On the third day out, Colonel Dandridge sat down beside her at the small bar in the ship’s galley. With his dark mustache and dapper good looks, he reminded her of a silent film star from the past. “Are you enjoying the trip so far, Captain?”

  She looked up from her coffee. “I’m not expecting this to be a pleasure jaunt, sir.”

  He waved a hand. “Of course not. But you’re not uncomfortable, I hope.”

  “Not at all. My quarters are fine. Nothing to complain of.”

  “The amenities on the Victorious must be far different from the indignities you suffered on the pirate ship.”

  “Hm.” She thought back to her weeks on the Don Quixote. True, there were no separate quarters on it, she had had to bunk in the same space as Queeg. But he had afforded her as much privacy as possible. And of course, the spiders were always underfoot, snoring in their little piles at night, skittering around during waking hours. But she missed the camaraderie, the ridiculous way they spoke, the warmth of the Don Quixote. Indignities? Not at all.

  “I’m curious,” Dandridge went on. “What are the crew like on that ship?”

  “Oh, you know. Aliens. Small ones. There were some communication difficulties.” If Long John had not seen fit to announce the exact makeup of his crew, she was not going to divulge it. She smiled to herself.

  She sipped her coffee. “I still wish your Council had seen fit to send more than one ship.”

  “But the information is so vague, I don’t see how they could be justified in sending more,” said Dandridge. “Think about it: there are very few witnesses to any destruction. No one has actually seen anything. This entity has no known shape, there have been no communications from it, no one has any idea what it might be. How could Attike send more than a single ship? I think they were generous to send one.”

  She drummed her fingers on the table. She was about to reply when the glyptodont, Dr. Perthonogis, came into the galley. “Evening, all,” he said. “If it is evening. I’m a little discombobulated, I’m afraid.”

  “Doctor.” She smiled at him. “Have you travelled out of your system before?”

  “To tell the truth,” he said, curving his carapace to settle into the chair beside her, “I was brought to Attike as a tiny glyp, and have never been off-station since. So as far as I’m concerned, this is my first voyage of any kind.”

  “I hope you find it interesting,” Dandridge said.

  “Oh, I have no doubt. Can you tell me, Captain Aris, what exactly you know about this being that poses a threat?”

  “Very little. And some of it, I’m sorry to say, comes from soothsayers and oracles on our planet, who’ve been predicting dire events for the last decade. No one paid them any attention except for crackpots, until we lost communication with planets near the nebula. Then we started to get worried.”

  “That’s all? You lost communications?” The glyptodont peered at her.

  “Our astronomers have verified the gaps in space where solar systems had existed. So it’s not all guesses and craziness. There is some solid evidence.”

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  “But you don’t have any idea what this being is?”

  “Well, the predictions have said various things that can’t be verified. Such as, it thrives on the essence of planets, whatever that is. The colonists who fled from it called it the Devourer.”

  “Sounds like tales to frighten children,” said Dandridge with a sneer.

  “I ask because I have invented a device that might serve to protect a ship under certain circumstances,” said Perthonogis. “I only have the one prototype of it, and it’s untested.”

  “We have shields.” Dandridge leaned forward. “Why would we need more protection, and from what?”

  “Here’s where it’s difficult to explain.” Perthonogis frowned. “Your shields are effective against missiles, lasers, and other conventional weapons. Mine is designed to protect against more subtle attacks: mind attacks, if you will.”

  “How could you even design such a thing?” asked Crystal.

  “We know there are different levels of reality,” the glyptodont began.

  “Doctor.” Dandridge shook his head in amusement. “Don’t tell me you fall for that kind of drivel.”

  “You are a materialist,” said Perthonogis. “That works fine for most things, but it certainly doesn’t cover all of reality. Have you never felt an unexplained sensation of dread? Or a sense that some event was about to happen, before it did?”

  Dandridge shrugged. “Coincidences. Bound to happen, with such a large universe.”

  “You are entitled to your opinion. How about you, Captain Aris? Do you think such things are mere coincidences?”

  Crystal drew a breath, considering. “I don’t know.”

  “Then—” Perthonogis raised a finger—“there is such a thing as love, you know. A force stronger than almost any other, unstoppable, yet no one has managed to put a finger on its true nature.”

  She gazed at him with wide eyes. “Love—a force?”

  Dandridge chuckled. “Romantic nonsense. Good for selling valentines, I suppose.”

  Perthonogis shook his head. “If we could only measure it, capture its potential, we’d have an unending source of energy. But I digress. My prototype is based on quantum physics and is, as I said, untested. It might or might not provide protection from immaterial threats. I can’t tell.”

  “Bad vibes?” asked Dandridge. “Depression? Stave off bad moods?”

  “Go ahead and sneer. We’ll have to see what happens.”

  “Well,” Colonel Dandridge said, “I’d better get back to keeping us on track. Good luck with your prototype, doctor.”

  “Can I refill your coffee?” Crystal asked the glyptodont. She was growing to enjoy the company of the little scientist.

  “Thank you. That would be lovely.”

  As she filled his cup, she said, “So I take it you glyptodonts are a spiritual race?”

  “Thank you. Are we?” His little eyes twinkled at her.

  “What do you think of the universe?”

  He tilted his head. “If we could see all of the universe at once, some of us believe we would see it as small as a walnut in the hand of its Maker. But we are too miniscule for that, of course.”

  “I would be interested in seeing your prototype, doctor,” she said,

  “Really? It doesn’t look like much, I’m afraid.”

  “Still, I’d like to take a look.”

  “You’re welcome to. It’s in my quarters.” He swallowed the last of his coffee and got up to lead the way.

  Crystal followed him to his quarters, which was a room even smaller than hers. It held a bunk bed, a small desk and chair, and in one corner, an unusual device. Perthonogis stood aside so she could see it better.

  “I don’t recommend touching it,” he said.

  She walked closer to it. Looking at it for more than a few seconds made her eyes ache and her vision grow blurry. She had to look away to clear her sight. Not very large, it was only about three feet high. It resembled a box radio with an old-fashioned candlestick telephone sitting on top, but it seemed to be only partially in this dimension. As she looked at it, it shifted, light and shadow alternating, seeming to move while standing motionless.

  Perthonogis was watching her reaction with a half-smile. “What do you think?”

  “It’s—strange.”

  “Yes, the anti-fluxion capacitator gives it an elusive quality. I’m really hoping it will do what I designed it for, protect the ship from immaterial attack.”

  “It looks small to protect the whole ship,” she said.

  “Oh, we’re not seeing all of it. Think of an iceberg; most of it is hidden from our sight.”

  She drew a deep breath. “Well, I’m impressed. I also hope it works, doctor.”