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other Specials attending today’s meeting, Cyrus had read the man’s bio. Captain Nagasaki understood about privation, risks, and waiting. The man’s patience and self control was legendary—as was his iron will. It had made him the perfect candidate to lead a decade-long voyage.
    From the podium, Captain Nagasaki eyed them. He seemed stern, perhaps a little remote. But what he possessed in abundance was gravity, presence, or personal force. He would lead the journey to New Eden. And it was said his vote had weight in choosing the right Specials.
    He greeted them in a deep voice and spoke in a slow and measured manner. He talked about duty, about hardship and danger. Then he talked about Teleship
Discovery.
    A holoimage appeared on stage behind the captain and Nagasaki spoke about the ship.
    In many ways, the Teleship was like an old style battleship from the Cyborg War of over a hundred years ago. Combat ships had used particle shielding then, hundreds of meters of thick rock to withstand enemy lasers or nuclear-tipped missiles.
Discovery
didn’t have particle shielding, but looked like any meteor drifting in space, except the surface lacked mountains or valleys. The surface was uniform and made of asteroidal rock, with dust where a man could leave his boot prints if he walked upon it. Dotted on the surface were combat domes with collapsium armor. In the domes were laser cannons and missile sites, insuring the Teleship a fighting chance against any comers.
    Far below the shielding minerals of the Teleship were gigantic AIs, the fusion engines, and acres of stasis tubes for the sleepers. Over fifty thousand individuals would journey to the New Eden system. Below stasis was the core structure of life support for
Discovery
’s crew: that would be 107 men and women.
    Nagasaki paused, sipping from a glass of water. He put the glass away, eyed them anew, and gripped the sides of the podium.
    “Let me explain something of my journey to Epsilon Eridani, as it dovetails into the primary reason for my visit with you today. Over thirty years ago, my sleeper ship
Argonaut
accelerated out of Sol at one G as it built up to near light speed. We call that ‘NLS.’ Believe me, the acceleration was the easiest part of the journey. The long coast was more tedious, the many years of weightlessness.”
    Cyrus noticed the captain’s fingers tightening their grip on the podium. Nagasaki’s face had looked stern before. Now it appeared like flint.
    “The long journey proved tedious, as I’ve said, but that was nothing compared to our growing fear of cyborgs. You have seen vids of them, horror shows. I happen to know more than most concerning cyborgs because I am the great-great grandson of Circe of Old Jupiter. You’ve certainly read the histories of that time. Circe destroyed the cyborgs’ proto-Teleship at the end of the Cyborg War.”
    Nagasaki released the podium. “I’m not here to talk about the war, but its aftermath. The terrible truth of the Cyborg War that few people realize is that some cyborgs
must
have escaped the solar system. Circe destroyed a proto-Teleship, but there might have been a second and a third. We don’t know that, but it would be folly to believe it impossible. Even if the cyborgs lacked Teleships, surely some of them fled in NLS vessels.
    “My crew and I in
Argonaut
didn’t know about proto-Teleships during our trip to Epsilon Eridani, but we became convinced that some cyborgs had survived the war. If that was true, we argued among ourselves, perhaps they had headed for the nearest star systems and begun to rebuild.
    “I admit that the months of deceleration into Epsilon Eridani were the worst of my life. As we slowed, I launched five probes ahead of us. They found no sign of cyborgs. Even so, once
Argonaut
reached the system, we inched from place to place, searching, watching, and waiting for the terrible surprise that would inform us cyborgs attacked the ship.”
    Nagasaki smiled. It looked strange