation

to the arbitrary sidereal axis, and it's a deeper red. Like a burning

coal, while Aldebaran is like a ruby--"

He broke off in mid-word, realizing that Tommy was gazing at him in a

mixture of triumph and consternation. Too late, Bart realized he had

been tricked. Studying for an exam, the year before, he had explained

the difference between the two red stars in almost the same words.

"Bart," Tommy said in a whisper, "I knew it had to be you. Why didn't

you tell me, fella?"

Bart felt himself start to smile, but it only stretched his mouth. He

said, very low, "Don't say my name out loud Tom. I'm in terrible

trouble."

"Why didn't you tell me? What's a friend for?"

"We can't talk here. And all the cabins are wired for sound in case

somebody stops breathing, or has a heart attack in space," Bart said,

glancing around.

They went and stood at the very foot of the quartz window, seeming to

tread the brink of a dizzying gulf of cosmic space, and talked in low

tones while Alpha and Beta and Gamma swelled like blown-up balloons in

the port.

Tommy listened, almost incredulous. "And you're hoping to find your

father, with no more information than that? It's a big universe," he

said, waving at the gulf of stars. "The Lhari ships, according to the

little tourist pamphlet they gave me, touch down at nine hundred and

twenty-two different stars in this galaxy!"

Bart visibly winced, and Tommy urged, "Come to Capella with me. You can

stay with my family as long as you want to, and appeal to the

Interplanet authority to find your father. They'd protect him against

the Lhari, surely. You can't chase all over the galaxy playing

interplanetary spy all by yourself, Bart!"

But Briscoe had deliberately gone to his death, to give Bart the chance

to get away. He wouldn't have died to send Bart into a trap he could

easily have sprung on Earth.