Flatlander

When Beowulf "Bey" Shaeffer and his wealthy friend Gregory "Elephant" Pelton want to discover something new, they pay a stellar fee to the alien Outsiders for the location of the "most interesting" star system of which they're aware. When the Outsiders accelerate their ship, Slower than Infinity, to absurd 0.8c to catch a rogue solar system passing through local space, Bey and Pelton attempt a landing on one of the planets. They note that the system is nearly clear of asteroids, and they can see what appear to be creatures. As they near the surface, the "indestructible" General Products hull of their ship vanishes.

They flee the system, living in an inflatable habitat bubble, and return to human space using their hyperdrive, bleeding off momentum on several passes through the local system, looping around with their hyperdrive to continue deceleration. When they file a claim with the General Products corporation, the Pierson's Puppeteer (the alien owners of GP) representative agrees to pay the claim, noting that the only thing that could have destroyed the GP hull was antimatter. It then dawns of Beowulf and Elephant that the "interesting" aspect of the system was that it is made of antimatter.

Motifs

• Antimatter Life

  Beowulf and Elephant believe they see creatures moving on the surface of the antimatter planet. They would have to also be antimatter to live there.

• Faster than Light Travel (FTL)

  Slower than Infinity has an FTL drive which can only operate far from gravity centers, and also does not affect normal space momentum. Thus, to bleed off a high momentum, ST∞ must decelerate as it passes through a solar system, then use the hyperdrive to navigate around the star's gravity well, dropping back into normal space at their original entry point to continue their velocity-matching burn.