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modified.”
    “Not on your life! We have to strip the various modules down to their fundamentals, modify them to account for the differences between ship and probe, then reassemble, debug, and recertify. It has taken three years to get Starhopper ’s control codes to the point where we think they ought to be. Changing them will take eighteen months, minimum!”
    “There has to be a faster way.”
    “There isn’t … “ Tory froze while she consulted her implant. It took fifteen seconds for the idea to gel.
    “What is it?” Sadibayan asked.
    “I suppose the software could be rewritten en route. You’d need a large team on the ground for the actual reprogramming, then someone aboard ship who was intimately familiar with every aspect of Starhopper .”
    “Could you do it?”
    Tory blinked. So far, she had been solving a purely intellectual problem in software management. It had not occurred to her that the solution might affect her personally. “I suppose so. That is, if it can be done at all.”
    “Who else?”
    “Vance Newburgh and possibly a few others on the project staff.”
    “What would you need?” Sadibayan’s matter-of-fact tone sent a chill up Tory’s spine.
    “My implant, of course. The probe’s computers. An interface linking the two, and a lot of people backing me up.”
    “You’d have them. Are you interested in the job?”
    Tory swallowed hard. She had signed with Project Starhopper to do something important with her life, but this was more than she had bargained for.
    “May I have time to consider my answer?”
    “Of course. We will want to consider all potential candidates in any event. Still, I’d like to know whether you are interested in the position.”
    “Interested, yes. Brave enough to go through with it, I’m not so sure.”
    “Good enough for the time being. Now, then, where are we going to find a ship that masses less than 100 tons?”

CHAPTER 4
    Minister for Science Jesus de Pasqual gazed at the blue-white spark just beyond the Tau Ceti nova and wondered whether he should feel blessed or cursed. It had been two weeks since Farside Observatory had first detected the dim, Doppler-shifted reflection of Sol that betrayed the presence of the alien light sail.
    The news had initially thrilled him. Often during his days as a university professor, he had told his students that the universe was too large a place to be inhabited by a single sentience. It was pleasant to obtain confirmation of what had always been an article of faith. The Doppler shift readings were a disappointment, of course. With the derelict inbound at 15,000 kilometers per second, no ship in the Solar System could possibly catch it … no ship, that is, but one!
    De Pasqual had been startled when he realized that the Starhopper Probe had more than sufficient legs to rendezvous with the alien light sail. Unfortunately, it was damnably awkward for him to ask for it to be diverted to that use. Though he was personally in favor of exploring the Centauri worlds, practical politics had caused him to oppose the project on the two occasions when it had sought science grants from the current administration.
    The problem was that there was no constituency currently in favor of interstellar exploration. After two hundred years of hugely expensive space initiatives, Earth’s multitudes were asking what they had gotten for their money. So, to save the rest of his department’s budget from a meat cleaver, de Pasqual had gone before the science committee and testified: “Mr. Chairman, there is no scientifically valid reason for exploring the Centauri suns at this time! It is widely held that the Centauri worlds cannot support life, and should we desire to examine lifeless worlds, we have seven of our own to keep us busy.”
    It had seemed a wise move at the time. After all, he had traded nothing for something. With an alien light sail in the sky, however, that bargain might begin to appear more than a little shortsighted to