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was the elimination of one hazard. There were others in plenty. Space was the most unforgiving of environments, with the possible exception of ocean depths. The slightest mistake was usually rewarded with instant death. Even using the greatest care, disaster could come from sheer bad luck. Systems failures and particle collisions took a tragic toll, and every year dozens of vessels and their crews simply disappeared. Prosperous colonies were occasionally discovered with all personnel dead, and sometimes, mysteriously, found abandoned.
    As a result of the uncertainty of space life, the Belt dwellers had become cheerfully fatalistic. You did your best, and if you got killed anyway, that was tough luck. There were definite advantages to the life for those with the guts to live it. Low-to zero gravity eliminated many physical infirmities and bestowed a greater life span. Second and more important, spacers were the freest human beings that had ever lived. At least, they believed themselves to be, which was the same thing.
    War was something else. Derek had seen violent death in plenty, amid the dangers of asteroid life, but the organized butchery of warfare was something different. If anybody would know about it, it would have to be Chih' Chin Fu.
    "Do you think it'll happen soon?" he asked.
    "Much may depend upon the nature of your artifact. It may be the answer to the problems that have defeated Sieglinde since the last war."
    Derek knew something of what Fu was talking about. In the years after the war, Sieglinde had labored over the obstacles to superluminal travel, and had reached a dead end every time. She had hoped to have large-scale emigration to the stars under way within twenty years, but her development of Ciano's pioneering work had never reached fruition, due to the inadequacy of the technology. Despite her many successes, these failures had cost her. Lesser, envious scientists used them to accuse her of being a mere crackpot.
    "How is this thing going to affect a war?" he asked.
    "We shall have to wait for her to tell us," Fu said. "But I have had many years to learn respect for her judgment. She has never disappointed me and has invariably confounded her adversaries. That is a good record."
    "Looks like we're headed excitin' times," Roseberry said. "I was hoping I was through with that kind of thing."
    "Come, Mr. Roseberry," Fu said, "surely you are not intimidated by another time of danger?"
    "Naw, I was just hoping to be on my way out of the solar system by now anyhows."
    "We might still make it in our lifetime, Mr. Roseberry," Fu said. "Sieglinde has only dropped hints, but I believe she thinks the Rhea Objects are tied to some sort of propulsive device, and that she might be able to duplicate them."
    "She's come up with that already?"
    "I have no idea," Fu said, "but I have learned never to discount her hunches."
     
    By the time Derek reached Avalon, the initial flurry of interest in the Rhea Object was waning. There had been no immediate revelations from it, and there were always plenty of other things to occupy people's attention. Avalon was the capital of the Confederacy of Island Worlds and it always swarmed with activity. Government functions were minimal, but business was roaring along at a great clip.
    Cyrano safely docked, fees paid and reprovisioning operations arranged, Derek happily made his way toward the Hall of the Mountain King, social center of Avalonian life. He had expected some kind of hero's welcome as the discoverer of the alien artifact, but nobody paid him any special attention. This seemed to be a clear case of injustice, but he was prepared to live with it as long as nobody found out that he had secreted away a second egg.
    HMK had been expanded greatly over the years and was by then the largest non-planetary open area in existence. Avalon's spin gave it artificial gravity, roughly Earth normal at the equator near the outer skin of the asteroid, dwindling to zero-gee at the axis. Within