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Achernar (whose name is derived from the Arabic phrase Al Ahir al Nahr, which means “The End of the River”) doesn’t become a completely real place until after one has experienced it. It isn’t until you get in-system that you can begin to get a handle on what it means to stand on a planet orbiting a young B-type star about seven times as massive and three thousand times as luminous as Sol.

A hat and plenty of solarderm is a must. And keep on hand a source of outsystem transportation. Because today Heliopolis is firmly in the grip of what I can only describe as a panic. Too many people are seeking too few available berths aboard Heliopolis’s rapidly dwindling stock of departing vessels, even as the arrival of transport vessels continues to decline precipitously.

Starfleet and the Earth Cargo Service have each pitched in, despite the war having already stretched the resources of both. The apparent inadequacy of humanity’s best hopes on the interstellar frontier has only exacerbated the breakdown of law and order that has confounded local peace officers for the past several weeks. This is a city gripped by a mounting tide of chaos, neglect, violence, and street crime that only seems to intensify as the Romulan threat looms ever larger.

Will these Romulans chase humanity home with its collective tail between its legs? That’s still not clear. After all, things change quickly here. As recently as two Earth months ago, Heliopolis was relatively tranquil despite the Achernar system’s location, which only during recent years was revealed as occupying a remote part of the Romulan Star Empire’s sphere of influence. Achernar II’s human inhabitants had prospered here for decades, working alongside a number of nonhuman species from many far-flung worlds.

Like the numerous other sentient races that have carved out toeholds on this world, the humans have embraced self-sustaining agriculture, while making their fortunes in the extraction and offworld sale of the planet’s abundant mineral resources. The efforts of Achernar’s human colonists have benefited Earth and her allies as much as themselves. However, some of the nonhuman farming and mining operations here have almost certainly redounded to the benefit of the Romulans, via the provincial traders and middlemen—Orions, perhaps, or Adigeons—who are rumored to have direct dealings with the Romulan Star Empire’s mystery-shrouded homeworld.

The relative importance of Achernar II to the Romulans’ war effort remains open to debate. Achernar may be too remote a Romulan province to make a significant wartime contribution. Most of the people I have interviewed here seemed to believe this, though I suspect for many that belief is merely a comforting myth, a means of whistling past the graveyard.

Sergeant Dwayne Keller is fairly typical of Heliopolis’s law-enforcement community. He is philosophical about the rumor that the Romulans are secretly building warships near Achernar. Sergeant Keller’s attitude is understandable; he and his colleagues have more immediate problems, such as the possible collapse of a grossly overworked transportation system, in addition to their normal responsibilities of upholding the law.

Even ordinary crimes can take on an extraordinary aspect during extreme times. When I asked about the type of crimes that were on the rise, Sergeant Keller paused.

“A series of brutal slayings,” he explained. Murders that had begun a couple of weeks earlier. The killer, after slashing the victims, left behind notes taunting the police, challenging them to find him. The only thing his victims have in common is that they all were women. A dangerous psychotic remains at large, adding to the rising tide of fear gripping the city.

“For all I know,” Keller told me, “the bastard might already have escaped the planet in all the confusion that’s been going on.”

He seemed embarrassed that he had given voice to the thought. Perhaps he felt it petty and self-serving to wish a killer as horrendous as