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The Teacher responded immediately. “I am already on my way, Flinx. I have detected initiation of the same unidentified processes here. I will arrive at your location as rapidly as is feasible and safe.”

“I don't think there's a need for any special hurry as long as you're on your way.” Flinx looked on enchanted as more and more of the stony matter around him began to come together. The process seemed to be accelerating. “I don't see any danger. While a great deal of the material is in motion, it also seems to be avoiding me.”

“Best not to take any unnecessary chances, Flinx,” the ship told him. “While you have not yet been impacted, it is not possible to assure that all of the many orbiting objects will continue to steer clear of you.”

“I'm not concerned.” Inside the suit, Flinx smiled. “You're pretty good at predicting the movement of objects.”

“That is so,” the Teacher replied. “However, the number of orbiting fragmentational objects that are currently in motion exceeds my capacity to keep track of them.”

Flinx's smile gave way to a frown. The Teacher's computational and predictive abilities were exceptional. “I don't understand.” He looked around again. “How many of the stony objects are moving toward me?”

“All of them.”

He was silent for a moment, uncertain he had heard correctly. “I'm not sure I understand, ship. All of the objects in my vicinity are moving toward me?”

“That depends on how you choose to define ‘vicinity,’ Flinx.” The Teacher's voice was dry and dispassionate “They are all moving in your direction. The entire asteroid belt, billions and billions of individual objects, is now in motion and giving every indication of commencing a slow but accelerating collapse. You are in the approximate center of it.”

Flinx looked around uneasily. It did not unsettle him that as far as he could see into the void, rocks and stones of every size and shape were rushing in his direction. It did not bother him that as more and more of them slammed into one another and melded together, a great green glowing shape was taking on contour and character not far from where he floated. Emerald sparks flew in all directions, lighting the darkness. It was as if he were drifting across the top of Vulcan's anvil.

It was only when a trio of asteroids each of which was at least fifty kilometers across appeared out of the dark and came tumbling toward him at high speed that he finally comprehended the enormity of what the Teacher had told him.

Once back on the ship Flinx could hardly wait for the lock to cycle shut to begin struggling out of the survival suit. Clarity and Sylzenzuzex were waiting for him on the other side. They had to wait their turn until a brilliant pink and blue winged shape finished caressing him with her pointed tongue.

“Flinx, you're all right? You didn't get hit?” An anxious Clarity was looking him up and down as if unable to believe he had not been crushed or otherwise injured.

He shook his head as Pip settled down on his shoulder. “I'm fine, Clarity, fine. Not so much as a scratch. There was stuff all around me, yes, and some of it was starting to move really, really fast by the time you arrived. But not one of them touched me. Not one.”

Sylzenzuzex was staring at him. “You activated something while you were out there, Flinx. Something that responded to your presence while also deliberately avoiding it. Truzenzuzex was right.”

He nodded as he started for the control room. “I'm beginning to think so. But right about what?”

Truzenzuzex and Tse-Mallory barely acknowledged his arrival. They were far too absorbed in the view out the foreport. Around them, images projected by the Teacher provided various views with the ship as its locus. No matter which direction one studied, the spectacle was the same.

From planetoids the size of cities to gravel splinters no bigger than a fingernail, the entire asteroid belt that ringed the outer reaches of the Senisran system was collapsing toward